120 Days of Popisho

Mon, 25 May 2009 11:39:30 -0400

OK. I have set myself the task of finishing (and editing) my third novel, The Inevitability of Strooops, in the next 120 days.
Making this ambition, this last leg of the journey, so public, I feel the need for a few caveats.

I have picked this date because it IS do-able.
But there are things that can fuck it up.
These things are: Personality Weaknesses, Job Demands, Other People, The Novel Itself and Acts of God.
Personality Weaknesses: lassitude, writer’s block, depression, fatigue, laziness and fear.
Job Demands: self-explanatory. I have a demanding job. But the summer term is for research, and that is what this is.
Other People: this covers all strong emotions caused by lovers; emergencies experienced by friends or family and the need to support them; the necessity of fun - late nights out, for example, or the need to go and look at theatre and movies and museums and to stroll, arm in arm, with people I like, through London. There will be time spent in Berlin and in the Gambia, during this writing period.
Acts of God. AKA crap that happens without warning that may affect my time and my mood.
The Novel Itself: gaps, unexpected plot developments that make me pause for longer than I imagined possible; the time it takes to create a perfect simile. ETC. This is a biggie.

For those Constant Readers, who may be asking: but Leone, were you not nearly finished this bloody novel back in August and did you not compare yourself to Usain Bolt? (see last blog) - I refer you to item 5, for the most part, but also item 8. Oh, and huge wodges of number 6: I fell in love in February. Such things are enormously distracting. Inspiring? Well, not much, really :-). People in love don’t want to write books. They want to spend time with the beloved. You write books when you’ve broken up, or when you’ve got to that comfy, pleasant, trusting stage, or when you’re single and celibate. Or other times. Just not in that first flush of passion. Or maybe some writers do. But I don’t. :-)

So things been happening.
But it’s a new day, chillun, it’s a new day.

THE 120-DAY REPORT

May 18-23: Revving up. Clearing decks. Announced my intention on Facebook: yes, I am a child of this age. Put in the grades of nearly 80 students. Felt that fizzy feeling in my belly, which always comes on when I am about to do some serious writing. Wrote and edited short story The Woman Who Lived In A Restaurant from scratch in about five hours. Sent off to editor. Felt more adrenaline. Attempted to ignore the voice in my head: “oh-shit-oh-shit-oh-shit-oh-shit-oh-shit...”
May 23: Lay on my tummy in the park, making ‘conclusionary notes’ i.e “What about the butterflies, how’s that gonna work? What about the seahorses? What about the relationship on page 32 that I’ve ignored? And ooh, that could happen there. And that could be why she did that. And that’s who that is. Oh, he’s a shape-shifter - that’s cool. And no, that doesn’t make any sense anymore...”
May 24: Other People Day. Much laughter. Fizzing in belly doesn’t go away, but too tired to write in the night.

DAY 1 (25/5/09)
• Updated the street dance scene with background context, music, colour and foreshadowing. I think I’m a convert to writing first, THEN making the transitory connections and putting in the red herrings. It’s hellishly difficult, but it’s actually easier to hide it all and make it sound natural.
Inserted and fiddled the hurricane beating scene. Urgh. Such a disquieting anecdote. Sometimes I wonder what’s wrong with me. Well. Not really ;-)
Re-jigged the structure of three chapters for rhythm and cliffhangers.
Found a ‘job titles’ site so I can grab them at random for perfunctory characters (I can only ever think ‘writer’/’actress’/’shrink’/’accountant’ for jobs). Ooh, there’s such a thing as a ‘mail censor’! They check prison mail for a living...
Used a baby names site for perfunctory character names: names are incredibly important to the people in this novel as people in Popisho think it’s incredibly rude not to address them correctly. And did you know that ‘Dwayne’ is an Aboriginal boy’s name for ‘boomerang’? Or that ‘Beyonce’ means ‘freshwater lagoon’? Alrighty-then...
Began this blog to keep me sane, honest and on-track.
Day 1: edited 3,432 words/new write: 1,024 words
Marred only by personality difficulties - the well-known writer’s tendency to play with Facebook, the laundry, talk on the phone and piss about here...and I did take a nap at one point. But largely, it was a good, good day. 6.5/10

DAY 2 (26/5/09)
Job Demand Day but also Acts of God. I didn’t expect one of those so quickly. Tremendous pain in my hands that began yesterday and has lasted most of today even as I completed my marking. Typing is not fun. This could be a major problem. Um, God? Are you there? It’s me, Leone. You have GOT to be kidding me, right? Carpel Tunnel? RSI? NOW?????

