Some of you may remember that I wrote back in September about the dilemma I faced as a member of the Philosophy Department's knitting group, aptly named The Knitted Brow. I was working on squares to stitch together into an afghan. My problem was that the needles I had chosen were small, so that each square took FOREVER to complete. My dilemma resulting from this was that I faced three unpalatable choices as to how to proceed: 1) abandon the project; 2) knit on it for the rest of my life; 3) settle for a very very small blanket.
I chose option #3. I am here to report that option #3 turned out to be a fine option indeed. I finished the blanket today, hooray, hooray, hooray! (I'll try to take a picture to post of it, but I'm not very good at that sort of thing.) The blanket has 25 squares, in shades of gray (the dominant color), lavender, pink, and purple. It is really not all THAT small, now that I blocked the squares - wet them and flattened and stretched them out a bit. It looks actually quite lovely draped over the arm of the couch in my office, where its smallness is not immediately apparent. And now I can begin knitting something else. I'm thinking toward a hat.
I always like to distill lessons for myself from my various life experiences. So on this one, I'm thinking:
1) Something really is better than nothing. There is something singularly unsatisfying about nothing. I would have felt sad if I had simply tucked my sweet little squares away and given them no purpose for their existence.
2) It can be worthwhile reconceiving your original vision of a project in light of subsequent discoveries once the project is under way. You do not have to stick with the original vision or die.
3) I myself am happier when I don't have projects that go on forever. This is why I teach MWF rather than the much more popular Tuesday/Thursday - because I can't stand to teach those 75-minute Tuesday/Thursday classes that seem to go on forever. This is why I write relatively short books, rather than sprawling epics. This just seems to be part of who I am. And it's hard to change who you are.
Oh, it's lovely being done with that blanket, and on such a cold, snowy, snuggle-under-a-blanket day, too. It's a very small blanket for snuggling, I admit. But it really is better than no blanket at all.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy
For some kinds of ailments, one prescribed treatment is "hyerbaric oxygen therapy": putting the patient into a chamber in which the entire body is subjected to 100-percent oxygen at far greater than ordinary atmospheric pressure. Non-physician that I am, I am not completely sure what good results are supposed to be produced by this, but I think that it's mainly that all that pure oxygen does wonderful things for the blood: it creates new blood vessels, it increases blood circulation, it sends new, fresh, rejuvenated blood flowing everywhere around the body, especially to "compromised organs" - to all the sad little hidden places that hadn't been getting their share.
This was the kind of day I had yesterday: a hyberbaric oxygen kind of day.
In the afternoon I went to a matinee performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream, down at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts; in the evening I went to an all-Mozart program of Mozart's Jupiter Symphony and Piano Concerto Number 21 (now nicknamed the "Elvira Madigan" concerto, because of the hauntingly beautiful second movement featured in that film), performed by the Pro Musica Chamber Orchestra in Boulder. There is no greater playwright than Shakespeare. There is no greater composer than Mozart. A Midsummer Night's Dream is my favorite of all Shakespeare plays. The Jupiter Symphony is Mozart's greatest symphony; Number 21 is his greatest piano concerto. The production of A Midsummer Night's Dream was marvelously magical and hilariously funny. The Mozart performances were unsurpassed in their beauty.
So I spent all day in a chamber of beauty at far higher than the ordinary concentration of beauty in my life. I can feel beauty flowing throughout my heart and soul and spirit, penetrating into all those hidden little places of grief and loss. If I were a psychiatrist, I think I'd start prescribing this for patients: full immersion into stunning beauty at very high concentrations. It couldn't hurt to give it a try.
This was the kind of day I had yesterday: a hyberbaric oxygen kind of day.
In the afternoon I went to a matinee performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream, down at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts; in the evening I went to an all-Mozart program of Mozart's Jupiter Symphony and Piano Concerto Number 21 (now nicknamed the "Elvira Madigan" concerto, because of the hauntingly beautiful second movement featured in that film), performed by the Pro Musica Chamber Orchestra in Boulder. There is no greater playwright than Shakespeare. There is no greater composer than Mozart. A Midsummer Night's Dream is my favorite of all Shakespeare plays. The Jupiter Symphony is Mozart's greatest symphony; Number 21 is his greatest piano concerto. The production of A Midsummer Night's Dream was marvelously magical and hilariously funny. The Mozart performances were unsurpassed in their beauty.
