Category Archives: Journal
Random thoughts. Not necessarily of any usage or meaning. Go figure.
Winter Dreams: Behind The Page
The Novel
Winter Dreams is my first published no
vel. When someone asks me what it is about, I have to think a minute, and then another minute, just to try to sum up the things that make the novel. And the best I can tell you is it is about coming to terms with adulthood. The story in the novel spans about six years, between 1998 and 2003—and it talks about relationships, mostly. I believe that a person’s life is colored by relationships more than goals or prized possessions. We can be anywhere in the world and dealing with a number of things to do with money and technology or places, but what these things ultimately come down to are relationships—between man and each other, man and his universe, man and his dreams, man and his home, et cetera. There are “five books” in Winter Dreams, where each represents a stage in the protagonist’s life; and I chose this particular approach because I feel, as it is in my own life, the events that make up my dreams are just as important as those that break my hopes. And when you put these things together, you end up with something that closely resembles life, where everything has its moments and nothing really lasts forever. Because life is about moving on—and I suppose that’s what Winter Dreams is about, as well.
The Process
I had been wanting to write this novel since 2004, when I was still living in Boston. I remember sitting in my friend’s car on our way to Providence, Rhode Island, and looking at the road ahead which seemed—at the time—endless and full of possibilities, and saying to her how I thought I was ready to start “the book”. It felt genuine at the time and my desire to complete what I thought would be the “ultimate work” was quite strong—so I knew I was on the right track and thus I began to tell some people about it. I even came up with a title for it, My America, My Dementia. But what I didn’t realize was that it would take me ten thousand miles away from America to be able to write about it and about fifty-plus drafts of failed first chapters in the next seven years before I came to know the characters that eventually breathe life into Winter Dreams.
The Protagonist
The first fifty-plus drafts involved a mix of protagonists who, for obvious reasons, never quite stuck with me or the story. I didn’t know what they want or who they are or where they are going. Then, one night, I sat down in front of my computer and thought of various names I thought might work for the story. By this time, I was no longer sure I wanted to call the work My America, My Dementia. Plus, I thought any story would do so long as it got me to write something good. I had given up on “the book” and I certainly didn’t think I was capable of creating the “ultimate work”. So I set out to write a simple story and I thought it would be nice to start with one name. That was when it occurred to me: Nicky F. Rompa. He is everything I am; and yet he is nothing like me. We’re alike in some ways and different in other ways. We would probably be good friends if he weren’t fictional, but I doubt we’d be the kind of friends who could call each other up at 3 am and not feel slightly weirded out by it. He is young and complicated and doesn’t know what he wants until he knows it—and he probably represents most people in their early 20s.
The Setting
The novel starts out in Jakarta and, as it progresses, moves to Boston. Like Nicky, I arrived in Boston in 2000 in the middle of a snowy spring. I think I fell in love with the city as soon as I got out of the airport. I don’t know every inch of the city the way some people do, but some parts of the city are so familiar to me that I feel they are imprinted onto my identity. Some would say that the best part about being in a new place is getting to know new people; and I agree. But I would also argue that the best part about being in a new place is getting to know a new place. The six years I spent in Boston are made beautiful by the people, yes; nevertheless, there were inexplicable moments in my life there which I could only share with the air, the buildings, the water, and the ground beneath my feet. To say that a place is meaningless without the population would render the body meaningless without the soul; and to a certain extent it is true, but as love goes we often identify with a person by the hand that we hold, the lips that we kiss and the smell of their body. Someone said to me once that there are only three people in her life whose scents she knows by heart—and that’s probably the most profound love confession I have ever heard. Thus, in a way, these things, the physical things of our universe, of our existence, whether or not they are to last beyond decay, are the things we most cherish. And so I wanted to have a setting that serves as a character in the story. And I wanted it to sound as though I were writing it a love letter. I wanted each corner of the city to be as familiar to me as it would be to the readers. I hope I have done it justice.
The Writing
Despite the difficult start over a period of seven years, once I got to know Nicky in the first chapter of the story—I could not stop. The writing took about three months. Seven days a week. Twelve to fourteen hours a day. This is not to say I worked hard, all I did was “show up” and “listen”—this is to say I could not wait to get it done. I was curious how it would end. I was a spectator more than a creator. It was as though the protagonist was telling me his story and my job was to document it. So I did. Some of the relationships portrayed in this book are very similar to the ones in my own life, but in many ways they are also different from my own experiences. During the writing, I felt as though I was transported into a different universe. I could not be involved in the daily comings and goings of the real world as I had to focus on the world I had created for Nicky. And for three months, I was stuck in a dream I wasn’t sure I wanted to escape. And if my body didn’t need sleep, I would have been more than happy to give that up too. Needless to say, those were the most grueling three months I had ever experienced as a writer. I lived and breathed through a fictional character; and as he embraced life and all of its complexities, I was drawn to do the same. When I wrote the final scene in the final chapter, I didn’t realize I had come to the part where I had to say goodbye to Nicky and the city I had carefully constructed from memory. Naturally, I burst into tears. As the final words were set on to the page, I broke down both from exhaustion and loss. It was the best thing I had written in all of my life at this point. I don’t know if it is possible for a writer to grow along with his or her own writing—but in writing Winter Dreams I felt I had grown in ways that only an experience of this magnitude could compel. I am forever thankful for it.
