The Novelist’s Due – #0

January 26, 2009 jeffrey hannan 2 Comments

EPISODE 0: The Scourge of the Writing Class

40 pages to go on the first draft of the novel…It sounds like a lot but it’s really not, as long as the A to Z regimen (Ativan-Zoloft) holds out and I don’t have to make a co-pay on the next round of refills. (Kidding of course on the alphabet; it’s actually Albariño-Zinfandel….)

Cash is in limited supply these days, so much so I’ve taken to hoarding, which should make Suze Orman happy. Fortunately I haven’t had to resort to scouring the folds of sofas and rifling through dirty laundry for loose change like I used to do when I first arrived in this Gomorrah of a place. Fig newtons and the occasional indulgent latte from Tully’s will suffice for now.

...work in progress...

Self-Inflicted Wounds and Sustenance..

I write not because I enjoy it but because I have to. When writing is in your blood it’s inescapable. It’s as urgent as the lust to hurl oneself from an airplane without a parachute in order to fly, and probably about as sensible.

If I were to classify my current novel, I suppose it would fall under the category of literary fiction. Decades ago I tried writing Harlequin romances and assorted cheap smut for a buck but my heart wasn’t into it and so I chose the proverbial high road. (I must have been high.) This current novel is good. Contrast that with the first one, which I finished 12 years ago. It is unpublished and will forever remain that way: when I’ve mined all the good lines I’ll burn the manuscript.

Like heroin. Without the high..

In publishing terms, to say that this one is good means that probably only twelve people will buy it and six will read it all the way through—not counting myself, my agent, the editor and one demented critic.

Nevertheless I remain hopeful that my pessimism will be repudiated. After all, without hope we are all just minions of the Church, the Market and the State, lugging their nefarious burdens on our backs while the red-robed descendants of Jesus dance in arcane circles and the politicians and marketeers applaud their clever means .

source: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/photos/portfolios/david_ryan?pg=3

Strange place, this..

Things are vastly better now, 20 years later than when I landed in Sodom by the Sea. Measurably different. So much so, to paraphrase Hugo, that “the past is like somebody else’s memories.”

Life has become an exponential variation on itself; it is much and more than it ever used to be, somehow meeting its hidden promises but still managing to surprise at every turn. The surprise is part of the sustenance—it feeds the hungry. That counts for a lot in these days of exponentially diminishing returns.

Here, a glimpse of the life-giving scourge:

the first 211 pages, hauled back from Hawaii in multi-color print because the black ink cartridge ran out

Hawai'i

Recollection of Heading (back to the urban) Home

January 25, 2009 jeffrey hannan Leave a comment

I’m cannibalizing a note to DDS (aka Denise) for this entry…Time / effort / competition don’t allow me to do a proper summary of the Christmas 2008 trip to Hawaii, which was rich and productive and magical and ceaselessly rainy. The urge to recap it in its entirety is strong, but there are only 40 pages to go on the first full draft of the novel; the resume needs updating and a visual refresh in these workless uncertain times; dinner’s cooking; and so on and so on…

From Monday January 11, 2009…

The last few days of our stays in Hawaii are crunch time for us—got to get those last minutes plantings in, distribute the gravel, clean the spider nests from the eaves, top the water off in the solar batteries, cut the last two acres of lawn…Friends fall by the wayside on these final days, unless they come by the house and help us eat up the remnants in the fridge. It’s not how we like it but it’s how it is. (Nicki and Sev were sweet and had us over for a lilikoi martinis as a farewell…)

Thursday morning the boarding passes will be printed. In the afternoon presumably we’ll say goodbye to the hawk. (He came by today for a lengthy and raucous visit but he got no raw chicken from us.). Friday, with a sigh and a bit of a rush, we will load the luggage in the car, put the trash bags in the trunk and drop them at the refuse center on the way to Hilo, where it is likely that rain clouds will be hovering, obscuring the snow-covered summit of Mauna Kea. (It wasn’t. There was a 5-volcano view on the way out.)

And in eight hours after that we’ll be home to a city that seems, with each successive trip back from Hawaii, a little bit less familiar.

Sunrise on the day of departure

Last inspection of the ferns along the lava wall

A gecko pays a visit - captured magnificently by Arvin

Another familiar friend comes calling - from high within the albizia

A last squawk from our wild friend, who has been an occasional visitor of late

Mauna Kea - a beautiful day to fly back to the mainland. (Click to see the full-size; it was a gorgeous day.)

pacifica

A hui hou.

Hawai'i

Happy New Year : Hau’oli Makahiki Hou

December 31, 2008 jeffrey hannan 7 Comments

As the year 2008 wraps up here in one of the last time zones
on the globe, I wanted to wish you all a Happy New Year.

pohoiki road laundry day

For Christmas Arvin got me a trip to the summit of Mauna Kea, 13,600 feet above sea level. In his beautiful words to me: “There, on the first sunset of 2009, we will reflect and celebrate the amazing year we had in 2008” and afterwards “gaze at the stars and imagine the beautiful and bright future together.”