on finishing the novel

 It's hard [impossible] to say when a book [story] [poem] is finished [beyond the moment it's printed, of course]. But there has to be a moment when the writer stops and looks and says, "There. It is what it is." I don't know exactly what it was, last night, that made me sit back and say this about my novel. What final word gave the manuscript its thingness, its completeness. I opened the door to my little writing studio, went down the hall and into the kitchen, poured one swallow, each, of champagne [cava] into two glasses.

Me being the ritualistic person I am, the over-celebrator I am, I took some time to decide which glasses, and I finally chose the thick ones with the little starbursts etched in, the ones Stephen's grandmother gave him [left to him?]. Stephen always says Grandma Betty was the person who most encouraged his art, who taught him to "see." [She makes a tiny appearance in my novel, and Stephen's art makes a huge appearance.] I took the glasses the two steps out into Stephen's studio and handed him one. I said, "I've signed the painting."

[grandma betty]

Stephen says he knows a painting is finished when he looks and looks and his eye doesn't show him anything to change anymore. Then he signs it. He knows he'll continue to fuss with the painting after it's signed, sometimes for a long time, before the coat of varnish goes down, but for him, once he's signed it, it's finished. I know I'll fuss with the novel, and if it has the luck to be run through the ringer that is the agent process and the editor process and the publication process [a pact cosigned by Mephistopheles would help], I'll be doing much more than fussing with it, but for me, the signature's gone on the painting.

[delacroix' mephistopheles]

Funny thing, mentally signing my work. I spent so much of my childhood and young adulthood hating myself that things like my name left a bad taste in my mouth just because they were mine. I almost never said my name out loud, and writing it down was like writing the name of that bully "friend" who used to ridicule you and made you ride horses in fourth grade [smelly].

When I started workshopping the novel, the writers in my group would jot little wrap-up notes at the bottoms of my pages: "Gigi, this is..." Me being the ritualistic person I am, I would go home and consolidate all their notes into a master set of pages, making sure to copy their marks and comments exactly, including any spelling errors [don't ask me why], but in the beginning the one thing I didn't include was my name. I don't know when I started copying my own name down in these pages, but I do know that when I did, it was with the knowledge that the goodness of the process of really learning to write, and the loveliness of these amazing writers, not to mention Stephen at home, had helped me get to a place in my life in which I didn't hate myself anymore. If nothing more than this comes from these five years [six?] in Tom Spanbauer's basement [and that pact cosigned by Mephistopheles], it's still a wonderful, wonderful thing.

names not to name your dog

When Stephen and I finally got serious about looking at dogs for adoption, we came across a tiny guy named QBall. He was one of a few we met yesterday, and though he was incredibly cute (and I fell a little in love at first sight as he was very meticulously trying to attack a bit of fluff out of the air), he was more energetic than would be good in our apartment.

As we browsed doggies online, we've tried to keep the renaming impulse in check because that's far too personal before you know a dog is actually going to be coming to live with you. But we couldn't help it with QBall. When I got José, I would have liked to rename him, but I figured two and a half years old was too old - it would be too confusing. I don't think that anymore, and... well... QBall.

It's just not our kind of name.

[can i say, i still think horatio is one of the best dog names ever...]

We couldn't help but play the rename game with QBall, wondering if there was something we could come up with that rhymed or sounded similar...

Screwball...

U-Haul...

Ru Paul...

website

It was quite a process for me, helping put together my website. After I started negotiating with Charles Dye on the project, I stalled the project for some three months just to work on the first step. The masthead... or what I've been calling the masthead, although that's probably not the technical term. I knew I wanted the image at the top to be a piece of a painting I did called Still Life With the Devil - which you can see in full at the top of the blog. Doesn't seem that difficult to take a thin slice of a painting and run your name across it, but it was quite a math problem, fitting it all together just right, especially since the book in the painting is slanted just slightly.

Charles was so patient with me as the weeks wore on and I played around with try after try...







That's a lot of time spent looking at your own name.

I've never been quite comfortable with that person, that person with that name*, so it was an odd process to be creating a rather large cyberspace devoted to her, to me. And here I am, now, launching this thing, and Charles says let's have a launch party.

Let's throw a party to celebrate the me that put together a website to celebrate me. Heck, when I was a kid I was mortified at my birthday parties to open presents from friends because it felt too selfish.

But he's right, of course. Charles knows more than just how to frame a website that looks professional and contains just the right stuff in the right places. He knows about promotion, he knows what it takes to get people to look, which is why you put together a website in the first place.

He also knows that we writers are strange people--writing all the time to have our voices heard but often wanting to hide in the closet and not be seen. Really, this event on Thursday is more than a launch party for a website - it's another little step in my life, toward being comfortable as that person.

In the end, the masthead I went with was this one. And we were off and running, putting together the site. Charles asked me what I wanted out of a website, gave lots of great suggestions, and was never pushy if my ideas were different than his. I thought this was the perfect combination in a webmaster. It made me feel supported, made me feel I had an expert giving me expert advice, but that I was also creating something that was uniquely mine.

When he turned the keys over to me, he taught me really easily how to drive it on my own. He was very patient, he explained things well, and the transition was very smooth.

I'll be updating the site plenty. Soon, I'll be posting info about some upcoming reading events I'll be doing in conjunction with the next issue of Thumbnail Magazine. In the meantime, drop by the Blue Monk on Thursday night...

When: Thursday, February 10, 2011 9:00pm-ish

Where: The Blue Monk, 3341 SE Belmont, Portland

Facebook event invite is here.

[* it's not the name, of course, it's just the insecure inside the person. i think it's a perfectly fine name...]

ut omnia bene deflorescerent

I've always had a pretty hard crush on the ancient world. Reading about ancient history's nice because we know so much but we also know so little. So you can easily get inside those old stories and wear them like costumes, and it doesn't take long for them to fit you.

My favorite ancient Roman festival is the Floralia. It was a spring celebration in honor of Flora, goddess of flowers. The idea of a five day festival to ask for a blessing upon the flowers is lovely. Especially when the observance included eating, drinking, assorted merry-making, chucking garbanzo beans at people, and lots of theater where the actresses took their clothes off.

I guess it was a pretty bawdy holiday. Because, when it comes down to it, flowers are all about fertility. And there's just something extra cool about the combination of bawdy and sacred. Something so real.

One of the most intriguing aspects of Floralia to me was the incantation to the goddess.

ut omnia bene deflorescerent

I love those words. Especially the first three. Ut - in order that. Omnia - everything, all. Bene - good, well. I love how the elements of that phrase stand so far apart from each other. Like points of a triangle with room for air in between.

Deflorescerent is the word that snakes in and ties it all up together. And makes it about flowers. But leave that air in there, and anything could be as beautiful, as sensual, as real, as sacred.