Gravitas

So, Morgan Freeman's voice... it is very good isn't it? We just saw Invictus. (And then we snuck into The Blind Side to complete our weepy athletic movie marathon). It is twenty-five dollars for two people to go to the movies here in LA, before they consume any candy so we feel it is right to dock them one movie.

My profoundly principled, very distinguished looking, silver haired father protests the extortionate prices at Foodland (our very literally titled Hawaiian grocery store) by shoplifting exactly three green chilies every time he goes in there. If questioned, my father would say "Yes, I have three chilies in my pocket. Your prices are absurd and so I am adjusting them. Please explain your rampant over-pricing."

Alternatively, if I were caught in a movie I did not pay for, I would turn bright red, flee and never return. Dicey stuff at your favorite movie theatre.

But Morgan Freeman's voice... it carries weight and a sort of gravelly vibrancy. He has gravitas. It is not so much what he says, but the restraint, timbre and pitch of how he says it. Last night we saw Hitchcock's Rebecca. Laurence Olivier as Maxim de Winter: gravitas. I am currently working out how to write gravitas. The trick lies somewhere in creating a character who says much less than he knows and thoroughly respects his weight in the world without arrogance. The "he" in that sentence is not sexist coincidentally--I went to Mount Holyoke and have been thoroughly schooled to read the "his" in "history" and the "men" in "women" but in this instance the character I am writing is male and I cannot bear over-scrutinized semantics.

On paper, the air has to shift imperceptibly when this character enters a room. Just as it does when a person of substance joins a breezy conversation. Suddenly, everyone thinks about what they say just a bit more carefully. Verbal sails get trimmed and arguments are more carefully plotted. But how to write that without over writing that? Gravitas, like mystique collapses if it is over-examined or over-explained.

I suppose gravitas would be to simply produce the stolen chilies and expect the store to explain themselves rather than vice-versa.

Character Names

So I have a thing about names. I am one of those people who collects names. Names of people, places, colors, rooms, rugs, furniture, flowers, shoes--everything. I collected names even when I was deep in the trenches of BA, MA, PhD academic critical theory with no where to put a fictional character let alone worry about the name, shoes or street address.

There are names I have always liked, names that lose their freshness and I grow out of them, and then names that grow on me and I like more and more. The smaller fictional characters in my book were cast and recast from a roster of these names. Cooks, footmen, bakers all gradually shifted in and out of monikers. Surprisingly their personalities shifted to match. Sophie the cook was softer and sweeter and wore comfortable shoes whereas when she became Agnes she grew far more stern, wore durable shoes and put less sugar in her pies.

Anywhere I could I would use the historical name, and these names went a long way towards defining the character for me. When I found that King Charles II's favorite spaniel was called Dot, that changed both the king and his pet for me. I decided that a man who named his dog Dot wore colorful dressing gowns.

Funny how names change the light and the walk and the dress and the shoes of a character just as they change a ballgown or a pair of jeans. There is a reason trendy jeans all sport human names. I love True Religion "Joey" jeans. I can't wear the "Billy" (drainpipe skinnies) or the "Cassidy" (huge flares) but am seriously considering the "Becky". Becky and Joey just sound friendlier don't they? Billy and Cassidy sound intimidating.

I have a beloved friend from university whose family has a rare animal farm in Yorkshire. All of the rare sheep have what he calls "old lady" names like Maud and Effie. That has always seemed so right. My brother's dog is Gordon--of course he is. He is a fussbudget and a profoundly odd but truly lovable dog who could only be called Gordon. When I was ten I looked after a friend's hamster called Puff. Puff just sat there eating and getting puffier. It fit.

For Myself

So I have been nervous about putting this blog out there. I have been discreetly sending it to a friend here and a family member there but have hesitated to send it out to the world at large. My wonderful friend Melissa (who is about to start reading a wonderful translation of War and Peace) just told me,

"I know. It is hard to do things for yourself. Just put it out there. People love when people write."

People love when people write. What an utterly lovely, confidence growing thought. That made me really happy.

How I Read

I am reading the most fantastic translation of Anna Karenina. It is brutal and lucid and utterly unlike the prissy, clean, Victorian version I remember. I have read Anna Karenina at least three times since I first plowed through it in tenth grade (with most of it sailing several miles above my geeky, little head) and this is not the same book. It is heavy, messy and I take it with me everywhere.

Living on an island--an island with a Borders Books that is desperately low on books this year--can be tough for someone who consumes books the way I do. I love the idea of the library but after reading a book I just do not want to give it back. I am just not that good a person. A book is thoroughly mine when I am done with it. I write in the margins, inside the front cover, over the text, under the text, around the text and all sorts of other prepositions too. I tear out bits of paper to give notes to other people. I never just put a number in my phone but scribble it in my book only to most likely forget which book it is in later.

