An Edited Life

[Note: I regret that I have not been blogging all summer and into the fall. Fools that we are, my wife and I entered the insane mid-2013 real estate market, selling our home (or trying to) and finally purchasing a townhouse. The whole crazy process wiped six months off my writing life. This new post addresses just one of many lessons learned from the whole experience.]

Downsizing means just that. The capacity for all things material is reduced in proportion to the "down." For me, this meant tossing a lot of my treasured "stuff" overboard: clothing, books, priceless junk, 40-year-old lesson plans . . . .  The image that kept coming to me was that moving was a lot like editing one of my manuscripts.

The first draft looks like the three-car garage we had at our former house. To fit both cars and all our excess stuff into a smaller home and a two-car garage required a lot of editing. In a manuscript, there are the usual suspects quickly sentenced to extinction: 'ly' adverbs, bloated adjectives, those other dead-weight adverbs (like 'very' and 'very, very'). Then there are those nasty, unnecessary duplications (the reader already knows this, so why say it again).

One would think that a professional editor would be a natural at tossing and downsizing. I suppose there is some inbred advantage. But then there are those 'little darlings' that have been with me for half-a-century. I appeal to Caesar (actually, my wife Esther) for mercy. Her thumb goes down without a second's hesitation. But I just can't pull the trigger. They make the cut, though every bit of my brain matter admits that she is right.

And so, it never fails that, when I read my book in print, I wish I had listened to the editor in me rather than the sentimental hoarder.

Alfred J. Garrotto is the author of the novel 

The Saint of Florenville: A Love Story

saintoflorenville.com 

alfredjgarrotto.com

(c) 2013 by Alfred J. Garrotto

In Memory of Marilyn

My dear friend, Marilyn Giardino-Zych, passed into eternity on Sunday, October 14, 2012. She was Executive Producer on the project to bring my novel, The Saint of Florenville: A Love Story, to the big screen. Our hearts and our prayers go out especially to her husband, daughters, and other surviving family members. Marilyn possessed a great passion for this story and had built an amazingly talented team of professionals around her. Sadly, her untimely death came in the early stages of development by Hangar 3 Productions and leaves the project in a state of limbo. All of us who knew and loved Marilyn are in a state of grief and shock at her leaving us. Her energy and her desire to see this film go forward gives me confidence that she is still in charge of producing it from her place in heaven. How she will pull it together—and when—is in the hands of God, but I trust that Marilyn will eventually make it happen.

(c) 2012 by Alfred J. Garrotto

Guest Blogger: Donie O'Connor--"There's Always Something"

Note: I am delighted to welcome to this blog my good friend, Fr. Donie O'Connor. Donie is a Mill Hill missionary priest, who has served the poor in Africa. For the past two years he has served the congregation of Christ the King Church, Pleasant Hill, California, and done so with great generosity of presence and  wisdom.

I ran excitedly into the kitchen, tripped and broke my nose. I can still hear my mother’s words: ‘There’s always something.’ Yes with eight children there was never an empty moment in our home. My mom died peacefully at home at the age of ninety, six years ago. I remember sitting on her bed and joking with her about this incident and what she said. With a gentle laugh she sighed: “When I pass on, put that epitaph on my gravestone: ‘There’s always something.’ ” 

And there always is. All of us identify with my mom. All of us recognize her frustration. All our moments are crowded with uninvited guests and unsummoned grief. There are voices everywhere commanding our attention inside and outside.

There is always something big or small that steals the substance of ‘the now.’ Something casts its slanting shadow that prevents us from entering into the richness of the present moment. An anxiety, a lingering regret, something that should be done or something I should be doing. A lingering headache or heartache, an unpaid bill, a bitterness or a jealousy. Yes, something lurks around the corner ready to rob the present moment of its joy.

The late Dutch spiritual writer, Henri Nouwen in his little gem, Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life, documents this. “Our life,” he wrote, “is a story where sadness and joy kiss each other at every moment.” And they can co-exist.

There is a tinge of poignancy that invades every moment of our daily lives. It seems there is never a clear-cut pure joy or a clear-cut pure motive. Even in love’s passionate rapture, there is the reflection of sadness. In every satisfaction, there is the awareness of limitation. In every risk, there is the element of danger. In every love, the fear of hurt. In every success, the dread of jealousy. Behind every smile, there is a teardrop. In every friendship, a distance. In every freedom, there are consequences; and in every embrace, there is loneliness. In every dawn, there is twilight.

There’s always something!

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Alfred J. Garrotto is the author of The Saint of Florenville: A Love Story

(c) 2012 by Alfred J. Garrotto

The (Dubious) Wisdom of Work

I'm still feeling disturbed after reading M. Allen Cunningham's fictional biography, Lost Son, based on the life of Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke. First, let me say that Cunningham has to be one of our most gifted modern American writers. Rarely has an author chosen such an unappealing protagonist, yet pulled me through his book on the strength of sensitive, mesmerizing--and poetic--prose. In an Amazon review, I gave the author five stars, while mentally assigning but one to Rilke himself.

M. Allen Cunningham

But why this pervading discomfort that refuses to fade days after closing the book? I believe it arises--or descends--from Rilke's personal mission statement: work is everything . . . all else comes second, a far and distant runner-up. The poet abandoned his only child, Ruth, for most of her life, seemingly for no other reason that he saw her as an innocent impediment to his life's work. Though married to the sculptress, Clara, whom he loved, he designed their marriage to be a celibate existence, even during those rare periods when they happened to be in the same European city at the same time. (Clara later filed for divorce.) 

