You Can Change My NaNoWriMo Novel, or Watch Me Be Irrational About My Writing

My total word count as of yesterday is 20,028. I wrote almost 4,000 words yesterday.  Which was great for yesterday, but my brain has turned to mush today.  

Last night I had the urge to take this piece of Mainstream Fiction and drop in a fraternal alien-twin for one main character and a liberal sprinkling of the word ‘ovipositor.’  Is this my subconscious telling me I want to write science fiction?  Or is 4,000 words too many for one brain in one day?

I was disappointed to receive absolutely no additional suggestions to yesterday’s 10 Things You Can Drop Into Your NaNo Novel post.  Giddy, I suppose, and unmotivated to write according to the plot I scratched out on this sheet of graph paper in front of me, I’ve decided to shake things up a bit.  

Here is the really boring short synopsis of my novel:

Jill and Carlos work at the same busy video store. They’re friends, but only at work. They don’t get married, or date, or even like each other That Way. But sometimes they talk to each other about the important stuff.

I’ll admit it, my original suggestions yesterday for things to drop into your NaNo were pretty tame.  In the spirit of generating creative absurdity, I will consider all suggestions for throwing wrenches into a NaNoWriMo novel from now until the weekend.  Whichever one I think is the most outrageous will go into MY NaNo.  I have no prizes to offer.  If I choose your outrageous suggestions, you’ll have the satisfaction of know you have f—ahem, um, TINKERED with my creative process.  

Only Rule: No Brutality.

Do your weirdest.

So Jimmy, tell us what your story is about

In the 1991 movie The Commitments, a bunch of Irish kids form a band to sing soul music. Their fearless leader, a sort of organizer, manager, teacher, and inspirer with a singular ideal, is Jimmy Rabbitte.  It’s a brilliant movie.  Go watch it (again).  It’s based on a book of the same name by Roddy Doyle. The Snapper and The Van (also good movies) finish the so-called Barrytown Trilogy.  

Throughout the movie, Jimmy conducts imaginary interviews with Terry Wogan. In the bathtub, in his bed, wherever, Jimmy imagines looking back over the career of his band and explaining the rise and fall of The Commitments.

So looking back, what did you learn from the time with The Commitments, Jimmy? – That’s a tricky question, Terry. But as I always say: We skipped the light fandango, turned cartwheels across the floor. I was feeling kind of seasick, but the crowd called out for more - That’s very profound, Jimmy. What does it mean? – I’m f#$%ed if I know, Terry!

Watching the movie, you know you’re hearing about important transitions when Jimmy pretends to be interviewed. But from the standpoint of the character, Jimmy is in the middle of making the band. He doesn’t yet know what will happen, what will be profound and what won’t. He doesn’t even know if this crazy idea is going to work, but these interviews are his way of imagining the fulfillment of his dream.

Just this morning I thought of Jimmy because I was talking out loud myself. Not talking TO myself, mind you.  I don’t talk to myself. That would make you think I’m crazy. I talk to imaginary people. Because that won’t make you think I’m crazy.

When I’m working on my ideas, I talk out loud, imagining how I would explain my story to other people. You’d be surprised how useful it can be to try to summarize your story out loud.  And my story still sounds terrible. Oh, there are some bits of it that I really like, that sound really fun, but as a whole story that anyone would want to read, it’s just not working yet.  But as I tried to talk my way through it, to make my imaginary audience GET my idea, I untangled a bit of a knot, and changed two things about my main character. I think the changes will make the story better.  

Only time will tell, Terry, whether this will be the breakthrough moment in my plot, or how this dream of a writing career will turn out.  But rest assured, I’ll keep talking to you while I figure it out.  

Update on Wednesday, September 29, 2010 at 9:04PM by Eglentyne

As an NPR geek, I imagined the Terry in my imaginary interview to be Terry Gross, the host of Fresh Air.  Who is your Terry?

