Margaret LaFleur / Blog

What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us

2010-03-08T00:25:41Z

I'm about eight chapters into Bell Jar as of this afternoon and I thought, wait. If I don't write down my thoughts about What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us, I might not be able to really do so with a clear head. Already Esther Greenwood is settling herself into the back of my mind and coloring my view of almost every female protagonist I've ever read. And Laura van den Berg's work deserves to be viewed outside that fogged vision. So, here- my thoughts, mostly fog free.

I wanted to love this collection. I expected to love it, which I think is what happens when I've read about other people loving it. Especially when I've also read some of the stories in it elsewhere and loved those. The title story was one of my favorite things from the Pushcart 2010 collection. So I went into it with some high expectations. It was a subtle kind of surprise to find that, for the most part, my expectations were rewarded.

I found myself returning to the cover image over and over, pausing in between stories to consider the long boardwalk stretching towards an unknown haze. It felt like an ideal image, as the women these stories center around all seem to be moving in some kind haze, all of them reaching out towards something unidentifiable in front of them. (Off topic question: How is cover art displayed on the Kindle? Or the iPad?) And though van den Berg lets the reader spend some time next to each of her protagonists, straining to see into the mist ahead of us, she never quite throws either (the reader or her characters) head first into the water. The book is rich in observation and small gestures. There are whole stories that seem to live in silent places, and hesitate on the moments just before- Just before something (or someone) cracks, just before a character abandons herself, just before danger comes roaring inside. I was quite taken with the reoccuring theme of monsters, of Bigfoot and the Loch Ness and a monster that is drawn in the sand by African villagers. Yet, I found myself wishing that just once the danger would break through the window, or a monster would appear, just so I could let out the breath I was holding.

What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us is the first short story collection that I've read in a while that felt complete. A round whole, with each story reflecting the others to form a coherent universe. Even the seemingly inconsequential details came together, for me, so that when a wife touches her husband's back with affection in one story it would pull me back to the way another character observed another man touch "the gap between" the shoulder blades of his lover in another story. It's a great debut and hints toward more great work to come.

Are You Having a Bad Day?

2010-03-06T03:42:31Z

Work was a bit crazy, today. Someone stole the long power cord that was bringing power to the trailer where our temporary office was, so that when I showed up a bit before nine the lights didn't work and (of course) our computers, copier and fax machine were all out of business. And, naturally, we had people showing up for meetings at 9 and 9:15 and 10 and 10:45 and 11:00, etc.

So we ran around a bit and somehow got things worked out so we had a temporary temporary office inside the building. But it was a day definitely in need of some cute.

Sunday in the City: Japantown

2010-03-01T04:56:45Z

Today, while it seemed everyone I follow on twitter was anxiously watching the USA v. Canada hockey game, I went to a spa. Or rather, I went to the Kabuki Springs and Spa, which is a Japanese style communal bath. I live only a block from the edge of Japantown, though I don't spend much time there unless there is a festival going on with Taiko drumming. But on Friday when I was feeling particularly done with the week and fed up with the rain and the hard uncomfortable chairs in my office I took a few minutes to browse for spas on yelp. Not that I can really afford to go to a spa, but I thought it would be a nice distraction.

Which is when I discovered that, only a few blocks from me, there is a cheapish different kind of spa option.

I was a little apprehensive at first. I didn't entirely know what to expect, except that it being a Japanese communal bath it would include other naked women walking around and, well, bathing. And like any normal American woman, I don't actually spend much (any) time around other naked women. But I went anyway and discovered: not everyone is naked. Also, it's really not a big deal.

What is kind of a big deal is how great you feel when you walk out of the sauna. And how nice it is to do nothing for an hour or so other than just sit in a sauna or a hot pool. I ended up thinking a lot about the story that will be workshopped on Tuesday, because water turned out to be sort of a theme in it. But I also spent a lot of time not thinking. Sometimes I watch bad TV when I want to turn my brain off, but this was much, much better.