The Influences
Over the course of my writing career, if I could be so bold to call it that, I have been influenced by mostly writers of short stories, such as Jhumpa Lahiri, Alice Munro, Raymond Carver, Anton Chekhov, Andre Dubus and Michael Byers. Each writer influences me in different ways, but they all teach me the same thing—and that is to write as honestly as possible. In writing Winter Dreams, I try to be honest every step of the way. And what that means is I refrain from manipulating the readers. I wanted each experience to be something real and every emotion as unprocessed as possible. This is probably the first time I ever try to write a story where the readers have as much role in the process of completing the journey as I do in creating it. I meet the readers halfway because I trust them to do so. I believe most of my readers are more sophisticated than I am—so I decided not to cheat them with cheap tricks or easy paradigm. Life is complicated, and why can’t it be as complicated in a story? This, of course, I learned from Ernest Hemingway. His writing taught me to trust my characters, to trust my readers and to trust the story I wanted to tell. And that was what I did.
The Title
As I had mentioned before, the earliest title for the book was My America, My Dementia. When I finished the book, I wanted to call it Separuh Ilusi, or Part Illusion. But the editor and I decided that neither of these titles had enough weight to represent the story. So we searched for other ideas, one of them being Winter Dreams. Some people liked it, some didn’t. Nevertheless, I think it fits with the whole theme of the book. Because sometimes being in our early 20s is a lot like getting stuck in a snowstorm. People fantasize about winter as much as they do about their youth—and the thing about winter is it never really goes away, and rather than ‘arriving’ it would just blast you with snow and below zero temperatures. Again, a lot like being in our early 20s.
The Cover
I wish the cover had come with a specific title, because it just takes my breath away. Staven Andersen, a brilliant illustrator who, despite the name, is actually an Indonesian, has done an amazing work that endears him to me for life. In the process of creating the cover for Winter Dreams we had gone through perhaps over a dozen drafts and themes and ultimately went for the one with the bird on top of the building in the middle of an afternoon in winter because of the feel and philosophy behind it. Working with Staven has always been a major high for me because he thinks like a sentient being that constantly absorbs life and turns it into visual poetry almost by magic. We worked on this cover for four months, going back and forth and back again—until we both felt good about it. And the editor liked it. And that was that.
The Editing
My editor at Gramedia Pustaka Utama is Mirna Yulistianti. Like all writers, I too am indebted to my editor—whose support and friendship I value most immensely. Another editor at Gramedia Pustaka Utama to whom I am also indebted is Hetih Rusli. She was the first person I came to early in 2011 when I was about to embark on what I thought would be another doomed attempt at writing the first chapter of “the book”. She was the one who told me to focus on the character. In a way, she helped me discover Nicky. And for that—no amount of thanks will ever be enough.
Thanksgiving Day
The editor and I agreed to push the publication date of Winter Dreams, which had previously been set for September 2011, to November 24 2011 because we wanted the book to be “ripe” enough when it hits the printer. We are thankful for the time we had taken because the two months between September and November were spent largely on revising some scenes and perfecting the cover. And it is set on Thanksgiving Day for reasons you will find in the book.
The Readers
You have an important role in the story. It is as much mine as it is yours. I hope you like it. Thank you for reading it.
Maggie Tiojakin – November, 2011.
Our [American] Dream
There was a kind of fascination—when I was growing up (and still today, I think)—toward the United States that most people often describe with a merry-go-round of expressions such as ‘the land of opportunities’, ‘dreamland’, or ‘a place where the roads are paved with gold’. There are over 190 countries around the world, each beautiful and unique in its own way, yet none seems to compare with the glitters and promises of America.
The ‘American Dream’ is a concept that has captured the world in a way comparable only to the popularization of its ideals: freedom, prosperity, and success. That all men are born equal with the undeniable rights to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness is probably the most quoted part of the US Declaration of Independence which every liberal on the continent treats with as much sanctity as a priest would a quote in a religious text. And they are right to do so, because like it or not: the idea that we’re equal to each other despite our race, gender, religion, customs, age, status, and what have you; or that we are all born with the right to live, to be free and happy is incredibly moving and hopeful.
As a teenager, I never asked too many questions and was quite content with the idea of America that came to me via American TV shows in the late 1980s and early 1990s (i.e. MacGyver, Airwolf, Saved by the Bell, Knight Rider, Jack and the Fatman, Hawaii Five-O, Melrose Place, Beverly Hills 90210, Remington Steel, Moonlighting, Baywatch, Murphy Brown, Party of Five, et cetera). I didn’t even care about the ‘reality gap’: how ridiculous it was (when I think about it now) that Richard Dean Anderson had everything he needed at the time and place he needed them to construct bombs, diffuse detonators or stop a bullet train from crashing into a ton of brick; and how strange that the man who used to drive a talking car and wear dark-colored jackets suddenly went bare-chested all the time in a show populated by trunks, boobs, and confused men who ran around chasing them from one screenshot to the next. I could not be bothered with these things. The way I looked at it—how wonderful it was to live in a place like that!