I stuff my book with: movie stubs, receipts, phone numbers, doodles, random bits of scribbled on paper, shopping lists, rail tickets, plane tickets, photos, business cards and anything else from the life I was living while I was reading that book. Anna is currently sporting a baggage claim stub, a plane ticket, notes on Frost's "Out, Out" (for my 12th grade student that I wrote while waiting in line at CVS), two Twilight: New Moon movie tickets (I convinced Noah to see it on his birthday no less), receipts from Chipotle (super veggie burritos for only 3$), six phone numbers and reminders to call the six people, eleven words I love, receipts from the Kilauea Shell Station, beach sand, a written out copy of W.H. Auden's "The Fall of Rome" that I wrote in line at Whole Foods, two dollars, and a bit of sticky candy cane. Priya was definitely here.

As a result the book gets fat, distorted, unwieldy and liable to come apart and spill its very personal contents all over the floors of very public places--not good. Yesterday just this happened at the Starbucks at the top of the Barnes and Noble here in Hollywood where there is never anywhere to sit. The skinny jeans, black trendy plastic glasses, expensively spikey haired young man next to me gave me a pityingly condescending "you shouldn't do that to books" sort of look. The plastic tagged Barnes and Noble man at the information desk gave me the "I really hope you paid for that and are not just trying to make it look like that is your book" kind of look. (Although I might have imagined that one as I have an abject paranoia of being called out as a shoplifter when I walk into a bookstore with my own book.)

To make matters worse I teach my students to write, underline, annotate and generally think out loud inside their books. I love the messy, personal and utterly undignified result.

News

I have not written since October! From now on I will write on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays and other times as well. A schedule! I love schedules!

So, what has happened. To start with, THE ORANGE GIRL is now EXIT THE ACTRESS. I know! Did you see that--it looks like I pulled a whole other book out of a hat. But no. My publishers wanted a more theatrical sounding name and so voila: my original title. (Cannot find the right key for the accent on voila and so it looks a bit like it left home without its trousers on--my apologies.)

I love the new title. I loved the old title but was a times concerned that it might sound like I was talking about one of the Muppets--this is better. Somehow the letter "x" in the title gives it a biker jacket, high heels sort of feel--very exciting.

So what else has happened? I am en route to NYC where I will meet my publishers for the first time! So far everything has been done by phone/email/post. I am only slowly en route. I left Hawaii just before Thanksgiving and am still only in Los Angeles--geriatric turtles are faster than me.

And! I got a startlingly short haircut. You know when you think you want it short but then are terrified by the result? Oh yes, my friends. She used a razor on my neck to get the last few stragglers. Very alarming. As I am blind as a bat and too self conscious to wear my glasses while getting a haircut--the tarp/towel/foil/bam bam hairclip combination is bad enough; glasses just push it right over the edge--it is always a bit of a shock once I see the result. Now I love my relative baldness but at the time... you know those girls who turn bright red, sniffle and try not to cry in the hair salon? Oh yes.

So: new title, new city, new hair, tons of reading, research, editing, teaching, and walking. Not bad for the last few months.

Wonderful News!

My mentor, friend and former employer Eve Ensler was just named one of US News and World Report's 'Best Leaders'! It is utterly true.

Eve is different. She instinctively thinks on a different scale. Her mind, heart, empathy, and determination are of an enormous scope, as if she were drawn by giants. I will never forget one day in London when I had been working for her for about thirty-six hours and was listening to her give a telephone interview. The interviewer asked in a vaguely condescending tone, if she really believed that an end of violence against women was possible on this planet. "Why not?" Eve countered without waiting a beat. "Why would I ever waste one minute of my life doubting that it will happen?"

I was thunderstruck. It had never occurred to me to live or speak without prevarication; without doubt or apology or the kind of realistic tempering of ambition our society expects. That is what she is like. She is fast and ferocious and moves through the world ruthlessly exposing herself to unimaginable pain; meeting it head on with her profound humanity, humor and singleminded resolve to stop the violence. She expects more of herself, of us, of humanity.

She sees people. Really sees them; hears their stories, acknowledges their experiences and then carries them with her. It helps. Even if the woman's situation does not change immediately after speaking to Eve--the woman's life does.

Writer's Block

It is a knock on wood, kiss the window, touch something blue when you go over the railroad tracks sort of feeling. Like when I am in New York City and obsessively wash my hands to avoid the flu--although that never works. Writer's block. I've heard about it. I do not want it.

It crept up on me where I did not expect it--this blog. For the last two weeks I have written and erased at least fifteen entries. Not good. That is how it starts. I have no proof of that whatsoever but am sure in that total conviction based on nothing kind of way.

