Do I Make You Sleepy?

I've battled insomnia for years, and have come to accept it as something that Sucks About Me. I won't take sleeping pills because I have an addictive personality (cigarettes; cheddar and sour cream chips; chocolate croissants; wine; chick lit) and I'm running out of room under my shame bush. Not to mention that in my younger years, I saw my insomnia as a virtue of sorts. I didn't need sleep! How cool was that? In high school, I could stay up until 5 a.m. reading in bed and be at first period only ten minutes late. (Like, every day. It's amazing I didn't get in trouble more often.) In college, I took a full course load, worked two jobs, ran five miles every day, got drunk nearly every night, and still managed to write when the rest of the town was asleep. I'm not saying I produced good work, but at least I could get it up. I had more energy than a coked-up seven-year-old boy.

Folks often lament that they "had so much energy" when they were young. These people are usually in their forties or fifties. What they don't tell you is that the torpor starts as soon as you trade in your Applebee's khakis for a fugly J.C. Penney suit. When you're twenty-two, not forty-two. Before you've had kids, before you've bought a condo, before you've really put that energy and wakefulness toward whatever big-effing-dream you had.

I still have insomnia, but I no longer have the energy for insomnia. It's not a virtue anymore, it's a curse. Instead of twenty-one productive waking hours a day, I have twenty-four hours of foggy confusion. Because I need to eat, pay rent, and go to happy hours, I have to keep a job. Keeping a job requires sleep, and so I've been forced to develop strategies to put myself to sleep, from breathing techniques to visualizing strange-colored animals. (The how-to: Close your eyes and say in your mind: Green bunny. Once a clear and detailed picture of a green bunny appears, move on to, say, purple tiger.)

And about a year ago I developed a very successful strategy: Build my dream house in my mind, room-by-room, in excruciating detail. Occasionally this exercise is distracting because I become depressed at my chances of ever owning this home. But, usually I don't get past the Italian tile and brick kitchen before I fall asleep, which translates to twenty-five minutes from the start of the exercise to snoring and sleepy ass-scratching. Before this, I had never been able to fall asleep in just twenty-five minutes.

But now I'm down to five minutes. FIVE MINUTES!--without four Strongbows. Right now the four of you reading this are asking, How Katie? How on earth have you reduced your time by Impressive%? (I tried to do the math but I don't think 212% is the correct answer.) What forward-thinking and creative technique have you pioneered?

I'll tell you, but I'm going to preface it with: I think it's ironic. (I can never really be sure with irony.)

The new technique involves trying to stay awake. How is that for reverse . . . psychosis? I've been beckoning, inviting, my insomnia, which has written some of my favorite things, in order to work through the first paragraph of my book in my mind. I call it mind-writing (catchy, eh?). Mind-writing allows ideas to grow like weeds in the fertile soil of your soul. Weeds are an integral component of the Garden of Ideas. Weeds can be identified and eradicated later, because they will have also fertilized big leafy plants of genius! One cannot recognize a flower without first naming the weeds. Mind-writing shall produce a stunning first line of prose that encapsulates all feeling in the world! The previous four lines will be the blurb for my new self-help book, Mind-Writing Your Way to the Bestseller List.

But I keep falling asleep before I mind-write the first line, let alone the first paragraph. My book is already a snooze and it's not even written.

But I need to write this first line. There is no book without a goddamn beginning. For inspiration, I have reviewed this amazing list of the 100 Best First Lines from Novels as chosen by the American Book Review. Inspired, I will draft at least five (well, if you know me, that means five) first lines to my novel. And then the four of you readers will vote! And then I will pretend to take your input into consideration! Watch this space, as they say somewhere I can't remember.

My Friend the Published Writer

I need to give big ups to my friend Jessy, who has recently achieved the impossible dream: publication. Jessy (Ms. Jessica if you're nasty) is currently in the Non-fiction MFA program at George Mason and has been working her butt off. She wrote an incredible short piece called Arlington which, to me, reminds us of how our past throws our emotions in our face at unexpected times.

Enjoy!

Jessica's Piece in Flashquake

Exercise: 5 of 7 in 7

Sixth Grade, New York

It's cold and I don't have a winter coat.
But my mom has one from the seventies.
Lilac corduroy, pleats, an oversized
peter pan collar filled with down.
It does not bear the name of a sports team.
My name appears at the top of the Big Tits list,
which finds its way to me in assembly.
Number two on the list is pregnant
within two months. She tells me over pizza
and I take her to the penny candy store,
fill her little white bag with whatever she wants.
At a sleepover in her huge Victorian
her mother pulls a knife and tells her to die.
In November I shoplift at the mall: hair clips,
silver nail polish, multi-colored button earrings.
I am caught and I think my dad won't love me
anymore. He does. Christmas is so white
we can't get our car out of the driveway
and we walk to mass in snowsuits. In the spring
my parents abandon their faith but make us keep ours.
My brothers wait until the car is out of sight and split
to smoke in the alleys and god knows what else.
I go in and I pray and sing the songs, and when I leave
the priest holds my hands and wishes me peace.

