Day: November 15, 2018

yet more activity

I went to an exercise class for old ladies today and feel pleasantly and pretty evenly tired. It’s the way exercise should be, about moving more easily through space

unless it’s about making yourself big, in which case it’s a dominance through steroids and self discipline kinda thing which is really kinda alienating to me, mostly because I simply don’t have the lack of worldliness that is at bottom the root of all manias to perfect one’s appearance in a range of unhealthy, artificial, expensive, potentially lethal and at times illicit, illegal and ill-advised ways.

Before that I went to the lunch bunch and was thrilled to see Jane, Laura, John, Denis, Dan, of course Peggy who took me and I keep thinking someone else was there – Irene.

Oh lucky us. We talked of shoes and ships etc.

The City of Burnaby, continuing the reign of fucking terror commenced by construction starting in the adjacent lot in May, was cutting and hauling away concrete today to level the sidewalk next door. Poor Buster. He thinks the noise has stopped, but it HAS NOT.

 

Utter steaming piles

JONATHAN FRANZEN’S 10 RULES
FOR NOVELISTS


1.
The reader is a friend, not an adversary, not a spectator.

Allegra sez bullshit.

THE READER IS – unless you’re handing the book to her for free – a person trapped in an exchange with you because of capitalism. The reader buys your words and consumes your words for entertainment. Whether your words stay bought — that is, under your control — is an open question. If you want total control you have no readers. Franzen, having achieved conventional publishing success, seems to have forgotten the market’s role in bringing his privilege to our doorstops.

2.
Fiction that isn’t an author’s personal adventure into the frightening or the unknown isn’t worth writing for anything but money.

Allegra says that Dorothy Dunnett sent that one packing in the sixties, and Jonathan Franzen can go fuck himself.

3.
Never use the word then as a conjunction–we have and for this purpose. Substituting then is the lazy or tone-deaf writer’s non-solution to the problem of too many ands on the page.

ALLEGRA BELLOWS, looks sheepish, yeah, check out any fanfic if you are disbelieving.

4.
Write in third person unless a really distinctive first-person voice offers itself irresistibly.

ALLEGRA SEZ this is advice I mostly take.

5.
When information becomes free and universally accessible, voluminous research for a novel is devalued along with it.

ALLEGRA TESTILY SEZ

Oh no it fucking isn’t. ‘Information’ is not free and universally accessible. THERE ARE STILL BARRIERS TO ENTRY. Research, strangely enough, takes imagination, NOT JUST ACCESS which as I mentioned is not contiguous through human lands.

6.
The most purely autobiographical fiction requires pure invention. Nobody ever wrote a more autobiographical story than The Metamorphosis.

Allegra thinks about her tea getting cold and says

Mmmm, not so sure about this. It sounds good but I suspect there’s no support structure for that elegant idea.

7.
You see more sitting still than chasing after.

Allegra says BUT YOU DON’T CATCH THE IDEAS YOU DON’T CHASE

8.
It’s doubtful that anyone with an Internet connection at his workplace is writing good fiction.

OKAY YOU PRIVILEGED PIECE OF GARBAGE HUMAN, YOU CAN SHUT THE FUCK UP NOW

9.
Interesting verbs are seldom very interesting.

ALLEGRA SAYS I’m looking forward to antlering Mr. Franzen.

10.
You have to love before you can be relentless.

NOPE. You have to hate. Or be a toddler.

I lurv it when a plan

So last night because I am an entitled jerk I invited myself to Tom and Peggy’s and Cindy came and we ate dinner and sang and played until TEN OCLOCK which is a sign that it’s not a work night.

Tapioca Song

When I Go – we went through it about three times

I’ll Fly Away

Change the Key Again

Mary Ellen Carter

love theme from When I am Dead OF COURSE

Lily’s Lullaby (I cried, Cindy YOU IZ A BASTID)

Emerald Green

there were others but the filkers reading this will get the picture.

Peggy made me a wonderful wonderful spice cake with cream cheese frosting and pecans all over it. Also chicken breast and salad and squash and potatoes (and the woman makes such amazing oven roasted potatoes.)

WHILE WE WERE THERE Juliana emailed Cindy about Conflikt, which is hilarious since part of me going over there to scange a meal was to agitate for everyone to go to Conflikt.

Best birthday week in a while. Did I mention that on Wednesday I had the single best commute so far? Waited for the bus for five minutes; got on the bus, transferred without a wait at New West Station, transferred without a wait at Lougheed, transferred without a wait to the bus at Moody Centre. Including all the walking it was 45 minutes.

Today Peggy and I are going to go to Lunch Bunch and then there’s a drop in fitness class afterward. Busy me!