The Writing Moment
Editing and revising, the first five chapters of his novel-in-progress’s first draft pleased him. Closing down for the day, he decided he needed to read more, comparing it to rinsing your palate when wine tasting. He needed to refresh his understanding of good writing.
“The Bad Old Days”
‘The Bad Old Days’ is the title of Herb Rothschild’s latest book. Not a novel, no. Bloomsbury’s Books in Ashland, Oregon, has an excellent bullet on the book:
“Herbert Rothschild Jr.’s The Bad Old Days: A Decade of Struggling for Justice in Louisiana depicts in vivid detail the kind of local work that transformed the Old South. In this blend of grassroots history and memoir, Rothschild tells story after story of confronting injustice. Engagingly written, his accounts bring to life a world that, while still recognizable, no longer exists as it did when he confronted it.”
Herb will be reading from his book at Bloomsbury’s in Ashland at 7 PM today, Monday, January 16, 2023. Sorry for the short notice but I just found out about it. If you’re in town and interested, stop by. Herb has been an activist for decades and remains a prominent force for change in Oregon’s Rogue Valley. He makes a terrific mulled cider and generously boozes it up. His pumpkin cheesecake is also damn good. Neither will be served tonight; just saying.
Hope to see you there. Cheers
The Writing Moment
My writing moment came yesterday afternoon. I awoke in a grumpy mood yesterday morning and was in full curmudgeon mode before my first cup of coffee.
Some of it could be put on my reaction to some of my wife’s comments. I was feeling sour about my novel in progress. First draft was finished and now I’m reconciliating, slicing, and dicing. It mostly went well, but sometimes a section was encountered that forced a gag reflex.
My SO was preparing for her book club meeting. She always takes that as seriously as doing a doctoral thesis or presenting a business plan, devoting time, thought and energy to the exclusion of many other things. Extra effort was going on this time because she was the moderator. She owned responsibility for driving the discussion.
The book was A Friend by Sigrid Nunez. Each month, one member selects a book for the others’ reading and discussion. My wife suggested this book to another book club member. She’d read reviews, and after reading it for book club (twice, because she was the moderator), she raved about the book, author, and the author’s glittering literary career. Nunez is serious about writing (yeah, like most writers are not, right?) and has an impressive career.
My wife raving about Nunez’s success settled poorly on my wounded writer psyche. I’m not usually like that. I generally am just as enthusiastic as her about these things, or even more bullish on writers and their works and rewards. But circumstances threw dark shade on my own writing efforts, and her comments dropped me into a place where there’s little light.
That happened in the morning. Vowing to myself to do better and get through this, I went off to the coffee shop to slog through writing requirements. I knew there was a problem with the section I was editing, but didn’t know what it was. Then, pop, pop, pop, three epiphanies about the what-and-why arrived. Those epiphanies energized my writing and pulled my spirit from the gutter and set it on top of the world.
I’ve through those moods and endured that kind of writing low before. Nothing new. Nor is it something that other writers haven’t experienced. Happy I’m out of it.
Time to write — and edit — a little bit more, at least one more time. Cheers
Road Dream
Had four remembered dreams last night. I’ll only post one.
I called it the road movie dream. The movie was done in black and white and reminded me of the old Cosby and Hope road movies. Three men traveled with me, and from cultural and fashion clues, we were in the 1950s, maybe the early 1960s. The three I traveled with were all RL friends who have passed away.
Our primary travel was via a huge ocean liner. A photo was taken of the four of us before we boarded the ship. Then, dream shift, we were walking off the ship at a foreign port and walking through a city. A large, old-fashioned typewriter was dropped out of a high-rise window. My three friends jumped aside and then congratulated one another that it had missed ‘us’. They turned around to discover it had struck my foot.
Next, we learned my foot was broken and was in a cast. We’re getting off the ship back at our home port. We come down the gangway to its bottom where our photo is again taken. We then learn that I completed a manuscript on the ship during the trip, using the typewriter which had broken my foot, and sold that manuscript. The book is being published, and my road movie ended with me holding up the book, surrounded by my three friends.
Makes Me Wonder
News came that a man has successfully removed over one hundred books from school libraries. This is in Florida. He’d moved there earlier in the year and then began challenging books. See, he didn’t want them in the school’s library. Either they offended his reading tastes or they included sex, and he didn’t approve, and didn’t want his child to be able to pick one up. This one man is dictating, through Florida’s ridiculous laws regarding books and their zany laws about sexual preferences or genders other than straight up between one man and one woman — and they should be married and in a stable relationship, I infer from his comments and news reports — then they shouldn’t be in his school library. Because, you know, his child might pick it up and read it, and then, flash, OMG, what will they become?
Oh, yeah, he hasn’t totally read those books which he demands to have removed. He knows enough, see? No need to read the entire book. Could there be any redeeming reasons beyond sex to read a book? Why, of course not. That offending sex ruins the ret of the book.
I guess that’s what he’s thinking, as it’s solely on that one aspect that this fine Christian is having books challenged and removed.
One of the books that he hasn’t read which he wants to have removed is a YA graphic novel, The Girl from the Sea, by Molly Knox Ostertag. Curious about it, I went searching for more and found an excellent Advocate story about Ostertag and her graphic novel. Besides comments from Ostertag, Advocate includes several pages of The Girl from the Sea. It is funny and sweet, and I want to read more. Fortunately, it’s available at my county’s library. I’ve joined the waiting list of people wishing to read it.
Here’s a link to the Advocate so you can check it out.
Molly Knox Ostertag Talks Queer YA Visibility in The Girl from the Sea
By the way, there’s no sex in this YA work. Nor is there nudity or swearing. Just one kiss between two girls. That’s what offends this man.
In case you’re wondering.
Michael Seidel, writer 