I need to be busy again. Busy-ness makes me feel better. Having things to do, having places to be and responsibilities. I’d like to think it pushes me creatively, too. This summer was just a wash–too much time on my hands and not enough discipline. After the writing retreat in July which was both inspiring and stifling, I came back jazzed about my book but then  I lost the momentum. I need to get it back.

I’m going to sign up for a class at the writing school where I teach and where I do the programming. A really terrific (and prolific) writer named Tammy Greenwood, who also happens to be one of the sweetest most generous people, is teaching a 4 week workshop on prepping for Nanowrimo — National Novel Writing Month. I don’t know that I’ll officially participate in Nanowrimo, but we’ll see. The workshop is all about working on a personal strategy for actually getting it–your novel– done. I think it’s what I need. I’ve got nearly 100 pages of what I’m calling a draft which is so all over the place, fragmented, unstructured, that I need to really get into shape, not to mention I need to really just push forward and get the stuff out.

Of course, I did find some time to make things this summer. Again, trying out new types of postcard making. I made these two things (?), not sure what to call them, with the previously mentioned (in the previous blog) rubber stamps.

These are images taken from magazines that I then stamped with red paint (using the faux-wood-look rubber stamp). Can you guess who is in the first one (it’s from a recent Interview Magazine)? The second one is an ad from Photoplay Magazine from 1954.

Ok, i’m hoping to bring more people to my site, so the celebrity is: Justin Bieber! Bloody Justin Bieber! (no offense to JB, it’s just an artistic rendering; however, this will probably be the only time Mr. B will be on my website. Maybe).

Here are 5 that have gone out so far:

The postcards for the Write-a-Thon all have something to do with literature– I use pages from old books, lines of Whitman poems, lit criticism about Dickens and Bronte and then my usual film or pop-culture images or references, many from vintage magazines. I’m also experimenting with paint more– having fun painting rubber stamps and then applying that to the postcard.

I bought these AWESOME rubber stamps– one is a fleur-de-lys (you can see it in red and orange on two of the postcards) and then I found a  huge rubber stamp that looks like

wood grain (see below).

I’m torn between really loving the book, and being a bit frustrated or confused distinguishing between the two main characters–father and son– and the time shifts. But I’m only almost halfway through the book. On a sentence level, however, the book is incredible.

Speaking of tinkering, last week Judy Reeves (oh, she of San Diego Writers, Ink and A Writers Book of Days, among other lovely accomplishments) and I went to a journal-making workshop at San Diego Art Department. I took a silver-ring making class there last year.

This was a four-hour workshop on crafting/collaging your own journal– though not on binding your own journal as I had thought it might be. But it was still fun. Four hours with a good friend, getting our hands all sticky with glue and watching each other create something meaningful (after all, who doesn’t love a journal, right?).

I also learned some really cool ideas for collaging– notably the use of paint in collage– as background, or sometimes applied on top of the collage. The instructor really encouraged a lot of color, but I’m a bit more minimalist than that. Still, they look pretty good I have to admit.

As much as I love to write, because it’s an act of creating, I feel that same euphoria at working with my hands to create something with paper and paint and glue and ephemera. It’s also meditative and, most of the time, I can finish a project in a few days or weeks (if only I could do the same for my novel…).

Here are some pictures of the experience. The journal with the word Grizz at the top is mine–I’m not sure what my theme is/was: there are bears, old Japanese women in cat glasses, an upside down Oscar, British Admirals– figure that one out.  (Judy Reeves, in case you don’t know her and her fabulousness, is in yellow, the instructor Carla Christensen is in Pink). Do any of you take art classes like this for fun?

Don’t know why I had never seen this poem by Billy Collins before:

Marginalia

Sometimes the notes are ferocious,
skirmishes against the author
raging along the borders of every page
in tiny black script.
If I could just get my hands on you,
Kierkegaard, or Conor Cruise O’Brien,
they seem to say,
I would bolt the door and beat some logic into your head.

Other comments are more offhand, dismissive -
“Nonsense.” “Please!” “HA!!” -
that kind of thing.
I remember once looking up from my reading,
my thumb as a bookmark,
trying to imagine what the person must look like
why wrote “Don’t be a ninny”
alongside a paragraph in The Life of Emily Dickinson.

