My Agent

Hardest working agent in the book biz. So glad she is mine!

xxoo, Suzie

Queer Divine Dissatisfaction

I just hit send.

Meaning, I just sent my heavily revised MS to my editor/s. Meaning I am now on vacation for 2 weeks. Meaning I am shitting myself. Meaning I will now take a little nap, awake, and then put together a toy chest from IKEA. Meaning I am very sad that this part of the process is over.

Have I ever been happier? Not really. I loved writing on a deadline. I loved being with Keek every day. I loved that people were waiting for IT, what I was WRITING, with baited breath. I know there's still a ways to go. They might hate it. They might want 400 more pages by next weekend. They might take out my favorite parts. There is work to be done! But still. This part is over and I'm sad and exhausted and am reminded of this:

"There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. ... No artist is pleased. [There is] no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others"

--Martha Graham

Truth Has a Name and it is Peter K Steinberg

So I'm working on this book about a girl who is obsessed with Sylvia Plath and The Bell Jar- have I mentioned this?- and I've become an admirer and pal of Plath scholar and champion Peter K Steinberg and his great blog Sylvia Plath Info.

Remember your junior year of high school when you had that English teacher who was tough as nails and would give you an F if your A paper wasn't stapled correctly?

The one who made you pay ATTENTION to commas?

The one who made you make clear and precise arguments to defend your views on great literature?

The one who you loved to mock because she wore bobby pins in the back of her head to keep a cowlick down and you'd sit there in class furious that you wanted to impress her so bad with your amazing English Language Skills?

For me that teacher was Mrs. Cain and it is a great thrill to discover that Mr. Steinberg is of the Cain school of citing and attribution. In a world where media is transient as summer tan lines and twitter is re-wiring our brains and kids in the UK don't get married anymore I am tickled pink that there are a rare and honorable few who know how important words are. And he mentioned my little project here, so. There's that too. XXOO Peter! Keep fighting the good fight! And thank you for paying close attention.

I Should Be... Tweeting?

Writing

Writing

Writing

Writing

Not whatever the hell I think I am doing that is so much more important than writing.

Oh yeah, and I'm tweeting now. Reluctantly. Come! Follow me! Because I am so effin facinating you just can't get enough.

ugh.

@ArlainaT if you are interested.

DEADLINE LOOMS... the art is by Maissa Toulet. She is French. These are from 2008 and I love them.

Sylvia Plath is Lavishly Apt

Anagrams are my new favorite thing.

And so is this:

And I am nearing the finish line with the pages here.

And loving it!

And hating it!

Equally!

Talk more soon...

xxoo

Great Literature Blows My Mind

This is a new gem from my pal Peter K. Steinberg at Sylviaplathinfo.blogspot.com. He's videotaping the actual public garden Plath writes about in Chapter 11. My favorite part is the end where Peter says he thinks that's what a weeping scholar tree is. It's beautiful and surreal, to see in real life what you have imagined in your own reader's brain a thousand times as you revise your YA book called Bell Jar Summer. In Chapter 11 she also mentions Chicago and imagines the intricacies involved in committing Hari Kari, "...they would jab in the knives in and zip them around, one on the upper crescent and one on the lower crescent, making a full circle. Then their stomach skin would come loose, like a plate, and their insides would fall out, and they would die."

I know!

This whole video reminded me of the time I was in Russia in 1994 post Perestroika and Galsnost, pre now. I was a Russian Lit freak (are you surprised?) and in love with Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita and we visited Patriarch's Ponds in Moscow where the beginning of the novel is set and it was like walking fully awake through a recurring dream. On a corner of the deserted water there was a cafe with a giant menacing black cat painted on the wall (Behemoth) and we spent what little money we had left to eat real food there. The place was filled with drunk Russian gangsters and a skinny and terrified strolling violin player. There were roses on the tables and menacing hilarity throughout. If only I had a digital camera then.

To All My Friends!

Things are purring along here in Bell Jar Summer Land. The words aren't exactly leaping out of my brain onto the page but, they are slowly but surely showing up for work. Bukowski, as played by Mickey Rourke in Barfly, said no writer worth anything wrote in peace. And thank christ because things are upside down and inside out and etc. all around me. Summer camp registration, laundry, dinner, can you pick up my kilt from the dry cleaner, blackberry washing, packing, car seat ordering, bed making, picture hanging, oh and my Mom's on her way to Paris, my baby needs a haircut and I can't tell if the dishes in the dishwasher are clean or dirty. We're off to Scotland in one week. I need 50 more pages of great genius. And YET!! I love it all! When I remember to eat is is standing over the sink and involves hummus, hot sauce, and some kind of whole wheat mini bagel or whole wheat tortilla. It's all good but. It's a lot. When I imagined my eventual rise to literary infamy it involved lengthy in-depth interviews on NPR, smoking while wearing cashmere and long un-interupted days immersed in language and nuance and insights to the human condition. Ah well. I'm doing it aren't I. Aren't I?