I signed for that National November Writing Month challenge. You have to write 50,000 words in 30 days, which people have calculated to be 1,666 words a day. Every three days you should have completed 5,000 words. It starts tomorrow on November 1 and ends on November 30.
I decided to work on the Following in the Dark novel, only because I've been kicking around this novel idea since 1998 and haven't ever written anything for it except a few odd lines here and there. I'm going to start it from scratch and just keep writing and hopefully I'll get 50,000 words of it completed. I think it might be longer than 50,000 words but who knows.
God, I'm nervous. I dont' know if I can do this but I feel compelled to do it just so I can start writing my novel instead of just talking about writing it. I don't think I can even hand write it because I don't really have time to type. I've been thinking I need to buy a little baby laptop but I can't decide what kind to get. I'd get a real laptop if I could get more than a 2 hour battery usage time, but the technology isn't there yet. Those baby laptops have at least an 8 hour battery life span and they're so small you can bring them anywhere and type.
I am looking forward to doing this writing challenge and whatever happens, at least I'll have my novel started.
Wednesday, October 31, 2001
Sunday, October 28, 2001
I saw a preview of the musical version of James Joyce's 'The Dead" yesterday. I am an avid theatre goer, attending at least over a dozen plays a year. This new play is very good. I rarely cry at theatre performances. The actors have to really be very good to get me to cry and I teared up at least three times in this play. Part of me wonders if I am still emotinally raw because of September 11. I don't know and I'm not sure I'll ever know. It's just very unusual for me to cry at theatre.
I was surprised by how touching this play was and I am tempted to reread Joyce's short story. There were some very raw moments in this play. And by raw moments I mean, moments that are so true to emotion that it's almost embarrassing to watch. Very few playwrights show how life as how it really is sometimes; so painful that it sometimes feel like you got decked right in your stomach, where you hysterical and unreasonable, where afterwards you sit and wonder how you could have acted that way. And the actors let us see it all.
When I tear up at a play, for me it's a combination of great playwriting and a very good performance. I don't believe you can have one without the other.
Other thoughts floating through my mind. I've been watching TV sports today. When I was into my tennis craze in junior hight and practicing my strokes in front of a mirror, I thought Jimmy Connors was so cute. I was flipping channels and he was playing a match with John McEnroe. And much to my surprise, I thought he was still cute. I felt like I was 13 again for the briefest of second. Speaking of boys, Jim Haslett also looks very good looking to me. He reminds me of this guy that I dated in 1999 with his reddish blonde hair and soft voice and every time I see him, I think cute.
I've also been watching the baseball games and I've decided that Kurt Schilling is also very cute in teddy bear kind of way. I also like his story of how he came back and has become the great pitcher he is today. My A's have lost and now the Yankees are playing the Diamondbacks. My best friend from NYC says I should be rooting for the Yankees to win since it would be good for a city that will be mourning for a very long time. I like the Diamondbacks. I don't like them when they're playing the Giants because I am also Giants fan, just because I live her in SF. But for the world series, I like the Diamondbacks. I think they're a very good team, much better than the Yankees on paper. But you can't count the Yankees out just yet. They have so much experience playing in the post season, but it would be nice to have another team win the world series this year.
I was surprised by how touching this play was and I am tempted to reread Joyce's short story. There were some very raw moments in this play. And by raw moments I mean, moments that are so true to emotion that it's almost embarrassing to watch. Very few playwrights show how life as how it really is sometimes; so painful that it sometimes feel like you got decked right in your stomach, where you hysterical and unreasonable, where afterwards you sit and wonder how you could have acted that way. And the actors let us see it all.
When I tear up at a play, for me it's a combination of great playwriting and a very good performance. I don't believe you can have one without the other.
Other thoughts floating through my mind. I've been watching TV sports today. When I was into my tennis craze in junior hight and practicing my strokes in front of a mirror, I thought Jimmy Connors was so cute. I was flipping channels and he was playing a match with John McEnroe. And much to my surprise, I thought he was still cute. I felt like I was 13 again for the briefest of second. Speaking of boys, Jim Haslett also looks very good looking to me. He reminds me of this guy that I dated in 1999 with his reddish blonde hair and soft voice and every time I see him, I think cute.
I've also been watching the baseball games and I've decided that Kurt Schilling is also very cute in teddy bear kind of way. I also like his story of how he came back and has become the great pitcher he is today. My A's have lost and now the Yankees are playing the Diamondbacks. My best friend from NYC says I should be rooting for the Yankees to win since it would be good for a city that will be mourning for a very long time. I like the Diamondbacks. I don't like them when they're playing the Giants because I am also Giants fan, just because I live her in SF. But for the world series, I like the Diamondbacks. I think they're a very good team, much better than the Yankees on paper. But you can't count the Yankees out just yet. They have so much experience playing in the post season, but it would be nice to have another team win the world series this year.
