March 2011
6 posts
Spring in Brooklyn*, Take 1:
8:07am. Me, cowering in a corner of my Park Slope studio apartment, staring at an overturned roach on the kitchen floor. Gametime decision: Put on rainboots, don oversized hoodie over chemise, and release half a can of Raid with closed eyes. Resume coffee making.
*Alternate title: Pathetic (But True) Visuals
Now For The Deluge of Blood
The biggest thing I miss about writing right now is ownership. I feel a gaping hole when I am not consumed by orchestrating a world, its inhabitants, and ostensibly playing god for every detail—and it’s not simply because I’m a control freak by nature. (Here’s the dramatic, Paul Auster-esque pause where I do my damnedest to laugh with myself, though I’ve yet to figure...
“But it’s a rough time for first novels, very rough. And he has been forced...”
– Paul Auster, Sunset Park
(Un)Welcomed Vistors; Come Carry Our Baggage
How much ownership must you have over something to write about it—and how much is too much?
I spent the past week roaming the American Southeast, or at least bits and pieces of it on foot and through car windows. Posh Southern boulevards with Fifth Avenue storefronts that quickly turn into decaying landscapes and billboards for fireworks, then back to the charming historic mansions that...
Amazing, Still, It Seems
Never in one year has so much changed for me. And, ironically, this is the first year during which I was actually in one place. The same job, the same zip code, and, most importantly, a finished manuscript. Without huge, explicit goals (or characters’ lives) to distract me, I’ve been faced with the oddest challenge of all: confronting myself. What’s come from it? A completely...
So, I collapse and pass out on the floor of the Barnes & Noble right across the street from my Brooklyn apartment, awaking to a police officer and store employee shaking me back to consciousness. In moments like these, I’m glad I don’t believe in omens. (Right?)