Annie Dillard

I did consider writing a long and intriguing post on Annie Dillard, but I've found that long posts are not necessarily better than short ones and bullet points are more direct and unlike Dillard, I enjoy being direct. So here's what I think.
1. Why does the beginning of chapter four say "Sorry to tell you a dream!" in all caps? Super random.
2. Too. Many. Metaphors. I'm a poet, I love extended metaphors. But a whole book of them? Holy cow.
3. I agree that it is crucial to have a place without distraction. By this, I mean it is probably also crucial to have a place without internet, since that's a pretty significant distraction for me. Dillard has a point because it's so easy for our minds to wander when we're frustrated and we really need to work. HOWEVER the thing about creative writing is that sometimes we live off of distractions. When I was little, I'd think up stories while playing solitaire or make up songs in my head while riding the bus, and I still do that. I walk downtown (about an hour and a half walk, depending on where exactly I'm going) and I observe the entertaining ads on metro busses and the pretty mini-parks by those rivers I never realized existed and cute old couples with ridiculous jackets they probably bought thirty years ago, and then I find a random bench (or just sit down on the sidewalk/grass if a bench is not to be found) and I think of things. I guess this works better in poetry because you can write a poem in a sitting, but I'd say it's important for stories too because stories require creativity and creativity generally requires inspiration. I guess what's important is that you're not in a place that is mundane to you, which is kind of the opposite of what Dillard says. My laptop at home is on a desk, and it is always a mess and there are Hamomi flyers for internship and sheet music for solo ensemble and my journal from spain and lip balm and a nail file and orange sapphire lotion but mostly lots and lots of papers, and even though each of them has a significance to me, the place is mundane because I am here every day, any time I use a computer, which is a lot. If I am at a park or inside a mall or sitting on the sidewalk, even if it's a place I go frequently, it's always changing and the people and items there are not just my possessions, they are not things I get bored of seeing.
4. She moved from Virginia to Washington. Like my parents/me. But not my siblings. Also my parents are not from Roanoke.
5. I don't understand why she has to detach herself from EVERYTHING to write. Writing is not about solitude unless you are Thoreau, and even then it has at least a backing of mankind. Dillard is not Thoreau and it seems like you must have to have some terribly dreadful disease to be so easily distracted that you move into a cabin and freeze because that's the only way you can write. I've been suspected of having ADD, but this seems a bit over the top. I guess people always go over the top for the things they love, but if you're really that bad at focusing, your mind will wander no matter where you are. If your attention span is only twenty minutes, it just means living in a semi-isolated cabin will be extremely unnerving. I think living in a busy world would be good because, as mentioned earlier, writing demands inspiration.
6. "Why people want to be writers I will never know, unless it is that their lives lack a material footing." People should not try to convince me that their jobs are the hardest jobs in the world, and they should definitely not say that they are unsensible. If it is unsensible to be a writer, stop. Find something else. Sorry professor Cross. I don't actually think writers are dumb or that they should choose a different profession, but if you're going to do something, don't try to convince people you chose the harder path or your life is really difficult. I don't like whiners or self-pityers

Character

“I'm hoooooooooooooooooome!” Jenny swings the door open and drops her backpack on the floor with a thump.

Great, I think. Sound the trumpets.

And so she does. “Amyamyamyamyamy! Guess what happened in chem today!”

“You... set something on fire?” I suggest, only half kidding.

She runs up to my room. “Yeah, something. Man was there chemistry today. Whatever, you won’t guess it so I'll just tell you. I was sitting there doing my ionic compounds worksheet and Mrs. Jenkins passed by and told me my work looked good because she always says that because my work is always good. Anyway, right as she said that, plaid shirt boy walked in because his teacher wanted the computer cart from Mrs. Jenkins and AMY HE SMILED AT ME.”

“Are you sure he wasn’t just smiling because he was happy?” I ask, continuing my trigonometry homework.

