Month: February 2007

Proximity

Nova Ren Suma

February 18, 2007

It is a strange feeling to sit not three feet from a writer you admire while she marks up her printed pages with a blue pen. You wonder: is that a new novel? a story? something I will soon someday read? But you cannot look. She is here to write, not to be ogled, just as you are here to write, to be left alone, to focus. You do not want to seem curious; you will not peek. But it is a humbling thing to imagine her scribbles in blue pen, and your own scribbles also in blue pen, and the genius that is surely in her scribbles when yours… not so much. Also, that you both scribble. Also, that she is here just as you are here, and you can think on that a moment, but don’t look!

(Addendum, later in the day: It is also strange to be in close proximity to writers who are taking a break from their pages and who have decided to nap on the couch, not because you like to avoid watching strangers sleep but because when they snore LIKE A GRIZZLY BEAR and make WEIRD CHOKING NOISES and SPIT IN THEIR SLEEP, it is hard to concentrate. Maybe they are dreaming their next page. Maybe, by the sound of it, it’s a nightmare.)
The One Paragraph I’d Save from a Burning Building

Nova Ren Suma

February 18, 2007

Yesterday, I happened upon a paragraph from my graduate thesis, which had been a 500-page novel about my family. The paragraph was in a document from November of 2002. The last time I thought consciously about this project may well have been in November of 2002. I had forgotten that this paragraph existed. How could I forget that this paragraph existed?

I have fallen in love with the paragraph all over again. I can’t bear to let it languish away in the bowels of my archive. I was trying to explain my connection to this paragraph over dinner last night with E—gnocchi; speaking of love, I love gnocchi—I dared to call the paragraph perfect. Then I backtracked, trying to explain further. It’s not that the paragraph would be seen as “perfect” if others happened to read it, it’s only that it is exactly how I meant it to be, my intentions perfectly met with the outcome of the words on the page. I am perfectly happy with this paragraph. I am a fuller person for having written it.

The paragraph I speak of wasn’t always in the 500 pages. If written somewhere around the fall of 2002, it would have been after the thesis had been turned in and I graduated, and also after the three people I sent the book to had read it. The first was an agent, the first agent I ever sent to in my life; her kind rejection in the spring of 2002 is still saved somewhere in my old email account. The second was a friend; her suggestions for revision of this novel are also dated in the spring of 2002. The third was my mother; the book made her uncomfortable—I told too much—and it was her reaction above all others that made me second-guess the entire project and put it away for good.

That fall, in 2002, I made a second attempt at telling the story. I fictionalized it a lot more. I didn’t get very far. There are five or six pages of a new opening and there, nestled on the second page, the paragraph. Can it be that no one has ever seen this paragraph except for me? I think so.

The question is… what can be done with the paragraph now? I want to take it and make something of it. I want to build a whole new story around it, as if it is a universal piece that fit here but could also fit there and there and there.

I’ve pulled it out of the archive. Now it’s just sitting here, on my desktop, waiting to see what I’ll do.
Winter Wonderland (Or Something Like It)

Nova Ren Suma

February 17, 2007

Remember snow? That white fluffy stuff that buries the car and closes school and makes for a cool fort at the end of the driveway? Maybe I shouldn’t admit this, but I miss it.

I can’t make much of a fort with this.

It’s also no good for snow balls, and shoes must be carefully chosen, as I almost lost one the other day in the chilly muck.

E found it amusing that I was photographing garbage and not, clearly visible, the Empire State Building like the tourists do. But—look!—there it is in the distance.

This is the view from our curb.

My mother, for her part, couldn’t make it out of her driveway. The snow hit harder upstate. If I were there with her right now, I’d make a snow angel.
Day of Not-Much

Nova Ren Suma

February 17, 2007

I went through my computer’s archives today. I found lines from old short stories; I found openings to novels I had thought I would write—some, quite frightening; I found a paragraph I can’t live without ever seeing again; I found many dead and dying ideas. After all this, I didn’t write a new word, which is most disappointing, but seeing some things I cannot let go of—I don’t think I can ever let go—should give me a sense of purpose. Tomorrow will be a day of more than yesterday, and the following day more than that, and so on. I want it to be, anyway.