If I made one mistake, it was not eating soon enough before I left. I had a bagel a few hours before I went, but by the end my stomach was rumbling and the heat and steam was actually making me feel a little dizzy. On the way home I picked up a bowl of ramen, just to complete my little Sunday afternoon in Japantown.

Kabuki Spa, originally uploaded by margosita.

On Workshop and Being Hopeless

2010-02-23T22:12:23Z

So I wrote this story. And tonight I'll be handing it off to my workshop and then they'll all go home and sometime during the next week they are going to sit down with it and mark it up, noting sentences they liked and places where there are inconsistencies. They are going to question my word choice and fix typos I missed and maybe they'll write big question marks in the margins when they are confused or, depending on their workshopping style, leave me little smiley faces on the bottom of pages that really worked or squeeze in questions in tiny cramped handwriting in between my typed lines. And then, hopefully after they've read it at least twice, they'll type me a page or so of critique notes, expanding on that scribble there on page 11 or discussing where I lost them, like in that strange scene towards the end, you know the one, that might be a little different? Also, maybe watch how many sentences you start with "and", ok?

This used to make me quite anxious. But not so much, anymore.

And part of this change, I think, is that I sort of know what they are going to say. The end doesn't quite work, yet. And the first paragraph can kind of stand on it's own, separate from the rest. Also, and though I think they'll be sweet about it, they are going to say, hmmm. I don't know if the plot is working. But, they'll add, the imagery is really pretty good (because we are a supportive bunch, for the most part), and you have a good start.

This isn't to say that I know everything they are going to say. I am, of course, surprised in every workshop at what people notice or miss and the ways that people's reading differs from the person sitting next to them. Sometimes everyone will agree on something about the story (an interpretation of a character's action or dialogue, for example) that I didn't intend. But if you get eight people telling me they thought it meant something other than what I thought it meant, then it is a place in the story I have to go back to. If I'm lucky my workshop mates will be particular readers and tell me that someone can not, in fact, cross their arms and also point at someone accusingly at the same time. Unless they have three arms. Which is something I should mention, at some point, about that particular character. Because my readers were assuming she only had two.

Knowing some of what I'm going to hear in workshop next week isn't bad. In my first semesters of workshop, I went in with the secret hope that everyone would just love my story, tell me it was fabulous and write critiques like, "You are brilliant! A wordsmith! This story is so touching!" and wouldn't have a word to say against me. Everyone wants that. (And as far as I know, only Dave Eggers has been so lucky.) I don't wish that, anymore. If that happened I'd feel cheated (because I know it's not a Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius). I think after having almost two years of workshop, I'm able to acknowledge my natural strengths. I know what I do well and I know what I don't. More than that, giving up the idea that I'm am neither the best nor the worst writer in the room is a great feeling. So now I go into workshop not hoping for anything, secretly or otherwise. I know people are going to tell me the good and the bad and none of it will be things I can't handle.

Do You Have Work Looking For a Home?

2010-02-20T03:55:23Z

Go ahead, make my job really, really hard. Send us great things. We'd love it.

Put It On the To Read List: The Melting Season

2010-02-17T18:10:31Z

The Melting Season: Trailer from James Patrick Robinson on Vimeo.

"...love is the answer, at least for most the questions in my heart..."

2010-02-15T01:15:02Z

This is the song that my phone plays when Jeff calls. It is either romantic or ironic since we live on opposite sides of the country and are not, in fact, together all that much.

But Happy Valentine's Day, anyway, internet.

"How to Move to San Francisco"

2010-02-13T03:16:00Z

In homage, no doubt, to Lorrie Moore's famous piece, "How to Become a Writer Or, Have You Earned This Cliche?", Elissa Bassist writes "How to Move to San Francisco" over on The Rumpus.

"You come to San Francisco to be a writer, just like everyone else. You are a writer. Say this while looking in the mirror. Say this when you aren’t invited out. Say this when trying to get a job but failing miserably.

