Tired Tuesday Twitters

So, I’ve become mildly obsessed with Twitter. It’s so fun! But it’s also kind of addictive. I absolutely love the little updates. But perhaps because I’m wicked tired today (I haven’t slept since Sunday night) the whole online world is blurring into one giant fuzzy mess.

Baby steps, right? 4 AM came close to breaking my brain in half after many, many hours of reading, drinking tea, reading some more, closing the light, lying there panicked and awake, until I finally decided just to get up. And while I threw up this morning because I was so tired my whole body was upset, I did manage to get the bits of the manuscript revised enough that I’m only mildly embarrassed to give it to my friend in editorial. She’s going to do substantive edits, and then I’m going to rewrite the whole book for the second time. I figure that’ll take me until the end of the summer (if all goes according to plan) and then by the fall I’ll start preparing myself for the rejection that’ll come along with trying to find an agent.

The book is still kind of a mess. There are big problems with it but for now I need someone else’s eyes and mind to look at it as a whole and tell me where to go next. Even now, I’m amazed I’m still typing.

Saturday Morning Redux

I woke up too early (6:23 AM). Checked email. Took my needle. Went back to bed. Felt bad for my RRHB who had to go to work. Let the cat in. Spoke to my father. Finished the book. Pet the cat. Put my hair up. Drank some water. Ate some cereal. Will now do chores. Write. Go babysit at 5 PM. Hang out with my nephew. Worry about whether or not my eyes are infected. Read stories. Play. Bedtime. Watch a movie. Come home. Then, Sunday.

#32 – The Woman Who Waited

While I have to say that while much Andrei Makine’s IMPAC-shortlisted novel, The Woman Who Waited, exists somewhere between lyricism and imagination, much of the book suffers from slightly muddled storytelling. There’s also a quirk in his writing that slightly befuddled me: how sentences and dialogue simply trail off with an ellipsis… and then start up with a completely different thought. Maybe it’s an attempt for the author to force the story off the page? Maybe it’s a way for Makine to foreshadow the ambiguous nature of his main character, a Leningrad scholar to goes to a remote northern village and ends up falling in love with an equally ambiguous woman.

Who knows.

Annnnywaaay. There’s are fairy tale elements to the book that I quite enjoyed. Lots of deep, mysterious woods. Plenty of aging old crone-like women. Many figures appearing out of the mist. Goodly amounts of atmospheric hoarfrosty weather. The story goes like this: boy comes of age in an urban environment in Leningrad that’s slightly unsatisfying. Listless encounters with the opposite sex lead to drunken fumbling behind the curtain (literally and metaphorically) and our hero sets off to the north on an anthropological mission. He’s going to record and study the rituals of the women of Mirnoe, a tiny village obliterated by the Second World War, now populated almost entirely by diminishing families and widows. Among the elderly women lives a 46-year-old woman named Vera who has waited since she was 16 for her soldier to come home to her. He never arrived.

Our narrator becomes fascinated, even obsessed, with Vera, and a strange relationship burgeons between the two. He’s intrigued by her story and this drives him to follow her into the woods, to the railway station, into her house. But he’s young, foolish, and selfish, and as the novel progresses it becomes obvious that he’s incapable of telling her story, as much as he wants to. Ultimately, I think the book, more a novella than a full novel, is worth being read. The setting (which fulfills my Russia component for Around the World in 52 Books) is mysterious, enigmatic and ultimately the most interesting aspect of the novel. It’s a lovely little fable, and while so far it hasn’t blown me away like Rawi Hage’s DeNiro’s Game, it was certainly worth the read.

READING CHALLENGES: As well as being Russia (see above), the novel the 3rd title from the IMPAC shortlist I’ve read so far.

WHAT’S UP NEXT: I indulged in a little something special for myself starting this morning: Paul Quarrington’s The Ravine. I’m already over 50 pages in. Then I need to start kicking ass in terms of The Canadian Book Challenge, as I’ve got two months left to read 4 different provinces. Gack!

