Going Down

This weekend, I spoke with Drew at length about the plot of my work in progress and would not let him escape until he’d told me what, as a man, he would do in my character’s place.

Such a revelation. Men and women really do not think the same way at all. I’ve been trying to provide my male character a sufficient motive for the crime he needs to commit, and had it somewhat convoluted due to my feminine nature: talk it over! stop and consider what you’re doing! let’s hug this out! Drew has no use for any of that. My character is already pissed at the bad guy, he’s seething . . . add some white-hot jealousy to the mix and bam! Bad guy is going down. It needs no further justification as far as Drew is concerned. The elements add up and the evil deed can be done.

Oh what a beautiful thing, that straightforward male rage. That linear thought process. I once asked Drew what he thinks about while he’s driving. His answer: driving. Baffling, ladies, I know. Often I arrive home with no memory even of the route I’ve taken to get there. Asking a woman to stop multitasking is like asking a man to stop jerking off. It’s a physiological impossibility.

Armed with this fountain of knowledge and with all the puzzle pieces falling into place, I finally have the structure sorted out and, I hope, a compelling story. With some of the most awful prose you’ve ever read, but that’s a whinge for another day.

How do you get inside the mind of the opposite sex?

Photograph by Ellen Von Unwerth

Zipper

Wherever you go, there you are.

I’ve been hearing that phrase a lot lately, usually as a gentle admonishment in reference to our upcoming move to Oregon. Drew thinks it doesn’t matter where we live; our lives will be the same, we’ll be the same, and ambition is a waste of time. And I actually admire his point of view. He’s a man of simple appetites and I keep him well nourished.

I’m thinking of that now as I walk in circles around yet another park. I imagine the cement under my feet has softened to moss and loam, that this broad expanse of sky has narrowed to a pine-columned cathedral with a ceiling of clouds above it. Would my experience be the same? Would I be the same? If this circle were enclosed with barbed wire and guarded by a man with a rifle, if the next face I met held the hollow-eyed stare of a lifer, would I be unaffected? Would I really be the same?

I think environment has a profound effect on the human mind. Why else would we decorate our homes with paintings and pillows and ceramic jugs of lavender hydrangea? Why do we put our noses to the blossom? Why does a man stop to admire the curve of a woman’s hip, or a ribbon of hair curled around her shoulder? We do so because we are drawn to beauty–the beauty of our own reactions, the lift, the tug of happiness like a zipper up the breastbone. Beauty is something more than external. It inhabits us. We become more beautiful in its presence. We are changed.

I have to believe there’s a part of me that will respond to the scent of water, the iridescent surf on a silver beach, the quiet promise of a seedling in the garden. I have to hope that I can be moved, changed, by a nubby sweater and a wide umbrella and the sound of my footsteps in the forest. But I’m haunted by the possibility that Drew may be right. I will be who I am from the cradle to the grave, and all my hopes for our new home will melt like sugar in the rain.

Wherever you go, there you are.

Do you believe people can change?

Chopping Block

The receptionist is out sick and I’m covering the phones again. The front desk is next to the conference room, so even with the door closed I can hear every word. Yesterday two people got suspended, there were some arguments regarding the new budget, and the big bug and slightly smaller bug had a huge falling out. They passed me separately on their way to the front door and neither one said a word. Oh, we’re a big happy family around here.

So it’s 8:30 and I’m headed downstairs to take up my position on the front line. I’m going to live on the edge today, and offer a running commentary of who’s in that room and what they’re talking about. Scintillating. Yes, I know.

What’s going on at your office? Anyone’s head on the chopping block? Do you think I might get fired if I kick back with The Story of O and eat strawberries at the front desk?

Yes, it's in bad taste. Whatever.

Black Dress

I used to have a little black dress. It was clingy and short, with wrist-length sleeves and a ribbon where the back should have been. I wore it with stilettos and a garter belt and the self-confidence of an 18-year-old who didn’t need a bra to keep everything in place. When I went out on the town in Vegas, in that dress, with a dab of perfume and a painted red mouth, I was transformed. I was five feet six inches (fuck you, I had the stilettos) of pure va-va-voom. I was Jessica Rabbit, baby, one hand on my hip and the other stroking your tie.

I loved that dress.

