A Room of One's Own

Working on a second novel as the first one comes out has been a challenge. I'm not complaining. Well, maybe a little. Certainly not about the publication part, but trying to hold two things at one time in my fifty year old brain pan has been exhausting. I find myself wishing for a chunk of time thick enough and deep enough to sink into the new story. The one about the mothers and daughters and all those family members and food--Lord, all the food! I'm not a multi-tasker. I'm almost not a tasker at all. I like to do one thing at a time and I'd rather have less and do less than be real busy and productive. I aspire to be a shut-in one day.

Nobody ever tells you that the best part of writing fiction is resuscitating the imagination you locked away when you started grade school. Writing fiction is a lot like the days when you were a kid and could play make believe games with fantastical plot lines and characters for hours, and in my case, days/weeks on end. Some of those games I played with the neighbor kids and some I imagined and played by myself. Inventing a world where I would marry John Lennon--actually, I think we just shacked up--live on a farm with a cow named Eleanor Rigby and a horse named Penny Lane, and have adventures that had something to do with traveling by balloon to countries that don't exist and playing air guitar.

Writing fiction gives me that part of my brain back--the inventive, playful and darkly twisted mind that loves make-believe and thrills when a character walks into the room and wants to be written.

Even though my novel, Little Green, is rooted in my own life experiences, it is also make believe and so I could invent the resting places for Janie that didn't exist in real life. How cool is that? When you write about your own life, or make it the jumping off place for a novel, you get the chance to give the 'you' character some gifts that maybe weren't there when you were living it all in real time.
Stella was one such gift. He came to me early on in the writing process. A huge man the color of my favorite crayon (Burnt Sienna) who could love Janie but not be in love (or lust) with her. As I got to know him through writing him, I kind of fell in love with him myself.

I want more of that! Having more of that means having quiet time to space out and stare out the window and follow the imagination's trail to the next thing. I better get on that.

Miz Loretta Reads To You June 17 7:30, Baby

My first official reading is tomorrow night at Annie Bloom's Books in Multnomah Village. Yes, I've told y'all before, but I really am excited. I lived the first nine years of my life at 6491 SW Capital Hoghway. I even remember my first phone number--246-4363! All four of my sisters attended Wilson High School. I went to West Hills Christian School--yup, I did--and later Mary Reike Elementary but back in those days we called it Little Wilson. My library was the Hillsdale branch. My grocery store was Lynches (where Nature's is now). Lynches had these little brown paper grab bags that I loved to buy. They came in two sizes--large for a quarter and small for a dime. You never knew what kind of junk you'd get. It was the surprise that mattered. My sister was married in the Hillsdale Community Church when I was five--I was the flower girl and very proud to be dressed entirely in pink.
I still love that part of Portland. After my divorce I moved deep into the heart of Multnomah within walking distance of Annie Bloom's. I spent many lazy afternoons and evenings curled up in one of their cushy chairs reading, then stopping by Fat City or Marco's or O'Connor's for a drink or a bite to eat. I lived on a gravel street that got little traffic. It was a small house with a huge yard. The owner had been my brother-in-law's friend from school. He lived in Baltimore and needed someone to keep up the yard and live in the place. The rent was only $200 a month. Like I said, it was a perfect place for me to try out my wings. I worked and went to school and had incredible potlucks every weekend all summer long.
Multnomah Village is truly one of the treasures of Portland. It's a part of town that makes me feel like I'm out of town on vacation somewhere small, quaint and charming. So much of my personal history has taken place within walking distance of Annie Bloom's it is absolutely perfection to be reading there tomorrow and having a drink next door after. If you're out and about, stop by. And if you've never been to the Village get yourself there, toot sweet, baby. You won't regret it!

