After all those internet distractions, I spent the day reading short stories by Murakami and Carver in order to ground myself in fiction again. Fussy language wouldn’t have worked for me, nor would overly complicated emotions.
Even though Murakami’s plotlines are sometimes outrageous, his narrators say exactly what they feel, as much as they can know what they feel, as much as any one of us can know what we feel. They may not necessarily say it out loud to the person in the room with them, though.
Carver’s characters are also often strong and silent but he writes them in such a way that you feel like you’ve hitched a ride in their head. Again, they’re as accessible as they can be, given their situations with their booze and their women and their failed dreams. They’re always coming and going, fuzzy about why they left, unsure about what waits for them next.
I’m writing a story about a man who has moved around a lot, actually. The only thing he has taken with him over the years is his love for food. He admires food. He respects its power. He believes that food can heal. It’s a refreshing counterpoint to the rest of my novel, where everyone is shoveling fast food down their gullet.
Murakami loves to write about food. That was the other reason why I plucked him from my bookshelf. His characters are always cooking and eating. They are often ravenously hungry.
I was thinking a lot about cumin yesterday. It has magical healing powers. It heats you up inside.
I’m a few days behind schedule on this book now. And I’m going in for a job interview tomorrow at an agency because I live in the same reality as everyone else where money is important. Not important because it makes me a better person, but important because I need shelter and food and so forth, and money pays for these things. So there might be delays to the schedule.
It will be OK. Even if I do not have time to write, I will still be considering cumin.
