"After completing a book you won’t be the person you were before trying to write it, not if you’ve done it right."

This morning, I got in line at my daily coffee stop, roughly fifteen people ahead of me in the queue. About standard. My attention was in my book as I heard the woman behind me sigh, “This is going to take forever,” gesturing to move out of line and leave. She was a tourist—I knew it much before catching a glimpse of her California license as she paid.

“It won’t,” I said, and went back to reading. She got back in line.

Three minutes later, we were both out the door with our drinks.

How I could ever, even for a split second, entertain the idea of leaving this place—sometimes, I just have to laugh at myself. And then go back to reading.

Today is shaping up to be an all-around You Have to Be Kidding Me kind of day, but when you start the morning standing next to someone on the F train who is not only also reading Infinite Jest, but is on the exact same page—the exact same footnote—as you…well, how do you expect the rest of the day to go?

I mean. Really.

"…in our desire to think great things about our IT ‘cloud’, we’re deliberately oversimplifying ourselves. We’re hammering ourselves into ridiculously reductive boxes. In our desire to be part of something greater, we’re making ourselves small."

Reversible Souls

Allow me a banality for a second: Things are rarely what they seem.

While I’m still working on substantial revisions on the novel, I started research for a new project. “Project.” Sparing the details for now, I ran across someone who was too fascinating not to talk to, despite it not being the right time to get myself engrossed in something else. But I followed my instincts and contacted him. And, for a few weeks, we emailed back and forth; me, the writer looking for a story; him, the storyteller relating his life to a writer. Both of us guarded in our own ways, following a straight-line format from which neither of us had intended to deviate. And there was comfort, even an illusion of safety, in each stranger knowing our roles in the exchange.

Then things changed.

In perfect synchronicity, the writer saw a soul in the storyteller beyond a set of interviews to be cobbled into fiction. The storyteller heard a voice beyond the one firing over the questions. Now the “project” over which the writer thought she had control is something else entirely—still a project, certainly, and not a love story, no, but the writer no longer has interest in dictating its course…because she is now part of the narrative.

Perhaps it is because I’m giving so much of myself to you
more than I’ve given almost anyone else Ive ever known
that perhaps I’ll give you more than anyone

MT

"Attachments are of great seriousness. Choose your attachments carefully. Choose your temple of fanaticism with great care. What you wish to sing of as tragic love is an attachment not carefully chosen. Die for one person? This is a craziness. Persons change, leave, die, become ill. They leave, lie, go mad, have sickness, betray you, die. Your nation outlives you. A cause outlives you."

(Is it okay to start dreaming again?)
(When do I know, exactly?)

Des Lignes Parallèles

When one spends as much time with literary fiction as I do, she’s bound to question what her own work is “about.” Or at least I am, and certainly have been since starting this novel. When caught up reading stories about history and war, social conflict, political commentary through previously-unimaginable worlds, I sometimes find myself asking, “Is my plot substantial enough? Is it about enough?” And it’s easy to belittle one’s work if you’re reductionist enough: I mean, when push comes to shove, I wrote a love story. And when I get caught up looking at my narrative that way, sometimes I fear I’m not “literary enough” to play in that world.

So, sometimes I need perspective. And that’s exactly what I got from Alexander Maksik’s You Deserve Nothing.

I devoured this novel. Usually a painfully slow reader, I consumed three-hundred and twenty pages in three days. Besides finding a voice, a pacing, a narrative structure and style in which I could see my own work reflected—a serious rarity for me—Maksik’s book helped reiterate that I do belong: that literary fiction doesn’t always have to be grandiose, about Something with a capital “s.” If I get as reductionist withYou Deserve Nothing as I can with my own novel, it’s a story about a teacher at a school in Paris, and his relationship with his students. It doesn’t take place in pre-war Germany, doesn’t exist for the sole purpose of condemning some political policy, doesn’t need to construct an entire new word to draw attention to itself. Instead, Maksik works with the landscape of Paris to provide all of the context the reader needs, and instead of being so plot-driven, celebrates how gorgeous the naked thoughts in one’s mind are. The richness in simple perspective on another. And it’s all damn familiar—because it’s exactly what I set out to do in my novel, and now more than ever believe I accomplished.

Over the last three years, my beta readers have torn through drafts in days—a few in single sittings. I could never quite wrap my head around the fact that maybe I’d actually built something great, and that they didn’t devour the novel out of obligation to me, but because they simply felt like their souls would not allow anything else. After having that experience with You Deserve Nothing during the last few days, a novel in which I see an almost unnerving number of organic parallels, I feel validated and hopeful. That maybe thinking about being on the other side of this conversation might really be possible for me at some point—that my silly little love story and I deserve the company for which we strive.

MT

Today’s toast is to the kindness of strangers who allow us writers to enter their lives before we’re invited. (And another toast to us for taking risks to venture in at all.)

Extremely Deliberate and Incredibly Curated

First: Hi, new followers. There are many of you and I’m overwhelmed and humbled and excited. That reply button is enabled for a reason, so please use it and tell me about you.

Next. This week has turned into one long conversation about craft. Wednesday, I saw Adam Ross speak about Mr. Peanut on a panel at Housing Works. I read the novel earlier this year, and by the end, couldn’t really pin down my feelings about the actual book, but what I did notice was the way it was crafted: three narratives in one, strung together thematically, with distinctively contrived structure. He spoke about what was behind piecing together a novel so complexly, exactingly structured and researched.

I’m also at the tail end of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close after putting it off for many years (I’ll blame Park Slope and a bad experience with Illuminated for the delay), convinced to read it by a friend whose opinion I respect. I’m reticent to comment before having completed the book, but while I find parts of it grating, I’m still fascinated by its craft and, to put it modestly, its self-conscious assembly.

While I don’t have an O Wise One universal to share from this week, the conversation has kept me focused as I navigate the continued structural curation of my manuscript, due date looming. If you’re not thinking about how deliberate (or not) you’re being with your words, consider stepping back and thinking about it.

MT

Have Heart

Tonight, I hit 80,000 words—a number that I haven’t been able to reach since I started this major revision months ago. Of course, a quantitative measurement isn’t always the best one (hell, most of us could stand to lose a few thousand characters, though that’s another conversation), but as someone who’s been in the process of adding missing pieces, I’m marking tonight as substantial forward motion.

Just changing the word count in the top, right-hand corner of the manuscript is a victory; I have direction, I have purpose, I have a plan. But most importantly—and what I realize has me here in the first place—is that I have heart again.

That’s a pretty good thing to have back. Trust me on this one.

M

"I hope that one day you will have the experience of doing something you do not understand for someone you love."

Things that feel ridiculously good to say, Part 1: I am on editorial deadline for fiction.

November first, you’re not even going to know what hit you.

You Know You Have a Permanent Piece

Raging Bibliohalism: Speaking of tattoos, I think it’s groovy that you get a different tattoo for each book you write.  Is that an extension of the story, in some way?  Or is it an act of closure?

Joshua Mohr: Probably a little of both.  I’m pretty tattooed and to me, human skin is our cave wall.  How do you want to decorate it?   What are the pictures/hieroglyphics/words that speak to what truly matters to you in this world?  My books are a huge part of my identity so having visual representations of them is both an act of closure and a way to celebrate their birthing.

An excerpt from an interview on Raging Biliohalism with Joshua Mohr, author of Some Things That Meant the World to Me, which I cracked open on Monday. I have a really complex psychological and aesthetic relationship with tattoos, and specifically literary ones, so this exchange really fascinated me.

Thoughts, anyone?