Revisiting Fight Club

After listening to the interview with Chuck Palahniuk (reshared November 18, 2023), I reread Fight Club.  If you haven’t listened to this interview, it’s worth it.  He’s fascinating. 

I recall reading Fight Club 20 years ago and thinking that, aside from the ending (which was actually better than the movie), most of the book was similar to the movie.  Strange, but the movie adapted the book well with the voice-over narration and the unreliable narrator.  It worked well.

 

On my most recent reading of Fight Club, however, I focused on Palahniuk’s use of rhetoric and rhythm. 

 

Bob’s big arms were closed around to hold me inside, and I was squeezed in the dark between Bob’s new sweating tits that hang enormous, the way we think of God’s as big.  Going around the church basement full of men, each night we met: this is Art, this is Paul, this is Bob; Bob’s big shoulders made me think of the horizon….

Bob’s shoulders inhale themselves up in a long draw, then drop, drop, drop in jerking sobs.  Draw themselves up.  Drop, drop, drop.

I’ve been coming here every week for two years, and every week Bob wraps his arms around me, and I cry.

Fight Club, 16-17

 

Bob, Chloe, the nameless boss, Marla.  Yes, the movie gave them mass exposure, but the book describes them with metaphors, rhetorical repetition, and yes, a bit of music. 

Add in violence and the lost generation and a crazy narrator, and no wonder this book is such a crazy success.  Funny, when I first read this, I knew the writing was smooth and easy, but I’m developing a deeper appreciation his the complexity of his style.

 

So You Wanna Be A Writer by Charles Bukowski

This poem shakes me a bit.  I can't say whether this inspires me or terrifies me.

Novelist interview-Chuck Palahniuk

This YouTube channel is called, "Soft White Underbelly," and Nick has been listening to these videos.  

Nick played this one for me, and this left me a bit speechless--well, it's Chuck Palahniuk.  His background and story sound like a crazy novel alone, but he talks about writing and workshops and style, too.  

I may need to reread a few of his books and study his style a bit closer.

Everything You Need to Know About Writing Workshops from ShaelinWrites

This is a reshare from ShaelinWrites.  I've listened to a few of her videos, and she is very insightful and smart.  She has some great thoughts about writing workshops in this video.

Interestingly, we had some drama in our workshop last week, and as long as I have been in this workshop (15 years?), the drama always surprises me.  I expect people to respect others and put in the effort that the writer expects others to put into his piece.  This is not so.

That being said, Shaelin comments on a few things that I would love to reinforce and a few things that I would like to respectfully disagree.

She told a story about a writing teacher that opened the class explaining that the people in workshops will be your best friends, future spouses, and mortal enemies.  I love this.  Writing is so vulnerable that when you trust your workshop groups with your deepest, dearest treasures--and you trust them to criticize your treasures--this suddenly deepens your trust and love for these people.

She says the ideal group is 4 people of your friends because 4 people will have the opportunity to say everything and because they are invested in you and understand you.  I was in a workshop of 4 friends once, and this was horrible.  We met for about two years, but we were unfocused and unorganized.  I am currently in a group that is around 10, depending on the week, and the diversity of opinions is excellent.  Also, I think there is a danger in trusting your friends because they may know you well and make assumptions about what you write based on what they know about you.

In the video, she also talks about forming a workshop based on compatible writers working in compatible genres with similar skill levels.  I'm not sure I agree with this.  Shaelin is talking about a smaller group, but in our slightly larger group, I like working with different writers, different genres, and different strengths and skills.  Different genres shouldn't really matter in a group because we should all be working with the same basic elements and tools, and we should be trying to help each other make our work stronger.  Additionally, different skills and strengths help us all to learn lots of tools and perspectives.

The last section Shaelin talks about is workshop etiquette, and I may suggest adding something about this to our workshop guidelines in the future.  Be objective, avoid moral judgement, help the writer improve,  and don't try to be the smartest or best.  Last, help the writer, and the writer helps everybody; put into the critiques what you expect others to give you.