I have been reading up on how one promotes a book these days. It is some frightening stuff. Apparently I do not get to disappear into my pajamas and re-emerge when the new book is finished. Book trailers, websites, a web presence? That sounds Darth Vaderish. I think I read too much in the last few weeks, freaked myself out and then panicked. I am very good at panicking. So we broke it down. We--the select group of angelic, patient people who answer the phone/email/door when I panic--were going to tackle this step by manageable step.

The Website: "priyaparmar.com" if you can believe it. We bought it. First hurdle safely cleared. Matt (one of my oldest childhood friends--see adorable photo on the followers thingy below) and I sat down to discuss my website--see I said it without squeaking in panic. He is a webmaster--sounds very dungeon and dragons to me. What do I want it to look like? I came up with wanting it to be a bit like a faded, sunbleached, blue bottomed boat or old french shoes, either one would do. Bizarre but I felt they had a certain relevance.

The Book Trailer: my boyfriend Noah is luckily a trailer editor. I wrote to my lovely agent. What do I do? Nothing! We do not have to subdue this particular beastie until spring. Hooray! Second hurdle safely ignored.

The Blog: I decided that whatever I write today, I am going to post. I am going to do mighty battle with the beginnings of the publicity-centric writer's block boogeyman and win. Now I have done it and can take my lovely research materials for my next book out to the sunshine.

First Round

Done! Round One:

482 pages of revisions

Two weeks of little sleep

Fourteen days of blazing sunshine (frustratingly rare on this island as it is officially the rainiest spot on earth)

A long awaited visit to the island from my boyfriend Noah (I usually go to California as he gets so little time off)

An ear infection (from a big wave crashing on my head at Secret Beach a year ago--keeps coming back)

Nine days of teaching three wonderful students (Things Fall Apart, split infinitives, Cultural Imperialism, adverbs and James and the Giant Peach)

A lost dog (turned out her name was Nani and she ran away from her bath)

A hole in my tongue (bit it straight through when I fell down the stairs--ouch--need more sleep)

My boyfriend's mom's birthday (at Kintaro's)

Three hundred hours of writing

Sixty-eight phone calls to my mom (she would like me to get a stronger grip on split infinitives)

An enormous pile of laundry

Ten bitten down fingernails

One stubbed toe

Three pineapples

A compelling new coffee habit

Four terrible movies

One Tropical Taco

Four unreturned movies

One late fee from the movie machine

Lemons in the lemon tree

Eleven striped shells (from Tunnels Beach)

29 unanswered phone messages

And the result...a 512 page revised manuscript.

The Manuscript

It arrived! Over the ocean and through the woods in a UPS truck it came! A rectangular, battered, brown envelope waited on the porch when I returned from an emergency trip to town. I had dropped my phone into the pool and then had to fish it out with my feet like some sort of primate as the pool had just been chlorinated and I did not want my recently bleached hair to turn green. Michelle and Peanut were highly amused watching this display of dexterity. The valiant little phone--not her first swim in the pool--gasped her last breath and blew bubbles over the screen. I am making friends with my new phone and feeling quite disloyal.

But when one stops watching the kettle... the UPS truck arrives! We sat, the brown envelope and I, over a dinner of cantaloupe and saimin and discussed the possibilities: A) We open it alone and panic alone. B) We call in reinforcements to open it with us but then most likely wish whoever it was would go away so we could be left in peace to panic. We went with B, the brown envelope and I. B plus talking to my mother on the phone for support.

And it was marvelous! (Funny 'marvelous' is spelled with one 'l' here and two 'l's' in the UK. I occasionally get out of step with words and nothing looks right--'organis/ze' and 'fork' are terribly tricky.)

The editorial letter was effusive, warm and generous. So happy! My lovely editor's comments were constructive and very, very kind. And I agree with them! Throughout there have been a few patches that felt, not bad but like they could not quite carry their own weight and needed to be tent-poled by stand out lines. Now they are going to get renovated! There is a high drama section where the life of the character plays second fiddle to the extraordinary history of the time (plague and fire of 1665-1666). Not ok! I have to weave her life through the history rather than the reverse. Regardless of the enormity of public events personal lives remain at the forefront for they provide the lens.

Excited to work!

Editing

The UPS truck usually arrives after 2pm. It is 1207pm. It might not arrive today. Does UPS deliver on Saturdays? Monday. My revised manuscript complete with editorial letter, notes and I am sure a great deal of red ink will most likely arrive on Monday.

And so I return to the early 20th Century to read about pre-war Paris, Matisse and... foundation garments. (I am having trouble understanding the slow demise of the corset.) But my brain will not engage with these fascinating subjects and so I turn back to Nell (The Orange Girl) and zap through the pages, deleting words and shifting descriptions, trying to guess where the editorial grenade will land. It is impossible to gauge. And equally impossible to unravel the fate of the corset. And so I am going swimming.