HAPPY HOLIDAYS! HAPPY 2024!
Check out the new, holiday-themed, INSTANT NOODLES! Free to read, free to submit!
Wishing you love and good food in 2024!
~Dianne
COo0LD TURKEY
MAKING A LIVING AS A NOVELIST
Aside from doing my own writing, and teaching and tutoring, I’m in the publishing biz. And, during my six years doing that I have really been delving into this topic over and over, not even for myself, in all honesty, but for the truly very talented authors I have helped to publish who I think should be making a living from their writing, because most authors are not making a living from their writing.
And, the ones that are, are probably working their social-media butts off, and probably not fully making a living. They probably have gainfully employed spouses, with health benefits, and are making a contributing amount as an author, but not a rent-paying amount. That is my guess, for the “in general” group. There are always outliers. But, there are not very many of those.
So I offer you two articles to read which I find helpful as an author for keeping me grounded:
THIS ONE:
AND THIS ONE:
May you write a good novel and finish it, and may it find its readers.
RIP DEAR, AMAZING, SENATOR FEINSTEIN
I think politics are extremely important, because they determine what rights I have as a woman in the United States, and, over the past few years, I lost the right to my own body because of them. Which is really a sickening thought. I do not own me.
And now we lost Senator Feinstein, who worked tirelessly to get me control of my own body, and protect me from gun violence, and tried to help to keep me in control of my own body. With her in the photo is former UC Chancellor, Sue Desmond-Hellmann, and another hero of mine, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, Speaker Emeritus, and one heck of a fighter.
I know many people will use the occasion of Senator Feinstein’s passing to jump on the bandwagon that she was impaired in her last year of service. As a person who has always given my service to others, I know how hard it can be to stop doing this, even when it would benefit you to do so. I understand. And, maybe, in hangin on, she has brought us to a conversation we need to have about how long people keep going. As a very late bloomer, I’m not sure how I feel about that.
And, MOST CERTAINLY, the work she wanted to get done is not done: guns are still killing people and I have lost ownership of my body, so I can imagine she felt it difficult to stop fighting for those things.
Rest in peace, dear Senator Feinstein. I am so proud to share a name with you, so proud to have twice had you as my senator, and I am so deeply grateful for your service.
ALWAYS NICE TO SQUEEZE FLOWERS ON THE DESK
PiGhEtTi
It’s corn season! And I feel duty-bound to report to my fellow pigness owners that not only do piggies LOVE corn husks, they go crazy for corn silk, which, in our family, we call pighetti.
Yes, you read it here first. When it gets into the dictionary… it’s mine: pighetti: corn silk for pignessess.
Just trim off the yucky brown bits, and there you go! Happy pignessess! Pighetti season!
ASTEROID CITY: WES ANDERSON’S FIRST POEM
The first thing I felt myself noticing about the film Asteroid City was how orange everything was.
The orange was gorgeous, and a device of course, and part of what makes it a poem.
The movie is a poem.
The movie is a poem because it is not a full and complete story as much as it is a full and complete poem about grief.
The mother who has died in the color part of the movie is just an actress, and the story of her surviving family is just part of the script of the play, and in the black and white part of the movie, she is still alive and well, and it is actually the playwright who has died. Which, in the narrative, makes sense as the color part of the movie, the play, remains unfinished.
Some people. might mildly enjoy the film’s “story” and leave feeling unsatisfied, because they do not understand poetry, and they do not understand that it is a poem.
If there is a central theme to the black and white section of the film, it is creative people doubting their creativity, and struggling to manage their “art” while they live, or not, their lives.
If there is a central theme to the color part of the movie I would say it is people trying to manage the relationships in their lives, and struggling to be open about their struggles and emotions, because they are too concerned about the affect they will have on those around them, who they love.
But the overall theme of the film is just the feeling, the feeling of wanting something special to happen, the feeling of wanting lives that end to go on indefinitely, the feelings of wanting to be accepted in the full splendor of our own weirdness, the feelings of how hot and uncomfortable and trapped life can feel, and then, in a whiff, all the circumstances and all the people you were worrying about are gone when you wake up. And maybe you weren’t ready. And the world is so orange, and the world is so grey, and can we connect more than superficially, and do we know what to do when everyone has gotten up and gone, and we’re still working things out?
