inspired by our lovely weather…
here’s Lynda Barry’s interview where she talks about her process that i’m trying to rework…
CONCENTRATE!
This is the first in what I hope to be several exercises hatched under the influence of Lynda Barry. See, Lynda keeps a stack of index cards with different words on them, and every morning she gets up very early, gets her ink ready, dips her brush, and pulls out a word, and whatever that word is, she uses the image it conjures to start up a piece of writing. Whenever she can’t think of how to start out, she uses the words, “It was a time when…” and goes from there. And because she’s using the top of her brain to make the letters look neat with the brush, the bottom of her brain can work on the good stuff. Oh, and she can’t erase what she’s written. She wrote all of CRUDDY this way.
To try it out, I opened the dictionary, and the first word I looked at was “juice.” I started out with a big rectangular block of black, and started erasing…
…death to Microsoft Word!
GOING OUT OF BUSINESS
Recliners. Dust. Daybeds, loveseats. Jerry was old. Going out of business forever. No one in their right mind bought furniture anymore. Sitting down was a felony, and taking a nap was punishable by death.
How did it ever get to this point? He pulled out a stool. Bent his knees. Sat down. Sighed. Waited.
– a so-so fibonacci sonnet from last night’s writing group
KAFKA AT HIS DESK
“Poseidon sat at his desk, going over the accounts.”
So here’s Kafka at his desk. At the insurance company. All he wants to do is go home and get to Work, but instead, he’s got to be at the office, doing work. The problem is: he’s competent. This was supposed to be a “temporary” sort of gig, but they’ve promoted him twice in the last six months. They’ve got him writing memos. They’ve got him writing articles. Annual Reports. Lectures. Evaluations. The work piles up. Everybody loves him. “That Kafka,” they say, “he sure can write a memo!” He’s in his twenties. It’s a respectable job. His father brags to friends. He enjoys the bread, but the work means nothing to him. He dashes off e-mails to his girlfriend: “The office is a horror!” He only wants to Work, but he must work. So he writes in secret. He writes a story about a god who can’t be a God because he’s too busy doing godly paperwork. He writes a story about a faster who’s pretty much out of a job, because nobody sits around and watches fasters anymore–they have cable and internet. He writes a story about a guy who hates work so much that he transforms himself into a giant cockroach. (Think of the sick pay!) Then one day, with the Microsoft Word cursor blinking at him, his fingers hovering over the Minimize Shortcut [WINDOWS key + M], his nerves shot from looking out over his shoulder for snoopy co-workers passing the cubicle, Kafka has a revelation. “Screw it,” he says. “I’m going to go get my MFA.”
*sketch from Kafka’s notebook
IN HIS MOTHER’S HOUSE
He’s sneaking in his mother’s house—the place makes him ten instead of twenty. He keeps his shoulders square with the wall, back and neck pressed against the cool plaster, finger around the trigger guard of the gun. It shoots only caps, but he’s painted it black to make it look real. It would be useless against an intruder, but after all, this is only make-believe, and he is only playing. He loads the red ring of caps, spins the cylinder shut, and aims the barrel at the hallway bulb. A silent kerpow from his lips, a flick of the switch, and an explosion of imaginary glass and genuine darkness.
He’s keeping it dark. In case they come.
– from a new story