• What is the working title of your next book?

The Dream-Singers

 • Where did the idea come from for the book?

I have been working on this book so long that it is difficult to say. I’m a bit obsessed by twins (my zodiac sign is Gemini), and at the center of the story is a pair of magical twins. I was staring at a painting (that I now own) by my friend frank d. robinson, jr. In the painting a mother is morning the death of one of her twins. I wanted to explore what an absence like that would mean to the left behind sibling. What would it feel like to have a loss that no one believes that you should even register? 

 • What genre does your book fall under?

Literary fiction. 

 • What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?

I think I’ll leave the casting for the movie people. 

 • What is the one sentence synopsis of your book?

Who has to bear the weight of dreams realized and denied?

 • Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

I will seek agency representation shortly. 

 • How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

A year for the first draft. A decade of revision. 

 • What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

I love novels that show a community or family over time and trauma. 

 • Who or what inspired you to write this book?

I am still obsessed by the shadow that the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. cast on the city of Memphis, TN. The twins of my novel are born as Dr. King is dying. 

 • What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

There is magic and mystery with a soul music backdrop. 

Here are the other stops on the tour:

Chika Unigwe, author of On Black Sisters Street and 2012 winner of Nigeria’s biggest prize for literature, the NLNG Prize. http://www.chikaunigwe.com
Rosa Rankin-Gee, Paris Literary Prize 2011 Winner and author of The Last Kings of Sark, forthcoming by Virago. en-gb.facebook.com/rosarankingee
Bassey Ikpi, a featured cast member of the National Touring Company of the Tony Award winning Broadway show, Russell Simmon’s Def Poetry Jam, poet, writer and founder of the Siwe Project – a global non-profit dedicated to promoting mental health awareness throughout the global black community. http://www.basseyworld.live

FOOD AND WRITING: Talking Mushrooms with Terroir-ists :: Oxford American – The Southern Magazine of Good Writing.

Tad Bartlett interviews a writer who cooks (me) and a chef who writes (Chef Chris DeBarr) for the debut of his Food and Writing column for The Oxford American Magazine.

i started my literary year off by committing to 32 consecutive days of writing. it was carleen brice that reminded me that this was my third year of this practice. this new ritual of mine was inspired by this article by ann patchett.  today i am sitting down to the scary work of actually reading what i wrote at such a feverish pace (feverish for me, since my pace tends to be fairly glacial). so far, it isn’t so terrible that i can’t stand it. i used some tricks to keep me moving forward this time.

1. 90 minutes. i love macfreedom.  i’ve taken to shutting off my internet in intervals of 90 minutes. i read somewhere once this is the magic number of minutes for creativity. works for me.

2. the word count. i am always amazed at the mercurial thing a long work of fiction can be. usually my muse cools at the mention of word counts, but something called out to me to use them. i’ve been kind of battered by working on something for such a long period of time, that i decided to surrender to the whims of my novel. to release my control and just follow. so *poof* word counts suddenly started to work for me. i picked 1,000 words per day as my target.

3. daily word document. i am notorious for hating fiction the first day that i write it. when i first started writing, i combated the impulse to destroy everything i wrote by writing longhand in composition books. it had to be a composition book and not a tablet that was meant for pages to tear out. the fact that the composition book was bound and thus more book-like prevented me from tearing the pages out. i wrote in pencil, and wouldn’t take the time to erase big blocks of text, so it was easier to just move forward. this year i used a daily words file. i typed my 1,000 words into this document. at the end of the day i would transfer those words into another master document. this kept me (mostly) from the temptation to look back at what i had written so far and provided a clean slate each day. also, i think the fact that it sounds slightly biblical to me (daily words, daily bread) made it almost like a prayer.

4. shutting up. i mentioned that i had invoked a vow of silence about my work. i made a deal with myself. i could talk about process. how many days, how many words, etc. but i would not say more than a sentence about the actual story. this was difficult, but necessary for me. i think that this is helping me stay in the dream of the world that i am creating. before i felt like i was talking all of the nectar out of everything. writing is a way of thinking for me and blathering on about what it all means was sucking all of the magic out of the process.

at the end of my 32 days i have 34,262 new words (106 pages). a pretty lovely way to kick off my literary year.

every now and then this quiet comes over me and i know that it is time for me to listen. i’m not all here. i have descended to the underworld. i am spending my season with the dead. they have much to tell me and it is difficult to hear them, so the quiet for now is necessary. i don’t want to miss a thing. this quiet seems to always descend upon me at the most inconvenient times. just when the rest of the world is whipped into a frenzy of celebration and noise, i feel the urgent call for stillness, for listening, for peace.