I was about to publish a longer, more detailed post, but I went back and deleted it. Nasty (?) comments from strangers confuse me, making this whole process less exhilarating, less fun. I think I’ve gotten much more open here, in a public forum, not always the best place for confessing your hopes (and fears) (and disappointments) and dreams. There is something to be said about keeping a private journal. You can say an honest thing and not be judged for it later, except by yourself. (Though, I’ve had my private journals ransacked, so even that isn’t necessarily true.) This must be why people blog about Britney Spears. Unless you feel truly bad for Britney Spears, which I do, so I suppose right now I am blogging about Britney Spears. See what happens when people insult me?
Sleet

Nova Ren Suma

February 14, 2007

Or is it hail?

Either way, it was hard bits of ice falling from the sky this morning, making quite a forceful patter as I trudged through the snow + ice + the grayish mush that snow and ice turn into once the buses and taxicabs get to it, all so I could get my usual caffeinated chocolate drink. And sit here for a little while before work, to write. That’s what I live my weekdays for, at the moment, these pure hours in the morning before real life starts. Sometimes I type madly, at which some people comment because I use two fingers and my thumbs. Sometimes I stare into space (at times into strangers’ faces without realizing). Sometimes I get out a sentence. Sometimes I swipe some wifi to write a post. Either way, this little bit of time is heaven.

I’m unprepared for the weather. I don’t own snow boots anymore, now that I don’t live upstate. I have rain galoshes, bought in New Hampshire when I spent a month at a writers colony, but the galoshes are thin, and cold. This morning, I see some people like me walking around—gym sneakers on instead of boots, an extra pair of shoes in a plastic bag, holding umbrellas up to the blowing snow like it’s a rainstorm. I never saw people use umbrellas when it snowed until I moved to the city. Now I do it, too. It makes sense, especially when the wind shoots the icy pellets straight at your eyes, trying to blind you. This morning, I used my turquoise umbrella as a deathly shield.

It occurred to me that I forgot to call the company line to see if the office was closed, but I highly doubt it’s closed. We’re not in elementary school. And anyway, if it was a whitewash outside, visibility zero and, but if the post office was still open, I’d venture out because I have another application to mail, this one to a writers conference this summer.

This is a big day, besides. After finishing the first draft of that story yesterday—I surprised myself most especially when it happened—I’ll take a little space from it. That will give me more of a fresh look when I return. I could stray for as long as a week, two. It’s like I’m cheating. But right now I’m thinking of it as keeping my options open. To start a new story before this one has had its polish might keep up some kind of momentum.

So what is the new story? Definitive deciding could take days. But the story I’m thinking of is the one I had in my head last night, while drifting off to sleep—the character is a big liar. Thinking of all her lies made me smile. I could take that as a sign that it wants to be written. I like signs.

Happy Snow Day. Happy Valentine’s Day. Happy Wednesday. …Whichever one sounds best.
Intentions

Nova Ren Suma

February 13, 2007

I have the best of intentions when it comes to my writing goals. Not that they follow through all the time, but I do mean well. Each night before bed I picture what I will write the next day. And if, come morning, the scene is cloddish and stalls and then falls headfirst out a window (like today’s scene has just done, literally!), I can’t blame myself, can I? I am trying.

The freelance writing disappointments and exhausted efforts of late have given me a new drive. I’m writing my own stuff now; I’m not doing assignments anymore, even if someone asks. (Let’s see what I say when someone asks.) But, no, I mean it! I’ve found new motivation—I can’t pinpoint where it came from—but there’s something that’s getting me up earlier and earlier each morning to work before work. I have no deadlines. I have no one waiting to read this (save e). I have no reason to be working this hard, except that I want to because I don’t really want to be doing anything else. I hope this sticks. I’ll feel better about myself as a human being if it does.

It is my intent to finish the first draft of this story before I have to leave for work.

Will I do it?

I’d guess no.

(Not a half hour later: Huh. I guess maybe I did.)
Living Dolls!

Nova Ren Suma

February 11, 2007

I just have to take a moment to plug the new photobook by Courtney Summers: Living Dolls (Book One). Some of you may already know this talented photographer and writer, but if not, the photos in her “Living Dolls” series will be an exhilarating introduction. I first saw the images in this series on Courtney’s Flickr page, and was completely taken in. A glimpse at each provocative image is like witnessing a scene you know you shouldn’t, but you just can’t look away. Each image is a story. I love imagining the before, the after, and everything in between. Sometimes I forget her models are dolls at all. Her series is a real inspiration.

I can’t wait till my copy of her book arrives! I’m looking forward to having the images in my hands, and being taken in once again.

Courtney’s book can be ordered here!