I am rereading Raymond Carver’s short stories. Nothing happens in these stories, nothing in terms of real-life events—suggestions of events only. A man and a woman are lying in bed. Nothing happens. Only the woman can not sleep. We follow her restlessness. A postman welcomes a new family in town. He observes them while they settle and leave town again.
There is no twist at the end of the stories—just a little wrinkle, at best.
Convenience Store Woman (Buurtsupermens) is about an Asperger-like girl in her thirties who works as a substitute worker in a typical small Japanese neighborhood supermarket from the age of 18.
She has excellent powers of observation.
The neighborhood supermarket is a place that is completely normalized, and recovery will soon come for you, too.
Life at the neighborhood supermarket is entirely predictable for Keiko, and she loves it. However, she meets deadbeat Shiraha, and he changes her life. Shiraha’s arrival throws her structured life into disarray and turns it into chaos.
Just in time, she realizes that she was born a Convenience Store Woman, and that is where she finds happiness.
It is a strange story about fitting into society by not fitting in, which seems to be a theme in Sayuku Murata’s work, as Earthlings (Aardbewoners) has a similar theme. However, that book is way more grim than the light-hearted style of Convenience Store Woman.
In Tanizaki’s De sleutel leeft een ouder echtpaar enigszins gescheiden van elkaar. Beiden houden een geheim dagboek bij. Ze schrijven over hun leven vanuit hun eigen perspectief en speculeren over de motieven van de ander. Beiden weten dat de ander een dagboek bijhoudt. Ze vermoeden dat de ander hun dagboek leest en laten berichten achter in hun dagboeken die bedoeld zijn voor de ander. Maar beiden schrijven dat ze elkaars dagboek niet lezen. Alleen de lezer weet dat.
Ze leiden een bizar seksleven met elkaar, waarbij de man de vrouw min of meer vrijwillig drogeert, en alleen in die situatie kunnen ze oprecht hartstochtelijk de liefde bedrijven. Nadat de man sterft (tijdens de daad), begint de vrouw zijn dagboek te lezen (ze schrijft in haar dagboek). Ze gaat door met haar dagboek en er volgt een bizarre wending, waarbij de waarheid heel anders blijkt te zijn.
Het dagboek van de vrouw doet denken aan Sei Shonagons Hoofdkussenboek.
In I am a Cat (Ik ben een kat in Dutch), a rather headstrong and intelligent observant cat moves into a teacher’s home. The book follows the cat’s observations and interactions with the teacher and his circle of friends, providing an interesting perspective on human behavior.
The cat, with a critical eye, narrates his master’s inflated behavior, revealing the human tendency to feign superiority and the struggle between habits and customs. In a humorous twist, he exposes the triviality that surrounds his master.
Encouragement for the creative mind.
Reassurance is futile. Attitude is a skill. Produce with intent. The work is too important to be left to how we feel. Instead, trust the process and do the work.
Change your actions first. We become what we do.
Peculiar means specific. The standard narrative pushes us to fit in, but through specificity and peculiarity, we stand out. Change comes from idiosyncratic voices. Be more specific and less generic.
Attachment to status, outcome, and opinions brings nothing. There is no such thing as a foundation. The process of engaging with the genre, the audience, and the change ís the foundation. Become unattached.
The practice is about doing it more than once, regularly, until it becomes… practice.
Ship on a schedule.
Credentials are just a piece of paper. Instead, create a body of work that shows you have insight, experience, and concern.
The work is an infinite game. No winners, no losers. (The reward for work is more work, said Tom Sachs.)
Determination counts (versus inspiration).
Chop wood, carry water.
Mise en place is preparation. The muse shows up when we do the work.
Seek desirable difficulty to seek improvement. Be uncomfortable.
Genre states your idiosyncratic work. Generic is a trap. Learning a skill is attitude and cohort.
Constraints feed creativity.
Be paranoid about mediocrity.
Many, many quotable sentences. A companion to The War of Art and Do The Work.