Meditations in an Emergency

Moving Day

2007-01-21T18:37:00.000-05:00

Well, I think I'm ready to move this blog over to my new website. I'm not sure if I'll be transferring the blogs I posted here into the new blog, or if I'll leave this blog here as its own record of who I've been and what I've been doing, at least partially, for the past four or five years. So...from now on you can find out more about what I'm doing at my new website. And do let me know what you think of it...what's working well, what could use improvement, or what might be added that I haven't thought about yet.

Okay, see you at the new place real soon.

An Open Letter to Hillary Clinton

2007-01-20T14:09:00.000-05:00

Since Senator Clinton has announced her run for the White House, I wrote her a letter today. I have no faith that it will ever reach her, so I've decided to place it here as well. I have no clue who will win the Democratic nomination for President, but my feelings are that Senators Clinton and Obama are the two with the best chances.

Dear Hillary,

I'm a young thirty-something from Youngstown, Ohio. You may have heard of us here because we're both a Democratic stronghold in Ohio and also because we are emblematic of the failure of the American Dream.

Years ago, in the seventies and eighties, when I was still too young to understand the extremity and consequences of the situation, the steel industry abandoned my community, which had worked so hard for that economic sector of our country through difficult years of toil and suffering, and the owners of those industries left us absolutely nothing, no resource from which we could draw sustenance and grow as a "nest egg" for the community afterwards. What once was one of the fastest growing cities in America was left to rot and disintegrate. No one cared, and no one stepped in to help us. Our once burgeoning economic climate and population of over 180,000 people is now in 2007 reduced to 80,000 and a flatline on the heart monitor of the economy.

Despite this region of Ohio becoming a virtual land of the living dead, we have held strong to the belief that the Democratic party, if given the chance to lead, would do something to help our ruined community revive. In recent years we have given up this hope because it is now the new millennium, nearly four decades have passed since the steel industry abandoned us to face the void on our own, and we have learned not to rely on our government for help. We've begun to do what we can for our community with our own meager abilities and funds. Most of our citizens still feel nothing can be done to save us. Perhaps in the end they are right, and this community, my city, should be allowed to breathe its last breath and go back to nature. Perhaps there is a kind of logic to that.

But I can't give up on us yet. I didn't grow up in Youngstown, Ohio. I grew up on a small farm about forty-five minutes outside of the city, in a rural town called Kinsman, where we have a small history of citizens of the United States who are called to leave the countryside and go out into the greater world to try, at the very least, to make it better. Clarence Darrow is one such person from that community, who also began his law practice in Youngstown, the city that provided him with a platform from which a small village boy could go on to defend the freedoms of teachers in the infamous Scopes Monkey Trials. It seems long ago now, but the older I get the more I understand how not so far away from us that point in our shared history is. I myself have struggled throughout my life to be someone who fights for a better community in whatever way I can. This year I will see the publication of my first novel from a major publishing house and I promise there will be more to come. I've dedicated myself to being a voice for a community that has not had a voice for the past forty years. But I understand why others from my community often fail to be able to start their own ignitions, so to speak.

Without an urban base with a strong economy to allow people to become their better selves in this world, it is not just the city of Youngstown that suffers, but the region that spreads out from it as well. We have been growing generations of newcomers to this world, children, who have no hope for a future for the past forty years. This is not America, according to the text books. And it's not an America I can sit by and accept.

My hope, Senator Clinton, is that, if given the chance, as we've hoped of many Democratic presidents in the past, you and your administration will find a way to help our dying community before it is finally too late for us. The only way I can think of to reach your ears is to write you this letter, and plead for the sake of my family and friends and all of the anonymous family and friends that make up a community. It costs us very little to beg in our current circumstances. We are a strong base of supporters for your candidacy and hopeful you will be able to win the presidency. We will work hard for you before the election, during, and afterwards as well.

Will you work hard for us in return? Will you help us, Senator Clinton? We do so desperately need someone of your abilities and stature to help us believe that America still exists, that being a part of this nation means that we are as valuable as any other community. Will you help bring us back into the family of man?

