Much More Than We Realize

I read a blog this morning about how words matter much more than we realize. As a writer, we paint our pictures with our words. For every stroke of the keyboard, we are shifting people's perspectives whether it be for good or bad. As people, we speak our words to communicate to others our thoughts and feelings. Whether or not it turns out to be good or bad, our words should reflect our true selves. They shouldn't be used for ill purposes and squandered away on meaningless things, or sent out into the unknown space of the internet only to be conjured up later for some other ill used  purpose.

This last weekend, I went to the Paint Bar located in Newton, MA. It was a gathering filled with a few co-workers. I was fully expecting that my painting would be a bunch of horrible incoherrent smears on canvas. It was anything but. I'm not saying that it was a masterpiece, but I still want to hang it on my wall. Although they idiot proofed the session, my confidence level rose. I found that I learned techniques I probably never would have learned anywhere else. I had fun doing it and I am going to do it again in March or around then. I'm very excited to try it again. 

The same thing that happened to me in that painting class is also occurring with my writing. Who better to learn from than one of the masters? Dickens is a wordsmith and he knew the value of using just the right word for the in a particular situation. Words like plump or discourse appear in his pages without sounding as if he sat with a thumb in his thesaurus.  Although he does ramble about inconsequential things, it is for the benefit of localizing his text so that his writing is believable. It is an art that most writers today have strayed from. 

Artists come in various forms. I am so glad for the experience to recognize techniques and learn new ways to use them, whether it be painting or writing. 

On Being Confident

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be a famous writer. I fantasize about the ability to work in solitude hearing nothing but the hum of the computer. I could look out my window and see a misty moor with lush green hills, trees that reached to the sky as I look out my window to an English country setting. My fingers tap the keys and words pour from my bleeding heart so free without any second thoughts.

 

Yet it is not like that while I am trying to write a story. Sometimes I get frustrated to even write a single word because it feels that it doesn't convey the particular tone or meaning I want. Or sometimes I feel that what I have been working on for the past few months is absolute garbage. I put it down and I get so angry about it. I get really frustrated.

And then I realize that what makes me really frustrated is that there are times when I have no time for typing my story. There are no keys click clacking. I am not even in ENGLAND. I am here in subzero temperatures and haven't seen the light of day in a month and I'm scrubbing the tub when I hear a scream from the other room. It is my fifteen month old waking from her nap. All in one instant, my dream of becoming a novelist writing in an old English country house comes to a screeching halt and I am more disappointed in that split second than at any other time. My afternoon is dashed. There will be no writing today. Chores and toddler raising have usurped the two hour spot I designated for writing/reading/self-improvement.

I walk over to my child's room and this is what I see, the moment I walk in:

The next second, my frustrations have melted some and my canceled plans are somewhat forgotten. I see her smiling face and I am grateful that she is happy and safe. My darling smiles and twists and turns as I change her diaper as I plead, "Stay still. Please stay still for mama. Please?" She rolls around the bed as I try to pull up her pants. For a few moments, I can only imagine when I will write again.  If I try to write on my phone, she rips it away from me and takes selfies like this one:

 

If I write on a computer, she steps in and starts hitting random keys. If you let her alone to your devices, things like this happen:

 

 



And now, she has learned to walk. She sticks out her arms and walks like Frankenstein. I think it is hilarious (aside from good writing material). Especially when she is trying to speak incoherrent words such as "OOOOOOOOOOOOO. AAAAAAA.  ZAA!" And then she fell. She looked to see what I would do. Since I did nothing, except smile at how cute she was, she clapped, picked herself up and continued to walk to the coffee table.  This amazingly simple act that she performed, showed me that just because she fell it didn't mean to get all upset and cry. She shook it off, appreciated the steps she just took and got herself right back up so she could go where she wanted.

I learned a valuable lesson from her. I learned that I need to greet the day with more happiness, to take what I want no matter how I may portray myself, smile more often, applaud myself that I was able to write this long on a subject before I lost interest and get right back to it when I feel that enough time has gone by.

For now, I will cherish every Frankenstein step my angel takes.