So I spent all day in a chamber of beauty at far higher than the ordinary concentration of beauty in my life. I can feel beauty flowing throughout my heart and soul and spirit, penetrating into all those hidden little places of grief and loss. If I were a psychiatrist, I think I'd start prescribing this for patients: full immersion into stunning beauty at very high concentrations. It couldn't hurt to give it a try.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Trusting the Fairy Dust
As the end of the first month of the new year draws nigh, I've been doing my end-of-the-month reflections, my assessment of the state of the new year so far. I decided that I made one big mistake in the new year year already: I shouldn't have asked the fairy dust for love. Ever since I made that rash request, I've been consumed with anxiety about love, frantically seeking it everywhere, driving myself crazy with the quest for it. Oh, why did I ask for love, when I could have asked for another book contract or a starred book review? Why, why, why?
But then it occurred to me that maybe my mistake didn't lie in my request to the fairy dust, in itself, but in my lack of trust in the fairy dust to answer that request in its own way, in its own time. I mean, isn't that the whole POINT of fairy dust? That somebody else does the work here, while I blithely go about my business?
The trouble with this line of thought, however, is that I do believe that I have to meet the fairy dust halfway. This insight is encapsulated in many pithy sayings: e.g.,"God helps those who help themselves"; "Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition." When I asked the fairy dust for success with my book series last year, I was still the one who had to write the books, and send them off to prospective agents. I couldn't expect the fairy dust to show up at my house and write the books for me, or send me an agent knocking unannounced at my door. Is it really fair to expect the fairy dust to bring me love, without any preparatory effort on my part?
So what I'm trying to figure out is how much I'm supposed to do, and how much I'm supposed to let the fairy dust do. I know this much at least: whatever I'm supposed to DO, I'm not supposed to WORRY. From now on, I'm going to try to leave the worrying to the fairy dust.
But then it occurred to me that maybe my mistake didn't lie in my request to the fairy dust, in itself, but in my lack of trust in the fairy dust to answer that request in its own way, in its own time. I mean, isn't that the whole POINT of fairy dust? That somebody else does the work here, while I blithely go about my business?
The trouble with this line of thought, however, is that I do believe that I have to meet the fairy dust halfway. This insight is encapsulated in many pithy sayings: e.g.,"God helps those who help themselves"; "Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition." When I asked the fairy dust for success with my book series last year, I was still the one who had to write the books, and send them off to prospective agents. I couldn't expect the fairy dust to show up at my house and write the books for me, or send me an agent knocking unannounced at my door. Is it really fair to expect the fairy dust to bring me love, without any preparatory effort on my part?
So what I'm trying to figure out is how much I'm supposed to do, and how much I'm supposed to let the fairy dust do. I know this much at least: whatever I'm supposed to DO, I'm not supposed to WORRY. From now on, I'm going to try to leave the worrying to the fairy dust.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
I Have No Idea What Is Going to Happen Next
I have never in my life written a book like this one: a book that turns completely on what is going to happen next and where, even after major brainstorming, I have no idea what is going to happen next. All I can do is just to keep writing and hope to find out. I am not even one step ahead of my characters at this point, I'm one step behind.
There is a deservedly famous quote from E. L. Doctorow about writing a novel: "It's like driving a car at night. You never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way."
I used to love that quote. Now I'm not sure I do. Because, even in the dark, don't you at least need to have some sense of where you're going? And right now I feel that I'm driving with a busted headlight, or driving in heavy fog.
So I'm resorting to Alice instead, in her conversation with the Cheshire Cat:
"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to walk from here?"
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.
"I don't much care where," said Alice.
"Then it doesn't matter which way you walk," said the Cat.
"- So long as I get somewhere," Alice added.
"Oh, you're sure to do that," said the Cat, "if you only walk long enough."
So far I've walked some 60 pages, in the fog, guided only by my busted headlight. I guess that all I can do at this point is keep on walking.
There is a deservedly famous quote from E. L. Doctorow about writing a novel: "It's like driving a car at night. You never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way."
I used to love that quote. Now I'm not sure I do. Because, even in the dark, don't you at least need to have some sense of where you're going? And right now I feel that I'm driving with a busted headlight, or driving in heavy fog.
So I'm resorting to Alice instead, in her conversation with the Cheshire Cat:
"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to walk from here?"
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.
"I don't much care where," said Alice.
"Then it doesn't matter which way you walk," said the Cat.
"- So long as I get somewhere," Alice added.
"Oh, you're sure to do that," said the Cat, "if you only walk long enough."
