mary june brown

What are regrets?

Distilled energy, or fantasy

Thoughts gone sideways

Memories suffused with romanticism

Recollections of a past

Combed clean of nuisances, irritations

Practical problems

Larger, better, forever

Musings of yesterday push

Hope, a picture of tomorrow

Happily ever after

—Very interesting—

The cusp draws footsteps, hands reaching out ahead to feel the open air where all below is unknown. Here, on the rock face, time stops its sweeping and fire replaces stagnant air. Here, anxiety and anticipation become indiscernible; they face each other in mighty battle.

It is only one mere step—that drop below—and the urge to retreat radiates an influence that is not to be dismissed. “Dive! Dive,” a voice calls up, and with closed eyes, I—

Wait, what?  

Silly, I don’t give away these things so easily. Not in a blog, anyway.

I became motivated to write today…my novel stretched out it’s rough fingers and tapped me on my bare arm, saying, “Lady, your casual behavior toward me is an insult.”

My novel is right. I owe it something for giving me so much–purpose, understanding of self, exploration, a place to vent and weep and feel and love and create and drop my poise, reach for something, give something, move in trance, awaken, fulfill the ego, impress you, impress me, become bigger than the myriad parts that make me up, exist on screen, live on paper, hope for more, become fabulous, exude heat and charisma, receive insight, twist and turn and massage into accurate expression, perceive and be perceived, imagine my face on a slick jacket (what would my eyes say in that picture?), my name in bold along the seductive spine of the book itself.

Yes, little novel…I owe you.

in future tense I see a home
in past tense I wonder where it went
third person, she says what went wrong
first person, I forgot the words to

hum

an arc of beginning, middle, end
three acts muddled by human error
(sin)
no awards for a life, no contract for

plot, POV, character development, story grids
I tore up all those papers or

she’d torn up all those papers

loosed them into the waters of some
undeveloped, nondescript, told-not-shown

setting

Okay now, cats.

What’s the word, what’s up, what doing? What’s news, Wall Street? Gas prices up, no commute partner; heat on the rise, and no A/C. Fair’s gone, carnival leerers have packed up and are on their way to another Great American Community. Kids and dads put their hands back into empty pockets and think of their gains: stuffed teddy bears (5 inches big, polyester, made in China…throw $50 worth of plastic balls into the clown’s mouth and WIN!). It’s summer. Not much to report.

Blogroll, please.

I just finished I Cannot Get You Close Enough, a compilation of three novellas (or mini-novels) by Ellen Gilchrist.

I am charmed by this collection of stories because Gilchrist uses some interesting writing tactics here–she doesn’t write in full sentences, she doesn’t fully describe the physicality of the characters, she doesn’t wholly tell a story from beginning to end but instead gives you small glimpses into the lives of her characters. It took a while to get used to this writing style, but I found I enjoyed her writing quite a lot once I got over the strange English usage and stopped the editing/proofreading that comes automatically to me.

For those who are writing and are having difficulty grappling with a whole manuscript, pick up this book and check it out. It may give you ideas on how to handle material in a new, refreshing way.

Novellas, while smaller in width, can have an impact, be memorable, and let a story shine without being weighed down by stretching itself into a Big Book.

So there’s the infamous 50 and 55 words competitions, which I personally loathe because…well, because I don’t succeed at them well. The aim is to write an entire story in 50 or 55 words, usually a twist in the story helps. Here is my recent attempt. Try it–you’ll despise love it, too!

Rejections poured down on the would-be author. “Thanks, but no thanks” and “you can write! But, sorry–not for us.”

Time to go into the publishing business, he thought. He approached the bank with his idea. “Thanks, but no thanks,” they said. “You can dream! But sorry–not on us.”

When I was in college, I became very fond of the movie, Postcards from the Edge. Have you seen it? Featured are two female members of a family…well, let’s be clear here–they are mother and daughter, always a potent and complex relationship. I loved the movie for its depiction of a mother’s overeager desire for her daughter to present a ladylike, charming, poised facade while living in a vortex of family dysfunction. Did I love the movie because I could relate? Maybe yes, maybe no…that’s for me to know, and you’ll never find out! But I digress.

The movie positioned humor and charm into a situation the viewer could see was essentially untenable and often, implicitly unbearable. And so, one learns by watching this kind of comedy that given space and a sense of remove, we can indeed laugh at the things that are difficult to experience in real time.

So, Postcards was me in my 20s.

I’m older now. And recently, a friend pointed out that I’m playing captured patient to my very own Nurse Ratched. Of course, he’s referring to One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Through this lens of pop-culture match-up, I find levity where normally there wouldn’t be any. So maybe in this very simplistic way, that’s what pop culture does for us: it allows us see our lives with the variance of humor attached.

Woody Allen says that humor is tragedy given space and time. I agree.

Well, now. I just finished my upcurrrent swim through the tome Ahab’s Wife, by Sena Jeter Naslund. Set in the 1800s during the height of the whaling industry, the book examines slavery, and equity, love, and yes–whales. The book examines the notion that Ahab, of Moby Dick, had a wife who kept notes and eventually wrote a novel regarding her experiences before and after meeting Ahab.

It was a struggle to get through, and pedantic, and terribly perfect in ways that made it feel remote and unreal. I could never relate to Una, the novel’s protagonist. She is intact always, regardless of her struggles, regardless of the heartbreaks she endures (too easily endures, really). Lose a lover, lose a child…it’s a tragedy until she contemplates the stars and the sea, and all her grief becomes unrealistically poetic and she is just…her…just Una, the same, never changed. Perfect, always.

But one small thing I have to admit to: I am in the minority here. The book is celebrated. It’s comparisions to Moby Dick broad and loved. For me, (and if you know me–you know I’m not the sort to say this!) the best portions of the book are in the heart of the action scenes, the swashbuckling whale chases, the try-pots burning with whale blubber.

But just re-read Moby Dick. Skip this one.

Posed for my civil servant card today. Can one be a starving writer and a servant to the public at once? I hope so. Trying to keep up with my writing, but “real” work interferes. Here I am…respectable worker. This is the pic on my namebadge. I don’t know if this girl looks like a struggling, passionate writer…but inside, she is…she is!