Zola Acker

mellowpageslibrary: Flash Light Fiction. Guys, these guys read...

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 23:10:38 -0400

Flash Light Fiction. Guys, these guys read with actual flashlights. We killed it. We killed everything. The night. The lights. About 40 burrrs. Ridiculous how much fun we’re having.

I Aim to Stagger

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 16:14:47 -0400

Today the printer at work breaks while printing invoices. I cut my thumb, which has ink all over it, while trying to fix it. My nail is short and already broken, but it had been covered in glittery polish. I take a photo of my bloody, glittery, ink stained thumb and think about posting it to facebook. When I started working an office job my personal facebook became a part of my day I feel incomplete without, yet it also makes me claustrophobic. I comb my news feed obsessively for something to entertain, because I don’t want to fix the printer.

“Women’s Prize for Fiction Reveals ‘Staggeringly Strong’ Shortlist” is a link shared by an independent bookstore in Brooklyn. I click through to read the article. The staggeringly strong comment is attributed to Jonathan Ruppin, web editor for Foyles, in Mark Brown’s article in the Guardian. In the article there is glowing praise for the AM Holmes novel, May We Be Forgiven. When I read this I couldn’t help recall her words at a sparsely attended reading I saw her at last fall, in a Barnes and Nobles on the UWS. She read from May We Be Forgiven, then answered questions from the audience. One women asked her why she chose to make the main character of the novel a man. She wrinkled her nose and said something like, “I don’t like writing women.” Then she paused, and attempted to clarify. “It’s just, female characters — I don’t know. She shook her head again, “I like men.”

I am one to argue for imagination above all else in fiction. If anyone wants to write anyone else, well, that’s what it’s about, right? Still, her reaction surprised me. She has written female characters before, and well. I wondered if her reaction was more to the question, or if there was a grain of truth in it. Did she really not like writing female characters? Or did she just like men more?

I post the photo of my banged up thumb with the broken printer behind it as my status. I call tech support and try to revel in the mundaneness of my day, but I feel pent up and frustrated. The article reminds me of my own ambition. I’d be happy if someone called my writing staggering, I’d be pleased to have surprised. But then, I have barely started at this writing game. If I had several novels under my belt I might feel differently.

I test the sentence “Men’s Prize for Fiction Reveals ‘Staggeringly Strong’ Shortlist.” It sounds and looks sarcastic. Men’s writing is expected to be strong, to leave us all reeling. To say that work by women writers is “staggeringly strong” seems to assume that strong writing from women is unexpected. The memory of hearing AM Holmes mention her distaste for writing female characters bothers me, especially because she was praised in the article with this underhanded title.

Kate Christensen talks about gender and character in a great interview by Maud Newton titled “Male Muses and Inner Dicks.” What Kate said amounted to this: she found male characters easier to write because she had read more compelling male characters. I relate to this. I can more easily write men because I have read more complex, enigmatic, entertaining, incessant male characters than I have female ones.

Also, female characters are expected - required, if they hope to exist in major distribution - to be likable. Likable is usually not as enigmatic or entertaining as one of those bad boy narrators, what I call the Bright Lights Big City boys.

I’m still on facebook, and I notice that the photo of my scratched up thumb looks kind of like a tiny penis. Something about the angle of the photo I hadn’t noticed when I first took it. I laugh to myself. This is a weird Tuesday. I still can’t get the printer to work.

Something about the penis thumb thought trails along to the idea that it’d be really odd if my fingers could go flaccid. Like, if they were only capable of typing when inspired, I wouldn’t be able to do my job here. I have strong fingers from training to be a stenographer, but I imagine all ten of them limp and useless.

Almost immediately this thought seems cliché, and somewhere in the back of my mind Freud is whispering “penis envy” and I’m laughing back, “I want ten penises!” but somewhere else in my head I’m thinking, finger-fuck. If your fingers were penises you could fuck yourself, and you wouldn’t need anyone else. And maybe it’s just been too long since I’ve had sex, but I don’t want to think about this need.

I wonder if it’s the invisible motion of female desire, the ability to mutate and morph without any outward signs, the simultaneous vulnerability yet invulnerability that makes representing it so fraught. Writers such as Kathy Acker or EL James, who write compelling sex scenes, are often less concerned with the codes of craft than the mainstream literary world. Something about our collective understanding of female desire confounds depictions of it in words, as if to name it were a sin, if not of propriety then of taste. As if we can’t imagine the full humanity of it. We make partial allowances for female desire, but only when absolutely necessary.

