Further Sideways Process

What seen when pondering a cat. The wishing cat. Here, have an elbow. He elbowed him in the face. [verb: to ELBOW] ‘Fatalism’ is a system of belief in those things which cause death. Scratched out and abandoned to all of one’s money. In this place we try to question every answer; the reward is not money, not cars, not appliances, but hard liquor. *** There are times when I feel unafraid. Other times I feel so afraid it’s all I can consider, my fear. Moaning doesn’t help. Nor does groaning. My fingertips tingle. The cat pretends to sleep though she is actually watching me with her ears. I watch her breathing. I watch with my eyes. Pricks are not prickly. Remember the census. The census! *** I took up the cats’ toy and in a great fury pressed it against my asshole and farted; the toy, a miniature plush moose, was now saturated with fart. I proceeded to present the moose to each of the cats. Each cat sniffed the moose and the fart. I felt vindicated. *** Consider the contra-bassoon. And what of? And what of? And what of? Hammer sledgehammer ballpeen-hammer hammertoes drop-forged hammer hammerhead hammerheart lunghammer hammer to the guts Hammer-Smashed Face Imbibe the stomach Drink the stomach Drink it! A racoon bears fangs grinning. It knows something delicate but you can’t tell what no matter how long you squint A racoon just knows and eats your tossings your uneaten and scatters the rest for her offspring. *** People made him nervous. Unreasonable people who interrupted his reverie during lizard-feeding time were in particular prone to make him nervous. He kept a gila monster in a fifty-gallon terrarium with a heat rock and a little cave made of stones. The gila monster feasted on eggs. *** Miniature ampitheaters. In this place dwelt a live scorpion, a black one with enormous fat pincers. It rarely moved. *** An indoor herb garden. We raised parsley, rosemary, and grass of a sort meant to be eaten by the cat, though she avoided the grass and instead waited until we dropped collard greens or lettuce on the floor. *** Abandoned caboose. Hands always feeling about. *** Have you ever driven through a town after a tornado had hit? Like a couple days after, when people are out trying to clean up, but they don’t have any heavy equipment yet, and it doesn’t look like they’re really doing anything but standing around? *** Decorum? *** Unhook your eyes from my chest, please.

Twitchiness and Nonretention

At this link is a series of charts showing how Twitter can't retain its users. Which I think is apt and funny. What is it, an average of 20 to 40 words per "twitch"? It is called a twitch, right? If not, it should be. Twitter has all the makings of a speed-addict's flightiness, little bursts of information regarding what a person is doing at a particular moment. In truth, each and every twitch implies the act of typing out the twitch itself. For example:

I am staring at Einstein's hair! [I am typing this message]

Why am I going on and on about this?

Exclamation: !

At this link, a British guy discusses exclamation marks and other punctuation.

What do you think of exclamation marks? Should they, as Elmore Leonard apparently prefers, appear no more than once or twice per 100,000 words of prose? I beg to differ. I love exclamation marks. When used at precisely the right moment, an exclamation mark makes all the difference in rhetorical and/or emotional effect. Exclamation marks convey desparation in a way no other punctuation can. The lesson is use exclamation marks but not to excess!

Attack of the Silent B's

subtle: subtlety ; unsubtle ; subtlize
doubt: redoubt ; doubtful ; doubting ; doubtless
bomb: bomber ; bombing ; firebomb ; nailbomb ; bombast [The B asserts itself in the describing of "Grandiose but empty language"]
aplomb
debt
comb
numb
dumb
crumb: crumble [Aha! The B asserts itself in the act of crumbling!]
plumb
plumber: plumbing

How many more Silent B words are there? How & Why has such a strange (and decidedly unsubtle) construction entered the English language?

Further Notes on the Writing Process

[As an actor must perform as if there is no audience, a writer must write as though there were no audience. This at first may seem nonsensical; of course there is no audience in the moment of writing: No external audience. The audience in the moment of writing is internal. Some witness inside the writer judges everything he writes. Is the witness an editor? A censor? A procrastinator? A floating eye? A gossip? An idler? A shiftless layabout? A Roman Emperor demanding to be fed grapes by beautiful women and fanned by eunuch slaves? A crybaby? A gremlin? A deviant narcoleptic? It doesn’t matter. Write as if the internal witness were powerless to stop you.]
***
[Each reader imagines your scenes a little bit differently. This is why the simplest, most direct, least cluttered prose is the easiest prose a reader can follow. The more you try to control what the reader sees in his mind’s eye, the more each reader will deivate from the scene as you wish it to be seen.]

