Donate to a Good Cause

It's simple. I have a project up at Donors Choose.

Here it is: Book Club Project

Thanks!

Spread the word, if you like.

And the Living is Easy

Well, we finally moved to Brooklyn. It took all summer for us to work out the mortgage, and then last minute problems that prevented us from closing, but we finally closed and moved into our new apartment Labor Day weekend.

We moved into a new 3 story townhouse condo. For those who don't know, a condo doesn't mean over priced glass tower in Williamsburg. It's just a means of ownership, like a co-op. Anyway, we don't live on that side of Brooklyn. We live on the Southern end of Prospect Park, a few blocks east of the park. We're in a heavily West Indian Caribbean neighborhood. We also happened to move in on Carnival weekend. Heard lots of thumping bass from the reggae and what-not playing.

We have a 3 bedroom, and the whole family moved to Brooklyn. Mom, sister, husband, and myself. My mom is always a given, and my sister was an afterthought. It's actually quite nice to be living with my sister again. She and I have good times laughing and talking in our own shorthand. The apartment isn't the most spacious, but then again, we own this thing and will be paying a 30 yr mortgage. It's great for the price and what we could afford. If it was 2 feet wider it would be perfect. That said, we had to really finagle the space issue. Basically we still have too many books. Plus mom's Buddha altar puts restrictions on use of space.

That said, it's coming along nicely. We'll get the last of our furniture tomorrow and then when we clean up and make everything sparkle I'll take some pictures. My dad's really eager to see the place. (He just bought a plot of land in Louisiana for a trailer).

Besides moving into a great home, I started a new job that I really enjoy. It's not easy to manage a library that 6 schools use, but I really love managing a library. I'm on my own and I have to figure out priorities, but I'm enjoying making the space work for teachers and students. So far so good. I had my first experience helping a teacher get research materials for students. That was great.

Then, Pavement announces a tour! You better believe I got tickets for all the NYC shows. I am sure this is a one time thing, so I'm going to go all out. It's Pavement. They've been my favorite band since I was 16 years old. It's my contention that a favorite band doesn't have to be the best band, they just have to make you feel a certain way. They make me feel that something special that makes a band a beloved band.

So, life is pretty good. Maybe I'll get a response from one of the lit mags I submitted to saying they want to publish my story. A woman can dream, can't she?

Welcome the Shelving Cart

I started a sister blog: 5redpandas Shelving Cart
This is where I will write reviews or thoughts about books. Don't ask me why I couldn't just do that on good old Tally Ho Sulky: Redux. I just felt like it.

Anyway, this space will be reserved for long anecdotes of the humorous nature, and the occasional rant.

Carry on friends. Carry on.

Prose Anxiety

\Many of the issues I highlight are probably cause for concern to writers to a higher degree than to readers.

1) Literary publishing is contracting. Some say there are more writers out there than readers. That's a problem for writers who want to publish.

2) Literary publishing seems to be getting desperate. A lit mag recently told me they rely on writers like myself to keep them afloat (even though they won't publish me). They are desperate for subscribers, and I really want my stories to be published so people can read them. But, if I won't subscribe, then who will? (Though it does smack a bit of "pay for play" in a way.)

3) Book trailers strike me as desperate. You could argue that they only advertise, or supplement the book, but I ask- why does this book need to be supplemented in this way? Why isn't it good enough on its own? It also strikes me as a way to make prose seem sexier. But when you do this, doesn't the potential reader just ask themselves, "Well then, why can't I just watch this as a movie?"

4) Book soundtracks strike me as an intrusive supplement. When I write, I shape as much as I care to. Then I trust the reader to get things out of the writing what they will or can, as well as things that I might not have even intended. That's part of the enjoyment of having your writing read. A book soundtrack seems to me a way to further control how a reader experiences the prose. It's almost didactic.

5) I like movies because they can do certain things that prose alone can't do. Still, I like prose better, more often, because it does certain things that movies don't do as well. I explained the psychology/introspection/character study aspect earlier. Those are the main things I'm interested in. Plus, my brain may just be wired to enjoy reading prose more. But, when films do the above really well, then I'm really satisfied.

6) No, really. I do like movies. I didn't always, but my sister, a screenwriter and former film student, taught me how to watch films. She does things in screenwriting that I don't do in prose. I don't write dialogue as much. She probably has a better ear for it than I do. Still, I'm more often disappointed with a movie than a prose piece.

