… I haven’t heard of any of these. That’s the New York Times’ list of the best books of 2009. And to reiterate, I didn’t say I haven’t read them. I said I haven’t heard of them. Any of them. And I’m hoping to become a published writer one day. They haven’ t been on Amazon anywhere where I can find them (including the Kindle bestseller list that I regularly stalk) or the front page (which admittedly for me is a lot more likely to have the latest Kim Harrison or Jim Butcher), or even the New York Times book review email, which I read about half the time. Where do you find these books?

Three of them at least look interesting to me and my tastes.

You know, I like artsy plays. I can go and two hours later come out, maybe a little more somber, but feeling enlightened. Laramie Project, Doubt, Wit… I LOVE these. But books are such an investment of my time… if I’m going to “educate” myself, I guess I’d rather read Edith Wharton or Charles Dickens or D. H. Lawrence, or, heck, finally finish Ulysses (I’m like 2 chapters from the end… gonna… make it… one day….).

At least from what I’ve read (and, granted, I need to read more modern literary novels, so I will admit that this is an uneducated standpoint given from a small sample), to be literary the writing can have very little joy (’cause quality can’t be tainted by happy?) and has to be very much what I would call “masculine”: spare, emotionally distanced, grisly details that you see as if watching on camera, with these characters who are so flawed and/or twisted that I can’t figure out if I’m supposed to root for them or condemn them. And frequently it feels to me like the story takes second place to the prose itself, and I don’t understand why. I mean, pretty writing is nice, but I think substance is every bit as important as shell.  I’d rather have friends who are caring and joyful who help me be a better me than friends who know how to dress and get their makeup right every time. (Not that there’s anything wrong with well dressed and getting your makeup right every time. My sister is an absolutely fabulous example of substance meets style – on a budget, even. She amazes and shames me.)

I have this feeling that if I tried hard enough, I would change and understand what the literati have been trying to tell me for years. I also have this feeling that if I read more modern literature it would probably help my writing. So I should read more literature. Maybe I should grab those three books that sounded interesting and give ‘em a go. Maybe I will.

But I have 84 books on my Kindle that I haven’t read yet, ranging from Sun Tzu to Nalini Singh, and I can’t quite figure out when I became uneducated because I’d rather finish my Jane Austen collection than read a book about a “turbulent life — marred by alcoholism, financial turmoil and family discord” or prose that has “quiet restraint and calm precision” (quotes from NYT reviews on the link above).

Am I doomed? Anybody got a painless way to break into the world of modern literature for someone who prefers F. Scott Fitzgerald to Hemingway and spends her time bouncing back and forth between Victorian literature and Kresley Cole?

Today’s sermon at the local UU church ended that way. It was an interesting message about active waiting, and the phrase was based on a piece from Annie Dillard‘s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek in which the narrator “stalks” a muskrat, i.e. spends a lot of time waiting on the creek bank for a muskrat to show up. The theme was that sometimes, we have to wait. And we can spend our lives passively waiting for the next big thing, or we can realize that waiting is an integral part of the human experience – as every funeral reminds us, life is one big wait for death – and spend the waiting in something productive, learning from the wait.

Right now, as I’m on The Great Agent Hunt, there is a part of my brain that’s always waiting… for an email, for a phone call, for some message, yes or no, that means I can put that transaction in a category and move forward or move on. But other than making sure I always have a query (or two. Or five) out there, there’s nothing I can do to hustle things. I just have to wait.

When I started this process, the best advice any writer gave me was to write something else. And so I’m working on my third novel, and after endless critiquing and reviewing of the first two, it has been a wonderful miracle to get back to the first stages of creation again. Those days when characters and plot are still being carved from the silence, and themes and motifs are appearing, frequently unbidden, in the words. So I’ve found my way of stalking a writing career, as maybe the minister would say.

So many faiths right now have a waiting – an advent – for the birth, for the light to go out, for the light to return, for the year to end and new resolutions to begin… this built in annual reminder that sometimes as humans we have to wait and hope, and yet continue to find meaning inside of that space. Blessed Advent to you, however you choose to celebrate it (or not to celebrate it). May you find peace, hope, and a reason for goodwill.

Ira Glass from a series on writing…

This was really interesting to me, because I had a sort of epiphany. We always talk about “killing our darlings” as in getting rid of scenes that don’t work or whatever, as if we have this feeling like each word from our brains is gold… but that’s not really true. Most writers I know don’t think that their words are all golden. Most writers I know seem to think most of their words are crap (even when they’re not), so why the trouble cutting?

Reminds me of my high schoolers, and sometimes with their writing it would be three pages long, but it would take two pages to get to a point, and I’d be like, “You need to cut the first two pages; they’re brainstorming. They have no meaning,” and I’d get these horrified looks like, “But I did that work! I should get credit for it! How will people know how much work I did if I only show them 1/3 of it??” I think a lot of our reluctance to let go is not that we’re so in love with everything we put down, but that we want ‘E’s for effort; a “what I lack in quality I make up for in quantity” sort of thing. And a lot of the world growing up seems to work that way – from the simple: show your work in math – to the more morally complicated: we don’t ask where the money comes from, we just know that more is better.

