Up at 6 a.m. -- here's a poem

Light from Other Rooms

The glow of electric light
fills in the house shadow’s
as you wander from room to room
a walking midnight ghost upon
the floor
drifting through carpeted corridors
of our suburban brickhouse manor
I lie upon the mattress stiff and flat
listening for the noise of the electric light
not the click of the switch
the turning of the light-tide
but another sound, the soft wash
of electric-light particle waves
splashing rhythmically upon the beach
of our own mutual undoing
digging watery trenches in the
vanilla sand until the
flick of the switch when you leave the hall
in cloaking darkness a ghostly
puddle in the hallway from where
the light has fallen down, its energy
drained, its illuminated promise vanishing
into the ordinary gray darkness.

On Turning 40

I turn 40 in January. I'm certainly not as troubled about turning 40 as I was about turning 30, having given up a lot of delusions since then, but I can't say I like it either. Just a few years ago, I was a part of the venerated 18-35 advertising "youth" demographic, the generation everyone wants to cater to or be a part of; in just a few months, I'll be in the legally protected, "over 40" demographic that gets good insurance rates and discounts on root canals. Right now, I'm in the dreaded "in between."

Just for kicks, here's a list of writers who died before or just after turning 40: Flannery O'Connor, Stephen Crane, Jack London, Edgar Allan Poe, and Sylvia Plath. I guess it's not safe to a be a naturalist of a gothicist.

Why can't a story just be a story?

The other day in class, I was giving my students an introduction to the Tennessee Williams's play "Streetcar Named Desire." I started talking about how a streetcar is essentially a conveyance that goes in circles, symbolically implying the journey that goes round and round but never gets anywhere. Naturally, I said, this ties in symbolically with the name of the streetcar ("Desire") and how the desire and passion of these people's lives keeps them on this circular journey that goes through "Cemeteries" and ends at "Elysian Fields."

One of my students interrupted and asked, "But how can you say it means all this when he could have just named the streetcar 'Desire' because that was the name of the streetcar in the neighborhood?"

I should be used to questions like this from students, who always want to know why we have to "read so much" into plays, poems, and stories. But I sort of lost my patience, admittedly without losing my smile, and responded, "Because it's never just what it is. Tennessee Williams is a playwright interested in deeper connections. His work, like all literature, is interesting because it works out of these traditions and is rich with metaphor, symbolism, and allusion. Williams isn't writing journalism, after all."

Is that a good enough answer? Maybe not. It is frustrating, when you love literature, to answer these types of questions from people who believe a story should just be enjoyed and quickly forgotten. But good stories, stories with staying power, usually do more than provide simple diversion or voyeuristic thrill.

Tennessee Williams is not known for his subtle symbolism, which is why he's a good choice for young readers just beginning to learn the value of analysis and close reading. If the streetcar isn't supposed to mean something besides just being a streetcar, why does Williams focus on it so much? Why does it keep coming up in the dialogue? ("Haven't you ridden on that streetcar?") Why not just have Blanche arrive in a taxi cab with no name at all?

Fiction and Truth

Writers are inspired by real life, of course, including people they've known and the tragedies and triumphs they have witnessed. People sometimes accuse fiction writers of relying too heavily on reality, in the mistaken belief that they ought to be inventing everything out of thin air if they want to call their work fiction. But writers don't present "reality" without alteration. They turn things around and mix things up -- so that people who never met in real life are suddenly lovers, and events that took place years apart are suddenly on the same day. Ironically, in distoring and rearranging reality, they hope to achieve truth. Writing is the "reimagining" of reality.

Diary of a Madman

Ozzy Osbourne titled one of his albums "Diary of Madman," I think. But isn't every diary that of a madman, really? What else but madness would compel someone to record his innermost thoughts and fears, in the hopes that anyone else would care? Isn't writing fiction in essence an act of madness, the inexplicable and hopeless urge to make sense of life, to force the past into a kind of neat pattern that is aesthestically and artistically pleasing? To believe you can impose such order on chaos is a mild madness surely, but to think anyone would care is sheer insanity.

Home Movies

The other day, I was reading a book about writing fiction, and the author suggested that writers who don't face their fears aren't really accomplishing what they need to as writers. They aren't going all the way, so to speak.

At first, I couldn't think of what it is I fear. I fear so many and so few things at the same time.
Later that night, while attempting to organize some boxes at my house, I recognized one of my fears, packed away safely in that spare room: my fear of the past. For almost 8 years now, I have paid for a small storage room just across the block from my house. It has been filled with miscellaneous bits of camping equipment and boxes of tax records, photos, home movies, and other junk not worth the cost of storage. It occurred to me tonight, as I was going through some of this stuff, that instead of storage, I was really paying for the convenience of not having to look at or otherwise deal with these memories. Just looking at the labels of the video tapes (home movies) filled me with a sense of dread and self-loathing regrets.

As I sorted through these boxes, I came very close to throwing away most of the home movies without watching them, because I figured that would be both painful and unproductive. What is the good of home movies anyway, unless the whole family stays together and they can be enjoyed nostalgically? Inevitably, someone will end up appearing on screen who has either died or disappeared for good.

Something about one of the video compilations caught my eye, though, so I decided to plug it into the VCR and see what I would be throwing away. As I watched the forgotten home movies spin like colorful and distant memories on the TV screen, I realized what the fiction-writing expert meant about facing your fears. Rather than simply feeling depressed or miserable while watching these images, I felt deep stirrings within, coupled with a renewed desire to write. On the TV screen I watched strange pictures of rooms in houses I no longer own, filled with furniture and other belongings that have long since disappeared. There were amazingly beautiful mountain vistas in Alaska, and some stunning images of my sister Wendy at age 20 or so – that film alone is worth saving the video for.

The videos were much higher quality than I expected, but more importantly, the settings and people gave rise to many ideas for writing, unexplored settings and situations that I had been avoiding (and missing out on) by neglecting my past. I must admit I've been in a funk since watching these videos, but I think it's a "good" funk, a sign of being alive and attached to my own life.

PS. For those of you paying attention, my blog on myspace will now duplicate what is posted here.

Gone Hollywood

I have finished with the latest version of my screenplay, titled The Moon Illusion. I say the "latest version," because when it comes to screenplays, additional revision is always possible. The story concerns a NASA psychologist who falls for the woman he hires to take care of his troubled daughter. Naturally, it's set in the Clear Lake area, and although it is primarily a romantic comedy, it has some darker elements related to the main character dealing with the death of his wife.

I have no big illusions about selling the screenplay, although I intend to give it my best shot. I would be happy if an independent company took interest, and I am resigned to the possibility that any production company will maim my script beyond recognition. That's just the way it goes sometimes. I would just love to see my characters on screen.

This is the longest fictional piece I've written, since I mostly focus on short fiction, and it was an amazing experience to live with the characters for so long. I finally understand what many writers mean when they talk about characters coming to life and taking the story in new directions. I would not go so far as to pretend the writer is not in control, but it is a very mysterious process and an almost mystical event when your characters seem to "take over" and the story ends up going in directions you hadn't planned.

I've also started marketing my short horror-comedy script, titled "Electric Chainsaw Slaughterhouse," even though I had planned to make that one on my own. I decided I was juggling too many writing projects and graduate studies to really focus on making a decent short video film, and I know enough about the process to know it's a lot of work with not much payoff. I'd be glad to let someone else make it, though, using my script.

For now, more coffee and on with new writing projects.