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777. webfeet - 1/18/2008 8:39:26 AM You know, I'm not really in the habit anymore of throwing my charms out so carelessly these days. At least, I just don't feel like it. As an alternative, I can be the fiction. I can be a character here.
Yes I've erased myself. Is that what I'm supposed to say? I took this gigantic pencil and now I am just this dot. here. You can't see me.
Nuplanet, remember, you have got to hang all those thoughts onto a plot. A real one. Unless we're breaking out into new sci-fi territory here, I don't follow the alpha conspiracy idea, but romantic disillusionment, however, is always workable as a theme.
Why not put Sofina into a pasta pot, alla vongole and get back to the food writing, which you excelled at? Sex and food. That's easy. Try to pare it down to easy. Think of it that way.
'naked hard-edged fluorescence'. excellent. You always have these really eye-popping descriptions. And, unless you're planning on killing Sofina off (which wouldn't be a bad idea, she sounds dangerous!) don't compare her jouissance to a corpse.
I think there is really nothing lonelier than writing.
778. alistairconnor - 1/18/2008 1:36:39 PM I think there is really nothing lonelier than writing.
Is this a measure of maturation as a writer, to make the transition from exhibitionism to ... pudeur?
Probably just a measure of your professionalization. We're probably not able to provide any useful feedback. Not without some serious effort, anyway.
The whole question of exhibitionism/voyeurism is obviously central to the autofiction genre : this is perhaps why I was wondering if you've grown beyond it.
I sort of agree with you with respect to Nu's orientation : I've played enough pool to enjoy that side, but I've never really related well to the "alpha male" theme, in life or in art, so it doesn't grab me in the same way the "Chicken Piccata" thing does. Possibly the food descriptions are true pornography : I know how to cook, but I'll never be able to cook that well, so I enjoy it vicariously, projecting myself into the protagonist...
On either theme, I agree that plot is essential, once you've left the short story format. 779. webfeet - 1/19/2008 9:23:06 PM I never wrote here for useful feedback. I wrote to entertain and because people asked me to. I don't think that makes me an exhibitionist.
Part of the development of the voice, is to test its resonance with your readers. This is either something you have or you don't. Most writers have a voice, or they wouldn't go into writing but need help, like Nuplanet and I do, with structure and in harnessing their thoughts together into a cohesive, narrative form. But yes, the mote did help me define and develop my voice, certainly. The more everyone enjoyed it, the more of an incentive it was to create. It's very simple.
I'm not a shy violet these days, it just doesn't interest me to share this unless it's a finished product.
And as for plot, you begin to realize how useful and how very okay it is to use literary devices in order to round your ideas out, and to put all the uneven parts together. The writer who I quoted here, David Mitchell, compared characters to hangers, upon which you can hang your thoughts.
There has to be an unconscious message that must bear upon the reader, subtly, with every chapter, and it has to be consistent. I find you can get almost pathologically analytical when you try to make everything gibe, but that's how it works. Ohherwise, you have no believability and will lose the reader in the shadows of your own thought.
780. webfeet - 1/19/2008 10:30:29 PM You know what would be fun, Alistair, to read your dating tales!
Ha! Got ya. Who'se the autowhatever it is now? 781. alistairConnor - 1/21/2008 12:15:10 AM You know, I've been dying to do that... I'm certainly enough of an exhibitionist. And it would be cathartic, now that that part of my life is over. It would put some distance between now and my belated adolescence. And there is certainly enough raw material, even if I stick to the literal truth, for some pretty amusing writing, stuff I would never have dared to invent. If I can find the voice.
But I think I would need some sort of theme or moral, something to make it more than mere anecdote. These tales are certainly not exemplary : cautionary, perhaps? How about an anti-manual for the middle-aged divorcé?
How about "The low testosterone lover"? Do you think that would sell? 782. webfeet - 1/22/2008 5:31:58 AM Well, no.
But I do see an amuse bûche about a coureur du jupon who was once a happily married vegetarian living in a pasture? Something like that?
Only you can define the theme, but you might not know what it is until you start writing. You're not just going to find it out in the mulberry bush. It's probably better to go into it not knowing; otherwise, it's likeyou're writing a third grade book report, and you have this assignment hanging over your head: what's my theme?
I would start out by making a sketch of three disparate women you've dated, either recently or in the past. Really sit there and take out the charcoal and let your thoughts wander a little, without purpose as you contour their form, letting memory work itself upon your canvas. And then you'll find a theme within yourself.