I’m on facebook again. I don’t dislike the link “Women’s Prize for Fiction Reveals ‘Staggeringly Strong’ Shortlist.” I can’t dislike the link. My two options are to like it or to do nothing. I do nothing, but I write.

What I do find staggering is that people, myself included, keep writing fiction. Fiction, especially great fiction, staggers. That something which came from nothing can move us, this is staggering.

Junot Diaz (at BookCourt)

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 20:13:53 -0400

Junot Diaz (at BookCourt)

My story is featured on Mr. Bellar's neighborhood this week!

Thu, 11 Oct 2012 09:09:41 -0400

My story is featured on Mr. Bellar's neighborhood this week!

Bernice McFadden reading at the BK Book Fest, with Colson...

Sun, 23 Sep 2012 17:03:12 -0400

Bernice McFadden reading at the BK Book Fest, with Colson Whitehead, Joyce Carol Oates, and Rob Spillman (Taken with Instagram)

Patti Smith reading (Taken with Instagram at Granite Prospect)

Mon, 06 Aug 2012 20:41:49 -0400

Patti Smith reading (Taken with Instagram at Granite Prospect)

Charles Yu reading presented by WORD bookshop (Taken with...

Tue, 31 Jul 2012 11:16:30 -0400

Charles Yu reading presented by WORD bookshop (Taken with Instagram at Brooklyn Bridge Park - Pier 1)

Now write! (Taken with Instagram at Earth Matters)

Mon, 23 Jul 2012 09:04:20 -0400

Now write! (Taken with Instagram at Earth Matters)

On a Camus kick… (Taken with Instagram at Strand Book...

Sun, 22 Jul 2012 14:00:14 -0400

On a Camus kick… (Taken with Instagram at Strand Book Store)

Johnny Temple of Akashic books, Joe Meno, and Nathan Larson ...

Mon, 16 Jul 2012 21:12:38 -0400

Johnny Temple of Akashic books, Joe Meno, and Nathan Larson (Taken with Instagram at McNally Jackson Books)

#book #bookmark #read (Taken with instagram)

Sat, 12 May 2012 09:12:26 -0400

#book #bookmark #read (Taken with instagram)

Writing addiction #writing #pens (Taken with instagram)

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 09:34:19 -0400

Writing addiction #writing #pens (Taken with instagram)

Paperback love, just finished this today. #book #paperback...

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 21:02:31 -0400

Paperback love, just finished this today. #book #paperback #sherwoodanderson (Taken with instagram)

Where I’ve been: in the kitchen and online at...

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 23:54:00 -0500

Where I’ve been: in the kitchen and online at infinitefeast.com, my new blog about gardening with limited space in Brooklyn and cooking good things to eat. More words to come, in time.

Entry #6: NaNoWriMo Journal - Not Done Yet

Mon, 05 Dec 2011 21:19:08 -0500

So, I didn’t finish 50,000 words in November. I’m still not done. “The second time is always harder,” says Frasco. “But why?” I ask. The second time you know more. You’re competing against yourself, and you want to break your own record.

I talked with Frasco and Moser the night I realized I wasn’t going to meet the goal. Moser says that the anticipation of creating, in whatever medium we’re using, is the important thing. Overcoming the muteness of a blank page and expressing something, anything, is what is important, even the simple “I was here.”

The practice of sustaining momentum in creative work is so challenging. There’s a kind of mental energy needed that I found it hard to muster up this month, because of emotionally draining events. I kept coming back to my word count, but once I fell behind I couldn’t catch up and keep the quality acceptable to my own standards. I knew from last year that writing pure jibberish wasn’t useful. Besides, I can write 160 words per minute on my stenography machine, so it would technically only take me five and a half hours to do the whole thing if I didn’t care what I was saying. But I do care, and I care more this year than last year.

So, where do I go from here? There’s no question that I’m going to finish this. But I want a new goal. From what I’ve written I can see that I may have more to tell of this story than 50,000 words, so I’m pushing the goal to 60,000 and giving myself more time.

Two weeks from today I’m reading in the East Village as part of the FIZZ reading series with Red Lemonade. I’m nervous but confident, the time I spent polishing the draft in November when I could have been raising my word count was well spent.