Sincerely yours,
Christopher Barzak

Rookie of the Year

2007-01-18T12:46:00.000-05:00

Over at Fantasybookspot.com, Jay Tomio has made a list of his picks from the speculative fiction books coming out in 2007, including me as his bet for Rookie of the Year with One for Sorrow. It's a funny roundup, very tongue in cheek, so go read and enjoy the whole article.

A Change of Space

2007-01-18T05:24:00.000-05:00

I've changed my mind about Wordpress. After playing around in its system for a while tonight, I've started to get the hang of it and will eventually be making a site there that will serve as my author's website as well as my online journal. It's going to take me a while to make the new space look nice, so for now I'll continue to write here, and when it's ready in the near future, I'll make a note of that here as well.

It's thoroughly late here, beyond late really, so I will now take myself to bed.

Thanks In Advance

2007-01-17T23:48:00.001-05:00

I think I'm going to look for a new online journal service. As I wrote in the previous entry, I'm not feeling like Blogger is offering me everything I need. I checked out Wordpress tonight and played around with its interface, but I'm not sure if I like it any better to be honest. It has some interesting features in theory, but it feels awkward to use and you don't really have any idea of what things are going to come out looking like until you press the publish button, and well, I'm not sure if it's for me either. Is Typepad any good? Or is there another online journal service someone could recommend? I'd really appreciate any help. What I really would like is for Blogger to allow me to upgrade to their new service, but I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon.

The Weather at Work

2007-01-17T14:59:00.000-05:00

Greg Van Eekhout asked people to post pictures from their workplaces. His was decidedly warm and sunny. I am jealous because this is my workplace right now.

I slid through an intersection on the way to work yesterday. It seems in the two years I spent without snow in Japan, I have forgotten how to drive on snowy roads. Well, at least I forgot for a moment. I have re-installed those skills since the sliding incident. Hopefully I will be involved in nothing of the sort again.

Welcome to Northeastern Ohio.

On a side note, I am getting really frustrated because blogger won't allow me to switch to the new version. Apparently I have either a blog that is too large, or else one that they created when they first showed up on the online journal scene and none of their information on their website is very clear about whether or not they're going to eventually include blogs like mine in being able to use the new version of blogger's fun-seeming features. I hate creating and disposing of blogs, and really wish this would just resolve itself soon, but if not, I may have to change after all. Please, please, please, blogger people, let me switch over too!

New Zealanders Get It.

2007-01-16T16:04:00.000-05:00

This was one of the most funny videos online I've seen in a long time. Thanks to Dave Schwartz for the link. Funny, but also I think indicative of both many American's frustration with the choices their government has been making in recent years, and also indicative of what I'm sure many other country's think of us.

We aren't what we used to be, and maybe we never were, but we're certainly becoming a jaded culture in the face of the horrendous mistakes our leaders have been making. I allowed myself a modicum of hope when the nation voted Democrats into power for the Senate and House this Fall, and I still am allowing myself a tiny reserve of that modicum of hope, but it's easy to see the Democrats, despite being in power, are pretty helpless because they can't figure out how to interrupt the President's plans without potentially looking like the bad guys come time for election in 2008.

History will remember George W. Bush as the worst president ever. Hopefully even a certain amount of U.S. citizens will learn from his failure not to vote based on values and morals. You can't legislate morality and values. You can't vote to make everyone believe the same things you believe. Differences should be honored and celebrated together. An attempt to flatten out a society so that everyone feels and thinks and lives the same way--and is considered less than human otherwise--will only bring a nation to its knees.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Nebulas and Reading

2007-01-13T14:50:00.000-05:00

The Nebula Preliminary ballot is long in some categories this year, and short in others. The novel category, in particular, is really long. And the novelette category, where my story "The Language of Moths" is hanging out, is pretty long as well. The novellas are unfortunately few. The short story category looks...healthy enough. It looks like there was more nominating of works this past year, which is a good sign that writers are taking a more active role in the award process. If you're a SFWA member and want to read some of the work that we'll be voting on for the short list ballot, remember to check out the private SFWA list of online links to stories and pdf files of novels like Tobias Buckell's Crystal Rain, etc. Richard Bowes, author of From the Files of the Time Rangers is offering free copies of his novel to SFWA members who would like the chance to read it in time for the vote as well. You can find his email on that page. Make sure to take a look at what's on the list and decided for yourself what the best work of the past year has been in the speculative fiction genre. Like anything where voting takes place, it's important to represent.