“No! People don’t smile because they’re getting the computer cart. People smile because they see other people, like me! Amy, he smiled when he saw me! And then—I'm not done yet! This is the best part! Aren’t you paying attention?—He winked at me! Amy he winked!”

“So,” I say, “This relationship is really going somewhere. Have you figured out his name?”

Jenny frowns. “No,” she admits, “No, but I will. Just you wait.”

“Yes, Jenny. I'm waiting.” I go back to my work and she skips across the hall, tripping on a stair as she goes down.

Five minutes later I hear a call from downstairs. “Amy I'm hungryyyyyyyyyyy.”

“It’s four o’clock, haven’t you already eaten?”

“Yeah but that was a long time ago. FOUR HOURS? Are you trying to kill me? Will you make me something pleeeeeeeeeeeeeese?” She whines.

“You’re fourteen, you can make your own food.”

“Pretty please? I'll love you forever darling sister. I'm too busy to make myself food.”

“You’re too lazy to make yourself food. I have to work in an hour, I'm sure you can f—”

“What? I can’t hear you, guess you’re gonna have to come down here to talk to me. And while you’re at it, want to make me a grilled cheese sandwich? I like mine...”

I shut the door and stop listening. It’s an acquired talent, this ability to ignore loud noises for extended periods of time.

Jenny stomps up the stairs as loudly as humanly possible, sometimes jumping on a stair for added volume. “Amy [stomp] are [stomp] you [stomp] even [stomp] listeningggg?” She runs up and down for a few minutes and I wonder how she has the time and energy to do this but not to grill two pieces of bread and a slice of cheese. I pretend to ignore her and eventually she goes down to the piano. A loud siren sound emerges, not once, not twice, but three times, just in case shouting across the house wasn’t a sufficient warm up. “Do re mi fa so la ti do, Do di re ri mi fa fi sol si la li ti do...” Major scale, half note scale, next is minor scale… I’ve never had much interest in music but Jenny loves it and never hesitates to tell me all about it. She begins singing a French aria. “Mon cœur s’ouvre à ta voix...” My heart opens to your voice… Is this a hint? Her attempt to call me down to get me to listen to her sing just because the song’s in French? My heart does not open to her voice, I wonder how I can portray this more clearly. “Aaaah, réponnnds à maaaa tendresse!” Respond to my tenderness. Nice try, I think. Now be quiet.

Half an hour later, Jenny stops singing. “Amyyyyyy my throat hurts,” she calls up. Yeah, I'll bet. “Will you make me tea? Pleeeease? Or something cold? Don’t you want to help your dear little sister?” No, not particularly. Amy runs up to my room. “Jenny could you hear me? I asked if you’d make me tea, I have a sore throat. Please? For meeee?”

“I'm busy and I have to leave soon,” I say.

Amy sighs. “I have to do everything for this family.” What’ll she be like when I go off to college? She walks downstairs, whimpering as if this will help her case.

Twenty minutes later I hear a shriek. “Amy come here! Amy! Amy are you coming?” This is not the same Jenny who was whining twenty minutes ago, she sounds genuinely terrified.

“I'm changing for work, be there in a second,” I call down.

“Amy quicklyyyy!”

Good God what happened? My mind races with all the things that could have gone wrong. Did she burn herself? Spill boiling water? Did she put metal in the microwave? Was there some kind of toaster fire? Do those even exist? I finish buttoning my shirt as I run downstairs. Grilled cheese cooks on the hot stove while Jenny is balled up in a corner in her Disney princess apron. “It’s over there,” she says, pointing at the other side of the room.”

“What’s over there? Is there a rat? Did you trip on something? Broken glass?”

“No, on the ceiling.”

I look up to where she’s pointing to see a spider half the size of my fingernail scrambling across the ceiling. Are you kidding me?

“Is it a black widow?”

“No.”

“What is it then?”

“Jenny, you were screaming about that?”

“Yes! Think of what it could have done!”

