Rambly

Once I get an idea, I don’t have much trouble writing it. I’m not saying anything about the quality of the writing therein, I’m just saying that if I can just get an idea, a hazy outline in mind, then I’m pretty well good to go. When I am lacking that idea umbrella, I’m pretty well useless.

Case in point: I had what I thought was a brilliant idea sometime last summer or fall for another book, full of witty and pithy and wry commentary on the south, from a girl’s point of view. That was kind of the problem, though. The point of view wasn’t just any southern girl’s, it was mine, and I began wondering why what I had to say and think about the south was that important and any more insightful than what any female in the southeast may have to say. I got stuck right about there and have been there ever since. It’s a terrible thing to have an idea so tissue-thin in its vagueness that upon closer inspection, there is actually not much substance to it. I keep thinking if I could just expand and flesh out this little idea or that one then before I knew it, I’d have a book outline. Not so much.

I gave myself this whole big year 2007 tied up in a shiny baby blue satin bow in which to write the book. Then I’d have a good part of 2008 in which to edit and design it and have fun planning the promotional aspects.

All that is going to be darn hard to do if I don’t have any content. Here it is already February and I haven’t done anything.

You know how there are books full of writing prompts? They suggest you write for five minutes about a view from a classroom window when you were a child, for instance. I get that you could conceivably take one of those prompts and turn it into an actual book, or the seed of a book, anyway.

But what I would like is a book of book ideas. It would be divided into sections for singletons and military folks and highbrow literary and low brow trash. It’d have prompts like, in the military folks section, for instance, “Soviet sympathizers hijack a nuclear submarine and something terrible happens!” In the singleton section, “A few years out of college, Caitlin thought she had it all figured out. Her career was right on track until she appeared on the Reality TV show [insert ridiculous yet funny name of make believe show here] and although she loses her job and makes a fool out of herself in front of national TV, hilarity ensues and she gets the guy,” and…hey…Maybe there’s a book idea for me? Perhaps that’s the book I could write!

Or not. I’m guessing not many writers are as lazy and whiny and ridiculous as I am. And clearly I’d have to do a lot more research (can a submarine be hijacked?) on pretty much every genre except fiction, regional, southern and fiction, women’s contemporary.

So I was at Barnes & Noble because I was looking for Nick Hornby’s book, The Polysyllabic Spree, which neither they nor Lemuria had in stock. I’m going to have to order it, though. That is how much I like his writing, particularly his nonfiction essays. Later in the week, I'll have something here about his fantabulous book, Housekeeping Versus The Dirt: Fourteen Months of Massively Witty Adventures in Reading Chronicled by the National Book Critics Circle Finalist for Criticism, which I read over the weekend and and which had a lot to do with pulling me out of my self-imposed slump. Well, that and some kind friends who indulged me my dark moods and listened.

What I brought home from Barnes & Noble, instead, was Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon (which I think is now one of my Top 20 Books of All Time), The Big Love by Sarah Dunn, The Tea House on Mulberry Street by Sharon Owens, and Writers on Writing: Collected Essays from The New York Times.

After roaming the store for an hour or so, I had over a dozen in my arms this time when I lucked up and got on of those comfy seats near the magazines. I wish I could remember the the titles of all the books I picked up. I know there was The Mysteries of Pennsylvania by Michael Chabon (which I'll be looking for after loving Wonder Boys as I did), Book Lust (another book I dearly wish I had written), Dress Rehearsal (this book seemed cool. It looks like standard issue chic lit but I liked the premise – the owner of an upscale bakery can predict a couple’s viability by the cake that’s ordered. I may well end up getting that one), Vein of Gold by Julia Cameron (this one, really, I wanted. Except that I read a little and I could tell that it was one of those books that would require effort and passive reading. As of late, life is overwhelming me and I know myself well enough not to take on this project. Sure, I could have bought the book and taken it on later except that I know how I am, and I would have felt like I was failing by not diving into the book and its exercises immediately. The book would have mocked me from its shelves.)

I’m that way with all books, really, though. They rarely make it to the bookshelves, instead sitting in clear view and I’m always eager to gobble them up. I read fast, too fast, really, and I always re-read books. If it’s something I like, of course. I don’t think I own many books I haven’t read over and over. Although there are exceptions, such as Pat Conroy’s The Prince of Tides. (Now that I think of it, I don’t have that book. I must have borrowed it from the library.) Anyway, The Prince of Tides is a beautiful, brutal book. Painful, even. Some of the scenes, good and terrible, stay with me still. Incredibly written, but I’ll never read it again.

What was I talking about? I can’t remember either.