Suzy Vitello's Blog, page 8

technology and its relationship to making art

photo by megskayToday's Book Review was all about technology. If, how, whether, or to what degree technology and its effects alter the way we write and live as artists. If you don't read/get the NYT, this issue is worth getting hold of. Obviously, if you're reading this blog, you're a card-carrying member of the tribe who partakes, at least a little, in the online exchange of thoughts and conversation.

In particular, I found Nicholas Carr's review of brain guru Daniel Goleman's "Focus" to be compelling. Ponder this statement:

"Seemingly scattered ideas, sensations and memories coalesce into patterns, into art." 

I can't tell you how much I -- as a bona fide scatterbrain, as a child who routinely had teachers' commenting on my lack of attention and wandering mind -- felt validated by Goleman's assertion that daydreaming connects us with a state known as "open awareness," which is:

"a form of attentiveness characterized by “utter receptivity to whatever floats into the mind.” Experiments suggest it’s also the source of our most creative thoughts. Going beyond “orienting,” in which we deliberately gather information, and “selective attention,” in which we concentrate on solving a particular problem, open awareness frees the brain to make the “serendipitous associations” that lead to fresh insights. Artists and inventors alike seem unusually adept at such productive daydreaming."

Okay, so that's the good news. The not-so-good news is that, according to Goleman, those naturally wired with open awareness have to train that down a bit in the face of myriad distractions: the tweets, the fb posts, the text messages, the trivial scattershot of data that floods our cortex these days.

And, as a writer, this is particularly challenging. Remember in the old days when we'd bring a notebook around with us to catch bits of conversations or random thoughts that occurred to us during our regular rhythm of the day? Well I know that for me, the last few years those impulses are now flash-texted into my iPhone in the "notes" section as I amble about on my SW Portland hillwalks (which has been a long-time remedy when I've hit a wall with writing - a way to let my muscle memory and subconscious get an endorphin boost and work out a conundrum on the page).

But as soon as I have that little device out of my pocket, I'm checking facebook, the gps tracker, the weather, twitter and my email, thus bollixing up the works - complicating my mission and sending me down rabbit holes of distraction.

As with any addiction, this behavior takes me on a bit of a euphoria-depression roller coaster. Synapses fire and I feel connected with the world, and then I'm at a loss when I return to my desk with nothing. Consequently (and because my "open awareness" loves to throw me into the arms of various experiments), the other day I decided to take a deviceless hour-and-a-half walk. Left the phone at home, and off I traipsed.

The whole time I felt odd and sort of phantom-limby. I kept patting my pocket (in that spectacles, testicles, wallet, watch way). I witnessed a few interesting things and longed to record and/or report on them. It became clear that my quotidian creative process has become informed by my connection to technology. I was profoundly sad upon returning home and acknowledging this.

It's not that I haven't contemplated this addiction before. I wrote briefly about the month I experimented with a weekly Internet sabbath back here. And then again as a contributor to Shawn Levy's article last year.

So, am I going to reinstate the sabbath? I don't think I am. Because my issue has gone beyond a weekly fast. I think I need to change the way I experience open awareness more on a daily basis. I have to learn how to re-invite the magic. I have always needed to spend much (not some, but much) of my day in la-la-land in order to feel, well, like myself, and I guess the whole relationship between daydreaming and creating art concretizes the reason why.

In his review, Carr sums up the dangers of inadvertently banishing open awareness, and it definitely strikes a chord:

"Always a rare and elusive form of thinking, it seems to be getting rarer and more elusive. Our modern search-engine culture celebrates information gathering and problem solving — ways of thinking associated with orienting and selective focus — but has little patience for the mind’s reveries. Letting one’s thoughts wander seems frivolous, a waste of practical brainpower. Worse, our infatuation with social media is making it harder to hear the mind’s whispers. Solitude has fallen out of fashion. Even when we’re by ourselves, we’re rarely alone with our thoughts."

What do you think? How much time do you need each day to be "alone with your thoughts"?

on semi-abandoned projects

Every writer I know has a project that's been "sort of" abandoned. One that lingers in the secret closets of a hard drive, perennially discovered, ripe for dragging into the virtual recycle bin, only to be granted a last minute stay of execution in hopes that it'll reform itself, and worm its way back into the writer's favor.

I've been wrestling with such a project for two decades. Not years. Decades.

