Chateau Marmont in the Middle of the Night

While riding bicycles in the park with my husband, my mind was spinning along with the wheels beneath me.  Now, sitting in my rarely used office, I am staring out the window, watching one dark and stormy cloud crawl in front of a marshmallow patch of white.  Suddenly the thought of writing something is like catching butterflies in a net…during a hurricane.  What was I thinking about as I rolled along the pathway, with summer extended into the middle of September, the temperature still blazing at times.

I really anticipated that September would be a change of season, the leaves would turn, the air would crisp, and I would start to wear cute boots and light sweaters.  My life would just melt into a new routine, and I could mold my time into what ever shape I needed.  But then I got sick.  The first time I’ve been sick since I’ve been in Canada, the sickest my husband of three years ever saw me.  I continued with my life on a strictly skeletal basis.  I never missed any work or deadlines, I just ceased to participate in anything social.  I was running on empty, chugging along for far too long.  But it was in the middle of the night,  every night for weeks now, waking up at three in the morning, writhing feverishly, my head feeling like a balloon about to burst; my neck tense, brittle and burning.  There have been very few times when I felt badly enough to think I would never get better.  I began to feel this way within the last few days.  Will I ever be able to shake this cast-iron-clad feeling, dragging it around like a prison sentence?

I remember being young(er), and flipping the bird at my health.  I must have been twenty-one or so, and being sick for like a solid month. Like, having the worst cigarette and whiskey voice in the world, a shattered immune system and was still running around at four in the morning, kissing strange boys and never wearing a bra….like ever.  Whatever, you think you are young and free, and will live forever.  Now, in my thirties, getting back to a healthier place was my new full time job.  By the end of the first week of my new career, I woke up the Friday morning, at three am, feeling as though I was haunted by a viral ghost.  I got through the work day, and spent that weekend chiseling away at my ailment.  We are still sleeping on the air mattress in the living room and so I watched four movies, napped, took hot baths, drank fluids, and felt satisfied with my efforts.  By Sunday evening I felt as though I had licked my illness.  But, once again, three am, and I felt more haunted than ever.

This continued.  And it began to dominate my life.  I missed a friend’s birthday party, opening night of the production I worked on, a special showing of “Before Midnight” at the cinema.  I have declined a number of invitations, and was beginning to feel like the girl in the Norman Rockwell painting that my mother had framed in put in my childhood bedroom.

I would stare at it as a young girl, and really feel bummed out on this gal’s behalf.  Missing the big dance on account of a miserable cold.  I thought about that picture, as the clock crept past four am, five am, knowing that soon I would have to go to work.  And this job is such a blessing, such an excellent fit, such an opportunity, and by the second week I’ve arrived on the scene looking and feeling like the living dead and sounding like someone’s boozy old aunty.  To preserve my husband’s health and sanity, (as writhing and profusely sweating on an air mattress on the middle of the night is not conducive to a good night’s sleep for those around you), I started to sleep in the bedroom, taking enough cold medicine to sleep through the upstairs thumping…until I was woken in the middle of the night.  I developed the habit of sipping hot water and lemon, and reading a book on the history of the Chateau Marmont. 

In those moments, potential passages would pop in my head.  Blog topics, vague ideas, random punchlines that I could fit into something, somewhere along the way.  But I didn’t write anything down, I just let it drift in and out of consciousness, as I absorbed vintage celebrity gossip.  And each night passed, and I didn’t write.  I didn’t lie next to my husband.  I started to feel as though I was living outside of my self. And now, here we are, and I am writing after a nearly two week absence.   In case you hadn’t noticed.  And I appreciate that this is a problem.  When I lost my wallet, around the beginning of the accidental writing hiatus, my friend Sheanna reckoned that writing would bring it back to me.  I wrote, and I didn’t find my wallet, I just lost another thing.  My voice.  On a physical and metaphorical level.  That symbolism will get you every time.  Yes, I am a little lost on a creative level.  Yes, there was a time that I was pumping out a rather decent yarn of material for an extended period of time.  I was once bursting with creative juices, a plump grape surging with delicious nectar, and now it’s a little more like that last shitty raisin at the bottom of the box that you got on Halloween, and begrudgingly opened and ate well after all the good candy had been consumed.  But what can I do? Chastise myself? Torture myself? Hardly. My immune system is doing it’s part in tearing me down.  I have to believe that I will fully recover, and that I can always go back to writing, come home to the art form, no matter how many days have passed me by.

  Images Courtesy of Google

Last Minutes & Long Hours

Though my growing book collection is strictly non-fiction,  my favorite novel is “The Hours” by Michael Cunningham.

The language is like a symphony of  collective suffering and misplacement, passion and poetry.  The agony of being alive.  The exquisiteness of existence.   The story follows three women in three eras; Virginia Woolf writing “Mrs Dalloway”, Laura Brown reading “Mrs Dalloway”, and Clarissa Vaughn becoming Mrs Dalloway.

