Deeds & Words

I watch MSNBC. I started because the Alaska blog Mudflats recommended the Rachel Maddow Show, and then I branched out to Keith Olbermann. MSNBC purports to be liberal. I say “purports”—for a liberal station they sure show a lot of Rush Limbaugh clips. What, do they own stock in his show or something?

A few weeks ago, Rush Limbaugh said something mean about President Obama. Keith Olbermann showed the clip, or part of the clip, like, I don’t know, seventeen times. Of course, he then followed it with some witty, scathing monologue, but still. . .why?

Yesterday Limbaugh said something mean about President Obama again, or maybe said the same mean thing and then amplified it. At 6:30 am, Pacific time, MSNBC had a bit on it. They dragged in a “Democratic strategist” and a “Republican strategist” to discuss the remarks, as if they were news. BTW, this day, the same day? First day of the G20 summit. Major anti-capitalist demonstrations in London. First overseas visit by our new President. Continued fallout with the automakers. Several new Treasury appointees. A new Michelle Obama frock to discuss. What’s on MSNBC? Limbaugh.

MSNBC’s excuse seems to be, “Well, Limbaugh keeps talking.” News flash; he’s a radio commentator! It’s his job to talk!

Limbaugh already has a TV station to advertise him. It’s Fox News. Please, MSNBC, focus on actual political news, would you? I am not a member of Mr. Limbaugh’s audience, nor do I choose to be. I certainly don’t tune into your station to see or hear him. Please get back to real content, and give Limbaugh exactly the attention he deserves. If you won’t, I will, even if it means I tune you out. If I have to settle for Rachel Maddow on Air America, so be it.

We went to the last March Write In Wednesday and heard a presentation from Vicki Delaney, who publishes a series of murder mysteries through Poisoned Pen Press. Her stories are set in a small Canadian town in British Columbia.

As part of her book tour, promoting her newest book, Valley of the Lost, she was going to the Four-eyed Frog the following Friday!

Vicki was a good speaker; a little reserved, with a dry sense of humor. She offered several good suggestions for submitting a novel, and for marketing.

I can’t say enough good things about these library-sponsored events. This was a great way to jump-start your writing. Our librarian was a great help and an enthusiastic participant in the lecture and q&a sessions.

The main Santa Rosa library also opens the rotunda room on Mondays in November, as part of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWRiMo). I’m looking forward to attending some of those events too.

L’s grandson arrived early last week–Sunday the 22nd, I think. He weighs 7 pounds 9 ounces and his name is William Peter. His mom is doing great. Grandparents and friends are clustering around. Tracey has good support and doesn’t seem completely sleep-deprived at this point.

William has perfect fingers and toes. I don’t know why people always mention that, but they do, and I do. There’s something compelling about the miniatureness of them. He has a firm nose and round cheeks. His eyes were closed when I saw him, so I don’t know what color they are. He has a head a glossy dark brown hair. The cartilage ridges inside his ears sweep like lines of calligraphy. My favorite image of him is of his father holding him while bouncing him on a Pilates ball.

“I wanted to be smart, get my A, know the answer. I didn’t care if it was cool. There were kids around my neighborhood who’d say, ‘You talk funny. You talk like a white girl.’ I’d be —I don’t even know what that means, but I’m still getting my A.”

Michele Obama, addressing 5th grade students at a Washington public school.
3/20/09

. . .and a couple by the bed. I’d like to say, “on the nightstand,” but in fact they’re on the floor.

My car book was the new classic science fiction novel Out on Blue Six. Out on Blue Six is not a good car book. It deserves more attention, more sustained attention, than it gets when I pick it up once in a while for ten or fifteen minutes, or pull it out of the back when I’m on the road somewhere and decide to stop for lunch. So I will probably rotate Out on Blue Six into chair duty.

I’ll replace it with one of the Simon Green Nightside books. It won’t matter which one. The stories all follow the same pattern, they’re short, they are not complicated; they have many funny bits and they don’t ask for a lot of emotional investment. The biggest emotional hook is curiosity about John Taylor’s past. Is that the perfect car book or what?

