Writing About Words

First, before the actual post, something of note. This is #100! My 100th post here! Probably a mere drop in the bucket for most bloggers, but I'm pleased by this number.

And now, the actual post:

Writers love book and stories and words. I know, no surprise there. But what this love leads to is something wonderful—they talk about books and stories and words. And in this glorious, distracting time of the internet and blogs, we get plenty of chances to listen in.

I admit it. I love to listen to people talk about the books they love. I especially love it when it’s an author I like talking about books. I remember last September, when I saw Charles de Lint speak at his book signing at Powell’s. He talked about Alice Hoffman and how magical her books are and how much he enjoys them—I wanted to jump up right then and find some!

Today, I ran across a blog post from Jessica Morrell where she talks about how books influenced her as a child. She shares some lovely reminiscences about The Boxcar Children books and others. She also mentions a great idea for writers—she keeps a notebook where, as she’s reading, she writes down words and descriptive phrases and things she likes. I am adopting this immediately!

I also found an essay by Neil Gaiman titled “Some Strangeness in the Proportion: The Exquisite Beauties of Edgar Allan Poe.” (Apparently he wrote this for a Barnes and Noble edition of Poe’s works—must get this!) Gaiman really pinpoints some of why I am a fan of Poe. “Pictures come unbidden as you read the tales; you craft them in your head.” And this: “They [the stories] are powered by what remains untold as much as by what Poe tells us, each of them split and shivered by a crack as deep and as dangerous as the fissure that runs from top to bottom of the gloomy house inhabited by Roderick and Madeline Usher.” So true! I have a sudden desire to pull out my Poe and reread some favorites. (My favorites, in case you’re interested, are “Annabel Lee” from Poe’s poems and for stories—I really can’t seem to choose a favorite right now although I’ve spent much too long rereading several of them this afternoon.)

My head is full of Poe now. This is one of the great things about listening to people talk about books (oh, I know I’m not actually listening to the writing, but it’s the same effect). When the book lover expresses that adoration well, I just have to run off and read whatever they were rhapsodizing about. And then I am left with a brain full of heady words and phrases. All this talk about books is intoxicating. Maybe it’s addictive—I want more and more and more. And even better, I am left with a drive to write something down, anything, in hopes that someday someone will be inspired to tell people about me.

A Glorious Repast

Yesterday, my copy of Charles de Lint’s latest chapbook, “Yellow Dog,” arrived. Glorious! I did something I almost never do—I sat down on the couch as soon as I was in the door and had fed the cat, and I read the whole thing. No dinner preparations, no checking e-mail, nothing until the story was finished. When I was done, I almost didn’t need dinner, I was that satisfied.

This is one of CdL’s desert stories. They are just as powerful and entrancing and moving as his stories of greener places, and whenever I read one, I find myself wanting to visit the desert. Arizona. New Mexico. Dry, bright, harsh places, beautiful in an entirely different way from the mountains and trees here in Portland or the lakeside woods and fields back home in Chicago. I read these desert stories, the stories of canyons and cliffs and hawks and coyotes, and I can almost smell it. I can nearly feel the sand gritting underfoot, see the endless blue sky, smell the baked earth. And I want to go.

Even more importantly I think, at least in the grand scheme of my life, is that I want to write like that. I not only want people to be able to see and smell and feel my settings, I want them to long for those places the way you long for home when you’ve been gone too long.

That’s the best storytelling to me. The kind that leaves you satisfied, filled with words and images, and yet still longing for more. The kind that is so beautiful it leaves an ache inside you that is half joy and half hunger for something you can’t name.

I don’t know if I will reach that pinnacle. I do know that I’ll try. And I do know that I’m lucky that I at least know what it is I’m aiming for.

Over already?

Last weekend, my weekend of Charles de Lint, has come and gone. I’ve been hesitant to write about it, because how can I put it into words? It was wonderful! Friday night’s book signing was fun, of course. At the outset, he took pictures of the audience to share with his wife. Then we got to hear him read a bit from Little (Grrl) Lost, one of his two new books that just came out this month. More importantly, we got to hear him talk—about books and writing and music and himself. This is one of those instances where you just want to absorb every word, every gesture, every look into yourself so it will stay with you forever. And it will, but it will soon be not so immediate. And that makes me a little sad.

Sunday…Sunday was incredible. I left at 6:15 a.m. to drive to Seattle, headbanger music blasting all the way, singing at the top of my voice to keep myself awake. And I didn’t even get lost! I found the place on the first try.

After introductions and bit of chit chat, we wrote for thirty minutes. Then we each got to read our piece out loud to the group and get feedback. I say “got to” as if it was a privilege, and it was, but it was intimidating, too. It’s been quite a while since I’ve been in a writers’ group, so I haven’t been reading things to people or even having them read my writings. To do it out loud in a group of strangers with Charles de Lint as part of the group…Yikes! But I did it, and it was a good thing to do. I want to be back in a group where we read to each other and talk about the work. But I digress…

My piece got a lot of good input, including from CdL. He said that I don’t actually need to use many “he said/she said” tags, even though they tend to disappear on the page, because the way I wrote my characters’ voices made them easily distinguishable. I was very proud of myself. I’m trying not to preen. Okay, actually I’m not. I’m preening. I’m very pleased with myself, especially because what I wrote was completely off the top of my head. I didn’t have any plans when I got there, and my piece wasn’t part of a story I had already started or had plans for. (Actually, this part is kind of silly. I have no idea why I didn’t have an idea ready to go along with the myth I took with me—somehow it didn’t occur to me that we were going to be writing in the workshop! Dumb, I know, but I was probably overly excited and not thinking straight.)

So…at lunch time, I went down to the corner coffee shop. CdL was there with two women from class, and we all chatted for a bit while we waited for our coffees and soups and things, and then we walked back to the class together, just chatting as we went. CdL talked about Harlan Ellison and being on the phone with him one time. Just normal, you know. “Oh, I was talking to Harlan once…” He knows all of these amazing writers personally, so he can just say things like, “Last time I was talking to Midori [Snyder].” Or “I was on a panel, sitting next to Jane [Yolen].” Or “Terri [Windling] and I were sitting around one day trying to come up with a name for this type of fiction.” I was star struck. I was, it’s true.

At the end of the class, his wife, Mary Ann Harris, joined us to talk about things like first readers and about acting as his editor and agent for a while. She’s really great, and hearing her take on his writing life was inspiring. Makes me realize what sort of first reader relationship I would like to have.

It was just an amazing, incredible time for me, and these words, little black and white blobs, just can’t do it justice…I think I’ll just write a story instead.

Oh yeah...this is cross posted for those who read more than one of my blogs.