As I linger in the publication green room, queuing up book launch ideas faster than I can rip through a bag of semisweet chocolate chips, I've once again unearthed my drawer novel. (Or in my case, my Rubbermaid bin novel). To be fair, the novel does have a pretty little arc. Compelling (in my opinion) characters. It has some successful scenes and every time I venture back to it, I find myself lost in the poetry of a few of the sentences.

That said, there's a secret sauce that's just not there yet with this project. Something is missing aesthetically. It still feels like parts instead of the-sum-of-its-parts. I know, I know, that's what revision is for. Finishing touches. Grace and beauty. Turning a mess into art.

The red flag here is the length of time I've been fucking around with this thing. My writing style has shifted. My interests are different. What I wanted to say in the mid-nineties, I don't care as much about. And yet there's still this lure with this thing. The web of it trapping me for hours at a time.

What was the last thing you held onto longer than you should have? And what happened?

authority

I just finished teaching one of my quick-and-dirty LitReactorclasses, and I'm always energized after an intense 10 days with the community of writers over there.
The class was on dialogue, but we took a little spin on a related path during the session to discuss the energy behind what comes out of characters' mouths. What it's all in service to. Voice, tone, blocking - how much action a section of dialogue should or shouldn't have. Tags, quotation marks, talking heads - all of these considerations are in service to one thing, in my not-so-humble opinion, and that one thing is authority. Confidence on the page. That intangible element that draws the reader in and keeps the pages turning.
One of the students asked me to unpack authority a bit more and that led me to the hallowed mindfuck of Gordon Lish - that difficult, charismatic writer-slash-Knopf-editor that so many hate to love or love to hate. 
The weekend workshop I took with Lish back in (gulp) the mid-nineties, still festers in my psyche. Like many teachers and mentors that have staying power, he was a bit brutal with his students, brilliant, but brutal. And on the subject of authority, he was unwavering. The phrase he bandied about more than any other that weekend was "line of flight." The line of flight for a given work was the kernel, the essence, of the piece, distilled to a sentence. And from this sentence, the whole piece would take off.
Now, a sentence is in no way a whole piece, so how the story took flight - what elements of the sentence were worthy of opening up and soaring - were where the genius of authority lived. Elements, to Lish, were almost always concrete things. Objects. Here's a quote from Lish that's bandied about the interweb:

Examine your objects for the tension inherent in them, the polarity, the natural conflict, the innate conflict, what is already there, and in the unpacking of this tension, you will reveal…the whole of your story, and how each unpacked object relates in [the] story to every other object.

So, for instance, let's say you have a character drinking from a mug of coffee. The mug is one of those photo mugs. There's a date on the mug, a picture of the main character and their husband celebrating an anniversary. The mug is stained and well-used. But, because you need conflict, the main character is divorced from that husband. She doesn't want to throw out the mug because it's one of those perfectly shaped mugs (everyone has their idiosyncrasies regarding the receptacle in which they sip their morning drug, yes?). Okay, conflict. Let's say the main character is now dating someone new. Let's say the mug shows up again, the first time the new boyfriend spends the night. He reaches into the cabinet and blindly pulls out the anniversary mug. Our heroine sees that he doesn't yet see what's on the mug and her job in the scene is wrestle the mug away from the new bf before the awkward moment. So - there's conflict, tension, the possible organic weaving in of backstory. All because of a mug.
So what does this have to do with authority?  With line of flight?
I think it has to do with psychic cohesion. The way our minds will unconsciously hold onto a concrete image, and make it available for context.  There’s this magical, intimate moment between the story and its reader when this dance happens.  It’s like a tap on the shoulder followed by the sweetest whisper in the ear. The reader then brings his own specific set of experiences and heartbreak or irony to the page, and becomes invested – moving beyond the language into the heart of the story.
When was the last time you read something that absolutely ripped you open?




So 

my inner ward

The furnace is kicking on and already, in early October, I'm feeling dusty. It seems too early in the season to be schlumping about in my indoor jacket (which is really my outdoor jacket that I wear 24/7 when chill arrives).

Typically, spring and fall are my most creative seasons. I'm thinking that it might be a response to the pace of change around me. You know, leaves doing their time-lapse photography thing? Hail and sun breaks and wind? All the schlepping to and fro: school, soccer games, various health-related appointments. Inspiration wakes me up at 2:00 AM. New ideas surface as though immaculately conceived. Thoughts fragment into glassy shards, sprinkle like so much fairy dust and then disappear.