I’ve read “The Hours” several times, and once followed it immediately with Woolf’s “Mrs Dalloway”.  Mrs  Clarissa Dalloway is to host a party, and the novel follows the day in which the festivities are executed.  But as she buys flowers and runs small errands, her memory travels all over the place.  And you have got to watch each of Woolf’s lines like a hawk.  This ain’t a book for the beach–look away mid-sentence, and then look back at the page–you have no idea where you are and where you’ve been.  This book is beloved, revered, it’s on Time Magazine’s list of top 100 best English novels since 1923.  For me, it’s pretty impossible to sit casually with her work.   I once suffered through “In the Lighthouse” in a women’s literature course, and I swear, I was foaming from the mouth with frustration, I couldn’t deal with the text.  Woolf is someone I like to read about, but not read.

What I did like is how Cunningham took the source material, studied Woolf’s life and letters, and wove this beautiful story, stretching the work across three generations and tying it all together in a heartbreaking bow.   There are minute details that link both texts, and reflections of characters in a new context.  (Also, Woolf’s original title for “Mrs Dalloway” was “The Hours”). Woolf, who suffered from depression, committed suicide at the age of 59.  She filled her overcoat pockets with stones and drifted into a river.  She feared that she was going mad and could not stop the torrent heading towards her.  I wonder about Woolf’s reasoning; if her thought patterns were anything like her writing, it would be hard to live with, hard to make sense of.  And this desperate act, Woolf’s last minutes is how “The Hours” begins.

There is one passage about Woolf that fills me with so much emotion, that the page is dog-eared, and the words are underlined.  There’s a copy of it on the cork board above my desk,  the most poetic rendition of writer’s block.

This is one of the singular experiences, waking on what feels like a good day, preparing to work but not yet actually embarked.  At this moment there are infinite possibilities, whole hours ahead.  Her mind hums. This morning she may penetrate the obfuscation, the clogged pipes, to reach the gold. She can feel it inside her, an all but indescribable second self, or rather a parallel, purer self…It is more than the sum of her experiences, though it runs like veins of brilliant metal through all three.  It is an inner faculty that recognizes the animating mysteries of the world because it is made of the same substance. and when she is very fortunate she is able to that faculty.  Writing in that state is the most profound satisfaction she knows, but her access to it comes and goes without warning.  She may pick up her pen and follow it with her hand as it moves across paper; she may pick up her pen and find she’s merely herself, a woman in a housecoat, holding a pen, afraid and uncertain, only mildly competent with no idea about where to begin or what to write. 

And when this pin up picks her pen up, there is a memory of feeling that way. But I don’t anymore…and it feels like stones pulling pulled from my pockets.

All Images Courtesy of Google

Late Bloomer

The other week, I was in a funk; feeling discouraged and lost.  My shoulders stooped and face slumped in a frown, I was acting in a way that my husband described as “being a grumpy goat”, (you headbutt someone once while bleating and that’s the nickname they give you).  Although I think it more references my inability to cause any actually damage, my bleat is no worse than my bite. Lifting this mood required some heavy artillery: “Julie and Julia“.

Following a big dramatic sigh, I make mention of the movie as being the antidote to my mean reds.

Ben scrunches his face like being offered that fifth helping at Thanksgiving dinner.  “You know? I’m good on that”.

How can you be good on J&J? It’s quite possibly my favorite movie ever–top five at least.  I love Nora Ephron.

I love Meryl Streep.

And I love this story.  And I love how these two women find their passion in unexpected places.

When I was really working overtime on my writer’s block, I would bake.  Muffins, scones, slices, cookies, and organize them in little Ziploc bags for the freezer.  It can be very soothing, baking–but it doesn’t get any writing done and it makes your pants tighter.  In fact since I’ve started the blog, I’m rarely in the kitchen, and I haven’t baked in months.

Now this is Ben’s turn to sigh audibly.

He’ll open the freezer, and heave a sigh of disappointment.  “Remember those meat pies you made? They were good…and those cookies, I miss those”.

But I don’t have the time, the patience or the kitchen bench space.

Neither did Julie Powell, who started her food blog in a tiny kitchen in Queens.

In a year’s time she did 524 recipes, and then wrote about it.  No wonder she drove her husband nuts.  I’m just writing about writing and some days I can be a prickly pear.  I really don’t know how she did it–not five minutes ago I accidentally pressed publish on this blog when there was barely a few lines.  I then mashed buttons desperately, as if trying to turn back time(–and listen if Cher can’t pull it off I don’t have a hope in hell).   I screamed at my computer like in one of those slow motion sequences you see in action movies when someone is hanging out of a helicopter and your grip on their hand is loosening.  So, I’m pretty sure I shouldn’t be trusted de-boning ducks and molding meat aspics.  But as both Julie and Julia know, sometimes you just have to eat your mistakes.  Or as Julia Child once did, if you drop food on the ground, just scoop it up and pop back in the pan, it’ll be fine.  We’re all human here, put up your hand if you’ve never made a mistake.

