Process Journal / January 2008

****************

January 1st

A new year. Isabel Allende always begins her novels on January 1st. Not every January 1st–when she’s been planning a novel, she chooses that day to begin. I find that charming. I find Allende’s books charming, and wish like hell I could write like her. In my heart I don’t believe writing can be taught–there are millions of ways to encourage people to write, and you can give them pointers about technique; but style, I think, is inherent. Otherwise why would I not be able to turn out a book like House of the Spirits? After so many years of writing, why would I still be struggling to create something vivid and page-turning?

I’m at a low point with the memoir. I started revising Chapter One. After getting feedback to Show Don’t Tell–a mantra I repeat to students but fail to heed myself–I cut out all the exposition, the explanations, the telling. Which left me with precious little. It’s not easy to make cuts–sort of like tearing out your heart. (Writing’s easy. You just sit down and open a vein–Red Smith, sportswriter.) I make it a little easier on myself by saving all the cuts in a file called “Unused stuff” rather than obliterating all of it.Even though I can see that what remains is so much better, I’m torn about what’s been lost. I’m afraid readers need that information or they won’t know what’s going on. This might just be unnecessary fretting. Readers don’t need to know the factual details all at once, in the opening chapter, if ever. Then again, this is memoir, not fiction, so doesn’t it have to include the facts?

What I’m doing now is procrastinating, using this journal as a stalling device.It is January 2nd, and I’ve just lit a yahrtzeit candle for my father, who died 28 years ago today. Blows me away that it’s 28 years. I forgot, on December 1st, to light one for my mother, who died just two years ago. I’ve decided I can be forgiven on the basis that I’ve gotten used to doing it for my father, while my mother’s death is still recent, the memory raw.

(Don’t ask me why this formatting is so screwed up, I don’t know.)All right, well, if I have nothing more to say and I’m only stalling, it’s time to stop this journal writing and get down to business. Notice I said journal writing, not the insipid newly coined journaling. I cringe whenever I see or hear that alleged word–it’s a symbol of the mass production of personal writing spawned by zillions of writing classes and workshops. But I can’t begrudge this phenomena, knowing how and why it’s come about–it’s a way for writers like me to make money. I’ve even participated in it , teaching classes a few years ago.Basta! Enough! To The Real Writing! –1/2/08

January 11th

After much angst and thought, I’ve decided to stop this experiment–to stop “writing out loud.” It doesn’t feel good to be throwing up first drafts. I almost always believe that whatever I’ve written at the moment is wonderful, and want to share it–but a few days or weeks later I think it’s total garbage. At some point, in the privacy of the writing process, I find a balance and see there’s good and bad in the thing, and set it to rights (forgive the idiomatic phrasing, but I’m reading The Liars Club, and I’m afraid I’m codging Mary Karr’s style by osmosis–more on that book another time.) Anyhow, tomorrow I’ll be tearing down the chapters posted on this blog. I’ll make some kind of announcement about it on a new post. No reason to take down the peripherals–the poetry and journals. I’ll keep the space with that stuff on it. Maybe I’ll even re-post chapters after I do more revising. But for now I need to work in solitude with this.Later the Same Day: (I love typing in that phrase, a Grace Paley title. )After looking over hard copy and re-working the first chapter some more, I’ve decided that I have four wonderful pages. That’s after how many months? When did I begin this thing? September it was. So. Four months, four pages. Shit. At that rate I won’t finish this thing before I die!But I have to say, I feel really fantastic about those four pages. They’re better than anything else I’ve written. And I think I can trust my judgment right now, because I’m reading The Liars Club and it’s so freaking awesome, I’d recognize garbage next to it.Throwing out so much is quite difficult, but it feels gut-wrenching for only a moment, then it’s done. Once it’s over, and the remaining words sound right, the pain of all that cutting magically vanishes. This is some sort of metaphor I’m sure.

January 23, 2008

After four or five months I’ve finally got a first chapter I’m happy about. Correction: I’m happy about what I’ve written; I’m not quite sure it’s a first chapter—it might be more like an intro. It covers a lot of territory, from young childhood to Mommy’s death, and could stand alone—in fact, I sent it to Slow Trains.com.

I’m now rewriting Chapter 2. Correction: I’m WRITING Chapter 2. I thought what I’d done were first drafts, but they’re more like outlines. The writing is almost all expository, which makes me cringe—but should not: in fact I’ve got this outline now, each paragraph or section can be written into scenes, into Show Don’t Tell. Again, I’m all over the place time-wise, but that’s not so bad, since chronological memoirs are boring as shit. I feel like I learned a lot from reading The Liars Club, and if I re-read it I’ll learn even more.

So, in general, I’m feeling pretty good about the work now. I’m even tempted to post Chapter One in its probable-final form on the blog—but I’m a little bit afraid I’ll regret it again. I don’t know…I’ll see. Maybe later today, or tomorrow, or next week, or…?