Event info:

http://slicemagazine.org/site/event/1956

Entry #5: NaNoWriMo Journal - The Only Real Place

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 15:34:00 -0500

This is the only real location I’ve written about this month. I usually don’t use any real places, but this one was just too good.

The first time I went in here I was reminded of a short story by Dylan Thomas where the protagonist is led into a room so full of furniture that the floor is not even visible.

My narrator describes it like this:

“I came across the Community Bookstore by accident, while on one of my long city walks between study sessions at the Café. It was the old books I went there looking for, the books with yellowed, thumbed pages and notes scrawled in the margins. It was the lived history of reading that interested me there.

“On the sidewalk outside were displayed old issues of Bon Appetite, an illustrated Guide to the Galaxy, and an assortment of paperback classics. The windows held hand-lettered signs, faded by the sun.

“Inside were cartons and boxes stacked against high shelves lining the store and piled high, overflowing with every kind of book. I walked down the long aisle from the door, and turned along the back wall, browsing. As I made my way up the center aisle towards the register, I saw that my path was blocked by more cartons of books. Some were in white corrugated plastic bins like the post office uses, others in large cardboard boxes, and even a single shopping cart – too large for a store of this size – sat in the aisle overflowing with books. I couldn’t get through, so I turned and retraced my steps, peering down the last aisle. Here the Fiction section began, marked with masking tape labels along the shelves. I peered around the stacks of books at the end of the aisle. A man with long grey hair bent over a book behind the register. I wanted to get his attention, to ask him why he didn’t organize the place enough to get around, but he was deep in reading. I wound my way back to the door and glanced again at the man behind the counter, but he did not look up to note my exit.”

Entry #4: NaNoWriMo Journal - “I’ve got aphids on my lupines.” Finding specific phrases for characters.

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 16:15:00 -0500

I get caught up in the big picture so much that it’s sometimes a struggle to come down to earth, to the page or computer screen. I’ll have lots of ideas but what I need is to put the next word down, to build my characters and carry them forward through their story. I’ve found it helpful to focus on exactly what my characters would say, given their specific bodies of knowledge of the world and their temperaments.

Last summer I was at a BBQ with my boyfriend and his family. While we were looking at the garden and admiring the flowers there, his Aunt said “I’ve got aphids on my lupines.” My boyfriend and his sister looked at each other in confusion and burst into laughter, “We don’t even know what that means.”

Later on I heard my boyfriend tell his sister “Maybe that lower countermelody in the cellos would be better as pizzicato.” What? I laughed at my own confusion, and asked them what they meant. We all have areas of knowledge and words to describe these that are specialized, even if we think what we say is the most normal thing in the world. And if we all do, then my characters must too.

I’ve set about building an area of knowledge for the main characters in my story. My narrator is studying for the LSAT, so I started reading a test prep book to get into her mind a little bit. In between conversations with the other characters and the daily activities that we all do, this woman spends several hours a day pouring over logic puzzles. She is also the kind of person who wants to go to law school. She has intense, important reasons for wanting this. As I learn more about what’s required for the LSAT, I’ve begun to discover the things motivating her to study law. Then I made a list of other areas of knowledge the most important characters would know. I have a list of friends to “consult” with who can offer me some help.

On Monday I went to a write-in at the Vagabond Café, in the West Village. This tiny café had reserved its entire space for NaNoWriMo participants, and we packed the place. Not sure whether I’d be able to get much writing done in a semi-social setting, I’d brought along the LSAT prep book. This became a good conversation starter. One of the organizers suggested I talk to a woman sitting a few tables away, as she was a lawyer. I went over and introduced myself, and we chatted briefly. I got a better idea of where my character would be in her thinking as a prospective law student, and made a few notes. This has been invaluable for creating the character as I feel she would be.

Thinking about the specific language the character would use helped me find a way back to practical reality. What is going to be the next thought in my character’s head? What words will she reach for to express this? Does she have aphids on her lupines?

Entry #3: NaNoWriMo Journal - Writer's Block

Fri, 18 Nov 2011 09:11:00 -0500

Sometimes a writer’s block needs to manifest in some way, on the page or in a symbol or just in conversation with a friend in order to be dealt with. A few years ago when I was blocked, or maybe just coming off the life block that had kept me from ever writing seriously before that, a friend gave me this. It’s my writing block, and I’ve kept it on my desk ever since. It reminds me that a block is nothing more, nothing less. It’s just there.