So far I've walked some 60 pages, in the fog, guided only by my busted headlight. I guess that all I can do at this point is keep on walking.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
What Happens Next
Today I'll spend the whole day at home. I hope to get a lot of writing done on my new book. I don't want to share too much of what the book is about at this point, but it's definitely more of a plot-driven book than I've written before - not plot-driven (yet) in the sense of any clever twists or startling surprises, but plot-driven in that the reader continues reading in a kind of sick fascination to find out what is going to happen next. Indeed, I myself don't quite know at this point what is going to happen next, so I keep writing to find out what the characters are going to say and do to extricate themselves from the mess they've plunged themselves in.
Of course, we also care, as readers, about how the main character is going to grow and change through her experiences. We also care about what larger themes are going to be illuminated by the story. I couldn't write a book in which those concerns were not central to the book. All I've ever really cared about, before writing this book, were character and theme. This is the first time I've really cared so much about what happens next.
I hope this new focus on plot is a good thing for me, a way in which I'm growing as a writer. My beloved Anthony Trollope wrote that he found that, despite his own fondness for creating memorable characters, readers tended to judge his books primarily on the strength of their plots: "I am led to supposed that a good plot - which, to my own feeling, is the most insignificant part of a tale - is that which will most raise it or most condemn it in the public judgment."
But so far my plot, though engrossing in its way, is too linear - too much of "This happened, then this happened, then this happened." So I want to spend today figuring out to complicate my plot, to bring in some oblique and unexpected developments that will somehow build to having it all come together in a fresh and unpredictable way. That doesn't sound too hard - or does it?
Wish me luck!
Of course, we also care, as readers, about how the main character is going to grow and change through her experiences. We also care about what larger themes are going to be illuminated by the story. I couldn't write a book in which those concerns were not central to the book. All I've ever really cared about, before writing this book, were character and theme. This is the first time I've really cared so much about what happens next.
I hope this new focus on plot is a good thing for me, a way in which I'm growing as a writer. My beloved Anthony Trollope wrote that he found that, despite his own fondness for creating memorable characters, readers tended to judge his books primarily on the strength of their plots: "I am led to supposed that a good plot - which, to my own feeling, is the most insignificant part of a tale - is that which will most raise it or most condemn it in the public judgment."
But so far my plot, though engrossing in its way, is too linear - too much of "This happened, then this happened, then this happened." So I want to spend today figuring out to complicate my plot, to bring in some oblique and unexpected developments that will somehow build to having it all come together in a fresh and unpredictable way. That doesn't sound too hard - or does it?
Wish me luck!
Monday, January 24, 2011
How Not to Be Depressed
I did everything I was supposed to do yesterday, and now I'm not depressed any more.
1) I got up early and wrote a full (short-ish) chapter on my book-in progress. In itself, that might have been enough to keep me un-depressed all day.
2) On the way to church, I walked for a bit with my writer friend, Cat, and her adorable little boy, Max, and her dog, Jonesy. Nobody could be depressed in the company of Cat. It would simply be impossible.
3) I went to church, first to our children's worship service, Where the Wild Things Worship, and then to big people church. What I love best about church, I think, is the singing. In Wild Things we sang, "Hallelu, hallelu, hallelu, hallulujah, praise ye the Lord." We sing it by dividing ourselves into three groups, one group singing the "Hallelu," the second group singing "Praise ye the Lord," and the third group singing simply the "jah" on the end of "Hallelu." Each group hops up to sing its line and then sits down again, making for a most aerobic form of worship. The most fun group, of course, is "jah." I got to be in the "jah" group. I don't think anybody could be in the "jah" group and be depressed afterward.
4) After church, I typed up my chapter from my morning's writing, AND read a wonderful revised first chapter from my mentee, AND read one chapter of a good but densely written philosophy book on which I have to present comments in a talk next week, AND went through the copy-edited manuscript for Mason Dixon: Basketball Disasters (swooning at the brilliance and deliciously obsessive thoroughness of the copyeditor), AND took care of a small pesky task that was long overdue, AND read part of a book I need to review. Try being depressed after that marathon of productivity!
5) I did check my email, but no more than once every fifteen minutes. Well, more like once every ten minutes, but still. Progress!
So now that I know how not to be depressed, all I have to do is to continue to do these things every day for the rest of my life. Hallelu - JAH!!!
1) I got up early and wrote a full (short-ish) chapter on my book-in progress. In itself, that might have been enough to keep me un-depressed all day.