Deliciously Delaying Dickens

This new year hasn't started out that perfectly for me. I've had a few setbacks with colds and toothaches. I resolved to read all of Dickens beginning with, "The Pickwick Papers". Although there are some hilarious sketches of the townspeople and it is indeed entertaining, I am having a hard time putting down the John Irving novel, "In One Person". It follows the story of a gay man coming out during the 1950's and follows him through his "crushes on the wrong people" up to present time. It is exquisitely plotted and I am only through half of the book!

My real interest in this book came from a few years back when John Irving came to Boston University to give a reading of his other book, "Last Night in Twisted River". I brought my Aunt's copy of her book (that she leant me) and had it signed by the author! I said to him, "I really love your books, " trying not to sound like a version of Annie Wilkes as my heart thumped in my chest. He murmured a "thank you" and handed it back to me and I left with butterflies.

I'll never forget it because as I sat in the auditorium before he signed our books, he had asked people to fill out these notecards to ask him three different questions that he would then talk about for the duration of the reading. He did not answer anything about his writing style, which were the nature of the questions I asked. He answered questions that had to do with the subject matter of his books. One of them was a question about "The World According to Garp". He said, and I am paraphrasing because I can't remember his exact wording, "I believe that this country still has a bias to gay people and it is absurd. I think that people should have equal rights in marriage just as any man and woman have and this is why I have turned back to the subject matter that I had started with "Garp". There is just inexplicable hatred for people and there is no reason for it. I decided to write something that takes the subject head on." I have never read "The World According to Garp", although it is on my to be read list because my brother had said that out of all the books he had read, he liked that one a lot (the fact that he read that amazed me). Of John Irving'd books, I only read, "Last Night in Twisted River" and "The Fourth Hand". I tried to read "Son of the Circus" several times, but I did not get through the first fifty pages (in my defense, I was trying to read it while going to school full time). 

Being in that auditorium was a treat. But what was really delicious was when Mr. Irving started to read from this new novel. Work that had only been seen by his eyes. In that hazy auditorium with the dimmed lights and the stool on which he sat, he began reading this wonderful work which I found to be amazing. I found myself thinking, I have to pick it up and then failed to figure out when it would be released. How serendipitous it was that my Aunt (again) leant me her copy of "In One Person"!

So, once I am finished with the book I am reading, I am turning all of my attention to Dickens and his many works.

What the Dickens?

Over the past month, I've heard Dickens's name mentioned many times. Yes, it is the holiday season for which he wrote many a novella or short story so he should be named. Yet each time his name rang in my ear or ran across my mind as I read an article, it was for a different reason. I am now going to share something with my small audience of readers. My goal this year is to read ALL of  Charles Dickens's works.

I must confess, there are certain books of his that I have not yet read, such as "A Tale of Two Cities" or "Oliver Twist". Some people would be shocked to hear this. I don't care. I am coming out of my depraved status and choosing to have a scholarly year of Dickens. I have only read two books by Dickens; "Great Expectations" and "A Christmas Carol". Many people and works refer to Dickens as being the king of character sketches or of plot. Other references admire him for being a tireless writer often overworking himself. Other people do not like him because of the life he lead and because of what transpired between he and his wife. To be honest, I want to read his works only for the writing, the complexity of his plot and characters, not admiring him for the life that he lead.

Last night I read an article that appeared a few weeks ago in the Boston Globe about Dickens's visit to Lowell during his 1842 visit to America. In addition to looking at the cleanliness of the Lowell Mills and the city itself, he may have borrowed some aspects of a few stories written by the anonymous mill girls in their literary magazine called, "The Lowell Offering" and used them in his own work "A Christmas Carol".

In the month of November, a new book came out from Donna Tartt called "The Goldfinch". She cited Dickens as being her inspiration for her character driven plot that has mesmerized the critics. Over the next year I hope to read her novel as I have not yet read it. I find it interesting that authors who are writing today are still using Dickens as a model of great literature when there are more contemporary authors who they can use.