I'm off to read some things I missed this year right now. I hope everyone's New Year got off to a good start. Mine has been hurried, but productive.

Oh, and also, here's the cover for Ellen Datlow's and Terri Windling's next anthology, Coyote Road: Trickster Tales, which includes my story, "Realer Than You". It looks like it's going to be a good one!

Never Enough Time

2007-01-09T04:06:00.000-05:00

Spring semester at the university begins next week. My holidays are over and this week I'm busy catching up with everything I let go over the past couple of weeks. So much work! So, apologies to anyone if I'm late in replying to emails etc. Hopefully by the end of this weekend I'll be all caught up and ready to start 2007, which is already the beginning of a good year because my first novel will be appearing this Fall, and also my story, "The Language of Moths" is on the preliminary Nebula ballot. Things are good. I hope they keep on getting even better. I'm looking forward to all kinds of things.

Happy New Year to everyone!

New Year

2006-12-29T21:30:00.000-05:00

I've been home seven months. I really can't believe it. It feels more like two years have gone by. I haven't really written in this space in a personal way more than once or twice since I left Japan. I've looked back on those entries in this journal several times since returning home and read them sometimes as if they had happened to somebody else, some other me that I met for a brief moment somehow, as if the walls of imperception between this world and the multiple dimensions of time and space that could exist had been torn away for a moment in my own piece of life here on earth. It all still feels incredibly real to me, and yet it also feels dreamlike more as time passes. I get caught up in the America around me, but then suddenly I can turn a corner and see the rice fields of Edosaki on either side of the road and the sweaty faces of the farmers wearing their straw hats and cloths hooding their heads away from the sun. Or I can get off the subway in New York and come up out onto a neon street in Tokyo, like I did this summer.

I suppose I haven't written much about my daily life since I've come home because, in a way, though I've gotten used to being back, I feel slightly disconnected from everything around me. I felt this way in Japan, but because I was a foreigner. I feel this way now, here at home, and I think it, too, is because I'm a bit of a foreigner. It feels that way sometimes at least. But I think I've always felt that way since I can remember. After all, we're all born into this incredibly amazingly weird world and into a life that we know fairly early on is going to end without any certainty of what's going to happen after that, and we have consciousness and live with animals in our houses and wow--let's not even get started on this language capability thing we developed. Frankly, I don't understand why more people aren't more agape and in awe of existence than there seem to be. But in any case, I think culture shock is something that develops more over time after returning home after living abroad rather than right at first. At least that's how it seems to be for me.

When I was first home I think I must have unconsciously felt as if coming home was just another trip, and it's after that feeling of being a traveler that you develop as an expatriot slowly fades as you stay in one place again for a while when the real culture shock has a chance to begin. When you've stabilized enough to look around and take in the place you've returned to, knowing finally that you're not going to leave it again anytime soon. I feel sometimes like I have the memories for two different lives co-existing inside me. My life in America and my life in Japan. Sometimes I don't know how me, some kid from a small farm in the middle of nowhere grew up to be educated and have published stories and have a novel being published and have lived in Japan and, well, lots of things. I don't know how I got to be me sometimes, is all. All those choices we make in life when we're young and aren't necessarily able to have a real concept of how choices make our future because we're just too young and inexperienced to understand that concept yet. I'm glad about the choices I've made in life. But it's still an odd feeling knowing at so many junctures it could have become something other than it is. I'm at a point in my life where I feel like I can look back on my younger self and see him, too, like that other me in Japan, almost as if I was watching someone else.