Just A Little Green

This Thursday I'll be reading from Little Green at Annie Bloom's Books in Multnomah Village. It's hard to figure what to read--something from the beginning so the listeners don't get lost? Something from the middle? Some place where things get interesting and the story is moving? Definitely not from the end. I don't want to ruin the ending for anyone. My two little girl friends (5 & 7) had waffles with me yesterday. I asked the girls what they were reading these days. Sylvia said she was reading Charlotte's Web and Kika said, "It's sad when Charlotte dies." Yeah, not so much reading from the end.
In workshops, you're always reading what you're working on, the pages you're holding are still warm from the copy machine, but once a book is bound you are, too, to the words printed and the story as it exists on the page. You can get caught up in revision and I think some writers never finish the longer project because the story keeps changing on them. Little Green is my first book, my baby really but would she be the same baby if I wrote that story again? She was my training bike. Zadie Smith compared her first novel, White Teeth, with a slightly overweight not totally attractive child. You send your work out into the world and you hope for kindness and a welcoming reception and then you let go and start the next project. Such is life, I suppose.
As for Thursday's reading, I believe I'll choose something seasonal and hope for a warm and sunny day!

Ready, Set, Read!

Reading aloud to grown ups, at least from my own work, used to make me nauseous and sweaty like I had the beginnings of a flu. This is a problem if you're in a fiction writing class. When it was my turn to read part of a chapter in the workshop, my face would turn deep red, my hands would become cold and sweaty, my mouth would dry up like I'd been smoking the wacky weed, my stomach would shiver like jello and my voice would tremble, quake and threaten to crack at the most inopportune moments. By the time I'd read my piece, I'd have to leave the room for water--some to drink and some to splash on my face.
And then it changed. I told the professor, A.B. Paulson, how bad it was for me to read to the members of our class and he told me to think about my breathing and slow down. He didn't promise I'd feel better. He just said breathe and slow down. Thinking of filling my startled lungs instead of freaking out about the words on the double-spaced page in front of me helped a bunch. So did practicing alone with no audience except little Musoweinie, our dachshund.
It wasn't until about a year ago reading a story I'd won the Doug Fir Fiction prize for at the Someday Lounge that I actually enjoyed--no, loved the experience. Since that night in a packed bar when I read my work to a crowd of friends and strangers I haven't been afraid again. I hope that doesn't change as I go into this season of events for Little Green. Thursday June 3, I read at PSU from my novel. I've been practicing like crazy and I really can't wait to bring my inner diva out to play!

A Portland Moment

Moments of synchronicity seem to happen more frequently these days. I'm not sure why. Is it that I'm finally driving this bus in the direction it was always meant to go? Or am I just noticing it more often than I used to?

My partner, Ben, had a piece of art in the Cascade Aids Project auction Saturday night. We got ourselves all cleaned up and fancy, me in a shorty black dress and pink brocade jacket Prince may have worn back in the day. Ben in his sharkskin suit and red-checked tie. We drove over to the Bison Building at NE 9th and Flanders, a great industrial space which had been turned into a cocktail party art gallery. After getting set up with drinks and snackage (the best Dirty martini I think I've had in my life). We looked at the art and then I stole away to listen to legendary diva, Linda Hornbuckle and her band play some old school soul and R&B.

During the first set, as is the custom in P-town, not a body on the floor was shaking it and I have to admit I was shy to be the tipsy fifty-year old woman dancing alone. I stood off to the side and just watched. My god, that woman can sing! Deep soulful tunes that had me swaying despite myself. The second set really got the party started and the dance floor soon became hot, crowded and jumping. Just like it ought to be.

A woman nearby put her evening bag on top of the packet with our drink tickets so at some point we started talking. Turns out this glamorous woman also had been married to a man who was married to his addiction. Turns out she, too, had to leave in a rush and suffered for years from what we'd now call post traumatic stress disorder. She said to me that when women do finally leave, "We just get stronger." I agreed. I told her about my book, Little Green and a little about my own history, how hard it is to walk away and not go back, how frightening it is to start over but once you're out you would never go back to that other kind of fear. The fear that's all about if he's drunk, if he's high, if he's mad--all the shit you can't control. She told me her sisters are both still in abusive relationships. I asked her if she'd seen her ex since she left him. She said that he still lives in the town where her family resides. When she goes home to visit, she can count on him showing up unannounced. "It's like he can smell me." I know that feeling. I wonder sometimes if I'll ever be free of it. Yes, I'm stronger in some ways, but at what cost?