Okay, guess who’s being a show off.

So now that I’ve slopped this blog back in the pot, I’ll try to shape it into something appetizing, or at least, edible.  “Julie and Julia” is by far one of my comfort food movies, and I saw it a solid couple of times when living in Australia.  I really identified with Julie as she was turning 3o, and was a sort of non-writing failing writer.  She connected with Julia Child because she was a late bloomer, she didn’t become a fixture in popular culture until she was in her fifties.  Her success story has a ‘its never too late’ kind of flavour, which is a real comfort to gals like Julie and myself.  And within a year of writing her blog, Powell found success as a writer.  Everyone wins at the end of this movie.  And it always makes me cry.

Another thing about this film that I love are the husbands… some one the most supportive husbands in cinema are in this movie.

I also have an extremely supportive husband.  He is the reason I am able to work on this blog daily.

When I first saw this movie,  the thought of having a blog seemed so foreign, so “that’s something that someone else would do” that it’s remarkable to think that its now a part of my daily routine.  But he has supported me, and loved me and made countless meals, and is a champion in the face of my occasional grumpy-goatness. It makes me realize that the poor bastard really deserves a lovely meat pie now and again.

And I will head straight out to the shop to get him one, because I’ve got more writing about writing to do.

All Images Courtesy of Google

Reader’s Block

Stephen King takes a pretty firm approach when it comes to the writer’s reading agenda: “If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.”

Okay, calm down Stephen, how legitimate a source are you? How many books have you published? Oh a million you say…okay, well I’ll be sure to chisel out a bit more time.

Of course I read…street signs, labels, tweets and the back of the cereal boxes…but who’s got time for a whole book?  I have a growing pile on my nightstand, but there’s this funny thing that happens when I climb into bed.  I fall asleep.  Or I read the same page about seventeen times before I drift off to dreamland.  The other evening, I  took to the couch, curled up with Sylvia Plath‘s “The Bell Jar“, and–no offense to the incomparable Ms Plath, I read three pages before snoozing with the book splayed open on my chest.

As far as I know I didn’t absorb the story through osmosis.  But holy frick, how fantastic would that be?  Just tuck Dostoyevsky under your pillow, and the next morning, BOOM! “Crime and Punishment” is already in your head.  And because you were asleep–your mind is relaxed and unburdened, and therefore you were able to keep track of all those Russian names.

Don’t get me wrong, I love to read, and often fantasize about being alone in a hotel room with two weeks and a stack of books.  In fact, when I was in the throws of writer’s block and inactivity, I would say that when I couldn’t write I would read…but then I would watch TV.

And now that I am writing, blogging daily, which is not always an easy feat, I find there is little time for the other side of that coin. So I have spread the books across every corner of my life, and simply flip through the piles whenever possible.  I’ve got Nora Ephron  in my work locker.

Caitlin Moran on the nightstand:

David Sedaris is sandwiched between Moran and Chelsea Handler, which must be a change for him.

Is it wrong that I haven’t even cracked into Chelsea Handler?

I recently reread “Bossypants” by Tina Fey, which is on top of the pile in the office, above notebooks, “The Bell Jar”, and a book detailing the making of Fleetwood Mac’s “Rumours”.

I love Tina Fey, and I think her writing is excellent. It’s clean and concise and very funny.  When I first read the book, I had just attempted to tackle Russell Brand‘s “Booky Wook 2“.

Lord help me, I could not get through a single chapter of this book.  Everything I learned about good writing I learned from this book…as in “what not to do”.  Of course I’d like to know how Brand to came to shag Kate Moss, but I shouldn’t have to work that hard to get there.  And that’s when I realized, nobody cares how fantastic the story is, if it’s difficult to follow, if it’s a slog to read, few people will get the the promise land. (I’m looking at you Dostoyevsky).

I love that moment when your eyes have gazed the last sentence of a great book, and when you close it, and revisit the cover.  “I know all your secrets”, you whisper creepily.  (Oh you don’t do that? Me neither).

When I read “Bossypants”, I appreciated the clean style, and I wanted to emulate it.  And this is what Stephen King is talking about.  If don’t read “good” writing, you won’t write well.  You can’t just write in a bubble (though my team in currently working to build one for me), you have to know what is good–or bad, and construct your writing accordingly.  And therefore, with limited time, you have to know your genre. In a pinch I go straight for non-fiction.  I enjoy humorous essays, as you get a whole story in ten pages, and then can walk around for the rest of the day feeling smug because you actually read something besides celebrity tweets and the back of a Shreddies box.  And then you have something to write about.  And hopefully the writing improves as the pile of books on your nightstand grows higher.  But maybe someone will develop my literature through osmosis idea, then you would be an unstoppable force, your head full of fact and fiction, with so much spare time to write for others to absorb.

