Friday, November 08, 2002
Tonight I'm in a different hotel a few miles north of Atlanta, looking at the city lights to the south. Cities are always at their best, their most beautiful, at night and from a distance. I expect it all looks very pretty from space. No one would suspect the truth of things. My eyes are burning, watering, because I didn't sleep nearly enough last night and the day was long and non-stop (but included a very good Thai lunch). Cities look even better at night and from a distance when one is not wearing her glasses and her eyes are watering. Speilberg's immense and neon mothership fallen to earth and twinkling uncertainly.
I spent part of the evening discussing Low Red Moon with one of my "first readers," who lives here in town. I always seem to learn so much more about my novels from other people than I have understood myself. As if I hide a good deal of the meaning, the truer meanings, from myself and need different minds to tease them loose again. Or I never saw them at all, planting them unconsciously, uncannily, one by one by one. I re-read a few sections of the novel and found myself enjoying it more than I usually enjoy reading my own work. I don't think I've ever cared so much for my characters as I do for the ones trapped in LRM. It's a grim and unenviable place to be, and they all seem to be trying so very hard to do their best and coming up short anyway.
I'm rambling. The noise of a bleary mind.
I have VNV Nation's "Beloved" coming through my headphones. At the moment, I'm deeply in love with the song. It seems the very definition of bittersweet.
My business here having been concluded sooner than I'd expected, I hope to be back in Birmingham sometime tomorrow night, unless I decide to make a detour to Athens. Which I may. Unless I don't.
|
|
