Molly Fisk's Blog, page 5
August 11, 2013
I See the Moon and the Moon Sees Me
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People who work in emergency rooms and police stations know full moons increase their business. Women report that their periods tally with full or new moons, and the ocean tides are completely tethered to the moon. Even my cats go nuts under full moons, chasing each other up trees at two in the morning. I love the moon at any stage, from faint silver thumbnail to fat gold globe rising behind all the spiky pine trees across the street.
So when I was invited to a Women's After-Dark Full-Moon Swim last summer, I went. The moon part and the swim part were right up my alley, and the after-dark part sounded exciting. I had one hesitation, which is that though I love women, I shudder at anything smacking of ritual or ceremony. You will not find me in a circle with a talking stick sharing anything any time soon.
Luckily, the New Age factor was slim to none and the experience was quite moving, so this year I did it again. June's full moon was rained out in our town, but July's this week was perfect: warm air, warm water, a few clouds to catch orange light from the sunset but not enough to obscure the rising moon. We were a biggish group, about 15, and joined by some little girls, which made the whole event more fun.
I've always had a fairly sturdy ego. Much of the time, I'm hoping no one realizes just how sturdy, not to say inflated, it is. So there I am, waist deep in a lake with the moon high enough to cast its light over the water, a glittering path right before me. I swim away from shore, into this bright road, thinking how incredibly lucky I am that the moon's rays are directed at me. I feel blessed and grateful. Then I look back toward everyone else, and no moonlit trails extend toward them. I feel sort of curious, and sort of guilty, since I've been having a pretty great life lately and this just seems like icing on the proverbial cake, but I decide to not worry and to enjoy my good fortune while it lasts.
It takes a full ten breast strokes for my self-involved brain to wake up and unravel the mystery. “You, idiot,” it says, not unkindly. “Have you lost your mind? Moonlight goes toward whoever is LOOKING at it! Everyone else has their own gleaming road, too, but you can't see them.”
My jaw drops and instantly fills with water, so I have to roll over and float until the coughing stops. How incredibly embarrassing! What kind of swell-headed nincompoop thinks the moon shines only on her?!? Well, this kind, apparently: the Molly Fisk kind, the human kind. I suppose everyone feels as if she's the center of the universe once in a while, even though I'd hate to have to admit it.
July 27, 2013
The Opposite of Writing
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One of the characteristics of being a writer is that you work almost always alone. In a book's publication stage there may be editors, copy editors, agents, first readers, second readers, and writers with more renown giving you blurbs for your cover. But for the first 99% of a book's life, you're in charge. There are great advantages to this, but if you're a somewhat social person, it can get kind of lonely. Many people write in cafés and restaurants, or libraries, or go to writers' conferences in the summertime looking for community and a slightly less isolated environment.
I was considering this up on the Nevada Theater's stage this morning, during rehearsal for an event called “The Musical Book Club.” Also on stage were my friend Louis Jones, the American novelist, and one pianist, three violinists, two cellists, two horn players, an oboist, a harpist, someone playing the upright bass, someone else with a kettle drum, and two other string players, maybe on violas? Plus a conductor. Tonight we're going to do an hour-long performance together. Louis will read the beginning of a new novel, weaving in and out of music by John Williams and Gershwin, and I'll be reading six of my poems during and around three other pieces, one by Hoagy Carmichael.
The mood on stage was pretty casual. People in summer clothes, a little joshing by the Hungarian conductor. We're performing in front of a stage set-in-progress that has three doors and a lot of naked plywood, so it feels like an impromptu concert set up in somebody's half-finished house. It feels that way until the musicians begin to play, that is, when all of a sudden vast professionalism and expertise appear. Louis leaned over and quoted something into my ear about classical musicians having to be simultaneously fierce and precise. I thought that was the perfect definition.
Louis and I are very different readers, but we both have a rhythm of our own, with pauses, ironic facial expressions, some conversation with the audience. People get a sense of us when we're up there all alone. This performance is going to be very different. The conductor, Gregory Vajda, has made us for all intents and purposes into musical instruments for the duration of the concert. We'll look for his cues before starting, we're going at the tempo he's provided. I think this is the closest I'm going to get to being part of an orchestra and participating in something that you can't possibly do alone, something that's the opposite of writing.
Even though I sang in choruses all through school, I don't have any formal musical training and can barely tell a viola from a half note. These musicians have been practicing since they were in short pants. I'm hoping not to get intimidated. And it isn't like I'll suddenly have to play the French horn. The concert is a brand new situation, but I already know how to read a poem.
I'm actually a good choice of instrument for that job.