Thursday, October 25, 2001
I really want to rewrite my Hot Day in Dallas story over and I'm thinking that a four part flash fiction story might work. Four parts to the story, all written in 2000 words or less or 1000, I think the more concise the scene is the better, so it would be like images on
on top of the other, but still creating a story.
No title yet but I've got subtitles for the four parts.
1) Right Between the Eyes - January
2) Reality - April
3) Expectations - August
4) Past History – March
Here's a few lines I wrote part 1.
***********************************
Right Between the Eyes - January
I got to know him before I ever met him through that wonderful modern invention called email. In my estimation, he was smart. His emails were always grammatically correct, worded correctly and polite, so polite. Each time I asked him a question he always had an answer that sounded good, even though I knew that he was sometimes totally full of it. If you were going to be totally fully of it, I think you should at least sound like you know what you’re talking about. Sometimes attitude is everything, even in an email. And Marshall definitely wrote like he had an attitude.
He was in my Dallas office and to me he was a new species of person. I didn’t know anyone from Texas, let alone a Texas male. My head was full of images of cowboys, Lee Harvey Oswald, LBJ, and George Bush Sr. I could imagine him wearing a ten-gallon cowboy hat, tight jeans and rattlesnake skin cowboy boots. I pictured him tall with a handlebar mustache or some kind of facial hair. He’d like his women busty with big blonde hairsprayed to death hair, a big toothy grin and the IQ of a loyal puppy dog. He'd walk with a swagger and be bow-legged like he'd spent all his life on horse. I couldn't wait to meet my walking and breathing stereotype.
***********************************
on top of the other, but still creating a story.
No title yet but I've got subtitles for the four parts.
1) Right Between the Eyes - January
2) Reality - April
3) Expectations - August
4) Past History – March
Here's a few lines I wrote part 1.
***********************************
Right Between the Eyes - January
I got to know him before I ever met him through that wonderful modern invention called email. In my estimation, he was smart. His emails were always grammatically correct, worded correctly and polite, so polite. Each time I asked him a question he always had an answer that sounded good, even though I knew that he was sometimes totally full of it. If you were going to be totally fully of it, I think you should at least sound like you know what you’re talking about. Sometimes attitude is everything, even in an email. And Marshall definitely wrote like he had an attitude.
He was in my Dallas office and to me he was a new species of person. I didn’t know anyone from Texas, let alone a Texas male. My head was full of images of cowboys, Lee Harvey Oswald, LBJ, and George Bush Sr. I could imagine him wearing a ten-gallon cowboy hat, tight jeans and rattlesnake skin cowboy boots. I pictured him tall with a handlebar mustache or some kind of facial hair. He’d like his women busty with big blonde hairsprayed to death hair, a big toothy grin and the IQ of a loyal puppy dog. He'd walk with a swagger and be bow-legged like he'd spent all his life on horse. I couldn't wait to meet my walking and breathing stereotype.
***********************************
My asian art history class went on a field trip to the Asian Art History Museum in Golden Gate Park before it closed. For our assignment, we were supposed to pick out a piece of artwork we liked and then write a diary entry of two or more pages double spaced from either the point of view of the artist creating the artwork or the point of view of a viewer at the time when the artwork was created.
This was a fun story to write, even though it was an assignment. The name of the artwork is the title of the piece.
Lintel – Reddish sandstone, Angkor Wat or early Bayon period – 12th Century CE Cambodia
Today the art school faculty is reviewing my work. I worked long and hard on my masterpiece and if I am lucky, they will choose my lintel for one of the great temples. Perhaps they may even use it at the great temple Angkor Wat. Although we are far away from the capital and north of the Dangrek Mountains, many works from our school are on temple walls. If they pick my lintel, I will be able to leave the school and apply to work at one of the great temples to be a full time stone carver. To be a temple stone carver at the age of 25 is unheard of, but I am confident of my own abilities. My father would be proud to have a son who is a stone carver, since I am the only son who does not own farm the land. I have dreamt of being a temple stone carver all my life and this lintel is my masterpiece.
I spent many months carving out the sandstone and even more months picking out what story from the Ramayana to depict. My mother told me many stories in my youth of the great monkey king Hanuman and his exploits and he is my favorite god and hero. Hanuman had to be on my lintel.
Reading the Ramayana repeatedly, I decided my favorite scene was the one with Kumbharkarna, evil King Ravana’s brother and King Hanuman. In this scene Kumbharkarna the demon, who is also called “Jug Ears because of his giant ears, is surrounded by Hanuman’s fighting monkey soldiers. The evil god cannot escape and he swallows two of the monkey soldiers but they escape out of his giant ears. I prayed nightly to Hanuman for inspiration and blessings and I hope I have captured the great Monkey King’s bravery and spirit.