I've gone through a lot of adjustments and changes since coming back. I didn't realize how much I'd have to do that, how much energy it would actually take to figure out how to live here again. I think I just tried to ignore it for a while and pretend as if I could just slip back into a life here without thinking about it. Like I might be able to just pretend to be smooth at living, a polished person, like it seems so many people are able to do. I can put on a good poker face. It's one of my talents. But it's not really a good talent in the end, because it always leaves things I really do have to engage with--including things that have to be engaged with in the company of others, not just alone--unattended for long periods. And then at some point I get focused and dive headfirst into all that I've been trying to contain. I suppose that's what I'm doing now, lately.

One thing I thought about the other day was how, when I first came back, there were certain ways of being that I'd forgotten the codes and manners of after a long absence from their environments. The time that stands out in my mind about this sort of thing was going to Wiscon, where I was insanely happy to see many of my old friends, but where I was also just a bit disoriented and at a loss when it came to "being an author". Writers go to conventions and read from their books, talk on panels to audiences about their books and other people's books, chat with fans in hallways about their books and other people's books, and sign their books for others, and talk shop with one another, and there's a certain lingo to it all, and a range of stances that people seem to take, approaches to doing this, I mean. And I don't think it's a conscious thing for most of them, but probably a conscious thing for a few of them, and I realize this now because at some point when I was much younger, in my early twenties, just starting to enter the writing world and convention circuit, I can look back now and see I was learning a kind of language and dance at these functions, that it wasn't always instinctive, and that I had gotten "the hang of it" at some point too and not thought anything about it much afterwards.

But then I went to Japan. And though I was a writer in Japan, I did not have the sense of being an author. I realize now that, for me, I have two very different definitions for these words, and one is about the act itself and the other is about a sort of social identity that comes with certain already in place cultural assumptions attached to it. And that its is authors, not writers, who are mostly in attendence at writing conventions. And I felt at loss because I had forgotten how to do it, to be that. I gave a reading that possibly went fine but throughout it all I felt nervous and uncomfortable, not sure of myself at all. I then participated in a panel that I had signed up for, foolishly, on a whim while I was still in Japan because it was a funny idea, The Death of the Panel, which I didn't think anyone would actually take seriously. And I thought that would be a good panel for me to be on because it wasn't really going to be a real one in my mind, I think. And I was right for the first five minutes of that panel, it was just a joke. And then a woman in the audience, a bit angry it seemed, raised her hand and demanded if all we were going to do was have a bit of fun or were we really going to talk about the Death of the Panel on this panel, and then Hal Duncan came in with beers because apparently that's how panels are done in England, and then the next moment suddenly the panelists were trying to actually throw together an actual serious panel about The Death of the Panel, and Scott Westerfeld was nudging me to say something, you know, serious about the Death of the Panel, and I thought to myself, this is ridiculous, you can't have a panel about the Death of the Panel unless it's a joke, and I'm not going to let some audience member bully me into taking it seriously. I have absolutely nothing serious to add to a discussion about something that just isn't going to happen, I thought. Later I mentioned my uncomfortability about being on panels now, which wasn't the case in the past as much, to John Scalzi, and I remember saying how I didn't feel like I had any ideas of interest for panels, and he said he'd read my blog and knew I had interesting ideas and opinions, and I corrected myself and said okay, well maybe I just don't think in the way you have to think to be a good panelist at a convention. I don't like to think in front of other people, I guess you can say. I didn't grow up in a family that bounced ideas around and were thoughtful philosophers, where arguing was done civilly and sometimes just as an intellectual exercise. I learned how to do all that later in college with friends I made there who had grown up in such families.

But something that occurred to me the other night, seven months later, was that I actually do have an idea for the Death of the Panel that could be quite serious, and which I didn't hear mentioned really that day, so I offer it now. There cannot be a death of the panel without replacing them with some other form of social engagement between sf readers and writers, or without the death of conventions themselves. SF has something that no other form of writing, from what I can see, has as part of its cultural makeup: a real sense of community. And one of the things that makes that community possible are conventions, where readers and writers and editors all converge and chat intelligibly about this form of writing that they love, where they sometimes make lifelong friends, fall in love, or receive inspiration for their next story or novel and sit down to begin writing it in the hallway by the elevator as my dear friend Amber Van Dyk did at Wiscon on the last day this past year. One of the things that makes this possible are the panels. Without them, where do the readers and writers go to interact, what other event can give shape and form to this exchange for three or four days steadily, allowing hundreds of people all in the same building to engage with one another, but in plenty of different rooms listening and talking about a variety of topics? If panels die, conventions die, at least how they're conceived of at this moment in sf history. So really, I was right in thinking The Death of the Panel panel was just a joke in a way, because how can it not be? But I was wrong in thinking I didn't have any real ideas about it.