“There I was thinking you were dying and that I was going to have to call an ambulance and it was a spider? Not even a daddy long legs but a tiny little spider?”

“I could have died! Imagine if it had bitten me!”

“You would have spider bites for... I don’t know, a week maybe. I'm going to be partially deaf for a lot longer than that.”

“Amy it’s still there. Look it’s moving!” Jenny is actually crying. Really? REALLY? “Get it off. Kill it, Amy!”

I take a paper towel and stand on the chair to reach the spider. Gently pulling it off, I get down off the chair and let it outside.

“You didn’t even kill it?”

“No, but your screaming may have.”

“IT’S STILL ALIVE?”

“Listen, Jenny, I have to go to work,” I say. Anything to change the subject.

“Nooooo! Amy don’t leave in my time of crisis!”

“Your crisis is over. I need to work so I can pay for gas to drive you places. This whole deal works in your benefit.”

“Amy I'm dyinggggg.”

“Get up and recuperate. You’re not dying  and your grilled cheese is blackening.”

Jenny stays in the corner so I flip the sandwich and head out the door. Do I have to do everything in this family?

Assigned Blog Post #7: Grocery Shopping

Firstly, my apologies for not blogging much lately, I've been working on my story. On that note, I replaced the two scenes I deleted so Lourdes stil exists but in a pretty different form, and there is another recipe, for Puchero. You will see them when my final story comes out, and hopefully you will notice them. The rest of the scenes have been rearranged a bit for continuity, and Monica's birth is no longer the result of sangria.

In any case, here's my metaphor.

You go grocery shopping because you want to make something (I use cooking metaphors a ton, can you tell?) and you're dabbling through different recipes. Maybe it's your best friend's 18th birthday or... yeah I don't know why you would be cooking a feast, but I also don't know why you need an excuse to spend all day cooking. Well, maybe you're going up to Kayla's cabin for the week and you aren't quite sure what you're going to make and perhaps you've forgotten that Austin is allergic to everything and Kayla's vegetarian and Erin thinks rice is gross, so you buy noodles and tomatoes and bell peppers and flour and salmon and steak and money is not an issue and time is also not an issue and so you just buy ridiculous amounts of delectible ingredients just in case. And then you get up there and you set up meals and you realize you have all these extra ingredients, these literary devices that you would have loved to use in your story but that don't fit. So you try to put coconut in your chocolate cake and people eat it and they tell you "erm... this would be really good if you hadn't randomly put coconut in it," or you try to add an alcoholic father and people read it and they're like "erm... that was super random and unexpected and didn't contribute to the story" and you want to tell them THAT IS THE BEST COCONUT EVER I HAD TO FIND A USE FOR IT or I WANTED TO WRITE A STORY ABOUT DAMAGED RELATIONSHIPS WITH FATHERS but... your story has turned into something completely different and it just doesn't fit. So then you end up with these leftovers, and here is where the Kayla's cabin example starts to fail because we are all underage and at our 5 year reunion Derek and Alisia will probably still be underage, but my grandmother once bought a bottle of wine and she saved it for a perfect occasion. "It's wine," she said, "it'll just get better with age, wine doesn't go bad" but she kept waiting and waiting for the perfect occasion and when she finally opened it a decade or two later, it had turned to vinegar and nobody would touch it. My mother says granny should have just opened it earlier, found a time to use it at home, maybe brought it to a bridge party or something, but I always feel awkward eating good food alone. If you're not going to use it, don't buy it. I have a notes page on onenote for my story and on it are quite a few quotes and anecdotes that my story was supposed to use, some that I included in the first draft and some that I didn't, but that just didn't seem to fit. When I started writing I smushed some of them in there, crammed them into the awkward transitions in my story in hopes that they would distract the reader from the awkwardness (they didn't), and some I never managed to put in. Don't buy something you're not going to use.