But that isn’t the case anymore. As artists, we need to so enjoy what we do that we create without the need for credit. Then every scene we excise, every doodle that ends up in the recycle bin, every camera shot that gets erased was a fun day that we had with our craft, and that is sufficient to satisfy. A little sacrifice to the muses, if you prefer to think of it that way. I realize that that must be damn hard when you’re on a deadline, but I think the principle is sound.

My second creative love after writing, the art of theater, is very frustrating and fascinating at the same time because by it’s very nature, the act of communicating your art is the act of deleting it. Once a performance is done, it will never again happen just that way. Once a show closes, that piece art is gone from the world, and no recording can ever bring it back with it’s true creative magic. (Food and wine are another one of these art forms, though I think mentally easier to deal with the “consumption” thereof). I think those of us that concretize  our work in its creation (by committing it to paper or clay or whatever your medium) have a harder time letting go because we don’t have to. But an actor would scoff at the idea of holding onto a rehearsal. How do you do that? And if you did, what would be the point? All the effort of actors, directors, scene designers, etc. produce a product that is an insane reduction of all the work that went into it. Two hours in the viewing from months of labor by tens to hundreds of people… and then the product is lost to oblivion. But theater artists revel in that ephemeral nature. That “if you weren’t there, you can’t have it.” And I think all of us can learn from that attitude.

Most of the shots Michael Jordan made in his lifetime were not during a game. But each one he made alone, outside of an audience, helped him be the man we loved to watch on the court. And so shall I learn from his example.

And now for something (funny) that demonstrates the importance of letting go of some of those ideas… How to create a weapon that is devastating and unstoppable, from Basic Instructions.

(And I somehow managed to get writing, teaching, theater, basketball, and Star Wars all into one post!!! Hmm… what is missing…. VAMPIRES, VAMPIRES, VAMPIRES!!!… OK, now I think I have all the topics my life revolves around. )

I’ve finally figured out why I get paralyzed every time I try to write anything. After spending the last several months almost exclusively on polishing, I sit down to write something new and everything coming out of my brain sounds like total crap. And then I get mad and start deleting, and then I get mad and go wash dishes or play the piano or… solitaire. Oops. I just gotta remind myself that first drafts will never sound great; that’s what revisions are for. Yesterday I finally let the yuck flow, and it started to be fun again. I think next week will be good for writing.

In other news, I didn’t mention that my recent run in with translating a sentence pushed me over the edge and made me decide to start learning Norse. (Yes, I know, in normal people thought processes, “I want to read the Eddas…. I’ll learn Norse!” does not make sense.) Anyway, I think I was afraid if I mentioned it too early, if I gave up having learned no more than “Heil! Ek heiti Jackie!” that I’d be a quitter. But, well, I’ve got down the present tense verb conjugations and masculine declinsions through the dative. I’m learning cool quirks like in the Eddas they would be more likely to say, “King Olaf offered the vikings to get on his ship” than “King Olaf commanded the vikings to get on his ship.” (Heehee… an offer they can’t refuse…) Not a ton, but a significant enough accomplishment that I feel justified in saying, “I’m learning Norse!” I do find it endlessly amusing that instead of “to love” being the first verb (other than “to be”) that I learn to conjugate (like my other language learning experiences), Oskar Gudlaugsson and Haukur Thorgeirsson (the online site I’m learning from) teaches you “to slay” first. Now that’s vikings for you.

Do you know how hard it is to translate English phrases into a foreign language that you don’t speak? You think… oh, I’m just going to look up “You” “are” “dealing” “with” “deceitful” “giants” and then stick the words together! I have an Old Norse (now shortened to ON) dictionary. Easy.

I look up the words. “Dealing” implies “with” in Norse; no one will be confused that we’re handing out deceitful giants. Scratch one word from the list I have to look up. The rest is easy.

And then I remember that I have to conjugate the verb. OK. So I find the, like ONE source online that actually gives lessons in ON (which, after looking up this website the last 15 times I’ve used it, I finally bookmarked this time). Read the introduction (’cause… it’s not procrastinating if you’re learning?) and realize that this is Icelandic ON from the 13th century, and my character is from 9th century (what is currently called) Norway. But since nobody in 9th century Norway wrote anything, we have no idea how different 13th century Icelandic Norse and 9th century Norwegian Norse are, but at least they’re both Western ON, as opposed to if I’d made my character Swedish or Danish or something, at which point there would be distinct differences (we know this, because somebody wrote something in East ON during the 12th century (or something)).

You know what? My 9th century Norwegian is going to speak 13th century Icelandic. Anybody out there who actually knows 9th century Norwegian is welcome to contact me about corrections.

I read the note saying “are dealing” and “deal” are the same thing in ON. So I conjugate my verb. “moeta” (where the oe is one letter, but my only complaint with Chrome so far is that I can’t copy things into wordpress, so you don’t get the cool letter). I read the note that says I don’t need “You” since the “You” is implied in the conjugation. Erase the m and capitalize it. “Moeta” Four words down, and I only wrote one. I’m clearly a translator of epic worth for my efficiency.