But this fall, something different. Leaden weight is pulling me to earth like a 1960's sit-com dad. Ward Cleaver in my brain, talking me out of my seasonal onslaught of half-baked ideas:

"Now, Suzy, you really haven't thought through your impulse to write a (insert screenplay, graphic novel, essay on the roller coaster of perimenopause), have you?"

"No, Dad, I haven't. I suppose I should revise the novel I've been working on for twenty years instead."

"Atta girl. You know, inspiration only gets you so far. Perspiration and tenacity are what will get you ahead in life."

"Gee, Dad, you really know how to rain on my parade."

So, mug of tea in hand, frumpishly shuffling along in my slippers, I survey the bulk of notes and papers relating to my aging work-in-progress. The furnace moves another layer dust around. This is the glamorous life of a writer.

What half-baked ideas are you talking yourself out of?

bad weather, good books

pic from  http://www.oregonlive.com/Today marks the start of the big lit week here in Portland. With perfect synchronicity, our first typhoon o' the fall is swirling around me as I type. Water, wind, falling tree limbs and flooded basements heralding the beginning of curl-up-by-the-fire-and-read season. At the moment, the sideways rain has abated, but those nasty bands of radar on my phone's weather app promise more misery. That's why I plan on staying inside with my arsenal of reading material until it's time for the Breaking Bad finale--when I'll crawl downstairs and snuggle up on the tv-room sofa with a hot toddy. All that's missing are the bon-bons,(because I've already eaten them).

But, I've gotten a jump on book fever this year. I've been devouring novels and chain-toasting bread like crazy - the two go hand-in-hand. I'm feeding the carb-craving winter girl that surfaces right about the time pumpkins replace petunias outside the grocery stores. The crappier the weather, the more I read and the more I eat (usually necessitating some sort of fanatic cleanse come January).

I just picked up the new Lahiri after reading today's review in the Oregonian. I don't know what Knopf is thinking with the white-paper-wrapper cover. Is it a form of hubris? Or is it simply confidence that even if the book came with a little bag of shit stapled to the front, since Jhumpa Lahiri wrote it, it'll sell? Well, I have to admit, even at the princely sum of $27.95, I marched quickly to my favorite indie bookstore this morning and forked over the cash. I love Lahiri's writing, and the quandary described in the jacket "Two brothers bound by tragedy. A fiercely brilliant woman haunted by her past..." are the perfect ingredients to stoke my seasonal lust for books. And really, covers are only important if you've never heard of the author (so I'm hoping mine will be amazing!)

The other book on my desk is called "Writing in Community" put out by WriteLife earlier this year. It's a book on writing that encourages a deeper relationship with creativity and the act of writing in the spirit of Brenda Ueland's "If You Want to Write," and Natalie Goldberg's "Writing Down the Bones."

Although I'm all for working on craft (I better be, I'm teaching one of my boot camp dialogue classes at LitReactor this week), I can't stress how important "generative" writing encouragement is in the process of producing work. WIC begins as a prescriptive - there are exercises and optional assignments, and ideas on how to start a generative writing group - but the book goes beyond "how to." It taps into that magical space. You know the one I'm talking about, right? Where you look up from your desk and the day is gone? Where you've immersed yourself so completely in your work that you cross over - the words on the page seem to have come from someone else entirely?

The book is a sort of love story. It's about self-investment as much as investment in a community of others. It champions the idea of peer-generated encouragement as a way to crystallize authenticity.

It's this sort of encouragement (for sustained, deep thought and time with the page), that we all too often talk ourselves out of. I'm going on record here - I'm for it. Words. Lots of them.

So, is it raining where you live? Do you write more or read more when the weather sucks?

smokin' hot news

Hi guys. Been quiet here, yes? Well, I've been busy. I have some milestones to report.Wait, milestones sounds too sanded down. Too grab and go. This last week? Let's just say that if a calendar had a heat sensor to measure bad and good news (freezing to burning), we'd be calling on those wildfire experts. There'd be helicopters dropping fire retardant all over our house.