My current briefcase book is The Least Worst Place; the First 100 Days of Guantanamo, by Karen Greenberg. It’s about the first three months of Gitmo as a holding place for “detainees” of the Afghanistan war. My briefcase book gets slightly more attention than a car book, but sometimes I have to pull it out of the briefcase and read it in the chair. With The Least Worst Place, by page 37 I was transfixed. Greenberg weaves a narrative of two groups of people on a collision course with each other; Bush staff at the Pentagon who are working diligently to circumvent any chance of these “detainees” being treated humanely or in accordance with international law, and the boots-on-the-ground Marines who have been sent to ready Gitmo and told that, with regards to the incoming detainees, the Marines should consider themselves “guided by Geneva [Conventions] but not bound by it.” In this vacuum of direction, a Marine general makes decisions that place him squarely at odds with Donald Rumsfeld and the Pentagon. We know how it ends—or at least we are starting to find out how it ends. What is suspenseful is how these men will keep their own values and honor intact in this environment.

I may have to promote it to being a chair book too.

My chair book is The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano. I started it in January. I’m halfway through. It’s not that long. It’s starting to look like a great briefcase book. I mean, I’m liking it, but it’s episodic enough that maybe the briefcase, or the car, would make a good fit.

Also by the chair: The Given Day, Dennis Lehane; The Life and Times of Henry VIII, Robert Lacey, 2666 by Roberto Bolano. Coming soon to the chair; Whisper to the Blood, by Dana Stabenow, and coming to the chair as soon as it’s out; Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow? by Brian Fies.

By the bed: Gentlemen of the Road, by Michael Chabon (finished); Passage, by Connie Willis (finished); Omnivore’s Dilemma, by Michael Pollan, and Hellboy: Wake the Devil, by Mike Mignolia.

Last Wednesday night I went with my friend Cameo (I’m using that name until I find out from her if it’s all right to use her actual name) to the Sonoma County Library Write-In Night. The main Santa Rosa Library co-hosted with Redwood Writers, (www.redwoodwriters.org) a chapter of the California Writers’ Club.

The event builds on the NaNoWriMo event. The room was open from 5:00 pm to 8:30 pm, with a speaker from 6:00 to 7:00 and free writing the rest of the time. They provide hot water, tea, coffee and decaf, and a librarian was part of the group, ready to answer any research question you might have. Cameo works at Sonoma State and had to catch a bus from work, so I got there before she did.

I hadn’t been to the main library on 3rd and E Street for a long time. Imagine going back to your childhood home (the good one, with the happy memories). Imagine walking into the living room and finding it completely unchanged from how you remembered it; the same ripple in the floorboards, the same carpet with the same tangled fringe; the same pictures on the wall; the same bookcase filled with books in the corner; the same sun-faded afghan over the back of the couch; your dad’s recliner, with the same depression in the seat; the smell of Mom’s lasagna, or enchiladas, or chocolate chip cookies wafting in from the kitchen. That’s how the library was, even with the updates in technology and the changes in the posters and signage, the Rules of Behavior prominently displayed in the foyer. It still looked, sounded and smelled the same. . .great.

The Write-in was held in the forum room, a rotunda. I sat at a table occupied by a guy tapping on the laptop keyboard. His name was Mike. I grabbed a chair at the other end and saved one for my friend. A few minutes later Luci, a woman with a wild cloud of silvery white hair and sharp blue eyes in a weathered face joined us. Luci is a poet.

Our speaker, Debbie Koehler, a six-time WriMo participant and five-time finisher (means she hit or exceeded the 50,000 words), spoke about revision and working with a free-lance editor. Her book is a fantasy novel and she is currently on her 6th revision. Cameo came in about five minutes after she started talking.

Debbie talked first about the value of WriMo as a way to push past the powerful obstacle of the inner editor, especially for new writers. Developmentally, I think I’m at a different stage than Debbie is, so some of her remarks didn’t resonate for me. I liked her humor, and her generosity impressed me. She had 3 paper handouts into which she had put a lot of work, sharing resources on writing, revision and “pitching.” She brought some books to show and recommend, and she had clearly done lots of research on the marketing process. It was clear she took this presentation seriously and had prepared for it seriously.

She wanted to be helpful and the group responded to that.

