Richard Russo is Ruining My Life

Anne Lamott told me to listen to my broccoli, and I did. Or, at least I thought I did. In actuality, I was listening to Richard Russo's.

You see, I wrote a short story a couple years ago called "Trespassers" about a group of children in an orphanage who escape to the abandoned convent across the field. The main character has a safe word he mumbles to himself whenever he's scared. For this, he thought of the least scary word there is: broccoli.

The unfortunate thing here is Richard Russo thought of it first. And what's more--somewhere in the back of my mind I knew this. Why I dislike Russo is another blog post altogether. Anyway, I may not like him personally, but even I can admit he's a damn good screen writer. This being said, Keeping Mum is one of my favorite movies. It's a fun, silly British comedy with Maggie Smith, Rowan Atkinson, and Patrick Swayze to name a few. In it, Rowan Atkinson's son is being bullied at school. Maggie Smith signs on as a nanny, and one day she tells him to think of a magic word--any word. He chooses broccoli.

I remembered this scene abruptly about two months ago while riding in my boyfriend's car. I became outraged. Richard Russo stole my broccoli! And then I thought back to the date the film was made: 2005. No, no. He didn't steal anything from me; I stole from him. This man whom I am loath to admire is the one from whom I plagiarized.

There are no grand revelations in this post other than the fact that my mind likes to screw me over now and then by prompting me with things I think are original, when, in fact, they aren't. This includes, but is not limited to, titles of poems. I wrote a poem about fall in New England a little over a year ago and couldn't think of a good title. I thought of the leaves crunching on the ground beneath winter boots, and my brain said, "Eureka! 'Trampled Under Foot.'" On the score of its originality, I think Led Zeppelin would disagree.

You might protest and say, "Well, Russo isn't the one ruining your life. You are! Or, your brain, anyway." And you'd be right. Just let me have my drama for now. It's apparently all I have.

2011 Book List

It's that time of year again. I could wait until the 31st to post this, but I doubt I'll finish another book before then. And if I do, I'll just ammend the list. As always, books I recommend will have an asterisk next to them. And just because something doesn't have an asterisk next to it doesn't mean I didn't like it.

My goal for this year was to read 50 books, and I'm pleased as punch to announce I surpassed my goal.

1. Illumination Night - Alice Hoffman*

2. Wizard's First Rule - Terry Goodkind

3. Ethan Frome - Edith Wharton

4. Long Day's Journey Into Night - Eugene O'Neill

5. Take the Cannoli - Sarah Vowell

6. The Haunting of Hill House - Shirley Jackson*

7. Empire Falls - Richard Russo

8. The Beans of Egypt, Maine - Carolyn Chute

9. Traveling Mercies - Anne Lamott*

10. Murder on the Orient Express - Agatha Christie

11. Selected Stories - Andre Dubus

12. Elizabeth Bishop the Complete Poems*

13. The Early Church - Henry Chadwick

14. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald*

15. The Heart of the Matter - Graham Greene

16. Poetic Form: An Introduction - David Kaplan

17. The Mind's Eye: A Guide to Writing Poetry - Kevin Clark

18. 100 Great Poets of the English Language - Dana Gioia

19. One Art: Elizabeth Bishop Letters

20. Bless Me, Ultima - Rudolfo Anaya*

21. The Little Prince - Antoine de St. Exupery***

22. The BFG - Roald Dahl*

23. I Am Legend - Richard Matheson

24. Pride of Baghdad - Brian K. Vaughan

25. Blankets - Craig Thompson*

26. World War Z - Max Brooks*

27. The Complete Persepolis - Marjane Satrapi

28. On Writing - Stephen King*

29. Angela's Ashes - Frank McCourt

30. The Color Purple - Alice Walker*

31. Lord of the Flies - William Golding*

32. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer - Mark Twain

33. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius - Dave Eggers

34. Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro*

35. In Cold Blood - Truman Capote

36. Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson

37. Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett*

38. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck*

39. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain

40. The Last Unicorn - Peter S. Beagle*

41. Howl's Moving Castle - Dianna Wynne Jones*

42. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey*

43. The Bluest Eye - Toni Morrison

44. Did You Say Chicks?! - Ed. Esther Friesner

45. Stardust - Neil Gaiman*

46. Push - Sapphire

47. King Rat - China Mieville

48. A Dirty Job - Christopher Moore*

49. The Complete Maus - Art Spiegelman*

50. Dog Blood - David Moody

51. Mirror Mirror - Gregory Maguire

52. Sonnets from the Portuguese - Elizabeth Barrett Browning

53. Mythology - Eith Hamilton

54. Me Talk Pretty One Day - David Sedaris*

55. Tent Number Eight - Gloyd McCoy

56. Lamb - Christopher Moore*

57. Night - Elie Wiesel

58. A Grief Observed - C.S. Lewis

Soooooo yeah

That whole I'm-going-to-post-more-really-I-promise-I-am thing? Sorry about that.

One of my friends has pointed out the error of my ways, and I am here to rectify it.

However, it's 5:09 in the morning, and I've been up since 2:00. The reason?

When I was just about to fall asleep, I had a sudden thought. This was that thought: "Did I take my sleep aid medication? I don't remember! But that would be bad if I took a second dose. Eh, I'm really sleepy. I bet I took it."

I was wrong.

I'll make no more posting promises this semester--this fall marks the start of my journey through Capstone, and this is the busiest I've been in a long time. Capstone, other classes, work, making necklaces, submitting writing (yes, I really am submitting), and oh, talking to my wonderful boyfriend. I feel he needs a mention here.

So anyway, this friend told me that I should write a poem for/about him. Here are the fruits of my 5:00am labors.