DAY 14 (9/6/09)
i have cts.
yup.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpal_tunnel_syndrome

I AM USAIN BOLT...

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 17:44:53 -0400

Yes, yes. I had to jump on the bandwagon, too.
But I AM Jamaican after all. And I am presently involved in my own equivalent of Usain’s 100 and 200m victories.
He is also involved in making something quite taxing look fuckin’ easy.
And a lot of people WILL say that because of his natural talent, Usain IS finding it easy. Especially when he beats his chest and jogs the last metres home (enough on THAT, already!)
But I know Usain worked like a demon, because excellence don’t just come ‘like that’, whoever wants to say it does.

I am Usain Bolt. I am on my own last lap. And I have been doing it with my own untied shoelace. Fear. Doubt. Lack of time. Lack of belief.
But despite all that, The Inevitability of Strooops is nearly finished.
I am doing 7-10,000 words a day. I have six days of freedom left, give or take.
I can see the end. I can see the finish line.

Beat your chest, big man. I intend to be there beating, just like you, very soon.

xxxLeone

when real people try to get into your book

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 08:42:04 -0400

Yeah. OK. So. Been gone a long time. Lots of work in my day job.
Then...the challenge and gorgeousness that is Jamaica.

I’ve been here for three weeks now, this is the start of Week 4. The first week was simply lost to sunbathing and decompressing. Ill health continued to plague, and that had to be sorted out, or allowed to sort itself out. The last two weeks I’ve felt relatively normal, which in Leone World means periods of actual happiness studded with neurosis.

Which leads me to the point of today’s lecture, Boys and Girls.
To Wit: To What Extent Do You Allow People And Their Crap To Get Into Your Novel-In-Progress (“NIP”) And If They Do Get In, Can They Be Even Vaguely Helpful? (TWEDYAPATCTGIY”NIP”AITDGICTBEVH?)

I used to be very clear on this matter: I sneered at thinly-disguised autobiography dressed up as fiction. Cynical and lazy, I called it. I mean, could you bother yourself to actually think up a plot? Apart from the laziness, I was also worried about the potential for self indulgence and the threat of litigation. Taken together, I had decided that ‘real’ writers do NOT do overtly obvious self-referential. It was a cheat and such writers should be burned at the stake...

Then The Inevitability of Strooops came along.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I was never claiming that my writing had nothing to do with me, and came out of some candy-floss place called Pure Imagination. Of course all my writing is about me and my stuff, in conscious and unconscious ways. It’s an effort to prove a point (or several points) to make various political, psychological and even aesthetic arguments (‘yay, similes’, for example, or, since it’s me, ‘yay: sex’). I’ve included snippets of real life, overheard conversations and a couple of anecdotes from childhood, so shoot me. But let’s say I was never going to do a Terri McMillan (respect, my sister, but h-e-l-lo - we know how your got your groove back and then where it went and who it slept with and we are so terribly sorry for you).

Then, as I said, Strooops. Oh dear god. It is utterly autobiographical. Everything that’s happened in the past 39 years, certainly in the context of my love life plus, bits and pieces that just happen day to day. I’m growing my hair - a character in the novel has supernaturally growing hair; I went to a play yesterday and watched a man picking his nose in a truly original way - yep, page 78; the lead’s a chef, and everything I eat in Jamaica’s what he cooks. But these are harmless things. They may even add integrity and immediacy.

But then something entirely darker can creep in.
Let’s just say I am furious with a certain gentleman at the moment.
And yep, he just got pages 103-107, where I ripped him apart, set the dogs on him and made some extremely bitchy (and untrue) suggestions about his...well, let’s just say, his character and leave it at that. And this is by no means the only time I’ve written about real people and what they’ve done to me in this lovely big book. In fact, I have pretty much written (almost word for word) the meat and matter of several lovers and their business. Let’s say that my girlfriends will recognise them and CREASE up with laughter, and well, the ladies and gents in question will ALSO recognise themselves. Not so much because they agree with my conclusions, but because the circumstances are exactly the same as they were (as in, place and form and time and narrative order). Their mums may not see them for who they are, but they will know themselves. You know that thing you put at the start of a book about any resemblance to any real person living or dead? Well, let’s just say I am slightly fucked, cos I really just...can’t swear to that. Richard, Perline, Scott, Leonard, yeah, it’s all you (those aren’t their names by the way...sorry, I would not do a Perline...)