Book Review: House of Leaves: The Remastered Full-Color Edition by Mark Z. Danielewski

I found this book incredibly frustrating.  I don’t know how to tell you what the book is about, because it is about so many things.  Irritatingly, the book compels me to draw pictures to try to sort it out.  For you, I’ve made a chart.  Here are the levels of narrative in the book as I see them.  In the spirit of piling-on so pervasive in the book, please feel free to suggest additional layers.

The life of Will and Karen Navidson, particularly their experiences in a bizarre and changing house in Virginia

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The Navidson Record, a movie made from the photos and videos of the Navidsons as they explore the uncanny labyrinth that appears beneath their home

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Popular and academic discussion (ad nauseam) of the film, including bootleg internet copies of film

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Zampáno’s description of the film and compilation of artifacts (introduced to Johnny by his friend Lude, a neighbor of Zampáno)

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Johnny Truant’s edition of Zampáno’s text, with additional footnotes about his own life; internet versions of this text are described here and at the next level

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An edition by unnamed editors that adds documentation about Johnny’s life; a copy of this is carried by Will Navidson during his last exploration of the house

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The author, Mark Z. Danielewski

That is a very pretty, ordered, and linear idea of the book, but nothing in the book is pretty or linear.  Like some post-structural choose-your-own adventure, the reader is constantly pulled away from the central text by footnotes and supplemental materials.  These aren’t the sort of footnotes and appendices that can be ignored either.  In the midst of a bit about Will Navidson, Johnny will go on for several pages about himself, his lovers (especially Kyrie, but also Thumper, his dream girl), or his friend Lude, among other things.  Some of these footnotes have their own footnotes, and in one particularly memorable sideways slide, we are pulled into the extensive catalogue of letters written by Johnny’s mom when she was confined to a mental hospital before her death.

On top of that, there are additional layers of narrative completely outside the text I hold in my hand.  For instance, the nature of the book invites any review (like this one) written about the book to become part of the narrative.  My favorite bit of meta-narrative though, is that Danielewski’s sister is Annie Decatur Danielewski, more commonly known as the singer Poe.  Poe’s album Haunted was produced simultaneously with House of Leaves.  The video version of the single “Hey Pretty” features bro reading a particularly hot and sticky scene about Johnny and Kyrie and a BMW on a hill.  It was certainly “the longest unzipping of my life” in more ways than one.  The unzipping of the book did not have the same erotic tension though as the unzipping of Kyrie’s leather pants.

I’d like to say that at the core of the story we have a haunted house.  Ok, not haunted, but very creepy and unstable, with a vast network of rooms beneath it that change according to the will and mental stability of their occupants.  It’s also possible to say that Johnny’s struggle with his own sanity is at the core of the story.  Alternately you could prioritize one of the love stories (Karen and Will?  Thumper and Johnny?  Johnny and Kyrie?  Kyrie and Gdansk Man?).  So what is it?  Satire on the extensive mental masturbation of academic and popular discourse, along with stabs at our bizarre willingness to overanalyze anything (guilty)?  Ghost story about a creepy house?  Love story?  Self-destructive struggle with drug addiction or mental illness?  All of these?

But wait, there’s more.  The book’s structure is enigmatic and twisting, the sense of time and place in the story is incredibly squishy, and embedded within the text are many puzzles.  Codes embedded in the letters of Johnny’s mom or the corners of pages. Anagrams in the first-letters of the footnotes.  Perhaps picture puzzles in the many different photos and drawings in the book.  Be sure to examine the pub info page and the use of color to highlight or obliterate some words and phrases.

So when I say that the book was frustrating and crazy-making, I’m quite serious.  Cleverly perhaps (on the part of Danielewski), my frustration and disorientation as a reader trying to navigate the structure of the book echoed the confusion of the characters.  The structure and narrative are quite lucid and “normal” sometimes.  At other times the text is upside down, angled, backward, sometimes with words edge-to-edge on a page of multiple columns and inset boxes.  Other times there will be only one or two words on a page for several pages.