If you need a thread… if you need a frame around your story… if you need a linear: “…and then this happened and then this happened and then this happened…,” sort of story that you can successfully sum-up for another human, this might not be your movie. But that is no reason to slam it. It is a lush, and sparse, and warm, and disconnected, and full-of-feeling poem. And like life, the end moves into the current space and time, and you probably were not ready for it. But that doesn’t mean we slam it based on our own short-comings, and our own reluctance to let go of the handrail, and float in a poem masquerading as a film. One very interesting thing about my daughter, which may be, in part, a reflection of her coming up as a consumer of reels, she is not so bound to the linear in story-telling, and she went with it. She liked it; she got it enough to be entertained, and she didn’t ask too much more of it.
And it seems like many people didn’t get it, and were none too pleased that it looked and felt like
Moonrise Kingdom, but didn’t wrap up in a nice bow.
The family in Moonrise Kingdom has four children, one female teen in crisis, and three small hellions for sons. Asteroid City has the same: one male teen in crisis, and three small hellions for daughters. But no neat ending. Grief is not neat.
Asteroid City is a poem. If you like poetry, you might like seeing a movie that is only masquerading as a film, and is, in truth, a poem. I loved it.
MOM/DAUGHTER GET-AWAY WEEKEND
Thanks to Aunt Lee& Nathan, Sophie and Mouse, and I are spending the weekend in Idyllwild.
This means we eat what we want!
Brunch at The Red Kettle.
Mom: chili, peach pie, coffee. A real Agent Cooper kinda-lunch, and they make a damn fine cup of coffee.
Sophie & Mouse: Chicken strips with fries, and beaucoup gravy, and apple juice.
Then we go shopping and buy dumb stuff:
shaved ice
candy necklaces
salt water taffy
small felted rabbit
crazy expensive bath bombs
and earrings (for Sophie) and adding to Mom’s huge, and Sophie’s non-existent button collection:
While we were shopping we went into one store that had all these beautiful blown glass items, quite large, in a case under the counter. “Those are so pretty!” said Sophie. “What are they?”
“Those are bongs,” I said, “you use them to smoke weed and get high.”
“Oh my gosh,” said the woman behind the counter (about my age, store owner I surmise), “I love that. So matter-of-fact, and no judgement.”
I also bought a pro-choice button (which is already affixed to the hoodie I wore to the 2016/17 Women’s march on Washington (the hoodie that is signed by all the people who were on the bus with me…. always have a Sharpie about your person, okay?), so the shopkeep and I had a good long talk about legislators legislating weed, and trans folks, and women’s bodies, when there’s MAGA and mass shootings, and anti-semitism, and all the things that are sooooooo wrong with USA right now, so we got along really well. And I bought Sophie her first bong. (Nope, just kidding on that last part…. Have you ever used a bong? I never have, though I have seen a few in action.
Then stop at the little grocery in town (there are two) and rustle up the perfect dinner. Sophie declared it was better than Thanksgiving!
Sophie… by request: Pillsbury crescent rolls, Spam, peas, mashed and gobs of gravy. For Mom, fruit, olive bread smeared with labne, grilled halloumi, Q ginger beer.
Then we played Trash Pandas, and M.A.S.H. Sophie won Trash Pandas, but lost at MASH as she is going to live in a shack with her friend from school, drive a murder van, and make $0.003/year as an origami instructor. I am going to marry Eddy from Two-Set Violin (I like Eddy, but I was hoping to get 1970 Paul McCartney), have one child, and make a million dollars a year as a singer (funny that “successful novelist” is not in my future.). Oh! And I get to drive Vera’s Land Rover (see the British TV show VERA).
Interrupting the weekend for a little bit tomorrow to have a Devil’s Party Press author marketing meeting. Trying to build a community among the authors and Dave and me so that we can all foster each other’s success. Men work from sun to sun, but a publisher’s work is never done.
If you get a chance to visit Idyllwild, it’s fun. I even like the round and round drive up the mountain (Sophie takes motion sickness pills and puts a blanket over her head…. so experiences may vary. You do you.)
Thanks Aunt Lee and Nathan for the weekend~
NEIL YOUNG CONCERT TONIGHT! I AM SO EXCITED!
And to celebrate, let’s revisit this oldie but goody: IT SHOULD BE A LIKE A HALF AN HOUR VOLUME 2
First of all, I already know it’s a long song. Go cry to your mama. I love it, and I want it even longer. I could float down the Mississippi on this and never care a wit about the world.
Go Neil go, just don’t stop so soon Man.
POEM WITH ME: EASTER ADDITION ’23
T’was the night before Easter
and time to dye eggs
a holiday activity
for which my daughter always begs.
Because we’re just three
a dozen’s all I bought.
Not enough to share
both my daughter and I thought.
So I said she could do them,
each one and all,
and I would watch her,
and we’d have a ball.
She makes them precisely.
