Literary Ride

After sixteen memorable years, Buster, my poor jeep, needed to be set out to pasture. It was giving me waaay too much trouble and costing waaaay too much money to maintain. My family and friends were giving me grief for not letting Buster go years ago. "But Buster and I have gone through so much!" I whined. It has outlasted relationships, apartments, hairstyles. Unfortunately, it became a daily worry wondering if my car will get me to work or not. Alas, I had to let Buster go.

In 2007, with a new book coming out, I need to make sure that I could get around. I'd been shopping for weeks, looking for an affordable car. I settled on a used Chrysler. It's a wagon, so I thought of the boxes of "Talking to the Moon" I could haul to different readings and sell in the parking lot.

Literary Inward

Pick up the Winter Fiction issue of the New Yorker and read the Nobel Lecture by Orhan Pamuk. It's amazing. A sampling:


"When I speak of writing, the image that comes first to mind is not a novel, a poem, or a literary tradition; it is the person who shuts himself up in a room, sits down at a table, and, alone, turns inward. Amid his shadows, he builds a new world with words. This man--or this woman--may use a typewriter, or profit from the ease of a computer, or write with a pen on paper, as I do. As he writes, he may drink tea or coffee, or smoke cigarettes. From time to time, he may rise from his table to look out the window at children playing in the street, or, if he is lucky, at trees and a view, or even at a black wall. He may write poems, or plays, or novels, as I do. But all these differences arise only after the crucial task is compete--after he has sat down at the table and patiently turned inward. To write is to transform that inward gaze into words, to study the worlds into which we pass when we retire into ourselves, and to do so with patience, obstinancy, and joy."

These words just did it for me. I kept thinking: yes, yes, YES! It also is a piece about his father. This is the third holiday season without my dad. I still miss him.

(Oh, I was caught by the New Yorker cover. It's quite striking. Notice the lesbian kiss on the lower left.)

Literary Scoring

I teach "Introduction to Fiction Writing" for UCLA Extension. Every class, I get evaluated by my students. I taught the Fall quarter. Scores came in. The highest possible score is a 9. My overall score for the class is 8.8. My score as an instructor is 8.9.

It felt good to see these scores. I want to make the learning experience as fun as possible. It also reinforces that I'm making the right choices in my life.

It felt good, really good.

Literary Blogging

So, I've switched to this Beta Blogging--and I'm so confused! I e-mailed the new Blogging under Google because the comments section is all funny. I go through the Help section and find no help. Am I the only one?

I feel like my lips are moving but nothing comes out.

Literary Third

While my second book gets ready to be born, my third novel haunts me.

It's about a boy who bleeds...alot.

Literary Nothing

Earlier this year, I sent out a story for a contest. I didn't think I'd win. But I thought I'd get an "honorable mention." Yes! The winner was announced, along with a list of honorable mentions. I didn't make the list. Nothing!

I felt disappointment for a moment, just a moment. Life goes on. Looking back, I think I'd gotten more Nothing!'s than Yes!'s. I think that's why so many artist's will go on and on about piece that was published 15 years ago in the school newspaper. One Yes! covers all the Nothing!'s.

Literary Branding

I call this blog, "The Last Noel" because all my life I've been called the First Noel. If someone sings that darned Christmas song one more time, so help me....Well, I can't get away from the Firsts of my name as I was involved with two Firsts recently. I ran the First Los Angeles Half Marathon today--and it wasn't as painful as I thought it would be. Ur, the route went right by apartment, so I took a little break (went to the bathroom, changed running gear, and checked phone messages) before completing the remaining six miles.

The first issue of a new online journal made its debut not too long ago. It's called Subterraneans.
It is a "journal of lesbian and gay writing." And, yup, I'm in the first issue. www.subterraneansonline.com.

It's edited by Angela Brown, former Executive Editor at Alyson Books. They were kind enough to give new life to an old short story. It's called "Tito Abalez on the Brink of Manhood" and was published in the Asian Pacific American Journal several years ago.

http://www.subterraneansonline.com/tito%20abalez.html

Literary "Downpaging"

This is why my next book is coming out in soft-cover-- so my non-profit, artist, and other financially challendged friends and family will love me more. My second book can be got for less than $15!

"New releases of hard-cover novels cost $25 and more these days. If you buy just two a month, that's $600 a year."

From "Ten Sure Ways to Trim your Budget"

Read more from "Shouts and Murmurs" in the New Yorker:


http://www.newyorker.com/shouts/content/articles/061113sh_shouts

Literary Jest

Over the weekend, Skylight Books held an event honoring the 10th anniversary of the novel "Infinite Jest" by David Foster Wallace. Agent Bonnie Nadell filled in for Mr. Wallace who couldn't make it. Radio personality Michael Silverblatt extoled the book and the writer, saying if he can't interview a genius like Nabakov, atleast he is grateful to have access to David Foster Wallace.

