Thanks for all your suggestions. I’m not using my favorite name which is biblical and not often used because I would like to save it for a future hero of my dreams, imagination and lustful thoughts.
It has to be a name that I like much, and I like strange or unusual names, or names that are common now but weren’t then. So I chose Zachary. Everyone but me will call him Zach because I have a weird dislike for nicknames. I don’t know why; it’s not something I have spent much time analyzing but obviously am now. So I will stop.
Zachary wasn’t the last man I lived with, loved or was engaged to. While I found it easy to love again, I found it difficult to trust, and was never sure if it was me or the man or both.
I promised myself that in writing our story I wouldn’t let new knowledge, wisdom or thoughts play a role. Am not sure that is possible so I might look at it from all angles. Maybe my only true talent lies in memory; in remembering how I felt at a certain second in time, and why. It is a talent that I hate as pain is remembered as much or more than happiness and in truth my life has had many more happy minutes than painful ones.
I am doing the thing that my writing teacher tried to wipe out of me; I am writing outside and around the story rather than diving into details. But in this new blogging medium I feel a certain peace and a certain knowledge that I can work outside of so called acceptable parameters.
Confusion races through my mind. Why are stories supposed to be told in a certain format? Who set that rule? Then explain how in one country in one century we could have a Faulkner, Steinbeck an Updike, , Capote, Thomas Wolfe, Tom Wolfe, Hunter Thompson and so many others who broke rules with gusto and love. Yes, love for form, beauty, charm, ugliness, detail, a million little and a thousand big things.
Words enchant me; words terrify me; words fill me with longing for other places, other people, other lives; anything not mine. I’m not an adjective person yet I remember the first time I read John Updike’s Rabbit Run and was blown away by feeling that I was with Rabbit at the basketball court. While I’m in the state of Pennsylvania (metaphorically) and on the subject of John’s; I remember John Ohara’s stories about boys becoming men, and their mother’s, younger than I am but oh so much older and dowdier, feeding them breakfast, and not giving great doses of wisdom. Dorothy Parker, how could I have forgot her? Big Blond has always been the most perfect story to me. Yet I’m not home, haven’t read it in years, and all I can really remember is the woman sitting at her dressing table. But the image of her making up and brushing her hair has stayed transfixed and fixed in my mind forever.
Do we live in an era when everything is supposed to be homogenized, easily digested, and from the same formula? If that were true than why is there room for so many different style blogs to be popular , and why do people seem hungry to read and learn from one another?
Maybe these are questions that will be laughed at by people who think that they know what makes good and/or sellable writing; maybe they seem juvenile. But I have spent so many years being told how to write that I sometimes forget to focus on why I write. I love the written word.
On this wordy note, I will end to spend tomorrow walking on the beach, not really thinking about anything and thinking about everything at the same time.
Then I will find a bookstore and hope that it has some books by Will Cather because I need a Southern woman writer fix. Maybe it should be Joan Didion because I am in California. Sometimes even reading is confusing.
Zachary didn’t read many books; he was more the alt newspaper type. But he was proud that I did.
hi pia,
1 thing I love about blogging is that there aren’t any rules. and my experience so far is that people are pretty supportive of whatever style we seem to have. your style however, seems to be oodles above most.
very enjoyable & hope tomorrow is a lovely day at the beach
i think writing “around the story” as you say is very interesting and challanging - both for the reader to read and for the writer to write it well.
and like you say, nothing like a “new medium” to experiment with style.
have you read “Ragtime”? Of course you have. I found that interesting in terms of form but lacking is message, maybe this is the challenge? Conquering playiing with the form whilst simultaneously retaining depth in meaning, interesting story and political messages (everything i political right?)
i dunno, i can still taste lime from my V&T’s last night, so is probably not in the best place to make intelligent comments….
Don’t sweat over the way you write. Don’t worry about meeting some academic standard or rule of format. What truly matters is that what you write can be :felt:. And, in my opinion (which is worth infinite amounts of something or other) your posts sting with emotion. Thanks for the read.
Pia, I think you have to be kind of brilliant to start a post about Zach, end with how he felt about your reading and write about writing in between. Now hit the beach.
You drew me in with the promise of the continuing story of Zachary, but I was quickly sidetracked admiring your intelligent prose. More, of both please!
Enjoy the tranquility of the beach and your family reunion. And you’re right, there’s humor and blog fodder in everything.
Pia, like it was said by someone earlier in your comments… The reason most of us love blogging so much is because the lack of rules. I’ve been enjoying your writing immensely, although I am guilty of sometimes not leaving a comment.
I wanted to email you but couldn’t find your email address. I REALLY am sorry if my post offended you. I never intend to offend anyone with my writing. I am glad that you had great roommate experiences. I only wish I could say the same! Living as a “nice Jewish girl” in the South often turned me into a “conversion magnet”, not only from Mormons, but all kinds of devout folk! Believe me, if I could have lived in YOUR apartment, I would have been totally into it! THAT’S why I moved to NY! TO be around ALL cultures.