Process IX

stepping stones gazing balls ceramic mushrooms
coppertone mushrooms, rising among black-eyed susans
like live oil slicks, wizard’s caps.
bird houses: made of? to resemble? located where?
awnings
stained glass windows: what design? located where?
sconces
"conestoga" cupboards
red barstools
tennis balls, baskets rain galoshes
"pergola" "arbor" "trellis"
ceramic rooster

[it’s not about what I want. what do the characters want? what do the characters not want?]
down shit crik a snapper’s back a diving submarine

"ensconced"
-Gone, the stepping stones across the yard. Gone, the calm of the road.
-SWAP PAWS WASP (SPAW) Birds wobbled.
-the logic of "as if". "almost as if".
-a drumbeat through the ceiling. Inconsiderate upstairs neighbors. -A great clattering across the floor, of interlocking blocks no longer locked.
-objects that possess: Houses; Desks; Diaries & Journals; Chests; Trunks; Bureaus, Wardrobes
-neaten, neatening
-secrete / secrete

A Checklist

1: What does it smell like?
2: Where has it been?
3: Where is it going?
4: How has it come to be as it is?
5: and Why?
6: Is it at risk of infection?

Vertebrae, Nerve Fibers, Prose

Yesterday I cut a spine out of the newspaper. A backbone, actually. Part of a hip came with it. Presently I shall seal the paper backbone and hip in a casing of transparent packing tape. The backbone and hip will then make an exquisite bookmark: a reminder of the logical foundation of writing. The Spine!
***
Invertebrate writing is out there. Some may know it as "Experimental Writing." Have we ever read a piece of writing that seems to have a bad case of Scoliosis? Or fused vertebrae? The root of "vertebrate," in the Latin, means something like "to turn." INVERT. VERTICAL. VERTIGO. REVERT. PERVERT. SUBVERT. INTROVERT. EXTROVERT. To turn, in one way or another; to make standing; to disorient; to turn back; to turn upon, twist, twist upon itself; to turn under or to turn over; to turn inward, to turn outward; to look inside, to look toward or outward.
***
[Please do not twist my spine]
[Like a mallard’s neck.]
[And do not invert my legs]
[Without first going out]
[Of your way to clarify]
[Whatever it is you want]
[To say - I can’t handle]
[Your perverse prose.]
***
[And do not call.]
[I will not answer.]

They Came in Leopard Print

Meet the Giant Garden Slug.

The last house we inhabited in southern Illinois had a basement. The foundation was cracked. Water stood upright on the floor. Camel crickets dotted the walls. Mold, black spots of it, along with miniature forests of small mushrooms, grew on the walls. Brown recluses scuttled about. And, at night during the summer, Giant Garden Slugs came up the stairs in a great swarm. I fed them cat food. They seemed grateful for the sustenance. These slugs grew to immense proportions, some longer and fatter than any one of my fingers. Seeing this silent and glistening host at the top of the basement stairs filled me with a sense of paternal pride. They were like my subjects! Never once did I salt them. I miss them today. The Giant Garden Slugs are the only other nonhuman inhabitants of that house that I miss.

The Latest Fashion for a Night on the Town:

This understated lacing of the neck bespeaks a gentle coyness of spirit, does it not? It says, I am willing not only to lace up my bootstraps but also my neck, I am willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done. I will stretch my neck out to please.

In St. Paul, and other Niceties

We visited the Science Museum in St. Paul yesterday and looked at dinosaur fossils, the Quackery Museum display, the Visible Woman, and so forth.

Who wasn't fascinated with dinosaurs in childhood?

She has excellent bone structure.

This device was purported to aid in curing indigestion or somesuch ailment, among others. It's a chair in a box. I do not understand the purpose of the window. There is also a vibrating chair, and some kind of plug that is inserted rectally and connected by a wire to a blue light bulb. I would almost say "You can't make this stuff up" but someone already has and tried to profit from it at the expense of a gullible public. Thus, some things just don't change.

Reading List: In No Particular Order

A large number of books are waiting for me to read them:

The Collected Stories of Leonard Michaels.
Rock Island Line by David Rhodes.
Celebration by Harry Crews.
The Gospel Singer by Harry Crews (reading now).
Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson (reading now).
Breaking and Entering by Joy Williams (reading now).
The Accordionist's Son by Bernardo Atxaga.
Flickers by William Trowbridge (reading now).
The Collected Stories of J.F. Powers.
***
Harry Crews writes in such a way that the story moves quickly without losing the reader. I just finished Body. I never once got lost. The novel, many times, made me laugh out loud. Body meets the criteria for what I consider quality writing, fine writing. 1: Moves quickly. 2: Does not lose me. 3: Keeps me interested. 4: Makes me laugh. 5: The end is surprising but, yes, inevitable.

