So let me just relate this little anecdote:
In rural Hungary, at 2 in the morning, we had to stop and ask a prostitute for directions. I kept waiting for her pimp to jump out from behind some shrub and kill us all. She was nice, and she didn’t have to be, and it made me sad.
… And am finding things to be stressed out about. Even here. Something is clearly wrong with me. That’s all for now.
Inspired by LitLove.
1. I absolutely hate people who excuse writerly misdeeds by pointing out “but s/he’s an artist!” So bloody what? So because you’re an “artist,” as opposed to, say, a plumber, it’s OK to be perpetually drunk and pretentious and annoying? No! Doesn’t mean I’m never drunk or pretentious or annoying – but neither should I try to excuse any of it by pointing to my long and illustrious history of.. *errr*
2. I think someone out there should give a course entitled “Managing Your Imagination.” George Romero, for example, has a wonderful imagination. As do Stephen King, Kazuo Ishiguro, Margaret Atwood, the writers on “Lost,” and… well, the list goes on. But how do all these people keep their imaginations from driving them insane? How come they’re not in straightjackets, drooling placidly with a view of a padded wall? Because, damn, the things you imagine can haunt you in the worst ways.
3. As much as I like to write about writing, I will never do it as well as this guy.
4. The only thing that scares me more than the phrase “a writer’s writer” is the possibility of a zombie invasion.
5. I’m not really sure where I stand on the whole “a writer must always keep a journal” issue. It seems that there are two camps, and they are as divided as the Capulets and Montagues, but I can’t make up my mind. I’ve had periods when note-taking in journals seemed as essential as breathing, and periods when it just made my mind wander, causing me to accomplish virtually nothing. I think blogging may be the best form of note-taking for someone like me – it’s instant, electronic, immediate, and always up for review.
6. One of the reasons I like David Eggers has to do with the fact that he at least has the courage to point out that the modern definition of high art is far too narrow.
7. Plot is underrated. Vastly. Almost as vastly (and undeservingly) as sparkling wine from Crimea. There, I said it.
Let’s say you’re a young (blue-eyed, snotty, snarky) writer who just doesn’t bloody write like this or this, for example (not that you don’t have tremendous respect and admiration for people who do). Your education cost nearly $200,000, and you realize that you still have no idea what post-modern means, aside from the fact that it probably means Not You.
Nevertheless, you’ve a pile of short stories on your desk (or desktop, as the case may be), and all of them are looking for a home. None of them are sci fi or romance or anything genre-specific. Most of them do not suck.
Where would you submit them? You’ve looked at Adirondack Review and McSweeney’s (duh), but you’re not sure about anything, and you’re also really bloody stressed out (because you’re moving really bloody far next month), and you need help.
So… Help?
It’s also the number of random things I have to list, per Solnushka’s tag. Said things should, naturally, concern me; I suspect I’d have a much better time listing 8 random things about my dog, considering that her personality is a whole lot more complex and charming, but rules are rules.
1. My high school cross country coach once said that “if the sport were changed to Cross Country Complaining, Natalia would take state.”
2. I’m not a mathematically (or even scientifically) – inclined person, but I am very much into design. This, in turn, means that I’m into things like make-up. I’m into the shades and textures, I’m even into the packaging.
3. I think that In Love is the best place to be – and yes, I can say that out loud, and with a straight face, and in mixed company no less.
4. I find Sim City very soothing.
5. In retrospect, I don’t think that “Dead Poets’ Society” was a good movie. I’m sorry.
6. I respect comic actors and writers. I think Steve Carell and Will Ferrell are just as important as Pacino and De Niro. I think Tina Fey is bleedin’ genius.
7. I think pub food is vastly underrated.
8. Drinking beer while walking down a street is a vile habit. I indulge in it all the time. In Kiev. Come rain or shine.
Now let me go ahead and tag – Milo, Rawi, Kevin, Phil, harmonie, and Mythago.
… The characters, that is. I go out to people-watch even when I’m feeling anti-social for weeks on end – because otherwise, I would never, ever get anything done. Even if I’m sitting next to a high school girls’ volleyball team, while writing about marauding space-monkeys; I need the gabbing volleyball players to focus and re-focus the narrative of said marauding space-monkeys (perhaps one of them will end up complaining about patellar tendonitis, a lot). People, strangers in particular, are like sockets I can plug myself into.
Consider this “socket”:
He looks like he may have once been a Southern fried version of Robert Redford. He doesn’t like his new neighbours; they’ve moved to Charlotte all the way down from Noo-Yawk for “the good properties and lower taxes,” but they make fun of his “plantation” accent. He wears a thin cashmere sweater and gold-rimmed glasses; his chin trembles with indignation.
I want to get up and give him a hug, but I jot him down instead.
I have serious work to do today, but before I bury myself beneath it (which is a little bit less appealing than burying oneself beneath, say, a Spartan’s sweaty body… or the nearest equivalent of) – here’s a quick tea-break and an update: new banner! Woo!
I said Venere was never coming down, but I lied.
Oh, and it is me up there now, in case you’re wondering.
Based on the sorry way in which 2006 went. Boy am I glad that farking year is over.
Never drink aga… Nah.Take full responsibility for personal finances, which include, but are not limited to, an enormous student debt, excessive food expenditures, and current lack of freelance jobs. No more waiting to be rescued by people who have no interest in rescuing me.Do at least twenty freelance assignments each season.Finish the writing project I started. No more nancying about due “artistic insecurity” and other pointless crap. I am in charge of my own career. I and no other.Stop switching directions each time a new writing style beckons seductively.Stop being so damn afraid of meeting new people. Case in point: Last night I was pretty much dead-set against going to the party with the actors: “Oh they won’t like me, oh I’ll have to impress them, oh it will be terrible.” I’ve had the best damn New Year’s Eve in the entire history of my pathetic little life, surrounded by strangers. If I had stayed within the safety net of people well-known to me, I would have watched cheap pop shows on the television and gone to bed, stuffed and stiff-jointed and bored, around 3 a.m. I have, as of now, seen the light.Smile each time the alarm wakes me up in the morning. Smile and say, “thank you, God, for allowing me to take a job which humbles me greatly.”Never allow myself to run out of seamed stockings, or live without a good pair of pumps.Take more walks.Learn to cook.Be good. Be good. Be good.
Inspired by zuzu.
Four of these are true, one of these is false.
Which one is false?
1. When I was a kid, I wrote fan-mail to Brad Renfro.
2. I once slept with a complete stranger (he was handsome, so that’s allowed) on a trip to Brussels. He was staying at my hotel, but we actually met in the ice cream parlour across the street.
3. My family and I were once nearly murdered on the German border, by a bunch of drunk Polish traders.
4. During my kooky teenage years, I once jumped off the veranda in platform shoes, and ended up with a swollen ankle. I still, to this day, have no idea why I did what I did.
5. I used to be extremely into Ukrainian religious artwork. I used to draw pictures on Christmas themes, using symbols borrowed from Ukraine’s pagan tradition. When I was little, some of my work went on display in one of Ukraine’s most famous monasteries: the Kievo-Pecherskaya Lavra.
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