Please except my apologizes.
I’m a college student right now, studying English & Fine Arts in hopes of one day fulfilling my dreams of being a truly good writer. I write everyday, and I find it very difficult to stay inside the rigid story parameters that literature seems to want to set on it’s writers. I have professors constantly telling me that I have to do it “this way” or “that way” with no regard for the fact that most of the great writers didn’t do it those ways but their own way. I love John Updike’s “A & P” and if you enjoy southern woman writers, you would probably enjoy Katherine Anne Porter, “Flowering Judas” is a wonderful story.
You spoke briefly about stories that touched you, made you consider yourself and the story more deeply. Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” did that for me. I still remember how I felt when I read it, when the ending came (I don’t want to spoil it, if you’ve not read it). I think I will always have that feeling. I wish I had your ability to remember specific moments in time and the feeling of those moments. As I get older I find that I am more able to reach my memories than I was when I was younger. Maybe for me it’s a symptom of growing up.
KristynMarie
Last Girl: I triple majored in Jewish Guilt in life, college and grad school. found your post to be extermely funny and wasn’t offended at all.
Me trying to relax is a sort of sad sight.
KrystnMarie, I’m trying to break all boundaries that have been pushed into my writing. Before I began taking writing classes, I was very often published under another name.
But could I find validation simply from being published? No, I needed “academia,” under the guise of writing workshops.
Once I began blogging, I almost didn’t want to be published because it’s so much fun, but I do need to earn a living and would love it to be from writing!
Thank you very much for your compliment. I find my memory to be both a blessing and a curse, and should probably blog on it.
Speaking of writing, take a look at the free samples of my writing which you can download at one click (after getting the free reader - link on sidebar) and let me know what you think. People have said that my writing is lyrical, descriptive and even classical in style, well suited to the historical settings of my novel. Anyway, do this only if it interests you. As far as your blog is concerned, I do think you have your own unique style, very carefree and flowing, easy to read. I guess that’s why you have so many bloggers following your various adventures. I think one of your best stories which I liked was the Marilyn one - I think you should publish that one widely - maybe in magazines.
Pia, write any way that you want to. I will be here reading. I love the fact that you never know when you click on a blog what you will find. I am waaaayyy too addicted to the whole thing at this point, but who needs sleep anyway? I love the thinking about everything and nothing. I can really relate to that. I spend so much time living in my mind, that I am hard pressed to say what I enjoy doing other than thinking. I hope you enjoy the beach and I wish that I was there with you. As far as zachary goes, the fact that he didn’t read books was a sign. I tend to use that as a sort of barometer where compatability is concerned. To me, the more they enjoy reading, the more likely that we will get on well together. Hugs!
Pia, I hope you write this from
all angles - There is such wisdom
in what we learn from all our
experiences, good,bad,ugly especially though sometimes that is so unfortunate.
After reading your ‘l00 list’
I realized that for every divorced
person, that they all started out,
I assume, with being able to
write l00 things I like(d) about
Abe,Joshua,Johnny, and your special man, the bum now known as
aka Zachary.
My knowledge/experiences/aka creaking knees too:), would now tell me
that borrowing l0.00 from a friend
would be a sign of ohoh, and
yet, years ago, I, too, would
bring that sweet. JMHO !
At least I hope so.
First time reader - obviously,I
will be back!
Cathi
Pia, you just keep on blogging and keep on writing; SCREW the rules. I probably break every single “rule” on every post on my blog but somehow, a couple of hundred folks a day don’t seem to care if I break the rules, even if my English teacher would roll over in her grave reading my drivel.
Another comment:
You said:
“Words enchant me; words terrify me; words fill me with longing for other places, other people, other lives; anything not mine”
“I love the written word”
Hey, I think the written word was what God talked about in the Bible when he mentioned the “sword”. I think the written world is the most powerful thing in the universe at our disposal. It can be a tool to kill, a tool to gain employment, a tool to take back our Government, and a tool to accomplish all things good and evil.
I do not underestimate the power of the written word. And I love it too! Blog ON…
Break the rules. That’s what they’re for.
If my daughter turned out to be a boy, I was going to name him Zachary. And if I have another kid and its a boy, he is most likely going to be Zachary. So….good choice, although I hope he doesn’t turn out to be such a bum!
Wouldn’t it get boring if everyone wrote the same. I lay in bed and hunt for a good place to stop reading and go to sleep (which explains the dark circles). I think everyone has a style of story telling, some of us just haven’t found it yet. I enjoy reading your scribblings and can’t wait for the next ones.
“Zachary didn’t read many books; he was more the alt newspaper type. But he was proud that I did.”
Perfect.
I am a zach too I read lots of bopoks and lots of alt newspapers. If Zach would like he can get an e-mail address hisname@askzach.com if he would like for free just send me a line sometime.