The next morning, with blistered toes and bleary eyes, I was back in my scrubs. But some of the feeling remained. The light cotton fabric of my uniform tickled at the backs of my knees, and drafts of air crept up the armholes of my shirt and across the tops of my breasts. In the bathroom mirror, under the flat fluorescent lights, I summoned the girl from the night before. I laid her memory over my naked face and tried to imagine that we were both inhabiting the same body.

That’s how it is for me now, with my pseudonym. Averil is my alter ego. She’s me in a black dress, with a foul mouth and a passel of dirty jokes. A little wobbly on the stilettos, and possibly not someone you’d want behind the wheel, but a million times more daring than the scrub-clad mouse scurrying around with an armful of charts and a voice that makes people go, Sorry, I didn’t catch that? I wonder about writers groups and meet-ups with three-dimensional people. Averil doesn’t exist as a person, she’s only for the page, and that other chick is smooth and bland as milk. She’s a party pooper, that one, with her rimless glasses and her pale mouth. She’d rather be home in sweats and a bun than anywhere near a big scary man in a tie.

We are side by side, divided by a name and the attitude of the little black dress.

What’s the story of your pseudonym? Does it empower you, protect you, dress you in a garter belt? If you don’t use one, do you ever wish you did?

Photograph by Ellen Von Unwerth

Gloss

Photograph by Ellen Von Unwerth

I had a mini breakthrough over the weekend. Something CJ said recently about trusting the story clicked into place for me. I went back to the beginning and started reading through my draft, and realized that when I get insecure about my work, I cover it in elaborate metaphor, or try to rely on rhythm and vocabulary to gloss over the fact that I’m afraid to tell the story.

So much of writing is about overcoming fear. For me, the fear lies in revealing a politically incorrect world view, exposing my filthy mind, being vulnerable to assaults on my intellect or the lack thereof. I paint my fears with a wordy shellac and hope the shine will dazzle the reader out of any honest assessment of me or what I’m trying (not) to say.

The breakthrough is this: the words are less important than the story.

And as I strip away the varnish, the few remaining words seem to gain power. The verbs are more vigorous, the sentences more austere. I have to claim them, I won’t be able to persuade the reader that I didn’t mean what I wrote because it’s all in plain sight. Full frontal, there you go, I said it and I meant it and for better or worse, I will have to own it. It’s still scary as hell, but the fear is part of the story. And I have a story to tell.

What do you hide behind when you’re afraid to tell the truth?

Options

I’ve tried to write this post half a dozen times, and I can’t seem to spit it out. I want to preface it with an explanation about some of the emails I receive in response to my blog and stories and whatnot, but I’m afraid of exacerbating the situation so I’m going to cut to the chase.

Yes, I do have a choice about what I say online and in my work. I make those choices every day, thought by thought, word by word, and I write them down. You get to choose what to read, and I can’t help you there, except to remind you that there are approximately nine zillion options beyond this smutty blog. I suggest you explore them.

Photograph by Ellen Von Unwerth

How do you state your case in the court of public opinion?

Fringe

Got tunes?

Keys

Tonight I’m on the greenway, not walking in circles but down the middle of a winding path, through the artificial swells of manicured grass, on a wide, smooth sidewalk between two neighborhoods. It’s cold and still and I am alone. My sneakers sound like a heartbeat on the cement. Ba-dum, ba-dum. My phone is a worry stone in my pocket. I turn it over and around, stroke its smooth cool screen.

In the lamplight I see paw prints and the wavering track of someone’s bike tire. I think of  the Vashon bike in my story and wonder again whether that bike is Lexi or me, or both of us. That part matters but where does it go, where does it go.

Two women swim up through the darkness. One is black, one white, and both are wearing earbuds though they’re walking together. They warn me about a man on the greenway with his dog. You don’t want to go that way, he’s creepy, they tell me. Creepy how? Unnecessarily chatty, the white lady says, and we all nod. I thank them and find a bench and tie my shoe. When they’re gone, I continue on my way.

My footsteps have a different sound now, an acceleration, a sharpness. Fuck you, creepy guy. Who are you to shorten my path? It’s 7pm on a weeknight, I can be here too, I can be here alone, fuck you. Fuck you fuck you fuck you, my feet are pounding. In my pocket, I find my keys and thread them between my fingers like spikes. I’m pissing for a fight. I’ll go for your eyes, you’ll be sorry. I’ll go for your throat. I rub my phone with one hand and clutch my keys with the other, but both hands are in hidden in my pockets because the number one rule is, show no fear.

