I might be a tramp...
my book dalliances, a Greek salad, + let's get physical... how bodies in motion can bring our writing to life
Hey Hi Yo!
Like many of you (in body and/or spirit) I participated in NO KINGS DAY. I must say, I was buoyed. Which is the verb I most seek in my life just now. Buoy! Uplift!
Fifty thousand people showed up at the protest in my city. There were songs, stories, chants, abounding liveliness, good will, and patriotic geese! It was a delight. This is the world I wish for all of us. We are a movement. Save your signs! Follow
and THE DWORKIN REPORT for enthusiastic reports on all that is going well.
And, for you! A shot of strength. A protest playlist to keep you dancing and singing in your kitchen while you make the delicious Greek Salad I’ve included below!
read:
Am I a book tramp? It certainly seems to be my season of one night stands! On the one hand I’m flogging myself for my flightiness. On the other hand I get it. Things are tough all over. I’m caring for my stubborn elderly mother. I’ve been keeping a diary (new entry here about the money). The diary is personal, sure—but also universal with tips about how to prepare for elder care in your future, because like it or not, it’s coming!
Hence my book commitment troubles. Here is what I’ve partially read this year, and please, DO NOT JUDGE THESE BOOKS BASED UPON MY CAPRICIOUS BEHAVIOR, and more importantly, don’t judge me!
It’s not you, it’s me books:
Martyr, Kaveh Akbar. I know I’m a loser! Everyone loves this novel. Even as I write this I feel myself being pulled back to its pages.
Anatomy of a Story, John Truby. I cherry picked my way through this craft book. It has some great calls to action for fixing your writing.
What Your Body Knows About Happiness, Janice Kaplan. This is a terrific book. Why can I not finish?
Radical Acceptance, Tara Brach. Also great. Moving along at a snail’s pace.
Another Bullshit Night in Suck City, Nick Flynn. This title should have me gripped. Tossed it aside… Not my current mood.
We Are Too Many, Hannah Pittard. Whoever decided this would be a good audiobook was whack! It is basically a script of a zillion conversations and the dialogue tags are exhausting! I bet it would be a terrific read though. About marital infidelity with the wife’s best friend no less!
Meditations for Mortals, Oliver Burkeman. Also wonderful if you have patience to do one a day and not race through a dozen, yet enacting nary a one. I fear intentions do not count. 😉 I loved his book, 4000 Weeks.
O Sinners! Nicole Cuffy. I cannot even tell you what this was about. Came highly recommended, and I just didn’t have it in me!
Run for the Hills, Kevin Wilson. I had to quit in the middle of an entire chapter about a basketball game. I was sad because I have enjoyed his novels in the past. Particularly Nothing to See Here.
Sheesh! Down below, in the After Party 🎉, I’ve got three books I powered through with great joy! Meanwhile Dear Reader, do tell… what you are loving so I can pick it up and make it through.
Did you know we have zoom r.w.e. book group? We meet on Sunday morning every month over zoom. Stay tuned for our summer selection!
The book group is a perk for paid subscribers and let me tell you, we are a lively bunch!
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I've made a read.write.eat. Bookshop where you will find many of the books I've recommended. Buying books from my shop is another way you can support my newsletter.
write:
To invigorate my writing and my life I’ve been taking some online writing classes. I mentioned last week the class from Claire Dederer on memoir writing, which was terrific and which you can read about here.
This week I took a class on Physicality, from the wonderful Elizabeth McCracken. (Please do read this and this and this by McCracken.)
She spoke about the tendency for writers to turn their characters into mere heads in jars.
What she means, or at least what I took away, is that often writers lean heavily upon the face to reveal emotional depth. Consider:
Eye work: eyes roll, squint, close, blink, avoid looking
Eyebrow work: furrow, lift
Nose work: nostrils flair, audible breathing, adorable scrunching (but is it?)
Mouth work: bite the lips, pout, mouths fall open, kiss, purse, and my personal favorite—the moue
Next, when we do include the body it is often autonomic nerve responses.
Stomach work: they flip, sink, twist, drop
Heart work: they race, thud, skip a beat, lodge in the throat
skin work: grows hot or cold, flushes, prickles
breath work: sighs, one holds one’s breath, speeds up, pants
And yes, all these things happen when we experience emotions, the trouble is, they’re internal and hence (mostly) invisible to the other characters. They don’t do much heavy lifting in the story! They DO NOT CAUSE change!
According to McCracken, “Bodies are the apparatus of plot.”
How so? Well let’s consider aspects of Plot:
Physical: The things that happen in the story in the order in which they happen.
Emotional: The character(s) feeling things in the order in which they feel them.
Interactive: Where the emotional (inner) and physical (outer) intersect. This is the sweet spot!
What’s a writer to do? Use the world. Use the body. Make your people interact with the environment. Show bodies in action. If characters are stuck inside their heads they are freezing in the story.
Consider this paragraph from “A Temporary Matter,” by Jhumpa Lahiri.
She'd come from the gym. Her cranberry lipstick was visible only on the outer reaches of her mouth, and her eyeliner had left charcoal patches beneath her lower lashes. She used to look this way sometimes, Shukumar thought, on mornings after a party or a night at a bar; when she'd been too lazy to wash her face, too eager to collapse into his arms. She dropped a sheaf of mail on the table without a glance. Her eyes were still fixed on the notice in her other hand.
The description of her face after the gym is vivid—smudges, patches, remnants. And, it reminds the POV character, her husband, of how it used to be earlier in their marriage when smudged makeup meant fun! The bodies in action, falling into one another’s arms, are only a memory. Notice here how she drops the mail without interest, staring at the notice which says the power will be turned off. We also get a sense of the husband, paying such careful attention to his wife and she pays not a whit of attention to him. Something is amiss. Something is lost. Bodies in space. Physical and internal. Drives the plot forward!
If you’re already a paid subscriber, Giant THANKS!
Below the paywall—in the after-party🎉— you’ll find:
books that grabbed me and kept me!
a fresh take on a Greek Salad (yes, it’s a little zingier!)
a handy-dandy PDF of a prompt that embraces physicality,
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