Writing Journal

First, a little bit of Reading...

I'm working through finishing the excerpt of Whitman's "Leaves of Grass" in my textbook for Modern Poetry.

I've also started reading the Catechism of the Catholic Church. A few weeks ago, each of the Relief Society Presidencies in our stake got a copy of "Pure Religion." I had been hoping I could stretch "Drowning Ruth" until our president finished it, but I just couldn't. Oh, well. I've been wanting to read the catechism for a while, just to know more about their beliefs. And if I read anything shorter, I'd finish it before I finished Paradise Lost, which means I'd have to shelf that, and that throws all sorts of hooey into my system.

Now the writing....

I've come up with a theme for my NaNoWriMo novel, and it's different than what I thought it would be. I still haven't come up with the exact conflict(s) that need resolving, much less how to do so, nor have I really even decided who is in on which side. But I do have some ideas and took a cue from my roommate. We each have a story wall in our dining area.

After finishing with "Drowning Ruth" at 2 a.m., I found myself gawking at them and I noticed that mine is on drywall and hers is on cinderblock. Then I giggled as I thought to myself, "that's her writer's block."

Then I remembered the wall in the kitchen that had been left bare-looking after some slight rearranging a month or so ago. It happens to be cinderblock.

So we created a Writer's Block. It has a few writing prompts and ideas, although not in this picture.

Reading Journal

In the time it took me to update my Reading List sidebar (I shelved "Waiting for the Galactic Bus" because I didn't like the irreverent way it was portraying religious history) to add "Drowning Ruth," I finished it. No, seriously, I added it yesterday (even though I started it a while ago) and stayed up until 2 a.m. to finish it. The cover bills it as a "psychological thriller," but I'm not sure I even understand what that term means.

Sharing the plot is the best way I can think of to share how, well, thrilling, this book is. A woman drowns in a lake in Wisconsin in November of one of the years during WWI. Her husband was away at war and she was living on an island in the lake with her toddler daughter and older sister when it happened. The mystery of what happened that night and how it got to be that way is told through repressed and distorted memories of Amanda and Ruth (sister and daughter). There's also some 3rd person omnicient narrative going on, mostly in "present" time, so it was a little difficult to latch on to.

But the rising action really got a rise out of me. Just ask my roommate. She was in the living room with me until around midnight, so she heard me gasping and saw me covering my face with the hand that wasn't holding the book. When a book moves me like that, I know it's good. Or, at least, that part of it.

Here's my goodreads review of it:
I thought it was a little slow to start off, but I will say it had the best rising action I've ready in a LONG time! I was gasping and talking to the characters like you do at game show contestants. My biggest irritation was all the shifts in perspective. I enjoy changing points of view and jumps in chronology, but the combination was difficult to get used to. I definitely plan on reading it again.

all my reviews

I also have some writing ideas, but I'll make a separate post on that next week.

Writing Journal

A few things this weekend reminded me of the loss of a friend(ship).
My facebook status this morning was
"Dear Seashmore's Body,
I'm sorry for waking you up at 4 this morning and not going back to bed. But I hope that emotionally healing poem I wrote makes up for it.
Forever yours,
Seashmore's Brain"

This one was so inspired, it even has a working title! This is the 4 a.m. draft, and it definitely needs some fixing up before I call it finished.

You That I Once Knew
While I miss your body,
I mostly miss your soul.
The You that I see now is
Not the You that I once knew.

You're better in some ways,
This I won't deny.
But somehow, over time, the world
Has lost the You that I once knew.

But maybe the parts that
Made You whole haven't
Left this earth, for I have found
Pieces of the You that I once knew;

Strewn about my friends,
A hand hold here, a kind word there,
A wisecrack in my ear, almost
Bring back the You that I once knew.

It's not your presence I miss the most,
Not your laugh, your smile, your hug.
It's not the things that can be refound-
I miss the You that I once knew.

Writing Journal

This article is about a woman who used to write "sad stories" for the newspaper. By which she means what my 9th grade newswriting teacher would call "fuzzy bunny stories." They're the stories about "the cancer patients,...the bereft parents, the brave teenagers, [and] the toddlers waiting for transplants."

She talks about being able to do it because she could keep her distance emotionally. She says it requires a special talent, and I agree it is a talent to be able to look at an emotional situation objectively. She says that all changed when she had her first child and her "empathy went airborne."

It's a fascinating concept and one that gets touched on in the movie "Stranger Than Fiction." (Starring Emma Thompson, Queen Latifah, Will Ferrell and Dustin Hoffman, I'd say the title fits the cast, too.) Essentially, Thompson's author character is known for writing stories where the main character dies. Ferrell's character finds himself at the center of the book she's in the progress of writing, and there is at least once good scene where Thompson ponders how it's different when the characters she is killing off are real people.

It makes me wonder if I'm going to give my NaNoWriMo project a happy or sad ending.

In semi-related news, my roommate and I cleaned like crazy on Saturday, and cleaning off the table made us realize how empty the one wall looks. The adjacent one looks less empty because it's covered in masking tape & sticky notes laying out her most recent NaNo project. I think I might put mine up on the other wall.

Lay out the characters & relationships, plot events, rising action, and climax. Just as soon as I figure out what all of those are.

Fun story: I was cleaning off my catch-all chair and said, "Hey, look, it's Paradise Lost." Pun not intended, but laughingly allowed.