Lots of good information in this video although it is a little long.  

The Contemplation of Gabby's Name, or A Dirge to Gabby

The Naming of Cats 

By T.S. Eliot 

The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter, 

It isn't just one of your holiday games; 

You may think at first that I'm as mad as a hatter 

When I tell you, a cat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES.

First of all, there's the name that the family use daily,
Such as Peter, Augustus, Alonzo or James,
Such as Victor or Jonathan, George or Bill Bailey—
All of them sensible everyday names.
There are fancier names if you think they sound sweeter,
Some for the gentlemen, some for the dames:
Such as Plato, Admetus, Electra, Demeter—
But all of them sensible everyday names.
But I tell you, a cat needs a name that's particular,
A name that's peculiar, and more dignified,
Else how can he keep up his tail perpendicular,
Or spread out his whiskers, or cherish his pride?
Of names of this kind, I can give you a quorum,
Such as Munkustrap, Quaxo, or Coricopat,
Such as Bombalurina, or else Jellylorum-
Names that never belong to more than one cat.
But above and beyond there's still one name left over,
And that is the name that you never will guess;
The name that no human research can discover—
But THE CAT HIMSELF KNOWS, and will never confess.
When you notice a cat in profound meditation,
The reason, I tell you, is always the same:
His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation
Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name:
His ineffable effable
Effanineffable
Deep and inscrutable singular Name.

Our cat, Gabby, died a couple of weeks ago.

 

We didn’t name Gabby.  She came with that name, and I never thought it suited her.  I thought she should have a stronger, more unique name.  T.S. Eliot comes to mind.  She certainly would engage in some sort of rapt contemplation of thought.  Maybe even about her name.

I think Gabby had at least a few other names that we only guessed at.

 

Nick called her Crazy Cavewoman Bat-Killer from time to time.  She earned this name for the murderous, merciless killings about which we bragged (mice and bats primarily).

 

Certainly, she was Dumpster Diver, too, for her veracious appetite and demand for any human scraps we would share with her.  She even dug into our trash for meat wrappers, cat food cans, and certainly anything that smelled like fish.

She was Snuggler, too, because of how she would sleep on my head, hogging the pillow, so I fell asleep with her warm body smushed next to my face.  Funny, after I fell asleep, she would get up and wander off to sleep in the kitchen almost as if she just wanted to make sure I had gotten to sleep.

 

She was Little Puppers.  She would meet us at the door whenever she heard us coming, talking and demanding food and tripping us, almost like a little puppy who was so glad we were home.  

She was Reading Companion.  I would sit in my favorite green chair, and within minutes, she would snuggle next to me.  Even now as I write, I sit to one side of the chair, leaving space for her to join me.

If you are not a cat person or a pet person, I expect you not to understand.  We anthropomorphize our animals and sometimes treat them better than people.  

 

But I miss my little, Cavewoman, Bat-killer, Dumpster Diver, Puppers, and whatever her Ineffable Name is—the name that was much more dignified and wilder than Gabby.

 

The First Guy To Ever Write Fiction--reshare from Ryan George

I recently found Ryan George, and he does these skits about the "First guy ever to" do such and such.  I find these videos quite amusing.

The one above is about fiction, so I'm sharing this here.  Enjoy!

Estes is a Rotating Thing: a Desire... a River... and a Moment Before a Fire

Desire Will Take Me Over A Mountain: Whatever you can give

In the high desert I swam rivers of brine, sand, and sheen; the burn was unforgiving and blinding; the path of uprooted stones that cracked bones and scraped flesh led me recklessly between stabbing, dry thorns of Time.

-----------------

One thought settled beyond where the sun goes to set

One thought to renew at dawn a tempest to catch;

I long for you -- a taste of you, but whatever you can give, Man; 

I’d take.

----------------

Above the timberline I failed a hundred times, to move; instead, I sublimed to the vacuum of primigenial you; my breath the permafrost I must cross to fall, to tumble over the other side at breakneck speed.

