Sandra Gail Lambert

I knew you were wondering.

So, how's the revision going, you ask.  I can say that I've started.  Many things that I hoped would be true, are.  Even from the first paragraph of the first chapter, the novel started to pull together as a, well, novel.  I'm tightening up the writing.  And only occasionally do I think that there's no way I can ever do this.

What bothers me the most is the inefficiency.  I write, ponder, and drop deeper until I feel the whole novel in my head all at once.  And now it's obvious that this chapter needs to end here, that sentence belongs in the third chapter, and I must, must have swallow-tailed kites appear right away.  Then, way before I'm done, I have to leave.  I scribble down all the connections, corrections, and shiftings around that are in my mind and hope they make sense when I return.  

Mostly, they don't.  So, I start over at the surface of my mind.  For a time management, list keeping, have everything at hand type, it's frustrating. 

Lauren Groff

Lauren Groff's new book of short stories Delicate Edible Birds is having a release party here in Gainesville at Wild Iris Books this coming up Tuesday, January 27th at 6pm.  There are so many reasons why I'll be there.

When her novel Monsters of Templeton (a NYT bestseller) was released last year, I heard her speak at Goerings.  She was genuine and generous, and I enjoyed every minute, especially the part about having rewritten her novel four times and the struggle to let the novel have its sea monster and ghost and Greek chorus of aging joggers no matter what the literary world would think of such things.  It made me feel more regular as a writer. 

Join me, right here at Wild Iris Books, to celebrate with this Pushcart Prize winning author who has been published in Best American Short Stories, the Atlantic Monthly, One Story, and The Chattahoochee Review.  (Yes, you have heard me whine about being rejected from some of these publications.)     

Revision Plan

Okay.  I think I'm over the finishing-first-draft meltdown.  I stopped trying to write.  Then I poked and meandered through the chapters.  It was helpful to notice that not all of it was complete crap.  Now, I have a plan. 

This revision is about making the writing better and a first, light braiding of the chapters.  

There, that's a nice concrete plan.  I didn't even have one of those under arm stinging sweats when I typed it.  Today and tomorrow are OldEnglishLady days, but I'm ready.  

Speaking of my OldEnglishLady.  She knitted red/white/blue scarves in celebration of Obama.  Here I am wearing one and watching the Inauguration.

      

Barack Hussein Obama

This is the best day in a long, long time.  In between sudden starts and stops of crying, I'm celebrating by writing. 

Post First Draft

I sat in front of my computer for days and days, not writing, having shame about not writing, being short tempered.  Yesterday I figured out that I was having just a teeny bit of an emotional fall apart after finishing the first draft of this novel. 

So I turned off the computer for a long time (five hours) and closed up the novel files (yes, actual physical files) and stacked them at the end of the writing bed.  For a few days, I'm going to do frivolous things.  Like watch this video.

Post Peter Matthiessen

Sometimes - often, actually - I'm amazed that, twenty years ago, I had the good sense to move to Gainesville. 

Last night, I was among a way more than legal capacity crowd at a community center in NE Gainesville. Extra chairs were pulled from everywhere they could find them, people stood two and three deep along the walls, and the more limber sat on the floor at Peter Matthiessen's feet.  There were at least 300 of us.  

Peter Matthiessen introduced one of his main character's descendents who was sitting in the audience and then read the part of Shadow Country set in our county.  He talked about making fiction out of history.  About Cesar Chavez and Leonard Peltier.  I leaned over to my poet friend and whispered, "I'm so happy." 

I was.  It's a thrill to be part of a group celebrating writers and writing and the excitement of reading.  Big cities think that they are the center of the universe, but in Gainesville, Florida we know the truth. 

Jerry Lewis - Humanitarian?

 

This year will be my SEVENTH ANNUAL JUNKFOOD OSCAR PAJAMA PARTY.  Women arrive at my house in satin robes, rocket ship footie pajamas,  sweat pants, caftans, long t-shirts, and I, of course, wear a lovely mu-mu.  The offerings change from year to year, but always include crunchy things dyed orange and M&Ms.  We huddle around my tiny, not a flat screen television and have a great, loud time. 

Jerry Lewis wants to ruin my party.  So what that he's spent years demeaning disabled people, relegating us to the status of children, pitiful children, that he personally thinks we are "half-people" that should stay in our houses. (Check out Laura Hershey's blog for more information.)  I've dealt with that, sort of.  I avoid TV during his annual pity marathon, I have a passionate but I don't think too long rant I throw out whenever his name is mentioned, and from time to time I write letters to our local paper.  

But now he's up for one of those "humanitarian" awards that Oscar gives out.  I'm trying to be positive.  Like, the protests against him will have a wider audience and more people will start thinking what it really means to put a hand on a disabled person's head and say "look how horrible this is, give us money."  That maybe, as a result, no one will ever pat me on the head again. 

But mainly, I'll throw things at the television.  It's going to be such a waste of M&Ms. 

If you want to throw some candy of your own, here's a link to a petition you can sign.  And Crip Commentary has a do-it-yourself guide to Jerry Lewis/Telethon protesting. 

Peter Matthiessen here in Gainesville

The author Peter Matthiessen is an environmental activist, is the founder of the Paris Review, and has been sued for his writing by both the governor of South Dakota and an FBI agent.  He just won the National Book Award for his novel Shadow Country, a saga about the murder of Edgar J. Watson in the Everglades of 1910.  

Santa Fe College is sponsoring this evening with Peter Matthiessenon Tuesday, Jan 13th from 7-9pm.  It will not be held on campus, but rather at the Thelma Boltin Center just east of downtown. 

Oh yeah.  See you there.

 

 

All About Me

Yesterday, just before taking my mother to her doctor's appointment, I printed out a newly minted draft of a chapter.  Well, not just a chapter.  The last chapter.  I think.  I still need to write this one scene - a woman in the 1700's running/escaping through miles of long leaf pine - but then, most likely, that's it.  It, it.  The end.  The end of the first complete draft of this novel. 

Inside me somewhere are high-pitched squeals and ohmygods.  But not out loud, not yet.  I have to go research North Florida trade caravans of the 18th century. 

An Elizabeth Strout Kick

 

My first book read in 2009 was my second book by Elizabeth Strout in the past month.  At ACA my fellow novelist, Katherine Davis, ordered me (she used to be a teacher) to read Olive Kitteridge.  She said it would help with my novel-in-progress.  I did and it did. 

Now I've read Amy and Isabelle.  I could say loads of stuff about the writing and plot and all that, but just take my word for the loveliness and skill of every page.  What you have to add to all that is the relief of reading, in both these books, about women who aren't all young, who, for better or worse, are their own agents, and who are written real all the way through.  

I have Strout's Abide With Me on the bedside table.  And I've heard rumors of a new novel.    

A Writer's Resolutions

 

1.  I will finish this novel this year. 

2.  I will show up at all the talks, signings, lectures, appearances of any kind of as many authors as I can.  

3.  I will add back into my life time to critique/exclaim over/support  other writers' works-in-progress.  

4.  I will read, read, read. 

There, that's it.  Is there something I've left out?