To start: my son got married to his college sweetheart last weekend. It was an absolutely phenomenal event that included family and old friends-many of whom flew in from various cities around the country. The bride's extended family arrived from Brazil and Japan. Up at the altar, the couple was flanked by formally-attired attendants (including my younger kids). For many of their friends, this was a "first" peer wedding, and so there was this joy surrounding them, like the first time you take your kid to Disneyland? Before they're all jaded and have figured out Fast Pass and are "over it"? My son and his bride were completely present and elated--not to mention adorable. Love was in the air. Faces contorted in hours-long grins. We wore out the dance floor. There was branded cocktails:
Sammy: Firefly sweet tea vodka and lemonadeTammy: Prosecco with a splash of elderflower syrupYes, their names really are Sammy and Tammy. Well, their nicknames, anyway.

And meanwhile, a couple of days before the wedding, a quick glance at my iPhone announced an unexpected email from my agent. It seems the pub deal with Diversion Books was changing. Turns out they want to put out a physical paperback as well as the ebook. Would that be okay with me? It means that the pub date would be pushed back...was I available to hop on the phone and discuss ASAP?

Now, there is only one circumstance (other than death) that would cause me to suggest "next week" for such a call. And that would be the wedding of my first born.

But we did have that call early last week, and I am pleased - no, thrilled - to announce that RAISING CHEER will be published January, 2014 as an ebook and an original paperback.

So, after all these years as a bridesmaid, I finally get to wear white. Literarily speaking.

Stay tuned for more specifics - they'll be coming soon.

spannocchia

These are my very last hours here at Spannocchia, which, for the past week, has served as writing workshop, retreat, bed and board. From my top floor perch, each day I’ve taken in the expanse of the tenuta—the vast fields and forest of this amazing Tuscan farm—before trotting down to the common room for fresh vegetables, pasta, pork from heirloom pigs, wine and, um, more wine.
I brought one of my completed novels as well as something new to be workshopped, and got to weigh in on some pretty amazing writing. I did some writing. I also learned how to make pasta from scratch. I took side trips to Siena and San Gimignano, and met some terrific fun-loving people.
This place is 700 years old! How can you summarize  a week in a 14th-century Italian villa in the heart of the one of the most romantic countries on the planet and even come close to doing it justice?
It’s gonna take me a while folks. Meantime, here are a few pictures. Ciao.

two kinds of weird

Ah, duality. Always my favorite literary theme. The interplay of light and shadow. Coffee or tea, today? Going up, or heading down? One of these things is not like the other. Is it the outside David or the inside David? Is it live, or Memorex?

Today I found out that there are two places one can purchase postcard stamps: the post office, or a tobacco store. And not just ANY tobacco store; it has to be the type that doesn't sell espresso and food. But when you purchase stamps from a non-post office vendor, and then scribble out a card and take it to a post office, you will be told that you are shit out of luck. Turns out, you must go back to the tobacco shop and slip your missives in a special box they have there.

Also, by the way, the second floor of a building is 1. A first floor is designated 0. You can imagine the infinite challenges to a person who has to mentally pick up a pencil before giving right/left directions.

A year ago, when my agent started schlepping RAISING CHEER around, with the characters still firmly in my psyche, I embarked on a sequel with the working title, TWO KINDS OF WEIRD. And guess what? It was set in Florence. I'm not making this up.

Well, I got a bit waylaid and downhearted about the whole project, and after the first three chapters of the sequel, I put it aside. The whole Florence-studying art abroad thing has been so done, right? Except that, in Brady's case, I sort of set up the ending of the book for a future one to take place right here in Firenze! Thing is, though I had a sketched out plot (thank you plotboard), I didn't really have the soul of the book the way I did right from the get-go with RC.

But now that's changed.

Yesterday, trekking through the Uffizi, I had a moment of clarity while taking in the various Madonna-and-Bambinos in the medieval art room (it's brilliant how they show the baby steps toward realism in these three masterful pieces). The paintings illustrate, like nothing else could, the influence of perspective on art and culture.

But it wasn't until I wound around the U-shaped former office building and then took in the galleries on the first floor (or was it the zero floor?) that the deal was sealed. Of course there was a boy involved (With YA, there's always a love interest, right?). In the corner of the Caravaggio room, there hung a quiet painting they believe is a self-portrait (not the Medusaesque one, a much more normal-yet-bad-boy one that isn't on any googleable webstie that I can find, and I'm therefore obsessed). Brady's journey in the second book will be complicated by a boy who embodies the essence coming off of that canvas. Does that wet your whistle? I hope so!