Growing up, I did not have any of the privileges that the teen characters in Saved by the Bell or Beverly Hills 90210 took for granted. And I’m not talking about the kind of privileges that come with wealth; but rather simple privileges like having my own locker or being asked what particular school subjects I was interested in. Or parents who would allow me to question the world rather than tell me to accept it for what it was. Or teachers who could act as confidantes rather than mere figures of authority. So I spent most of my teenage years looking up to these fictional characters whose lives I envied oh-so-much. Years later, after 15 months of being a freshman at a university, I made the bold decision to set myself on a voyage that would take six years to complete. I quit school and left for America.
I was 19.
At the time, a couple of my distant relatives had been living in Chicago; but I was never in contact with them before and I wasn’t about to make contact just because I suddenly found myself in a foreign country, alone. I decided to experience everything on my own. I enrolled myself into an international language school in Boston, MA and opted to live with a host family rather than share a room at the dormitory. The 22-hour flight I had to endure between Jakarta-Singapore-St. Louis-Detroit-Boston was excruciating only because I easily lost track of time. Though as soon as I stepped off the plane at Logan Airport, I knew I was in for an adventure.
Fortunately, for me, though it did come as a surprise, America was everything I had expected it to be (and more). To the bewilderment of my host family, I experienced little—if any—culture shock during my first year there. I knew exactly what to do at a birthday party when they blind-folded me and handed me a wooden stick and told me to keep swinging until I heard lollipops fall out onto the ground; and I didn’t feel the least bit awkward when my host family asked me (and my roommate) to be on candy-duty for Halloween. In my spare time I would go to the local public library and use one of the computers to send emails to friends and family back home. I would stop by CVS and buy a small package of Tootsie Rolls whenever I had a craving for sweets. In the summer, I would sit on a bench in the middle of the Commons and dream up plans for the future. I would close my eyes and breathe in everything until my chest swelled and I thought I was going to explode from excitement. It felt right to be there. It felt right just to be. And then I got an internsip that would mark one of the most important moments in my life. It was in the offices of a literary magazine in Boston’s North End that I decided to become a writer. I didn’t know exactly how I was going to do it—but I was absolutely certain of what I wanted my life to be.
So as soon as I finished with the language program, I went back to school while also working part time to support myself. In the five years that followed, I learned that it was possible to dream the impossible and that it was okay to listen to what your heart had to say. I learned that humanity was better than religion and that faith had little to do with religious denominations. I learned that education did not belong only to formal schools and that responsibility started with the self. I learned that I was in charge of my life and that I shouldn’t let anyone convince me otherwise. Best of all, I learned that it’s never too late to change your plans—and that life is short, thus it would be wise to make the most of it.
In my sixth year of living in the US I found myself searching for a cause. By that time, I had had my heart broken and patched several times over and I was freelancing for several publications both in the Greater Boston area and back home in Jakarta. I was twenty-five and anxious for something far more fulfilling than the life I had been living for six years. I wasn’t laughing enough. My life was dictated by my daily planner and the only time I felt I could breathe was when I rode the subway on my way to and from work. Life was work. There was little time for anything else. Yet, somehow, in the American spirit of always moving forward, of always aiming for success—I had lost myself. I was on the fast track toward a place I didn’t know and I wanted it to stop for just a moment so I could think.
In October 2005, I got on a plane and left for home.
Nearly six years later, when I am prompted to tell the story of the years I had spent in the US, either while dining with friends or sharing with family, most people still think I threw away the best thing I had going for me. I should have stayed in the US and braved through the challenges, they said. I should have made a life and married an American and had American children and lived an American life. I should not have come home and be the ordinary person that everyone in Indonesia is ultimately reduced to. And while there’s nothing wrong with being ordinary, it would have been better to be extraordinary.
For a majority of Indonesians I know, returning from the US is a lot like deserting a winning war. Whatever the reason, it means you have failed at making something for yourself.
And the thing I have always wanted to say to them is there’s nothing extra- about living in America that surpasses the ordinary of being in Indonesia. I had some of the best times of my life in the US, it’s true; and I learned things I probably could not have learned if I had not left my home country, it’s also true. But I was young and ambitious and curious and I wouldn’t take no for an answer and what I did was very selfish and foolish and I should have known better. More than that, I was lucky to have met the right people. I was lucky to have received the opportunities I was given. I was lucky to never have had an unpleasant experience during my stay abroad. And I was lucky to have had the option to leave when I felt it was time.
Most Indonesians I had known in the US have now returned home and made a life for themselves. Not all of them get to be told they wasted away a great opportunity to live abroad by coming back home, but most of them do. And most of them feel this way at one point or another. I do, too. I wonder if it was true that I had thrown away the best thing I had going for me. I often wonder what my life would have been like if I had stayed and, as they said, braved through the challenges. Then it comes to me: a revelation so powerful in nature that I realize it has taken me eleven years and a voyage across the world to really understand.
The American dream has never been about living and working and being in America (though the idea helps put the dream into shape). The American dream is about life: living it to the fullest by developing your potentials and going for the impossible even when everyone else tells you not to and giving it a kind of meaning. The American dream is about liberty: to make your own choices and create opportunities where there are none to be had and understand that there are such things as responsibilities and consequences. Finally, the American dream is about the pursuit of happiness: everybody deserves another chance at making things work—because we’re not perfect and we make mistakes and that doesn’t mean we’re not worthy of a shot at being happy.
