It’s my pity party and I’ll cry if I want to
Currently struggling with writing the ending of this story. Dolly Parton’s version of “I Will Always Love You” is my mournful soundtrack.
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Tom
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Tom
Getting closer
I’ve written 3605 words so far for this story, the first one in the new book. It is certainly one of the most difficult pieces I’ve ever written. I should have noticed a red flag of warning when I began reading all those articles about the indescribability of God. Oh well.
Anyway, today, I think I finally finished one of the really pivotal parts of the story. Let’s just say that I’m closer to finishing this story – and thus closer to God – than I ever thought possible.
P.S. Here’s an image that has informed this story. It’s from the film Shrek 2.
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Tom
Ever had a really ambitious idea for a book?
Sick of struggling with this short story but then... it's really hard to describe God. At any rate, my mission today: to get closer to God.Some hours, later…
Update:
About to go home. Am still working on the same damn paragraph, but I've passed the 3000 word mark and, more importantly, I am closer to God. -
Tom
I’m Chinese-Australian but…
Jose Borghino recently wrote a review of Wordlines, a new anthology of Australian writing edited by Hilary McPhee. I read this review today. Admittedly, I was reading the review with some self-interest because I have some pieces in this anthology (and, as it turns out, Borghino said something nice about them too: “Tom Cho’s surreal and delirious Three Dinner Pieces had me in fits of laughter”). However, what really prompted me to sit up was Borghino’s comment about Nam Le’s contribution to the anthology. Le’s piece in the anthology is Cartagena from his collection The Boat. The piece is set in Medellin, Colombia, and it is about a 14 year-old hitman named Juan Pablo Merendez. Borghino says:
Unrelenting in its depiction of violence, but with a romance, idealism and even innocence that constantly reminds us that Juan Pablo and his gang are mere children, Le’s prose maintains an intensity and an authenticity that would be noteworthy from a Colombian or an Hispanic writer. From a 30-year-old Vietnamese-Australian, it is astonishing.
What I want to ask is: why is it really so astonishing that a young Vietnamese-Australian can write convincingly and intensely about this Colombian scenario? Which is to really ask: Is it me or is there something faintly patronising about this compliment, as well-intentioned as it is?
While I’m at it, there’s this one part of Eleonor Limprecht’s review of The Boat for The Sun-Herald (accessed from the Australian reviews archived at Nam Le’s own website) that I want to point out:
Le’s subject matter is global. But he manages to involve us so deeply with the characters in each of his stories that we are left immersed in the strange, realistic worlds he creates and the vulnerable, lonely people who populate them… Truly, it is a welcome change from the pigeonholed ethnic author writing only about the world from which he has come.
This latter comment is all the more ironic because it nonetheless pigeonholes ‘the ethnic author’ at the same time as praising a departure from this stereotype. In other words: one hand giveth, the other taketh away.
Anyway, I’d best get back to writing my own fiction. (I’m Chinese-Australian but the story I’m currently writing is set in Sicily.)
Tom
My Yes function
Doing some research for this story I’m working on. This is from William James’ (1960) The Varieties of Religious Experience. James is discussing different mystical states of consciousness and he notes the intoxicating effects of alcohol:
The sway of alcohol over mankind is unquestionably due to its power to stimulate the mystical faculties of human nature, usually crushed to earth by the cold facts and dry criticisms of the sober hour. Sobriety diminishes, discriminates, and says no; drunkenness expands, unites, and says yes. It is in fact the great exciter of the Yes function in man.
William James, your delightful description excites my Yes function.
Tom
Finding a way in
Beginnings are usually intimidating -- in life and in the world of writing. When it comes to writing, the blankness of the screen or page can visually impress upon you that you are lacking -- lacking words, lacking foresight into the nature of the outcome, lacking the gumption to even begin.
Over the last few weeks, I’ve started writing the very first piece for my new book. During this time, I have encountered every day that punishing sense of lack. How to begin? How to find a way in? The spatial concept of ‘in-ness’ seems appropriate here. It can feel to me as if I am required to penetrate through something so densely intimidating that I can only imagine it as three-dimensional. I shall imagine writer’s block as literally a block, then.
In reality, there are many ways in. And, in my case, one of my ways in involved returning to what seems like a native vocabulary for me as an artist: popular culture. This clip among others helped:
Tom
Sometimes writing has to make way for living
It’s been a sudden development but I’ll be moving house in a few weeks. And now I also have the flu. And my computer is sick too.
In short, I’m not able to write fiction at present – and this comes at a time when I really want to, when the piece I’ve been working on has started to come good.
Yep: sometimes writing has to make way for living.
Tom
Felt a bit stressed today about some forthcoming life changes… and yet I also did some of my best writing in ages. Morphing makes for good writing.
Tom
Just killed off a character. I don’t do that often. A water-skiing accident, if you must know.