"Jest" is a book I'd been meaning to read for the longest time, but the sucker is 1000 pages. It isn't exactly a light, breezy read. The stucture is supposed to resemble a calculus formula. Frankly, I find the book daunting and hope to read it in 2007. Oy!

Literary Skateboard

My car was in the shop and the bus stop is quite a walk away. Walking there, I thought, I wish I had a skateboard. (I can run for miles, so I save my legs for that. Walking close to a mile in hard soled shoes ain't good for the feet.) I went to Target and got a skateboard. When I got home, I got on my skateboard, coasted to 7-11 and got a cupcake. In the parking lot of the 7-11, with my skateboard in one hand and a cupcake in the other, I felt like a little kid.

I'm 38 years old and I felt like I was a boy with my whole life ahead of me. The parking lot, the taste of chocolate bread in my mouth and a long piece of wood with wheels under my arm, sent me to a far, faraway place. If you see me around Silverlake riding my skateboard, you know that I'm trying to catch a lost era of my life.

I had a skateboard when I was in elementary school. It was such a freeing time. I still remember it romantically. Maybe that's why I tried to capture a little bit of it in my second book. In this paragraph, the boy Emerson is still grieving the loss of Jun, his older brother.

"Sometimes on rainy days, he’d shut his door, and pull out the skateboard, pushing it from one end of his room to another. Sometimes Emerson pulled out the skateboard just to look at it. There were dark footprints from where Jun used to stand on it. The varnish was almost gone. The red plastic wheels were nicked and turning brown."

Literary Fifty

My agent called and asked me about the new book. I said, We should be getting galleys of Talking to the Moon soon. He said, "No, the NEW book." I blushed. I told him my third novel is coming along S-L-O-W-L-Y. I have to do things like work, which takes up a good amount of time and energy. This is nothing new. Most artists know what I'm talking about.

Earlier this year, I promised to get a new novel to my agent. Uh, I'm nowhere near. The least I could do is get fifty pages to him by the end of the year. It's no novel--hey, it's something.

Literary Running

I signed up for a race today, something I hadn't done in a long, long time. It's the first ever Los Angeles City Half Marathon--yup, thirteen miles, baby! It's happening on December 3rd. I'll be running through the literariest of neighborhoods--Silverlake and Echo Park--ending in downtown.

I did a really crappy eight miles today, basically walking the last two. Why am I doing this? Because I have pent up energy about my novel. Because I have the need to finish something wonderful by the end of the year. Because running this half-marathon will somehow remind of a time in my life when I felt physically and mentally strong. Right now, I feel like jelly.

Literary Memoir

I was hosting an event at Skylight. It was for a pretty coffee table book called Casa Mexicana. Photographs by Tim Street-Porter. This book attracted several interior designers. There was a disntinguished man in the audience. I started chatting with him. I asked, "Are you a designer?" He said, I used to design hair. He told me his name was Vidal.

It took me a second to realise that he is famed hair stylist Vidal Sassoon (pictured). Back in the day, there were some names in fashion that brought awe to this gay teenage boy: Calvin Klein, Yves Saint Larent, and Vidal Sassoon.

He told me that he doesn't design as much these days. He's asked to do more lecturing. Talking to him, I was thrown back to the 80's, reading Gentleman's Quarterly--when they had male models, not celebrities on the cover. Vidal Sasssoon products was plastered all over the magazine. I sat in my room reading GQ, wondering if I had it in me to someday be a gentleman.

In GQ, tips were given on behavior and appearance. Prepare to pay atleast $100 on a date or your chest should be precisely seven inches bigger than your waist. Of course, my concecpt of Gentleman and gentelmanly behavior has changed in the last 20 years. Some of the best dates had been spent curled up with someone in front of the TV, eating chinese take-out. Price: $10. I don't think my chest has ever been precisely seven inches bigger than my waist (there have been times in my life when my waistline was bigger than my chest.)

One concept about being a Gentleman that hasn't changed is humility. Mr. Sassoon, despite his contribution to pop culture, was humble and upon leaving, he said to me: "It was lovely to meet you."

Lovely, indeed.

Literary Enounter: Janet Fitch

I hosted an event at Skylight with Janet Fitch. It was the end of her tour for her new book "Paint it Black." On her tour, she talked about people who hoped to see the same lyrical language that was in her first book, the bestselling "White Oleander."

