There Is Just So Much
One day before school starts.
I am trying to draw out Nicholson Baker's A Box of Matches for all it is worth. The premise of the novel is almost idiotically simple: a middle-aged man decides to wake up early every morning, start a fire, and for an hour or so, just see where memory takes him. Each chapter feels like a random walk through the space of mundane life, yet all of the little inanities of getting sick, dropping the soap, etc. take on a majesty in that groggy pre-dawn den.
The book is complemented well by Belle & Sebastian playing softly in the background. I have so very little to do, now that I have moved in (and starting tomorrow, I will have so much to do), that I find myself just rolling in the cover of my bed, staring at a piece of paper, or dribbling a soccer ball back and forth, just reveling in minutiae for one more day.
At one point, Baker claims that the first thing you do when you wake up dictates the course of your day. Reading e-mail first thing will "put you in a hungry electronic funk" all morning. While I doubt I could have coined that phrase, I agree wholeheartedly. While at Tech, I used to jump at the sound of new e-mail and scurry down from the loft to check on what, nine times out of ten, was just spam.
Reading the newspaper is also not the way to start the say apparently. Doing so will leave you "full of puns and grievances." That tends to be true as well.
Baker seems fond of making coffee and lighting a fire. Not having a fireplace, this isn't an option for me.Yesterday however, I did wake up and go for a run. It was not nearly as cathartic as I would have hoped, though that may have been due to it being well past eight. Baker's fire lighting happens at four. By the time I had found my running shorts, shoes, keys, etc. I was already free of the grogginess that seems key to the early morning reveling Baker expounds.
Tomorrow we have orientation at 8:30. If I wake up at six, I can run for as long as possible (a paltry twenty minutes or so), do breakfast, and arrive to the first day of orientation invigorated (in theory).
........
I am not sure if improving one's writing can be done consciously. Practicing regularly with this blog has been limited, but I think that everything I wrote above was coherent and engaging. I edited a paper yesterday that was a jumble of ideas. I had to take a pad and diagram an entire new essay structure to recommend to the writer. This seems far more crucial to good writing than choosing the perfect word. Shaping the flow of the narrative, pruning off the clever but unnecessary insights, and consciously not bogging down sentences in clauses and parentheticals all appear more important.
("more crucial?" I may have to flog myself for that one...)
I am trying to draw out Nicholson Baker's A Box of Matches for all it is worth. The premise of the novel is almost idiotically simple: a middle-aged man decides to wake up early every morning, start a fire, and for an hour or so, just see where memory takes him. Each chapter feels like a random walk through the space of mundane life, yet all of the little inanities of getting sick, dropping the soap, etc. take on a majesty in that groggy pre-dawn den.
The book is complemented well by Belle & Sebastian playing softly in the background. I have so very little to do, now that I have moved in (and starting tomorrow, I will have so much to do), that I find myself just rolling in the cover of my bed, staring at a piece of paper, or dribbling a soccer ball back and forth, just reveling in minutiae for one more day.
At one point, Baker claims that the first thing you do when you wake up dictates the course of your day. Reading e-mail first thing will "put you in a hungry electronic funk" all morning. While I doubt I could have coined that phrase, I agree wholeheartedly. While at Tech, I used to jump at the sound of new e-mail and scurry down from the loft to check on what, nine times out of ten, was just spam.
Reading the newspaper is also not the way to start the say apparently. Doing so will leave you "full of puns and grievances." That tends to be true as well.
Baker seems fond of making coffee and lighting a fire. Not having a fireplace, this isn't an option for me.Yesterday however, I did wake up and go for a run. It was not nearly as cathartic as I would have hoped, though that may have been due to it being well past eight. Baker's fire lighting happens at four. By the time I had found my running shorts, shoes, keys, etc. I was already free of the grogginess that seems key to the early morning reveling Baker expounds.
Tomorrow we have orientation at 8:30. If I wake up at six, I can run for as long as possible (a paltry twenty minutes or so), do breakfast, and arrive to the first day of orientation invigorated (in theory).
I am not sure if improving one's writing can be done consciously. Practicing regularly with this blog has been limited, but I think that everything I wrote above was coherent and engaging. I edited a paper yesterday that was a jumble of ideas. I had to take a pad and diagram an entire new essay structure to recommend to the writer. This seems far more crucial to good writing than choosing the perfect word. Shaping the flow of the narrative, pruning off the clever but unnecessary insights, and consciously not bogging down sentences in clauses and parentheticals all appear more important.
("more crucial?" I may have to flog myself for that one...)