So, ya'll, something's brewing. And now I embark on the second phase of this journey. Off to the hills near Siena.

What are you working on today?

david and the duomo, done and dusted

 The first thing that surprised me, were his hands. I'd read the guidebook, downloaded the Rick Steves' audiotour, but still. It's hard to get beyond those paws. Phrases like, Hand of God, and Gotta hand it to him, kept assaulting me. Wouldn't want to get on the dude's bad side. Which, I guess, is the response that Michelangelo had in mind.

So, I'm standing there in awe, like everyone else, circling this iconic masterpiece, when all of a sudden there's a clunk sound next to me. A bad clunk sound. Turns out this rather large woman has just collapsed in front of the David. A small group of us start fanning our tickets and guidebooks around her. Her husband stoops down next to her and starts rummaging through her purse. An attendant grabs her legs and lifts them up. (I'd never heard of that.) It was a diabetic thing, apparently. Low blood sugar. Dehydration. Maybe a combination. After a few minutes she came to, and was dizzily guided out the door by her husband.

I'm sure it's not the first time David inspired fainting. Plus, it's August in Florence.

Still, it more than freaked me out, in that I'm-a-woman-traveling-alone sort of way. Humans are more fragile than we think. And the way those Smartcars and motorbikes zoom around the cobblestones here. And me, and my daydreamy half-attention style. Doom could easily be just around the bend. Or tainted gelato. Or a falling brick from some renovation project.

So, I did the thing I always do when I start down the doom-trail. I manned up and strode toward the Duomo, intent on climbing to the top. Unfortunately, by the time I'd finished the Accademia Gallery tour, the line to walk up those 463 steps to the dome was a winding mile long. I don't know about you, but it seemed absurd to stand in a two hour line, and then pay money to climb the world's longest staircase. So instead, I walked across the piazza to the Campanile bell tower (413 steps, no line, 10 Euro), to sweat out my anxiety.

As with most huffing and puffing adventures, the payoff did not disappoint. It was a clear, moderate morning in Florence, and the view from the top was magnificent. Plus, I got to look down at the massive Duomo line from my perch.

Have you ever had a "plan B" experience that made you feel pleasingly cocky? 

and behind door number three?

I'm in the basement of Imbarchi C in Rome, laying over for a couple of hours until my flight to Firenze, wondering how many cappuccinos I can toss back in that time and not have a heart attack.  As I type this, sitting in one of several metal chairs that dot the long hall, there's a monk all garbed out a few seats away. The tourist in me is all, "Maybe he's from the Vatican! Think he'd be up for an autograph?" But, this holy man is dressed much more in the vow of poverty style than the Pope's entourage (but, then again, we did get that new Pope who's humble, right? The one who replaced the fashion plate Pope?).

Maybe it's a sign from God, because I'm here in Italy workshopping my legacy heretical novel, Blackdirt. Maybe I just better get on my heathen knees and beg for a blessing.

Hm.

Clearly, I'm a little rummy. I've slept about five broken up hours in the last two days. Ambien and all.

(Oh My God, a nun just walked up dressed in the exact same feed sack attire. Long canvas robes cinched with simple brown belts. Birkenstocks on their feet. They're sort of having it out. They seem perplexed. Their discussion is in Italian, of course, so I can't eavesdrop.  Damn it! The nun is taking out an old cell phone--pre-flip, even--and untangling the charger's cord, looking for a place to plug in. It just seems wrong, doesn't it? Monks with cell phones? Even dated ones.)

The Rome airport is a little surreal. Very gleaming and shiny. Long halls to nowhere. Poor signage (Even in the mother tongue). But it's so exotic. Fendi bags and perfume shops. Even the restroom doors (shown above) are intimidating and stylish. My only other trip to Rome, I was here about 72 hours, and I must say, it's one of my favorite cities. It's just so weird! I mean, the ruins, the mopeds, the hucksters, the holy places, the fountains, the gelati, the "everyone going home to fuck in the afternoon" thing. It's like an ant colony, constantly crawling with activity (unless it's the afternoon), and purpose that all very insidery. All so very Star Trek.

We landed amid a cloudburst. Oddly, it's rainy and crappy out this August day. Grey like Portland in February. But muggy. Ay. Well, the monk couple seems to have worked out whatever they were upset about. I think I'll fold up my laptop and people watch for a few minutes before my flight to Florence. I hope the monks are on my plane.