Then I start thinking about sentence order, because there’s an adjective in there, and does that go in front of the noun or after? And really, some languages don’t do subject+verb+object like we do, so I start looking up word order. And learn that ON is declined.

And I thought I’d left those pesky nouns-altered-by-part-of-speech behind with my Latin days. No. Declinsions haunt you forever. It’s like a linguistic plague (that does, however, allow for much more flexibility in word order, which does have its merits, one of which is not ease of translation). However, I know that I should’ve already realized this because German is declined. Makes sense ON would be, too. OK. I can do this.

Here I get distracted by a discussion of definite vs. indefinite articles in ON (I’m fascinated by how different languages deal with them; I think the use or lack thereof says a lot about a culture; ON, btw, sticks -inn suffix onto a noun to give it the definite article “the,” otherwise you assume indefinite article “a”; this makes sense to me; clearly my viking heritage is showing through). And then I keep reading and then translate the first set of ON lesson exercises on the website. Olafr konungr a brand. (King Olaf owns a sword). Ulfrinn vegr hauk. (The wolf kills a hawk.) Again, clearly it’s not procrastinating if I’m learning this valuable stuff. I feel closer to my character already.

Back to translating. I know the word for giant – jotunn – and it’s the object of the verb, so I just gotta figure out how to decline in the accusative case. Apparently you drop the ‘r’. (Looking at jotunn again). There’s no ‘r’. Hm. Must think on that. I’ll let it percolate.

Usually adjectives decline with the noun the describe. I check to see if that’s true in ON. Yup. OK. “Deceitful” is “flara,” according to the ON dictionary I keep on my Windows desktop (yes… I do…). I learn to decline flara in the accusative. Well, crap, this other dictionary says the word is flaratha (where ‘th’ = that funktastic letter that looks kinda like a ‘d’ but you pronounce like ‘th’ in “there”; again, *sigh* Chrome). I go with flaratha ’cause I like the funky ‘d’. (And I check one more dictionary, and two out of three have “flaratha,” so I am justified in my funk-d love) (hey, maybe my desktop dictionary is in East OD…).

Oh, wait, before I can decline it, I have to know the gender of the noun so I can match the adjective to the noun. I look up gender in ON. They have three, masculine, feminine, and neuter. Jotunn is masculine (I think… I’m actually not totally sure on that still, but I did really try).  OK. So I find a chart.  ”Flaratha” in the masculine accusative declines to “flarath”. Really? I now have Moeta ______ flarath.

I look at ON sentences around the declining adjectives section. I have no idea why I treated ON more like Spanish than English, seeing as it’s a heckuva lot closer to English. Moeta flarath _______.

Oh, wait, I want giants, as in plural. I look up the masculine plural accusative. “Flaratha in the mpa is… “flaratha.” That was anti-climactic. OK. Moeta flaratha _______.

Time to battle “jotunn.” (And I’m sorta hoping it’s not jotunna, ’cause… yeah… (now I’m drinking pumpkin ale and singing “Oh Yo-Tuna!!!” Things are devolving quickly.)) Jotunn is an important word to the Norse peeps, so surely this series of lessons will teach it to me soon. I click on each lesson individually and scroll through the vocabulary list at the end. Seven lessons in I give up. Something else is nagging at me… something I’m afraid I got wrong in the work I’ve done so far, but I can’t… quite… nail down what it is…

This leads to reading of passages from various lessons at random for maybe half an hour.

Finally I go back to the list of lessons and read their synopses. One says it teaches “Bisyllabic stems.” Hmm… This would be Lesson 8, the one I stopped right before getting to. I click on it. Jotunn is there. Along with how to decline nouns like it. Jotuna is not correct, thank heavens. Jotin. Moeta flaratha Jotin.

Wait, ears perk for trouble. Masculine accusitive “jotunn” ends in “in” and “flaratha” in ‘a’? Plural! I need a plural! (Look it up again). Moeta flaratha Jotna.

Did I do it?? Am I a translating genius??? Maybe. But I decide the character wouldn’t say “You deal with deceitful giants,” but “Lars deals with deceitful giants.” I look up the 3rd singular conjugation. Lars moetr flaratha Jotna. That was startlingly easy. Clearly I have some other challenge at hand.

Oh yes, I do. That niggling sensation from earlier? Yeah. Hits. “Moetr” might imply “with”, but it probably still doesn’t take an accusative. Accusative means you did something to someone, not with them. It’s probably one of those verbs that take a dative. Or maybe a genitive. Latin was alway slinging genitives at me. How do I even look this up?

More random mess of lookups. By sheer luck I hit upon a sentence in one of the examples that uses moeta. Sure enough, it takes a dative (I pat myself on the back that (a) I thought of this and (b) I knew it was probably dative).

*Sigh big time* At least now I know where to look for everything. I re-re-re-decline “flaratha” to “flarathum” and “jotna” to “jotnum”. I now have this sentence:

Lars moetr flarathum Jotnum.

All because I wanted my character to say something in his native language. Take a moment to feel smarter with me.

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OK. Now we’re done. Back to writing.