Not many writers are able to do this. Harry Crews and William Maxwell are two. Not even Joy Williams meets all of these criteria (I am enamored of her writing for different reasons I am utterly unable to explain). Have we all read Harry Crews’s novels? I know some of us have read Childhood: A Biography of a Place. But the novels? My god, the novels! A Feast of Snakes! Body!

Comps, part II: Poetry

For the Poetry part of Comps, selections from:
The Complete Book of Kong by William Trowbridge
and either
The Dig by Lynn Emanuel
or
The Resurrection Machine by Steve Gehrke

I have little doubt as to the question:
2: Image and Metaphor

The Latest Obsession

Let's you and me take a walk through the information mud, squish it between our toes, a jowled hound tracking us together across the goo, and we'll stop to pop the bubbles along the way. It's a sculptor's dream. Grab a trowel.

*

For Whom the Comp Tolls, It Tolls for Thee

In preparation for Comprehensive Exam Panic Day, I am trying to decide which stories to use for the exam. I have narrowed down my list (if you can call it narrowing) to the following:

"Congress" [from Honored Guest] by Joy Williams
"Charity" [from Honored Guest] by Joy Williams
"The Visiting Privilege" [from Honored Guest] by Joy Williams
"Traveling to Pridesup" [from Taking Care] by Joy Williams
"Winter Chemistry" [from Taking Care] by Joy Williams
"Feast of the Earth, Ransom of the Clay" [from The Ice at the Bottom of the World] by Mark Richard
"What You Left in the Ditch" [from The Girl in the Flammable Skirt] by Aimee Bender
"Quiet Please" [from The Girl in the Flammable Skirt] by Aimee Bender
"The Little Puppy That Could" [from Einstein’s Monsters] by Martin Amis
"The Deal" [from Going Places] by Leonard Michaels
"Scarliotti and the Sinkhole" [from Aliens of Affection] by Padgett Powell

As you can see I am fond of Joy Williams's stories.

And I have narrowed down which questions I will consider:
1: Point of View
2: Characterization
7: Imagery

Decisions.

The Wonderful World of Verbs

pummel * emphasize * knead * slap * trouble * protest * cast * pout * distress * drift * harbor * salt * prolong * float * allow * bemoan * distinguish * stress * stifle * toss * pitch * concede * brood * proffer * contribute * visit * style * dislike * dip * wilt * wither * waste * pay * delight * stall * freshen * refresh * agree * wring * quell * stagger * sling * hug * pour * gain * remark * crumple * dribble * fence * nest * mark * haul * unburden * decry * weigh * outlay * forsake * sacrifice * reemerge * better * slosh * whirl * betrothe * crinkle * yowl * veer -----

Not ick; more of a Why-would-you-want-to?

After we get our eyeballs tattooed, we can all go out and have ringlets pierced into our backfat. Look at the pretty pink lace! It's all the rage in England, apparently. One more artifice on which errant hooks may snag.

Oh ick, ick, ick

This is not a horror movie still. This is actual eyeball tattooing. This is actual eyeball tattooing. I cannot say why I am so obsessively repulsed by this and yet keep coming back to it. There is no reason. But I had to share the image with everyone.

Distraction, Heart . . . Writings from Nine Months Ago

Characters who suffer Distraction may know full well in what they invest their attention. Consider the slipperiness of prepositions: do characters suffer from Distraction or with Distraction or because of Distraction? Similarly, are characters themselves the source of Distraction or the victims of Distraction or is Distraction something (at? to? on? in? for? by? toward? through? across?) which characters give attention?