 

P.S. Nathan, I do NOT find deleting to be like eating my children. How dreadful. Get your butt off my blog. Just kidding, you can comment. But really. Was that necessary?

When I Grow Up

Attempt at dialogue. Just dialogue.

"I'm going to be a nurse when I grow up!"
"Not a doctor?"
"No, doctors are boys. Nurses are girls."
"Doctors can be girls, and they get paid better than nurses."
"I don't want to be a doctor, I don't want to be rich, I want to be a nurse."
"Okay sweetie."
"How do I start?"
"Well you've gotta wait for college and then you can go to medical school..."
"COLLEGE? That's so far away! I want to start now!"
"Honey, you're still very young. What if you change your mind?"
"I won't change my mind. I'm going to be a nurse."
"Okay, sweetie. Wait til you're older."

"I'm going to live at the farm when I grow up!"
"There's nothing to do at the farm. How will you make money?"
"I won't have to! I'll grow my own food."
"It's not very good land for growing vegetables."
"I'll do it! It'll work!"
"Okay honey, but don't set yourself up for disappointment."
"Let's learn to grow vegetables here so I can learn!"
"I really don't like gardening..."
"Pleeeeeeeeeeeeease?"
"Maybe when you're older"

"I'm going to be an opera star when I grow up!"
"Opera careers are very competitive, sweetie."
"I love competition! I'm going to be in the opera!"
"They don't pay too well, you could be months without work."
"You know I don't want to be  rich snob like you."
"There is a lot of drug usage in the opera world because there's so much pressure and competition."
"I'll be an honest opera singer. Can I take voice lessons?"
"Those are expensive"
"You're rich, I'm pursuing my dreams."
"It won't be until about ten years after conservatory that your voice will mature enough for you to be able to perform."
"TEN YEARS?"
"Sorry dear. Still want to be in the opera?"

"I'm going to be a chef when I grow up."
"If you say so..."
"I'll move to San Francisco and own a restaurant and be the best chef in town!"
"San Francisco? With all the hippies? What are you going to make, pot brownies?"
"Stop being so judgmental! I'm going to make all sorts of foods, and they're going to love them!"
"Honey, you can't just make an 'all sorts of food' restaurant."
"Sure I can! How do I start?"
Well if you want to own a restaurant you'll probably need a business degree."
"Business? I hate business! Well... how long will it take?"
"Four years of undergrad and then two getting an MBA, plus however long you're in cullinary school..."
"So long? I wish there were something I could find and start now."

"You know what I'd love to be? A dancer."
"Like... a hip hop dancer?"
"No, like a ballerina."
"That's so much work."
"Everything you want to be good at is a ton of work."
"And it definitely doesn't pay well."
"I don't have to do it as a career, I just want to take ballet classes."
"Ballerinas get injured more than any other sort of athlete."
"Except for runners..."
"Are you sure you're into this? I think you're being a bit unreasonable."
"Yes, I'm sure. Where can I take classes?"
"You're too old to start ballet. If you wanted to be a ballerina, you should have figured that out years ago."

So yeah, that's the story of my life. Now I'm supposed to be figuring out a college major and... I don't have the slightest idea. Darn.

Artistic License

I enjoy editing other people's work, but I am less than thrilled about editing my own.

Who told you you could change my story that way? What kind of a God do you think you are, telling me Monica and her dad shouldn't be in conflict? How dare you say the mention of dementia was abrupt? Finding out your mother has dementia is a pretty abrupt discovery. Sure, tell me to cut that grocery store scene, I didn't like it much anyway, but no I'm not cutting the end! That's the whole point of the story! Too bad more than half of you didn't like it... But those who did like it said it was fantastic and... no. I cannot cut what is fantastic. I don't want to turn the American characters into the same person! Deanna and Lisa are supposed to blend together, Monica is supposed to become a little annoyed that they're so clueless, but weren't you paying attention? Annette is different! No, don't tell me I wouldn't think like that when I was seven! I was a precocious seven-year-old, you underestimate children.

