One thing about living in a small town is that a trip to the local grocery store becomes a tour through a rogue’s gallery of sorrow and angst. After awhile, you simply acquire too much information about people. That man has pancreatic cancer, that woman had an affair with her friend’s husband, that man just got laid off, that woman’s daughter was killed in a porch collapse. Perhaps that’s one reason, besides the produce, that I prefer doing my weekly shopping at the Whole Foods that’s 10 miles away. I rarely see a familiar face there, other than the cashiers and baggers. I can buy my organic brown rice while cloaked in anonymity, surrounded by other anonymous shoppers with stories unknown to me.
Today I had to go to the local Jewel, though, because there was a snowstorm, which made the roads too unsafe to drive very far – the wail of sirens has disrupted the quiet of the snowfall several times today, presumably to clean up crashes – and I needed a few staples to sustain my little family unit for the next 24 hours. Once I got to the store, I found myself sitting in the parking lot, avoiding the inevitable, to listen to a song that had just come on the radio -- The Shins’ “Kissing the Lipless:”
But you've got too much to wear
On your sleeves
It has too much to do with me
And secretly I want to bury in the yard
The grey remains of a friendship starved.
Hearing the song was like unexpectedly running into an old, dear friend. (Ironic, given the lyrics.) If anybody had noticed me sitting alone in my car, belting out the words, they would have thought I was crazy. In fact, it’s likely that somebody did notice (it wouldn't be the first time I'd been busted rocking out in my car), and that my tenuous mental state is already working its way through the gossip network. Another thing about living in a small town is that you need to develop a suit of armor against the slings and arrows of speculative chit chat. If the idea that people might sometimes talk about you bothers you too much, you will need to work very hard to stay under the radar and avoid a lot of authentic human contact.
Music is one of my defensive weapons against small-town angst. In fact, it’s my weapon of choice against all kinds of trials and tribulations. Unfortunately, I don’t play an instrument and can’t carry a tune, but even my musician husband admits that I have a pretty good ear. I can usually name that tune in three notes, and I can identify the influence of one band on another (“Did you hear that riff? That’s from ‘Sweet Virginia’!”). A missed note makes me wince. Going to see a live band is more than recreation for me; if the performance is good, it verges on a spiritual experience. I’ll never forget the transcendence of a Sufjan Stevens concert several years ago. His crystalline voice soared above the audience, while the vocal harmonies and sparsely orchestral arrangements synchronized perfectly with the poetry of his lyrics. I think Sufjan was self-consciously aiming for some kind of sacred communion with the audience; he and his band members wore giant angel wings. This probably sounds very cheesy, but it worked for me.
I think having a strong connection to music must be hardwired into some peoples’ brains. Some people connect to sports or painting, I connected to music. I didn’t grow up in a musical home. I was offered piano lessons from a little old lady in a smelly house full of cats but otherwise wasn’t encouraged to pick up an instrument. The only music I remember my parents listening to was the soundtrack to “Saturday Night Fever” with a little bit of Abba sprinkled in. Somehow, thank God, I found some of my own music to listen to when I got to junior high – The Who, the Police, and yes, I must admit, Styx (Paradise Theater!) were my saviors in seventh grade. From there I moved on to the Beatles, Stones, and the Grateful Dead, learned about jazz, classical, and Elvis Costello when I got to college, and then discovered Nirvana, Uncle Tupelo/Wilco/Son Volt, and Pavement soon after graduation. My taste now runs mostly to lo-fi indie rock, but every once in awhile I like to mix it up with a little funk (The Meters), R & B (early Ray Charles), techno-dance (MGMT), power pop (New Pornographers), or classical (Mozart). And of course, the Stones and the Dead always sound good.
I’m happy that my kids seem to have inherited a musical gene, or at least they have been effectively indoctrinated. My son just started taking piano lessons (here, at home, not at a smelly cat house), and he sits at the piano to practice without being reminded or nagged. He knows way more than a six-year-old should about Wilco and the Stones. My four-year-old daughter doesn’t like to rock quite as much as my son does, but she sings as if she’s on a Broadway stage, with heartfelt emotion and confidence. I know I won’t be able to protect them from all of the problems that life has in store for them. Life is hard. People get hurt, and people die. But, if my kids can rock their way through it, life may be a little bit easier.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Monday, January 5, 2009
111 thoughts about writing
I’ve been trying to think of a new title for this blog. Craig gave me a stack of books for Christmas about writing, through which I have been casually browsing, and one hint that jumped out at me was that if you want to write, you need to respect your writing. Somehow “bigblogdork.com” seems to fall short of this requirement.
