Trajectory to Prague

In many ways I am finished.

I printed out my so called “creative clutter,” the Tuesday’s stories categorized under Tuesday’s Torrent and Fluck Tuesdays, and stared at the pages without reading. 160 pages of short narrative fiction. I wrote all of that in one year. That is a lot of Tuesdays. Approximately thirty-eight stories, I believe.

Today I re-read a paragraph from a story that I randomly picked. I couldn’t believe I had written it. This was neither a judgment of it being good nor bad. I was absolutely removed from what I was reading. I literally couldn’t believe I had thought these sentences that all went together and belonged to certain characters who wanted to tell their story.

It was a tingling sensation: I know I can’t even trace my then-thoughts with the words again. For example, I read the words from a story titled “Apnea”: Some memories eclipse and stretch the night into a field where we stay until the sun saves us. Even if I again wanted to express that thought as the narrator, I could not say it that way now.

This is partly why I do not like talking about my process, I don’t really know what to say. It is not to be evasive; there is no secret. I offer what I can: I don’t write linear (I often write then place paragraphs and sentences in an order), I can’t think in terms of ‘plot’, the characters have a story and I like words, and we go sailing around islands made of dream dispatches in the sea of intelligible bulletins.

The stories I shared on Tuesdays I have been carrying around for twenty-five years to my knowledge. My bones were tired from the weight of noise.  I hate dramatic statements like this but it is true and those who know me very closely know this is true: If I didn’t put them down somewhere, I was going to lose my mind. I did not want to lose my mind entirely given I still had to continue living on this earth. So I created this space, this website: a trial. Not always up for judgment but definitely to assess, to literally try.

In August of 2010 I met a stranger in a pizza shop, a woman named Nina, 78 years old, from Greece (wrote about her  here that week on one  “Still Sunday”), who told me that I “must go to Vienna before I die.”  I had never considered that as my next destination to explore when the next opportunity to travel would come but I smiled and told her I would.

Soon thereafter, my mother mentioned she  had some time off to travel and to see if my schedule allowed me to accompany her given my father couldn’t join her this time. I considered the dates she mentioned and I told her it shouldn’t be a problem. She told me she wanted to check out Budapest. Her research lead her to conclude Vienna was the main place to see. I told her about the 78 year old woman I had met who had said I “must go to Vienna before I die.” We thought the coincident was demanding of consideration and decided to visit Vienna. The only reason we went to Prague was because it was cheaper to fly into Prague than Vienna. That’s it. I am embarrassed to admit besides Kafka I didn’t know anything else related to Prague. So the trip itenirary became:  Prague-Budapest-Vienna-Prague in November.

On November 7th 2010 on a “Still Sunday” I wrote about Prague yet again: “But I know I want to return for another longer visit.”

One of my closest friends, Erica in Philly, suggested I apply to awards, grants, fellowships. The conversation went like this:

Me: *inhaling delicious dinner she had fixed for me* I don’t know how to search for awards.

Erica: Oh good one. That’s a good one. Nice excuse. Annie you are one of the best researchers and not just because of law—you can probably find out what color someone’s underwear is if you really wanted.

Me: *mumbles* I don’t want to find out the color of anyone’s underwears (I don’t call it underwear, it’s always been plural to me).

Erica: You stop it. You are finding these awards and applying for them. Promise me you will.

Me: *exhales* Okay, I promise.

I told her I just didn’t care to be part of any elite awards or exclusive literary circles. They make me claustrophobic. Literally.  I feel I can’t find my way out. She argued until I gave up. Her final point: you need money, you want to travel, you want to write—what if there are other people like you who too don’t want to be part of the cliquey faux writer’s club but who not only breathe to write but write as they breathe?

I gave in and searched for upcoming deadlines. The deadlines were coming up quick for most of these fellowships and awards but that wasn’t an issue given most of my stories are final drafts. I write slow and but for technicalities not much needs to be altered. The story is already put together in my head, including each sentence, and I just place and rearrange it on paper.

So.

I googled.

The first search result was an award in Prague in July.

I applied for an award/scholarship/fellowship for creative writing in Prague sponsored through University of Western Michigan and Charles University in Prague.

And I got it.

So here I am.

July in Prague with Charles Baxter and Chuck Rosenthal.

The more I read about these two seasoned authors and their “process” the more I am convinced Prague was always the next stage for my storytelling.

Did I make a wish? Or do stars too have wishes assigned for us?

Are there new stories waiting for me? I had never as much as uttered the name Prague before October 2010.

How does my WIP MS (work in progress manuscript) fit into this trajectory? I don’t know yet and I am okay with that.

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I share an excerpt from the latest issue of my favorite magazine, The Sun.  Editor and a favorite writer and inspiration on many levels, Sy Safransky wrote in the delicious column “Sy Safransky’s Notebook”:

The woman asked me what kind of writers I’m looking for. I don’t remember what I told her. This is what I wish I’d said: I’m looking for a writer who doesn’t know where the sentence is leading her; a writer who starts with her obsessions and whose heart is bursting with love; a writer sly enough to give the slip to her secret police, the ones who know her so well, the ones with the power to accuse and condemn in the blink of an eye. It’s all right that she doesn’t know what she’s thinking until she writes it, as if the words already exist somewhere and draw her to them. She may not know how she got there, but she knows when she’s arrived.

Author Charles Baxter was asked in an interview by The Atlantic in 1997,

“You’ve made Best American Short Stories five times. Do you ever find such success burdensome?”

Charles Baxter responded a true yogi response:

What any artist or athlete knows is that self-consciousness is a burden. If you’re thinking about what you’re doing and watching yourself doing it, you’re in trouble. When I’m writing a new book or short story, I simply try to make it marginally different from what I’ve done before and to get involved in the subject matter. I try to let my writing carry me so that I don’t feel as if I’m carrying myself. Nobody can totally do that, and it’s what brings you down after awhile.

 

Robert Anton Wilson said, “Beyond a certain point, the whole universe becomes a continuous process of initiation.”

I am finished with the burdensome feeling of stories that had to be told. As the narrator in one of my fiction stories, also titled “Stories,” says at one point, “There are stories that make us and then there are stories we make up.”

I look forward to finding some joy in making up my WIP MS.

Actions are important but intention is everything.

Intentions are the cosmic glitter that spreads across the sky of souls. Our deepest desires sparkle brighter than stars.

I intend to finish the first draft of my manuscript regardless of the other work that gets written in Prague.

Related posts:

writing: “the strongest bond I have ever had” Some Persistent Desire For What Is Still Possible Orhan Pamuk on Writing & Literature