Some things going on with me this week:
I came to the realization that I cannot participate or work artistically with people who create or tacitly accept sexist, vapid, or otherwise fully unrealized characterizations of women. I'm not going to play nice. I'm just going to leave. I hate that shit. I feel powerless to change it. How do I explain that women have lives and interests beyond fucking men, making themselves look nice for men, fighting over men, and acting like ditzes because of men? Does anyone care? I guess not. Anyway, I will not accept, praise, or participate in anything retrograde, anything that does not acknowledge that women are people who exist not simply to be either fucked or scorned by men but who actually, you know...have lives.
I don't get what's so difficult about that.
I need to find a new artistic community in Austin because I'm going through an earnest phase and as much as I love the 'provvers, they don't fill that need.
I just want to be heady and taken seriously and talk about writing in a scary, serious way. I want to be pretentious, black-wearing, coastal, and tedious.
I want to talk about Carolee Schneeman. Hell, I want to be with people who know who she is.
Of course, creative communities always fall apart. Utopia is dead. There will always be in-fighting and bullshit.
I really want to gambol in a meadow right now. But there aren't any good meadows for hundreds of miles.
I want to build a giant papier mache head with other people who want to build giant papier mache heads.
I want mud.
Hell, I just miss Vermont right now. That's all this is.
Meadows and mud and gamboling and giant papier mache heads.
That is all.
That is all I yearn for today.
I am drinking Coca Cola and watching traffic go by.
Next month I will be performing in a play based on The Magnetic Field's magnum opus 69 Love Songs!
There will be 69 short plays performed over three weekends. As I will be away at my bro's high school graduation the weekend of Disc 3, I am only in Disc 1 and 2 plays.
For fans of the album, and for the reference of friends, these are the songs/plays I have been cast in:
I Don't Want To Get Over You
I Think I Need a New Heart
The Book of Love
When My Boy Walks Down the Street
Grand Canyon
No One Will Ever Love You
Promises of Eternity
Kiss Me Like You Mean It
Show opens May 21 at Salvage Vanguard Theater!
So this is what happened. Best of intentions, etc. Well:
A few weeks ago I attended a networking luncheon for local female authors. I've gone before. It's a pleasant way to meet new and interesting people. A few women are published, most are emerging or aspiring.
I struck up a conversation with a woman who I overheard talking about her agent and her book deal. I asked her the usual questions: how'd you get that book deal? Whose your agent? What do you write? And she told me. You know: shop talk. I told her about my novel. The standard log line I tell everyone.
She invites me to join her critique group. "Okay," I say, since I always yes-and these things.
And then Red Flag #1 goes up:
"Is there any sex or violence in your novel."
Hmmm. "There's sex. I don't write erotica. But there is a chapter where my protagonist has her wedding night and it's as awkward and painful as hell. Definitely not titillating."
I wonder what she's got against sex and violence. I mean, I don't really like a ton of gratuitous violence, but I think it can be done well. Hell, I've been watching Dexter all week. And sex! Sex is so integral to the human experience that to categorically reject it and not take into account the author's treatment of it...
Red flag #2. And this red flag is like a football field-sized Communist China flag waving over the entire restaurant.
She leaned into me and said something along the lines of "I just need to know that you're a real writer. I mean, you said you wrote a novel, but how do I know you're not some hack wannabe?" I forget exactly what how she put, but she had just gotten finished telling me about her award and her publishing deal. I felt like she'd Alpha-Dogged me. No one, not even the dozen or so agents I've chatted with over the years, had ever grilled me quite this way. It made me really uncomfortable.
I gave her my resume and named-dropped my famous mentor. Actually, it was the name drop that made her lose the Alpha Dog act. "Oh! Well, I guess you could lead the group then." Hee hee.
I had a bad feeling, but I went ahead and sent my chapters along to this woman and the other woman in the group. Alpha Lady sends me her chapter.
Janet Evanovich is fucking successful beyond anyone's wildest dreams for one reason and one reason only and that's because Stephanie Plum is such an irresistibly lovable character. You can't help but want to be her friend, to root for her, to fear for her life when something goes wrong out in the wilds of southern New Jersey. Every character in the Plum series is beautifully fleshed out. There's not a damn dud in the bunch. So when I was presented with this woman's heroine, I was really shocked. I read the thing four times just to make sure I didn't miss anything. Then I went to Bookpeople to read the first chapters of similar titles. No way in hell could I stay with such a negative, complainy, bitchy, judgmental, clichéd, trite, dispassionate crime-solver. I'm only going to paraphrase here, but we were supposed to dislike one character because she of her bad eating habits, another for being stupid, and another for being a shallow shopaholic with expensive taste. I tried to find at least one detail about this character that could make me feel an iota of affection for her and simply couldn't.