When I first started posting entries, I tried to come up with a line from a Wilco song that would work (since Jeff Tweedy’s lyrics speak to my soul), like “Shot in the arm” (taken, though I did use it as a subtitle) or “Hummingbird” (taken) or “Blue eyed soul” or “My blue eyed soul” (both taken). Then I was thinking of something like an “Adventures of…” title, but you should see the list of mom’s blog titles that begin with this phrase. Plus, I don’t really have a whole lot of adventures to chronicle in the Indiana Jones sense of the word, so such a title could be misleading.
Next, my marketing brain kicked in and I noticed that if you just search for a directory of women’s blogs, there are so many pages of titles that I can’t imagine anyone browsing through more than a couple of them. Of course, the pages are in alpha order, so the first few pages of any directory are blogs that begin with numbers. Just in case I ever want to drive traffic to my blog from a directory, I need a name that starts with “111…”(“111dalmations”? “111waystoavoidhousekeeping”?).
Upon reflection, I realized that my marketing professors at business school would be disappointed by of the lack of sophistication and robustness in my plan. Hence, my current approach is to come up with a title that reflects the content of the blog in a way that conveys a benefit to a particular target market, and then leverage the power of networking to drive traffic from other blogs with similar sensibilities. (Phew- good to know I can still bust out some business-ese if I need to.) I’ll treat it like it’s Amazon or MySpace. If that approach doesn’t demonstrate serious respect for my writing, I don’t know what does. Now I just need to figure out who my target market is (suburban moms who are a little bit dorky and enjoy listening to Wilco?), come up with a name that they would like, and find a bunch of other blogs that these folks also like that I can link to from my own.
Why, you may ask, do I care how many people read this? I have two answers: feedback and anonymity. I currently have three loyal readers, all of whom I know and love (you know who you are – love you! -- and you are not dorky but very cool) and who give me great specific and complimentary feedback on my writing. These three readers already know a lot, if not all, of the context, so the self-referential nature of my writing doesn’t bother or confuse them as much as it might somebody who doesn’t know me. Plus, they don’t want to hurt my feelings by telling me that my writing is dumb. I want to see if I can connect to a complete stranger with my writing. If not, back to the drawing board. I could probably convince other people whom I know, but not as well, to at least give this a gander, but I’m not quite ready for the level of criticism, judgment, and self-censorship that would entail. I don’t really need the other moms at my kids’ school to know what I think about on a snow day or how I spent some of my high school years.
Hmm, maybe “Anonymousmom.com”? It rhymes. Or “Don’ttrytoguesswhoIam.com”? More descriptive but a little too long. Or “Sendmesomelove.com”? I realize that none of these convey any benefit to the reader. “Readthisandbehappy.com”? That’s not really accurate, though. Some of my stuff is pretty Debbie Downer-ish.
The question of anonymity is one that I’ve been struggling with lately as I try to find my muse for fiction writing. I’ve steered away from the thinly veiled autobiography idea. I’m not quite ready to go there – too many of the key players would figure out who they are, plus I need to be a better writer before I can wring some entertainment value and meaning out of my own life. But, every other idea that I’ve had has its roots in real, living people and their stories, some of whom are people I know well, and some of whom just have great stories. I can’t get past the idea that using other people’s real conflicts and struggles is exploitation, and that if by some remote possibility something that I write might actually be shared or even published someday, somebody will recognize a story as theirs, at least in part, and it might cause some pain. But what if changing the story too much dilutes the essential truth of it? Ugh. I think I need to shut my brain up and just try writing one.
I need to remind myself that the cure for cancer or world hunger is not riding on the order in which I manage to put some words and punctuation. Not to diminish the power of writing – words can hurt people, even if only aesthetically (“it’s so terrible – it burns my eyes!”) and I do need to treat it with respect – but I can’t let the impossibly high standards that have been set by all of the artists whose work I admire overwhelm me. I really do enjoy the writing I’ve been doing – the process if not always the result -- and I’d like to try to take it to the next level of craft and, dare I say, artistry. But I need to give myself some room to take some risks and really screw up without taking it all too seriously. In fact, this seems like an advisable strategy to adopt with any hobby, passion, artistic endeavor, or, indeed, with life: Proceed deliberately with an eye towards the masters of the craft, but don’t expect perfection and be sure to have some fun.