Students are more modest
needing to leave only their splayed footprints
along the shore of the page.
One scrawls “Metaphor” next to a stanza of Eliot’s.
Another notes the presence of “Irony”
fifty times outside the paragraphs of A Modest Proposal.

Or they are fans who cheer from the empty bleachers,
Hands cupped around their mouths.
“Absolutely,” they shout
to Duns Scotus and James Baldwin.
“Yes.” “Bull’s-eye.” “My man!”
Check marks, asterisks, and exclamation points
rain down along the sidelines.

And if you have managed to graduate from college
without ever having written “Man vs. Nature”
in a margin, perhaps now
is the time to take one step forward.

We have all seized the white perimeter as our own
and reached for a pen if only to show
we did not just laze in an armchair turning pages;
we pressed a thought into the wayside,
planted an impression along the verge.

Even Irish monks in their cold scriptoria
jotted along the borders of the Gospels
brief asides about the pains of copying,
a bird signing near their window,
or the sunlight that illuminated their page-
anonymous men catching a ride into the future
on a vessel more lasting than themselves.

And you have not read Joshua Reynolds,
they say, until you have read him
enwreathed with Blake’s furious scribbling.

Yet the one I think of most often,
the one that dangles from me like a locket,
was written in the copy of Catcher in the Rye
I borrowed from the local library
one slow, hot summer.
I was just beginning high school then,
reading books on a davenport in my parents’ living room,
and I cannot tell you
how vastly my loneliness was deepened,
how poignant and amplified the world before me seemed,
when I found on one page

A few greasy looking smears
and next to them, written in soft pencil-
by a beautiful girl, I could tell,
whom I would never meet-
“Pardon the egg salad stains, but I’m in love.”

Included in the book, Sailing Around the Room: New and Selected Poems

And, making my own. (more samples on my Flickr page to the right–>)

Sometimes my friends, like Peter and Jess, give me old postcards they find or old family postcards–especially Jess, whose family seems to have thousands of them.

here’s one.  don’t remember where I got it. the back of it says National Arts Centre, Ottawa Canada “one of five luminous hanging sculptures… by William Martin.”

I was part of a home-made post-card trade–Post.due– that was fun for a bit but then it sort of disappeared, or maybe they disappeared me? (two of my postcards–featuring Dick and Jane– are at the bottom of the page).

Then I discovered Tin Parachute Publishing– also defunct– but they were so cool. They would print a tiny story on a postcard and someone would create art to go with it and then they would send it out. How cool to have a teeny tiny story on a postcard sent out to subscribers– and to have someone create art based on your story. This has happened to me once, when I wrote a piece for the Canadian magazine Maisonneuve.

One of my favorite stories was by the writer Pedro Ponce– see the postcard below. And then it turns out Pedro and I were at the same residency in January so I got to meet him. (and he’s not only a terrific writer but a terrific guy).

I wish Tin Parachute Publishing were still going–I’d love to have sent them something. Does anyone know if there are any short story postcard journals out there?

Maybe I should get one started? Hmm, like I need another distraction from my own writing, right?

(click on the postcard to read the story)

So much to say but my head is utterly pounding and the thoughts in my brain a-jumble — anxiety about travel tomorrow, the strange ritual of packing up after 5 weeks away, the  goodbyes to dozens of wonderful people. What is there to say? How to put it into words how important this residency was, how inspiring, how enlightening.

Some fragmented thoughts (Part 1):

I love snow (and it’s now snowing on our last night–yay!)

layering of clothes– forgot how fun it was to accessorize with a scarf–though I didn’t wear my hat as much as I should have (worried about bad hair)

learned so much about the characters in my book.

was inspired by the art and artists here: collage, painting, sculpture, jewelry, print making

decided I really want to buy a print-maker, print press (anybody have an old one they don’t want?)

felt pangs of jealousy that I wasn’t an artist making paintings or sculptures or other visual art

dance parties are fun again

in a pinch Jim Beam will do nicely

really worked on voice and language in my book

VSC has probably the nicest, funniest chef i’ve ever had the pleasure of working with (Go Mark!)–as well as everyone else in the kitchen.

Leni Zumas is my new favorite writer. If you haven’t read her, go out and get her book Farewell Navigator NOW.

