Lemony Snicket Reads Newspapers

How to describe the lecture at Seattle Arts and Lectures last night?

I was laughing so hard I had to pull out the kleenex.

Daniel Handler, pictured on the left, aka Lemony Snicket, was introduced by Sherman Alexie. The talk was entitled, "Why does Lemony Snicket Keep Following Me?" From the description alone, it promised to be outstanding.

An added and unexpected bonus was pre-introduction by a young writer, age 10?, who read his poem about his loathing for tomato soup. And Mr. Alexie's introduction was brilliant in his usual fashion; I don't want to trade Mr. Alexie with anyone in San Francisco, please. Keep him here. I go to as many of his reading and talks as I can, and I prefer to walk or take the bus, not fly.

The perfect tone of expectation had been set. But Mr. Handler had a deceptively disjointed beginning. Left you thinking, "Where is he going with this?" It soon became clear that he knew exactly where he was going and knew how to entertain, delight, and terrify. From many possibilities of the moral of not carrying your baby down a flight of 14 stairs while talking on a cell phone (the baby was ok, but mom ended up black and blue) to how he described the strange combination of Things That Happen when you read local newspapers, this was a lecture that ranks as one of my all time favorites. EVER.

In case you do not know: Lemony Snicket is author the books A Series of Unfortunate Events, where three orphans have to deal with disasters, also known to the rest of us as life. 53 million copies sold proves that many children and adults, like Mr. Handler, have a need to read stories that do not involve "plucky heroes who have happy endings and where at the happy ending everyone sits now to eat a nice hot meal." As Mr. Handler said, you should have a hot meal a lot of the time. Not just after adventures. Throw that plucky hero across the room. Join reality. Get a sense of humor. Invent a pen name when you are talking to a right-wing conservative organization after you have written them a letter of complaint which starts out, "How dare you!" Mr. Handler did say that this was where the name Lemony Snicket came from, but he had no idea how to spell it, so he asked the woman on the phone to do it for him.

I have long liked his books but now I know I love the author.

P.S.
Mr. Alexie, I love you too. Please read again at the Ballard Public library in the fishbowl room.

6,000+ word day. First day I have had the chance to write.

And the CD of choice is by an Indie Rock Band called Sigur Ros. The album is called Takk. This is the 5th year I've tried NaNoWriMo and it seems each time I latch onto one CD and I don't let go, until after November is over.

Listening to the same CD is the best and most reliable way to get into the world. And no surprise, I suppose, this year when listening to Sigur Ros, started writing about an ice world, ended up with the idea of a dystopia (from the history class this quarter). Now, 1 day in I find myself I am writing about a girl who steals a person's will to live at the moment of his death. And a creature I am calling the Antuk.

Next week, I'll read This is Your Brain on Music by Daniel Levitin. But only after I write another 10,000 words.

The Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

Suzanne Collins hit the ball out of the field. In fact, she knocked the ball out of the stadium, and it traveled with such velocity that it created a sonic boom. Her Young Adult trilogy started with The Hunger Games.

I tore through The Hunger Games with the utmost gratitude to the author: I was on a plane and needed an alternate reality. I chomped pages on the edge of my airline seat: the choices the main character has to make are horrifying. But you can't stop reading. Rarely has any author used first person, present tense with such punch.

Then came the second book, Catching Fire. It was BETTER. Who says this about a sequel? Almost no one. The best example of how good Catching Fire was comes from a friend's daughter--now a teenager--who called her mother at work to say, "I have book emergency. I have to read or at least have--in my hand--a copy of the second book in the trilogy. Help me find a copy." The girl had finished the first book not ten minute before this declaration.

So now adult nerds like me who love, love, love gripping and great sci/fi fantasy YA are waiting for Tuesday, 8/24/10, when the third and final book in the trilogy, The Mockingjay, will be released.

My expectations are impossibly high. I have been hanging onto a gift card to the University Bookstore ready since June. I'm waiting; two more days. And you?

The Field's End Conference was excellent. To read the official summary, please see http://www.fieldsend.org/Conference.html.

Highlights for me:

• Gloria Burgess' key note opening speech on the influences of her life. I was particularly struck by Ms. Burgess' generosity, for herself, for her fellow writers, and most of all for her proud father who developed a friendship with William Faulkner.
• Bruce Barcott's lunch time key note speech on the 10 things a writer can and should remember when you feel like you cannot go on. My favorite: "Embrace the Zen of the crappy 200 word work day because it leads to something else."
• Seeing other writers I know from classes and conferences that I would never otherwise see.
• Sample break out sessions were: On the Many Endings of a Novel (Wayne Ude): Knowing When to Stop Revising (Anjali Banerjee); and What If? What then? (David Patneaude).
• Especially useful to me was the Wayne Ude's talk for his analysis and his diagram all of the subplots in Jane Austin's Pride and Prejudice. My favorite tidbits were: "You are allowed one whopping coincidence per book" and "Bring your (story) to the 'inner most core' which is the place where it is as bad as it can get" and "The main plot can simmer as long as this is the time when things are revealed to the main character as subplots move along."
  

Plus you get eat salmon lunch in a beautiful setting, surrounded by fellow writers of all ages and backgrounds, with pertinent breakout sessions. I recommend the Field’s End annual conference.

Field's End, "...serves the writers’ community and nurtures the written word through lectures, workshops and instruction in the art, craft, and profession of writing." Their website is at http://www.fieldsend.org/index.html.

They offer writing classes, an annual conference, and fall events. They also have a monthly round-table series, which features local Pacific Northwest authors. Field's End is affiliated with the Bainbridge Public Library. Their events are--for the Seattlite like me--a beautiful ferry boat commute away.

This year, because of a family birthday, I cannot attend the SCBWI conference on April 10th, 2010. So I am planning to go to the April 17th all day Field's End conference at Kiana Lodge near Agate Pass. I'll post my own summary, post conference.

Recently, I signed up for an art class. And learned how little I know about drawing.

I draw landscapes with reasonable accuracy because it is a way to quiet my brain. The writer in me stops, shuts up, takes a nap. Thoughts become non-verbal, which is another way of thinking, seeing, feeling, breathing. It is a good way to be.

So I thought that I would learn how to draw faces, but it's incredibly hard to portray human beings. To capture their look. Not as easy as taking a photograph. Recognition is all in the lines of forehead, nose, the space between the nose and the mouth. Cognition is just a different kind of art.

31,765 Words

Here are my 2009 National Novel Writing Month statistics:

• 50,000 word goal - 31,765 words written = 18,235 short.
• 18,235 divided by 1,667 average words per day = 10.93881224 more days of writing.
• OR = two ridiculously long writing days of 9,000 some word per day.
  

What I really achieved:

• Some 32,000 words closer to the ending of my big project.
• Two major insights.
• Three days--over the Thanksgiving holiday--of reading the entire trilogy, from start to the "finish."

The exercise of writing is more important than the word count. National Novel Writing Month 2009 was an exercise for me; it is highly likely that all those words will never be read at all. But November 2009 counts because those 32,000 words will bring me closer to the grand finale. In a trilogy where each draft book is easily 100,000 words, this means that less is more.