Signs

I like to read this one in a really low, slow voice..."WE GOT...WHATCHU...NEEEEED!"




INDEED.

These are the signs I walk by on some of my weekly travels. Now I'm huddled in a coffeeshop waving hello to the novel. Hi girl! I missed you!
It's true...I worked a double yesterday and actually, seriously missed my novel time. Lots of missing going on in this girl's life -- lots of work to do -- but it's all good. Really and truly.

Don't have a word count for you because I'm in the middle of a bizarre decision to re-write everything in first person / present tense. People in their right minds don't do such things. But what can ya do.

Time to hunker down.

Going to the Library

Roanoke has seriously grown on me this summer. It is beautiful. The mountains are prominent and hike-able. People smile and say hello and are teaching me something about the art of small talk. They bring their dogs to cafes and let you play catch with them. All is grand.



However. i had a very depressing Roanoke experience today. As you might know, I went to a college...well, not in Boston, just outside of it, actually...no, not Tufts! At this college, there is a library called Widener, and it has the 3rd largest collection of books in the US. (After the Library of Congress and the Boston Public Library.) Therefore, when I searched for a book, the library had it. No matter what book I searched for, I could be holding it in my feverish little hands THAT VERY DAY. Even if it was written in 1834 and wasn't in English. This was so wonderful I sometimes crossed myself while entering the library...I COULDN'T HELP IT, IT WAS THAT AMAZING.



Anyway. the point is, today I got a Roanoke Public Library card. I was very excited. I ran right over to the computer to search the catalog, with my list of "books to read!!!" in hand. The first book I searched was LOLITA. YOU MAY HAVE HEARD OF IT. However, the Main Library did not carry a copy. I searched about 300 more books. They had about 3. (Please note I am doing that thing where I lie to make it a better story.) Finally i just walked over to the fiction section..................................



IT WAS THE SIZE OF MY BED.

I LOOKED AT EVERY FICTION BOOK THEY HAD IN UNDER 30 MINUTES.

I felt like Christina Aguilera in that part of Burlesque where she goes, in a way that screams "I practiced this line in my trailer a thousand times":


"ARE YOU KIDDING ME."
(Which, coincidentally, is what I feel Burlesque should actually have been called.)

As I wandered this "section" with a cloud of doom and gloom gathering over my head, losing heart with each Dan Brown title I passed, I heard two people whisper-fighting out of sight and around the corner.

"You listen to me," the man whisper-hissed.

"No, YOU listen to ME," whisper-screamed the woman.

Neither of them listened. This escalated until I heard a barrage of thundering footsteps and looked over to see the man running down the staircase for the exit, with the woman yelling after him, "YOU'RE NOTHING BUT A SPERM DONOR!"

And with that I took my books to the front counter.

WORD COUNT: 39, 511

(I know, this is not super-much-higher than last time. I went on an editing spree and cut a lot. There's a lot of new/replaced words here. Kind of like cells in a human body. Or water in a toilet bowl. Whichever.)

Influences

They say that a writer is constantly influenced by the media she absorbs. Lately I have been listening to Super Bass, watching True Blood, and reading this:



Sidenote: did you know they made this into a movie??!! With Uma Thurman??!



I WOULD NOT LIE TO YOU. IT REALLY HAPPENED.

Anyway. At this rate my writing output is going to become some kind of fantasy romance novel where everyone has pink hair. And who am I kidding, I would totally read that.

I'm also doing some far-ranging research for ye olde booke. I've learned a lot about how you grow peanuts (they grow underground, for your information), ghosts, the Great Migration, electrical circuits and transistor radios (seriously revolutionary for their time, people).

Also just bought Bayou: Volume 2. If you ever get a chance, check Bayou out because it is AMAZING:





[It's growing more difficult to keep a word count now that I'm mostly writing by hand, but I persevere for you, my dear ones.]

WORD COUNT: 34,924

Summer of the Hermit

Hello darling friends.



OMG! Sorry! I didn't mean to startle you!
I know it has been All Quiet on the OverCher Front for a while. I would make excuses but I know it has probs not been a major tragedy in any of your lives...



...and if it has I am truly sorry. Today is the first day of what I like to call my Summer of the Hermit. From today to the end of July, my life consists of

1) earning tiny wages in exchange for pouring coffee/asking "would you like whipped cream with that?"
2) sometimes exposing my tiny pale face to the sun
3) writing my thesis. it is a novel.

I am saying this publicly because what is the point of having a Summer of the Hermit if you are not going to get a novel out of it? And stating this embarrassing goal on the internet seemed like a really excellent way to make sure I do it, instead of watching True Blood every night on my futon until I fall asleep.

Because it is boring and annoying to talk too much about writing, I won't be blogging about the novel. I'll just post the word count at the end of my muuuusings. Most likely about Cher. WHAT ELSE IS NEW.




Ach. We have so much to talk about. Burlesque, for instance. Holes in the ozone layer. Aquariums. Or maybe just my emerging theory that all films would be improved by the addition of a puppet (ALL films.)

