The school year has ended (insert happy noises) and the summer work has begun. Lest you feel sorry for me that I have to work in the summer, I should clarify that I’m referring to working on my novel, working on my reading, working on my poetry, and working on my tan.
I’ve got a third of a novel ready to expand into a whole novel: draft, squeal about, revise, despair of, revise, giggle about, revise, wallow in, revise, and submit. This should take two months. And then there’s the comedy in a cemetery that came to me as I was walking this morning (ghosts won’t leave me alone; if I’m not being tapped on the shoulder to write a ghost love story, it’s a ghost horror, or — obviously — a ghost comedy). But, Ghosts, you’ll have to wait, because the romantic comedy is what’s going to happen first. And Things Fell Together today in writing. This is a thing that happens — you peck out words, throwing together scenes and chapters and wondering if any of it will even make any sense to anyone who may (but more likely will not) ever read it. Then, without any real work or planning on your part, a sentence falls out of your fingertips and connects some of the already-written dots with some of the planned-out dots, and *whew* Things Fall Together.
There are plenty of explanations for this phenomenon. The one I like best assumes that the story, however deep or silly, already exists and it’s my job to sit here on this chair (or in this bed, or on this lawn) and put my fingers to the keyboard until the words come out in some relatively sensible way. This may or may not sound right to you. For instance, you may be able to buy that Michaelangelo’s David exsisted in marble before he was chipped free, but you have a little bit of trouble suspending your disbelief that a lighthearted romantic comedy is worth the universal, karmic energy it takes to create something spiritually before it’s created physically. That’s fine. You’re permitted your disbelief. In the mean time, I’ll be over here pecking away at words on my keyboard and waiting to see what takes shape.
READING: I’m working on “Symphony for the City of the Dead: Dmitri Shostakovich and the Siege of Leningrad” for my book club, and can I say that I think all nonfiction should be written by fiction writers. (I don’t actually believe that, but wow — MT Anderson can write a book.) I’m also reading “A Man Called Ove” because I hate to be left out of things and everyone in the world has read it, and also it’s utterly charming. Up next: “The Rent Collector” and “Left to Tell” because we need to choose new 4th term curriculum for sophomore English and it’s supposed to be World Lit, so let’s meet some people in the World.
POETRY: Writing some. Perhaps more on that later.
TAN: It has begun. As it always does, it has begun with a burn. This is already remedied, and will continue to grow warmer and tanner until August, when I hide back out in the school and see no part of the sun (except through my lovely windows) until next June. Ad infinitum.
So, there’s my work for the summer. How about yours?