Don't let your silly dreams fall in between the crack of the bed

A few days ago I posted a video of My Morning Jacket performing "Bermuda Highway" at Madison Square Garden. I cannot get that song out of my head. It has the quality of actually making me feel like crying, even when I sing it to myself.

"Don't let your silly dreams fall in between the crack of the bed and the wall."

Wow. The word "silly" here = perfect. This song unlocks a feeling that I had never articulated before, and in a sense, never even knew I was feeling - that I tend to think my dream is silly. That dream, specifically being of finishing Chimneys, is/can be in serious danger of my thinking it's too facile, or silly, or worthless, to finish. Thank you, Jim James.

The Doldrums

Today I got back from a week in New York , and waiting patiently in my inbox were two rejection letters for a story I had sent out this fall. Par for the course, I suppose, though that doesn't make them any more pleasant. However, there was something different about one of them, which is that it rained praise down on my story, quite strongly, whilst still passing on it. Here were some of the things it said:

• 'The writer is a knockout with prose'
• '...orgasmic on the page (much to the reader's pleasure)'
• 'Astounding language. Truly.'

I swear I'm not putting these up to toot my own horn. I'm mostly confused, and a little proud. I know they don't just shoot these unnecessarily laudatory emails out to just anyone, because I sent them a story last summer, and it was rejected outright, with no frills. How strange!

Anyway, there's not much of a conclusion to draw here; I just wanted to share this oddity with the cyber world. It is nice to get some positive feedback from an unbiased source, even if it's coated in rejection. I also feel slightly validated, as it's a fairly respectable magazine, though I wish they were a little clearer about what could be improved about the story. I guess it's good to know there are humans out there reading
my submissions.

P.S. The following poster, from Psychadelic Adventure's blog, is a possible visual representation of the story that was so cruelly rejected:

My Morning Jacket & Brian Jackson: "The Bottle"

Just got back from NYC, where we saw My Morning Jacket at Madison Square Garden.
Seriously, check this out:

Sneak peek of the 2011 ALBUM AWARDS!

They're still a couple weeks away, as far as I know, but here is my current Top 10 list:

10. Tune Yards, W H O K I L L - Not only is the title fun to type, but this album has some of the most bizarre melodies since Animal Collective's Strawberry Jam. Plus, Tune Yards has that insanely fun tribal sound, but this time it takes place in Oakland, CA, not the jungle. Download it now.

9. My Morning Jacket, Circuital - Not their strongest album, but this one has the same power, insight, and beauty as the rest of their catalog. 'Victory Dance' and 'The Day is Coming' are noms for Song of the Year.

8. The Antlers, Burst Apart - OMG this is a good album. It sets itself apart from other existential, heartwrenching records by its brilliant flow - incidentally, the interlude-esque 'Rolled Together' is a SOTY nominee, and it doesn't even have verses. 'Every Night My Teeth Are Falling Out' is also a contender.

7. Atlas Sound, Parallax - If you want to sound like you are underwater, in space, snowed in, reading Romantic poetry and listening to lost Beatles tracks all at once, buy this record.

6. Bright Eyes, The People's Key - This album made me like Bright Eyes, and all of Bright Eyes' back catalogue. 'Approximated Sunlight' for Song of the Year.

5. Iron & Wine, Kiss Each Other Clean - More fable-like, timeless songs from the great Sam Beam, who rocked at Bonnaroo but is better in studio, in my opinion, with this record. His Chicago jazz band is put to good use on tracks like 'Your Fake Name is Good Enough for Me' - a cool urban twist on his traditionally rural music.

4. Youth Lagoon, The Year of Hibernation - The sound of the subconscious, created by a college student in his garage in Boise, Idaho. To listen to this album is to feel safe, warm, understood, and okay.

3. Radiohead, The King of Limbs - AHHHHHH SEPARATOR

2. Destroyer, Kaputt - This record changes the template for albums, much like last year's Sufjan gem The Age of Adz. Dan Bejar is a wizard-ringleader who opens curtain after curtain, all while sounding like a smooth jazz singer and looking like Aldous Snow. Beautiful, quirky, and this is the first time I've used the word 'insouciant' in an album award.

1. To be announced at this year's ALBUM AWARDS!

Until then, honorary mention goes to another album that came out this year, which might have made the top 10 if it weren't for Royce da 5'9's mediocre rhymes...sorry Royce fans....

Oops

The Fallacies of Language, Or When the Versalitity of the Word 'can' Becomes Dangerous

...In retrospect, I might have given Thomas permission to hurt other people.

Speaking of solipsism...

TodayI babysat for 3-year-old Thomas.

'And - and - and - we wanted to draw fake mustaches on, but then the police would come.'

'Why would the police come?'

'We're not supposed to draw on fake mustaches.'

'I don't think the police would come if you did that. I think your teacher might not like it, but the police wouldn't mind.'

'Yes they would.'

'No they wouldn't. The police are there to make sure you don't do anything to hurt yourself, or other people.'

(Punching himself in the head) 'Did you know, you can only hurt yourself?'

'No, you can hurt other people too.'

(Freezes) 'YOU CAN HURT OTHER PEOPLE?!'

'Yes.'

