VSC 4: 2 Weeks

January 17, 2010

Well, it’s now been officially 2 weeks since I got here to VSC. I’ve definitely settled in (you know you’re settled in when you sleep in and miss breakfast). Yesterday several people went home–the two-weekers we call them. It was a gloomy day; they were all such cool folks: Sarah G, Sarah C, Scott, Pedro, Nancy, Lois, Evelyn, Abby. And the artists Lauren (my dish-duty buddy) and Jeremy–really amazing print-maker. The place seems so quiet now. Well, also the number of people who arrived yesterday was less than the number of people who left.

However, I found much joy and comfort with the arrival of Kimberly Dark ! She and I read together last summer in San Diego. And, surprise surprise… I walk into the lobby of the dining hall and there is Anthony Hawley– a Columbia MFA friend of mine. I had no idea he was going to be here, let alone that he was here as an artist! Very cool.

Oh, and here’s a better picture of the collage I made last week with the artists in Firehouse Studios.

and here’s the back of the card (we were all given a sentence or two from this obscure book and we had to create a collage based on the sentence/s). You try to make the connection between the collage and the sentence…

I also made some broadsides for the writers who left on Saturday. I took ads from some vintage (1954) movie magazines that I brought from home and then printed on them– in old typewriter font– a line or two from the writers’ readings. I forgot to take pictures of them except for this one, which was for Sarah C.

If you click on it you can see it bigger but the line is from Sarah’s story and reads:

“Rebecca couldn’t sleep for fear of the wolf”

and the ad is for Lustre Creme shampoo and featuring actress Debra Paget.

My writing is going well here. But the more I write, the more I see what a BIG project my book is, and that it is something that is really going to take some time.Whenever I tell people here at VSC about they book they all say it sounds great but sounds like a lot of work.

Hmpf.

It is a lot of work, and I wonder if i’m in over my head writing about a time, place, people, world, I don’t really know (but isn’t that what writing is all about?). I think about writers like David Ebershoff, who wrote the exquisite The Danish Girl. I’m sure he wasn’t an expert on Transgenders or on 1920s Copenhagen and 1930s Dresden. Still, David Ebershoff is pretty brilliant, probably bordering on genius (I should know, I worked as his research assistant for another book while in NYC).

Part of me thinks I should work on something else–like stories, in addition to this book (not while i’m here, but when I get back), or maybe I should try to write essays about what i’m writing the book about; short pieces about the film i’m writing about– for journals and magazines. Something to ‘finish’ as it were–to allow myself the feeling of accomplishing something every once in a while. The scrap of satisfaction for a job well done. Because I just don’t see me finishing this for a long time. Anyway, getting a good draft of this out here at VSC, and really working on character development, and that’s what’s important.

And, thankfully, still have all of the other wonderful residents and faculty here at VSC– folks like Tracy, Rachel, Marin, Tatiana, Matt, Jonathan, Ariana, Jang Soon, JoAnna, Marcie, JT, Jason, Louisa, Eric, Bruce, Nick, Sang-hee, Steven, Lia, Giordanne, Kristie, Nicole, JC, Kim, etc etc (lots of names I still don’t know!). <–CLICK THE NAMES AND SEE THESE AMAZING ARTISTS AND WRITERS!!

So, 2 more weeks (well, really only about 11 days).