You are young. You are young and female and brand new. Not new like a baby, but new like an untested product.

On your first morning in the city that is not New York, you devise some mental to-do lists for your new life and visualize your imminent happiness because you are doing it all on your own for the first time in your life. When you go to a coffee shop, you overhear people say things like, “I wrote a short story about it.” Mock them silently while writing a short story about your last relationship that you tentatively title “Other Than That, Mrs. Lincoln, How Was The Show?” Join a writers’ group and show it to them. The first piece of feedback is: “Some of your images are quite nice, but I hate the female protagonist.” Say nothing to them of your piece’s autobiographical nature. You get back to your subletted room, which is separated from your roommate’s by a glass door that allows her to hear you cry; in the privacy of your room, she talks to you through the wall as if there were no wall at all. She suggests you get a real job."

Good, good stuff. Read the whole thing. (Really, right now. H/t to Keely.)

Get Lit, Help Haiti +2

2010-02-06T19:47:32Z

(See the first post here.)

Since my original post and update I've come across a couple more ways that you can get lit and help Haiti. Check them out.

Naugatuck River Review will be donating 10% of all journal sales in 2010 to Haiti. 2010 has just started, so there is plenty of time to get subscribe, buy, read and help Partners in Health for Haiti. (h/t Jessie)

Greg McQueen has started a project called 100 Stories for Haiti and it is exactly like it sounds. The project has pulled together 100 stories into a single book. All proceeds will go to the Red Cross. Very cool, quite ambitious and it was all turned around fast. It looks like the book should be available soon. In the meantime, you can follow the project on Twitter and Facebook and, of course, buy the book when it becomes available.

If you know of anything more- leave it in the comments!

(except for that whole thesis-writing bit)

2010-02-06T05:58:57Z

I've officially begun the final semester of the MFA.

I am fond of final semesters. At least, I remember the last semesters of both high school and college as being generally happy times. There is something sweet about approaching the end, feeling accomplished and looking forward to the next thing. The last semester I spent in high school was easy. I spent two hours a day in a class called Senior Foods where I hung out with four other girls in a small home-ec kitchen, supposedly learning how to cook. I wore a giant poofy dress to Prom that I adored and I really believed that even after we all went off to college and our separate ways that I would remain as close to my high school friends as I was the day we graduated.

Obviously it's wrapped up in a bit of nostalgic golden haze, but I stand by it, anyway.

And college. Hands down it was the best semester- that last one- even working two jobs and feeling unsure of where I was going when it all wrapped up. Much of college was fun, but that spring when the weather was turning warm and I was spending too many nights at the bar with my friends and barely making it to my 10am Spanish class was fun, everything coming together just before it was time to move on. I felt hopeful.

It helps that I think about that time as a sort of blissful innocence, before I knew how ridiculously painful and long and dull and stressful getting a job would be.

This, right now, isn't the same. For one, grad school isn't quite the rite of passage that high school and college are. What I think of so fondly in those previous last semesters are my friends. Classes were almost incidental. I left both high school and college fairly optimistic, but I don't know that I'll leave grad school that way. I'm a bit more jaded. Cynical. I know it's not easy to get a job, an MFA doesn't make it easier, and the writing? The publishing? Also hard. Approaching the end, I'm finding myself much more anxious about losing the school, the work, the deadlines, the feedback, the required reading, the professors. I've never really tried to be a writer without all of that. Is it too soon to start freaking out about the real world? Too soon to worry about what I'm going to tell people I'm doing without the easy and familiar answer of "oh, I'm a student"?

(All of this leaving aside the fact that writing, MFA program or not, is a hard and long road that doesn't inspire natural optimism.)

Right now, in the moment, I feel much too busy and stuck in a ohmygod, thisisreallygoingtoend? kind of attitude to think I'll ever look back on this point with the kind of rosy vignette like view I give high school and college. But maybe. Check back with me in a few years.