That’s not a bad idea. When my bubble is complete, I’ll get my people on it.

All Images Courtesy of Google

for when there are no words; pictures will do

Just a peek through the keyhole today my friends; it’s a reading kind of day.

All the best for Monday xx

The Paris Wife

Before I started this blog, I would say that when I felt I couldn’t write, I would just go back to reading. Really, its the opposite side of the same coin–as Stephen King says: “If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that”, and he’s published a book or two, I think he’s pretty trustworthy.

Of course, I would read for months at a time before writing down anything more than cryptic notes that not even I could understand.  Or worse yet, I wouldn’t read or write, and I’d have no momentum to do one or the other.  In “Almost Famous“, Penny Lane advises teenaged writer William Miller that “if he ever gets lonely, go to the record store and see your friends”.  Of course, record stores don’t exist anymore, but I feel the same way about bookstores.  If ever I feel discouraged or uninspired, I’ll go round to the nearby Chapters bookstore, get a latte, and poke around. 

On the most recent trip there, having just devoured both Caitlin Moran books, and my interest fading in Jenny Lawson, I wandered through the fiction section–though I am a pretty strict reader of memoirs, humor and personal essays–“The Paris Wife” caught my eye.  I’ve read reviews and recommendations, and though it is fictional, it is about real people, Ernest Hemingway and his first wife, in Paris in the 1920’s.  Sold!

That night I crawled into bed with my new book…and fell asleep almost immediately. Night after night this was happening, until I come to realize that I was just not that into this book.  Yesterday afternoon I attempted once again, and found myself glazing over the same page. Why am I not digging this book?  It’s got lots of elements to enjoy: Paris, the 1920’s, famous writers, failed marriages…but I’m not consumed, I’m not entirely interested.  Maybe I’m not feeling connected to Hadley, the wife who mopes around Paris while Hemingway writes, and works as a foreign corespondent for “The Toronto Star“.  Her whole life revolves around her husband, which is so dangerous–I mean, I love the ever loving shit out of Ben, but I can easily fill the day in his absence.  After reading reviews on this incredibly popular book, I have to cry out a massive “THANK YOU” to New York Times critic Janet Maslin, who called Hadley a “stodgy bore”.  Maybe that’s what it is–she just bores me.  But listen, the book is not over yet, though they’ve just moved to Toronto to have their baby, apparently they go back to Paris–their undoing is yet to be done.

But it brings up an interesting point: in this fast-paced, short attention spanned world, how do you capture a readers attention and maintain that grasp?  I was speaking to a writer recently, her first novel about to be published, and she said that of the beginning of her own book, that to establish the story requires details that are not always immediately thrilling.    Sometimes the introduction has to begin as a slow burn, before the fire really gets going.

And this is true for the writing process, and for the building of a platform or fan base.  These things take time, but there needs to be a commitment to making it work, just like in a marriage.  In “The Paris Wife”, Hemingway is captured as a frustrated, unpublished writer, who is trying to find his style.  He puts this work before his relationship with Hadley.  He works diligently, has an enormous amount of material: manuscripts, vignettes, short stories.  Good ole Hadley, on her way to meet him after a separation caused by his work–empties out his shelf of said work and then leaves it on the train, goes to get a drink and stretch her legs, and comes back to find it stolen.  Oh my god, the mind reels, that would be the longest journey of your life, knowing that you had to admit that news, and that it would ultimately change your marriage–and historically speaking it was the beginning of their end.  And though I haven’t finished the book, I know that infidelity, betrayal and divorce is on the menu–which seems to be an recurring theme in Hemingway’s life–which ended when he committed suicide in 1961.

What I can appreciate is that Paula McLain wrote “The Paris Wife” as an answer to “The Sun Also Rises“.  Hadley Richardson supported him, loved him, waited for him, and then he wrote this fictional account about a time in their marriage, but hardly made mention of her.   Instead he creates a love story between his impotent protagonist and a promiscuous divorcee, who was based on a woman from their social circle.  He did dedicate the book to her, and the book and film rights were given to her.  Though they divorced, they remained friendly.  Apparently before Hemingway shot himself, he called Hadley and they reminisced about those years in Paris.  The general consensus amongst scholars is that Hadley was his greatest love, for Hemingway had once said: “I wish I had died before I loved anyone but her”.

For more information on the many lives and wives of Ernest Hemingway–this was an interesting site:  http://theblogalsorises.com/tag/hadley-richardson-hemingway/