I have a habit, and I think I probably share it with many women in this world, that, come Sunday night, I make all sorts of resolutions about how I'm going to change my life around. Like Monday is an automatic fresh start, clean slate, even if I ate nothing but burgers and hot dogs and sat on the couch watching "Dirty Jobs" all weekend. All is forgotten come Monday and life starts over.
Well, when I wrote my last entry, I had decided that I was going to write out a whole section of the book this week, at least get a rough draft on the paper. I'm glad I didn't write that into my post, because wouldn't you know it, I didn't do it. In fact, I barely wrote at all this week. And I ate fast food every day and only went to the gym once. I did floss twice this week, which is a new record. Doesn't really seem like that should be pat-on-the-back worthy, though, considering I should floss every day, as my husband lovingly reminds me as he picks through his own teeth.
I did have one goal on Monday that I actually did accomplish this week, and that was finish reading "Julie & Julia" by Julie Powell. See, when I had originally thought about writing this book, I thought it would center around my struggle to recreate some of my grandfather's famous family recipes (I've since abandoned that premise because I've found way too many other things I want to write about, but I will still probably find a way to incorporate that idea into the book). My main connections to my grandfather are his house and his cooking. I'm the one he made the applesauce for, because he knew, come Sunday morning, I would be asking for it. And all of my cousins knew which of Grandpa's cupboards to go to to find freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. So Grandpa's food was always a big part of my life and a big part of my memory.
But to write a book about cooking? I had no idea where to start. So my first order of business was to find a role model of sorts, and what better place to start than the recently world-renowned phenomenon that is "Julie & Julia." Well, I had made the mistake of seeing the movie first, long before I had ever set it in my mind to write a book. And I was in love with the movie. I loved the chronological juxtaposition of the their lives--really everything about the way the story was told. And the Julie Powell in the movie was so likeable. I wanted to be her friend and go to her dinner parties.
Unfortunately, the things I loved about the movie were nonexistent in the book. But then I suppose my expectations were entirely unreasonable. But what expectation I didn't think was unreasonable was that she be able to write well. And in that aspect of the book, I thought she completely failed. I HATED her writing style. I felt like she was constantly breaking all the rules I had been reading about in my how-to-write books. And not just because she was a rebel. Just because she didn't know any better. It gave me a glimmer of hope for my work, though. If SHE can get published, hell, so can I.
She did have some interesting insight into the blogging world, which I will quote from her novel now because it was basically the only passage I liked in the entire book. And pardon the cursing in advance... she has a really dirty mouth.
"Today when we blog about our weight-loss problems and our knitting and our opinion of the president's IQ level, we do it on the blithe assumption that someone gives a shit... Nowadays, anyone with a crap laptop and Internet access can sound their barbaric yawp, whatever it may be. But the surprise is that for every person who's got something to say, it seems there are at least a few people who are interested. Some of them aren't even related."
I give her mad bonus points for using "yawp," mostly because I believe she learned that word, as I did, from the movie "Dead Poet's Society" and not from reading Walt Whitman. And for the record, I have a desktop computer, though now that I am getting friendly with my kitchen table, I'd settle for a crap laptop instead. And half of my comments thus far have been from relatives, but that means half are not. Then again, there's only been 4 comments total so that's not saying much.
As torturous as I felt this book was to read, I figured I had to finish it anyway because if I was going to talk badly about it for the whole world to see, I should at least have read it cover to cover. And truth be told, I'm glad I did, because the last five pages hold more insight than the 302 that precede them. And while she was writing about Julia Child's death, it felt as if she was writing my novel for me.
She writes, "I have no claim over the woman at all, unless it's the claim one who has nearly drowned has over the person who pulled her out of the sea... When you don't believe in heaven, death is about as 'The End' as you can get... I believe that her body's buried... and the brain and heart and experience that made that body Julia have been extinguished. All that's left of that is what resides still in our memories. But that's a kind of afterlife, too, isn't it?"
So while I got a few poignant thoughts out of Ms. Powell, in the end, it turns out that reading that novel was, in general, a waste of my time. Where she was writing a book about writing a blog, I am writing a blog about writing a book. And it just goes to show that I need to spend more time writing and less time reading. So this Sunday night (my in-laws are coming this weekend, so it can't be any earlier... besides weekends are free zones, remember?), I'll make another resolution to write write write my heart out and hopefully get some pages done. And to make matters worse, my husband and I are going to start looking for a house, which only means my already hectic life is about to get even more crazy and sporadic, so I have to take time for writing now and get it into my schedule so when life throws me curveballs, I'll be able to dodge them.
Also, I've been thinking maybe I should also be trying to find magazines that take submissions of articles, get used to writing things on certain topics and deadlines and sending them out. "Creative Nonfiction" magazine is taking articles about food (could they pick a more broad topic?!) until September, so I'm trying to think about something to write for that. I figure it'll only prepare me more for the toils that lay ahead. If anyone knows of any other outlets I could write for, send 'em my way. Please and thank you.
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