I should pay attention to Distraction, not to distractions, in whatever form they manifest, but to Distraction itself.
*
How can one distract one's distraction?
*
Distraction. Loss. A sense of outrage. An inability to think rationally and clearly. A grasping at quick fixes that do not fix, and are not quick. A demand for immediate satisfaction of desires, of wants, of success. (Does desire know only gift and theft?) The chasing of happiness, when happiness itself is unknown and undefinable. What the hell is it? "Happy" cannot exist as a verb. It needs a helper: to make, to be, to become. Or it needs an active verb: to pursue, to chase, to grab, to forget, etc.
*
What about thumbtacks? The empty aquarium? The lava lamp that’s missing its base? What things have Heart? Does a bead have Heart? A bead has Heart. A bead’s heart is its hole, through which a twine strings together one bead with other beads, a string of Heart. A bead without its hole is not a bead, but a marble, a pebble, a bit of glass, something else. But not a bead.
---
Absence is Heart. A treasure ceases to be treasure once it is no longer valued. An empty aquarium, aquarium though it may be, contains absence, it contains something that is not there. A shoe without a foot. A ring without a finger. A day without pain.
---
Does a gun have a Heart? Does a bullet count? Does a will, a want, a desire? Is there Heart in an action: picking up a gun in a moment of passion? Throwing down a gun before a fight has begun? Agreement to the use of force by action of the force itself. Disagreement to the use of force by action of dropping the gun. Is there Heart in fear? Fear that is felt by bystanders, preservation, an impulse not toward action but toward words, paralysis. Prayer? Is prayer action or words or both?
---
In Heart lies desire. What truth is in the statement "Desire knows only theft and gift"? What does Heart know? Does Heart know theft? Gift? Absence? Does the hole through a bead desire twine?
---
"So What?" and "Defamiliarization" share something in common. What is it? A new perspective of an old thing. A different understanding of something thoroughly understood. A sensory experience of something that offers no sensory stimulation.
---
What am I seeking? The language of excess. The language of distraction. The language of stories, and myths, and narratives. The language to move readers. The language to argue, to convey, to understand, to escape. The language of characterization.
---
Listen to the background noise, the hiss and chime behind vertical surfaces. What do you hear? How do you hear it?

Spine & Heart (Process VIII)

I am agreeable to a fantastic story. Ten years I spent playing Dungeons & Dragons, among other role-playing games. Now I’m not too surprised about having gone on study stories in college (and if I had more time, I’d be playing those games in my spare hours). Dungeons & Dragons allows a small group to create individual characters who interact with a fictional world. It is, quite simply, world-building & characterization & plot development & narrative structure & willing suspension of disbelief all wrapped together in an ongoing storyline with numerous minor storylines branching off and back again over an extended period of time. Almost invariably I served as "game master." The world was my own. All things and creatures and personae and Gods and characters (except for the players’ characters) were my own. It is a living thing. It has voice and reason, myth and tales, heroes and dragons. It is a place of horrible violence where bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people. As it must necessarily be so. And, it was good practice.

Onward.

Have any of us read Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton? I am reading this book again (third or fourth time) because I feel my writing has stagnated. Oh I’m producing. I’m writing habitually. But something is stuck. Something in the writing isn’t moving. There is no reason to go out of my way (and out of my wits) to identify what that something is. These somethings happen to us all.

Anyhow. I won’t explain Orthodoxy or summarize it. (To do so would cheapen the experience of reading it for the first time.) Though I will leap into worthwhile passages that have helped me to understand more deeply the Process.

In "The Ethics of Elfland" Chesterton explains the difference between the Reasonable, Necessary logic of actions in actuality and the possibility of the same Reasonable, Necessary logic of actions in fairyland. He is explaining the relationship of what I call "Heart and Spine."

Spine: the structure of literal sense that is necessary for a reader to be able to read the story (analogous to Mathematics, or the Letter of the Law). Without Spine, the story cannot move; it is paralyzed. The narrative has no mobility, no legs to walk on, no arms to wave, no fingers with which to gesture. Without Spine, the processes necessary for a narrative body to do anything cannot happen.

Heart: the figurative and emotional sense that is necessary for a reader to be able to relate to the story (analogous to the Spirit of the Law). Without Heart, the story may as well be a technical schematic, a complex algebraic equation, a health insurance policy. Without Heart, the story lacks emotion as well as the means of carrying the weight of emotion through language.

"The test of fairyland [is] the test of the imagination" (69). For example: "The witch in a fairy tale says, ‘Blow the horn, and the ogre’s castle will fall’; but she does not say it as if it were something in which the effect obviously arose out of the cause. Doubtless she has given the advice to many champions, and has seen many castles fall, but she does not lose either her wonder or her reason. She does not muddle her head until it imagines a necessary mental connection between a horn and a falling tower."

In narrative, Heart embodies mystery. Spine does not. But Spine is necessary in order to understand the story at all. With paralysis the Heart may or may not go on beating; regardless, it is lost to us. When we read the story of a witch who tells a champion, "Blow a horn, and the ogre’s castle will fall", if we immediately stop to question the witch ("Why must the champion blow a horn? That doesn’t make sense. What he needs to do is raise an army, or find some way to trick the bastard, or hire someone else to do the dirty work...etc.), then we destroy the mystery. We rip the Heart out of the story and squeeze the life out of it. The witch’s advice is part of the mystery. The witch herself is part of the mystery. No one can explain it definitively. There is no denotation. You can define what mystery itself is, but you cannot explain any given mystery. That is the Heart of a story. The Thing-in-Itself cannot be explained. And of course, if we rip out the Heart, the Spine becomes a mere spine, a structure without purpose. A structure for the sake of itself. Of what use is such a thing?