Averil Dean's Blog, page 31

Wank

The gimmicks are starting to pile up. In addition to the candy dish and the coffee shops, the fine-point Pilot PreciseGrip pen and crappy spiral notebook, dog walks and Pinterest board and the down pillow under my special ass, I have decided I need a soundtrack. It’s not a recent decision, by the way—I always create a soundtrack, it’s part of my Process, dude—but it’s safe to say I’ve reached the obsessive point in putting this one together. I have mixed and burned seven CDs in the past two w...

Guest Post – Catherine McNamara

You may remember that I interviewed Catherine McNamara last year to talk about The Divorced Lady’s Companion to Living in Italy—a sexy little cannolo of a novel, about which I carried on to anyone who would listen. I’m so pleased to have her back again to talk about her new short story collection. And sex. You’ll be shocked to know that we’re talking about sex.

We’re just made that way.

~ Averil

SEX AND THE SHORT STORY

I like sex. I like language. I like stories. It’s very simple and it has alwa...

Passion Fruit

After an afternoon at the Hut, a plate of fried tofu and two pots of jasmine tea, I have 2,000 words, a big fresh scene, tea stains and sweet-and-sour splotches all over my pages, and three new pornographic doodlings. Tits and ass in the left margin, flaccid dick in the right. Never the twain shall meet.

The waitress brings another pot of jasmine tea. She never asks what I’m up to, never hurries me along, always remembers to ask if I want a cupcake before she brings the check. I wonder what he...

Hatter’s Hat

I am at the cafe with my stack of pages. I’ve decided that what my book needs is more. It needs riffs, and run-ons, and conversation, and twinkle lights. More threesomes. An excess of lovers. Amplification, illumination. More, more, more.

Two people take a table nearby. A lady is on her cell: This is Lauren—Lauren—and I need to reach the home office urgently. Please can you put me through? I need some advice on this deal, we’ve got to run a background check. . . .

I wish I had a home office. I...

Purple Syrup

I’m out for a walk around the neighborhood, and have come upon two women. They must be sisters, or mother and daughter, because they have the same high-hipped legginess, the same flat slope from neck to skull, and they carry their arms with the palms turned straight back, swinging in perfect synchrony. Because they are older I have overtaken them, and as I pass we exchange pleasantries which evolve into conversation. The beat of my stride is out of time, three for their two, but today I’m lon...

The Age of Miracles

God. This book.

.

What was your last unputdownable?

Suck It

Yesterday I finished my second draft of the new book. Moving right along to draft three, and what I hope is my final pass before someone else takes a look under the hood and reminds me of all the shit I left out.

I’ve hit a rhythm, and it goes like this: I started out with a candy dish on my desk, filled with milk chocolate caramels, each candy representing 1,000 words of manuscript I still have yet to write. Every time I pass the thousand word mark, I take a chocolate out of the dish and put...

Cavedweller

Update: I took down yesterday’s toddler pics because the Google searches over the past twelve hours were freaking me out. I’m crawling back to my cave to suck on a shamesicle, and I’m going to try to remember that past and present should never shack up. At least, not on this blog.

Tomorrow it’s back to our regularly scheduled program of angst and self-loathing.

Flags

I drove to Grays Harbor again yesterday. On the way, I listened to my CD of writing inspiration for Blackbird and thought about how my book is shaking down. I’ve made a huge leap forward over the past couple of weeks. Something has come unstuck, and the problems that plagued me earlier don’t seem so difficult now. I just have to keep writing.

Sometimes I lose sight of the obvious. I’ve spent so much time worrying over the voice for this book (nothing brings out my insecurities like trying to p...

Cover

Guys! I’ve gotten the thumbs up to show you the cover for Alice Close Your Eyes. I really love it, and I hope you will, too.

Also, here it is on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Powell’s, with its New Year’s Eve pub date. (Which is handy, since there will already be champagne in the house.)

And here it is again on my new(ish) author site. (Obnoxious? Moi?)

Fuck me. I’m such a fancy girl.