Alice Yi-Li Yeh's Blog, page 7

Scritch Scritch

I was at a cocktail party on Friday evening where I happened to meet a scratchboard artist, Marilu Tousignaut. She showed me pictures of some of her works, and I was completely amazed.



If you're unfamiliar with scratchboard art, it is a board covered with white clay and then black paint. The artist scratches away the upper layer to reveal the white underneath. In other words, you only get one shot to get it right. Talk about exacting!

Traffic Lights

I was driving home from a meeting today and hit one last red light. As it shifted to green again, I noted that the corresponding crosswalk started counting down for pedestrians at the same exact moment. The first thought to enter my mind was that this is life itself: it starts ending as soon as it begins. Perhaps this idea is superbly morbid, in which case, I blame the death that surrounds us when working in healthcare. Still, it made me reconsider just how exactly I spend my time. Is it with purpose? Does each second count? So much of it has been squandered already, and I feel compelled to be productive tonight to make the most of what is left.

Living Arrangements

During my second year of graduate school, the quiet man next door moved out, and a noisy new couple moved in. They were what I've come to call "neo-hippies," ones who aren't so anti-establishment as they are pro-Earth and the fruits of her soil. I remember sitting on my balcony, peacefully reading until the air was punctuated with the man's philosophies: "In the end, we're all just viruses, plundering and raping the Earth." (I'm paraphrasing. This man used f-bombs like I use spaces, commas, and periods.) The air was heavily perfumed with the increasingly familiar smell of weed.
For the most part, life with the neighbors was pretty typical: irritation at their noisy games of Rock Band, worry for the virgin ears of the five-year-old living across from us, and determination to out-live their tenancy in the apartment complex. Little did I know how quickly the latter would come to fruition.

At two in the morning, I awoke to the sound of screaming and yelling, loudly enough for me to understand the colorful cussing coming from both parties. I was prepared to plug my ears when a series of heavy thuds sounded, followed by silence.  Eventually, I could hear his voice, but hers was conspicuously absent. To this day, I still wonder if I should have called the police for domestic violence. It's Kitty Genovese all over again, except this time, I was the one still with shock. Eventually, when nothing else seemed to happen, I fell back asleep.

The following morning, I left for spring break. When I returned, the apartment next door was empty, all furniture gone, the carpet steamed clean, the blinds wiped down and the walls repainted an uninteresting white. No one felt compelled to talk about their sudden departure, so I still don't know how it all went down. I have every hope that everything worked out in the end.

In the meantime, I now read scientific journal articles to the sweet sound of silence.

On Reviewing

In recent weeks, I've been caught up in reviewing books and trying to write when I can. What I've discovered is something many people probably know but few will tell you: reviewing is a terribly humbling experience.

This isn't meant to be self-deprecating, but rather a celebration of the talent and creativity that goes into the works that other authors are offering up to the subjective opinions of a stranger. I've enjoyed most of what I've read, and while some of them do not belong to my usual genres of choice, I can still appreciate the worlds that are created inside of the minds of these writers.

Whether my reviews have more constructive criticism or praise, these people already have my respect.

Beep Beep

On rotation today, I discovered that I left my wallet at home, meaning that I would have to drive the 30 minutes home without it. Incidentally, I also left my lunch, so by the time I got into the car, my blood sugar was already dropping. (No diabetes, just hypoglycemia.)

In any case, my immediate reaction was to be upset that I would have to be extra careful while driving, which then brings to mind the question of why I drive so quickly (and hopefully not too recklessly) the rest of the time. I don't make it a habit to cuss, but there's an extraordinary number of mental f-bombs dropped every morning as I commute. I read somewhere once how little time is saved by speeding, and I started calculating the exact number of minutes as I drove. Of course, it all went out the window when I missed a turn and ended up taking another 30 miles of detour to get back to the same spot. The profanity returned, along with an ever-growing urge to cry. That's a whole gallon of gas right there!

In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't make a difference if you're 23 minutes early as opposed to 30, and that gallon of gas costs as much as a cup of coffee that you can simply forgo. Perhaps all of this rage and emotional exhaustion contributes to the mental lassitude that makes writing so difficult these days.

Screwed By Scribd

Through a recommendation from a fellow writer at Kindleboards, I decided to test out Scribd, a website that lets you "upload your PDF, Word, and PowerPoint docs to share them with the world's largest community of readers." I eagerly went ahead an uploaded the first three chapters to Someday . I received the following e-mail:

Hello, ---------,

We have removed your document "Scribd Preview" (id: ########) because our text matching system determined that it was very similar to a work that has...

Sign Me Up, Scottie!

For the past week or so, I have started looking into marketing and obtaining reviews for Someday . What I found is an overwhelming number of opinions, along with a plethora of writers' forums and whatnot to sign up for. As someone with absolutely no interest in economics, marketing, sales, and the like, it has been a painful journey biting the bullet and reading through the various posts. One week later, I have come a long way but still not nearly enough, I think.For one, my book is now being ...

Starting From Scratch

In an ongoing effort to market my book Someday , I ran across the well-known concept of the "blog." While I attempted to catch the digital world up to speed on my experiences in writing, editing, formatting, and self-publishing the novel, it occurred to me that my time may be better spent in writing about something a bit more current, as in the project that I am working on at this time: Michael.The idea originally occurred to me in the form of a story about what soon became a secondary...

When Characters Change Their Minds

After 10,000 hard-earned words, it was decided - and not by me - that it wasn't enough. The storyline felt forced, and while there were certainly scenes worthwhile enough to keep, a fair number of the interactions needed to be scrapped. Plots should move slowly enough to allow readers to absorb them but quickly enough to stay interesting, and what I found was that those 10,000 words succeeded in neither. And so I threw them out the window and started over.What came out of this...

Character Development

Creating characters out of thin air is, in many ways, similar to making a new friend or dating. There is the initial impression, as well as your split-second assessment of who they are and what they're like. The next few encounters are spent refining what we believe to be true of these former unknowns, with the occasional surprise forcing us to add instead of paring down. By the end of the journey, these people have become as multifaceted as anyone you may meet in the three-dimensional...