Since I came home I have written for some of the most interesting magazines (for me) in the country. I have published two short story collections, novelized a feature film and translated books that have significant meanings to me. I have also written a feature film that’s coming out in a couple of months—with hopes of writing more. And I am currently working on a novel. By no means is my life perfect and I’m not extraordinarily happy, either: but I’m writing and reading and meeting people and spending time with friends and family and I’m having a wonderful time. Besides, happiness is all about living in the moment. Isn’t it?
“Some people have to return to where they started,” said a friend, who is also one of the most celebrated book editors in Indonesia. “They have to come full circle so they can make sense of their journey.”
There are only a few places in the world that exude the aura of possibility, of dreams coming together and inserting themselves into reality: and America is one of them. America has shaped me into the person I am today and I am forever grateful for it. Indonesia, on the other hand, is still trying to figure some things out as it wobbles through some of its decisions. And I’m glad to be here. We may not aim for the stars; and rather for far simpler things like peace and tolerance. But we’re working on it and (hopefully) getting better at it—and, for now, let that be our dream.
Last Words: What We Don’t Talk About
From what I hear, everyone experiences at least ONCE in their lives some kind of a major health scare, be in the form of an accident, or an illness. I had mine last year, when I felt a lump in my neck, which turned out to be a swollen nodule near my thyroid. And there are several nodules judging by the USG results, which the doctor thinks are benign and can be medicated. Anyway, I really thought my number was up. I was researching online what it meant to have a swollen nodule, or several nodules near the thyroid, and what potential danger attached to them. I drew my own conclusions, of course. There were days when I thought I was really OK; and there were days when I thought, gee, this was it. It’s count down from here on out – and everything I have dreamed of doing would never get done. Ever. And I found that what scares me most isn’t dying so much as it is being dead. As in, no longer alive.
My first real brush with death came when I was 23, and it was my father’s. He died from a stroke. I never got to say goodbye and to this day I can’t stop thinking what I would have said if I did get the chance to say goodbye. Would I say, farewell, be well? Would I beg him to stay? I still don’t know. Perhaps something along those lines. But what I didn’t take into account was what would he have said were he given the chance to say goodbye? And this question somehow resonates more to me than any other question I’ve ever pondered when it comes to death.
Life and death are the yin and yang of this natural world, and they will remain so for as long as we’re here, living in the in-between. And the general take on them is that life is good, and death is bad. However, both are inescapable. One cannot exist without the other. Science can’t overcome death; and neither can religion. So the question is how do we cope with it? How do we cope with our own death?
As I got older, I have come to the realization that no matter how dreary, or difficult, life is addictive. The things we thought we’d never survive, time proves that we do … again and again. Through wars and illnesses, disasters and heartaches, we’ve managed to continue existing. Even in the absence of hope, we do not succumb to oblivion. And as much as we like to philosophize our lives, we have to admit that yes, we do fear death. We do want to continue living. And this is what’s inherent in all of us. The will to live is too strong. We rarely walk toward death; death usually has to come and get us.
I don’t know. I, uh, haven’t quite thought this through. It’s just that I’ve seen these movies, heard these stories, and read these issues about how people are coping with the dying. And a part of me keeps asking what of those who are coping with death itself?
Maybe you can tell me what you think. Leave a comment. What would you say, or do, without being overly righteous or politically correct, if you knew that the next time you close your eyes, you won’t be able to open them again? That last day on your deathbed. That last hour. What would cross your mind?
As for me, when I think of it, I’d probably be consumed with grief and anger. Mostly, anger – for the obvious reasons.
Tell me your thoughts.
A Regular, Healthy Dose of Sadness
Most people don’t like to be exposed to sad and depressing things; because, they say, there’s enough of that going on around. So why add more to the pile? Well, most people don’t like jumping off an airplane—some thirty-odd-thousand feet from the ground—simply to experience sky-diving, either. But you do it, anyway. It’s the thrill. The rush of adrenaline. Your body feeds on it; as does your mind.
Me, I need my healthy dose of sadness and depression every once in a while. Not in the way that I want bad things to happen to me, but rather in the way that I can relate to someone else’s troubles. Walk in their shoes. One-third of my daily activities are spent being someone who’s either bubbly, happy, or smiley—this, because I have to meet people, shake their hands, and tell them, over and over again, why I believe they have found the right person to do the job they want to get done: me. (Such is the habit of a freelancer.) Other times, I just try to be normal—and being normal involves a whole lot of boredom. I can’t express anything both on and off paper when I feel absolutely nothing, which is the state most of us are in most of the time. Some people turn to music, films, books, and what have you. I do, too—yet just as most people prefer days in the sun, I can’t get enough of the rain. I’m sad that way. For me, personally: sadness is what gives life joy, without which the idea of joy would be … meaningless.
I’ve been criticized, many times, by friends, because of my habit to end my stories the way that I do; to torture my characters, or worse … kill them off. I am not a fan of happy endings; though I also hate endings that leave me hanging. In my entire life, I’ve only ever deliberately killed my character once. His name was Michael. He killed himself with a gun. I can’t remember why. But a very close friend of mine never really quite got over the fact that I killed Michael. That his death had nothing to do with the story; that I had purportedly done it simply to satisfy my own ego. Or to serve my laziness. The thing about a character’s death is—it almost always kills an ongoing plot, in that you have to start a new one (usually, in crime stories, an intriguing one).
