While I should be writing

The flu

I haven’t got it, thank God and touch wood etc. etc. But I thought I’d use it to illustrate the difference between a brilliant author (in this case: Richard Russo) and a mediocre one (that is, me). For me, the main difference is in the details.

If I had included a character thinking about the flu, it might have gone something like that:

I feel strangely dull and listless. Trying as I might, I can’t get my body to do anything with any kind of speed. I continue with all the different tasks that make up life, but slowly, apathetically, like nothing really mattered. The flu, I think. That would explain it.

If Richard Russo has a character who thinks she might have the flu:

Flu, she thought, dern it. Miss Beryl hadn’t had the flu in a long time, almost a decade, and so her recollection of how you were supposed to feel was vague. What she did feel, in addition to the wooziness, was an odd sensation of distance from her extremities, her feet and fingers miles away, as if they belonged to someone else, and to account for this, the word ‘flu’ had entered her consciousness whole, like a loaf of something fresh from the owen, warm and full of leavening explanation.
Flu. It explained  her offishness of the past few days, even, perhaps, her persistent feeling of guilt about Sully. Miss Beryl was of the opinion that guilt grew like a culture in the atmosphere of illness and that an attack of guilt often augured the approach of a virys. (…)
Since her retirement from teaching Miss Beryl’s health had in many respects greatly improved, despite her advanced years. An eight-grade classroom was an excellent place to snag whatever was in the air in the way of illnes. Also depression, which, Miss Beryl believed, in conjunction with guilt, opened the door to illness. Miss Beryl didn’t know any teachers who weren’t habitually guilty and depressed – guilty they hadn’t accomplished more with their student, depressed that very little more was possible. (…)
The source of her wooziness established [Miss Beryl tror att hon har smittats av sin blivande svärdotter], Miss Beryl decided that the best way to proceed was to treat the virus the way you’d treat the person it came from. That is, ignore it the best she could and hope it’d go away.

I rest my case.

Raymond Chandlers guide to answering questions from journalists

… Picture Post is for people who move their lips when they read. Surely they can get anything they want to know about me from my English publishers, Hamish Hamilton Ltd. The questions you quote from them would seem to me to indicate the intellectual level of the editorial department of Picture Post.

Yes, I am exactly like the characters in my books. I am very tough and have been known to break a Vienna roll with my bare hands. I am very handsome, having a powerful physique, and I change my shirt regularly every Monday morning. When resting between assignments I live in a French Provincial chateau on Mulholland Drive. It is a fairly small place of forty-eight rooms and fifty-nine baths. I dine off gold plates and prefer to be waited on by naked dancing girls. But of course there are times when I have to grow a beard and hole up in a Main Street flophouse, and there are other times when I am, although not by request, entertained in the drunk tank in the city jail.

I have friends from all walk of life. I have fourteen telephones on my desk, including direct lines to New York, London, Paris, Rome, and Santa Rosa. My filing case opens out into a very convenient portable bar, and the bartender, who lives in the bottom drawer, is a midget. I am a heavy smoker and according to my mood I smoke tobacco, marijuana, corn silk and dried leaves. I do a great deal of research, especially in the apartments of tall blondes. I get my material in various ways, but my favourite procedure consists of going through the desks of other writers after hours. I am thirty-eight years old and have been for the last twenty years. I do not regard myself as a bad shot, but I am a pretty dangerous man with a wet towel. But all in all I think my favourite weapon is a twenty dollar bill.

Raymond Chandler, the master of letter writing, to his Hollywood agent, who I’m sure was very greatful for his answers.

If you only read one collection of letters, read Raymond Chandler Speaking

Emma Thompson on her writing process

”I hoover; I find odd places to polish. Places that I haven’t seen in a long time; sometimes part of my own body. And there’s a lot of crying in fetal positions.”

Read more on Emma Thompsons writing process here.

Things I do now that I write almost-full-time

Almost-full-time: having taken the decision to write full-time but being unable to say no to other jobs.

Things I do now that I write almost-full-time:

1, Over-watering my plants.
Me, walking back and forth in the hallway, talking to myself: “Think, Katarina. How hard can it be to come up with a personality for the love interest? A Startrek fan? A lover of cute youtube videos on cats? Dark childhood trauma?”

And if you absolutely must walk back and forth in your hallway while talking to yourself, it often feels nice to pick up the watering can and water your plants.

The result: three half dead chili plants and one really grumpy basil plant. Still no personality for the love interest.

2, Spend three hours thinking up names for the cool and cynical best friend
Pia?
Irene
Ulla
Ingrid
Carina
Elisabet
Ingegärd
Margareta (Maggan)
Gun?

The result: minus three hours and still no personality for the love interest. But with a shortlist for Names for the cool and cynical best friend.

3, Look into my closet and think: “This could do with a re-arranging.”
The result: no re-arranging of closet. I’m not crazy yet.

4, Make lunch
Google slow-food recipes and then settle for a salad. But if this writing don’t turn out OK I could always turn this into a food blog.

5, Send text messages to all my friends
The following is an average a day during the week:

My sister: 4 (answers: 1)
Isak: 13 (answers: 7)
Carina: 0 (since she’s just been with me to the US, I’ve decided to give her a break for a while)
Simona: 2 (answers 2)

The result: no love interest for the personality, and all my friends now remember to turn of their phone during work hours.

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