In my design, I placed King Hanuman on the right side of the stone since I wanted to show him commanding his army. On his head, I gave him a crown, not a fancy crown, but a simple battle crown. I depicted Hanuman and his monkey soldiers wearing battle dhotis and necklaces of round beads. To show my prowess with stone carving, I carved each monkey’s dhoti with parallel lines. To carve such detail is difficult and I spent many days on these dhotis.
I gave the monkeys a uniform war bib in the shape of the letter ‘V’. On each bib, I carved circles to match the round beads of their necklaces, knowing my art teachers will appreciate the repetition of the circle forms.
I repeated the round curves with the serpentine arm and leg shapes of the monkey legion. I carved the monkeys bodies to be curving like a vine and if you step back from the piece, you can see their curvilinear shape and how they almost entwine.
I placed Kumbharkarna on the left directly opposite Hanuman and dressed him in ceremonial clothes for two reasons. One, Kumbharkarna is a king and should be attired as such and two, I wanted to show the demon god dressed in fancy clothes to reflect his arrogance and disregard for the power of Hanuman’s army. I carved Kumbharkarna‘s dhoti with many more parallel lines than the simple battle dhotis worn by the monkeys. I also gave Kumbharkarna a more intricately carved crown than Hanuman. Again, I liked the contrast between the two kings; Hanuman wearing a simple battle crown and the arrogant Kumbharkarna wearing a ceremonial crown, showing how he thought he could easily defeat his monkey foes with little or no effort. Kumbharkarna is also wearing ceremonial jewelry, which repeats his misplaced confidence in his ability to defeat Hanuman, not to mention my stone carving abilities.
I carved the figure of Kumbharkarna to almost the height of the stone to show the difference in size between him and the monkey legion. It looks very dramatic to see the giant King Kumbharkarna surrounded and immobilized by the monkeys who are as only as short as his leg. I also made Kumbharkarna very wide to further emphasize the size discrepancy between him and the monkeys.
Stepping back yesterday after I finished to admire my own art, I marveled at how the monkeys were so uniform in size and shape. I carved the stone down so the figures stick out from the flat surface. The monkeys look alive, almost three-dimensional. Their arms and legs are round and life like; it looks like someone placed the monkeys sideways in the stone.
I am nervous. I think my art is good but is it good enough for a temple. I don’t know. Praying at my shrine to Hanuman, I asked him to bless my lintel. I also prayed to the great god Vishnu to grant me his favors today. It will be up to the art faculty to decide whether I have captured the spirit of this Ramayana scene.
This was a fun story to write, even though it was an assignment. The name of the artwork is the title of the piece.
Lintel – Reddish sandstone, Angkor Wat or early Bayon period – 12th Century CE Cambodia
Today the art school faculty is reviewing my work. I worked long and hard on my masterpiece and if I am lucky, they will choose my lintel for one of the great temples. Perhaps they may even use it at the great temple Angkor Wat. Although we are far away from the capital and north of the Dangrek Mountains, many works from our school are on temple walls. If they pick my lintel, I will be able to leave the school and apply to work at one of the great temples to be a full time stone carver. To be a temple stone carver at the age of 25 is unheard of, but I am confident of my own abilities. My father would be proud to have a son who is a stone carver, since I am the only son who does not own farm the land. I have dreamt of being a temple stone carver all my life and this lintel is my masterpiece.
I spent many months carving out the sandstone and even more months picking out what story from the Ramayana to depict. My mother told me many stories in my youth of the great monkey king Hanuman and his exploits and he is my favorite god and hero. Hanuman had to be on my lintel.
Reading the Ramayana repeatedly, I decided my favorite scene was the one with Kumbharkarna, evil King Ravana’s brother and King Hanuman. In this scene Kumbharkarna the demon, who is also called “Jug Ears because of his giant ears, is surrounded by Hanuman’s fighting monkey soldiers. The evil god cannot escape and he swallows two of the monkey soldiers but they escape out of his giant ears. I prayed nightly to Hanuman for inspiration and blessings and I hope I have captured the great Monkey King’s bravery and spirit.
In my design, I placed King Hanuman on the right side of the stone since I wanted to show him commanding his army. On his head, I gave him a crown, not a fancy crown, but a simple battle crown. I depicted Hanuman and his monkey soldiers wearing battle dhotis and necklaces of round beads. To show my prowess with stone carving, I carved each monkey’s dhoti with parallel lines. To carve such detail is difficult and I spent many days on these dhotis.
