Outside the comfort zone

I finished Happenstance in the late morning yesterday and quickly drafted a review for Hippocampus. While I felt the book deviated from standard storytelling technique, in the end, the author (Robert Root) brought everything full circle and fully incorporated his title. Well done. And his message seemed much more thought provoking than I thought it would be. I try to connect with what I read and I found more of myself than I thought I would in this piece. If you want to know more, you’ll have to wait until the issue releases.

I also did something out of character for me and pitched a creative non-fiction piece to the editor of Hippocampus. It involves another writer, one I’ve known and respected for quite some time now, and I hope this gives me a chance to bridge our careers. The boldness of pitching a story idea without even knowing if the subject would say yes is, again, something out-of-character. It made me wonder if I could find something to pitch to someone every day. That is a lofty goal, but the change in thought process might prove to force me from my rut and perhaps bring progress. 

The child returned to school today and the husband to work. I don’t work until 4 p.m. It’s a wet day and all of my umbrellas are missing so after walking child to school I am enjoying a hot cup of decaf chai. I realized this morning that I only have six more months of my morning walk as next year my daughter will ride the bus. I’ve had the same routine for four years and the change may prove disorienting. 

My list of things to do is short, but it’s an unpleasant list. I already tackled the dishes and I think the laundry will wait. I need to decide what comes next. Work on my resume? Research refinancing the house? Deal with bills? Develop a long range budget? Organize the 2013 paperwork for tex season? The choices are undeniably dull. 

I could entice myself with tasks like “query an agent” or “pitch to a magazine” but my heart isn’t there either. Would writing be a valid choice or would that be neglecting more important household duties?

I have made dribs and drabs of progress on the Jacqueline/army medic story. A sentence here and a paragraph there. I think I sorted out the time frame last night. I think the story begins in early February 2003. Why 2003?

These initial novels take place in a certain historical context. My main characters have to be a product of post World War II France. My strong female character in the Fashion and Fiends trilogy Basilie d’Amille was a corporate raider in the 80s and had other business background that just wouldn’t work in the dot com and later economies. Later, my fashion model character has to come of age in the late 1980s because she’d be too curvy and athletic to be a supermodel post Kate Moss’ success.

Even their families couldn’t exist with a shift in time, the impact of various wars and international conflicts impacted these families in ways that created who they are.

But don’t worry, later stories can bring the families up to date. 

Happenstance

I’ve made significant progress on literary scholar Robert Root’s memoir Happenstance (University of Iowa Press: 2013). The book has grown on me, a bit slow paced but consistant in its contents and style. I am reviewing the book for the online magazine Hippocampus. My deadline approaches (January 20). 

With a past as a journalist, I put way too much effort and thought into reviewing books. I want to be fair, and honest, but it’s a lot of effort to write a book and when I don’t love the book… I don’t want to say anything that would hurt the author or publisher. I guess that’s a professional responsibility. Whatever I say reflects on me, and I want to find the strengths on any manuscript and look at what the book offers for the intended audience. For example, the biography of Jimi Hendrix I reviewed obviously was never targeted at someone like me for its demographic. 

I think that’s also the way I’ve tried to look at the world. What is the good in this situation? Who benefits? Why am I uncomfortable? 

But back to Happenstance… I’m three-quarters of the way through the text. I’ve noticed a pattern, or more maybe a theme. Root is looking at his childhood through relationships— primarily marriage and divorce— and I believe he is searching for how these marriages and divorces molded his life and influenced his own relationships.

Of course, it looks ridiculous to write that. Of course a memoir would develop in this way! Let me refine. The relationships… Mom and Dad and their divorce and subsequent remarriage… remain the characters that Root returns to again and again. There are isolated instances of topics that don’t relate to this theme, his first job as a pin boy or his love of the cinema, but uses the theme of his parents’ relationship(s) to build the story.

The book is more than half finished and he hasn’t reached high school. I am curious to see how and where it ends.

Choices and discussions

After nearly two weeks away from the daily grind, I find myself rediscovering my morning routine. For instance, why do I drink so much tea on days that my daughter has school but have no desire for tea when she doesn’t?

Answer: It’s cold out there. By the time I get home from walking the neighborhood kids to school my legs burn with cold and my nose runs making tea warm and very delightful. Today it is 32 ounces of Traditional Medicinal Organic Rose Hips. 

The Northeast is anticipating a snow storm. I wouldn’t be surprised if my region gets a foot of snow tonight. Of course, storms being what they are I also wouldn’t be surprised if we get four inches. My neighbor has already informed his son that school will be canceled tomorrow. That’s a tad premature.

So, I have several options for the two hours before I head to work. Not including the obvious. I will need to eat a meal. As I enjoy my tea, I ponder… Do I reply to a recent email from my high school peer JM Cooper who is progressing with her MFA in YA? That is the most compelling option, but the email would require the answers to various “how are you” and “what are you writing?” questions. Not sure I know the proper response.