Sleeping Beauty Wakes Herself Up
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I've been keeping a secret. All spring I've been making a book of this radio commentary. I hoped some swank publisher would discover me, ask for my work and pay me a huge advance, but these days the publishing world is fairly unhinged. If you aren't going to be a guaranteed best seller like Stephen King, or a probable one, like Cheryl Strayed, your chances are slim to none. Waiting to be discovered also smacks of Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella — two women I'd never ask for business advice.
So I discovered myself. I'm self-publishing this book, and it's turning out to be a lot of fun. Twenty years ago, when I started writing, this was horribly frowned on. But now, in the age of e-books, print-on-demand, and Amazon rankings, not to mention a few fortunes made, the idea doesn't seem so bad. Traditional publishers put so much of the promotional work onto their authors now, it's almost no different than running the whole shebang yourself.
While I was waiting to be discovered, I put together four books. Two of radio commentary, one of writing exercises, and one on healing from childhood abuse. I've also got a fifth in the pipeline, on teaching writing to cancer patients to boost their immune systems. That one has gorgeous black-and-white photos, taken by local photographer Jilan Glorfield.
I decided to start with commentary because a) it was already written, and b) it's sometimes funny, and the world needs all the laughter we can muster. The title is Blow-Drying a Chicken, something 4H kids do before county fairs. After I put the essays in order, I hired a friend to copy-edit. Another designed the cover, and then I sent all this to a little shop that does what's called “pre-press.” They really made the book look like a book, and sent me back three versions: one for printing, one for most e-book readers, and one for Amazon, which likes to be special and different.
I'm trying not to mix up the versions as I learn to upload files to various places and figure out what the heck “metadata” is. I'm not just publishing a book, I'm keeping my brain young and pliant by making it learn new skills and terms. I'll be the best Scrabble-player at my nursing home when the time come, I'm very sure.
The next task is a “virtual book launch,” where you try to coax everyone who wants to buy the book to do it on the same day and thereby rise above Stephen King in the Amazon rankings, if only for half an hour. This will apparently boost sales, but I'm not sure how. Before that happens, though, I'm going to donate copies to KVMR for their July pledge drive. That station is why there's a book in the first place: I owe them a lot. So if you want to be the first kid on your block with an autographed copy, get ready to support your local down-home, stand-up, straight-ahead, 24-hour community radio station.
You'll be so glad you did!
July 13, 2013
My. New. Book.
Order it from your local independent bookstore, or from Amazon. More choices coming soon. 48 radio essays, 172 pages, lots of laughs! Some tears. A certain amount of food for thought. xoxox
June 7, 2013
Jealousy is Your Friend, and Other Artistic Secrets
I haven't always been a poet. For a long time I didn't know what to be, and worked in clothing stores, engineering/architecture joint ventures, and swank French restaurants. I ran a knitting business for seven years, making Scandinavian-style sweaters with pterodactyls on them instead of reindeer. I went to business school at 30 and passed as a banker — a Fortune 1000 lender in Chicago, no less — for three years before I realized I was only pretending I could stand it.
During this time my mother sat happily at the kitchen table after her work-day ended, drawing flowers in vases or the faces of people she knew from church: exquisite line drawings that captured delicate petals and subtleties of expression. My Aunt Mary had painted most of her life, and was getting good gallery shows. Her daughter/my cousin Liz taught at an art school, her son Michael sculpted his own work and innovative serving utensils for a tableware company, and the youngest, Miranda, did life-like paintings of people's dogs and houses for a living.
I don't know how you interpret jealousy in your life, but for years I saw it as a moral failing: something to be ashamed of and eradicate. Then a poet-friend torqued my thinking. “Jealousy is one of the best ways to find out what you want to do next! It points you in new directions.” The next day I visited my sister, the organizational development consultant, and there on her wall was the gorgeous print of dolphins she made in college.
“I want to make art!!” I hollered to myself on the way home. “Writing is so boring! My eyes are falling asleep. I want to play with color and invoke strong emotion at one glance, too! Everyone else in this damn family can do it, why can't I?” This isn't strictly true, since I have one brother whose artistry is mainly in his incredibly good taste in clothes (like our dad) and also a brother and cousin who write but don't paint. But you get the idea.
Jealousy isn't only an indicator of what to try next, it's a wonderful fuel for action. Four years later, I'm spending Monday afternoons with people who smell like turpentine. Everyone's painting something different. I'm fixated on water in mason jars, because it's hard to capture. In time-honored artistic tradition, I'm copying the work of someone else and trying to figure out how she does it. Where does light hit the glass? What colors do the clear glass and clear water take on, and where?
My first efforts were a little wonky, but now I'm getting the hang of it. So much so that a few friends have actually BOUGHT some of my work. I'm happy to let them, despite feeling like a fraud. Even though it feels awfully good to make something and then get paid well for it a few days later — something no poet has experienced — I'm not really a painter.
I'm a poet who paints.