She didn’t talk much about actual revision though. This isn’t surprising, since revision is the perfect candidate for that old Nike slogan, “Just Do It.” It was plain that as a new writer, she hadn’t been able to identify plot, theme or character flaws in her first version and that is part of why she’s on revision 6. For me, this is where a good writers’ group is invaluable. Spotting structural problems in other people’s work sharpens your eye for your own work. At least theoretically.

The audience—there were about 15 people—had lots of questions and comments. People were interested and helpful, mentioning magazine articles, quoting writing teachers and generally sharing resources. Mike had a question about being blocked, and Debbie’s answer was, basically, sit down and write anything. “I don’t accept writer’s block,” she said. She also made a distinction between blocked and stuck, which I thought was good (speaking as someone who is stuck).

The program ran until 7:15 and even after that a circle of people stayed at Debbie’s table to continue the discussion.

Cameo and I elected to write. Mike went up to Debbie’s table, but Luci stayed to write also. She had driven all the way over from Sonoma for the write-in. She’ll be participating in a poetry slam in Sonoma on the 20th.

She and Cameo had a quiet, animated discussion about work written specifically to be spoken, like poetry. Cameo was officiating at her niece’s wedding on Friday, and talked about the need to make minor changes to the ceremony to capture her own rhythm and patterns, to make it her own.

The library and Redwood Writers is hosting write-in Wednesdays for four weeks in March, with a different speaker each time.

Cameo wrote a dialogue with one of her characters, asking him why he won’t do what she needs him to do in the current story, a tried-and-true technique when you’re stuck.

Me, I just kept writing on my current project, on which I’ve been stalled for several months. I printed out the last four pages of what I have and brought them. I re-read them and then plunged in, longhand, not letting myself worry about whether it was logical, etc. When I’m at home working on the computer, I am able to distract myself by burrowing back into the manuscript and doing small rewrites that make me feel productive but do nothing to advance my story. With only four pages, there wasn’t much of that I could do and I had to move forward.

I wrote 8 pages. I got my main character (can’t exactly call him a hero) onto the boat where two other characters are being held captive. He got one of them free and they are arguing about the third person. I stopped in mid-argument, which is good, because it keeps the suspense alive for me as well.

Cameo and I closed the place; at 8:20 we were the only two left except for our hosts. We thanked them profusely and headed out. It was a great evening and a wonderful way to feel enlivened and supported about writing. Cameo and I talked about “the energy,” that elusive thing you feel when the convergence of people, place and circumstance all mitigate toward your success, not away from it. For me, it removed permission to surf the net and call it “research” or word-smith minute paragraphs in chapter three on my still-unfinished novel.

On the 18th, Susan Bono, founder of the e-zine Tiny Lights, will be speaking. Luci, Cameo and I are going to meet there. I’m excited!

We haven’t seen finches at the feeder for several weeks—at least six or seven. Actually, the Sig-O maintains that there has never been a finch at the feeder. Conversations about the topic go like this:

Me: Look, a gold finch
Sig-O: Where?
Me: Oh, it’s gone.

Or

Me: Look, hon, finches
Him: Where?
Me. There, on the feeder.
Him: Those aren’t finches.
Me. What are they then?
Him: They’re just birds that look like finches.

Well, we all know how he is.

I was in agreement with him, though, until Monday morning. While I was sitting in the family room sorting photos and watching President Obama’s Fiscal Responsibility Summit on C-SPAN, a swarm of finches descended on the feeder. There had to be seven or eight, fluttering around, playing musical perches. I saw goldfinches, some house finches and some purple finches, mostly females.

We’ve also been visited recently by some colorful sparrow-sized chestnut-backed chickadees, who are suet-eating fools. I could spend a lot of time watching their trapeze-act antics as they land on the suet cage and try to push each other off.

I’m happy to see the birds but I have mixed feelings. In spite of the recent series of storms that have come through, leaving quite a bit of rain, I think their appearance means we’re approaching spring. . . and it’s much too early, and much too dry. Still, they are a delight to see.

The cloud of finches stayed for about forty-five minutes and then flew off. They must have a routine. Maybe they only come to our house on Monday mornings.