7) I like pretty pictures, and comics and graphic novels! I do. I even like pretty covers. I guess I feel like they don't highlight the things that prose can't do, as much as a book trailer does. They just sort of stand on the side and don't steal the show. It feels more seamless to me.

8) That said, some graphic novels should have just been prose. You know who you are. The images didn't add to the text. If there are images, they should add to the text and do things that text can't do.

9) I really like technology, hence this blog, and other tools I use. I'm not threatened by e-readers, though I probably wouldn't use them often. I abuse books and I flip back and forth, and look at all aspects of it from the author photo, to the reviews, to the illustrations, to the blurbs, to previous chapters. I think doing so on an e-reader would give me a headache and hurt my eyes. I tried reading the New Yorker in digital format but I found that it took me longer, and I couldn't sit there for very long, as opposed to how I read the print magazine. It's also harder to browse an electronic format. Sometimes I want to browse.

10) I had actually conceived my novel as being novel in stories with illustrations. I was all for it, but it turns out that I'm not entirely happy with what I wrote. I no longer have a desire to publish it, or have people read it. I'm starting over again with some of the same ideas/stories but writing it from 3rd person, without illustrations. If I added illustrations now, it would be completely gratuitous and not be of any service to the story. Still, I don't think I would be opposed to writing a prose piece with illustrations one day. And I'd love a pretty, eye-catching cover.

11) I could see myself collaborating with my sister on a screenplay one day. Like I said, I like movies. There are certain types of stories that I think work better in film. I also think certain novels should have just been films.

12) Finally, my ego is hurting a bit. When prose writing isn't seen as dynamic enough, that seems like a criticism of the very thing I've spent most of my life trying to get good at. It's depressing to think that prose writing just isn't valued very much any more. It's kind of like discovering that you've spent your life learning how to make something that is completely irrelevant and obsolete. Especially if it's the only thing you know how to do, or the one thing you were any good at. I guess when a writer gets their back up about a book trailer, what they're really annoyed about is the idea that what they did simply wasn't good enough on its own. Their prose voice is no longer the center of attention, and the only authority. The ego is a big thing when it comes to writing because if you didn't have one you wouldn't be delusional enough to think that the story you're writing was worth writing, or reading.

Why Write a Book, Anyway?

You know what bothers me, on a philosophical level? Book Trailers. Like a movie trailer, the book trailer gets you excited about the book. And like a movie trailer it gives you video images related to the plot or essence of the book.

So, why do I hate this? Well, because, if this is where we're going, then why should anyone write a book anymore, anyway? Why aren't we all just writing screenplays? Now, I know why I don't write screenplays, namely because that's just not how I think, or write. Films are generally driven by dialogue and action. I think about the psychology of characters- dialogue is one way of expressing a character, but I also have the liberty of getting inside a character's head in a way that most films can't do unless they use voice over narration- something that should be seen as a crutch if you're trying to make a good film. Leave the narration to the page. That's where it belongs. Psychology and introspection are the things that I have over screen writers. An image on a screen will be more immediate than any metaphor that I can write (though may not be as thought provoking if its a damn good metaphor). Yet there are all these book trailers now. I guess I'm not bothered by book trailers with authors speaking about a book, but ones that animate the book, or come up with visual representations of the book, well that's just one step removed from declaring prose completely unnecessary. Why bother?

It's really kind of depressing if you think about it. Is this the only way we can get people to read books? By packaging them like they're movies? We're screwed.

Black Magic

It's been a day since I came up with the brilliant idea for a Jarvis Cocker biopic starring James Urbaniak. I think we're gaining some traction on this idea since Urbaniak himself has sallied forth a rally cry to Hollywood to "git 'er done". Let's see what Twitter can actually do, people. I'm counting on you all to make sure some art gets made.

If my sister weren't already writing a screenplay I'd get her ass cracking on this project, but alas, she is not available. I don't know how to write a screenplay, but maybe when I'm having some problems with my novel I will try my hand at it. Can't hurt anyone (except myself), right?

Updates forthcoming.

Writing

I uploaded some of my writing HERE . Check it out. Two humorous short stories, two realistic fiction short stories, one humor essay I wrote a while back. The longest piece is part of a novel I'm working on, but it will appear in slightly different form.

Feedback appreciated.