I gave the monkeys a uniform war bib in the shape of the letter ‘V’. On each bib, I carved circles to match the round beads of their necklaces, knowing my art teachers will appreciate the repetition of the circle forms.
I repeated the round curves with the serpentine arm and leg shapes of the monkey legion. I carved the monkeys bodies to be curving like a vine and if you step back from the piece, you can see their curvilinear shape and how they almost entwine.
I placed Kumbharkarna on the left directly opposite Hanuman and dressed him in ceremonial clothes for two reasons. One, Kumbharkarna is a king and should be attired as such and two, I wanted to show the demon god dressed in fancy clothes to reflect his arrogance and disregard for the power of Hanuman’s army. I carved Kumbharkarna‘s dhoti with many more parallel lines than the simple battle dhotis worn by the monkeys. I also gave Kumbharkarna a more intricately carved crown than Hanuman. Again, I liked the contrast between the two kings; Hanuman wearing a simple battle crown and the arrogant Kumbharkarna wearing a ceremonial crown, showing how he thought he could easily defeat his monkey foes with little or no effort. Kumbharkarna is also wearing ceremonial jewelry, which repeats his misplaced confidence in his ability to defeat Hanuman, not to mention my stone carving abilities.
I carved the figure of Kumbharkarna to almost the height of the stone to show the difference in size between him and the monkey legion. It looks very dramatic to see the giant King Kumbharkarna surrounded and immobilized by the monkeys who are as only as short as his leg. I also made Kumbharkarna very wide to further emphasize the size discrepancy between him and the monkeys.
Stepping back yesterday after I finished to admire my own art, I marveled at how the monkeys were so uniform in size and shape. I carved the stone down so the figures stick out from the flat surface. The monkeys look alive, almost three-dimensional. Their arms and legs are round and life like; it looks like someone placed the monkeys sideways in the stone.
I am nervous. I think my art is good but is it good enough for a temple. I don’t know. Praying at my shrine to Hanuman, I asked him to bless my lintel. I also prayed to the great god Vishnu to grant me his favors today. It will be up to the art faculty to decide whether I have captured the spirit of this Ramayana scene.
Wednesday, October 24, 2001
My friend Judy's dad died last Wednesday. They discovered an inoperable brain tumor in mid August. The familiy knew he didn't have long to live, but I think they thought he would last until early next year. Brain tumors are like that; quick and painless. Judy's dad died in his sleep.
My ex mother-in-law, whom I dearly loved, died like that. Brain tumor diagnosis one day and three months later she was gone. Even the doctors at Stanford couldn't do a thing for her. Poor Lou.
She asked my ex-husband about me, you know. Asked my ex in her last dying days, about me and about how I was. Lou even told me ex how much she loved me. She was a great mom-in-law. I was really touched by her gesture, since I hadn't seen in her in five years.
The last time I saw Judy's dad, we were in Vermont and watching Monday Night football. He was a big New England Patriots fan and was lamenting about his team. He had gone up the day before to Canada to buy Molson beer and we were drinking beer, talking about football and watching the game. He was such a sweet man. Sort of high handed in his own way, but then I think all old dads are high handed. And boy did he love his Big Band music, the music of his youth Judy said.
Losing a parent is so hard, even though you're expecting them to die. My dad was in the hospital for two years before he finally moved on. Towards the end, I couldn't even go and see him. He was wasting away to nothing, paralyzed from the waist down and in pain, and just getting sicker and more depressed as the two years wore on. My family was relieved when he finally left since he was depressed and in pain, but it was still hard, very hard.
My ex mother-in-law, whom I dearly loved, died like that. Brain tumor diagnosis one day and three months later she was gone. Even the doctors at Stanford couldn't do a thing for her. Poor Lou.
She asked my ex-husband about me, you know. Asked my ex in her last dying days, about me and about how I was. Lou even told me ex how much she loved me. She was a great mom-in-law. I was really touched by her gesture, since I hadn't seen in her in five years.
The last time I saw Judy's dad, we were in Vermont and watching Monday Night football. He was a big New England Patriots fan and was lamenting about his team. He had gone up the day before to Canada to buy Molson beer and we were drinking beer, talking about football and watching the game. He was such a sweet man. Sort of high handed in his own way, but then I think all old dads are high handed. And boy did he love his Big Band music, the music of his youth Judy said.
Losing a parent is so hard, even though you're expecting them to die. My dad was in the hospital for two years before he finally moved on. Towards the end, I couldn't even go and see him. He was wasting away to nothing, paralyzed from the waist down and in pain, and just getting sicker and more depressed as the two years wore on. My family was relieved when he finally left since he was depressed and in pain, but it was still hard, very hard.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)