Seven months home and I'm still not so sure if I'll ever be able to be an author when I go to conventions, if I'll ever really get used to it again like I had in my mid-twenties, nor am I sure if I'll ever get back to living in America again without being keenly aware that I'm doing just that. But I'm not sure either if I don't prefer how I feel about my relationship to these things now than previously.

I think for a long time my life is going to feel like Before Japan, and After. Other than that, I'm pretty certain the the next few months and probably the next year or two are going to feel as eventful--emotionally, experientially, intellectually, and spiritually--as life was while I was living in Japan. And because of that, despite some of the disorientation of returning home, I'm looking forward to 2007.

Despite the smallness of my life here on earth and the smallness of my voice amongst all the others, I wish good things for all of us in the new year.

Surfacing

2006-12-28T21:16:00.000-05:00

My fever has broken and I'm feeling a little bit better. I think it must be one of those 24 hour flus going around right now. I finally got some sleep but didn't get my day started until very late because of it. Now I'm eating Chinese takeout because I didn't feel energetic enough to cook for myself. Thank you, Chinese delivery man.

Also, I wanted to point out a myspace page I made for Adam McCormick, the fifteen year old narrator of my novel One for Sorrow, coming out this Fall. If you use myspace, add him to your list of friends. As it draws nearer to publication time, I'll be posting news bulletins about the book, readings, signings, reviews, and also I'll be posting small bits of the book in the blog section of Adam's page. The prologue of the book has been posted in Adam's blog already, so if you'd like a sneak peek at the opening, take a look.

Too Sick and Tired to Title

2006-12-28T06:34:00.001-05:00

Earlier this month, I helped my friend Ron move his grandparents to a new place. It was just the two of us really, and a cold wet day of moving heavy furniture. By the time the day ended, I was coming down with a cold. It was a terrible one, too, and I could just barely make it to school to teach. I was very glad when it ended.

Tonight I started to feel another cold coming on. I'm doing that sleepless, achey tossing and turning in bed, shivering a bit then getting too hot. Oh wait, now that I think of it, maybe it's the flu if I'm getting chills. Ugh. I hate feeling worn down and exhausted.

So now I am teleporting about on the internet at 6:30 in the morning, still sleepless but oh so wanting to sleep, and doing silly online entertainment activities such as this one:

I always say a kiss on the hand might feel very good, but a Christopher lasts forever.

Which movie was this quote from?

Now, having perhaps exhausted myself by being out of bed, I might be able to go back and actually sleep.

Let's hope.

A Reading

2006-12-27T20:14:00.000-05:00

I'm going to be giving a reading from my work a few days after the New Year. If you'll be in the Cleveland area and can make it, by all means come out and join me and the other readers. It should be a good time.

Where: Cleveland Heights, OH
When: Thursday, January 04, 2007 at 07:00 PM
Who with: Alan Deniro and Sean Thomas Dougherty
Where at: Mac’s Backs

Ta-Dah!

2006-12-26T22:42:00.000-05:00

My mom gave me the Scissor Sisters' new cd "Ta-Dah" for Christmas. It's really good. It's more sedate than their first album, but still really energetic and inventive, because, well, you know, it's the Scissor Sisters, and "sedate" for them is still pretty manic for us regular people.

Yes, I referred to myself as a regular person.

This is not up for debate.

I still feel pretty happy from the holidays. I can't wait for the New Year. It feels good to feel that way again.

