I made it a goal this year to write more on this site. I only wrote 7 posts on this site last year, so more should be easier. Yet, I’ve struggled for the first 5+ weeks of this year on formulating a full post. I have a few things brewing that I’d like to finish, but I also want to get into the exercise of just writing.

That’s always been a great unlock for me to get more out and of course more writing = more published. So for this blogpost, which I made a calendar invitation to complete, I’m just going to write about a few things I’ve been seeing lately. Some favorites, if you will.

An Article – “I Don’t Want To Be The Strong Female Lead” by Brit Marling

I loved Another Earth and have been anxiously awaiting getting-my-shit together to see the rest of the movies that she wrote, starred in, and co-produced. I don’t know why I’ve delayed. (Potential here to be persuaded to watching The OA too which is her TV show).

Her article came out just today in the NYT Opinions section and she has some revelations about her sadder times navigating both Hollywood and the corporate world as she moved out to L.A. from Chicago.

Here’s just one anecdote:

The lone female V.P. on my floor and my mentor at the time gave me the following advice when she left to partner at a hedge fund: Once a week, open the door to your office when they finally give you one, and place a phone call where you shout a string of expletives in a threatening voice.

The advice is essentially a charade. That the V.P. felt strongly enough to recommend playing a character—the strong and tough female—showed her early on what it could take to be a woman in power.

Beyond that, she shares her eaction to Parable of the Sower, the Olivia Butler book that I had the pleasure of reading a few years ago.

I won’t summarize the article too much but it was impactful. Marling’s conclusion is expansive, but here, in a way she is thinking about the shaping of narratives, is some of it:

They choose who we can find empathy for and who we cannot. What we have fellow feeling for, we protect. What we objectify and commodify, we eventually destroy.

A Movie – Waves

Sometimes in life I have this odd meta-moments where I think about how strange it is to be wherever I am. I ask: how did I get here? What oddness has to transpire to make it happen? It’s an entertaining way to remember that not only is much beyond our control, even those things that are in our control can surprise it.

About an hour and forty minutes into the movie Waves I had the same reaction about the movie itself. Somehow we were in a Missouri hospital and the plot had still moved cohesively (sort of). There was no feeling of loss of control in being where we were as viewers. This was fascinating: too seldom do we find ourselves so far from the first budding of character and plot in such a short time—without jumping through time, of course.

Waves still jumps. (What a sentence). I won’t spoil anything but there are some breaks and inconsistencies in the narrative—not quite like Moonlight’s three acts, but not so far from it. And at times the movie feels a bit like Moonlight—the ocean scenes in the warmth of south Florida and the bright and brilliant colors. They are both named for phenomenons of nature and yet deal with their characters in a very real, and a very raw way.

I thought about the word ‘Raw’ several times during the movie. I had read it described as such. I found myself jumping to it. But what did that mean? It was still being acted—it was still a movie. Perhaps raw means removed of the same tropes or gloss as Hollywood often puts on. Maybe? But that seems lackluster as an explanation. I’ll have to think on this.

What I can say is simple: the movie was affecting and emotional. There are times you’ll gasp and times you’ll hold our stomach tightly waiting to see what happens. It’s not my favorite movie and I don’t know a scenario where I’ll watch it again fully but it was an absolute gift to see it once and to know movies like it are being made.

A Show – The Sopranos

No introduction needed nor do I need to wax entirely on this. Perhaps one day I will. But last week saw me finish the entire Sopranos series—yes, for the first time.

It was long, gripping, and at times frustrating. But it was excellent and I looked forward to each and every episode as I got closer to the end. And then there was the ending which brought on a whole day’s worth of reading.

My thoughts a week out? I miss it, certainly. The characters were so rich and the show so unconcerned with building tension just for the sake of doing so (my opinion) that I’ve missed the cadence of being both enthralled with a TV production and somehow feeling like it was so “everyday” that whether I watched or not the world would exist. I don’t know how to explain it better than that—somewhere deep in me there was a supposed reality of that happening just across the state line in Jersey and being reproduced on my television. The structure of episodes and seasons came just as a frame to keep it from dragging on. I don’t know if I’ve seen a TV show that’s given me the same reaction; or ever will.