Anyway. Since Michael, I’ve never deliberately killed anyone in my stories. I’ve had them ill, or cared for, or not cared for, or mad. Nor do I feel the need to kill them off. Dying is easy, living is the hard part. In life, there are so many other deaths. The death of relationships, for instance. Or the death of hopes. Of hate. Of love. Of sadness!
For too many years now I’ve attempted to capture the death of something in the lives of the living, because that’s where the drama is. Life is nothing if not dramatic. The best story-tellers always know where the drama is, and how to get there, far before the people to whom he or she is telling the story. That is the soul of every life on earth. There is drama in the mundane. And because of that—I need my regular, healthy dose of sadness. Of depression. Because unlike other people, I find happiness somewhat jarring.
Here is the top-three list of things I constantly go to in order to find the exact right depressive mood:
- HBO’s Six Feet Under: I bought all five seasons’ DVD—and I watch them, religiously, from start to finish every time I need a shot of raw, emotional, and angry exchange of dramatic scenes and dialogues. Alan Ball, in my opinion, is the King of Drama: and I love him for that. Six Feet Under is my number-one choice for all things sad and depressing. And true.
- Short stories. Any well-written short stories will do, by authors that I love. Alice Munro, Joyce Carol Oates, Jhumpa Lahiri, Andre Dubus, Raymond Carver, etc. I love reading short stories because they contain so much more drama than a novel can possibly grasp. Trust me, the shorter the story, the more intense the drama.
- Breathe Me, by Sia. This is my parting song from New York. I was in a car with my two close friends, and I was saying goodbye to New York City (literally, I craned my neck out of the car window and looked down to the glittery surface of Hudson River and waved it goodbye). I was going back home after six years of living in the U.S. It was sad. We were riding away from the sunset. Every time I listen to the song, my chest hurts. And that’s a good thing to keep looking back to; it sort of gives my life a kind of meaning. Somewhere in time I had made a decision that leaves a dent in my overall bubbly existence.
So anyway, there you go.
So Your Book Is Published, Now What?
I guess my mentor wasn’t kidding when he warned me, years ago, that getting my book published is a really small win. Of course, it’s great and everything—
but all those solitary hours and the waiting and hoping that follow once the writing is done and you’re just dying to get the work out there are virtually easy compared to the part where you have to strategize the marketing points. Marketing points!
If I knew how to do marketing, I’d be in marketing. Alas, this is a skill that all authors must have and must be ready to learn. In this highly competitive climate, it’s impossible for authors to just sit back and let things unfold on its own. It just doesn’t work that way, anymore. I remember a while back a friend of mine who is currently studying the art of becoming a chef complained about the fact that next to acing culinary classes, she is also expected to ace finance, management and bookkeeping classes. Finance?! Management? Bookkeeping?!
The truth is … all good chefs have to know how to balance both skills. Because being a chef means more than just stir-frying ingredients and concocting beautiful recipes, it also means having to recruit staff, pay their wages, haggle with vendors, and make sure that the restaurant he or she is running isn’t losing money, but actually making profit. Unfortunately, none of those tasks can be achieved, or at least achieved well, unless the person in charge knows exactly what he or she is doing. Ergo, the finance, management, and bookkeeping classes.
The same applies to authors. I’m not saying it’s mandatory for writers to know the world of marketing inside and out; but it’d be nice not to keep yourself in the dark, either. First, you have to know your readers. Second, you have to be able to visualize the kind of marketing you’d want for your book(s) to be picked up by the next curious reader. Third, be creative. Don’t be lazy and sit around waiting for the world to come to you. Be a part of the world. Writers are essentially communicators; but if you can’t attract your readers, it doesn’t matter how profound your message may be—no one will want to hear what you have to say.
Sadly, I can’t partake any insights just yet since I’m still on the path of figuring out what to do. And quite honestly I’m a little bit frazzled by the whole process. Nevertheless, this is an integral part of the writing world. Nervous as I am, there’s no other way for me to go but forward. Luckily enough for me, I’ve got great help from friends, GPU editors + promo team, fellow writers, colleagues, mentors, and whatnot. I am greatly indebted to them.
Having said that, my second collection is looking at a simple yet entertaining and refreshing launch next month. I can’t promise it’ll be the greatest event in the world, but I hope you’ll come. Because it won’t be a party without you. So consider this an open invitation to all of you. Time and location are currently TBA, but as soon as I hear anything … you’ll be the first to know.
Thanks for your support.
On Short Stories
I have just finished reading a short story by Charles D’Ambrosio titled The Scheme of Things, which is one of 20 short stories published in the 2005 edition of BASS (Best American Short Stories)—guest edited by Michael Chabon, also one of my favorites.
