Recently a friend told me that it was funny that I said "Michael will catch us up" instead of the more standard American phrasing, "Michael will catch up with us." I had never noticed the difference, which is the funny thing to me, because there are many phrases where I get confused because I honestly can't remember which is the phrasing or spelling I grew up with, and which is the one used by the people I currently live amongst. It has taken over 35 years for me to figure out I can remember grey vs gray because the A in grAy stands for American.
This rambling is brought to you by the fact that I am taking a continuing education class and wanted to tell you about it, and started wondering if that phrase would make any sense to New Zealanders. It seems that at Otago they're using the term for professional refresher type courses for doctors? I can't really tell. "University extension"? Is that even a thing? Nope, that's an American phrase too? What do you call it if you just want to take a photography class? Do you do that at the polytech? See, I don't know anything any more.
Annnyway. I am taking an online class through Stanford's Continuing Studies program, you know, the kind that anyone in the community can take, without having to apply to be an actual student, with no degree credit. It is called Voice in Fiction: Style, Dialog, and Point of View, and I am loving it. I am loving having a community and I am loving having a focus. I am loving it so much that I applied to their Online Novel Writing Certificate, and on Thursday I found out that I got in, so I'll be taking a course a quarter for the next two years.
This summer's course is making me think about the craft of writing. Through readings, exercises, and feedback, the instructor is having us pay close attention to the texture of language and how it helps shape and reflect meaning. But at the same time, she is all about letting go, writing intuitively and playfully. It's like training at the gym then going out and running a race just on muscle memory and letting it happen. (She didn't say that, it's just how it feels to me).
One of the most exciting things is that I rewrote the first sentence of my book. Now, it is no "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife." (Such a deceptively simple sentence that one, yet it holds the entire book, the tension between society and the individual, and it tells you that there is in fact, no universal acknowledgement and Austen is promising us delicious conflict as a result). But my first sentence is better than it was. I'd share it with you but I just looked at it again and there's something about it that still needs work. So, not quite yet.
Instead, here is a thing I wrote as one of the weekly exercises. It is unpolished, but I had fun with it. "For a few days, try inventing a slew of fabulous sentences and paragraphs. As you go about your days, when something happens (either extraordinary or completely mundane), consider turning it into words right there." I wrote about the cats fighting and the scene from Romeo and Juliet just put itself in there, which is the wonderful thing about writing, how the very act is generative.
Cats are cautious until they are not. My cats fight in a studied dance at the top of the stairs, taking turns, gently reaching out with one paw to stroke, pat, bop, learning the other, as staged and serious as Tybalt and Mercutio circling in the street. Until the knife flies from Mercutio's hand, skittering into the lap of the audience member in the front row and Tybalt closes in. Until Alfie flips Ada over, clumps of white and gray fur scattering across the hardwood floors in the sunshine and the summer breeze. They break free. In this play, Mercutio never dies, 'tis but a scratch after all. He wanders away to find Romeo, together they will curl up in the sun and dream.
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| I have photographed so many versions of this interaction. |
Then one day the crossword clued, "do too" as "a playground retort to 'you have no idea'." So I wrote:
"You have no idea," sighed Eliza. She took a sip of her juice box then balanced it on the railway tie holding in the swings. She picked up three woodchips escaping into the grass and tossed them back into the play area. "No. Idea."
Rose dropped her head between her knees, wiped her grass-stained hand on the side of her flowered bike shorts.
"Do too," said Rose.
"Nuh uh," Eliza shook her head. At seven years and ten months she was one year and two months older than Rose. Eliza counted on her fingers. That was fourteen more months of karate, a whole year more of riding the school bus. Eliza was reading chapter books. Rose, on the other hand, still played with her Barbies unironically. She had no idea about anything.
This week is Figurative Writing, which it turns out I don't really do and I'm exploring why.
Now, an experiment. My old blogging site never let me post my own videos, only you tube. So lets see what happens when I try: .... ok, it does let me upload from my computer... processing ... still processing... it is a 50 second video, how long does processing take... oh, we've been trained for things to be instant, I forget how much data is in a 50 second video ... still processing. I'm going to go get lunch and see what's happened when I come back... OMG I think it worked? Maybe not, because it only likes landscape... previewing my post isn't helping, I might have to publish then take all this out if it doesn't work? Oh, I think it sort of kind of works. Thanks for bearing with me. Future videos will be better in all regards.