Now for the part that really hit home with me and showed me that maybe I should read all of Dickens. Upon opening a new book (graciously borrowed from my well-read aunt), Irving's "In One Person" has a main character, Billy. He relates to his reader that the reason he became a writer was because of "Great Expectations". He alliterates to the clumsiness in Dickens's early years as a writer by comparing his texts. I hope to be able to gain perspective that will allow me to come to my own conclusions.

These three coincidences, along with the impending movie release called "The Invisible Woman" based on Claire Tomalin's book sharing the same name. The book speculates that Dickens had an extramarital affair with Ellen Ternan, an actress who was chosen for his play, "The Frozen Deep".

For the above reasons, I am choosing to read all of Dickens's works in chronological order and writing about them here on my blog. It is a huge task to do this as some of these works are above 500 pages. Wish me luck. So here we go... Beginning with "The Pickwick Papers".

Harmony? Coincidence?

About a week ago, I finished Stephen King's book "11/22/63". Whenever I read a paragraph of his writing it is as if I never left my small quiet teenage bedroom. I am transported back to my childhood home in Lowell whenever I lift the cover of one of his books. Maybe it is the fact that he was once a mill worker, and he (like I) comes from a family of mill workers and laborers. Maybe this book resonated with me because I also come from a family of teachers and this book was about a teacher. Who knows? What I do know is that it was entertaining from the moment I flopped into his rabbit hole of time travel.

Being from Massachusetts (the home state of JFK) and since it was the 50th anniversary of his assassination, I decided it was an opportune time to read this book. From the moment I opened the book there were a series of "harmonies".  I attended Zero Point's Theater production of "Killer Joe" and upstairs from their show New Repertory Theater's version of was "Camelot" was being performed. "Killer Joe" by Tracy Letts takes place in Dallas, where Kennedy was assassinated. "Camelot" just happened to be John F. Kennedy's favorite musical. I was wrapped in a vortex of the Kennedy assassination. There was no escaping it.

While out for a walk on a cold December day, I stopped in a Honey Dew Donuts in Wakefield and got myself a hot chocolate. I sat at the counter looking out onto Main Street and looked to my right to see this:

Pretty weird, right? I had to take a picture because I thought that there was no way anyone would believe me despite their being a number of people with the same name. As Jake Epping (Stephen King's main character) says, "the past harmonizes with itself." I was surprised because I didn't expect King's Jimla to come for me in a donut shop. I thought it would stay locked in between it's pages. There were other coincidences that happened through the month, like maybe some exhibit that I wished to see that wound up being at the JFK library (I can't remember what it was now).

Anyway, the book was fabulous. I couldn't put it down. I was satisfied that the book didn't end in a huge explosion of bombs or fire (which is typical of Stephen King novels). It was well researched. I would have finished the book sooner, except that I have a young beautiful child for whom I would do anything for, which includes haulting my reading to give her tons of love and kisses.

Now I am onto my next series of coincidences. John Irving's "In One Person". I'll write about those tomorrow.

The Beginning

Welcome to the beginning of my blog. This is my second endeavor into the world of blogging. The first didn't go as I planned. Visiting writers's houses all over New England is tough work. It turns out that not too many people are interested by it when they are from New England. It figures that it only happens to nerdy types of people like myself. People who are recluses huddled in the corner reading and praying that the 14 month old will go to sleep so that I can fit in more reading/writing time before I in turn... fall asleep.

I must confess that there are many people who thought that I should start a blog seeing that I possess way too many weird things that go on in my life. Many times I wait a few days before I say anything because... A. It could be way to embarrassing to divulge the first day. OR B. There are just too many things going on that I haven't had time to say anything to anybody. And then there is C. Usually that includes people that I may end up hurting if I were to put sensitive content on the Internet. People tell me I shouldn't care, but those are usually the same people who would take issue with it, hence my hesitance.

More often than not, I just want a place to compile a bunch of my nerdy little findings in some other place than Facebook and Pinterest. Twitter is just too text confined. When it comes to me talking to friends and family about literature and writing, I bore them to death because of all the minuscule facts that I read on the Internet.

So here we are. At the beginning.