The darkness is dotted with soft globes of light from the lamps beside the path. I am warm, then cold, then warm again as I move through the night.

Unnecessarily chatty. That seems redundant. Are you lonely, creepy guy? You have your dog, that’s a chick magnet, maybe your bed is empty because your wife has run off with the children and you lie alone in your room with your dick in your fist and listen to your heartbeat and imagine faces in the patterns of the drywall. Maybe you’re alone and wanted an unnecessary chat. Maybe you want to slit my throat to warm your hands.

I reach the end of the greenway without seeing the guy or his dog. I reverse course on a circle of cement, avoiding the lines for good luck. I retrace my steps, up the path, through the lamplight and back to my car. My keys have left ridges in the sides of my fingers. I lock the doors and turn up the music and now I’m headed home.

What are you afraid of? 

Photograph by Ellen Von Unwerth

Snapshots

I called in sick yesterday to work on my book. Things are getting a bit clearer now. I have a better handle on what I want to say, who the characters are and where they will end up. But structure continues to be a problem for me. I don’t know when to say what.

This issue comes up again and again, and I think it comes from writing long-form fiction. My mind doesn’t really work that way. I’m a photographer, I think in snapshots. So what keeps happening is that each scene appears as a vignette, which makes the work seem episodic and disjointed. I don’t understand how to make it cohere, every scene flowing from the one before, rising to the reversal and onward to the end. I’m not sure how to blur the edges of the vignettes and join them together, or how to place them in the most effective order. Where do I weave in the back story? How do I reveal the characters’ motivations and still maintain a sense of mystery?

Have you read anything instructive on how to tackle structure in a novel? What do you ask yourself when you’re putting the pieces together?

Gutter

I need a cigarette. Sadly, I don’t smoke, but if I did, this would be the time to light up and keep the cherries glowing.

Now, I realize that my last post was an interview featuring the uber-classy, award-winning literary author, Laura Maylene Walter, so in theory I should maintain some semblance of decency for a day or two out of respect for the company I keep. But with all apologies to our Laura, this smut is not gonna write itself. I need to sit my ass down in the gutter and let the fumes inhabit me. I need to get my head in the game.

To that end, I’ve surrounded myself with books of erotic photography and anthologies of soft-core fiction, sexy music and videos and odd bits and pieces of writing that make me feel good. (Don’t ask.) I’ve got candles burning and my favorite scent on my wrist. I’m freshly scrubbed and scantily dressed and I’ve got a bowl of strawberries next to the bed, a la Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. (“Did I mention, my leg is 44″ from hip to toe. So basically we are talking about 88″ of therapy, wrapped around you.” Anyone?)

Give me some pages. We need to be alone.

What puts you in the mood to write? Where do you work, what do you wear, what’s your prime time of day for writing?

Living Arrangements

Over the holidays, I did a lot of reading. I tend to skip around a lot, and grab whatever’s at the top of the book-alanche. A chapter here, a chapter there. But one morning I sat down on the couch with a book and a cup of coffee and did not get up again until I’d read Laura Maylene Walter’s short story collection from cover to cover. I was entranced by her writing style and the simple grace with which she presented the stories, and consumed by what I can only call a sense of proprietary pride that Laura is a friend. My friend.

Okayfine. She can be your friend too. But I get to sit next to her at the lunch table.

So here it is, my first blog interview.

Q: Congratulations on Living Arrangements, your debut story collection. Can you talk about where the collection began? What did you write first, and how did the book come together? When did you realize you were exploring a cohesive theme?

I’ll be honest with you. I didn’t think of my stories as a collection until late one night at the very end of 2009, when I was looking at the Poets & Writers contest database and noticed a short story collection contest. For the first time, I thought of all the stories I’d written over the years and whether they would work as a book. This idea felt a little crazy and daring to me – I’d been writing short fiction for years but never with the hope of one day publishing a collection, for various reasons. I knew that my writing explored some recurring themes, but it wasn’t until that night that I thought my stories could work as a collection. I got really excited and went on a story selection/revision spree to create Living Arrangements.