For six months, I’ve been thinking about Page 383.

Why?

Page 383 is the end of the first draft of my novel. The first draft that I finished in September of last year.

That draft, when printed in Arial 12 size font with stretched margins, came out to be 383 pages. And since I printed that out—in October, after a break— I’ve been thinking about that last page. Because when I got to it, and only when I got to it, would I have edited that entire stack of paper.

And yesterday, on a gray morning in Rome, I sat the desk in my Airbnb and I finished editing Page 383. And then I walked down to Trastevere and got myself some gelato and ate it as the day cleared and the sun came out.

It took me six months to get there. When I started editing, much as when I started writing, I had no idea how long it’d take me. In both cases, it was my first time undertaking such a large project. I had no idea the challenges that would come.

One challenge was of my own doing. Because to make the writing part easier, I didn’t edit at all. I sat down each day and wrote, regardless of whether it made any sense or used the right tense or re-introduced a character I had already introduced. Beyond even that, I decided to switch from first person to third person narration halfway through. So that meant that every instance of “I” or “we” or “us” in the first 175 pages had to be redone.

And so it was six months going through all of that and more—one word and one sentence at a time. And I had to make notes, this time, of when I actually introduced a character. Or when I needed to break from the plot to put in some kind of description of where these characters were. In the six months of editing, whole chapters were chopped up and re-added. I still have a list of “orphaned” scenes which got cut that I couldn’t bring myself to delete entirely.

It took me six months to get through those 383 pages. That’s a rate of just over 2 pages per day—if you’re counting weekends, and travel days, and friends’ visits and days I just felt like going somewhere new and doing something different.

Because I wrote the book while traveling through South Africa, South Korea, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam.And I edited it while traveling through the United States, Mexico, the United Kingdom, and, finally, Italy.

That’s 11 countries. And 11 different places with their own distractions and museums and wonder to pull me away from the book. I knew I wanted to travel while I wrote this, but that also presented its own set of challenges.

And when it was all said and done, I came out with a pace of just over two pages a day. It sounds paltry, really. But I can assure you it wasn’t. I didn’t work on it everyday, but I did most. And a good day was getting through four or maybe five pages.

Because editing is a slow burn and grind. I love writing. I think I’ll always love writing. But there were some weeks (probably months) where I didn’t care for the editing part at all. Re-reading my own words, day after day after day. Deciding what went where and what sounded better. Should it be “Cole went with the two” or “the two went with Cole”?

Sentences in this book—arbitrary ones on page 178 or 212 or 39, that a reader will glance over as it were nothing, were rewritten painstakingly four or five or twenty times.

And that all gets in your head. It’s hard to escape. On my long walks I’d think about what I had edited the day before—and not unusually with a feeling that I had not done my best work. And then spend an hour redoing what I had done before attempting to get into the headspace of what the next part to edit was.

A grind, I tell you.

But I got there. Slow and steady, I did it. I turned over Page 383 yesterday and looked at the last line of my novel and smiled. That singular moment of relief felt worth all the hard days to get here. Plus now I can say that I wrote and edited my novel—the first without the second almost seems like a foolish errand. Especially the way I wrote my first draft. It actually feels like a real book now.

So does that mean the whole thing is done? Yes and no. It’s now officially a second draft, and that’s good. And it’s a whole lot more show-able than it was on the first draft. But there’s still some tidying up to do.

Next I’ll work on the novel’s first 50 pages. This is the part I’ll send out to agents to gauge interest in helping to find publishers. Any interested parties?

The novel: The Horatians follows four characters through the rise of a fictional start-up—a mapping app that lets users earn cryptocurrency. As the startup succeeds, adopting the Silicon Valley idea of growth at all costs, the relationships start to turn bitter and leaves the characters and reader questioning whether it was all worth it.

Oh, and here’s that gelato!

Years ago, when I was nomadic full-time, I wrote in a notebook that I thought one needed to be in a place for 6 weeks to fully feel lived-in—to get some kind of first real understanding of a city. I don’t know the mathematics of how I came to that number (likely none) but I’ve thought of it through the years.

