It’s currently 3 degrees in Montpelier, but I am trying to keep springy by collecting pictures of flowers and colors of beach.
I have a bag of glorious Cadbury Mini-Eggs because according to the grocery store, it’s spring. I haven’t opened them yet (such restraint), but I’m not sure what I’m waiting for.
And I am in full throttle of madly plotting out my thesis for next year with reading lists and storyboards and timelines and arrows pointing to other arrows. (More on the thesis later).
I often keep myself so busy, thinking about how I can serve other people or working on assignments that others are holding me accountable for. I wonder if that’s me trying to avoid stopping and having a breath to myself. In those paused moments, I have to be raw with everything within me: the good, the bad, the fear, the proud, the confident, the doubt. And that can be a scary place to steep, but those peaceful moments of solitude are so essential to a fulfilling and productive life. Perhaps that is what this blog’s purpose is for me. A sort of vitality.
Vitality, that’s a good word, isn’t it?
So here’s to spring, to renewal, to sun, to flowers, to slowing down sometimes, to balancing poses, to chocolate, to silence, to energy, to life. Here’s to you!
Last Wednesday, I boarded a plane headed for Tampa, Florida. It was snowy Burlington—the smack-dab middle of a Nor’easter—and the plane just barely got out. All others were cancelled for the next two days! Somehow, I got lucky. Two plane rides, a long layover in D.C. and a total of 8 hours later, I was welcomed by a downright tropical Floridian night.
I’ve been eagerly anticipating the AWP conference for awhile now, since I registered in November. Not only was this going to be my first appearance at THE literary event of the year, it was also going to be the first time I viewed my managing editorial baby: the newest issue of Hunger Mountain (it’s beautiful, by the way!!!) We opened the boxes which had been sent directly to the hotel and prayed that the book hadn’t been printed upside down or backwards.
And can I just say…
I loved AWP. Really. Really really loved it. It’s hard to fully imagine the conference without experiencing it. But let me try my best. It’s 15,000 writers and teachers and students and editors and publishers and logophiles and bibliophiles, all geeking out over writing and reading. It’s getting the nerve to go up to the Paris Review or Guernica or [insert prestigious journal here], shake hands with the editor, and have confidence in your own work. It’s about dancing like no one is going to write about it later. It’s about attending readings and inviting lyrical rhythms and delicious words to whirl around in your ears for hours. It’s about breathing in the same room with the poets and writers you read online or follow on Twitter or whose likeness you’ve taped to the walls of your bedroom. It’s about making a new writerly friend or contact, or discovering that your work fits in perfectly with the aesthetic of a journal you had never known to exist before. It’s about being inspired and soaking up everything you can and reflecting on why you are here (which you do belong here!) and why you love to write and why it is so important to share your voice. It’s about finding a community of people who understand why you do what you do. It’s about supporting yourself and others and literature itself.
Yes, the conference was chaotic and a total sensory overload and exhausting and the food wasn’t great and was very overpriced, but it was worth it to work at the book fair all day long…
…so I could introduce myself to other writers, so I could talk about how much I love Hunger Mountain, so I could meet some of the contributors and editors of our new issue in person (gosh, I am such a fan of them! They are all incredible people)…
Melissa Febos and Donika Kelly (our guest editors) IN REAL LIFE!
…so I could leave my footprints on the dry Tampa sidewalks.
The only unfortunate event of the four day trip was when my friend’s phone slipped out of her pocket and disappeared forever below a sidewalk and into a storm drain. After phone call after phone call with the police and the sewage department, the phone was deemed a lost cause because apparently, sidewalk manholes are cemented in the ground and unable to be lifted. The ice cream we had treated ourselves to that night quickly began to unsettle inside our bellies.
Despite that quite disheartening hiccup, have I mentioned that I loved AWP? I did. I managed to even be pretty restrained in the bookfair—given that by the last day most of the booths pass their goodies out for free—and did not bring back too many books! Here’s my loot pile plus a whole lot of contact cards (not pictured):
I’ve decided that I will attend AWP every year from this day forward until I can no longer travel or walk.