Exercise: 4 of 7 in 7

So, I missed yesterday because I had too much to drink at happy hour. Therefore, you get the special treat of two really self-absorbed poems in one day! Yes, it is your lucky day. The following two poems are what I call "drafts so rough they'll skin your knees."

Fifth Grade, Arizona

Of course it's hot. But hotter even
than I dreamed. Everything changes now,
the slice of life I knew dripped itself into a puddle
that disappears on the pavement. I spend
a lot of time alone. The house is empty of people
but I am given a cat. My new friend's parents
forbid her from my house: it is lawless,
we sit on the roof and we go to the playground
at midnight and no one is there to tell us not to.
In school I am considered very white
and there is a group of Mexican girls
who make a hobby of kicking my ass.
Meet us at the hill. I go, every day, for weeks
to take my beating. They throw me by my long hair.
One day I cry in the bathroom because
I have a knot in my hair larger than a grapefruit.
It's underneath but it begins to show through
the few untangled strands covering it. I cannot
brush it out. The brush is now stuck in the knot
which is stuck in my hair. One of the Mexican girls
rubs my back while I sob. In the long
sepia mirrors we look like friends.
Later in the year I do two amazing things.
I win a spelling bee. And I save a woman's life.
She was on the ground, flailing, pointing to her throat.
Her bike was beside her in the dust.
I ran very fast to the Circle K and soon the ambulance came.
I rode my bike miles to visit her in the hospital.
She promised me all the books I could ever want.
I wrote them down with my address in purple ink.
I never heard from her again.

Exercise: 3 of 7 in 7

This was just fun to write. It's difficult to write love poems of any kind, but it's a hell of a lot easier when it's a little baby niece like Wren.

Learning to Say

Wren says Hi!
when you enter, when you leave,
when you come back.
Wren says Hi! if you gush
at her over the phone,
Hi! if she sees you
smiling at her.

Wren's bow mouth makes little
oh sounds. She has something
she wants to say.
Wren says whoa
when she means whoa
with happy punches to the air.
Where did she learn that,
we ask. Little baby genius
says wow now. Wow at the cat's
swishing tail. Wow at her big
brother bouncing a ball. Wow
to a window pane shiny with sun.
Wren walks with the help of just
your pinky. Wow, wow.

Wren says more. More water,
more milk, more mini piles of mango.
Wren says baby. You say I love you,
baby. Wren says Hi!

Exercise: 2 of 7 in 7

This poem was very difficult to write, and I am not at all happy with it. But those are the breaks. I committed to this stupid, infuriating, dehumanizing exercise, and damn it, if it leaves me curled up in a ball on the bathroom floor twitching and writhing, I'll finish it.

The reasons this was difficult:

1. My closeness to the subject matter.
2. Using pop references in a poem is very tricky. You don't want to spell too much out, but you limit understanding if people don't know to what you are referring.
3. It's got a clunky metaphor, and that's never easy. How obvious do you make it? Is it too vague? Are you only seeing the sense behind it because you know what it means?
4. I've wanted to write this poem for several years and it never worked. Which is why I chose to write it when I have no choice but to write something. But that doesn't always produce good work.

Without further whiny disclaimers:


Christmas Music

Our first Christmas as a family of just four
brought snow as high as the windows.
A small morning in a small house.
We had a real tree. We would never
not have a tree, no matter what else
was missing.

My father put on The Carpenters Christmas Portrait
and made coffee. My first soothe
of milky darkness. Let your heart be light.

Two brothers: one found his affection
and it smoothed my hair. The other
gave me a cd wrapped
in Sunday comics.

Later there was a party across the snow city.
Our little Nissan slid its way,
Merry Christmas finger-written on the windows.

My brother pushed in the new cd.
The song turned our faces away from each other.
She's a brick and I'm drowning slowly.

We thought of the same brick.
The brick flew through our windows.
The brick landed on our toes.
The brick had a note taped to it
that we didn't need to read.
The brick sat cold.
The brick didn't move
if you kicked it.
The brick didn't hear
if you cursed it.
The brick wasn't a night light.
The brick didn't want you.
The brick may be affixed to your feet
as a means of finishing you off.

One of us hit play again.