I have never felt such hatred for a body of work in my life.
I've been in a lot of writing groups. I've taken tons of classes. I don't love the critique process, but I know the rules. I know it's bad form to not find at least one or two positive things to say about. And usually I can. Because writing is hard. Because beginners need encouragement. Because there often is something redeemable and I can help identify opportunities for development. I've written my fair share of shitty first and second drafts. I'm not perfect. I'm just one person with one opinion. But I'm not going to put myself in a position where I'm lying to someone (who was rude in the first place).
So I wrote her a short but kind of harsh e-mail, telling her I didn't think I was a good match for the group, and that after reading her manuscript, I found her narrator so negative and unsympathetic that I couldn't read anymore. Thanks anyway, good luck, bla bla bla.
Harsh, huh? I'm never harsh like this. I never would have done this to someone in my Monday night group, though I would give the note about too much negativity to anyone. But yeah: terse little "I can't bear to read your negative novel" note from moi. What the hell got into me? Was it all the shitty shit that happened to me last year? Did it change me? Probably. Was I being impolitic? Maybe. We'll see if this one bites me in the ass in the future.
Anyway, the moral of all this is trusting my gut. Let this be a lesson of trusting your intuition and not entering into false collaborations with people you know you can't work with.
And above all, make sure your main character has attributes that are likable. Why do we care about Humbert Humbert? Why does Holden Caulfield still matter sixty years later? Your character doesn't have to be nice and sweet all the time, but there has to be something. There has to be a soul somewhere, or else I'm going to walk away.
1. In conversations with random writer-types, the conversation invariably turned to Dave Eggers.
2. I don't really like salad unless it's Caesar from a restaurant. I'm a salad-poseur. I'd rather eat other vegetables.
3. I was forced to think about the sexual content of Novel #2. Yes, there is sex, but it is awkward, painful, and definitely unerotic. No titillation unless you're got a thing for 44-year-old dudes with Marfan syndrome boning chubby 18-year-olds who refuse to take off their bras.
4. My cholesterol is 195, which is borderline high.
5. I had the Dictionary dream twice. (about average)
6. I really love freshly washed sheets. I should wash my sheets more often.
7. Elinor wrote a lovely Modern Love piece about her darling late husband, Bob: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/11/fashion/11LOVE.html?ref=fashion. I got verklempt reading it.
8. I have really great friends.
9. I spent all week happy because Borpe's coming to Austin tonight.
10. The soap in the Bouldin Creek bathroom smells so heavenly that I wash my hands when I'm here even if I don't need to use the bathroom.
Comments from a recent Pandagon piece by Amanda Marcotte:
"When I asked him why he could never support me and back me up the way I had with all of his half-baked business ideas, his response was “Because I can’t identify with your goals.” And it suddenly occurred to me one of the main cultural differences between men and women: women in relationships feel obligated to support their mates’ professional goals regardless of whether they understand the appeal and make sacrifices in order to help their mate succeed; men support their mates’ professional goals if they understand the appeal or it doesn’t require any real sacrifice on their part. Indeed, how often do men move across the country for a girlfriend or wife getting a great job or going to grad school, compared to the number of women who do the same? I mean, for how many men does it even occur to them that they should do this if what they’ve got going on can be transferred to a new city relatively easily rather than put his girlfriend/wife in the position of either ending the relationship or putting her goals aside?"
Bob referred to Western Mass as "bumfuck" last night. That is not true. Though rural-ish, it's got all the damn retail any reasonable person would need, plus restaurants. Okay, maybe not Austin-type restaurants, such as 100+ awesome Mexican places and Texas BBQ (though there are Mexican places and BBQ).
There is/are:
Target (the world's cleanest Target, I might add)
Wal-Mart
Trader Joe's
Movie theaters, both mainstream and arty
Ginormous supermarket
A big mall
Costco
Harbor Freight Tools
rock clubs
David Sedaris shows up, like, 50 times a year
Awesome independent coffeeshops, including the divine Lady Killigrew
Theater
Art
independent book stores AND a B&N AND a Borders (if that's your thing)
Could use some more improv, but yeah, there's improv troupes
Late-night diners
In addition, Western Mass boasts:
the rail trail
verdant natural deliciousness
Friendly's
a Tibetan restaurant that serves yak meat
Rachel Maddow as a resident
a bison farm
apple orchards, apple picking, apple cider pressing
Mount Pollux!!!
Williamstown, Jacob's Pillow, Tanglewood, bitches!!!
And of course, if urbanity is your thang (I dislike urbanity):
Boston: 1.5 hours as the car drives
NYC: 3 hours as the Amtrak train moves
NOT BUMFUCK.