06.03.10: birds of a feather

I couldn't find any better images than this online, but I wanted to shared with you guys the sad/funny coincidence of two of the big Shanghai expat rags having the same cover this month. I guess everyone was just too excited about the upcoming Shanghai literary festival and pictures of books on shelves were in short supply.



I do hope I get a chance to go to the literary festival, although I am not familiar with too many of the authors. I just want to look a real, live author in the eyes and see if I am missing anything. I have read Po Bronson's advice about beooming a writer and he mentions this importance of having connections with other writers. (I feel like I have to mention that I am ambivalent about Po Bronson, or not, since it's mentioned in the head that I am ambivalent about everything.) The job I have now has put me into regular contact with people who write for a living, but now that I'm on the other side of the fence, I am also seeing the people who write for a living with the same love and attention to detail as people who serve French fries for a living (no offense to anyone who is doing so).

I have also just started to work through a book of writing exercises called Now Write!. The material was actually compiled by a woman who quit her day job, took a CFA course, and wrote a novel. Good on her, truly, but do you need to take a CFA course to write? Certainly, you have to go through an editing process, and hopefully in the company and with the assistance of people who love to read if not write. So you need to at least have a supportive network if not formal training. I read Bronson's What Should I Do with My Life after I found a shiny, red copy at Harvest Time in Chungli. (Yes, shiny new book covers attract me attention. Not my only criteria, but definitely a point in a book's favor when I am deciding what to read.) I read it and found it rather bland and uninspiring, except for his personal revelations about the series of decisions and actions that led him to become the author he wanted to be. He took writing classes at night and loved for just once a week to be surrounded by people who cared about the way the words in a sentence fit together. Then he rented some space in a house with a bunch of other artists and writers just to be surrounded by dedicated and creative folks. After this weekend, I should have my office and I am even getting a new laptop* next week, so the logistical difficulties I am facing will be overcome. I know making time is slightly more difficult, but if I am able to make even a little time now I think it will be even easier when I am not wrestling for some peace and quiet with Beau and the roommate. Then there's the hard part, the process I've read about time and time again of finding the confidence to write, the belief that you have anything new and interesting to contribute, the confidence to find your own voice, the long hours needed to find that voice and make it credible. I know it will take years but I can't see any other way about it.


*My current laptop has been on its last legs for a while now, so I am getting a MacBook. This is a very exciting change for me because I have always used PCs. Macs aren't that hard to get used to, though, and they are just so damn sexy. It won't improve my writing but it will be really fund to use. I do feel guilty, however, when I remember Wendell Berry's essay Why I Am Not Going to Buy a Computer where he said:

when somebody has used a computer to write work that is demonstrably better than Dante's, and when this better is demonstrably attributable to the use of a computer, then I will speak of computcr with a more respectful tone of voice, though I still will not buy one.

(Although one intelligent person replied to Berry -- and this has always amused me -- “Not to be obtuse, but being willing to bare my illiterate soul for all to see, is there indeed a ‘work demonstrably better than Dante’s’. . .which was written on a Royal standard typewriter?”)

Basically, I think a computer must be a huge waste of energy and materials, especially in contrast to a pen and a pad of paper, which I still use on occasion when no computer is handy (or regularly, if you count writing in my journal), but for some reason, having been raised in an era when computers are used record thoughts, it's very difficult for me to do more than journal or jot notes with a pen and paper. I feel like I am less committed, like I am obviously going to devote less time and sincerity to my efforts in a notebook, while when I sit at the computer, I feel like I am in for the long haul, and I can also rewrite constantly as I am typing, which is very convenient and useful on a computer. Also, it matters even which computer or which font I am using. For instance, when I sit down to "write" something, I do so in Word (and was very upset when Word in 2007 looked so different from previous editions!) and I use Times New Roman font, size 12, and I usually double-space and set up my template just the way I was required to in college. When I post a blog, I do so right in the CMS, because I am used to the appearance of the CMS and the style of the font and the layout, etc, and that encourages me to write in a blogging style which I can't seem to reach in Word or with a pen and paper. Likewise, I have never been able to journal on a computer; only in a notebook, and only with a black pen that uses very, very black ink. But I have digressed far, far away now.

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