Monday, March 29, 2010

Some More Thoughts on Writing

I wanted to add a little to what I wrote on Friday.

I am trying to give up the notion that my success or failure as a writer will be influenced by how well I manage other areas of my life.

I’ve noticed that I have a tendency to believe in cause-and-effect relationships that simply aren’t there. Nor is this unique to me; a lot of what people commonly understand as karma is predicated on this notion that what goes around, comes around. When I was waiting for feedback on my manuscript, it occurred to me that I had promised to read and review a book that another author had mailed me. (Actually, it didn’t occur to me; the guy had to email me and ask if I’d done it yet, at which point I promptly remembered that I had put the big shipping envelope with his book down at the bottom of my pile of mail that kinda sorta needed to be acted on eventually, and I’d promptly forgotten about it.) So naturally, I figured that all the invisible mojo was somehow blocked up, and if I reviewed this guy’s book, I’d promptly get the feedback I’d been looking for on my book.

Of course, nothing of the sort happened. I read his book, wrote a thoughtful and incisive—albeit harsh—review, and shipped it off to him. And I got none of the feedback I was waiting on.

So what? You may rightly ask. Yeah, in the grand scheme of things, perhaps it doesn’t really matter all that much. I guess the big lesson is that I should do things for their own sake, and not for the sake of some imagined unrelated outcome. I’m glad I reviewed the other author’s book, but I’m glad because it was something I promised I’d do, and because I got something out of it.

There’s a large blue book that I read fairly frequently that mentions that people like me are usually a victim of the delusion that we can wrest satisfaction from life if we only manage well. It is a delusion; if I manage well, it will not necessarily bring about all the things I want in this world, and even if I were to get all the things I want in this world, it wouldn’t necessarily make me happy. Other people’s free will and other people’s choices are often at work, sometimes in ways I don’t even know about, and sometimes working towards ends far contradictory to mine. And more importantly, God’s running the show, not me, and the things I strive for are often the things that make me unhappy, whereas the things I avoid are often the things that help me grow and benefit me in the long run.

That’s not to say there’s anything wrong with striving to achieve my goals; I just have to keep in mind that it’s not all about me, and that any setbacks or detours or hardships along the way are ultimately for my benefit, as is the ultimate outcome—even if it’s not the outcome I intend.

Friday, March 26, 2010

Writing about Writing

So it's Friday afternoon, and I'm sitting in a coffeeshop in Milwaukee and listening to Big Star. This is not just any coffeeshop, mind you; it's a hip (read: non-Starbucks) bright little place with bright sticker-covered windows and hardwood floors and potted plants and people smoking. (Remember that, Chicagoans?)

When I'm working on something I'm really excited about, there's no happier place for me to be. But the book's on hold, and I don't have any reviews in the works. So I'm feeling less like a writer indulging in hackneyed habits, and more like a guy who's just trying to escape the real world and go off into his own world for a little bit.

I'm trying not to be a whiny complainy tortured-artist type. My biggest problems today are an inattentive agent and a little writer's block; there are far worse problems to have in this world. But as Neil Young says, "Though my problems are meaningless, that don't make 'em go away."

What does make them go away, then? Doing the proverbial "next right thing." Getting out of my head and helping other people. Living in the world and engaging them, rather than withdrawing into my head.

I've learned that life works best when I believe that everything happens for a reason, when I trust that I don't always know what's good or bad for me but believe instead that God's got my back and everything, both the things that seem good and the things that seem bad, are gifts from a loving God who has my best interests at heart. I've been told that every problem has a gift inside, and sometimes, to get that gift, you have to get that problem.

It's hard to always believe that.

But ultimately I have to, because the alternative is to believe in a world of random rewards and random punishments, a world of ultimate pain and futility where there is no hope other than oblivion. I've lived in that world; it really sucks. I'd rather not go back, and I know I don't have to.

So, as mentioned above, I just have to keep taking action. I'm not writing to complain here, or to piss and moan; I'm writing to write, because I know that even if I write crap on any given day, I've still done something. It feels a lot better than not writing anything, and anyway, I can always go back and edit it.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

The National

Just when I thought I couldn't love The National any more, they go and knock my socks off again, as depicted here playing "Terrible Love" from the new album. (High Violet, due May 11th, in case you didn't already know.)

In many ways they're like a white-collar Bruce Springsteen, which paradoxically makes them seem more authentic. (At least to my college-educated suburban whiteboy ass.) Some bands end up aping their influences more and more closely as time goes by, and losing any extra authenticity they once had, and "Terrible Love" itself initially seems like a Springsteen retread. But as it gains in intensity, it becomes both more personal and more universal. The charging finish is on a par with "Abel" or "Mr. November," and the lyrics sound absurdly surreal and nonsensical--until you realize the terrible love is not romantic but alcoholic. So the song ends up feeling gritty and real; it isn't new territory lyrically, but they cover the old ground in ways that make it feel fresh.