Do I continue reading Robert Root’s memoir Happenstance? I have a review of it due on January 20 for Hippocampus Magazine. I feel like I should remember this guy from my undergraduate career as an English major. The book has yet to excite or bore me. I’m in the vicinity of page 50. Thus far, he has approached his life as one might expect of a literary scholar. He examines family photos and interprets poems and letters written by family members. This technique leads me to believe he is looking for answers, or perhaps even order, to his life more so than setting out to tell a story.

In my little side foray as a book reviewer, I have discovered that I only enjoy memoirs that have some sort of larger message. Sheridan Vorsey’s Resurrection Year gave insight into the intersecting and conflicting emotions that come when Christians face infertility. Kylie Jones’ Lies My Mother Never Told Me resonated with me because 1. I’m a francophile 2. I’m an English major and her father is a famous novelist and 3. It addresses alcoholism and growing up as a child of an alcoholic (something I share). My all time favorite memoir is by Ted Morgan, a journalist conscripted by the French during the Algerian War. He combines the horror of war, the skills of a journalist and the everyday realities of love and sex. 

The final option for this morning is to work on my new novel. It’s connected to my Fashion and Fiends universe but features new characters. It occurs after my first manuscript in the series and overlaps the second, bridging the time gap to the third. I have chosen the youngest sister of Basilie Saint-Ebène d’Amille as my protagonist. Basilie is a main character in all of my Fashion and Fiends novels. The third manuscript is “her” book. 

But for now I turn to Jacqueline Saint-Ebène. Born in spring of 1968, eleven years after her eldest sister, Jacqueline became a doctor. An Ob/gyn to be exact. While she appreciates the complexity of the female reproductive system, especially as she has seen several of her older sisters struggle with pregnancy and fertility issues, Jacqueline quickly discovers that she doesn’t want to spend the next twenty or so years with her hands inside other women’s vaginas. Out of boredom and perhaps as an act of rebellion, she joined the Army Health Service. After an initial tour in Djibouti, she re-enlists for eight years. My story picks up with her when she’s serving a deployment in/near Algeria during the Algerian Civil War. She mysteriously receives transfer orders to Paris, where she will examine a pregnant veteran who served in the health corps in 1978. The orders seem strange and yet logical when her boyfriend, a health corps psychiatrist, joins the team and they are asked to investigate other veterans connected to a certain mission in 1978. One of them is Jacqueline’s brother-in-law, Étienne d’Amille. 

Which will I select?

Hey, It's January!

I neglect this blog terribly. Maybe that will change now that my only academic obligation is my honors thesis. Maybe not.

I'm working on a coming-of-age werewolf story where a teenage boy defeats the school bully. It's a short story, but the main character, Jules Zweigenbaum, grows up to be a player in some of my other novels. Plus, I've already gathered enough info on his past to give him his own novel. As it is, he makes his debut in Courting Apparitions. Although I do mention him briefly in Manipulations...

I recently completed another review for Hippocampus Magazine. This one explores Anthony Shadid's memoir, House of Stone. Rooted in Lebanon. Very cool.

I also have 150 pages on my honors thesis done.

And I have finished four newsletters for the Greater Lehigh Valley Writers group.

So my writer/editor muscles have flexed.

Jimi Hendrix

I'm in Hippocampus Magazine this month, in the rock and roll issue:

http://www.hippocampusmagazine.com/2012/07/review-becoming-jimi-hendrix-by-steven-roby-and-brad-schrieber/

My Battle of Algiers

My debut with Hippocampus Magazine is now live:

http://www.hippocampusmagazine.com/2012/04/review-my-battle-of-algiers-a-memoir-by-ted-morgan/

I was expecting it to be the Steve Jobs' book, not this one. Surprise!

Renewal

I can't technically say that I haven't written, because in the last five weeks I have written two academic book reviews and two oral presentations-- one of the status of revolutions in the Middle East and another on the future monetary policy and goals of Her Majesty's Treasury in the United Kingdom.

But my enthusiasm for my fiction has withered. (it happens)

And I never got around to organizing my notes from my recent voyage into a travel essay on France/Tunisia.

I blame dental surgery. I lost five weeks of my life to an implant that got infected and had to be un-implanted.

And now I'm dreaming of my fiction, of creative non-fiction, and a potential MFA.

Last night something happened. A friend who is part of the Hippocampus Magazine community asked for reviewers of juicy non-fiction. I suggested Ted Morgan's My Battle of Algiers and the new book on Steve Jobs (which is not juicy in my opinion). She encouraged me.

Then I studied the publication and noticed they have a rock and roll issue coming up. I went to the library and found a biography of Jimi Hendrix.

And despite homework about the long term effect of monetary policy on the money market and the exchange rate, I found myself typing about Ted Morgan.

I loved his book and I think a lot of other people will too. And I suddenly remembered how much I should be writing-- that I love writing-- that I am a writer and it makes me happy.