Escapism

My RRHB headed out of the house last night to do some recording after we booked our trip to NYC with his parents. We got an exceptionally good deal and we’re super-excited to take them (they’ve never been). Then I sat down and sucked it up and worked for a bit until my eyelids drooped so far down my face that I was afraid they might stay that way. So I took my cup of tea and sat in front of the television and watched Gossip Girl, How I Met Your Mother and Samantha Who?.

It was wicked fun.

Then I noticed that the PVR had recorded a new This American Life. I’ve only seen a few episodes and was mainly recording it because it’s something my RRHB would enjoy. But last night’s episode, the first in the second season, was utterly captivating and truly moving. It started off with shots of three inner-city kids plus their mentor riding horses in North Philadelphia. Caring for them. Feeding them. Riding them. Then Ira Glass explained that the theme of the episode was the idea of escape and what that means for a very special man still living with his mother at the age of 27.

No ordinary fellow, Michael suffers from a rare debilitating disease called spinal muscular atrophy that has made him virtually immobile. He talks by tapping his thumb onto a small instrument that controls his computer — recording his thoughts as words and giving him a spoken voice not his own. And yet, he’s engaged in the most classic struggle of life — how and when to gain your independence from your parents. His mother has been taking care of him his entire life. When his mother doesn’t take care of him, accidents happen. Breathing tubes slip out, feeding tubes malfunction, and Mike’s life hangs in the balance of human error.

But the urge to not become “a disability cliche” is great. He paints his nails black. Goes to tattoo conventions. Loves his girlfriend. Writes lovely, introspective notes (read by Johnny Depp, his choice for a voice; I cried, I’m not ashamed to say) about his life and his quest for independence. The immediacy of his experience and the utter strength in his voice and convictions caught me off guard. While the struggle, quite simply, to stay alive is a very real concern, Michael’s spirit, for lack of a better word, comes across loud and clear, even if it does sound like Johnny Depp.

This American Life is the kind of television that kid over at Stuff White People Like loves to blog about. But I’d argue that in a world full of Oprah Winfrey (and I’m not knocking Oprah, believe me)-loving, Mitch Albom-book buying, The View-watching people, it becomes harder and harder to experience stories like in “Escape,” ones that are real, relevant and utterly worthy of the energy it takes to create them.

The Struggle Of The Everyday March To Nowhere

This morning it was impossible to get out of bed. Last night it was impossible to concentrate. If I didn’t know better I’d say I was having a bad disease day, but since the WG is in remission, I can’t blame it. Which is too bad, considering I blame the disease for a lot — like it’s another person living inside of me that I can point a finger at and shout: “This, this is all YOUR fault and what are you going to do about it!”

I’ve been complaining (skip forward those of you who could care less) a lot about being tired. The Super Fancy Disease Doctor has ruled out the disease as the cause. Excellent, yes, but now what? The kidney doctor has always said it’s just a modern-day plague. My family doctor (my my it’s a lot of opinions, isn’t it?) says it’s probably the panic that’s making me feel so tired. Putting your body through all that flight/fight stuff, the pain in my chest, the constant nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach, means that you’re exhausted by the end of each day. And am I ever feeling it this week.

So far this week I’ve managed two pages of edits and with the two-thirds of my manuscript still to go, I’m already a full week past my deadline. But last night I wanted to burn (virtually) the entire project. Don’t worry, I won’t, but the urge to press delete and just get on with my life, accept the fact that I’ll never publish the damn thing, was great. It was either that or quit my job because I certainly can’t do two things at once and this giant split down the centre of my being is perhaps a little overwhelming.

Also, my hip hurts.

Blah complain blah tired blah frustrated blah de freaking blah.

Okay. Now that it’s out of my system maybe I just need to go home and have a nap.

#31 – Airstream Land Yacht


I am counting Ken Babstock’s Airstream Land Yacht as Newfoundland for The Canadian Book Challenge. I’m quite sure that’s where he’s originally from (if I remember correctly) and it’s one of the titles John had listed in his own challenge suggestions. The poems, though, are so much more universal and can’t really be defined by geography in the same way a novel can. They take inspiration from philosophy, from art, from literature, from other poets, from everyday life, from the stars, from the sea, from a whole host of interesting things that I will not be able to mention here, many I probably didn’t even get.