"Blood Buzz, Ohio" ends up being perhaps even more broad in its appeal; it's insistent refrain talks of how "I still owe money to the money, to the money I owe" and, like all true classics, it makes you want to sing along before you're done with your first listen. (If there's a lyric out there today that better captures the zeitgeist, I haven't heard it.)

As far as I'm concerned, this band is already on par with Radiohead and Wilco in their sonic depictions of life in the early 21st Century, and if High Violet is as good as Alligator and Boxer, they'll hopefully start getting the recognition they really deserve.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

An Update

Still nothing from the agent. Setting internal mental deadlines for other people to do things is a sure path to unhappiness, especially when those deadlines are never discussed with the other person. But I've taken some positive action to get out of my head, and I'm actually feeling OK.

Saturday, March 20, 2010

The Waiting is the Hardest Part. (Except for the Worrying.)

So I have been in sort of a null period with the writing for a couple months; I’ve been churning out reviews here and there, and a few music-related blog posts, but by and large I have been waiting to get feedback from the agent about the latest round of revisions to Resistance.

The agent works for a reputable agency (which pretty much means they're in New York, but not in someone's home in New York, and they represent at least one or two people who are already on my bookshelf), and her initial comments on the manuscript were pretty enthusiastic; she seemed excited to be working with me, and I was excited in turn to have actually made it past the dreaded rejection-letter phase of the book-selling process.

The only problem is that our communications have been somewhat sporadic of late.

About a month ago, she emailed me a link to a news story about a novel that had been smuggled out of Nazi Germany in a cake, figuring (rightly) that I’d be interested; she’d also mentioned that she was nearly done with the comments on my current round of revisions. I was understandably excited, and I emailed her back and also mentioned a project I’d conceived that day, a project that might be the best or the worst idea I’ve had in a while, an alternative-history early 60s nuclear war-type dealie.

I didn’t hear back from her at all that next week.

The week after that, I got an email on Thursday apologizing for her tardiness and thanking me for my patience; it said she’d been backed up and hoped to be done with my revisions soon. I sent her what I hoped was a gracious note mentioning that I hadn’t done all the work I’d wanted to do in the previous few weeks, either.

I didn’t hear back from her.

Now it’s been two weeks, and I figure I’m at the point when I can reasonably drop a note seeing where we’re at with everything. It says a lot for my general angst about this project, though, that I've been reluctant even to do that. I’ve invested much of my life for the past few years working on this, and now I find myself wondering if it is too derivative, or too unconventional, or too long, or too anything. I did a tremendous amount of original research but also used one of the true-life characters’ actual memoirs as an inspiration for a fair amount of the first third of the book; I think it’s a fair use of the material, but now I’m wondering. I made some major changes to the middle part and rewrote several scenes as if they were diary entries from a notorious Nazi named Karl Frank; I think it was edgy but well-written, but now I’m wondering. I cut 5,000 words from the last part but didn’t change the overall plot; I think it was the right decision, but now…well, you get the point. At any rate, I’m a bottomless pit when it comes to validation, so anything other than a full-court press of attention would probably be insufficient salve for my ego; I don’t think I’m asking for that, but I have gotten to the point when I feel a little pang of angst when I check my hotmail account and see that she hasn’t sent the revisions yet, so it would at least be nice to get some information to replace the imagination.

Anyway, I finally wrote the email on Thursday and didn’t hear anything on Friday; I didn’t see anything yesterday, but she might be finishing up, so I’ll try to wait until close-of-business Monday before I start hyperventilating into a paper bag. (Praying, and staying out of my head, will hopefully help, too.)

Still, it seems funny how the things for which one once was indescribably grateful (having an agent interested in the book) eventually become the things one takes for granted, and then the things one worries about losing.

Sunday, March 07, 2010

Scott Adams, Philosopher

This blog entry from Scott Adams, Dilbert's creator, is pretty insightful about the whole creative process--something we often romanticize even though it's not entirely a sane impulse.

Friday, March 05, 2010

XX Marks the SpotSpot

My review of the debut album by XX is here. I know, I'm not exaclty the first person to discover them, but they're pretty badass.

Monday, March 01, 2010

A Worthwhile Read on Creativity...