----------------

Failing to grasp what’s obvious to me

these events of our past on this rotating thing;

I wish for clarity -- a reasoned transaction with you; yet, whatever you may give, Man; 

I’d take.

----------------

I carried some hope and sure; I'd admit it's unsteady in my head

either you hand me some rope to settle this thought; or laid it down in your bed;

When I reach for your hand  -- or fall into your scorn; whatever you might give, Man; 

I’d take.

RS Wireman

Big Thompson

Big Thompson 

Spirits stumble and slip 

A river of hurt 

in ‘76

RS Wireman

The Gift is to Know a Moment When Living in the Moment: Just Before the Firestorm

Just before the firestorm came -- and you can smell it and sense it’s nearing -- the highland still died and still lived as it had always done before my primate foot had settled on the ancient and new clays in the moraine. Yet, the talent of the hominid is not only to mark, deliberate and judge a moment, but to reserve it and all the philosophical axons to physical memory for reflection-- to stimulate the moment again... and whether it hurts them in the long run or renews the spirit daily. A moment captured before a big fire could touch a valley some weeks later is an attempt to contextualize reality from sky to stone to smoke to bone to shoe prints on a worn, rocky, and rooted elk-horse-homo sapiens sapiens trail.

The moment moves like the elk and bends like the grass and, yes; flows away from the river and against the wind like the entirety of an afternoon on Earth. And it makes sense to those that can be made aware. Though the human memory will generalize it or fade it across time the quantifications and the intensity of a moment and its colors, the brain of a man will have successfully metamorphosed its data into raw emotions of knowing: knowing, knowing, knowing what beauty, significance, and the pending end of that moment -- and all these things at once: the burnt smoke remnants of life that hovered above us and then some miles away made brown the dusk of nurturing light that feed the green at our knees as it leaves us behind our multi-dimensional mountainscape.

RS Wireman

The Lakes

Forever the chilled dew of sunrise and dry smoldering sunfall 
stretched us and quantified us in increments of altitude as we
hiked, rested, drank, listened, smelled, exhaled, observed 
while we climbed ever so carefully with each step carried along with
the flow of time to bring us, give us, measure us, as we tie ourselves to a day. 

We had so much to do and did so much
in just ten hours in the mountains: Bear Lake, Dream Lake, Haiyaha Lake; and more
where time is expended as the Universe prefers: as if an illusion, but as real as it could ever be; 

and the next day took an entire dimension to arrive 
as the flow of these precious moments is forever the chilled dew of sunrise… the dry smoldering sunfall... the desire to do it all over again if blessed with the breath.

RS Wireman

Prologues - The On-going Debate

One of the discussions during our in-person meeting with the writing group was prologues.

I have gotten a "reputation" in our writing group for telling writers to get rid of their prologues.  

I write this with a smile.  

In the above video (which I must say, I am enjoying Brandon's videos quite a lot although I do not always agree with what he says), prologues (prologs?) are defended.  

I have read some wonderful prologues, but mostly, the writers I have seen use them artfully have not written them in the last fifty years or so.  Many of the prologues I have read in novice novels seem to fail for all the reasons Brandon McNulty discusses above--but I could probably add a few more reasons to the list.

In the meantime, I challenge the writing group to seriously evaluate the intent of a prologue before they follow this trend--a trend that seems to have lost its punch.  Mostly, prologues seem to promise action or mystery or tension in the pages to follow, but the writer shouldn't need a few pages before the book begins to tell the reader that the book is going to be interesting.  This should be in chapter one.

Online groups meet IN PERSON

Our writing group met informally in-person back in May.  I intended to write about this because I have a couple of quick thoughts about this fantastic evening.  

Food, beer, conversation, and loveliness ensued.  

Funny, when we met regularly in-person (pre-Covid, of course), we knew each other better, chatted more, bonded more.  Online, we may focus more on the submissions, but I think we lack the comraderie that makes a writing group bond and connect in meaningful and lasting ways.

Tom and I talked a bit about the benefits of meeting online versus meeting in person.  