People here were very interested in my book. WHEWWW!

I learned some new collage techniques, including ‘tearing.’

Learned the word Gesso. Also ‘underpainting.’

Ate a lot of salad while here.

Crashed into a ditch/snow bank but was rescued by friendly Vermonters.

Saw sled dogs up close and personal!

Twirled around in a black dress while having my picture taken.

Washed about 17, 294 dishes (ok, I just rinsed them).

Made photograms with Rachael!

Finally got good use of my duckboots!

Missed Ted.

Missed the kitties.

discovered Green Mountain organic distilled Vodka (awesome martinis)

the founders and employees of VSC are the greatest

**more about my work at VSC later…

I shared the night with 4 other terrific writer residents: Phil, Louisa, Karen, and Anya. Phil and Anya also showed slides (actually Anya, a writer and performance artist, showed video).

Phil put up this photo of photographer Edward Steichen, which I found incredibly beautiful, it’s called Rodin the Thinker (Rodin Le Penseur 1902). Steichen was known for his “tonal, mood-filled, and mysterious canvases that were praised for their lyrical qualities.”

Furthermore, “he was associated with a style of photography known as Pictorialism. The Pictorialists felt that the aesthetic promise of photography lay in an emulation of painting. Steichen’s early work, then, adopted many Pictorialist techniques (a jiggled tripod, a lens bathed in glycerin, or various darkroom tricks) designed to produce “painterly” soft-focus effects. During this period, Steichen was also a painter, until he burned all his canvases in 1922.” [!!!!!<-- ed.]

I didn’t realize that  I had already seen Steichen’s works in these well known celebrity portraits of Garbo and Gloria Swanson.

Gorgeous.

The visiting writer, Leni Zumas, was a total gem. I met with her on Saturday morning and found her completely engaged and engaging; I felt as if she really understood my project, had really read the sample I sent her closely and thoughtfully and she had very clear specific feedback for me. During this residency i’ve been trying to focus on language–especially the voices of the characters and Leni honed in on that. After reading her story collection,  Farewell Navigator, I can see why: I want to call her prose ‘spare’ but I don’t know if that’s the right word. Because it isn’t really spare. The sentences are sharp and strange but also bold and beautiful, eerie (reminiscent of Mark Richard, one of my faves). Her turns of phrase are fresh and odd and stunning: “…the space between her eyes.”  “I am the leaver, the taker, the bringer.” “…the walls are wet on my palm.”

When she gave her craft talk we did the most inspiring writing activity involving words–new, bizarre, obscure words and phrases that then went on to spark ideas and more dazzling words from us. I hope she doesn’t mind but i’m going to use that activity in my own classes.

And though the week is not over yet (still have until Thursday–I leave VSC on Friday morning), this has been a perfect last week.

Cartoon courtesy of fabulous New Yorker artist Harry Bliss, with his permission. Thanks Harry!

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).

Last night at VSC 6 artists/painters/visual artists showed slides  and spoke briefly of their work. All of them were impressive and interesting and thought-provoking. I loved hearing about process and goals and intents, and seeing the varied forms of art– whether paint, wood, computer-generated, poured, poked.

One really moved me: Matt McConville and his paintings of nude men called “Figures in Landscape.” They were not all what I would expect from a title like which was his intention. These were nude men of a particular age and size– none of them perfect or buff or especially ‘handsome’–but in that honesty they were oddly beautiful. One article I found online explains that “McConville’s nudes aren’t the idealized youths of antiquity, but the pudgy guys next door, with all their rolls, holes, hair loss, and hairy guts.”

Some of the men are wrestling or on top of each other, but not sexual. Some are posed playfully– whimsically? [I'm not going to post photos of his paintings, as I don't have permission, but check them out on his website]

I was so taken by the humor and candor, and inspired because in a way, I felt the paintings speaking to me now that I’m a man of a certain age, with the little belly forming and the bits of hair sprouting from my ears (that I shave a couple of times a week).

Then, when I opened my [school] email this morning, this is what I found! How fitting.

Are they trying to tell me something?

Account: robert.williams

This is your quarantine summary from the Barracuda Spam Firewall.

You have 14 messages in your spam quarantine inbox.

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