Moot Point

I read an interesting piece over at The Rejecter the other day reacting to this article about "looks selling books."

The article points out the astounding half a million dollar advance offered to Nell Freudenberger in 2002 for an as-of-yet-unwritten book of short stories. The question other envious and disgruntled writers were muttering to each other was: Why would anyone bid so high on a book of literary short fiction on a young, relatively unknown writer?

The obvious answer would be that she's brilliant. Duh. But that's not what the word on the street was.

The real answer, everyone said, was because she's young and attractive.

Never mind the fact that she won the PEN/Malamud Award for young fiction and the Whiting Writers Award in 2005. It's all because of the first story she sold to The New Yorker, which was accompanied with an author photograph of Ms. Freudenberger kneeling on crushed velvet. People were bitter.

Nell Freudenberger is a perfect example of style over substance. She is what the damnable publishing industry has sunk to- attempting to take a mediocre workshop writer’s pedestrian prose and make a ‘hot’ writer out of her by publishing her obscenely long fluff tales in outlets like the Paris Review, Granta, and The New Yorker, where she interned, having her pose sexily for magazines like Elle and Vogue, then offering her a half million dollar advance for a book of stories she hadn’t even written yet.

- A review of her book of short stories Lucky Girls

Of course I haven't read Lucky Girls, but I'm willing to give her the benefit of a doubt.

I can't seem to find the infamous photograph of "sexy Nell" but this will do. She is young and attractive, but would this make you buy her book? Probably not. I buy books based on word of mouth, on reviews in Time, etc. If someone had told me to go buy her book of short stories because she was an amazing writer, I would go to the nearest bookstore, take it off the bookshelf, flip through the first story, and then debate if I want to read the rest. It wouldn't be until I'd finished the book that I saw she was very pretty and intimidatingly smart. Of course, this is me as a reader. I don't know much about the publishing side of books. Perhaps things are different on the other end, but I hope that the $500,000 advance offered was because they believed her stories would sell on their own merit, not because someone found her hot.

Of course, this isn't to say that I'm not shallow when it comes to aesthetics. I have said time and time again that Neil Gaiman is pretty fucking hot. I mean, he is. Okay, so maybe he looks sort of dead and emo in a lot of photographs, but romantic pallour, dark shaggy hair, and a black leather jacket go a long way for me. But I'm not drawn the conventional attractiveness and I read and fell in love with Sandman long before I ever saw a picture of him. (By this I mean I read Vol I: Preludes & Noctures and then discovered his face on the back cover.) Talent goes a lot further than just looks in making me think someone's hot. Christian Bale is really hot. Daniel Radcliffe is hot. Rachel Weisz is really hot. Natalie Portman is really hot. Kate Winslet is really hot.

But perhaps this is all an American publishing industry bit. There exist two different author photos of Susanna Clarke: a UK version and an American one.

( Can you guess which is which? )

Whoa. In all honesty, I prefer the UK version. That Susanna Clarke looks like the sort of hermit, bookish, Mr. Norrell-esque woman who would shut herself up in a library in Northern England reading Jane Austen and writing all day. The other Susanna Clarke looks polished and urbane, someone who would have written modern literary fiction set in Manhattan. Both of the articles referenced above mentioned that photographers and publishers often encourage authors to "embody" the character or the tone of their work. But apparently you have to look young, attractive, and fabulous while you do it.

It was getting late and the kids had already been put down for the night.

"Andy and Taylor have been put to bed." Amy tucked the phone between the crook of her shoulder and ear and turned off the lights in the boys' bedrooms. "I read them a little bit of Tom Sawyer before tucking them in."

"Thanks, Amy," Mrs. X said. "Dan and I should be home around 11:30, but please feel free to use our bedroom to watch TV so you can keep an eye on the boys."

"Of course," Amy replied. She flipped the switch to the master suite of the Xs sprawling 8 bedroom mansion in New Jersey. The lights flickered in the expensive wrought-iron chandelier before warming up the room. "Thanks, Mrs. X."

Amy frowned. In the corner, as out of place as the plastic Venus de Milo and the pewter Degas, was a statue of a clown; Mrs. X really did have some atrocious taste when it came to artwork. Shuddering slightly, she walked to the linen closet to grab a set of sheets.

"If you need anything, just give us a call on my cellphone. You do have the number?"

Amy walked up to the statue, shaking out the sheets as she went. "Yes, I do. Oh, Mrs. X? Do you mind if I throw a sheet over your clown statue? They scare me a little."

The sheet poised in her hands, Amy stared into the glassy eyes of the statue. It was really quite realistic: about life-size and dressed in real clothes and fitted with an actual wig.