Then I realize I sound like Monica's little kid self. ["No lo quieres, mi niña," she'd tell me. You don't want it. Of course I wanted it! Who was she to know what I did and didn't want?] I am stubborn about my story; I do not want to believe it has the potential to be improved by cutting my hard work. I do not want to think that I should replace a scene or-heaven forbid-just cut a couple scenes altogether and make it shorter. Perhaps you are right, like Mama in that scene. Most people did not tell me to cut the grocery store scene, or that I am wordy. In fact, some said I was succinct and that every scene seemed necessary. I'm pretty sure I have never been called succinct before.

So here's what I'll do.

I'm cutting two scenes. I switch back and forth between Spain and the US the whole time, so I can’t just cut one. I'm cutting the grocery store scene and I need to figure out a way to show more of what she thinks of America, but the scene adds a character (Maggie, most of you entirely ignored her and I didn’t characterize her much) and it really doesn’t help progress the story so I don’t think anyone will miss it. However, the Spain scene that I'm deleting is the one with Lourdes. Her character is still in the story a bit because mamá borrows vanilla from her and she writes letters because mamá has dementia, but the interesting aspects of Lourdes’ character have been removed. This also means that there is not huge back story about Monica’s father. I always tell people in my critiques that they should either completely develop something or not develop it at all, but here is a case when I think half-developing it makes sense, that Monica’s parents don’t have to have married out of necessity but that the reader can be aware that her father is not necessarily the most devoted or considerate man around. So now my story is just over 12 pages (originally it was 17) and I have room to bring in mamá’s disease a little more, to explain myself better, to expand on the present action because you all said that was lacking. I don’t like cutting but maybe Annie Dillard is right, that sometimes you have to learn to delete.

Explanations and Edits

I'm glad I was one of the first to have a workshop because now I have time to edit, and because I was able to spend some time not looking at the story so that now that I come back to it, I can see it with somewhat fresh eyes.

First, a few explanations.

Apologies for what seemed to be mistakes-- the accent on Cordoba was actually intentionally there at the beginning of the story and then taken away later as a part of her becoming more American, it shouldn't come as too much of a surprise that Spanish place names are pronounced differently in English, but the intent was that she actually started thinking of them in an American light. Didn't work, though, so I'll change that. More apologies for tense shifts. They were gramatically correct because it bugs me to death when people use tenses incorrectly, but I understand it is confusing to discuss a flashback in the present tense (I can still remember...) so I am changing that. And sorry I forget to put periods on the ends of my paragraphs.

I was actually surprised that you guys saw Monica as disliking the USA-- I didn't mean for her to adore it the way she did when she first moved here, but I meant for her to accept it as a country with its eccentricities and faults, not some dream land that would solve all of her problems in Spain. You guys caught on to that, but I think I overdid it because I didn't really mean for her to dislike it and her comments about foods like ramen and twinkies were more of a play on college life than on the US in general. Something else that wasn't quite my intention was the flashbacks-- I didn't mean for them to be things the remembered in the moment when the story was taking place, or to symbolize an idea that Monica was constantly thinking back on Spain. She came to the US with no intention of turning back, and while she does come to grips with her past, she never decides to return and she doesn't think about it all too often. That was significant in the story in showing the reader where she was coming from, but it was not meant to be a memory in itself. I ought to put more emphasis on the present.

Also, not all the Americans are the same. They are all women because if I added a man then the reader might anticipate romance and I meant no such thing, and because Monica is more comfortable with women. However, Annette (her coworker, the one at the work party) is more educated than Deanna, the interior decorator friend, and Lisa, the neighbor. I have merged those two into Lisa and have deleted the entire scene with grocery shopping, which also means that Maggie, her college roomate, is gone. We'll see how I replace it. I'm also considering cutting the scene with Lourdes (in which we learn about Monica's father), but my initial intention with the story was to have some kind of back story with her dad (which I decreased significantly just in writing the first draft), so the scene needs to be replaced by something similar, but still probably rewritten. Also I like Lourdes, and I'm just the writer that Annie Dillard talks about in that I really don't like cutting things. And I need a scene that explains her dad (granted, I need a much better explanation than what I had), so I will find a new way to discuss Lourdes and tell some of her back story.