I believe the oldest story in the book is “The Wig Shop,” which in its earliest form goes back to 2005. “In the Backyard” and “A System Based on Counting” (which has gone through many revisions and has been retitled over and over again) are also some of the older stories. “Living Arrangements” is the most recent story in the collection; I wrote the first draft of that story in late 2009 (but still before I’d given any thought to a collection).

Q: Each of the stories seems to leave the reader with a sense of unfulfilled yearning, as of a journey to a longed-for but uncertain destination. How do you see the endings of the stories as part of the theme of the overall work?

Years ago, when “Festival of the Dove” was being critiqued during a fiction workshop, a man told me, “This reads just like a New Yorker story. Meaning it has no ending!” That comment still cracks me up, never mind that I do think the story has an ending, even if it’s subtle. Your description of “longed-for but uncertain destinations” is excellent, and I have to say I’ve always enjoyed slightly ambiguous endings in fiction. I don’t want the writer to do all the work for me. And my endings work with the larger theme that we will continue moving forward, even if it’s a struggle, and even if our efforts aren’t always successful.

Q: Your writing has a wonderfully childlike quality. Where does this come from? What did you read when you were a child?


I don’t think anyone has described my writing as having a childlike quality before, and I haven’t thought of this myself, but I quite like it and feel flattered that you think so.

One of my earliest memories is from before I could read. I was watching my brothers read what we called “the pickle book” and I so badly wanted to be able to read, too. When the time came, I read just about anything. I loved classics like The Secret Garden, Emily of New Moon, and Black Beauty, but I also happily devoured series like The Babysitter Club, Sweet Valley Twins and The Saddle Club (I read any and every book about horses, actually; I suppose I was a stereotypical young girl in that respect). But the book from my childhood that continues to stand out today is Behind the Attic Wall by Sylvia Cassedy. God, I loved that book. Its tone, its melancholy, its little bit of magic. I bought a copy only a few years ago, reread it and still love it. Thank you for the reminder, by the way – I need to buy a copy for a young relative.

Q: You lost your mother to cancer when you were twenty. How has this loss influenced your writing? How has your writing evolved from the natural grief-stricken longing for a mother, to the more universal but equally poignant longing for home and place?

After my mom died, a grief counselor introduced me to the Hope Edelman books, Motherless Daughters and Letters from Motherless Daughters. Those books featured the voices of women who recognized that losing their mothers at an early age was a major defining point in their lives. I felt that way when I was 20 and suddenly found myself without my mom, who had been the closest person in my life.

In the months after her death, my brothers and I worked on cleaning out and selling our childhood home. I spent the next few years hopping around to temporary homes: back to the college dorm, leasing a bedroom in a condo in my hometown for the summer, living with a brother for 6 weeks, staying with my boyfriend’s family, etc. I also studied abroad in London for a semester the year after my mom died. All that moving and change right after losing her was a big adjustment. I felt very alone and it all found its way into my writing at some point. But I like to think that I was able to look past my own circumstances to get to the universal feelings of searching for a place in the world, whether that place is a physical home or a larger kind of acceptance or security. What I was feeling about my mom specifically is what so many of us feel over broader issues, and I wanted to explore all of that in my writing.

Q: Most of the stories in the collection feature female protagonists. Is this simply because you naturally relate to that point of view, or do you imagine that women struggle more deeply with issues of identity and a sense of belonging?

If I’m not writing from a female POV, I seem to prefer writing in the voice of a creepy/disturbing male protagonist, like in “The Ballad Solemn of Lady Malena” or some of my newer work. I can’t really say that I think women struggle more deeply with these issues than men do, but I’m most drawn to the female perspective and the layers introduced by finding your place in the world not only as a person, but as a young woman and all the specific challenges that entails. Which brings me to the next question…

Q: In “A System Based on Counting,” you write about a character whose OCD and sexual identity prevent her from forming healthy relationships. In “Live Model,” the character seems healthy–and hilarious–in spite of her unusual appearance, but still finds acceptance elusive. And in “The Ballad Solemn of Lady Malena,” you write about an ice skater whose success isolates her from normal teenage experiences. What interests you about the way a woman’s emerging sexuality can become a barrier to her sense of place in the world?