Or, start with something painfully funny, a sex scene, perhaps, and work it backward.
783. judithathome - 1/22/2008 9:23:08 AM It shouldn't be so difficult to write...just start out and let it flow. You needn't worry about or follow the rules. The thing is, get it started and go from there.
These days, writing doesn't even need to make sense...collect a bunch of short pieces and call it something and you're good to go. Doesn't meed to be true or real or even literate.
The secret is to get Oprah interested. ;-) 784. webfeet - 1/22/2008 5:05:33 PM If you have such a dim view of the literary world, you're either not reading in the right places or reading at all. 785. judithathome - 1/22/2008 5:38:33 PM I see you skipped humor in your studies.
Jesus, can't anyone take a joke?
I am reading in the correct places, trust me...I read YOUR stuff, didn't I? :-)
That smiley face denotes humor...guess I should have used a few of them earlier.
Webfeet, I don't know where we got off on the wrong foot but I read AND write, also...I know about how difficult it is to come up with ideas and I know about story cards and outlines and "flow" and plot and all that sort of thing. So there is no need to insult me just because you didn't get that I was making a joke. I suspect others who write (even simply to entertain themsleves) got it. The Oprah remark should have tipped my hand.
From now on, I'll warn of jokes to follow so you'll not think me such a prig. 786. Jenerator - 1/24/2008 9:24:28 PM Webfeet!!!!
Promise us you will let us know as soon as you are published!?
Love,
Your Number One Fan 787. NuPlanetOne - 1/24/2008 9:29:12 PM Well, yes, there is the plot thing Web. And your suggestions do match that little voice near the back of my brain that continually asks ‘where am I going with this.’ The fact is I really do not have a plot in mind as yet, but your castigation is accepted and to the point. (Although I could use your lucidity and decisiveness which resonates when your prose is tooled toward critique.) Here again I respect your advice because you cut right to the heart of the exercise. I do have to start connecting a few dots. And I will have to sacrifice either Sofina or Tony’s girlfriend and decide which or the other will be the eventual Heroine. As for the sex scene, and in light of the fact that I am crafting on the fly, I feel I must include it even if I am still naïve about the graphic aspect of it, so I will rewrite it and you can judge the contrast. Now, concerning the food writing, that is in fact my goal. I deliberately stopped writing Piccata because I am pretty sure about how I want it to go. Beyond that, I am blocked. So I am writing this Tony thing in between little blurts of progress on the other thing. A lonely business, ha! I would suffer a continuum of opaque and deleted moments wedged between the yeasty clothes hamper and tub as the baby squirted me with her rubber ducky for the umpht-infinity infected time than stare hopelessly and alone at an unfinished sentence I can’t complete in my quest for a plot. Yes, I feel you on that description. Though, thank God, as it were, for the wonderful moments, lonely though they are as well, when the writing is fun. 788. NuPlanetOne - 1/24/2008 9:30:22 PM Hey Jen….thought you were my #1? 789. Jenerator - 1/24/2008 9:33:04 PM P.s. the last time we interacted (I think), I was pregnant. Here she is, Miss Precocious, age 2!
 790. Jenerator - 1/24/2008 9:33:39 PM Nu,
I am your number one fan as well!! I can love two of you, ya know!
:-)
How are you? 791. NuPlanetOne - 1/24/2008 9:36:22 PM We interacted….you got pregnant? Hmmmm……
Oh, you were pregnant already. I was going to say she could not be mine. Way too cute! Doesn’t look Italian at all.
792. Jenerator - 1/24/2008 9:38:57 PM You are Italian?! I didn't know that, do you speak Italian, too?
793. Jenerator - 1/24/2008 9:40:58 PM Here's my son Dylan (speaking if cute - he has three girls who want to "marry" him already.)
 794. NuPlanetOne - 1/24/2008 9:42:28 PM I’m half Italian. My dad was born there. I am not fluent, though I can read and write it passably. I can speak it well enough with relatives. And I am fine, these days, mostly. 795. Jenerator - 1/24/2008 9:44:05 PM We're all at home today because the little man is sick. So I cleaned out my closet and found all sorts of artifacts; at least I did something productive.
I wish I had the literary talent that you and Webfeet possess; I could have written an award-winner this month.
I will spare you the details - suffice it to say it's been one of the most emotionally weird starts to a new year. 796. alistairConnor - 1/24/2008 9:44:41 PM ah... shadows under the eyes... too many late nights drinking Dr Peppers?
And WHAT has that boy been eating...
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