Discover Top Posts Tagged with #5-gulch

Saturday, April 2, 2016

Dear,

I do not know what to do with 5-G. I know some things have to go, and some of the conflicts need to begin earlier on, but I haven't come up with anything that feels right yet. I've been over it and over it. The characters aren't talking to me anymore, and I've got this really delicate chain going on that I can easily wreck by moving shit around. Ah. I don't know. I'm sure it's not that delicate. (But it is.)

I'm coming out of a two-week cold that was one of the worst on record in terms of coughing and feeling really worn down, and it's more awkward than ever returning to the land of the living (especially since I'm still taking codeine cough medicine—tweaked an old rib injury coughing so much—sharp pain, no good). The weather's changed while I've been down. It's sunny and 70 today. I feel as if I'm out of step; I've fallen behind. But it's so nice out!! :D

I had an essay come out yesterday—one that I'm really proud of: http://www.highdesertjournal.com/#!tasha-leclair/z4d9n. It was great seeing it out in the world after a long wait, but mostly it made me feel squeamish and unsettled. It's a painful subject, and really personal. I thought I was writing personal stuff all along, but lately I've been circling uncomfortably close. I think it should feel uncomfortable. Unsettling.

5-GULCH is a novel, but it's personal, too. Familiar ground, a few clicks inward.

I'm sticking with my old trick of thinking really hard about 5-G, forgetting about it, and waiting for the answers to come. I'm thinking as hard as I can think. I'm reading a lot of my favorite things and writing a new artist statement. I'm trying not to be too hard on myself for not being at my best. I'm making an effort.

Also, I love writing, but it's not all I do, or all I love. Important to remember.

- t

#writing #novel #5-GULCH

Sunday, January 31st

Dear,

I sent my book to a friend, who shared his thoughts with me as he was reading it, section by section. Worked well for both of us, I think.

Finishing something never feels great. It feels great off and on. Momentarily. More revisions ahead for 5-GULCH, but most of it is there (too much of it, probably). It is what it is. It feels okay. It’s out of the way.

I feel like 5-G’s missing something; maybe I’ll figure out what that is. But everything you write is missing many things, is often better for it. Only seems lacking to you. It does seem lacking. I spent so much time with it, living inside of it. The next thing I write will be funnier. Actually I’ve been making little videos again. Maybe something will come of this. I’ve been driving around in the snow to and from the trailhead, listening to music and getting ideas for little horror movies. Maybe I’ll make a horror movie! Just something straightforward, that I can figure out very quickly.

My birthdays coming up. I don’t really have any thoughts on that, except: things are good. Missoula isn’t the easiest place to live, for many practical reasons, but I’ve been really happy here. I can be deep in the woods in fifteen minutes. I can bike to the Rattlesnake Wilderness from my house. I’ve had so much fun here. I’m healthy. I’ve been lucky. I’ve written two big things that I’m proud of--this last thing, I think I’ll be proud of someday (proud of the effort, learned some things, anyway). Yeah. - t

#5-GULCH

Monday, January 18

Dear,

I edited the hard copy (two weeks), then edited the digital copy (one week), and finally spent two 12-hour days revising on a larger scale, chapter by chapter, trying to fix things I could never seem to resolve and probably failing again. Then I sent 5-GULCH to a friend and threw the hard copy into a filing cabinet in a closed off, freezing cold office, so I wouldn’t be tempted to obsessively look at it and torture myself with all the bad sentences!! Revision binges aren’t good for me. Now everything I read sounds a little wrong. I need a break. I’m going out. It’s cold and foggy. It’s fine. I’m also remembering my plan to finish 5-G by last February, and it’s almost a year later, which is also fine and the way it had to be. Three years. I loved working on it, but the book is a lonely one and it was lonely writing it. Time to get out. <3 - t

#5-GULCH #revision #editing

Monday, December 21

Dear,

Revisions are going well. I’m happy about this. It’s going to be okay.

I’m still outside every day, soaking up the solstice dark. On weekends we take back-country skis to little-traveled places like Gold Creek--a cold, convoluted valley loaded with timber, deer, and lions. We duck-walk up too-steep hills, frantically stabbing the snow with our poles, hopping, twisting, sliding backwards (it's almost as slow on the way down; the snow is so deep). On top, the world is sunny, white, a blaze. Clouds of frost hang in the valley below. We tremble, soaked in sweat, and stop to eat protein bars and drink a half-liter of water each. I feel like a strong, able animal. Two inches of powder line every branch, and while we chew our bars, the trees around us, warming in the sun, dump shimmering heaps to the snowy ground. I'm in love with the snow and how hard it is to move through.

In these long days outside, I feel a general sense of gathering, like I'm building up to something. I'm full of curiosity and have a willingness to trudge. Tasha

#5-GULCH #back-country skiing

Wednesday, December 2

Dear, About to go back into 5-GULCH after a 6-week break. I’ve been watching and rewatching good movies and reading and rereading good books and letting my mind wander on long walks and doing holiday stuff. I’ve also been working on an essay, uniting bits and pieces of things I’ve been working on over the last few years and trying to weave them together. I don’t really notice that I’m not working a job right now, since I feel busy and I’m tired every night, but I realize it’s weird to be unemployed by choice when most people I know are working two or three jobs or raising kids. I’d feel okay saying I was self-employed if I made any money. I don’t make money. I’m not going to school. I’m just hanging out, spending time with Ryan during his off-season, going outside, writing, thinking, and I don’t know if that makes me lazy or unambitious but when I don’t feel guilty I mostly feel fine about it. I’m working. This is work. But eventually I’ll need something else, just to spin my tires against or to have something to tell people and myself. I read TUMBLEDOWN by Robert Boswell a few years ago and really liked it; it’s been coming to mind a lot while I’ve been taking a break from my novel, and I’m planning to read it again soon. Boswell had some great things to say about the revision process in an interview with Tin House: The linear brain—the bossy, critical side that permits you to operate the coffeemaker, figure out the remote on the DVR, drive across town, and do other undeniably useful things—doesn’t like to give up its authority, but it tends to build merely logical or mechanical narratives. The narrative brain slips in whenever the linear brain is distracted or bored, and it’s the narrative brain that understands the value of surprise and strangeness and humor. Of course, it also tends to fall in love with its ideas, and that’s when linear brain takes the wheel again. It loves to run down the excesses. One of the tricky parts about being a writer is this switching back and forth. I think the reason some people end up with writer’s block is that they can’t turn off the linear brain’s constant evaluations. That sentence, really? That’s the sentence you want to open with? Would Faulkner like that sentence? What would Katherine Mansfield think of that sentence? You’ve got to turn off that critical voice, give yourself permission to write bad sentences if you need to. You can fix them later.

The trick is to be able to go back and forth between the linear and the narrative without permitting one side to interfere with the other.

#5-GULCH #revising #Robert Boswell #Tumbledown