Review

2006-12-24T12:27:00.000-05:00

Niall Harrison has written a review of my story, "The Guardian of the Egg", from Salon Fantastique. He's been reviewing a story a day from the book, and, to be honest, I was expecting a less receptive view of mine as Niall, as he says in the review, was one of the two or three people online last year who didn't care for my 2005 story, "The Language of Moths". He sees superficial similarites in the two stories, but differences that show more restraint in the new one. It's true that I went through a period of time where I wrote about families and particularly brothers and sisters (I think I was curious about what it must feel like to have a sister, as I only have older brothers) and its true that "The Language of Moths" has a lot more "sentiment" in it than "The Guardian of the Egg", though none I can still remember not finding out of place or "earned" through the writing. But I'm glad that "The Guardian of the Egg" could still win over someone who hadn't much cared for one of my stories that came before it, whose reviews I also really enjoy.

Also, one last time, Happy Holidays! I'm off to my folks' place in wilds of Ohio now. I hope everyone has a good one.

This is just to say...

2006-12-20T01:30:00.000-05:00

I'm sorry. I am behind on so many things right now. The play is finally over though (and it went really really well--lots of laughs, and lots of calls for next year to have it performed two or three nights instead of one, and it also sold out twice-over), and I'm slowly but surely finishing my Christmas shopping. Things are hectic, too, because I'm house-sitting and so I'm doing a lot of running back and forth between my apartment and the house, and I'm trying to get some writing done as well, and and and...hopefully after Christmas everything will start to settle down. If I owe you an email, please forgive me. I'll try to get back to you as soon as I can.

If I don't get a chance to say it before they're over, happy holidays. I hope you have a good one.

Listening to Kurt Vonnegut

2006-12-18T02:04:00.000-05:00

While searching through the archives at Bookworm, my favorite radio show, I found this wonderful interview with Kurt Vonnegut from April 2006. Vonnegut is one of my favorite authors. "Slaughterhouse Five" and "Cat's Cradle" are two of my favorite books of all time. He's one of the first authors I came across that could make me laugh and make me cry in the same book, sometimes in the same line. In his eighties now, he's still writing and thinking and engaging with the world in such a deeply felt way that just listening to him makes me feel the way I do when reading his novels--I laugh at what he says one moment then cry the very next. He's the sort of person who makes me believe in those characters so well-known in science fiction and fantasy novels who function as an old wise man or woman, seer, visionary. Listening to him makes me feel hopeful.

An Interview

2006-12-17T08:46:00.000-05:00

A really good interview done by Matt Cheney with my editor for One for Sorrow, Juliet Ulman, can be read here, courtesy of Fantasy Magazine's blog. She's really intelligent not only about books, but about what it takes to be a good editor. I'm glad she's mine!

More blogging

2006-12-14T16:16:00.000-05:00

My new side job is writing blog entries for BloggingOhio.com as their Youngstown correspondent. My first entry is up now. All of the bloggers from different Ohio cities has a different style and are interested in different sorts of things about their regions in Ohio. I think for my own part, I'll mainly be focusing on civic and economic subject matter in the Youngstown/Warren area of the state, as well as community events and history. It should be a fun gig.

Where I've Been, What I'm Doing

2006-12-12T22:33:00.000-05:00

Well, I am finally over the bronchitis I've had for the past week and a half. Also, today I turned in my grades for my students, so I am done done done with the Fall semester. This week is full of rehearsals for Saturday's play that I'm in, but other than that, I can sit back and enjoy a couple of weeks of December before going back to work in January, both at the university and also as a blogger for an Ohio website, which I'll say more about when I begin that work. Working as a part time instructor and a freelance writer can sometimes be nerve-wracking, particularly when it comes to paying rent and bills and trying to maintain a certain amount of enjoyable activities in one's life. There's no secure paycheck coming every two weeks, and sometimes not even every month. But I can arrange my work week based mostly on my own scheduling preferences, and there's a freedom in that which my personality type apparently requires from living. Hopefully a day will come when I don't have to plan my budget as strictly. For now, though, I'm doing decent enough, and definitely doing better than I was a few years ago, so I can't complain too much. :-)

Youngstown is all Christmased up, and looking rather shiny. I came across this article in the New York Times from several days ago, which I missed when it first appeared (thanks for the lead, Brookey) and was pleased to see my little rust belt city making news outside of its own newspapers once again. And this time not a negative image of the city so much, but a hopeful one, so what I've seen happening since coming home from Japan has been confirmed. I hope more and more light will shine down on this forgotten valley of America in the days to come.