There was a slight pause on the line.

"Mrs. X?"

"Get the kids out of the house right now. We don't have a clown statue."

I point to this story as the reason (along with the grande coffee from Starbucks) I could not fall asleep until 4am this morning. Bex and I met up at the Union Square Barnes & Noble last night and somehow ended up discussing horror films.

"I just saw the American Ring and now I can't sleep," she said.

Now I'm just as impressionable as the next person. I don't really like horror movies, but it's mostly because I can't really deal with graphic depictions of gore and violently sadistic acts. Psychological thrillers and horror films I'm fine with, as well as disturbingly creepy images. Admittedly, the American Ring was the scariest movie I had seen in a long time, but shortly afterwards I just turned off all the lights and crawled into bed without a second thought.

"At least stuff like that doesn't happen in real life," I offered.

"Oh, but it does," she replied.

And then she tells this fantastic story about a mansion in rural New Jersey with a wandering lunatic just released from the insane asylum, dressed as a clown, and living in this family's house for over a year without detection. It's one of those "friend of a friend of a friend" type stories, but still scary as all hell. Fortunately, it turned out the man was harmless, if with a few loose screws, and lived in the attic dressed as a clown during the day, and came downstairs and ate food in their kitchen at night after everyone had gone to bed. As it was a large house with several rooms, this activity went unnoticed until their babysitter found him in the parents' bedroom.

Mrs. X did wonder if she should have lent more credence to her children's nightmares.

"Mommy," Andy said to her one night, "I don't like the clown who comes to visit us at night."

"Shhhh." She smoothed down her son's hair. "It's all just a bad dream."

But it wasn't. Apparently the clown came downstairs and wandered into the boys' bedrooms and watched them sleep. AGH. AGH. AGH.

I'm not actively afraid of clowns. I do find them a little creepy, but creepy in a slightly delicious and twisted/surreal way that works so well in my little world. I find dolls to be a lot more scary than clowns, although my one true phobia remains 1) specialized to my mother and myself and 2) a possible obsessive-compulsive disorder symptom. (I have this...absolute irrational fear of holes. But not like...a hole. Although if I look at one for a long time I start wigging out. Several holes marring a smooth surface actually make me spazz out in my chair. I had to tape over my brother's copy of Louis Sachar's Holes because it disturbed me so much.) Still, the concept of a man, still as a statue, LIVING UNDETECTED in your house for over a year is absolutely terrifying, and if on top of that he's dressed like a clown...well that's enough for anyone to voluntarily commit themselves to a psychiatric ward (which is what this poor girl had to do).

The caffeine buzzing through my veins still at 1am, I tossed and turned and found sleep wasn't forthcoming. I picked up my laptop and decided to sit in the laundry room and surf the internet (for some reason, my laundry room received an EXCELLENT wireless signal). But walking through my extremely dark apartment (my roommate Sofa was passed out and I didn't want to wake her) with that image in my head made me incredibly jumpy. I couldn't even use the bathroom because that would required walking up a dark, narrow flight of stairs and stepping into a room with a mirror before I could turn on the switch. (All the childhood scare-stories about Bloody Mary were also running through my head, along with the persistent fear that behind the door a glassy-eyed statue of a clown would be standing to eat me.)

So I gorged on Harry Potter fandom wank instead. I am unashamedly a fan of fandom as well as the books; I fangirled Cassie Claire's Draco Trilogy and Lori's Paradigm of Uncertainty fics like everyone else, but was blissfully aware (like so many other times in my life) of the melodrama surrounding them, especially Miss Cla(i)re. Now I'm up to date on the entire history of HP bitchy cliqueness and now I feel slightly gross, like I've just stuffed myself with a dozen heavy, greasy doughnuts or spent a whole day watching The Real Housewives of Orange County marathons.

Ugh.

( On a completely unrelated topic, a list of books I need to read. )

Walk through the office of any corporate business person and you can instantly tell if said person is a man or a woman. How? By the litter of heels (or lack thereof) cluttering up the space beneath the desk. It never fails to amuse me to rifle through the filing drawers of absent bosses or coworkers searching for a document only to find a plethora of shoes. If I wanted a pair of size 8 Donna Karan or size 9 Gucci heels, I would have no problem, but that investment advisory agreement? Beats me.

I never really gave a second thought to wearing heels when I was living in Los Angeles. I was always a Mary-Janes-and-Chuck-Taylors kind of girl anyway, but on the odd occasion when I had to throw on a pair of four-inch stilettos, it wasn't a big deal. Slip in your feet, walk two yards to your car, drive six miles to your destination, and presto! an evening standing about in uncomfortable spikes is a non-issue. I never expected to factor in shoes when considering my morning commute.