Other times I use the feeling of writer’s block to build something. The block remains there, and I just climb on top of it and reach for the next word, idea or sentence, a little higher with the block to boost me. I pull myself up knowing it would feel worse to stay blocked than to just write something, anything, even if it’s terrible.

Sometimes all I have to do is reach out and move the block aside, and it’s so simple I wonder why I even thought I was blocked to begin with.

Entry #2: NaNoWriMo Journal - Staying On Course

Sat, 05 Nov 2011 14:04:00 -0400

It’s hard to stay on course. I’m good at distracting myself. There are really good reasons why I should be doing this differently. Last night I decided to write about something new. Something that seemed hugely relevant, and had occurred to me on a whim. It seemed easy because I hadn’t thought through what it would take to write it. Besides, I don’t have the skills to move ahead with the outline I started this week.

Lack of confidence is really hard to fight. It’s often difficult to get just one good sentence down on the page. I want to express what I imagine, but I doubt I have the skills to pull it off. What I’d started with was the loose outline of a story that has been bouncing around my head, in one form or another, for more than two years. I kept putting off starting it because it’s complex. It’s about changing technology, about heartbreak and a cult of personality. It’s also about disillusionment, and the failure of symbols to represent fully what we want them to. Yet how can I do this when language itself so often fails? I am constantly recovering from communication missteps that I perpetuated at some time or another. I know the answer to this isn’t as important as the simple task of getting back on course with the goals I’ve set.

Making a commitment is the point of NaNoWriMo. It’s designed as a challenge to make us push our limits as writers. If I change course I’ll just end up stuck again, and be tempted to again change course. The seed of a novel is in the outline I keep returning to although it is complex, incomplete, and barely developed. I’ve had this in my head for two years because there’s something there. At least enough to expand upon, to play with for the next month. Enough to let me reach my goal. I probably don’t have the skills I need to write this novel, but then, if I did have all the craft tools at my fingertips, I wouldn’t need to write it, at least not in this way.

I threw out the idea of changing course this morning. Even two days of wasted writing time can be recovered from fairly easily, as the progress graph on the NaNoWriMo website shows. I’m getting back on course, and this time I’m going to stick it out, despite my doubts.

Entry #1: NaNoWriMo Journal

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 12:18:00 -0400

So it begins, National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo for short. It’s a challenge: write 50,000 words in one month. I’ve been looking forward to this all year. This is will be my second time, last year I coasted into the word count goal with only 20 minutes to spare. My manuscript was a mess, but I had one and I was filled with new confidence for having reached that goal.

I learned more in this process than I have in any writing class, ever. Reading through the manuscript afterward, I couldn’t help cringing. It was full of so many structural and stylistic problems I didn’t know if I could ever show it to anyone. Over the six months following I cut it in half, and began to rewrite from the beginning. It is a slow process that remains unfinished, but I got the opportunity to read the first chapter at BookCourt last March to friends and fellow writers. This was a huge personal milestone. It marked the end of hiding my writing behind the covers of my journal. Now I seek out places to get feedback. I joined a writers’ group and I’ve submitted to several literary journals over the past year.

This year seems even busier than last year was. I made a list of pre NaNo goals, but accomplished almost none of them. I did, however, come up with a rough outline, which I hope will keep my draft more coherent, even though I may ramble and expand on it as I stretch to reach the daily word-count goal. I read about plot and character in the excellent book, A Kite In The Wind and looked closely at two recent novels I enjoyed, The Submission by Amy Waldman, and Lightning Rods by Helen DeWitt. These are both tightly constructed, modern, engaging books. Both present a problem and follow it through various complications to a satisfying (if not comfortable) conclusion. Each unravels its premise clearly, exploring every development and examining the consequences for its characters fully, while remaining focused.

There are many other things I should be doing, but I know that most important is writing. Last year was the only time I have had a clear success from writing, even if it was an arbitrary one. The online support from the NaNoWriMo website and the knowledge that hundreds of thousands of people are working toward this same goal make it relevant. Writing is imperative to me to be able to live life well, and the victory of drafting a novel in a month is just what I need right now.

Here’s to moving forward, into a new story.