After I arrived back in Montpelier this past Sunday, I slept a good 12 hours. It definitely is good to be home again. Back to class, back to snow, with books to read (Vermilion Sands by J.G. Ballard, Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson, Sourdough by Robin Sloan, Indictus by Natalie Eilbert, and The Expanse Between by Lee L. Krecklow), work to do, contest entries to read, a thesis to plan, and coffee. Always coffee.
Snow 2.0. Yes, there is still snow, and my feet are slightly bored of the constant snugness of boots. The trees are laced in snow doilies, which is beautiful, but I would very much like some greenery and sun. At least some dogwoods and tulips and fluttering fauna would be nurturing for the soul.
The good news is that we are off on spring break for a whole week, which is a much-earned and much-welcomed break. On Wednesday, I leave for AWP (Association of Writers and Publishers) – the biggest writerly conference in America – where I will be representing Hunger Mountain and working the booth at the book fair. This event has been a bucket list item of mine for many years, and now it’s actually happening! This year, the conference is in sunny Tampa, and I’m not sure I even remember how to dress for warm weather. There are about 200 panels which will be coinciding with the book fair, and I am a little daunted by the schedule! So far, I’ve only looked at Thursday’s schedule and already have added 20 panels to my “Favorites” list! Eek!
Until Wednesday, I am editing a draft of a new short story, applying for a few summer residencies and conferences, and want to start a new art project with my little doodle buddy, but I’m not sure what form the project will take. Tarot cards? A series of graphic quotes? A flip book? Suggestions are welcome.
If you are not familiar with my little buddy, allow me to introduce him!
A few years ago, I found myself doodling in a notebook one day and the result of the doodling was this guy: a dapper sort, always dressed in a cardigan and neatly knotted scarf, with a spinning top for a head. He’s followed me throughout the years, trotting through notebook page margins, decorating my walls, organizing his scarf drawer within his bedroom of my brain. My buddy exists in variations: sometimes the wind is especially strong and whips his head around and around, tugging on his scarf. Sometimes, he taps into his natural roots and sprouts antler-like branches from his head. Sometimes, he hangs upside down, preferring to see the world from a new perspective. He is a comfort to me, I guess you could say. That he doesn’t have a face doesn’t bother me at all. In fact, it is soothing that he doesn’t have to worry about expressions and vanity and judgments and outward-appearing emotions.
He is strange and wonderful and slightly evasive, and a creature I really want to bring more fully into this world. So again, suggestions for a new art project are welcomed!
Also in new developments, I will be posting frequently on Twitter a new photo series, which will document the books I am reading outside of class. Here is the first of the Reading Bench Series:
Because everyone should have a familiar reading bench (when they are not hula hooping and reading, of course!) Stay tuned for more in the series soon!
So, lots of art and editing in a bomb cyclone wonderland, and impatiently anticipating AWP and spring!
Two years ago, I wrote a blog post about the motivational benefits of music. Christopher Bergland says in Psychology Today, “music and mood are inherently bound.” He says that “you can dial up a mood, mindset or perception on demand by choosing music that elicits a specific emotional response in you,” whether it’s for athletic benefits, studying purposes, for road trip boredom busting, or to create a certain vibe to match your day. So, given this information, I created a “You Can Do Anything” playlist to help get me through the tests and trials of undergraduate second-semester senioritis.
I still do listen to many of those songs now as a first-year in graduate school, but as of late, here are the songs I return to again and again when I need to be hosed down head to toe with creative energy.
Watch, listen, repeat, and fall in deep, dark love:
The Main Title Theme to Westworld by Ramin Djawadi has become my soul song. I’ve listened to it about 200 times over the course of a week, yet I’ve only seen the first two episodes of the show! No spoiler alerts please!
Zoe Keating uses a looping system to whisper haunting sounds over her own sound, and to invent herself as a stunning one-woman symphony. I saw her perform at The Ark in Ann Arbor in 2014. Her power could stop a whole room’s breath at once.
Emancipator’s “Rattlesnakes” really deserves to be listened to with headphones to fully appreciate its complexities. Imagine dropping ping pong balls off steep cliffs one by one. One by one, they hit water and then rock. Now imagine you are one of the ping pong balls. This song will take you on that ping pong ball’s journey.