Exercise: 1 of 7 in 7

Ways It Might End

i
Between your heart and my heart
is a big lake. With piranhas.
They arc toward us,
hideous dolphins.

ii
I can hear you breathing.
In whistle out whistle.
Blow your nose? Close
your mouth?
Maybe just stop
altogether.

iii
On a bench in the sun
the air agrass, the swings
holding children.

iv
From the side
sometimes you look
like my mother.

v
On a dark and stormy night
after two bottles of wine
and a fight over 
the last pickle.

vi
Do you love me?
Do you love me?
Do you love me?
Do you love me?

vii 
I'm too sad for kisses;
I would sob 
in your mouth.

viii
Too much Morrissey. 

ix
Here, I wrote you 
a poem.

x
When we're so old
the crushes have gone
the heat feels like home
our hands look just alike
the bed adjusts
one of us 
goes first.

Introducing Write Without Pay's First Exercise

I wrote poetry before I wrote anything else, and that's what I spent the vast majority of my time in college working on--both in my free time and in workshops. I really love poetry. I really loved writing poetry. But much like the rest of my writing, I just stopped.

My friend Jessy keeps encouraging me to go back to poetry. Her points are valid: I care about it; I was once good at it. But most importantly, she's right that it's writing. It's another way to keep writing.

Being the good friend I am, I listened to her. I recently returned to a wonderful community of highly critical poets (www.everypoet.org/pffa). I spent a lot of time there years ago. They welcomed me back with a challenge: Join the Seven/Seven adventure. The idea is to write seven poems in seven days. Egad! It can take me two or three weeks just to eke out a rough draft of a poem; the twenty-three revisions it then goes through adds several more months or years to the process.

I don't believe poetry can be rushed. I don't believe it can be churned out. However--forcing yourself to finish a poem in a set timeframe creates a point of departure. It exercises those ragged muscles called wordplay, sonics, metaphors, and so on. ATTENTION: These are not polished poems. DO NOT JUDGE ME, YOU JERKS!!

The challenge starts today and runs through Saturday. I bring you 7 in 7. 

I Need a Uriah Heep.

Last entry, I made a wee promise to myself that I would finish my book's outline by this Wednesday. I'm proud to say that I only half-broke my promise, in that I did outline quite a bit of the book. The best part of the exercise is that it bred other ideas. The plot was popping and crackling behind my eyes when I tried to sleep and caused me to clap my hands in excitement while toiling tirelessly away in my little gray cube. Not all of the ideas were good (I don't think I'll be introducing a musical prodigy named Symphony) but some of them I have come to believe are crucial to the plot. One of those ideas was the realization that my central conflict needs a villain. Okay, the more literary term is "antagonist" but "villain" implies all that fabulous slimy sneaky stuff that I'm going for.

And I want a subtle, non-violent villain. The kind that give you the heebie jeebies but are seemingly innocent. The kind of sleazy asshole that you probably have to work with every day. That guy who starts sentences with "Well, in my opinion . . . " He doesn't say anything directly rude or creepy, but it's there. And then one day you find out that he collects finger nail trimmings and has been mailing them in scented envelopes to his co-workers.

It's not surprising that the first villain I thought of was Uriah Heep, because David Copperfield is my favorite book. Not a popular choice with English majors, but I'm a maverick. (Just like McCain!) I'm not one of those people who claims they were reading 900-page classics at absurdly young ages, but I did first read David Copperfield at the age of seven. Of course, it wasn't until I was fourteen that I realized my treasured and worn copy was an abridged version. A very, very abridged version made just for little kids. It was probably shorter than Logan Likes Mary Anne (BSC foreva!) and was missing a lot of the sad parts. But I loved it. And when I realized that there were another 860 pages to the story, it was like finding that Kit-Kat you hid in the way-back of the fridge so your husband wouldn't eat it. 

One of the brilliancies (er . . .) of David Copperfield is the characterization. And Uriah Heep is one of the best-drawn characters in literature. He's so described. The way he moves, the way he looks, the way he talks. Just writing about him now has my lip curling in the thrill of distaste. 

Here's one of David's first interactions with Uriah Heep, when David is a child and Uriah a young apprentice, probably about sixteen or seventeen. 

Seeing a light in the little office, and feeling myself attracted towards Uriah Heep, who had a sort of fascination for me, I went in there instead. I found Uriah reading a great fat book, with such demonstrative attention, that his lank forefinger followed up every line he read, and made clammy tracks along the page (or so I fully believed) like a snail.

And if you've ever read the book, you'd recall Heep's writhing out of eagerness to please, his sweaty palms, which he wipes on a pocket handkerchief, and his constant references to being "ever so umble" (humble with an accent). It almost doesn't matter what his crime is; Dickens could have him save a house full of puppies, and we'd still hate him.

I want a Uriah Heep for my book. But he can't, obviously, be Uriah Heep. I can't steal him or re-invent him. I just want my bad guy to be as good.

You four loyal blog readers: I'd love to hear your favorite literary antagonist. I want to study up on this.