Ms. Fitch said the character in her second novel is completely different from the protagonist of her first book. The language has to be different also. She talked about how she, in some ways, resembled her first protagonist--a lost girl. Now, she feels more like her second protagonist--a tougher girl.

Are we our protagonists? I wondered. My first protagonist was looking for home. My second protagonist is looking for resolution, redemption. Hmmmmm.

Literary Playboy

Okay, for Halloween I thought I'd go as Hugh Hefner. To emphasize my point, I thought I'd carry the latest issue of Playboy with me. (The first Playboy I'd ever bought and the first one I'd seen since childhood when a boy in school thought he would show his friends how cool he was by ripping off his older brother's secret stash of skin mags.)

I often wondered why writers would list Playboy as a credit. And I thought the phrase "I buy Playboy for the articles" was highly suspect by those of my gender. Any one who knows me could tell you that "girlie magazines" are not my thing.

Instead of Hugh Hefner, I went as Darth Vader. (I couldn't find a decent smoking pipe to complete my costume.) I had the November issue of Playboy in my apartment and began leafing through it. You know what? I found it truly fascinating. Of course I skipped the pages about the "Girls of the Hawaiian Tropic," but found the writing interesting. There was an interview with Arianna Huffington, a piece on Islam, and a short story by Sam Lipsyte. I also enjoyed the fashion spread, which had writers (Michael Eric Dyson, Andrew Ross, Tony D'Souza, Ishmael Beah, Walter Kirn, Victor Rivas Rivers) wearing the coolest coats, under the clever heading of "Book Jackets."

I guess I'll have some explaining to do when guests come over and see Playboys on the floor.

Literary Acknowledgment

The fun part of this publishing process is sending in my acknowledgment page. From day one, I'd add a name of someone or list a book that had been helpful to me in writing "Moon." I looked it over and realised just how many people I depended on to help me with my novel. Sheesh, there was a lot of kindness out there.

Literary 10th

Skylight Bookstore, the place where I'd been hosting events for the past six years, is celebrating its 10th anniversary this weekend. It has become a vital part of literary life in Los Angeles. We'll be having all sorts of food and fun stuff this weekend. C'mon by.

www.skylightbooks.com

Literary Glimpse

I'd been been so wrapped up with preparing for the publication of my second book that I hadn't had time to write--truly write. Yes, time and effort should go to the birthing process before you start on having another kid, but trying to have another kid is the fun part, right? And I need a little fun these days.


Anyway, I got a glimpse of creative writing again when I was driving to my job in downtown and, out of nowhere, a character from a story that I'd been thinking about entered my head and wouldn't leave.

Before I checked work e-mails and returned phone calls, I had to get those ideas down on paper. It felt good to write again.

Literary Feast

I went to the Southern California Booksellers Association Author's Feast Dinner at the Biltmore Hotel (above) on Grand Ave. I wore a tie and blazer and sat among booksellers, authors, booklovers and talked books, books, books. It was also an awards dinner and we applauded those who got notices in fiction, nonfiction, children's books, and mystery. (My first novel was nominated several years ago along with Alice Sebold and TC Boyle. Mr. Boyle won.)

This is the best part of the book biz that I like. People there just seemed to love books and respect writers. I went as both a bookseller (for Skylight books) and as an author. (Of course, I had to mentioned that I have a new book coming out next year and please keep an eye out for it.)

What I like about being around book people is that they are so smart. I never think that I'm talking to a ditz (which is something I always felt when I went to entertainment industry functions). The conversations were filled with substance. I enjoyed talking with religous scholar Jonathon Kirsch about his new book on the end of the world as proclaimed in the bible. I was in awe when Historian Lilian Faderman talked about the contributions of Los Angeles to the gay world. I loved listening to novelist Susan Straight tell me that there's a hot new writer on the scene--Alex Espinoza--who wrote a novel that I've GOT to read.

In the end, I hung out with other independent bookstore folks from Vromans in Pasadena and Booksoup in West Hollywood. We sat around and talked about writing and writers. We shook our heads at the number of magazines who are cutting their book review sections. We talked about starting a reality TV show about writers who work in a bookstore. We laughed and said no one would watch it.

I enjoyed this evening. It was stimulating.

Literary Fonts

I'd been looking at typeset pages of my novel. It's interesting seeing the type laid out. It does make a difference seeing my name written on the cover page. A swirly--is that a word?--font is used to spell Noel Alumit. It's interesting. It gives my name a ponderous, romantic, old-world feeling. As opposed to the Times New Roman font I always use, hoping to appear direct and modern.

A font makes a big difference.