Just because these songs resonate with me doesn’t mean they will for you. I only give these as an example and a free treat for your ears. I listen to them often because they are phenomenal works of art, and I highly recommend them for music while writing, painting, or whatever artistic activity tickles your fancy. They’re also quite satisfying to simply sit, listen, and soak. Create your own at-home sonic spa. Listen around and craft your own playlist to suit your personal tastes and styles and motivational needs.
Support artists! Open your ears to beauty! Fuel your creativity!
Having just finished our 3-week screenwriting module with Julianna Baggott, my brain has properly become molded (or should I say ruined) to never watch a movie again without noting its structure, praising its “break into Act 2” scene, calculating its midpoint, and brooding over the slow and torturous ALL IS LOST/DARK SOUL OF THE NIGHT scenes in Act 3.
There are many celebrated and acclaimed ways to structure a film. A particular method, called the Three Act Structure, was the one we used in class to plot out familiar films, such as Hot Fuzz and On Golden Pond, as well as TV shows (Cheers, Friends From College, Ozark). Basically, there are formulas for successful storytelling and this is one of them. We as story consumers have been primed to expect certain kinds of actions to take place at certain points in the story’s arc. You can learn more about the beat-to-beat moments here: http://blog.janicehardy.com/2013/10/plotting-with-save-cat-beat-sheet.html.
While we learned this structure in a “screenwriting” class, a story is a story, no matter the medium. Structure isn’t a topic usually hit on in fiction/novel writing courses, and yet, it is so important to ensuring that 1) your readers are following the plot and 2) you are engaging their emotions and moving them to the edge of their seat – or in book talk, your readers are still turning the pages.
In another one of my classes, we’ve been talking about our “touchstone” books to reach for whenever we’re in need of creative nourishment. In honor of the screenwriting class, I’ve thought about my “touchstone” films.
Here is a list of movies I go back to again and again whenever I need inspiration or when I need to deeply appreciate the art of storytelling:
Cloud Atlas: I first read the book and fell in love with the sheer brilliance of Mitchell’s mind. The movie is definitely a different creature than the book. But I’m rather fond of instances where the book and the film are two distinct pieces of art. After all, a book is not a film and a film is not a book. I worship the cinematographer of the film, or whoever was in charge of chopping up the scenes. The scenes were cut and woven together with such deftness that I believe the film can express the theme of the story (interconnectedness, past lives, history repeating itself, textual posterity) better than the limited technologies the book’s chaptered structure could offer. While David Mitchell is the masterful architect behind the story (see my post about David Mitchell’s visit to Ann Arbor here), I am 100% Team Movie. The china shop dream sequence especially makes my heart stop. Even though I have seen the film close to 10 times, I know there will be many more viewings in my future. I’m especially interested in hearing the director and co. talk about the film via commentary.
Amelie: Amelie is the queen of quirk. The film is an incredibly rare blend of both joy and melancholy. There’s fun and whimsy to be had, but there’s also real, honest emotion which is explored throughout the film. Amelie is a girl who celebrates life’s small pleasures (which my love for the movie makes total sense if you know my undying obsession with the British magazine The Simple Things). She loves the sound of a spoon breaking a creme brûlée crust; she plunges her hand in a sack of grain at the vegetable stand; she loves skipping stones on the canal. These moments make her seem real. These moments make me say, “I wish I could meet her and take her to a park so we can watch the clouds and turn them into animated objects.” The other reason I love the movie is that the landscape is familiar, yet fictive. It is a place of saturated colors, of eccentric characters, of talking paintings, of nostalgic accordion music. The film does not try to represent the “real Paris”—it grabs you by the hand and takes you into a dreamworld of its own kind.
Tarsem’sThe Fall: See my love for this movie in my December 2017 post for the Michigan Quarterly Review. Otherwise, I could gush on and on.
Moonrise Kingdom: I absolutely adore the whimsy, the awkwardness, the simultaneous rigidity to order and the freedom of narrative structure, and the OCD mindset that is so prevalent in Wes Anderson’s films. This film happens to be the one I return to again and again. Anderson’s camera work also reminds me to use my zoom button when I write. How do I zoom way out? How do I zoom way in on this situation? What is the detail I want to draw my readers eye to in this scene?
I am home again—well, home in Vermont (I have many places I feel at home)—and I am starting to get the swing of 2018.