There are small, minute details about New York City living that I never would have in a million years thought would be such a production. Rain, for instance. Rain in Los Angeles is a problem; the instant a slight drizzle appears, the TV news networks start blathering on about STORM WATCH [INSERT YEAR] and while driving out on California highways can harrowing on a sunny day, during a shower it's terrifying. When I first moved to Manhattan, I relished the thought of never having to touch a steering wheel again. I can walk everywhere! Isn't that great? So healthy! Environmentally friendly too! And while it can indeed be wonderful, a lot of the time it really sucks.

For example, this morning. It was dreary and wet and cool. Was it chilly enough to wear pants? Definitely. But did I want to wear pants? Hmmmm. Any time it rains, the bottom 12 inches of my slacks are guaranteed to be soaked, oily, and grimy from the filthy city streets. So, okay, skirt it is then. But I have to put on socks to wear my galoshes instead of my normal flip-flops and the last thing I want to do is peel off my disgusting and drenched socks to change into heels once I get to the office.

I hate it when it rains in New York. Umbrellas are completely useless. They might keep your head and shoulders dry, but forget about anything below that. Also, the day it rains, everyone is guaranteed to be shorter than you. This is especially annoying when you repeatedly get stabbed in the eye by the umbrella spokes of the little Asian women hurrying past. Subways? Humid, dank, and gross. Slipping on muddy tile floors is inevitable. Packed in like sardines in little aluminum cars, you always end up brushing against someone else's sopping umbrella and getting wet anyway.

This has probably been the wettest summer I've experienced in New York. And it blows.

---

This morning I left behind a warm and snuggly Bear cuddled with a Harp in bed. I tucked the covers in around them and gave each a kiss on the nose before I left. It's been a while since I've done that. I've missed it a lot. His clean, sweet scent still lingers in my hair. It smells like honey.

I really ought not to cook. I know it saves money, but I honestly can't make anything edible. For instance, right now I am eating this...interesting mess of brown rice, tofu, and beans that I slapped together before I left for work. Lordy.

I am done with my apartment. DONE. This morning I awoke to the unfortunately familiar sound of a backed up drain overflowing down the stairs. My toilet was clogged with I-really-don't-want-to-know-what and I consequently spent most of my getting-ready-for-work time scrubbing and bleaching the bathroom. On the plus side, my apartment is sparkling clean and disinfected. On the minus side, I'm tired of reaching for "plus sides" when it comes to The Hovel. I would compare my apartment to a relationship gone sour except there wasn't much spark to begin with as my other roommates set us up on a blind date and I was too afraid to say no. Serves me right for being so passive.

Take Two of The Jones Family Chesapeake Bay Fishing Adventure didn't pan out. Last month I went down to Philly to partake in some fishing with my dad and little brother, but unfortunately (after a 4am start and a 3 hour drive) the wind was too strong for us to go out in a 22-foot catamaran. This weekend was the same story. But it was nice to be "home" with my parents and little brother and be taken care of for a change. My brother and I went bowling and watched The Last Mimzy, which was a surprisingly good movie. It puts me in mind of Escape to Witch Mountain, which I loved as a child.

I am about 4400 words into my long synopsis for my novel and I'm not even halfway finished. I either have a problem with pacing or it's going to be REALLY, REALLY LONG. I find it interesting how the writing process differs not only from person to person, but from book to book. As a child I wrote godawful Regency romances and sentimental Victorian fiction, and those wrote themselves more or less chronologically. My Chester novel came in dribs and drabs, although I actually had to sit down and structure the parallel narrative plot. I'm a compulsive organizer; I organize things that need not be organized. When I wrote longer, multi-chapter fanfics, I had an overall outline, which was broken into each individual chapter outline. For this particular book it appears as though what I'm really writing is a shitty first draft that I am intending to flesh out and polish later.

I wish I had taken a few more classes in writing, especially novel writing. Each story has a beginning, a middle, and an end, which then inherently falls into a three act structure. I think I've got Acts I and II, but the third is still nebulous and vague. Someone once told me that a book ought to be roughly divided into fourths: a quarter for Act I, half for Act II, and a quarter for the resolution. Except I like beginnings too much. If I let myself, I could probably write a beginning forever and never get anywhere.

Oi, if I think about it too hard, I start getting exhausted and I haven't even started it yet. Just keep writing, J. Just do it.

It's weird, but I was getting used to having my family living close by.