The deal with Mama--I did research dementia, and what I decided was that her mother developed Huntington's disease when Monica was fifteen and it turned into senile dementia by the time she was seventeen. This is where Deanna's comment about senile old ladies comes into play, because Mama is senile in the literal definition of the word. I realize I didn't clarify very well that Huntington's and dementia are different and set in at different points. What is also out of place is that we know Mama was twenty when Monica was born, making her only 35 when she became sick.

I'm having trouble editing, though, because commenters conflict.

• Julia loves that it has my voice, Shanyi and Alisia said my narrator should be more original.
• Caitlin said the gazpacho metaphor worked perfectly, Kevin said it didn't actually fit her life the way I meant it to.
• Ben says I need more Spanish, Julia and Richard say I have too much of it.
• Yanjin filled my page of description about gazpacho with comments on how she adored the description, Rick told me it was too long and tedious to read.
• Alisia and Kayla like my exclamations in describing vegetables for gazpacho, Erica and Andrea say they are unnecessary
• Peter likes how I introduce American characters, Alisia says they need to be introduced better
• Victor and Alex love my ending, David and Julia say it's too long and direct, Rick says it's too short

Crossroads

Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Charles is home for spring break and he begs me to take him to Gamestop. We walk down to the mall and find a group of guys I know at the food court.
"Who's that?" Derek asks.
"Derek, this is my brother Charles," I say. "Charles, this is Derek."
"You have a brother?" he asks. I've known Derek for what, six years? Good heavens.
"Oh, he exists!" Alex says, "I believe you now!"
Charles looks around awkwardly.
"He's not as cute as you said he was," Calvin says. I wonder if they realize he's actually standing there, that he can hear what they say.
Eugene turns around. "So this is Charles?"
"Yeah."
He addresses Charles. "I hear you're pretty smart."
Charles smiles awkwardly. "Yeah, I hear that too."
"Oh so you know you're smart? Don't get a big head about it like this guy," he motions toward Akash. "This guy thinks he's the shit, but he--"
"Eugene!" I do not like interrupting people, but he should watch his language around Charles.
"Sorry-- this guy thinks he's better than everyone and it's hell- hecka annoying."
Charles laughs.
"Why are you guys here?" Alex asks. Eugene keeps talking to Charles and I try to moniter him bt I do not split my attention very well.
"I'm taking him to Gamestop," I explain.
"Ohhhh. Can he play video games at his school?"
I wonder about this. He can't, and we don't have a game consul at home... I think Charles just likes watching other people play. Or looking at games. Or mybe gameboy games, we do have a gameboy. I tell Alex I don't think so, but I'm not sure. I am bad at explaining things.
Now Alex turns to Charles. "Is she a good sister?"
Charles looks at me like he should say something very mean, but instead he pauses for a second as if this is a truly difficult question and says "yeah, most of the time."
Eugene and Alex laugh. I wonder if they believe him.
Eugene looks at his phone. "We should go soon."
Alex agrees. "Derek, you need a ride?"
Derek looks up. "What? Where?"
"To school... sports..."
Derek also checks his phone. "Oh shoot, it's late!"
Alex asks if Charles wants to run. "I run at my school," Charles says.
"You should come run with us!" Alex tells him.
Charles looks uncomfortable. "Maybe tomorrow..."
Half of the boys leave and the other half continue to sit and do homework, so Charles and I go to Gamestop.

I wonder what it is to be Charles in this situation, what my 12-year-old self would do if my hypothetical big brother were to introduce me to his friends. I would probably be much more awkward than Charles, and resent my brother for bringing me there. Hmmmm