As I write this, it is a brisk, frosty, nose-hair-crystalizing temperature outside and there are snow-plowed mountains peaking high among the streets. As I write this, my feet are toasty in fuzzy oven-warm slippers and I am serenaded by the trickling sound of water as it twists through the metallic veins of ancient radiators.
I am realizing what a blessing it is to have a month-long break between school semesters. With two more weeks left, I am properly hibernating with tea and a mound of books. I am doing a bit of writing (revising short stories and beginning a new novel), but mostly reading. I want to voraciously learn everything I can from my predecessors and my contemporaries.
I just finished Donald Antrim’s The Hundred Brothers (at Porochista Khakpour’s recommendation) and am halfway through this beautiful Penguin Horror edition of Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House, as well as Stephen King’s On Writing. I have Kelly Link’s Pretty Monsters and Tana French’s In the Woods to pick up when I’m finished. Plus I just ordered a box of more bookish goodies for later in the semester!
One of my favorite ways to read through my ever-growing book pile is by reading while walking on the treadmill, which is almost as satisfying as reading whilst hula hooping. It’s amazing how fast the time goes by and how after reading 50-60 pages, I’ve already walked 3-4 miles. I believe that when the body is active, the mind is also stimulated and therefore, it is easier to absorb and comprehend complex plots and details. Plus, the gym in the dorm is located in the basement, meaning that it is quiet enough for me to read out loud. (It has always been a dream of mine to one day become an audiobook reader, so I practice as much as I can.)
And now, we return to the symphony of the humming radiator and the back-breaking shovel digging out a snowbound car.
The Dutch call New Year’s Day oud en nieuw — meaning Old and New. In one sparkly seam of time, the past and future collide and explode into fizzly fireworks. (Isn’t that what makes us human after all? A cocktail of dreams and memories, fears of the unknown and regrets of what’s past?) And last night, as I blew into a semi-obnoxious noisemaker with a slightly tipsy head, I couldn’t help but think about how my life has so vastly changed over this year.
It seems it was just New Year’s 2017 when my boyfriend and I sprinted ten blocks at 11:55pm to get to the Chicago River on time for the fireworks. (We made it just at the countdown of 3-2-1!) And here we are again together, in Austin, Texas, where he now works, spending the disappointingly chilly weekend bowling and watching The Princess Bride and fueling up on heartwarming Indian food.
Somewhere in the middle, I worked at a preschool and fell in love with the honesty, joy, imaginations, and most tender emotions that my eighteen four and five year old students had to offer. I wish them all the best as they go on with their kindergarten schooling and beyond and hope they will remember their dear Teacher Cammie as much as I’ll remember them.
I was a Teacher Assistant for one of the most important humanity classes taught at University of Michigan, about the Holocaust and the legacy of Anne Frank’s diary. I learned that I love office hours and talking with young students about their ideas and how they can develop them more. I love that so many of those students are going to go on to teach others about the importance of telling these histories, so we will never forget the horrors that so many have suffered, and so many have overcome.
There were travels. I did not get mauled by a bear in Alaska, met amazing writers in Martha’s Vineyard, and found my happy spot in Seattle.
I no longer live in Ann Arbor. I am a full-on fully immersed Montpelierian (Montpelierite?) in the green mountains of Vermont. I started a graduate program that has filled my heart, fired up the stone inside my stomach, challenged my brain coils, and has introduced me to lovely people who will produce such amazing pieces of literature in the next few years. So get ready world — and make room in your bookshelves.
TV greats included Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, which I think I could watch over and over and over for its music, style, wit, and its female protagonist extraordinaire.
I didn’t see too many movies this year, but I did really enjoy the quirkiness which is The Shape of Water. I also finally got around to seeing Arrival, which was excellent and non-linear in all the best ways.
My mood music for 2017 was hands-down Fleet Foxes (who I saw live in August) and Emancipator (who I’ll see live later this month!) It’s a tie between Fleet Foxes’ “The Shrine/The Argument” and Emancipator’s “Rattlesnakes” for which one was on repeat the most.
On this first day of 2018, the cards are in the hands of the stars. Anything can happen and I feel excited by that. No fear of the blank page. Let’s start writing the year now.