They've been living outside Philadelphia for a little over a year now and are now seriously trying to move back to California. I'm not quite sure how I feel about this. Although I don't see them nearly as often as I should, the knowledge that they're only a 1.5 train ride away was somewhat comforting. That seeing my family would never again have to be some enormous production. I've been flying cross-country from Los Angeles to New York and back for four years now that I really ought to be used to it, but I never am. Packing, unpacking, dead time, flight time, schedules and delays, walking in the grey half-light of unborn mornings, some part of me breathed a sigh of relief about putting those aside for a more (dare I say it?) settled existence.

"It's not as though Nuna ever comes home that often," my little brother said.

Ouch. I'm sorry, Tay. I'm sorry I don't see you as much as you deserve and need. I'm sorry that I'm selfish about my freedom and independence, but I always thought I'd have more time. To know that part of the reason for my family changing coastal allegiance was me makes me feel all the more that I somehow failed them. I know that's not true. Four years ago, when I first stepped out of that illegal black taxi cab onto University Place, I would have scoffed. I relished being away from my family; I exulted in the chance to rebuild my conception of self. It was more liberating than anything I could ever say to be in a place where nobody knew me, a place where I had yet to tie the tangled thread of my life to anyone else's. Sometimes I think that's why I dropped everything and fled to London. I like change, I like creating and building and finding new relationships and friends.

I don't blame my parents. Some people don't deal well with transplantation. I thrive on it. As long as its temporary, of course. I remember meandering through the so-very-suburban streets of North Finchley outside London, on a day when I had decided to take the Northern Line all the way to Zone 4, touching each low white streetpost as I passed. There was a Sainsbury's and a Waitrose on the corner and the thrill of living somewhere different and somehow foreign was exhilarating, like trying on my mother's business suits as a child and pretending I was her for an afternoon. I couldn't imagine living in North Finchley forever, but it was nice to borrow her clothes for the evening.

But New York has never felt that way to me. On some deep and intrinsic and instinctual level, I knew I would live here. I facetiously credit my endless watching of Sesame Street after preschool when I was four, but that wasn't the image I saw in my head. I saw a spare and slightly greying apartment, perhaps somewhat pathetically so, a black corporate pantsuit on my body and a cat on the windowsill. The moment I opened the door to my room on the 14th floor of a slightly dilapidated hotel-turned-dorm on Fifth Avenue, I knew. Sometimes the reason I loved my freshman year at NYU so much was because it felt for the first time like home.

Of course, New York isn't Home. I mean, it is my home and I really could never imagine living anywhere else, but Home was and will always be Los Angeles. Funny how I can say that now; the sunburn of our resentful relationship has faded. I never say I'm "from New York" (even though so many people, including Chester, thought I was growing up) because that would be a lie. I'm "from Los Angeles." I'm rather proud of it sometimes; the romantic allure of California still clings to my memories. Tangible sunshine. The salty brown smell of blue-green water. Endless horizons under a purple diamond sky. The way my car smelled of hot glass and leftover sand and surf from days spent driving down the 10W to Santa Monica with Vendë.

It's a mixed feeling. I'm close to my family. We're as dysfunctional are your next door neighbours, but we're lovely and loving all the same. I would hate to have them so far away, but I won't deny there's so much appeal in repotting my transplanted family roots in familiar chaparral soil.

I'm going back to visit next month anyway.

Why the hell did I move to InsaneJournal? No particular reason, except for the fact that 1) I'm an icon whore and 2) it seems that much of Harry Potter fandom is taking refuge here. It's decent and its platform is as close to Livejournal as a blogging site can get. Not that I'll be moving from there, as I have a lot of friends on LJ, but this is where I can comfortably watch fandom without the tedium of having to log in and out of my (myriad) journals.

I do like it.

Some administrative bits:

01. Layouts

Larger version

Version: 1.0 Title: Indeciperable Speech About: The title came about from a line in Being John Malkovich that I just love: I've been very lonely in my isolated tower of indecipherable speech. Since I live on Planet Not-Your-Average-Person's-Reality, I quite like it. The header was created from images by a photographer named Rodney Smith. It has a vaguely Jack Vettriano-esque, semi-vintage/retro, surrealist feel that is just perfect.

This layout is almost identical to the one I have at Livejournal, except the base templates are different.

02. Fandom

Version: 1.0 Title: Dumbledore's Army About: All my Harry Potter-related fanart and fanfic can be found at sexyharryspecs, which is analogous to the journal also held at Livejournal. It's a community as opposed to a personal journal because I can't take logging in and out of two different accounts anymore.

Larger version // sexyharryspecs.

That's all she wrote!