Surrender, Dorothy

The 5,000 Word Day

It's Friday. It's 3 p.m. I'd planned to be done writing by now, to have picked up Bella from the vet, to be at the gym preparing to meet Steph for dinner. I'd planned to have crossed a lot more off my list by now.  As usual, my list is bigger than my brain. I'm slowing down.

I cherish these writing Fridays that I've carved out for myself. I'm going to miss next Friday due to other obligations, so I've tried to cram a lot into today. I learned a new content management system this morning and had 1800 words and two articles out by noon.  Since then, I've written three-and-a-half posts for BlogHer and am starting to have trouble producing my normal vocabulary, a sure sign I'm about to short out like a flickering flashlight.  I'm trying to harness the last few bits of power before everything goes dark.

I'd hoped to work on my children's book this afternoon, but I can tell I'm going to run out of time. I don't know anything about writing kids' books, but I've had an idea rattling around in my head for two years, and now that I have some time, it's coming together, bit by bit.

I started a novel and got two pages in before I realized I needed more couch time to let the outline emerge. I can't remember who said writing was like pulling a bucket up from the bottom of a well, but that's how the longer, creative stuff feels. Articles are easy, anything based on research is easy, but creating something new ... that's something else altogether. I can kind of see the idea down there, but right now the reflections glancing off the water's surface have blinded me. I think that novel is going to take even longer than the one sitting in my desk drawer took. I hope this one is better than the desk drawer one. The desk drawer one never got off the rope even after I painstakingly pulled it up from the depths.

Someone asked me recently if I'm going to do another anthology. Not right now, not one of my own. It was an incredible experience, but I have to admit it's exhausting to corral 23 other people. I can't even seem to get myself through my lists these days -- the idea of encouraging and goading other writers is more than I can wrap my head around. And there is a very deep desire in me to publish something as an author instead of an editor.

But I don't know what kind of a writer I am. The writers I admire most are those impossible to pin down, those who write novels and nonfiction and essays and poetry and screenplays and children's books without regard to genre. I don't want to be pigeonholed, even if that means conventional success. The side effect?  I look at my list and can't tell if I have any focus at all. I don't know if that will hurt me or help me. I'm no longer sure exactly what I'm trying to achieve here, but I know I'm barreling forward regardless. I've been writing now for six hours without getting up except to pee and grab some chili for lunch, and I can't figure out how the time flew by so fast. I learned in college this is called "flow" and is what life is all about, doing something so balanced between challenge and mastery one literally becomes unaware of time. I wish I could do this all day every day. I wonder if I will ever succeed enough at writing, master it enough, to be paid a living wage to do so every day. I hope so.

But even if I don't, nothing feels as good, or as exhausting, as a 5,000 word day.

Campaign to Link Print Publishing: February 2009 Vanity Fair

Whenever I read books or periodicals (in other words, stuff that isn't written on a glowing screen), I have a stack of those baby Post-Its next to me.  It started in graduate school when I'd never know if I'd have to write a paper about that particular book, and it got really bad when I started reviewing so many books for Surrender, Dorothy: Reviews.  It's now extended to magazines, because I'm interested in current subjects to riff on over at BlogHer or even here.

My husband asked me once exactly for whom I was marking all those pages.  Initially it was for me, but it always pains me to pull the Post-Its out when I'm done with the review.  Usually I marked the best sentences, and I appreciate me a good sentence.

No more. I'm going to publish the best sentences I've seen here, for posterity.  I hope you enjoy them. And if you like what you see, go buy print.  I love online publishing -- it's changed my life -- but we should reward good print publishing by keeping it alive.  

This installment is from the February 2009 issue of Vanity Fair.  I'm not quite done yet (I read this magazine cover-to-cover every month, as it has some of the best writing I've ever seen in a magazine), but here's what I've seen so far.  Great sentences.  

From Michael Wolff's "The Ultimate Bubble?":

"When I was 11, my father, a businessman who, in his day, took a dubious risk or two, gave me a key lesson in finance and life which I knew was meaningful without understanding it.  'You're not bankrupt,' he said, 'until people know you're bankrupt.'"

From James Wolcott's (fangirl!) "The Good, the Bad, and Joe Lieberman":

"No group of winners enjoyed a more perverse windfall than gun-shop owners, whose showrooms were besieged by militiamen, survivalists, deerstalkers, rifle-range groupies, fans of the cult film Red Dawn, and other Second Amendment bitter-enders loading up on guns, scopes, and ammo as if ready to refight the Battle of the Alamo in the Home Depot parking lot."

The Transformation of Chateau Travolta: Closet Episode

After finishing the library, Beloved sat me down for a talk.  He said something about "promise me you won't start another project without warning me first," and maybe something else about "leave the wallpaper alone." I didn't hear him, because I was too busy staring at my bookshelves. 

I've kept my end of the promise, even though every day I walk past the torn wallpaper in the kitchen and want to RIP IT OFF.  But I know that will kick off another thing I can't finish, and dude, this is the year of SMALL adjustments, not kitchen remodeling.

So, we did something small. Beloved installed the closet shelving he bought 1,000 years ago.

How many of y'all share a closet with your live-in lover?  Most of my friends seem to have their own closets, and I haven't quite figured out how they negotiated that.  Beloved and I have always shared a closet, even when our closet was teeny tiny.  Well, I take that back -- in This Old House the closets were long, skinny rooms, and there were two of them, and a normal person couldn't fit his or her clothes in either one.  So we've shared two closets instead of three.

Because we share the closet, we have to really think hard about buying new clothes. Because new clothes, when your closet is as crammed as ours is, won't fit.  Beloved has a habit of storing all of his jeans downstairs in the laundry room, but that's probably because a) I've never seen him get rid of a pair of jeans in the ten years we've been together I SAY WITH LOVE and b) I hog the decrepid, particle-board dresser with my extensive matched bra and panties underwear collection.

I neglected to take photos of our old closet, but it was essentially three rods and three boards.  The closet is three-sided, so I'm guessing you can visualize what it looked like. Somethings hung in the middle and everything else was stacked on the floor.  But Beloved, he had a VISION. And it looked something like this.

The photos suck because I took them with my phone this morning while blow-drying my hair. But note the lovely, built-in baskets for Beloved's stuff and one for my sweatpants and swimwear.

 

We weren't completely able to banish the hanging shelves because we haven't yet found the inexpensive hardwood dresser that will allow us to take the particle-board monstrosity off life support.  But we'll get there.  Oh, yes, we'll get there. 

 

Double rods for the gentleman.

 

Single rod for the lady. heh.

 

And the best part. Shoe organization. I could just die. 

Blondie thinks I have a lot of shoes.  Seriously?  I do not agree.This is my entire shoe collection, minus running shoes, snow boots and flip flops. Is this a lot?

People, I can't tell you how good closet organization feels.  I can actually SEE my clothes now, which makes getting dressed a lot more fun than before. And this whole project took Beloved about three hours. Sooo worth it.

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While you're thinking remodeling, read the first installment of my new column, "Take My House", over at SuperEco!