The prose is so compelling though that I found myself wishing for a cleaner structure that would allow me to appreciate the very strong writing and imagery.  I quit reading the book repeatedly, convinced that the structure was an irritating manifestation of smug self-indulgence.  If I hadn’t agreed to read the book for Patrick I would certainly never have finished.

The book is successful in that I didn’t quit it, I won’t forget it, and I’ll likely talk about it a great deal.  That success is narrowly won though.  The structure is a gamble.  Most readers likely wouldn’t keep at it, let alone pick it up in the first place.  Those who love a puzzle and are willing to experience the book as an enigma to be savored will find it a treasure.

The Power of the Love Story

A quote too long for Twitter:

“It is perhaps only in reading a love story (or in writing one) that we can simultaneously partake of the ecstasy and agony of being in love without paying a crippling emotional price.  I offer this book, then, as a cure for lovesickness and an antidote to adultery.  Read these love stories in the safety of your single bed. Let everybody else suffer.”  

Jeffrey Eugenides, Introduction, My Mistress’s Sparrow is Dead

Of Skull-squeezing and Maturity

I ran down the street this morning trying to convince myself that I wanted to run.  I didn’t want to run, but I was doing it anyway.  I had a perfectly reasonable argument about why it would have been better to sleep an extra forty-five minutes.  On this morning, like the past several mornings of running, a song popped into my head.  “That’s How People Grow Up” by Morrissey, delivered with irony, but true nonetheless.  Maturity may represent those moments when we do things even though we don’t want to.  

That sounds more skeptical than I mean it to sound.  I was really pondering self-reliance at the moment the song came to me.  I was considering whether I could rely upon myself to take care of myself.  A blog post yesterday by Jamie Ridler inspired the rumination.  A number of different people rely upon me to do things in any given day.  My children, my partner, other family, friends, teachers, neighbors.  I think I’m fairly trustworthy.  But it has often been the case that I sacrifice my own personal goals and intentions in order to fulfill the needs of others.  This is natural for me, and to a certain extent necessary, as a fully-functioning member of a family and society, but it grates upon me sometimes.  

Another song often occurs to me in those moments of frustration with the world and myself, also Morrissey, singing “Something is Squeezing My Skull,” delivered with the charming aplomb of the chronic depressive putting on a good show.  

I’ve heard some people say, skeptically, that if you don’t take care of yourself no one will.  I don’t completely agree with this sentiment, but it is true for my personal goals and intentions.  If I don’t run, no one will run for me (and what good would that do?).  If I don’t run, no one will force me to run (and I’d resent it if they did).  I could substitute other intentions for running: writing, updating this website, thinking.  If I can’t trust myself to take care of myself physically and emotionally, that could at some point undermine other people’s trust in me. 

So when Morrissey chides me about maturity, I can take it.  Lately I’ve motivated myself with the idea that the morning run is to scrub and tighten.  I scrub out my asthmatic lungs and the fog from my brain.  I tighten up my bones and heart and will.  When I think that way, the skull-squeezing lessens, and so does fear in all of its insidious permutations (Will my work be good enough? Will someone jump out from behind that bush and harm me?)  

I’ve written before that I was inspired to return to running by Haruki Murakami’s memoir about running.  When Murakami talks about running, it is both literal running, and a metaphor for what he can accomplish in himself, and what limits him.  When I talk about running, I am staking out a space in my life for self-reliance.  I can and will take care of myself, physically and mentally.  Don’t ever doubt that running is just as much about my mental health as it is about my physical health.  When my life is frustrating, or the skull-squeezing starts, I run away.  I run away just long enough for the endorphins to kick in, and then I can run back, confident that I can handle anything that comes along because I have taken care of myself.  

When the endorphins kicked in this morning, I did enjoy myself.  Being prickled by maturity is perhaps a good thing.  It’s when I’m prickled by the skull-squeezing that I know it’s time to run.