That’s my new motto. Off to write a Pulitzer-prize winning story, now (or at least one with a main character and a conflict)…
When I first started posting entries, I tried to come up with a line from a Wilco song that would work (since Jeff Tweedy’s lyrics speak to my soul), like “Shot in the arm” (taken, though I did use it as a subtitle) or “Hummingbird” (taken) or “Blue eyed soul” or “My blue eyed soul” (both taken). Then I was thinking of something like an “Adventures of…” title, but you should see the list of mom’s blog titles that begin with this phrase. Plus, I don’t really have a whole lot of adventures to chronicle in the Indiana Jones sense of the word, so such a title could be misleading.
Next, my marketing brain kicked in and I noticed that if you just search for a directory of women’s blogs, there are so many pages of titles that I can’t imagine anyone browsing through more than a couple of them. Of course, the pages are in alpha order, so the first few pages of any directory are blogs that begin with numbers. Just in case I ever want to drive traffic to my blog from a directory, I need a name that starts with “111…”(“111dalmations”? “111waystoavoidhousekeeping”?).
Upon reflection, I realized that my marketing professors at business school would be disappointed by of the lack of sophistication and robustness in my plan. Hence, my current approach is to come up with a title that reflects the content of the blog in a way that conveys a benefit to a particular target market, and then leverage the power of networking to drive traffic from other blogs with similar sensibilities. (Phew- good to know I can still bust out some business-ese if I need to.) I’ll treat it like it’s Amazon or MySpace. If that approach doesn’t demonstrate serious respect for my writing, I don’t know what does. Now I just need to figure out who my target market is (suburban moms who are a little bit dorky and enjoy listening to Wilco?), come up with a name that they would like, and find a bunch of other blogs that these folks also like that I can link to from my own.
Why, you may ask, do I care how many people read this? I have two answers: feedback and anonymity. I currently have three loyal readers, all of whom I know and love (you know who you are – love you! -- and you are not dorky but very cool) and who give me great specific and complimentary feedback on my writing. These three readers already know a lot, if not all, of the context, so the self-referential nature of my writing doesn’t bother or confuse them as much as it might somebody who doesn’t know me. Plus, they don’t want to hurt my feelings by telling me that my writing is dumb. I want to see if I can connect to a complete stranger with my writing. If not, back to the drawing board. I could probably convince other people whom I know, but not as well, to at least give this a gander, but I’m not quite ready for the level of criticism, judgment, and self-censorship that would entail. I don’t really need the other moms at my kids’ school to know what I think about on a snow day or how I spent some of my high school years.
Hmm, maybe “Anonymousmom.com”? It rhymes. Or “Don’ttrytoguesswhoIam.com”? More descriptive but a little too long. Or “Sendmesomelove.com”? I realize that none of these convey any benefit to the reader. “Readthisandbehappy.com”? That’s not really accurate, though. Some of my stuff is pretty Debbie Downer-ish.
The question of anonymity is one that I’ve been struggling with lately as I try to find my muse for fiction writing. I’ve steered away from the thinly veiled autobiography idea. I’m not quite ready to go there – too many of the key players would figure out who they are, plus I need to be a better writer before I can wring some entertainment value and meaning out of my own life. But, every other idea that I’ve had has its roots in real, living people and their stories, some of whom are people I know well, and some of whom just have great stories. I can’t get past the idea that using other people’s real conflicts and struggles is exploitation, and that if by some remote possibility something that I write might actually be shared or even published someday, somebody will recognize a story as theirs, at least in part, and it might cause some pain. But what if changing the story too much dilutes the essential truth of it? Ugh. I think I need to shut my brain up and just try writing one.
I need to remind myself that the cure for cancer or world hunger is not riding on the order in which I manage to put some words and punctuation. Not to diminish the power of writing – words can hurt people, even if only aesthetically (“it’s so terrible – it burns my eyes!”) and I do need to treat it with respect – but I can’t let the impossibly high standards that have been set by all of the artists whose work I admire overwhelm me. I really do enjoy the writing I’ve been doing – the process if not always the result -- and I’d like to try to take it to the next level of craft and, dare I say, artistry. But I need to give myself some room to take some risks and really screw up without taking it all too seriously. In fact, this seems like an advisable strategy to adopt with any hobby, passion, artistic endeavor, or, indeed, with life: Proceed deliberately with an eye towards the masters of the craft, but don’t expect perfection and be sure to have some fun.
That’s my new motto. Off to write a Pulitzer-prize winning story, now (or at least one with a main character and a conflict)…
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