Separated into four distinct parts (Air, Stream, Land and Yacht), the book’s poems are deeply intriguing. It’s been years since I’ve thought critically about poetry but even so that didn’t diminish my enjoyment of the book. Perhaps in all the time since my Masters degree I’ve come to appreciate poetry a little for the pure beauty of how the words play together on the page. I’m also a little in love with the author’s impressive use of contractions, of apostrophe “d’s” and other whimsical ways of pushing the language to new heights.

If I had to pick just one favourite poem, it would be “Marram Grass” from the first section. A underlying sweetness pulls the piece along and it has stuck with me in the 10 days it’s taken to read the collection. I tried to stop my habits of speeding through sentences and forcing my eyes to take the corners fast so I could enjoy each one in the way it should be read. Thoughtfully. Carefully. Over sustained periods of time left to look up and imagine what the poet’s saying or how marvelous he is with vocabulary and language.

Highly recommended.

PHOTO IN CONTEXT: The cover from Anansi.ca.

READING CHALLENGES: This makes #9 for my Canadian Book Challenge. In terms of provinces, I’ve got: Manitoba, Nunavut, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick left.

WHAT’S UP NEXT: I’m already halfway through The Woman Who Waited. I should be done by tomorrow, it’s a swift read.

Ouch The Light

Much needed fun with old cronies from the place where I used to work led to a much later evening than I had anticipated. Which meant a slow start this morning but a revived outlook in terms of getting over the loneliness at work or maybe just ignoring it all together because I always expect it to be like it was, and it never will be. But isn’t that always the case. Many new music suggestions with only beer memory and all I can remember is that the one half of Uncle Tupelo that became Wilco means there’s another half out there that is apparently much, much better.

I’ve been reading poetry all week (Airstream Land Yacht) by Ken Babstock. Poetry and travel mean stopping in funny places to write. Like the middle of the street, halfway between University Left and Right, to make sure I caught this bit of something (or nothing, depending on how you look at it):

9:18 AM Dundas 505

A sturdy man sets his
coffee down on the floor
of the streetcar,
bravely flaunting his
knowledge of an
equation I fail to master
the teetering
balance of iron and gravity,
the dancing hips of the
machine en route
to deliver him, now awake
and alert, to a same-time,
same-day destination.

This morning. I am glad
to be late with time
still left to kill.

I think I have discovered that after I finish a big project I like to write poetry. Who’d a thunk? Another in a long list of embarrassing confessions I make here: I am now wearing a giant, over-sized Tom Green sweatshirt. One should never internet shop when one is a band widow on a reduced amount of sleep and under a deadline. But now that it’s here, I do have to wear it, or else suffer the consequences.

EDITED TO ADD: The band is called Son Volt. Whew. That’s one less thing to remember.

#30 – DeNiro’s Game

Oh my, oh my, oh my, what a good book Rawi Hage has written. DeNiro’s Game is my favourite of the two IMPAC books I’ve read so far, and it’ll now become the benchmark to which I compare the rest of the shortlisted titles. It’s unconventional structure, it’s achingly lovely prose, and it’s heartbreaking moments all catapult together to form a book that rockets along like gunfire from beginning to end.

The story of Bassam and his friend George, two boys who grow up in war torn Beirut to become men who survive as the bombs drop and people fall out of their lives and into graves at an alarming speed. The two boys, now young men, find their way with guns tucked into their pants, who make a living in ways that are so foreign to me that I often had to close my eyes and take a deep breath, and do far too many drugs (who could blame them?). Set into three distinct parts, ‘Roma,’ (where things in Bassam’s imagination will still work out the way he hopes), ‘Beirut,’ (where life in a war zone becomes glaringly difficult), and ‘Paris,’ (where Bassam adapts to a different kind of life), the book remains riveting throughout.

For a first-time novelist, Hage’s prose-poetic style of writing is effective, repeating phrases, images and inspired metaphors litter the pages, and his characters are strongly drawn. I didn’t earmark as many pages as I thought I would, but I did find the following passage very moving:

Still I stood in the booth, looking with an empty gaze through the glass. I felt as if I could live inside of the book, feeling its borders, claiming it for myself. I pretended that I was talking on the phone, but all I wanted was to be in the booth. I wanted to stand there and watch every passerby, I wanted to justify my existence, and legitimize my foreign feet, and watch the people who passed and never bothered to look or wave.