To be honest, I don’t know what the story is about, in a sense that if you were to ask me to summarize it in a single sentence, I would have simply shrugged. But if you wanted me to give you a chronological account of the events that make up the story, I could probably draw you a map, a diagram, or a timeline. And this is what I love about short stories, at least the ones that are well-written, which is not to say the ones to have won the most prizes, but the ones which you know from reading them have been written in solitary hours and with excruciating effort on the writers’ part: they do not try to explain to the readers what life means to the characters—they are unapologetic, and they risk perversion for the sake of truth. In the end, after you read these stories, you are forced to take a good look at your own life, examine it, and—if you’re lucky—be thankful for it. Stories are not meant to soothe, judge, or right a wrong: they are told simply to help you reflect, and to set upon you an example of what life might have been if you had not been … well, you.
Because I write, and therefore reading becomes a second habit, I cannot tell you what a good short story looks like; but I am pasting below a review someone wrote for BASS 2005 which I feel comes close to what I think a good short story should do:
“There is something about the short story that feeds the voyeur in me … In the same way I love walking around neighborhoods at night when you can see into people’s houses – just a snippet as you walk by, a painting hanging on the wall, a brightly painted room, the reflection of a TV on the window, you catch a glimpse of another life and another world in the short story. I go walking, at night, when I need to think, when I need to step outside of my life for a while, when I need a breath of fresh, cool, dark air. Short-stories provides a similar perspective – questions are unanswered, the motivation of characters often unclear – and yet somehow, at the end of the walk or the end of the story, I always come back to my life feeling more settled, like what I have seen or read has touched my heart deeply and made me more human” – Anonymous.
I don’t know if there is only one rule to writing short stories, but I would like to think that creative writing has no definite designs, that one may write as one pleases regardless of the rule. And I don’t know if our readers are happy with their short stories, because I certainly crave for more: I don’t need matching flaps, lyrical sentences, brilliant illustrations, or music to go with the stories, I just need something I can identify with, something I can reflect on, something that will unsettle me in my seat or on my bed as I read, something real.
Ode To A Funny Girl
I am the kind of person who is easily amused. And I didn’t realize it until my employer – some nine years ago – revealed to me this very fact as I was re-arranging some display items on the display shelf at the merchandise store where I used to work.
The items were a group of tiny kitty cats’ figurines dressed in various outfits and assuming equally various roles. There was kitten #1, who played the violin; #2, who donned a white lab coat; #3, who wanted to be a rock star – and so on and so on.
As I placed them on the shelf, I had this vivid imagination of these figurines coming to life at night – a la Shawn Levy’s Night At The Museum – perhaps wondering what they were doing on a shelf inside a display cabinet. And I wondered if they even knew they were on display. So I smiled at this, and at many other things in life I found to be slightly amusing.
A friend used to say, “You smile so much I can never tell whether you’re actually happy, or if somehow you’re just playing it to the max.”
To be honest: I smile for both reasons. It’s just something I do really well, because the opposite seems … too depressing. I smile when I’m amused; and I smile when I’m bored, annoyed, impatient, et cetera. So while it’s true that I’m easily amused; it is also true that I tend to hide myself behind the display of a smile.
But with laughing it’s different. I can’t fake-laugh. I can’t even draw a single chortle out of my system simply to compliment someone’s joke which I may find either offensive, stupid, or too plain to strike my laugh-out-loud funny cord – which is why when I laugh at something, it’s because I find it hilarious.
And recently, a few days ago, I shook with laughter so much I was eventually moved to tears. It was the good kind of laugh, the one that pulls at your guts and spills them out of you as each muscle in your body realigns itself with every contraction – the kind that leaves you physically spent and emotionally fulfilled. The kind that can cure even the most bitter of days. It was that good, that riveting, that funny. I can’t remember the last time I’d laughed that hard.
So what happened?
A few friends got together for dinner. One girl kept hurling joke after joke after joke. She’s funny. And she’s good at being funny – though I have a sense she has no idea how funny she actually is. Through it all I imagined her on stage somewhere reiterating these jokes in front of dozens of people, and I imagined everyone would laugh at her jokes as much as I – and the others who came to dinner – did. So I said, “You should consider becoming a stand-up comedian.”
And she probably thought I was merely being nice.
A long time ago, I used to frequent this comedy club in downtown Boston where each weekend every aspiring stand-up comedian along the East Coast would drop by and deliver their best bits. Some of them were funny; others were … well, not so funny. One or two would make their way to SNL in more or less the same fashion as Billy Crystal, Chris Rock, or Margaret Cho. And these are the ones you should look out for, really. These are the ones that make those improv comedy shows worth going to – even when eight out of ten performers would end up making you think you’ve wasted your time and money, whose cheesy repertoires sometimes make you want to stick something sharp down your throat. These very few would make it all worth the while.
It’s not easy making someone laugh. If you don’t believe me, you should give it a shot. Make someone really laugh – until they can’t hold themselves steady – and if you succeed more than once … you too should consider making it a career. Because everybody wants to laugh. You just have to hit the right spots. And then make them pay for it. After all, you’ve got a living to make.
As our dinner came to an end, and we rode in a cab together – the girl turned to me and said, “Do you really think I’m that good?”
I said, “Yes!” – further initiating that if she were to have her own show, I’d be more than happy to fly across the ocean to see her peformance. And she said, “Well, if you write something about me; then maybe I’ll consider it.”
