Stoopid Bloody Cosmos

Life isn't fair. We come from dust and return to dust, which is depressing enough. But then, in between all that, we have to dust!

Stoopid bloody cosmos.

I have cleaned my writing room--or "office", to sound more professional--ridding it of stacks and stacks of printed out piles of old manuscripts and indeterminate paper stuff, not to mention buried cat toys. And dust. I have dusted.

Dusting a thick layer of dust (reminder: we dust, and are dust) can be satisfying, as you see great swipes of clean surfaces emerge from beneath a thick coating of gray haze. And yet, some dust always remains. Even with a clingy-type dust cloth, which promises to not just move dust around but to pick it up and carry it away. The system inevitably fails, and dust lives.

What is that about? It is baby dust, sneakily stashed in cracks and corners by adult dust, to better increase its chance of survival. And survive it does. Soon enough, I will have a new crop of thick adult dust coating every surface of my room. (From dust, to, etc.)

So writing, I think, is a stay against dust (the "to" part.) We die, therefore we dust to rid ourselves of the reminder, but also therefore we write, so people will know we are more than just dust. We are words! Thoughts! Ideas!

A pleasant pause, as we consider just how smart and cute and good we are, then it's back to shoving around stoopid bloody dust.

Later this week: the living room!

The Sulk

This past week, someone whose opinion I value referred to me as a "literary" writer. This made me happy, as that is what I have always secretly wanted to be.

It is slightly dangerous to be a literary writer, however. Literary books, and their authors, are somewhat suspect. Suspected of pretension, elitism, obscurity, snottiness and forced literary polish. Most horribly, they are suspected of being the unfairly beloved favorites of award committees. All of which might occasionally be true, but all of which is never always true for any one particular book or author. (How's that for a pretentious literary sentence?) ;->

I hasten to assure you, though, that my books have never been the beloved favorites of award committees. While I've gotten some praise here or there, mostly I struggle just to get words on the page, just to get published, just to produce a book that will last five minutes before being forgotten and remaindered. Still, I continue to strive for words that glint and shine, words that reveal a deeper layer of meaning. Call me a masochist.

Literary books, I must add, are hugely jealous of popular books--books of whatever shape, size or genre that tons of people read. Books that actually make money. Lots of money! It might not be pretty but it's true: Literary books sit at home a lot and sulk. For some, book clubs are the only chance a literary book has to get out of the house and socialize with those who admire it.

I have recently finished a book that, in my opinion, is not a literary book, but is one which I enjoyed immensely: The Dead and the Gone, by Susan Beth Pheffer. Her previous book, Life As We Knew It, a "first" or companion book to The Dead and The Gone, had knocked my socks off, as they say (and should be read first.) Post-apocalyptic novels of survival, both novels focus on teenagers struggling to save both self and family.

Now, the writing in both is of a type that gets the job done. By which I mean it isn't, in my opinion, "literary." There have also been qualms about the science in the books (the calamity is caused by the moon going haywire) which I am not qualified to comment on, other than, "Holy sh*t! Could that really happen?"

However, these books not only tell their stories sufficiently well, they scared the bejesus out of me. I mean high holy sh*t scared. So that's a good book, right?

In contrast, my literary books are sitting alone on their shelves, crowded into their secret hiding places, jealous and shivery and sulky. "No one loves us," they complain. "When the moon goes haywire, no one will clutch us to their breast or take us with them. We shall be as dried, brown leaves in the fall, blowing across a cold, empty sidewalk."

"Oh, shut up, already," the popular books answer. They are hunched over, busy reading the next exciting, new popular story. They are happy. Their pockets are jingling with money.

Page 68

I actually did a little writing today, going over and touching up my new work-in-progress (wip). I am up to page 68, which I consider an achievement. Me of the little tiny novels. I have heard of authors who have to break their bulging manuscripts into two or three books. Two or three books! I'm always lucky if my meager word count constitutes one book.

No new writing today, though, because while I am feeling enormously better than I did the entire week following my surgery, I am still more tired than usual.

Since I spent most of this past week sitting on the couch doing exactly nothing, I was able to watch the entire documentary, The War, by Ken Burns. I had seen it before, but spread out over time. I find it an astounding achievement, though of course there are people who have grumbled about this or that. Which is fair. I myself was disappointed, having read the excellent, Code Talker: A Novel About the Navajo Marines of World War Two, by Joseph Bruchac, that the code talkers were not included. But Burns had his focus, carefully explained if sometimes lost in the vastness of the telling. Indeed, World War II is such an enormous subject that Burns could make ten fifteen-hour documentaries and still not tell the entire story.

I am so absorbed in this because it helps me understand my parents, who were of the WWII generation. My own generation was Vietnam, the fight for Civil Rights, and the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy. While I was only a passive observer, I have never quite escaped the pain I experienced in the sixties, but it never seemed to occur to me that my parents could not quite escape the searing pain and fear of the Depression and WWII. Which is an enormous lack of insight on my part.

I often wish I could talk to them now, without all the walls flung up and all the anger and all the misunderstandings--on my part every bit as much as theirs. It is sad, to come to understanding so late, but that is what has happened.

On a different note, I finished, Lord of the Deep, by Graham Salisbury. It was terrific. Deep-sea fishing, a boy tottering on the edge of young manhood, and human weakness--exciting and sad and moving and satisfying. Salisbury's point is a true one, that the people we love most will disappoint us deeply, and we will disappoint them.