Tom likes the online meetings because we stay more focused and finish on time.  

This is certainly true.  He has a valid point about this.

I miss the face-to-face interaction.  Pre-Covid, we would hold our meetings but chat after.  Sometimes for a long time.

We certainly talked about our projects and writing, but we knew bits and pieces about each others' lives, too.  In a strange way, we felt like a tighter community back then.  The relationships within the group seem stronger and more enduring.

And while I mean no disrespect to the people that have joined the group since Covid, I do not feel the bond that I have with the others.  

But meeting in a restaurant, to talk about writing, to see how tall and good looking they are (they are all good looking online, but even more attractive in person), and to share a bit of our lives seems to strengthen the community in ways that Zoom cannot do.

Couple more thoughts on this to come....

Bad Dialogue vs Good Dialogue (Writing Advice) by Brandon McNulty

Just watched this video.  This has some interesting and amusing examples of good and bad dialogue, and the explanations are fantastic.  

Worth the watch.

I'm going to watch some more of Brandon McNulty's videos.  Anyone know his books?

Online Writing Groups--Another Chapter

 Funny, Covid started two years ago, and although the worst of it has passed, our writing group, like so many other events in life remain in that small electronic box.

The last years I haven't written much.  I have plenty of excuses.  Lots of them.  I pray that these excuses will dwindle in the coming years.  

The writing group remains my link to the world of writing.  Well, I suppose I have other threads that tether me to this world, but mostly, my memories of this life and the web in this part of my brain sometimes seem to be withering.  One of the many excuses I have for not writing is maintaining the plants in my yard--flowers from my grandmother mostly.  I am grateful to have these flowers bloom in the Spring.  But as they bloom, parts of me seem to wither.

The writing group reminds me that I have a life that many others do not.  Often, before I log on for our writing group, I wish for more time to prepare my notes for the writers and want to remember the terms like I once did.  Always, after we finish with the little square, electronic session, I shut down my computer, have a quick conversation with Randy, and sigh.

I feel liked.  Appreciated.  Respected even.

The people in the writing group seem to appreciate my feedback and value what I have to say.  

This feeling lifts my heart and warms my soul.

And I remember that a part of me is not a slave to a corporation, a part-time gardener, and all of the other duties that take up my time and turn into the excuses keeping me from writing.  Even if I am not actively producing writing, I support other writers in their work and get to talk about writing.

This is something for now.  Something pretty good.

I look forward to meeting our small group in person for a Spring gathering.  This time brings hope and encouragement to my heart.

A Late Christmas Present

A few weeks ago, a small package arrived--yes, a late Christmas present.  My husband is not perfect, but he has this magical ability to find thoughtful and meaningful gifts--I have always been lousy at buying presents.  I struggle and debate about Christmas presents, trying to find something unique or interesting or practical.  Nick can always find something right, and I marvel at this wonderful ability.

I unwrapped the package.  It was a lovely Graham Greene first edition--but a title I did not recognize.  That in itself is unusual.  The only reason I have not read all of Graham Greene's books is because I'm trying to savor them a bit.

But this book is more unusual than that.

The Name of Action is the title, and as I opened the lovely old cover, my husband told me more about this one.

The Name of Action is Graham Greene's second novel.  This book, the one in the picture, is a first edition, but this is the only edition Graham Greene printed.  

He didn't care for the book.  I believe he hated the book.  When the publisher asked for a second printing, he refused, and only 1,000 books were printed.  That was in 1930.

Who knows how many copies are left?

I ashamed to say that I have not read it yet.  It is wrapped in bubble wrap on my desk, waiting for me to finish the Taylor Caldwell book I started around Christmas.  

This little book makes me smile.  As much as I admire Graham Greene, he wrote this book and didn't like it.  Even as a young and struggling writer, he wouldn't publish more copies.

I can sympathize with this.

Can't wait to read it.

12 Ways to Write Better Sentences for Creative Writers

Listened to this last week.  I like this....

Happy New Year!  Time to write!