Sigh.

[mrissa]

Dear brain:

I really appreciate it when I'm showering and you pop up with one vivid scene that leads to another that leads to another. That's always a good thing. I don't mean to seem ungrateful or picky.

But next time, can you put them all in the same book? Or at most, two? And maybe cut back on the deaths a little? And turn down the reverb on the damn thematic resonance? Thanks so very much.

Love,
mrissa

The thing about Sampo is that I was not nearly good enough to write it when I did, and the only way I was ever going to get good enough to write it was by screwing it up and then going back and revising it to within an inch of its life. And a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or life's an awful bore, or something like that, right? There's no sense to writing books that don't do anything interesting to you. I fear that in this case this was in the sense of "may you live in interesting times," though. I am still frightened of this book and its predecessor. Not too frightened to twist my fingers in their guts. But frightened.

Sometimes when I say things like, "I was not nearly good enough," people think I need reassuring about my talent and about the short stories I've already published or the novel manuscripts they've read privately. Not necessary (though I am getting much better about appreciating compliments instead of arguing with them). I don't say that kind of thing when I am a wibbling heap of writergirl under the desk. (I say very little under those circumstances.) Today I am a kickass writergirl and also, incidentally, a good cook and kind of cute and possessed of a very fetching hat, in case you are wondering. But that doesn't mean everything is within my reach today. On the contrary. I see the things I can't do very well yet all the clearer on days like this. It's just that they become problems to solve, plans of attack. Challenges.

Days like this I remember why writing kept me sane even while it drives me crazy: because there's always something else to do better.

Still, sticking to scenes from one book today would have been all right.

Comments

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

Sometimes when I say things like, "I was not nearly good enough," people think I need reassuring about my talent and about the short stories I've already published or the novel manuscripts they've read privately. Not necessary...

Yes, that.

[miz-hatbox.livejournal.com]

I like the way you think.

[callunav.livejournal.com]

There's a bit in The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street - I don't have it in front of me because I'm at work, or I'd quote it - when Helene Hanff finds herself talking to...I forget who. Someone who's a much better known writer than she is. She's a bit intimidated and has a continuous sense of vertigo that the book tour for 84 Charing Cross Road has brought her to the attention of so many people like him. And they're having dinner or lunch or whatever, and he says something like, "So, tell me. You've written one completely charming book. Why haven't we heard of the rest of what you've written? Too good, o not good enough?" And she says, "Not good enough," and he nods, accepting the factual answer matter-of-factly, and the conversation moves on, at which point Hanff decides he's a kindred spirit.

Sometimes it's important to let intelligent people evaluate themselves and their work intelligently.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Or at least, for me, the Point is not possible without the Process.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Refusal to let intelligent people evaluate themselves and their work intelligently is one of the many reasons why my teen years were so immensely frustrating: people kept getting hung up on whether what I was doing was good for a kid, and I was much more interested in getting better by non-"kid" standards. "But that's so impressive at your age!" No, sit down and shut up.

(Sit down and shut up is the reaction my teenage self had. As an adult I'm in a lot more sympathy with evaluating things with a partial eye to where they are in their lives, although I wouldn't necessarily associate that with age as strictly as many people in our culture seem to do. But I still think it's valuable to recognize that sometimes a 14-year-old would rather learn how to make a novel better than write a novel that's the best novel a 14-year-old at her high school has ever written. Sometimes the small pond is not nearly enough. And here we go into the topic that's been wobbling around the edges of my brain for just ages now....)

good for ...

[aet.livejournal.com]

This reminds me my constant frustration with English speakers evaluating my English language skills with "good for a foreigner".

I want to know my standing in comparison with an average native speaker, not "for a foreigner"! That is why I love my Australian cousin who told me couple of years back: "Your English skills are 40 %" (I DO think/hope my written English is and was back then closer to from 70% to 80% of average - please DO set me right if I am arrogant here - but as my cousin was evaluating my spoken English, he was actually too generous).

Re: good for ...

[timprov.livejournal.com]

I DO think/hope my written English is and was back then closer to from 70% to 80% of average - please DO set me right if I am arrogant here

Just from reading your comments here, I'd rate you well above average.

Re: good for ...

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I would agree with timprov: on written English language skills, I'd say you rank above the average product of the American school system. Some of your phrasings are nonstandard, but most of them are not wrong.

When we run into misunderstandings, I think it's mostly because one or another side is assuming some cultural or subcultural reference point that the other doesn't have. I remember once there was a thread about knitting, for example, and the idea that one would teach knitting in the schools was entirely new to me. You couldn't have conveyed it better with better language skills -- it was just a background assumption we didn't have in common, and those come about with people who are native speakers of the same language (sometimes even of the same dialect).

[warinbear.livejournal.com]

Today I am a kickass writergirl and also, incidentally, a good cook and kind of cute and possessed of a very fetching hat

Agreed; insufficient data; skeptical beyond words at the understatement; insufficient data.

[hilarymoonmurph.livejournal.com]

Marissa --

I have to agree with you that the stretching of skills is what makes writing interesting. If we're not pushing to improve ourselves, why write?

Hmm

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I think many of us have internal and external reasoning, but the internal reasoning for me is always "to write better stories" and the external is "to tell other people better stories." Flip sides of the same coin.

This is why I like going to hear bands that do more improvisation: I like hearing them make a tune fresh when they've played it 20 times this tour alone. Running through it exactly the same way is a little harder to enjoy, for me.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

You can take my word for it: it's really quite a fetching hat.