If I have one teeny, tiny criticism, it might just be the overdone use of L’Etranger throughout the last third of the book. The parallels between the characters, sure, they’re there, but I felt like it was the only stereotypical, oh-yeah-I-guessed-it aspect to the book.

PHOTO IN CONTEXT: You guessed it, just the jacket with a link back to Anansi (as pulled from their site), as I’m away from my camera this afternoon.

READING CHALLENGES: The second of my IMPAC books, Lebanon from Around the World in 52 Books, and if I were still needing to read Canada, the passing mention of Montreal (where the author resides now, I think) would have totally counted.

What 4AM Looks Like From The Inside Of My Eyeballs

Nada Surf coupled with a decaffeinated latte (it’s all it takes) should keep me awake at least until the end of the workday when I will collapse into a lack-of-sleep lump in front of the television.

My deadline highlights the word “dead” if I keep going at this pace; the panic from knowing that I’m nowhere near finishing my edits and the fact that have trumped the “May 1st” from coast to coast is coming back to haunt me. Four weeks and only 80 pages and I have been working, I have. Tonight is the last night before I give away the book to the three other people in my so-called creative group (which is distinct from my writer’s group in that it includes a supremely talented artist) tomorrow. Commas will be the death of me. So will run on sentences and a change in narrative voice. I want the m/s to hum like the guitar line in “Hi-Speed Soul.” I want my friends to enjoy reading the book as much as I love the drum line in “Slow Nerve Action,” but I’m afraid the book’s more cobbled together at this point than anything else. And staying up until well past the witching hour didn’t help.

It’s hard to shut off your brain once it starts down a creative path that goes something like this:

1. I’ve always hated the title I attached to the book from the beginning. It felt bland and kind of meaningless and I’ve sat through enough publishing-type meetings to know that titles change all the time. Editors change titles too, make suggestions, and often improve what the writer has come up with.

2. Along comes Poetry Month. And catching up with Melanie’s lovely blog where she posted this wicked poem that caught my attention. Hallelujah! A new title is born. And yes, I’ve already phrased my thank you should the book ever, ever be published.

3. But then last night I was reading and rereading the poem and I came upon a whole new structure for the book that will solve all kinds of chronological poems. See, brain, not turning off, and had to crawl out of bed to write it all down. The time I started: 12:30 AM.

4. Also, it’s lovely to welcome someone home that you love, which meant that my schedule for the last week, work, home, cat-tending, quick dinner, editing, ragdoll-tv, was blown away. In a good way, meant that I started working late, ate even later, and went to bed well beyond my normal time. For a girl who has always had trouble sleeping, all that adds up to disaster. Oh, and the organic brownies at 10 PM didn’t help. But they are so good. So good.

5. Fast forward to 2:30 AM and I’m still writing, soundless because I didn’t want to wake up my RRHB who was sleeping in his own bed for the first time in a week. NOTE: the music quest has gone really, really well. So far, I’ve downloaded some Brian Eno that I quite like, added some world music (Ali Farke Toure), and of course, my new obsession, Nada Surf. NOTE REDUX: My RRHB openly mocked the fact that everyone on this earth has heard of this band except me. Keep the suggestions coming, I love them. It’s good to give Wilco a rest every now and again.

6. Now I’m finally back in bed but it’s 3:30 AM, just the time when Willie Pep wakes up and decides it’s time for him to go outside. Walking on my head, walking on my legs, half-settling on my chest, and I’m out of bed again drinking Sleepytime tea and reading Huckleberry Finn.

7. 4 AM looks and sounds an awful lot like the three hours preceding it. Fluffy duvet, warm socks tucked into jogging pants, lots of deep breaths and I fall asleep finally until 6:55 AM. Now, I can barely keep myself propped up on my desk, but the book is definitely better for it.

Gosh, I’ve been making a lot of lists lately. TK momentarily, a review of DeNiro’s Game, which I loved.