It takes her all night,
and so I’m not bored,
I decided to write.
I got out the words
to make me a poem,
and we both took our time
it was really slow goin’.
Now she has her eggs,
and I have some words.
They say Easter’s for bunnies;
I think it’s for the birds.
And now, without further ado, I present… my poem!
Of course, with magnetic poetry you’re limited to the words they give you, but, sometimes, just having a physical word there, in your hand, moves your brain.
This is my (final version of my ) poem, as I would type it out, and adding, in a few bits that I could not find magnetized:
The Persistence of My Memory
Hello remembered rain, flowering my vision
with your pattering
against a delicate purple
window of poetry called the past-
each yesterday
going easily slow,
always abundant,
full
filled
delicious, fluid with music.
But the photos-
the photos contrast,
look rough,
ugly,
taste weird.
No poetry of purple flowering,
just tarnished silver halide-
No rain pattering-
no sound on muck
mucky
gelatin emulsion.
And Kodak never lies.
Screw memory,
that drunk companion
not at all companionable,
& a week’s worth of wages
for an empty seat
lugged around forever, and forever again
tangling up the turnstiles,
a heavy, broken, ghost.
IT SHOULD BE LIKE A HALF AN HOUR VOLUME 12: “Sun, sun, sun, here it comes.”
HA! I got you! You thought I was going to put up the Beatles version, didn’t you?
Well, there’s a reason I didn’t put that first, but I will put it below.
George, I never knew him, but he always struck me as soft and gentle, in the way that men are not supposed to be soft and gentle. And I think it was very hard for him, as it is for so many people in so many bands, not to be overshadowed by the other members. And I am a Beatle girl, until the age of 30 or so, there was no other band I would spend my limited record money on (aside from Wings, because I was desperately in love with Paul). So I love the Beatles version, but George was given so few slots in the band’s catalogue, so let’s begin with him here, and paired with another gentle great, Paul Simon. And BONUS, if you watch all the way through you get “Homeward Bound” too, one of my favorite S&G songs. I had S&G’s greatest hits (still do have it) because I stole it from my brother, so that was his record money, not mine, and I know I that I probably wore out “Homeward Bound” and “America.”
But this is about the great song, “Here Comes the Sun, ” which I have literally had on “Alexa” repeat since Dave took Sophie to school… so a few hours.
What do I like about it?
Well, it’s plinky might be the first thing I would say. It’s got great plinky guitar. I like plinky guitar; I am a big fan of it. Secondly, that plinky guitar acts like an extra voice: it follows the melody through the song, literally singing the main tune right along with George. I remember hearing that the Beatles had conflict over George wanting to (often) have the guitar follow the melody in the songs, as an extra voice. And the story went that Paul didn’t like it. I do not know if that is true, and Paul may be the sometimes most-hated Beatle, but the guy is a hugely successful songwriter, so there’s that. I think the plinky and the guitar acting like a voice works here, and ads to the gentleness of the song.
The second thing I like about “Here Comes the Sun” is that it is understated. If we assume it’s England, where the sun often hides, and it’s been a long cold lonely sunless period, then WOW! the sun is out!!!
But this is “Here comes the sun… do-do-do-do…,” and “…it’s alright.” It’s low-key, low energy, they way an introvert gets excited about things. Harrison was probably an introvert, and I feel that, and I feel that low-key excitement. It’s no less joyful for not being an explosion of confetti and balloons.
I chose this song today because yesterday I took my teen daughter into teen-daughter heaven, what you probably know of as a store called Claire’s. I have had some fun times finding little doo-dads (doo-dads, am I 100 years old?) at Claire’s, but the three or four times I have been there in 2023 I have been assaulted, every single damn time, by the same two songs, one a country western song, and one a pop song, both of which are guilty of crap formulaic song writing and being ear worms. I will not name the atrocities lest they attack you too. I sentence them to exile from the planet. And clearly neither song writer ever listened to George Harrison.
So, I am using George today, to lift my mood in a gentle “I might have a hangover” way, and also because George can be heard over and over and exterminate those earworms without becoming one himself, because George would never do that. George has mad skills. And I love George with ELO, on his own, with The Beatles, and really quite a lot with The Traveling Wilburys, a band that was much too short-lived.
And, on that note, I want to introduce you to another George song that I adore:
“Give Me Love” almost always brings me to the edge of tears, and not because of the lyrics. The music is sweet, and sad, and… oh I dunno. It’s just something.
It’s good to have gentleness in the craziness of life. George gave us gentleness.
Rest well George. Thanks for all the gentle sweetness.
Dianne Pearce Writes 