Until we meet again...

WORD COUNT: 32,824

Cher Around the Internet Lately

You can’t really call it a comeback when you literally look exactly the same as you did 40 years ago. It’s just kind of a “remaining.”

But here she is, fabulous:



I also found this picture of Susan Sarandon wearing my Cher wig. It is $26.99 with shipping, for those of you who are interested. Me and Susan are ahead of the curve -- and now you can be too!

The Sonny Effect

When I was eight years old, my father put The Godfather in the VHS player and said, “This will teach you about family values.”

I took this extremely literally. As the movie played, I could only assume that this was some kind of documentary in which each member of my family was represented.

Dad:


Mom:


My sister:


My dog:

Our dog at the time was actually named Luca, which made this a watertight theory in my mind.

My brother is 16 years older than me, and I’ve never lived in the same house as him, so Sonny was particularly fascinating to me. I wanted nothing more than to be Sonny’s little sister.

I loved everything about him…his suspenders, his poofy hair, the way he appeared to talk sideways out of his jaw, the way he yelled at people and broke their ribs.

It was charming. When he beat up his sister’s no-good husband, I was overjoyed. When he sped out of the house to kill him later, I felt tears in my young eyes. When he was shot unceremoniously at the toll booth, my world imploded.


I spent the next five hours of the movie feeling as though all the laws of the universe had been broken. Why did Sonny die, Dad? When I was just getting to know him! Why, Dad? WHYYYYYY?



Years passed in this way. My father eventually became an undertaker, and my Godfather theory evolved. Rather than an elaborate passion play representing our family, I realized that The Godfather was actually a coded message in which my father was trying to tell me that our family was in the Mafia, with his so-called “cremation business” working as an elaborate front.

Sitting alone in my room, listening to Sarah McLachlan, I realize that Sonny had never been my brother.


I will remember you...will you remember me...

Coldness descended upon my heart with icy wings.



Years passed in this way, until 2006, when sitting somewhere in a dorm room, I innocently began watching a stupid holiday movie. A stupid holiday movie called Elf.

And there was Sonny!


HE WAS ALIVE!! Yes--as Will Ferrell danced around the dining table in an elf hat, I burst into tears. The movie was just so beautiful! I felt such utter relief upon watching it! Family! I thought. Family is so important!

On Convalescence

Last Friday, I contracted a sudden and mysterious illness.

It involved a lot of sudden passing out.



I would be lying in bed, thinking soup would be so nice. i will go to the kitchen. i will prepare some soup . I would have it all planned out. I would stand up, go about ten feet, and wake up who-knows-how-much-later on the floor.

I had recently been watching a lot of X Files (what...you haven't?), so I kept going, "Am I LOSING TIME??? Was I just ABDUCTED?"



This went on for some time, until my good, good friends managed to save me and drag my butt to a hospital, where the doctors gave me some kind of Grogginator medicine. When I finally regained consciousness, my friends had some questions for me:

Why are you unable to feed yourself?
Why are you unable to keep yourself hydrated?
What is wrong with you?

These were all good questions, so C and I came up with a plan, wherein I stayed at his place all week while he went to work. This way, if I was abducted by aliens again (or passed out...WHATEV), someone would be around to slap me awake. Perfect.

As I settled in, this plan appealed to me more and more. It would be my first experience as a convalescent. I had seen Little Women enough to know this was a fine thing to be.



People bring you broth! They rub your feet! You develop a rich interior life! BLANKIES!



After a couple days, when I exhausted the entirety of Hulu, I decided this would be the perfect time to write. I had tea, I had water, I had a whole silent apartment to myself. An artist's dream! I was going to be JUST. LIKE. WINONA RYDER!



It ends up that this is not as easy as it looks. In the movie, Jo dons her purple velvet hat and pulls out her inky quill and writes down a book on seal skin or tree bark or what the fuck ever. Convalescent Victorian ladies literally had nothing else to do except write.



Who has that stamina? Why is it that when I stare at this glowy rectangular screen for 12 hours a day it completely addles my brain? Why is the internet always, always more interesting than the creation of art??? These are my questions for the ages.

Right now my answers are: it's possible to write with an internet connection. You're just going to make very, very bad art.

Like this.



Or this.



Or even this.





And then, even when you turn the internet off, and face the wide, silent abyss of an entire day where you have nothing to do but write...



It's a roller coaster of feelings.

One moment, I'm sitting alone, gazing out the window, my fingers flying across the keys as idea after idea flow into my head. Everything is glorious!



Five minutes later, I get up to eat a cookie and when I get back to my desk, the whole flow is lost. Someone has stolen my inspiration!



Suddenly I am sunk into deep, existential angst. Who am I? What am I doing on this earth? Do I know anything at all? Am I, or my pursuits, even remotely worthwhile?



What will become of our writing heroine? Will she shut up and write something? Or will she doodle sad elephants in the margins of her journal, in between free verse about her feelings?

STAY TUNED.