I’ve now spent 12 weeks in Mexico City so by my own theory I should know this place doubly, whatever that means. And I think I do—I have my own places now. Places where I like to get coffee, tacos, croissants; or where I like to read, write, edit, or even where I know there’s a good bathroom to use while on a walk. And then I know the places that I should want to see—the landmarks, which are quite worth it here in their grandness and space. I know the parks and the restaurants that makes recommendation lists and where a good place to sit for an hour would be based on traffic and people watching and maybe a nearby huaraches stand to fill the stomach up.

When I first came here about three years ago this was the vision I left with. Coming back here to get to know the city, instead of just seeing it. I did that, and I’m happy to have done it.

It was an incredibly rich experience which I assumed it could be from that very first visit. But you never know, of course. I had something like a dozen friends come down here that I got to see and tour around. I was in a music video, I saw a soccer game at Aztec Stadium, I played golf on the outskirts, I saw Lucha four or five times. I ate at traditional restaurants, modern ones, expensive ones, and sometimes I just settled for a street taco and it was better than I could have imagined.

On my last day here, I think, too, about the other purpose I came here with—to edit the book I wrote mostly while traveling in Asia. I am almost done with that task, about 5/6 of the way through that first draft and should be done with it soon. As far as editing location, I’m less confident in what Mexico City provided. Not that it was bad. I got it done and had a great time sitting at parks thinking about scenes and characters and purposes.

But part of me wishes I had written here. Mexico City is so full of life that what I did get to write (some short story beginnings, essays, poems, the start of a movie script) seemed more alive than the book itself. At least at times. Of course this could be a symptom completely of the way I see writing vs editing—but the feeling sticks here on my last day.

Because this city brightens me. It enlivens me with its smells, its colors, its squares and parks, the trees that have blossomed these wonderful purples—the people gossiping and walking slowly (goodness do they walk slowly). All of this plus the modernity of a growing city and the traditional past that sits never too far behind. It’s a changing city—I think when I come back to visit in another three years it will look vastly different than it does now—and that liveliness feels ripe for the capture of words.

But it was editing time and editing I did. Here in Mexico City I edited something around 335 pages of text—about 12 chapters of my book and made improvements that I’m proud of. I come away with that accomplishment and the set-up for the next step in the book process of trying to get published.

I also come away with a map. The kind that 12 weeks provides—more expansive than 6 weeks of course. There’s the tangible map on my google account where I’ve bookmarked restaurants, bookstores, plazas and more to remember where they are. But more importantly there’s the map in my head—of where things are and how to navigate this city but also fit with the intangibles of the pace of life, the wide streets where I walked in the middle amongst statuary, and the benches that don’t make a Google map but make life worth a sit down and restful few minutes to take it all in.

The map that’s been created I’ll carry as a memory and additive to my life and its experience. And Mexico City will exist in that map. But what really is going to be the memory of Mexico was coming here without much of a plan and leaving with a solid one. Because during my time here I started a relationship with someone wonderful (and got to host her here for a weekend). And now I leave with a plan and a greater purpose. This city will always be tied to falling for her, will be brightest during the weekend with you, and will be the set-up for what comes next (the great and exciting mystery). I think in all of my years of travel I’ve never been so excited to leave a place I’ve been in for a while—and it has nothing to do with Mexico City (which I love) and everything to do with her.

Two years ago—between my first trip to Mexico City and this much longer one, I tattooed Adrienne Rich’s line “the words are maps” on my right foot as a guidepost for myself. And now, leaving Mexico City, I see words and maps combining in ways I hoped they might. The book editing and the building of the internal map of the last three months here. Everything I wrote in the last year—the book’s drafts, the essays, the poems, the notes to myself—and all the places I’ve gone in the process of writing it. Even this blogpost is taking me somewhere—around the city, to the past, and toward the future. The words are maps.

Biblioteca Vasconcelos is a $100 million library with sawtooth windows spanning wide above floating bookshelves. It is a massive rectangular affair, longer than a football field with seven, maybe eight stories going upward. Well, stories isn’t quite the right word. More like seven or eight landing levels with bookshelves.