She probably didn’t mean it. And I certainly do not expect her to drop everything she’s got going in her life to pursue a highly competitive career in entertainment (comedy, no less). But I meant every word and I figured I should write this, anyway. Because the way she made the whole table laugh was enough to give me one moment I know I’ll remember for a very very long time. And coming from me, someone with an extremely short attention span, that’s saying a whole lot. Really.
Later that night, after we parted, as I reached my hotel room – I had a smile on my face. I wasn’t amused, nor was I being polite. I smiled … because I couldn’t not smile. It was too good a night, too great a time – and I felt ripples of small laughter still bubbling out of me, consuming me.
So, here’s to you, funny girl. You know who you are. Salut!
Rejections, Rejections!
My first rejection letter came in the mail exactly nine years ago, and it said:
Dear Ms. Tiojakin,
We thank you for your submission, though unfortunately at the moment we are unable to publish your work. We wish you luck in your future endeavors, and please write to us again soon.
John Doe,
X Magazine
When I had that letter in my hand, I couldn’t stop looking at it—I read the lines over and over again as if it had contained state secrets, or something of extreme value. It was my first rejection letter: and I was proud. I paid close attention to the embossed letterhead, the typed words that were strung together beautifully, the calculated space between my name and that of the editor’s, the signature that bore traces of an expensive inkpen.
(I have a thing for inkpens: I know when the slanted figures on paper have been drawn from the tip of a quality inkpen—the way it curls and turns and boldly smashes across the page, leaving no residual marks.)
Anyway, that first rejection letter quickly ended up on my wall, thumb-tacked on the top and bottom, so I would be forced to look at it every time I sat down to write. I wanted it to motivate me, whip me back to work whenever I felt too lazy to do anything but lie in bed and dream about whatever it was I dreamed about. I wanted it to be a reminder of sorts that there is work to be done. Yet, instead, what it did was remind me that I had done the work (the rejection letter was proof of that) and now it was time to … play.
For months that first batch of rejection letter sat on my wall, and by the second week I had naturally stopped looking at it, as I had also discovered ways of turning my head at a certain angle to “miss” it. I realized, at that moment, just how good I am at avoiding the things that are actually important. Until, one summer day, a friend came to my place for lunch and asked whether I had made any progress with my submissions.
“Oh, that,” I said casually, waving my hand dismissively. “Nothing’s happening. I’m waiting for the right moment.”
She tilted her head to one side, half amused, and half—I know this, because she was making that face—mocking me. “Really?” she said. “The right moment?”
“Yes.”
“What exactly, if I may ask,” she continued, “constitutes the right moment?”
I thought about it. “I don’t know.”
“Huh.”
“When I feel it’s the right moment, I guess.”
She was puzzled. Then, she said, “I think, what you’re really doing is stalling. I think you’re afraid of taking the risk you need to take. And I think that you think some great editor who has never read or heard of your work will come knocking on your door asking for that piece of writing you have never written.”
“Wow.”
She drank her cola steadily, coolly, the way New York women who took one-hour power lunch between meetings dressed in a jazzy overcoat with glowing hair and flawless makeup did. She was bound to be one of those globe-trotters bouncing from one international meeting to another. “You need to take bigger leaps,” she said. “And not these stupid frog leaps.”
Frog leaps. I liked the way she illustrated my cowardice, my fear of rejection. It hit where it should—and if it were a movie, I’d have gone home, wrote from dusk till dawn, and, like Basquiat, or Rimbaud, just transformed my life into one giant artistic quest. Sadly, it wasn’t a movie. Me being me: it took a while for the advice to kick in, for me to actually gather up the courage to send copies of my writings to magazines around the country, complete with cover letters and contact pages. It was like applying for a job, except instead of a resume, I was sending out my thoughts, my most private—at times darkest—musings. And rejection letters, one after another, continued to fill my mailbox.
In the seventeen years I have been writing (I started at the age of 12)—I believe I have gotten better at accepting the facts that some people will not like the things I write, while some others will want to read more of what I write. And since I was given the advice to take bigger leaps, I have consciously made the effort to send out regular submissions to literary journals and magazines in English-speaking countries. Some have seen the light of publication, others remain docked in my harddisk. But a conscious effort is not enough. I have taken a bigger frog leap, instead of a gargantuan, mammoth-like, leap that will turn my life around.
Being a published short-story author doesn’t make the writing task any lighter, the responsibility any smaller, or the job any easier—unless you’re Jhumpa Lahiri, Nam Le, Raymond Carver, or Alice Munro, whose collections have become just as popular as many literary novels out there. Because with each publication, comes the next blank page: a new story, another shot at a different magazine or journal, another rejection letter, or—hopefully—another exciting phone-call that confirms your fears to be unnecessary, unrelated. You’ll never know what is coming your way.
Until this day, I still keep a copy of that maiden journey I made toward the world of publishing. And there were others which arrived in the mail after that initial correspondence. I treat them as if they were trophies of my conquests: and I have every intention of saving them in a special folder. They’re not mementos of failures, but instead those of a process. It’s not about ending a chapter, or starting over: it’s about continuing the journey, and persevering. And there’s something amazing about that—like child-rearing, though not quite the same.
It’s about taking those giant leaps.