Down Down Down

I didn't realize how widespread my influence is. When I titled my last entry, R.I.P., I didn't understand that the entire economy was not only reading my blog but taking things so seriously. Really, economy, it was all a joke! I'm not dead and neither are you. Get up and walk. Jump around! You know, like you used to.

Argh . . . .

I am a bit down myself, though not in a depressed or economic way (not yet, at least.) I had sinus surgery two days ago and still feel as though sitting on the couch and watching TV and movies is an excellent past-time. In my secret life I am a fearless outdoor explorer, but in real life, ah, not so much. Still, sitting around doing nothing is not my idea of either a good time or time well spent. And no writing. That part of my brain is still snoozing.

Well, writing a blog entry is writing, but not of the wholesale creative sort. I have sent a revised manuscript out and have another one I am working on, except, um, not today.

Mostly today I am brain dead, which is slightly pleasant. I have had anesthesia three different times in my life, for three minor operations, and it is always an astounding feat to pass into a state of utter, black nothingness then out again, waking up with no sense of the time that has passed. Of course, this wouldn't be amazing if you didn't wake up, but thankfully that hasn't happened to me (yet.) Even in sleep our dreams and stirrings mark the passage of time, but under anesthesia, nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing.

On a bookish note, over this past couple of weeks I have been having a Graham Salisbury feast, reading Under the Blood-Red Sun; House of the Red Fish; and Eyes of the Emperor--all of which deal with Japanese Americans living in Hawaii during WWII. Fascinating. Harrowing. I have long enjoyed historical fiction, but usually stories set further in the past. But I find I am being claimed of late by more recent tellings, and especially about WWII.

I have also just started Salisbury's Lord of the Deep, which is set, like the others, in Hawaii, but not during WWII. Still, it has my attention. Salisbury writes great boy books.

Eyes of the Emperor, I should note, starts in Hawaii but follows the Japanese-American soldiers to the US mainland, where they experience things no soldier should. One always hopes that as a species we've improved with (historic) age, but we humans keep going back to the same old muck holes of prejudice and cruelty, don't we?

Right now, I am going to my own personal muck hole of slumber, to take a nap.

R.I.P.?

Well, I have rather disappeared, haven't I? There are various reasons why, but mostly I've been MIA because I realized how unlike most Young Adult blogs this one is, and I kind of froze in place.

The Fusty Blog is not very Young Adulty at all, is it? By which I mean graphically cool, or manuscript-focused, or information-sharing, or glitter-tossing, or teen-buddyish, or charming-authorish. Those kinds of blogs can be a lot of fun to read (and I do read them with enjoyment) but I can't produce one. As a result, my blog sounds a lot more Old Adulty. So I have wondered if I am hurting myself, as a YA author, or not. I'm not sure.

So I might continue, but I also might make some changes. Not that my blog would end up any more Young Adulty than it is now, as I seem to be incapable of being sparkly. Maybe, though, I can be more unapologetically me.

Or, How To Stop Worrying and Love the Blob.

We'll see what happens.

Duty

You know how when you encounter a situation suddenly, the first words that pop into your head are the truest ones? Last week I went to visit my parents' grave site. I had only been there twice since my mother passed away back in January--quite a different rate of visitation than with my father, who I visited frequently and even obsessively for the first couple of years after he died, sixteen years ago.

Thinking to rectify the numbers imbalance, I drove to the cemetery, got out of the car, ambled down the hillside to their resting place, looked at the plaque holding both of their names and thought, "Well, that was exhausting."

And that is the truth of it. My parents, both good people, were, um, complicated. Light and dark mixed together, along with a shot of bourbon. I loved them dearly, and miss them, but living with them--knowing them for years and years and years--was an exhausting experience. Now I can laugh about it, because at this point that is a rather happy way for me to think about my family experience growing up.

They both had an excellent sense of humor--my father with his dry wit, my mother with her goofy, cartoon sense of the comic--and I hope, if they still exist on some plane or other, that they are looking down at me and are greatly amused. I am. Shared laughter was an excellent family trait, one I am proud of.

It comes in handy, too, from time to time, as a good weapon against the dark.

What Are You Talking About?

I have been feeling remorseful, thinking that perhaps I was too glib about Thomas Disch's death in my last post. The whole, "Life is hard, and I sympathize," thing. There might, occasionally, be practical reasons for suicide, but despair isn't one of them. Apologies to Mr. Disch, then, from Ms. Johnson, for speaking so smoothly about something so rough.

I was thinking earlier today about denial. About how pleasant it can be. Say, for instance, that the economy is tanking. Someone really good at denial would say, "What are you talking about?" Actually, someone really, really good at denial wouldn't even say that. Someone really, really good at denial would be so entirely oblivious that they wouldn't even know there is an economy. Much satisfaction, there.

There are many other things to be in cozy denial about, of course. Large issues, like environmental collapse. Small issues (much more fun) such as my writing. I can pretend myself in and out of success or failure in a second, depending on my mood. I think this is might be an asset.

Another example. I have seen the Rug several times now, on my early morning walks, and I remain fully convinced that he can talk. Other people would probably say dogs can't talk, but, you see, denial allows me to discard that bit of nonsense.

The Rug would talk to me, I am certain. Not out loud with other people around--not even his own person. But if we were able to spend a few private moments together, for sure he'd do more than bark. He'd tell me about life lived close to the ground, about mud and grass and fur wet with rain, about the sweet, delicious scent of doggie-donuts left behind by other dogs. I would listen. I'd wrinkle my nose, perhaps, and try not to imagine things too hard, but I would listen. We'd be friends. To hell with the economy.