Each level has a hallway running building-long with exit hallways to six stacked rows of books. Each of these stacks has its own landing, some of which extend out into the vacant space of the middle, some of which sit inside, but all are entirely exposed to the Vasconcelos openness.

The effect is a steel pattern of boxes that hang above any dweller who walks in and looks up. What is the pattern? It’s hard to tell—but there is one. Assuredly there is one. And what does it feel like to go up into these landings? It feels like floating, floating with books, floating with the support of steel wire frames that hold up the landing, the books, the people, the stairs, the hallways, and everything else.

If that doesn’t give you a picture, here’s an actual picture (not by me).

Dewey In Verticality!

In Biblioteca Vasoncelos, there is space everywhere, even where there are books. Especially where there are books.

Libraries usually don’t do this. They do not usually give their books space. They give their space books.

Because most libraries are stations of economy. They are not taking profits to build bigger shelves or wider walls. They are trying to fit their readymade purpose with a quantity befitting.

But Vasconcelos is different. It is almost an absurdity of a library, at least in comparison to your something local. It is made in grandeur. The main architect of the project, Alberto Kalach, said he wanted, “the creation of an ark, carrier of human knowledge.”

And it is like a ship, an ark. At times economical with its space like a sailboat and but mostly concerned with keeping the enterprise wide. Wide enough for buoyancy. Its airiness gives it and you that feeling of floating.

It has areas for seating, for public communing, and rooms for rent, but it has wide open spaces to refresh your singular existence. It is not crowded here but it cannot possibly feel empty to anyone. Not with what’s happening above them. Not with whats hanging over their heads.

On the longer two sides, the building is flanked by a garden. More on the east side, where the garden is extensive, almost wild with tall plants and dirty walking paths. There’s greenery on the west side of it but less. Not far away is a mall and a huge train station. Thousands are passing through there in different stages of rush. Thousands will come through Vasconcelos but it’s not in a rush. Public spaces have their own pace.

Inside though, at the train station and the mall, no one is looking up. No one is admiring–with their eyes or with the camera on their phones. The mall, like the library, dwarfs a single human in its size. But malls are not meant to dwarf, malls are meant to quarantine offinto smaller spaces, where people feel big, and wealthy, and rich.

Vasconcelos is a functioning monument where almost everyone is transfixed in admiration. And if they’re not, their soul must be reliving the sublime of another time. They’re just silent about it all.

Inside Vasconcelos is something like 500,000 books, stacked in their six row templates. Each is part of a steel contraption, and obviously there are hundreds of these. To get to these books on these racks is a journey. And why shouldn’t it be? Certainly each book is a journey. Why not a journey to the journey?

The journey starts with stairs which hang on steel wires—a bit like hanging ladders—leading to discovery. These sit outside the books, with the words and bones in the center. This is just like us, like our bodies, or like a book with a strong spine. It’s all a collection of loose shoots, ladders, and halls but in the end it all looks abominably sturdy.

The rest of it is an exercise in the un-economy of space. So much exposure. So much empty room. Why? Well, it gives the library room to expand. It gives the citizen a journey to get to a book. It gives the sunlight a chance to slink in through the window and land its rays somewhere.

It gives so much space. That’s okay. It’s an exposed and vulnerable space and what could be more perfect. It is the great house of so much emotional exposure of its authors. There are books, like buildings, that when they bare their entirety it’s 30,000 square meters of room to maneuver in.

Space is vital here. Space is books, the area around which letters are formed (think of letters chiseled away from a block of black ink the way that David was chiseled away from marble) and a book makes space in its sentences, in its flow. There’s a space between reader and book that’s obstructed by the eyes to fully engage. There’s a space when you open a book, and little spaces when you close it where the words still breath.

This all leads to the beginning here. Perhaps you’ve had the question on your mind:

Why do you build a $100 million library?

The same reason you build a $1 million dollar library, or a $1 library in your front yard. To provide space for the communion of mind and knowledge.

Here, there is space enough for an ark-full of minds—to float down the great rivers of wisdom, the seas of possibility, the deluge of everything we deserve to learn.