Snow, glorious snow! I’m back in Ann Arbor and there are cookies to deliver. It’s a Finch tradition to bag up homemade cookies and give them to the hard-working crews at the local Literati Bookstore and 826michigan Writing Center, to the homeless folk selling newspapers on street corners, to my most beloved UMich profs. What can I say — my favorite holiday book was Eloise at Christmastimewhen I was younger. I love to sklinkle my way around town to bring people goodies. ♩Oh trinkles oh trinkles sing fa la la lolly ting tingle bells there and here ♩
Today is Yule and we shall celebrate with pine-scented candles and solstice dancing and a screening of The Holiday, because Mr. Napkinhead.
Merry merry and a bucket of eggnog and rum to you all. With snow and peace (we need a whole lot of it after this year) and all those blinking fairy lights.
Wow, wow, wow. It’s already November. I have been at VCFA for two full months. Time here is strange. It goes by both slowly and rapidly, though maybe that’s true of all time in general. Time is a tricky sort, going ever onward without stopping. Never looking back as it tumbles through the rabbit hole. And then there is the camera which can freeze time and put it in a capsule. Here is a picture of a tree, which I cashed in five minutes of my life staring at on a walk a few days ago. Just me and this tree, observing each other eye to eye, bud to bud, trunk to trunk. What can I say—I have a thing for dendrite patterns.
Hallowe’en was something, as usual. Full of costume parties (I was Sherlock Holmes!) and Monster Mashes and petting little black cats. While I’m not officially participating in NaNoWriMo, I’m making up my own rules to write something creative every day and work on building a story of mine into something a little larger. I’ve recently fallen into this writing cave to finish a draft of a story, and finally yesterday, I completed the first draft! Yes indeed, this draft has a beginning, middle, and end. It is just over 12K, a nice novelette length piece. I’ve basically been following Neil Gaiman’s writerly advice: “Write. Finish things. Go for walks. Read a lot & outside your comfort zone. Stay interested. Daydream. Write.” I’m especially excited to have followed the advice to “finish things.” Funny enough, that can be the hardest one to do. This story is still an infant, but I believe in its future and want to see it grow into adulthood and find its home somewhere in the world.
In other random news, if you don’t know the Facebook page, “Corgi Overload,” here is your official invitation. You may not have known you needed this in your life, but here’s me saying you do.
Here in this Vermontian November, I am happy and feeling inspired. I am enjoying every part of figuring out this novelette’s puzzle. Everything outside my window is falling leaves and mystical gray skies. Hoorah to warm fuzzies and lemon ginger tea.
It is only my first October in Montpelier, and I am already smitten. My favorite parts so far are probably the technicolor trees; the sound of rain that rings out when leaves fall and hit branch branch branch ground crunch; the smell of leaf piles which makes you feel a little dirty and clean all at the same time. Just wait until Halloween rolls around!
To take a break from all of the homework, reading, editing, and freelance writing gigs, I went out for a walk today and ended up going on a bit of a photo safari. At first, I thought I was just going to buy a loaf of bread or maybe find a place with pumpkin-spiced tea, but instead, the wind swept me up and took me on a wander through St. Augustine’s Cemetery, around neighborhoods and somehow I ended up at Three Penny Taproom for a pint! I also met a delightful black cat who followed me for a little while, but alas, the little one was camera shy and ran before I could take his picture.
In the next post, I’ll recap some of the schoolwork I’m doing, including works we’re reading and about my latest stint in translation with the amazing poet, Ruben Quesada. I can’t believe that is almost the end of October already! November brings NaNoWriMo and writing and holidays and then December…but for now, let’s take it one day at a time and enjoy the scenery. Vermont and my life here at VCFA are both too good to let slip by carelessly.
P.S. What I’ve been listening to lately: “El Condor Pasa” by Simon & Garfunkel; “The Shrine/The Argument” by Fleet Foxes, “Pulaski at Night” by Andrew Bird, “Familiar” by Agnes Obel, and “Growing Pains” by Birdy.
I have a bag of glorious Cadbury Mini-Eggs because according to the grocery store, it’s spring. I haven’t opened them yet (such restraint), but I’m not sure what I’m waiting for.