But why does Rilke's strange way of being bother me so much that I want to ring his neck and tell him a thing or two. About what, though? Cunningham's portrayal of the famous poet picks at scabs in my own life, past and present. Early in my adulthood, I bought into a similar "work is everything" philosophy. And I was miserable. I have learned that old ways die hard. After marrying and knowing the joy of children, and now an adored grandchild, I still struggle to fend off the beast of 'work-first.'

Cunningham has given a wonderful portrayal of a flawed literary genius. In doing so, his novel will continue to haunt me for the rest of this summer, at least, and perhaps beyond.
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Alfred J. Garrotto is the author of the novel, The Saint of Florenville: A Love Story

alfredjgarrotto.com

saintoflorenville.com

What ever happened to radical feminism? I think I know.

Truth in writing requires me to preface my reflection on writer-director Lynn Shelton's Your Sister's Sister with a disclaimer. I am 1.5 generations removed from the film's protagonists. My right to an opinion on these Gen Y'ers derives from my having gotten a late start on parenting and, therefore, my two daughters are still in their late twenties--as are most of their friends, both male and female.

Halfway through the film, breathtakingly filmed in Washington State's San Juan Islands, I gave up trying to like what I was seeing. I opted instead to study the film as a sociological commentary. The question that kept nagging at me was, "Fifty-plus years after the rise of radical feminism (so-called "women's lib") in the United States, how is it possible that educated professional women still expect and accept so little of the men they partner with?"  

Iris (Emily Blunt) is madly in love with an immature and  self-confessed loser named Jack (Mark Duplass). In a key scene, Jack admits to Iris that he is nothing but a waste of any woman's time. That's just who he is and that's all Iris is ever going to get from him. Instead of fleeing to catch the next ferry back to Seattle, Iris melts and accepts his non-offer. What she is really saying yes to is being little-boy Jack's mother for the rest of his life. 

Oh, yes, there a bit more to the story, but that's the bottom
line--literally, the bottom.

I left the theater shaking my head. My main worry is that this film might represent the true state of single young women in America today. Has women's lib failed so miserably? Have women given up demanding equal status with their men? Have they given up on finding truly co-responsible life partners? 

What is correspondingly fascinating about all this is that this film arrives amid the Vatican's current inquisition against Catholic religious women (sisters/nuns) in the U.S. At the heart of the churchmen's fear is that these brave women have become "radical feminists" (read 'uppity,' demanding that the "boys" in their faith community grow up and be men!). I can only conclude from my viewing of Your Sister's Sister and the hierarchy's desire to purge strong women from spiritual leadership, that Roman Catholic nuns are America's last-standing daughters of Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem. God, bless them!

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Alfred J. Garrotto's most recent novel is The Saint of Florenville: A Love Story.

Writing in the House of Dreams

British author Jenny Alexander has posted the story of how 

my novel, The Saint of Florenville: A Love Story, was 


'conceived.' Read it now at her blog, "Writing in the House 

of  Dreams." And tell me what you think. I've invited Ms.

Alexander to be my guest on this site and she has graciously

accepted the invitation. I'm looking forward to having her 

share about the wisdom of dreams and their importance in 

our lives. 



(c) 2012 by Alfred J. Garrotto

Inviting Readers to Rewrite My Stories

This post first appeared as a guest blog on the site of mystery writer, Camille Minichino, "The Real Me."  I am happy now to bring it home for my readers here to share.

As an author of fiction who writes for publication, I hold my stories lightly when I share them with my readers. I try not to be too possessive or caught up in “will they get it?” It has taken time, but I have come to understand that no two persons reading the same book will read it the same way, let alone imbibe the author’s precise intent. The same is true of film and the performing arts. No two movie goers interpret the same film in exactly the same way.

I’ve known this all my life as a reader and film lover. Now that I am on the other side of the artistic process, I am aware that I must let readers ‘rewrite’ my novels, find their own interpretation, and apply them to their own lives. I am no longer caught up in whether they “get” my story. Once out of my hands, it becomes their story.

The following “Aha!” passage in Misquoting Jesus by Bart D. Ehrman made this insight click for me: “Once readers put a text in other words, they have changed the words. This is not optional when reading; it is not something you can choose not to do when you peruse a text. The only way to make sense of a text is to read it, and the only way to read it is by putting it in other words, and the only way to put it in other words is by having words to put it into, and the only way you have other words to put it into is to have a life, and the only way to have a life is by being filled with desires, longings, needs, wants, beliefs, perspectives, worldviews, opinions, likes, dislikes—and all the other things that make humans human. And so to read a text is, necessarily, to change a text”(the underline is mine).

Now, I look forward to readers’ interpretations of my stories. I  especially enjoy having someone discover a level of meaning beyond my conscious intent. Recently, I received this message in an e-mail from a reader: “The value of The Saint of Florenville: A Love Story is in it’s real life application to modern-day sainthood. In their day, all of our martyred saints’ lives (and deaths) would have been every bit as gruesome. In a sense, not to die and to live through it, may be even more brutal to the human spirit. Yet these two saints do survive.” That’s more than I had in mind when I wrote the book, and I am grateful to this reader—and others—for helping me to better understand my own stories.

(c) 2012 by Alfred J. Garrotto

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The Saint of Florenville: A Love Story is available in paperback and all e-book formats.

Guest Blogging at "Camille Minichino--The Real Me"

Today I have the privilege of guest blogging at "Camille Minichino--The Real Me." I hope you'll visit as I muse about the need for authors to let go of their stories once they share their creations with the universe. My understanding is that every reader becomes a co-author with the original writer. I hope you'll take a moment to read my short reflection and comment with how you see this process working--as a writer and/or reader.

Alfred J. Garrotto

The Saint of Florenville: A Love Story