Something In The Air
Something is very strange about the way the earth is moving, like it’s doubling up on speed, or changing its course of direction: I can’t tell which. It can’t be both. I don’t know if anyone else feels it, too. But the air seems to be filled with hopelessness, or stagnant desires. Everybody is wary of the world, of each other, of themselves. There’s nothing new to discover, nothing better to do. We have become idle in our own ways, easily dissatisfied, easily distracted, numb. It is as if we are in the middle of a war, of terror, or something equally disturbing. It’s not just me: and I know this because everyone is battling the same enemy — the thing inside them that tells them this, here, is as good as it gets. Ever.
We are restless creatures. We can’t know all there is to know. Then why aren’t we moving? Why aren’t we creating? Why aren’t we … breathing?
There’s something strange about the way the earth is moving, I tell ya.
Movie Week
In the last few days, I’ve taken the time to watch several DVDs that I bought months and years ago but never had the chance to see. The five films I saw were: ‘Management’, ‘Toronto Stories’, ‘13 Conversations About One Thing’, ‘Two Lovers’, and ‘Magnolia’. At least, these were the ones that I finished watching—as opposed to pausing in the middle, only to be popped out of the player 3 minutes later for lack of interest. These five films aren’t the greatest: some of them are actually worse than others. But each of the five films had me thinking about all the things I have taken for granted, all the things I never cared to know about, and all the things I have abandoned at some point in my life. Therefore, each of the five films was like a slap in the face: perhaps the only way the universe could reach out to me without getting chewed out alive (by me). So when I was presented with the opportunity to reflect, I did. And what I see isn’t pretty: my life’s a mess.
Maybe I should play another film.
Tweakings
I have spent the last 5 hours tweaking this site: which is ridiculous, because I could have used the time to revise some stories. Anyway, what’s done is done. I don’t know if it reads any better than the last design — but I hope you’ll be more comfortable with the new look.
These past couple of weeks have been disastrous for me: and somewhere along the way I realize that everything I’ve aspired to be, all the good things I want in life are naturally non-existent. I’ve had my head up in the clouds, and somehow I’ve lost myself in a world I can’t afford to live in. And I don’t know how to get out of it. I have no exit strategy.
A friend once asked me, years ago, what would constitute the worst thing that could happen in a person’s life. And I said, “To discover that everything you’ve been holding on to is the opposite of what you believe in.” We were talking about something, I can’t remember, that led to that quote. And, as an example, I told her: “One of those Nazi soldiers who is responsible for the death of millions — what if he got out of bed one day and saw the horror of his own doings? To finally come to that point and not able to redeem yourself. What then?”
Indeed: what then?
Midnight Nothings
Greetings!
Before we do this, I just want to make something very clear: there’s nothing in this note that will benefit you in any way, and as I am writing this note I have no idea what it is I want to jot down, aside from the fact that I feel like jotting something down. What you’re reading right now – if you’re reading it at all – is a stream-of-consciousness type of writing that will probably give you something to think about, but will most likely bore you to death and leave you with that strange feeling of absolute rage and some confusion. Having said that, if you continue to read this note past the first paragraf … then, you know, I wish you well.
This is a good example of how absurd, incoherent, and useless most of the things we think about are: which is why 99% of the blogs you visit by accident are normally abnormal, filled with rants you don’t care to listen to and thoughts which you think are not perverse enough to intrigue you, nor real enough to keep you grounded – the writers just tend to float there between road-rage personality and sex-starved house-frau, also known as paying members of moodswingers.com. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean to extract myself from the equation – as you can tell, I’m one of the floaters.
So, in the spirit of ‘floaters’ everywhere, I would like to set straight that which for a while has plagued print journalists around the world: blog journalism is not print journalism, and whoever said paper will one day become extinct (for reasons other than the apocalypse) should be assigned the duty of monitoring ALL blogging activities both in the known and unknown worlds. When and if that person manages to finish his or her day without vomiting or displaying the symptoms of chronic twitchy fingers (from clicking on the mouse too much) … would be the day I cease to believe in paper.
Have you tried Amazon’s latest Kindle version? Every time I look at a pop-up ad on Amazon.com and some other book-related sites promoting Kindle 2 – I cringe. And I don’t mean to be the kind of person who is anti-technology, because I’m not and I love technology (how else can I survive? I’m a part of that generation who think dying is living without an internet connection) – it’s just that I think some things should remain organic. Like getting lost in a city. Now that everyone’s using GPS – no one ever gets lost, anymore. No one ever says, “Where are we?” anymore in that shit-I-don’t-recognize-a-thing tone. You may think getting lost sucks, but I think it’s fun. If you’re on your own, you get to think as you drive around some neighborhood trying to find a way out; if you’re with friends, even better. However, back to Amazon’s Kindle 2: it’s a book without the pages. You click and you click and you click. I don’t get it. Where’s the fun in that? There’s a really good article in the New York Times a few weeks back about Kindle 2: you might want to check it out.
Oh. It’s already almost two in the morning. Look at how the time goes. I believe I have achieved nothing by writing this note, and neither have you learned anything interesting or beneficial to your life – but it’s good to chat with you, even if it lasts only one page. It’s still something. For now, though: good night.
Maggie Tiojakin. 2009. All rights reserved.
