Pete

I don't know what I'm doing. SEA CHANGE is done for the time being; AUDRA is lying flat. I met with Pete Fairchild this afternoon and talked to him about the problems I'm having with Audra. We talked about whether you can write a novel about a superficial character. Then he said he suspects there aren't any shallow people. I would agree with that. The shallowness is a facade for something else. He had a student who looked and sounded like a cheerleader (not to denigrate cheerleaders--let's say the stereotype of a cheerleader) and he thought he could tell in advance what her poetry would be like. Then he read it and it was deep and wonderful. He found out much later she had survived great trauma. She had a veneer of social ease to keep herself protected.

I'm feeling stuck again, as should be clear from the beginning of the last paragraph. Pete called me an "experienced writer" because of the amount of stuff I've written. Harryette Mullen said "the work is its own credential" after I told her I'd written 100 poems. I don't feel that experienced. Pete would talk about some problem of writing and say, "but you know." It's strange to be accepted as one of them. I told him about feeling different or maybe unfashionable for not having postmodern influences, and he said one of the worst things he thinks a young writer can do is be fashionable, because obviously fashions change. He said some poets lose their voices in graduate school, because the spark of uniqueness they had when they came in can be snuffed out in the workshop atmosphere. It can be too tempting to follow the herd and write like everyone else. He said the professorial life is a good life, in answer to my question, but he said he had many disheartening stories about it, too, particularly about trying to find a job. He said if you can have a great job where you teach a limited amount it can give you time to do your writing. He said if you teach a heavier load it's more difficult, and you can start to resent the teaching as taking away from your writing. I don't know if I would want to go to graduate school and get a Ph.D in literature in order to teach. I already know what I want to do (be a novelist--what I am already doing) so it's the difficult matter of trying to make an income while doing that. Maybe thinking about taking another path is just a diversion from the essential thing. In a interview with a famous woman writer on Charlie Rose (I forget who) she said she looked back and wished she had written more novels. Fewer essays. It was interesting to hear the perspective of someone who was looking back on their career. There are only so many books one can write in a lifetime. What do you spend your time doing?

He recommended I go to the Sewanee and Breadloaf conferences, and look into the MacDowell and Yaddo residencies. He said every fiction writer he met at MacDowell had an agent. If you can get to know someone who has an agent, and if they become familiar with your work, he said them recommending you is one way to get an agent. That seems like an even more convoluted way of going about it, but he thought the other way, by sending in queries, is even more needle in a haystack.

I wish I wasn't in this in-between state while I'm here at the Studio Center. I have to figure something out. I wrote a poem yesterday so that was one outlet. I find my head filling with expectations and "shoulds." I should figure Audra out, I should start something else if I'm not going to work on Audra, I should should should.

Ricky came and sat in my vicinity at dinner and asked if it was okay. Then he said, "Well, you wouldn't say 'no,' would you?" He's the South African I haven't been able to have an intelligent conversation with, because I feel intimidated by his strident voice and opinions. Other people sat between us. I decided I would not get drawn into a conversation with him for politeness's sake, because I don't want to engage with him. It's not worth my time or energy. Most people are worth it, but I don't have the extra to spare in his case. And when I overheard bits of his conversation with others, I was glad I wasn't a part of it.

Talking with Pete Fairchild reminds me that I am not an ignoramus and I can have an intelligent conversation with a relative stranger, if he gives me a chance. Pete was so thoughtful, at the end he was like, "I'm going to look at my watch now, but it's just because I have an appointment with someone."

Jaclyn, Letitia, and I are staying late at Maverick. We're going to work for a while and then drink together (we're all drinking wine alone as I write this) as good writers should.