This article on computer-composed music is pretty thought-provoking, and a little reassuring; Cope may be overstating his case, but I do agree that even the greatest composers and artists are probably less original than people think they are. Or, as Bono said, "Every artist is a cannibal, every poet is a thief."

Overrated Albums of the Decade

Some of these albums are overrated, and some are just plain bad, but since I didn’t make it a point to seek out bad albums, I feel like I can’t really put together a comprehensive list of those. Anyway here you go:


1) Merriweather Post Pavilion by Animal Collective – This album is pretentious hipster bullshit, pure and simple. It made a lot of critics’ lists and year-end best-ofs, but when I play it, I don’t want to listen to the end, and when I listen to the end, I don’t want to listen to it again. A lot of it sounds like what you’d hear if you sat in a casino playing blackjack for 14 straight hours, and you got to that point where all the slot machine noises started swirling together, and you pushed open the door to get some air, only to find that the Beach Boys were drowning in the hotel pool.

2) Person Pitch by Panda Bear – More pretentious hipster bullshit by some of the same people. Part of me thinks I should give it another listen and come up with something more insightful, but I’ve already wasted enough time on this album.

3) Against Me! by New Wave – Spin put mention of this on their front cover, but in the form of a question, something like, “Have Against Me! Made the Year’s Best Album?” It was almost like they didn’t believe it themselves but wanted to make us wonder. And it sounded good on paper: a major-label debut by an aggressive punky band, produced by Butch Vig—this was a formula that Nirvana rode to suicidal superstardom with Nevermind. But, of course, music is no formulaic paint-by-numbers business, no assembly line-type affair where one merely has to put the right parts together to make a whole. This isn’t an atrocious album, by any stretch. But I wouldn’t rank it much higher than, say, The Offspring. 2 ½ years after it came out, Amazon.com’s aggregate of customer reviews has it at 3 ½ stars, and that sounds about right.

4) Super Taranta! by Gogol Bordello – I’m pretty sure I read something that said that this album must have been as exhausting to make as it is to listen to; I can’t dis it any more soundly than that. People rave about how good they are live, but that doesn’t change the fact that this is a crappy album; I haven’t seen them live, and after listening to this, I don’t want to.

5) 100th Window by “Massive Attack” – To call this a Massive Attack album makes a mockery of the name; this is the group’s least essential member enlisting some decent musicians and trying to cash in on their good name, and failing. It's about as essential to Massive Attack fans as a Duff McKagan-helmed Chinese Democracy would have been to Guns n' Roses fans

6) X & Y by Coldplay – This was the album when a lot of us came to the collective realization that Coldplay actually sucked in many ways. Sonically it isn’t bad, although it sounds less like themselves than any previous album, and more like U2; lyrically, it’s frequently atrocious.

7) Arular by M.I.A. – The second album had a lot of great moments, but for my money this one just wasn’t a great listen; it was too funky, abrasive and angular. I don’t find myself thinking, “Gee, I should listen to that first M.I.A. album” very often, and when I do, I don’t feel like I’ve been missing much.

8) Boys and Girls in America by The Hold Steady – It’s just like Springsteen singing about ecstasy.

9) You & Me by The Walkmen – It kinda pains me to put this on here, because musically and lyrics-wise, I love this album; it has a great atmospheric quality to it, and it’s the type of thing I normally really enjoy. But the lead singer’s voice just really bugs me. I’m not against unconventional lead singers per se; I’m a huge Bob Dylan fan and will defend him to the death against his detractors. (Although not his last two albums, which could just as easily be on here.) Dylan’s voice sounds like lightning-bolt energy and sandpaper grit, whereas this guy sounds like someone trying to ape those things.

10) Pearl Jam by Pearl Jam – I also hate having this on there, because I think a lot of their late career work is underappreciated, but this album just doesn’t sound that good to me. I gave it another listen just before writing this, to give them the benefit of the doubt, and there are some good moments on here, but by and large it confirmed my previous impressions—this is too much of the punky Pearl Jam and not enough of the melodic Pearl Jam. Also, a lot of the socio-political observations seem lifted straight from “What’s Wrong with Kansas?” This isn’t a crime per se, but for my money Eddie Vedder’s far better at confessionals than at protest songs; his efforts at the former usually feel like deep diary dumps, volumes of heart and soul poured out on the page with passion and conviction and thought, whereas the latter often feel like pamphleteering, with Eddie handing off to us a slender volume of something that someone else handed to him. I read reviews which dared to say this was the best thing they’d done since Vitalogy or earlier; I’m of a mindset that Riot Act and Yield are clearly superior, and No Code would have been, if it hadn’t been so atrociously sequenced. Sometimes I think this is the worst thing in their discography.