ok so now...
so every once in a while i get these spurts of inspiration or excitement or something
maybe it all started happening when adam and i started talking about boston and cambridge
moving
applying to work in publishing
thinking it was really really true
maybe it was true
maybe it IS true
could be
cambridge! really.
who knows!
anyway, so i was talking to jim (the boss) a minute ago and somehow we got to talking about history and how old and when and i mentioned my good old thesis from days of old about my family history. and i explained and talked and remembered and the more i did, the more i realized HEY I NEED TO GET BACK TO THAT. i mean, i didn't have much time to really flesh that baby out, it was only 2 months really and i had to get 50 pages out at least.
looking back on it i realize that it could work as a book. a lot would have to change, a LOT of editing. and a LOT of adding. more stories. more people. more more more. but it is ORIGINAL. it would work. it's something only i could write. i remember sitting on a porch shaded from the Roanoke sun with Newberry award winner Nancy Willard (http://www.twbookmark.com/authors/91/1576/) and talking about my work...and her telling me that yes, with some changes in form, with more stories...this could be a great thing. a book. the greatest thing of all.
so i remembered and remembered more, and my ideas, her ideas, her wonderful dream ideas, came back to me. instead of the form of the thing being based around my homecoming from college, and the items i find while cleaning out my room...which is a cute idea but not really very solid, not fitting or strong enough to support the rest of the piece...the stories, which are more individual rather than narrative...should each be their own creature, spawned from a person, and an object. it would be CHAPTER based, not narrative, which leaves me with a very very open form, because if they are chapters and seperate, they can all be very different, the tone and diction changed to fit the mood of the story and the character of the tale. for instance, i remember some of these stories being monologues, not prose, and i had to cut some because they clashed with the narrative form. this way....they would work. they would all be little brushstrokes, some red, some blue, some long, some short....all making up, in the impressionist style, the tapestry of history.
par example. the story about my grandfather's passing. this is the saddest part of the entire thesis. but in the beginning of my description of my grandparents (mom's side), i mention a detail about how Grandpa Marco would bring Grandma Mary a "celebration of tall gladiolas" every evening after work. Each chapter page would be blank, except for a small rectangular picture of the object, (or the assocaited image, if its a photograph) the title, (which would be short, and always begin with The, naming the object. in this case, "The Tall Gladiolas" would be appropriate) and the person's name whose story i am telling.
So. Picture of Gladiolas. Black and White on a blank background. Black outline.
The Tall Gladiolas.
Mania Jabes.
like that!
anyway, i have to leave work now...this will continue later.
maybe it all started happening when adam and i started talking about boston and cambridge
moving
applying to work in publishing
thinking it was really really true
maybe it was true
maybe it IS true
could be
cambridge! really.
who knows!
anyway, so i was talking to jim (the boss) a minute ago and somehow we got to talking about history and how old and when and i mentioned my good old thesis from days of old about my family history. and i explained and talked and remembered and the more i did, the more i realized HEY I NEED TO GET BACK TO THAT. i mean, i didn't have much time to really flesh that baby out, it was only 2 months really and i had to get 50 pages out at least.
looking back on it i realize that it could work as a book. a lot would have to change, a LOT of editing. and a LOT of adding. more stories. more people. more more more. but it is ORIGINAL. it would work. it's something only i could write. i remember sitting on a porch shaded from the Roanoke sun with Newberry award winner Nancy Willard (http://www.twbookmark.com/authors/91/1576/) and talking about my work...and her telling me that yes, with some changes in form, with more stories...this could be a great thing. a book. the greatest thing of all.
so i remembered and remembered more, and my ideas, her ideas, her wonderful dream ideas, came back to me. instead of the form of the thing being based around my homecoming from college, and the items i find while cleaning out my room...which is a cute idea but not really very solid, not fitting or strong enough to support the rest of the piece...the stories, which are more individual rather than narrative...should each be their own creature, spawned from a person, and an object. it would be CHAPTER based, not narrative, which leaves me with a very very open form, because if they are chapters and seperate, they can all be very different, the tone and diction changed to fit the mood of the story and the character of the tale. for instance, i remember some of these stories being monologues, not prose, and i had to cut some because they clashed with the narrative form. this way....they would work. they would all be little brushstrokes, some red, some blue, some long, some short....all making up, in the impressionist style, the tapestry of history.
par example. the story about my grandfather's passing. this is the saddest part of the entire thesis. but in the beginning of my description of my grandparents (mom's side), i mention a detail about how Grandpa Marco would bring Grandma Mary a "celebration of tall gladiolas" every evening after work. Each chapter page would be blank, except for a small rectangular picture of the object, (or the assocaited image, if its a photograph) the title, (which would be short, and always begin with The, naming the object. in this case, "The Tall Gladiolas" would be appropriate) and the person's name whose story i am telling.
So. Picture of Gladiolas. Black and White on a blank background. Black outline.
The Tall Gladiolas.
Mania Jabes.
like that!
anyway, i have to leave work now...this will continue later.