SansPoint

It never fails.

Whenever I get to the 10,000 word mark on a novel-project, I hit a wall. This has happened with every attempt I’ve made in the past few years. Sometimes, I can squeeze an extra couple thousand words before I hit that wall, but 10,000 is the usual barrier.

This is not a post where I shall whine about being blocked, however.

This time, unlike the last, I will beat it. I will chip away at the wall until I break a hole and push through for another 10,000 words, or more. Here’s my strategies:

1. Skip Ahead - So I’m having trouble with the current part of the novel. What’s to stop me from writing a later section, detailing where I hope to take the plot to? Answer: nothing. I’ve got the ideas, I just have to get them down.
2. Brute Force - Even if it’s just 100 words, I’ll add something to the novel. Even if it’s crap, even if I’ll edit it out when I revise it, I’ll add it.
3. Break Period - So I’m blocked now. I’ll wait until inspiration strikes. Unlike NaNoWriMo, there’s no hard and fast deadline. If I need a breather, I’ll take one.

I’ll sit down in a few days, and create something from nothing, add another chunk of words to this text, and move on. The block will fall. That’s all there is to it.

Think about the numbers: 350 fiction programs. 3,000 new graduates per year. Each taking let’s say four workshops, each of which requires three submissions. That’s 36,000 short stories for each graduating class of writers, who have worked to convince each other that the top 1% of short stories - those that come closest to generating workshop consensus - may be published in a literary magazine. A literary magazine whose readership may largely comprise writers looking for a place to publish their short stories. “Guarded self-consciousness” starts to look like a mathematical inevitability. Perversely, then, the greatest danger to the short story may be the very institution that’s sustaining it.

Via The Millions

I’ve only tried in a limited extent to publish my work—though I have made $5 publishing a short story in a defunct online magazine—,and this post fills me with both a little dread and a little hope for getting my words out there on paper, and a check in my pocket.

If you’re a book snob, or a reverse book snob — meaning you’re so well read that you’ve moved on to a pile of bad, vaguely Buddhist self-help books, Austrian military history in iffy translation, alternative fashion magazines, and rereading Pliny for the fourth time, and you try not to talk about this stuff at parties — the first thing you’ll want to do with Book Smart is check out how many of Mallison’s choices you’ve already read. via Bookslut

I’m not sure I can pick twelve books that, in my opinion, would lead to Literary Genius, but I might pick this up as a curiosity.

Buy this book from Amazon.com

It should be worth noting that, shamefully, I have not read the original Persepolis graphic novels. They’ve been on my reading list for ages upon ages, and I’ve certainly paged through them while browsing through Barnes & Noble or Borders killing time without actually intending to buy anything.^[1] However, when I heard about Persepolis, the film, I was immediately interested… especially once I saw the trailer, and the impressive animation style.

Long review made short: See it.

Long review kept long: Persepolis is a positively beautiful, alternately hilarious and haunting film that immediately grabs you and will not let you go for a good 90 minutes. Marjane’s memories and retelling of her youth during the fall of the Shah, and rise of the Islamic Republic in Iran, her time in Vienna, her return to Tehran and time in University is amazing, and the stark black and white animation against lush, charcoal style backgrounds looks amazing. Equally amazing is Marjane’s ability to bring make her life connect with viewers in a world that has never lived through such violence and oppression. There is a connection of universality that simply drives me wild.

The sound of the film is excellent as well: a beautiful score, and the voice acting is superb.^[2] Music plays a major role in Marjane’s life, and you’ll be highly amused by a certain scene after she returns to Tehran. It involves the song “Eye of the Tiger.”

The story does lag a tiny bit while Marjane is in Vienna, but it’s a minor issue. Once she starts moving from place to place, it picks right back up. This sort of thing is likely to happen in any memoir, and you’ll be able to work with it. My only real complaint is that I have no clue if there is going to be a film of Persepolis 2, but I can only hope there is.^[3]

1. Please tell me I’m not the only person who uses these places as a fancy library you can’t actually check stuff out of. I’m a poor college student, if it helps. ↩
2. The voice acting is also in French. The film is subtitled. Do not be afraid of the subtitles. Trust me, dubbing would change the impact. ↩
3. As an aside, after seeing the movie, I picked up Dave Eggers’s memoir, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius at St. Marks Books. I guess I was in a memoir mood. ↩

Another excerpt from my larval novel, which seems to stand okay on its own. Enjoy.

“Are you absolutely sure you don’t want to know the gender?”

“It’s not like I’m keeping the thing. I don’t need anything that’s going to give me any more of an attachment than I already have to it.”

The obstetrician wiped V.’s abdomen clean of the gel with a disposable cloth.

“I don’t feel that your attitude towards having a child is particularly healthy, even if it’s a surrogate pregnancy.”

“It’s a job for me.” V. sat upright and lowered her blouse. “Just a way to make my way through school.”

“Do you know why the biological parents haven’t been to any of these appointments?”

“Geography.”

“By the way, V., you’re measuring a little over a week ahead. I’m going to move your due date up a week. You’re officially twenty-seven weeks along.”

V. made a vaguely celebratory gesture and left without a word.

This is about length. How far can one go? How long can one last?

V. sat on the sofa in her apartment. V. lifted her legs and laid herself on the width of the sofa, placing a pillow behind her lower back. V. opened up a large, well worn leather notebook, filled to the brim with text written in various widths and colors of ink, though all in the same hand. There was no place left to add any more substantial amounts ink to the pages. It contained five years of her life from the second half of her sophomore year of high school, to the end of last year. It’s not so much a journal as it is a record of her mental state. V. did not record events, she recorded her moods, her ideas, her fantasies and her fears. Somewhere in the middle of the notebook, around the summer before going off to college, she drew a large fetus in a womb, a detailed tracing of an etching of an old anatomy book from the library labeled “Figure 13-9.” On the page before, she mused on names for a potential child, settling at last upon the statement: “The father can pick a name. I’m out of ideas.” Under the womb/fetus tracing is the caption: “For someone else to do. Why can’t we just grow babies in bottles like in Brave New World?” Somewhere in the middle of V.’s womb, the child turned and kicked at its enclosure. V. placed the notebook down atop her abdomen, and tried to stay as still as possible, daring the child to kick again, shift the notebook, do anything to disturb her further. “I need to get out of this room.”

To V., the most frustrating thing about pregnancy—by far—was the restrictions it placed on her. Bundled up against the cold, she drank a cup of decaffeinated coffee, sitting in the park at 18th and Center. Someone was on her mind. The coffee was cold comfort. She wanted something bad for her: a cigarette, a cup of real coffee, a shot of whisky, or a long drag on a joint. Why, however, was unclear. She’d never been a drinker. She tried smoking twice, tobacco once and marijuana once. Neither appealed to her. She wasn’t even much of a coffee fan before this. If she could only crave pickles and ice cream like a normal person… She could play the avoidance game too. Someone was on her mind. She’d spent a lot of time with… a lot of time in this park, on the riverfront, in little book and record stores, trying to maintain interest, but glad to be with him. She’d spent a lot of time without him, a lot of time with others, but they didn’t feel the same. Nothing felt the same, though it never felt right with that someone either. The child kicked and fluttered.

The phone cord, she recalled, was surprisingly cold against her breasts.