But there’s another point: while my conclusions about motivation and intent may be my own (and my exes may acknowledge that I’m entitled to do THAT) the fact is that with this particular gent who attracted my wrath today, it’s a step further on. What I’ve written is bitchy conjecture specifically designed to make me feel better and to wreak revenge. I’m even thinking about it this way: he has five weeks to redeem himself, or the pages STAY.
Now what I want to know is: is that OK?
Do I just get to do that?
Cause I just did.
And it seems to pass the Writing Litmus Test. What I mean is: what I’ve included fits. It fits for plot; the wrath is right for the character; it moves the narrative along; in fact, if I don’t take it right back out very soon, and I keep writing, I may not be ABLE to take it out because it’ll become an integral part of the architecture.
So should I just thank the Writing Gods, consider it inspiration, and move on?
Damnit, I can’t. Even as I write this, I know I can’t. Not because I am a wonderfully moral person (o so not - too Cancerian and moody for THAT) but simply because I might change my mind later. And then the damn thing’s in print and it’s TOOOO LATE. And um...the person might read it and be angry or hurt. And I’m a wuss.

In the meantime, I’m still pissed and hurt and confused. Isn’t one of the advantages of literature that you can get revenge? And if he thinks it’s him (in fact, if any of them thinks it’s them) can’t I just pull that ‘You’re So Vain/I bet you think this scene is about you’ defense?

Nah. The writing I’ve done is too specific. It’s personal, hurt, self conscious stuff that should be kept private in a diary. Even though this person seems profoundly unconscious about the effect of his actions, you never know. He might just know exactly what he’s doing to upset me and be getting off on it. And if that’s true, then I have just given the hugest ego boost to an asshole. Or: he might be my future friend. Or husband. And the (hopeful) 2009 publication of my bile might scupper all that...

Oh god, I have got to go delete pages 103-107.
I might need to delete this blog...

Don’t publish autobiographical rage, Boys and Girls. Eventually you realise all you just done did was turn the microscope on YOU, not them.
I knew the answer to my own question all the time: I say it to my students constantly. Literature is not just a self-indulgent wank-fest on the page; it’s craft.

So. To What Extent Do You Allow People And Their Crap To Get Into Your NIP And If They Do Get In, Can They Be Even Vaguely Helpful?

Sure. It is helpful to feel your own rage and to write from that space. Just put it down somewhere private and go back to it in three weeks or three months, and mine gold from it. You know: remind yourself you’ve felt the detail of this emotion and now you can actually objectify that information and use it.
For good, not evil.

I think. :-)

Smooches
xxxLeone

coming on out

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 15:47:49 -0400

I gave my first reading from The Inevitability of Strooops yesterday and now I’m feeling very happy. This is the first time I’ve been nervous to read in years, and while I think a good case of the shakes shows you haven’t started taking anything for granted, I don’t think terror is necessary! And I was quite terrified! I read with Louise Tondeur, my colleague and friend who is a magnificent writer (no pressure then, Lou!) who was also taking the chance to read from her new novel, The Flower House. The audience was lovely: they laughed in the right places, which was a relief. I read the marketplace scene, where Xavier’s business is sooo put out-of-doors...I guess you’ll have to read the novel to find out what the hell I’m talking about.
But seriously...I am so glad that I got up the nerve to put it out there. And I was so glad to do it with Lou, who read from an excerpt that showed off her utter compassion and understanding of children. Giiiirl, we was gooood!
Oh: clearly I feel like Wonder Woman, hence the um...
xxLeone

no dreams...

Wed, 2 Apr 2008 07:44:38 -0400

God, I’m tired.
But in a good way.
Yesterday I plotted. I plotted the whole damn day! And I completely restuctured! And I hate plotting and restructuring!
I still don’t know where I’’m going! But I am going there!
The excess exclamation marks are trying to evoke my odd mood. Hysterical and exhausted, but a feeling that everything is fab!
I’m tired cause I can’t sleep cause it’s all buzzing around in my head all.the. time.
Which is wonderful. Which is exactly where I want to be.
Today, unfortunately, I have to clean my house and I have to read other people’s work. The feeling of resentment about that is tremendous. Nevertheless, I shall think about Xavier and Anise while I clean. And perhaps they will clean with me. Not that Xavier would clean. He is the maceanus, after all, and he is a certain kind of man. Don’t let that put you off, ladies. He has other talents. Yes, what you’re thinking. But I don’t mean that, either...
xxxLeone