'But you can only hurt yourself, right?'

'No, you can hurt other people too. That's why you have to be gentle.'

'But you can hurt other people gently.'

Oh boy. Incidentally, during a lot of this I had 'Smokey Taboo' by Cocorosie stuck in my head, particularly the line 'It's true, I get depressed in fancy hotel rooms...'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdxDV3qBq4o

"Oh my god, it doesn't mean that much to you."

I'm always reading things and hearing people say things like 'Success is 90% perspiration...,' 'Inspiration is for amateurs,' etc - little aphorisms encouraging me to work when I don't feel like it, to talk when I have nothing to say.

Recently Johnny told me about an interview he read with Craig Minowa, the genius behind the Minneapolis band Cloud Cult. (Personally, I believe Craig will be heralded as a prophet a hundred years from now, not just a musician, but that's for another time.) In the interview, Craig said that he never makes himself write. Instead, he lets it come to him. That's how he knew he was a songwriter in the first place, so why should he try to force it now? He knows it will come.

That made me think, about several things. One thing that's held my attention for a week or so now is the transition of identity for 'someone who starts writing as a hobby' to a 'writer.' How does one know when to start calling themselves a writer? In general, the difference might be that a people who likes to write waits for their cue, while a writer sits down and churns out words. This is no comment on whether it's good or bad writing, for either type of writer. But I think Craig has a point. For a long time I wrote because I thought of interesting things. I didn't identified myself with it, and I didn't think about it most of the time. As soon as I changed my methods, when I started chasing after ideas, when I started "perspiring" because that's what writers do, the words became more elusive. I had become a writer, but I had changed the methods that made me write in the first place.

This isn't to say I plan to sit around waiting for lightning to strike. It's certainly more nuanced than that. For instance, I think inspiration has a lot to do with the raw material, from which is shaped a novel - but that novel requires perspiration, non-inspired editing and shaping and molding and cutting. For each there is a time.

P.S. The line at the top comes from The National's song "Racing Like a Pro."

And today's photo....

(This is a drawing I made for Suz when she was in Korea. It reminded me of how she was looking out into the world from her tenth story apartment in Peong-Tek.)

"When you're down, you're always down."

I don't really know what that line means (it's from the new Atlas Sound record), but it's a perfect example of one of those lines that sometimes, when I'm feeling like this (down), I believe I will never have the insight, wisdom, way with words, etc, to write.

That doesn't make any sense! If I don't know what it means, why would I get down on myself for not having thought of it first?

Ugh. I don't know. I do know that I will never write groundbreaking, breathtaking things if I don't write at all. But sometimes...I just don't feel like writing.

What should I do when I feel like that? Force it, and settle for mediocre writing, or wait for inspiration, therefore not write? Maybe that is why I would very much like to be in a writing program, where there is an exterior force compelling me to write, no matter how I feel. Jonathan and I have decided on March 1 as our chosen day, on which we will send each other our completed novels. Right now that seems very far away. I wish I felt more urgent.

I wish I spent less time wishing I felt some way other than I do.

Apropos: it is very, very easy to write things like this, i.e., self-indulgent, slightly whiny, repetitive things about my feelings. It is very, very hard to write a novel.

What this boils down to is this: Can I trust myself?

I think I have to.

If I don't, then why am I writing at all? If I can't, then maybe I need to learn to before I'll be able to finish a novel. If I refuse to, then I am dumber than I thought.

I repeat: I must trust myself.

This is very helpful to me to write. Thanks for reading.

And here is a picture of me and some friends, who made Mike Herbster's album I've Got It All, which will be out soon:

I think I am writing a novel.

Well, I am writing a novel, and I think I will continue writing it, but today I have been feeling like it's worse than the worst piece of horrible literature anyone has ever read, and so I feel very down about it. My boyfriend calls this not trusting myself, which I don't. I don't trust myself to talk, anyway, so I have always hoped that I could redeem myself in writing. But this novel, which, if I had never thrown any of it out would be over 500 pages by now, is a mess of feelings and disconnected events and wistful passages of people thinking, like what I do a lot, sans conflict. It's very reflective of my life: not a lot of external conflict, a LOT of thinking. A lot of sitting around in bars and going for walks, and an inconsistent narrative voice that sometimes pops in and comments on the characters, and sometimes even uses first person, mysteriously.

The strange thing is, writing this all out, unedited and as I think it, makes my novel sound not as bad, but actually quite good. I don't particularly like novels that have a clear, unilateral arc, and too much action. I like cerebral, multi-facted character sketches. Plus, life-like is good, right? And if, as Gina once said, it is the responsibility of the artist to depict what she sees in her world, then I am doing a great job. My novel is confusing, inconsistent, muddly, and at parts, not all that bad. So why do I have to fight off the urge to throw the whole thing out?

Johnny, when writing music, goes by this rule: If you have to convince yourself not to scrap a part, you should definitely scrap it. I wish it were that simple. As a rather aggressive editor myself (apropos, the lost 420 pages I alluded to earlier), this is terrifying. If I follow Johnny's rule, I will have nothing to show for the past 3 years of my writing life. I will have essentially killed off my characters because nothing was happening to them, which is not their fault.