If the statistics are right, one out of four women will experience violence a the hands of someone she knows. Maybe it isn't really surprising I would meet a stranger at a crowded and unlikely event and find that we share experiences that had us nodding in recognition during our brief conversation. There are too many of us out there, ladies. Far too many of us.

Ninja Writing Practice

When I worked as a preschool teacher there were a couple of different ways you could approach making art with little kids. The first way--the only way for a very long time--was to have a project that focused on the end result. A teacher would spend hours cutting out hearts or pumpkins, or long, long ago Christmas tree shapes and making all these uniform pieces that could be easily assembled by a four-year old child with minimal mess and uniform results for all children. There weren't choices about color, shape or size. There was a wrong way and a right way to make the project and it was obvious to everyone. A child who ventured to make something different by choice or chance weren't called creative by lots of the teachers I worked with--they were just plain naughty and probably not allowed to have extra supplies.
The other way to do art with kids is all about enjoying the making and doing. It's much messier than the other way. Paint will be spilled, glue, too. Supplies will be decimated. Pumpkins may end up triangular and not the standard orange circle. Odd (to the adult eye, anyway) color combinations will probably arise. Children encouraged to experiment and take risks regardless of the mess involved will discover things about the materials and themselves that are more important than the product at the end of the line. I'd like to suggest that not much changes as we get older.
Writing is kind of like a messy art project for me. I don't know where I'm going when I start. Something shiny grabs me and won't leave me alone. An image, a sentence fragment I overhear at a coffee shop, some little piece of conversation I can't quit thinking about. I start wondering why a sad brown-eyed woman is moving her family in the rain on the bus and what her oldest kid is thinking about during the long ride across town, each kid carrying a box or garbage bag stuffed with clothes. I don't have an outline for the story because I'm writing to find out what happens next and it will take some time to figure it out. Of course, I can't really know what anyone else experiences except in my imagination. That's the beauty in this whole "process" approach to writing, and to life. Writing a story is like playing make believe when you're about seven-years old. You can lose yourself in time and space. It's magic when you're doing it and thankfully it doesn't require any special skill set to do it.
Writing is just writing--a practice, if you like, or a discipline, an art, a craft. We sit down with our tools and quiet up. We pay attention and soon enough we're writing and the time melts away. Later there will be revision and maybe soup if I get off my ass and make it but not until later.

Read You A Novel

On Sunday, in the New York Times Book Review, I was delighted to find a full page review of Gina Ochsner's latest book, The Russian Dreambook of Color and Flight. It's a book I'm recommending to everyone I know and not just because the woman wrote a lovely blurb for my own little book. I'm telling people to read it because I haven't had such great luck with my adventures in reading lately.

I use the Sunday Times to give me guidance about books. I make a list in the back of my journal titled "Books To Read", but so many of those books fail to keep me in their stories and that, my friends, is what I want--to be kept like a mistress in the tight box of a good story. I've given up on famous books by famous writers who need better editing. I'm not naming names here. Suffice to say of the NY Times book list, I've started many and finished few. I've been aching for a story--a good, well-told story about characters I wanted to live with and cozy up tight with while my spring allergies rage. I wanted a book that could withstand a heavy dose of Benadryl and weepy red-rimmed eyes. A book that could keep me awake in bed and make me want to return to its unturned pages first thing in the morning.
When I saw that Gina Ochsner was about to publish her first novel, I was excited. I like her short stories a lot. She's won just about every literary award and grant for the quality of her amazing little stories, and she lives in Salem, Oregon, for chrissakes, so of course I've got to love her work, but novels are what I love best. And finally she has one!
I won't say too much about plot. I won't use words like magic realism or post modernity. I will say there's a place you've never been "The All-Russian All-Cosmopolitan Museum". There is grinding, horrific poverty.There are latrines and street kids and much to do about toaster ovens and icons. There is a character who dreams of being a fish and a dead man who refuses to be buried. And there is a woman who should be hopeless but isn't. Read this book. Read it now.