2) On the way to church, I walked for a bit with my writer friend, Cat, and her adorable little boy, Max, and her dog, Jonesy. Nobody could be depressed in the company of Cat. It would simply be impossible.
3) I went to church, first to our children's worship service, Where the Wild Things Worship, and then to big people church. What I love best about church, I think, is the singing. In Wild Things we sang, "Hallelu, hallelu, hallelu, hallulujah, praise ye the Lord." We sing it by dividing ourselves into three groups, one group singing the "Hallelu," the second group singing "Praise ye the Lord," and the third group singing simply the "jah" on the end of "Hallelu." Each group hops up to sing its line and then sits down again, making for a most aerobic form of worship. The most fun group, of course, is "jah." I got to be in the "jah" group. I don't think anybody could be in the "jah" group and be depressed afterward.
4) After church, I typed up my chapter from my morning's writing, AND read a wonderful revised first chapter from my mentee, AND read one chapter of a good but densely written philosophy book on which I have to present comments in a talk next week, AND went through the copy-edited manuscript for Mason Dixon: Basketball Disasters (swooning at the brilliance and deliciously obsessive thoroughness of the copyeditor), AND took care of a small pesky task that was long overdue, AND read part of a book I need to review. Try being depressed after that marathon of productivity!
5) I did check my email, but no more than once every fifteen minutes. Well, more like once every ten minutes, but still. Progress!
So now that I know how not to be depressed, all I have to do is to continue to do these things every day for the rest of my life. Hallelu - JAH!!!
Sunday, January 23, 2011
How to Be Depressed
In case any of my readers want to make themselves depressed, here are some helpful tips:
1. Even though you wake up at five o'clock after a full seven and a half hours of sleep, stay in bed for another couple of hours. Lie there and mentally catalog all your lifetime losses, with particular attention to recent crushing disappointments.
2. When you finally drag yourself out of bed, check your email the very first thing and continue to check it every two or three minutes for the rest of the morning, in case you might receive notice that one of your books has just won a prize that you hadn't even realized it was being considered for, or that someone from match.com has fallen head over heels in love with you simply from your unflattering profile picture.
3. Instead of writing on your new book, email your other writer friends about how doomed this book project is and how unlikely it is to be brought to any kind of successful completion. Add in some comments about how unlikely it is that any unattached middle-aged woman is going to be given a chance at lasting love.
4. Instead of writing on your new book, continue checking your email every two or three minutes as described in #2.
5. If a friend invites you to go for a walk with her, refuse. You might miss that email about the prize. Or the email from that man.
6. Every ten or fifteen minutes, scavenge for any leftover Christmas candy (there is still quite a bit of it lying around, if you know where to look), and eat some of it.
7. Continue this program diligently until bedtime.
This program is ABSOLUTELY GUARANTEED to make you depressed. I don't even need to promise you that if you follow this program faithfully and are not depressed, I will give you your money back. YOU WILL BE DEPRESSED.
On the other hand, should you want NOT to be depressed, my advice is to follow the REVERSE of this program.
Which is what I plan to do today.
1. Even though you wake up at five o'clock after a full seven and a half hours of sleep, stay in bed for another couple of hours. Lie there and mentally catalog all your lifetime losses, with particular attention to recent crushing disappointments.
2. When you finally drag yourself out of bed, check your email the very first thing and continue to check it every two or three minutes for the rest of the morning, in case you might receive notice that one of your books has just won a prize that you hadn't even realized it was being considered for, or that someone from match.com has fallen head over heels in love with you simply from your unflattering profile picture.
3. Instead of writing on your new book, email your other writer friends about how doomed this book project is and how unlikely it is to be brought to any kind of successful completion. Add in some comments about how unlikely it is that any unattached middle-aged woman is going to be given a chance at lasting love.
4. Instead of writing on your new book, continue checking your email every two or three minutes as described in #2.
5. If a friend invites you to go for a walk with her, refuse. You might miss that email about the prize. Or the email from that man.
6. Every ten or fifteen minutes, scavenge for any leftover Christmas candy (there is still quite a bit of it lying around, if you know where to look), and eat some of it.
7. Continue this program diligently until bedtime.
This program is ABSOLUTELY GUARANTEED to make you depressed. I don't even need to promise you that if you follow this program faithfully and are not depressed, I will give you your money back. YOU WILL BE DEPRESSED.
On the other hand, should you want NOT to be depressed, my advice is to follow the REVERSE of this program.
Which is what I plan to do today.
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