Now, in yet another attempt to ignore the waning amount of shopping days left before Christmas, I have a date with several dvds and a large chocolate bar, so I'm off.

A Reminder

2006-12-06T16:36:00.000-05:00

Don't forget to submit to Rabid Transit if you haven't already. The deadline is coming up soon.

Trendy or Political? Maybe Both

2006-12-04T22:59:00.000-05:00

This was a cool article in the New York Times about heterosexual couples who refuse to marry until gay people can too. My only criticism of it would be that it's been placed in the Fashion and Style section of the magazine, as if it's just a trendy piece of apparel to put on, rather than in the Politics section. After all, what is politics if it isn't people giving voice to injustices and demanding change in the policies we live by?

What a drag

2006-12-03T20:09:00.000-05:00

"How the Drag Queen Stole Christmas" will be performed at the Oakland Center for the Arts, in downtown Youngstown on December 16th at 8:00 pm. I believe tickets are 15$, as this is a benefit. There will be a Chinese auction after the show. This is the very cool show advertisement my friend Rob made, though this image of it is without the cast names and day and time and price information. I'm off to rehearsal right now actually, so more on this as the day draws nearer. Come if you can! It should be a lot of fun!

A Question For Writers

2006-12-01T00:42:00.000-05:00

I've noticed, now that I'm working on a third novel, that something that happens each time I'm writing a novel is I find myself reading or watching or listening to very particular kinds of books or movies or music. When I was writing One for Sorrow, I gravitated to watching a lot of alienated smart kid rebel coming of age films, and read a lot of voice-oriented novels. When I was writing The Love We Share Without Knowing, I was reading a lot of novels by Japanese authors, and Japanese poetry and manga as well, and listening to both contemporary and traditional Japanese music, and watching a lot of contemporary Japanese film including tons of anime, along with books written by expatriate authors. I also was reading a lot of Japanese mythology and Buddhist thought. Now that I'm writing this third novel, which I'm tentatively calling, Yesterday's Child, I find myself reading a lot of philosophy and watching a lot of political documentaries. The fiction I'm reading also tends, like the books I read while writing One for Sorrow, to be voice-oriented and wide-reaching, all-encompassing narrative voices, the sort that widen and expand then narrow to ribbons like the course of a river. The philosopher whose work I'm most caught up with at the moment is Hannah Arendt. I've read "Between Past and Future", and "The Human Condition" and am now beginning, "The Life of the Mind". I can't get enough of her ideas as well as the way she expresses them in language almost like a poet most of the time. There's a sort of mathematical or musical precision to the way she guides a reader's mind through her narrative thought experiments that almost convinces you in and of itself that whatever she says is the truth. Her mind is seething, bubbling like a cauldron with life. It's so invigorating to read work of this nature that tells a story of the life of what it means to be human in a language that is neither fiction nor poetry, math nor scientific formula. At this juncture of my life, philosophical texts seem to go straight to my gut, which they haven't always done in the past to be honest. I wonder sometimes what it means when suddenly a particular form of writing becomes a direction to walk in for learning and growing in some way. What does it signify when particular kinds of engagements with language and thought shift to a different code, like from fiction to poetry, or poetry to algebra, or chaos theory to essay, or from journalism to philosophy, etc.? Isn't what we're most receptive to as a mode of communication and narrative engagement at any given time indicative or something about us at that moment? Maybe I'm overthinking things, but I'd rather overthink than underthink, so I'm not going to feel bad if that's the case.

Anyway, my main question for those of you who write: Do you find yourself reading/watching/listening to any particular kinds of media while writing a book? What sorts of things? Any ideas why? Answers both public in this blog or private in an email to me are welcome. I'm interested to know more about this question from those of you who are out there reading the words I'm putting down in this space.

Way cool

2006-11-30T00:51:00.000-05:00

This is so cool...it makes me feel like a kid again. Like watching the X-Men 3 film with fellow Wiscon friends and then going on and on about the comic narratives with Dave Schwartz afterwards. That's how cool this is!