indeed, the quiet is so urgent that i am positively superstitious about it. i apologize in advance for my strange behavior. i am listening very intently to the frequency of spirits. they are jealous and spiteful. i am greedy for what they have to give. i am ready for it. this requires me to be constantly alert for messages. last week i plucked a notebook out of my purse that was identical to one i own (bright red), but this one had a single entry not in my handwriting. i was in the room when those notes were written. i was looking for my notes from that exact panel.  i found what i was looking for, just not in the way i expected.

just today i grabbed a copy of the salt eaters by toni cade bambara off my shelf. i’ve owned this particular copy for years, but bought it used. today a tiny slip of notebook paper about an inch square torn on all sides fluttered out with a note not written in my handwriting. i scan the page and read this:

They argued the merits of growing up in Memphis or in Harlem. Porter talked about Speaker’s Corner, calling it “holy ground.” Fred would talk about the tenements behind Beale Stret they used to call “The Arks.” They’d laugh together at their fathers’ old-time courting tales, when they’d jam a tomato stake with their name chalked on it in the girl’s yard and hope like hell her father wouldn’t com yank it out and fling it back over the fence.

~Toni Cade Bambara, The Salt Eaters

the fact that the scrap is torn on all sides like a petition paper, that this passage mentions memphis and magic and love. that the quote itself is about storytelling and community–all of this feels like a miracle. suddenly the hush, the quiet is worth it. i have come to the place at the end of the map. the sky is without stars, without the moon. dark. there is only the sound of something far, far away to guide me, whispering into my heart.

i toyed around with elaborate book lists, checklists and forms to track what i wanted to learn. none of my systems stuck. i felt like the work was trying to tell me something. instead of composing the perfect list, i decided to just listen to the work. i made long rambling lists with questions like “what is missing?” “what does character x want?” across the top of the page. i read through the manuscript and made notes and tried to make connections. i drew visual maps of the plot with made up symbols. i stared out of the coffee shop window.i made a mess.

i started to surrender to random urges–to wander the aisles of a different library branch than normal. to pull a long-forgotten book off my shelf. i stopped in the middle of a text if another one called to me. i found myself murmuring “ah ha” and scribbling furiously. my syllabus was making itself. and all i had to do was listen.

~j

Chapter 6: Transformation

And I wanted to cry. But I couldn’t. I feel sorry for her. I do. Not that anyone would believe me. The things the people in this town ask of me in the dark: Keep my wife home. Get the judge on my side. Stop him from beating me. Tell me the right number to play. Set a light for me since I can’t do it at home. I watch their spines straighten and hips loosen as they venture unburdened back into the night.  They don’t look back. I carry what they leave behind in my spine, my breasts, my hair.

I’ll do anything. They say this but don’t mean it. They pay me for my work, sure. A little piece of money. A bolt of fabric. An I-pod. A mess of beans. A few dozen eggs. An emerald ring. A meager price for all that weight. Just this once, I took full price for my work. She calls to scream at me on the phone, confusion and terror pulsing red through the line. I feel a wave of compassion cut with a sharp frisson of pleasure when I see her features settling on my face in the mirror. I wonder what she sees in her own mirror now. Is her reflection covered in a rheumy fog? Or is her countenance sliding from translucent towards transparent?

I’ll do anything. It was a fair price. A bargain, even. I lean in closer to admire my new face. Was it worth it?

Next up for chapter 7 is matthew salesses. his novella the last repatriate is currently being launched (in a very innovative, smart way). i can’t wait to read it!

THE FULL LINE UP, IN ORDER (completed posts in bold)

1. Christine Lee Zilka czilka.wordpress.com
2. Nova Ren Suma novaren.wordpress.com
3. Wah-Ming Chang wmcisnowhere.wordpress.com
4. Nina LaCour ninalacour.com/blog
5. Stephanie Brown scififanatic.livejournal.com
6. Jamey Hatley jameyhatley.wordpress.com
7. Matthew Salesses matthewsalesses.com
8. Krystn Lee blog.kryslee.com
9. Bryan Bliss bryanbliss.blogspot.com

THE RULES:

• Start with the last line of the previous entry.
• Poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction all up for grabs.
• 250 words (you can fudge if artistic license requires)
• Thematically linked
• Link to the next person on the list, as well as those who posted before you.
• Post something within 4 or 5 days of the most recent piece.
• Posts should start with an explanation, with links to the previous posts as well as the next.

so much has happened since my last post. i was on a mountain. i was on another mountain.  i lost a dear, dear friend to cancer. indeed, i feel a bit like an entirely new person since then. the changes are perhaps subtle to the naked eye, but enough to shift my orbit completely. just a few days ago, nasa cameras caught a brilliant meteor break up into a fireball, while the remnant of an empty rocket booster slowly makes its way through the sky in the background. (video here)  that meteor is the old me burning away in a final, spectacular burst. the new me is that incandescent abandoned rocket left, not empty but open. open and ready to be filled with the potential of things to come.

transformation