A friend and I once shared our memories of when men first started to notice us. For both of us, it happened around age twelve. Twelve! It’s hard to think about girls that young not only being recognized for their sexuality but also that they are picking up on all these signals. They know when that shift happens, when they are in the world not just as a kid but as a young woman with a developing sexuality. I suppose I do view that as a distraction for a girl trying to figure out who she is on her own instead of who she is based on men’s perceptions of her.

I have to say that this question is the most difficult one for me to answer. I’ve been trying to address it in my fiction, and clearly I’m still working on it.

Q: What are you working on now? What do you hope to accomplish in 2012?

I went on a submission binge in 2010, which resulted in a spate of wonderful news, but then I needed a break from submitting. It’s time to end that break. I can’t continue growing as a writer if I don’t put myself out there. And because I’ve been consumed by publication details for Living Arrangements and various freelance writing assignments in recent months, I’m ready to start writing new things, including new short stories. I’ve also been working on a novel, OPAL, for a few years, and I’m still not sure if it’s ready. But no matter what happens with that manuscript, I plan to start a new novel this year – I have the germ of the idea and I’m so, so excited about it. I can’t wait to get started.

The Plan

2012. We have a Plan.

As you may or may not know, I closed up shop on my photography business and went back to an office job last February in order to save the money to get this family the hell out of Vegas. I was born here, and except for a couple of years when my ex was in the military, it’s where I’ve always lived. There’s a long, complicated divorce-aftermath story behind why we’ve been unable to move before now, but that’s a story for another time. Suffice to say that when my daughter turns eighteen next summer, the curse is lifted and we are free to go.

Over the weekend, my mom and I talked about the farmhouse in Salem where we stayed in a couple of years ago. It’s available for the month of May, and I’m renting it. While we’re there, I’ll be job-hunting with the kind of desperation a laid-back town like Salem has never seen before. I’m a body for hire. No qualifiers: I’ll do anything.

Our other mission will be finding a house. And let me tell you, my mother is my ace in the hole where living arrangements are concerned. She thinks of things I never would, like traffic patterns and the configuration of the kitchen appliances, and she’s got a nose for a bargain. Finding a house will be the easy part: put my mother on the scent, and off she goes.

And if you haven’t guessed, The Plan entails giving notice at my job. (!!!) Early April, I will regretfully inform my boss that we’re moving. Drew will stay behind until they can find and train a replacement for his IT gig. And then he’ll be with me. And my youngest will be with me. And one or both of the teens, depending on the college situation.

They’ll be with me. And we’ll be gone.

What’s 2012 got in store for you? What’s your good news?

Photograph by Ellen Von Unwerth

Blister

I’m at the library, spending some time with my manuscript. I change things, shuffle them around, arrange and rearrange. (Better, or worse? Like I’m choosing a new pair of lenses.) I keep thinking about what Drew says, what Drew has said more than once: Books are silly. Words, words, words. Why wouldn’t you see a movie?

I get in my car and drive to another park, a different park. That’s three in a week, all over town, what the fuck am I doing on this tour. I get out and walk. Round and round, up the hills and down. My heart hurts, and the back of my hand with its three fresh stripes, and my feet which are blistered because my socks are too thin. I curl my toes to keep them from rubbing.

The park is packed today. All the little ones with their new bikes. A bespectacled Asian boy weaves up on his tricycle, the smallest Big Wheel I’ve ever seen. It hardly merits the name. His mother and grandmother are behind him, calling, Keep going, keep going. He looks up at me and nearly runs off the sidewalk, so distracted have I made him. (Still got it, Averil.) Another boy zooms by, bigger, blonder and faster. He glances at me and his eyes are full of sky, opaque with catch light; the reflector on the front of his bike dazzles me. The wind ruffles my hair as he passes.

I don’t want to think about how he’d look through my lens. I don’t want to think about the words, words, words. I try to think of music, but music makes me think of August and August makes me think of the manuscript and there I am back to the words. I shape them into the nastiest, neediest bit of second-person smut you’ll never read. All my words are short and hard. All my imagining is ugly, as I am ugly today.

I walk until the golden light turns purple. Until my toes are bloody and the words are gone.

Fucking hormones.

Sorry. This is where I am today. Where are you?

Photograph by Ellen Von Unwerth