Limerick for Nick

There once was a young man from Sweden,
who shunned the fruits of Eden,
preferring prawn crackers,
and making rice snackers—
he really liked stuff by Joss Whedon.

Cough Cough

So, for those of you who are kind enough to still follow me, you might have noticed my severe lack of updating these days.

And you may or may not have noticed that I deleted about 50% of my posts on here. It's not that I don't love you or that I don't want to share my work. It's just lately I've grown paranoid. I read somewhere that most journals don't like to publish poems which have been previously posted on blogs. Not that I've submitted anything in the last two months, but still. The poems I have left up are special for one reason or another, and I will probably still continue to post more of my creative work in the future. In fact, I need to in order to keep myself accountable. I haven't been writing a lot recently. In fact, I've really not been writing at all.

I had an idea that I should finish up the novel I'm working on (a full draft of it anyway) by the end of the summer. That just isn't happening. Life really decided to get in the way. It has a funny way of doing that, you know? At least all this life has given me things to write about. Boy, has it.

Next semester marks the beginning of my senior year in college. That means Capstone. I know I will be doing a creative project. What will I be doing? I hope I can answer that question by the time proposals are due in the fall. I'm considering poetry more and more. Something in my head keeps telling me, "Work on your prooooose." But my heart bleeds in meter. I might just be jonesing for another Bishop experience, but I can't see anything wrong with that. I'd love to immerse myself in another poet mentor and just let their work wash over me.

Dear God. Dear stars, dear trees, dear sky, dear peoples. Dear everything. Dear God.

How much better can thoughts on writing be than the ones freshly evoked when some piece of literature stirs you?

I've been reading The Color Purple by Alice Walker, and it resonated deep inside me.

"Dear Nettie,
I don't write to God no more, I write to you.
What happen to God? ast Shug.
Who that? I say.
She look at me serious."

I want to convey how these passages made me feel--what they made me think, but I'm not sure I can do that quite yet.

"She say, Celie, tell the truth, have you ever found God in church? I never did. I just found a bunch of folks hoping for him to show. Any God I ever felt in church I brought in with me. And I think all the other folks did too. They come to church to share God, not find God. "

Shug and Celie are talking very seriously in this chapter--Celie's in her forties at this point and has experienced much in life. However, she still has questions and doubts. She writes to her sister Nettie, believing that Nettie's still alive out there somewhere. Shug's character develops so much through the course of this novel--if you haven't read it, you need to soon. I could probably read it through again and just focus on Shug.

"Naw, she say. God made it. Listen, God love everything you love--and a mess of stuff you don't. But more than anything else, God love admiration.
You saying God vain? I ast.
Naw, she say. Not vain, just wanting to share a good thing. I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it.
What it do when it pissed off? I ast.
Oh, it make something else. People think pleasing God is all God care about. But any fool living in the world can see it always trying to please us back."

These quotations are all from the same chapter. In my copy, it starts on page 199. A groundbreaking epistolary novel, a testament to the human spirit, a shining example of strong women in literature--of strong African American women in literature. I didn't think I would love it this much.

On Writing A Memoir of the Craft

^That is what I'm currently reading. There are a lot of things from it I'd like to share, but there are so many I think I'd break several hundred copyright laws in doing so. That being said, if you're a writer--read this book. Go out and buy it. That way you can mark it up and make personal notes to yourself. If you're someone who struggles with passive voice and the overabundance of adverbs (points to self), you need to know it. Stephen King will tell you--he's telepathic, trust me.

Another thing--"Murder your darlings" was a quote originally by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, but commonly misattributed to many other writers such as William Faulkner (by yours truly). I was informed of this on page 196 of On Writing. Oops.

One more thing--Stephen King just gave me one dollar.

I found it sandwiched between pages 212 and 213. In actuality, it's probably just the book marker from some businessman who bought a copy of this book at an airport store, hoping to alleviate some layover stress. However, I'm taking it as a personal token. The sentence this dollar was resting on is, "Get back to work on it! Hell, you're ready! You're fuckin Shakespeare!"

Please note that this is entirely out of context and not intending for me to brazenly plow my way through the manuscript. However, I'm taking it at face value anyway--this book about writing keeps telling me to write. So, I have some work to do.

Sound Advice

“Read a lot of poetry—all the time—and not 20^th century poetry. Read Campion, Herbert, Pope, Tennyson, Coleridge—anything at all almost that’s any good, from the past—until you find out what you really like, by yourself. Even if you try to imitate it exactly—it will come out quite different. Then the great poets of our own century—Marianne Moore, Auden, Wallace Stevens—and not just 2 or 3 poems each, in anthologies—read ALL of somebody. Then read his or her life, and letters, and so on. (And by all means read Keats’s Letters.) Then see what happens.”

This advice comes from Elizabeth Bishop in a letter she wrote to "Miss Pierson." According to the book One Art: Letters, "The identity of Miss Pierson , obviously a stranger to EB, is unknown. The editor is grateful to James Merrill, whocame into possession of this letter in Amherst at a book-signing event, where he was given a copy by a man who disappeared before explaining how he acquired it. It bears EB's full signature."

I'd like to think that mysterious man was a time traveler and that "Miss Pierson" is an error because of handwriting and that it actually said "Miss Kristin." I've been reading a lot of poetry, seemingly all the time. I tried to imitate Keats and Bishop, and it's turned out quite differently. I read ALL of bishop and then her life, her letters, and so on. However, I've not read Keats's letters yet.

All things considered, I'm pretty pleased with my progress. And I'm also very sad. I had to let Elizabeth die. Again. The last word she ever wrote was "affectionately." Polite until the end.