book finished, after a fashion
my love has the color of the night
My novel is finished. Again! I considered not sharing this here because, well, it gets kind of embarrassing to say that you finished something over and over and over again. I imagine it would be sort of like telling people that you quit smoking; until there’s further proof that you mean it this time, everyone can give you a pat on the head, but they won’t be shocked if they see you sneaking out to the corner store later.
But (sigh!) this time it feels different. There was something that I had been holding back from writing because it feels so painful and vulnerable to go there. Some essential motivating aspects of the narrator of my second novel had been missing, something different people had expressed to me in various ways over the years. Inwardly, I had framed my objection to going there as a purely aesthetic one. As in, why do we need to know this character’s trauma in order to empathize with her? Can’t we just characterize her based on the mood of the present and trust that the well runs deep and she has her reasons, etc. etc., the way Jackie Brown is characterized largely by the soundtrack and by the tidy particularities of her apartment, etc. etc. Intellectually, that’s why I kept steering the book away from the past.
And it’s a good argument. I think there’s something very interesting about stories that express little interest in the psychological past. I heard Rachel Kushner say something about this in a Q&A after a reading once—that she imagined the world of the story completely ceasing to exist on the other side of the last page.
But the trouble with an argument like this is that it can be airtight and still not really have anything to do with the novel in question being done. (!!)
I started to notice at some point earlier this year that the people who knew me best totally got the character—they didn’t wonder why she acted or didn’t act in certain circumstances, or why she withheld certain pieces of herself. It made me wonder, what if those people were reading my book through whatever they’ve observed about me? What if there’s something you would know if you had known me in another context that would make you say, “Oh, well of course”? Or, what if the people I’m closest with share some set of assumptions and schemas that happen to make the world look the same to them as it looks to me?
In which case, wouldn’t it be my job as the writer of the book to thoroughly introduce everyone to this character? Instead of demanding that you love her already, just because?
So when I say the novel is finished this time, I mean that I think I solved the Jungian problem it has presented to me—which I have presented to myself, really—and I won’t say what that means exactly because it wouldn’t be interesting until you’ve read it.
The person who finishes writing a book knows something that the person who started it does not know. No matter how many edits I might undertake between now and the book’s publication, I know what I didn’t know when I started it. Not one but two people have told me in the last 24 hours that it’s important to keep celebrating all the moments in the process of something so slow-moving, so I’m taking note. Literally—I stopped writing this and purchased myself the perfume I’ve been wanting for years. I am not innately that good at celebration; my first impulse is that I should probably celebrate by doing something responsible, like saving money, not buying anything, or watching an episode of a TV show that I already watch. Tragic.
So, that. And dancing.
Another sign that I’m truly on to the next thing is that I have two projects which suddenly present themselves as more imminent/doable/necessary, and which seem fun to work on in the short term. Neither of them, crucially, are fiction-related, and that seems like a rush of ease and joy. (Writing fiction vs. writing poetry has always seemed like such a false opposition to me—why not write poetry when the idea of writing another novel has you seeing spots? etc.)
Speaking of poetry and fiction, I want to shout out an amazing story collection written by a poet friend of mine, Heather McNaugher’s States of Emergency, from Southern Humanities Review. Please understand, I am a bad person; I do not like short stories. Maybe this is only a temporary affliction, something I picked up from years of fiction workshop. I wrote a lot of stories even if I didn’t especially love the form because you were sort of supposed to write stories—the better to be workshopped. On some level, that makes sense. It’s probably easier to learn the essential skills of sculpture by making smaller figures than embarking on one massive marble statue right out the gate. But still, I have been staging a minor rebellion against short stories for a little while now.
So if I like a book of short stories—and actually read all of them!!—this is serious praise.
The stories in States of Emergency deftly place you in the snare of time, the way that time can enchant and torture you even when you’re living an essentially good life. It’s thrilling to see a landscape between people bristle with things that are said and not said and conjectured, for example, on a trip to Paris where two friends find themselves in the kind of resentful intimacy anyone will recognize, punctuated by the perfect joy of a croissant so delicate it nearly explodes and floats away. I love that there’s an image of an IKEA on the cover because yeah, we’re talking about emergencies here! Have you seen the emergencies people get into at an IKEA?? Have you heard couples arguing about how far under the bed the rug will go? Have you seen the way people beat on the broken soda machine in the cafe? Have you seen the way people tear through the textiles bin in the as-is section as if looking for their own funeral shroud? This is the kind of pulse in these stories, expressed in affairs and top surgery and the kind of landlord disputes which can ruin your sanity for years. Like, everything is fine. And we’re dying. And we used to be children. And now we’re in this museum. I haven’t read short stories with such true enjoyment in a long time. Check it out! xx
Later this week, a discourse on coolness and lit world reputation economics as they relate to book promotion. And coolness. And being cool. Pro: cool, con: cool. Spy vs. spy. Etc.
But till then, it’s time to go to Aldi for more of those really good blueberries. The atomically large ones. If you know what they’re putting in the blueberries to make them that big, please don’t tell me, I’m having too much fun.
Tchuss!