Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Time Off

I started blogging in January with really poor computing skills. I resisted getting an internet hook up of any kind, since all I needed my computer for was finishing the book I had roughly written and which sat gathering electronic dust as it awaited the final chapter and another edit or two. I thought being "on line" would be a distraction. I then had a Dell PC I bought five years ago and a good printer, so who needed internet. The only one who did use the internet connection when I last had one, was Charlie, my first and last love. And all Charlie used it for whenever I was around my own place and noticed, was for internet porn.

I have never been one of the women who likes porn in any form. I like movies with erotic content, sometimes scenes from books turn me on, but one woman's erotic content is another's ick! And I have heard women say they like porn. But I have never actually met one. Maybe gay women like lesbian porn, but what is a turn on for the men I've known, pornographically speaking, has never turned me on. It has embarrassed me, bored me, annoyed me, disgusted me, but never turned me on.

I read what was thought to be pornographic by a lot of "good Christian people," the book, Lolita, by Vladamir Nabokov, when I was twelve. It was banned in the States, but was smuggled into the country by thousands of American tourists with taste in 1955, the year it was published in France. My parent's were the first on our mostly Mormon block to actually have read the book the year after it first came out. I read it shortly after they did, by finding it's hiding place in my dad's sock drawer. My dad was a student at the University of Utah working on his PhD in Experimental Psychology. My mother was a working wife too sophisticated for her time. And to me, her only child she was Maggy, indifferent mother. Sometimes even hostile. We had a love/hate relationship, right up until the bitter end.

My father and I had an altogether different relationship. But by the time I read Lolita, it had turned into wholesome by contrast to it's past odd and inappropriate closeness. We were not a typical household, by anybody's standards. Not by any time's. We were a familial aberration. We were perversity personified. My very young life was pornographic. So pornography holds no charms for me.

The novel Maggy is my work of "Autobiographical Realism." My third husband was a writer. A real writer. I asked him early on, before I'd actually read anything of his, what his style was. He said, "Autobiographical Realism." He was a short story writer, finishing his Master's Degree at the U of Utah, on a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship, when I met him. We took a class together. It was a graduate seminar in English Lit. and the only plays I remember reading that summer were Pinter's, so it was probably something like, The Plays of Harold Pinter. I was married to husband number two when I met husband number three, the writer. Anyway, if you asked me what my style as a writer is, I would tell you, "Autobiographical Realism." It could also be called "Memoir."

All this, to say simply, I'm getting my novel finished and posted, cause I have an angioplasty coming up, and don't want to leave it unfinished, and I do want it published, if only on my own blog site, if only for my own egotistical amusement. If only to say to myself, "I have finished it."

Want to talk, leave me a comment. Want to get personal, send me an email. Want to get to know me better, start reading the novel--so far, there are twenty something, or thirty something already posted and linked chapters and in the proper order. Otherwise, I'll see you next week, or when Hillary gives up. Whichever one comes first.

14 comments:

The Future Was Yesterday said...

"I'll see you next week, or when Hillary gives up."
Please don't set your sails by standards so low...(:

Randal Graves said...

I really need to get cracking on reading your novel. I have plenty o' vacation that I have to use up before the end of the fiscal year, so that should give me opportunity. I love reading the works of others. Us creators are the real Moral Majority, dangnabbit.

Porn is good. Oh wait, I'm a dude. Forget I mentioned it. Muah.

Chris Benjamin said...

look forward to reading it. congrats on getting through it, getting it out there.

porn is weird stuff. can't stand it. i need plot and believability in any flick. i'm funny that way.

i think i once described my style as surrealist philosophy. sounded good at the time.

Naj said...

Autobiographic Realism is what i like most.

Maggy's wonderful.

People, do read it! :)

Big Yellow Forehead said...

From what I've read so far, you're an amazing writer! Kudos to all of your hard work!

jmsjoin said...

Utah
You have had a real life, The life of an average American, and it is often hard. I'd be lying if I said Porno turned me on. Pictures take them or leave them but I am hands on! Hope that is not too much. I wish you luck with the Angioplasty whenever that is and you relax!

sitenoise said...

I was going to say "Aha, got ya!" because Sunny likes porn, but then I remember you only met her vicariously through me and so technically you haven't met her.

She is also a pathological liar, but ....

Unconventional Conventionist said...

I read some random chapters. Intriguing, and I shall set about reading in order. Your'e a very good writer Utah.

Meanwhile one weencey-teencey piece of un-asked for advice, which is always the best kind. :) Either don't finish the novel, or finish it, and start a new opus.

I really think you're quite lovely with a loose end hanging about you. And I'm not being snarky.

Utah Savage said...

Site noise and unconventional, Yes, sometimes we women lie to you about our love of all you hold dear, so yes, i do have quite the loose end hanging. Sorry for my sloppiness. There is just so much time you now. The mind could fail me at any moment. It's happened before. I go down hard and no, Randal, that is not sexual innuendo. Just the sound of a once interesting mind hitting the limit, and crash, and gone, the silence will be deafening. Like the silence of Sama and Anita. Depression hits very hard for some of us.

Ghost Dansing said...

it's just a box of rain, you know Utah......

What do you want me to do, to do for you to see you through?
A box of rain will ease the pain, and love will see you through.

Just a box of rain, wind and water,
Sun and shower, wind and rain,
In and out the window like a moth before a flame.

And its just a box of rain, I dont know who put it there,
Believe it if you need it, or leave it if you dare.
And its just a box of rain, or a ribbon for your hair;
Such a long long time to be gone, and a short time to be there.

it's all a dream we dreamed one afternoon, long ago.....

enigma4ever said...

I hope Hill gives up soon..and that your angioplasty goes smoothly ( it will go smoother than the Hill campaign at this rate- right...)

You Maggie Book is amazing..I hope you do get it published...

take care...many hugs..

E said...

Good luck, Utah. The ablation will go smoothly. But Hillary will not.

DivaJood said...

What e said. Hillary is having photo-ops with Mt. Rushmore.

Unknown said...

Do not wait for Hillary to give it up..she won't be doing that until they give Obama the nomination.

Your one interesting broad Utah Savage.