Category: blog

Like a Song: Elevation

This is an essay I wrote for @U2, where I am a staff writer. It’s part of an @U2 series called Like a Song, in which staff members offer personal reflections on U2 songs.

Let’s talk about joy.

I am standing in front of the stage with a heart like a jackhammer and a soul ready to take off, a kite that only wants a strong wind. The power of music: to make us fly. I’ve sat on a cold Seattle sidewalk for 12 hours and stood crammed in this crowd for another three, waiting, waiting, wanting to soar. The power of music: to make us feel. And now the crowd is roaring: we are a hurricane of noise, and the eye of our storm is U2, taking the stage, taking a scan of the arena, and then taking us all to the places we all want to go. The power of music: to show me myself in a song. To remind me tonight that I am large inside, so much bigger than the tiny boxes that everyday life sometimes tries to squeeze me into. Tonight I am a creature of hope and love and joy, and there is no better song than “Elevation.”

High
Higher than the sun
You shoot me from a gun
I need you to elevate me here

I listen to U2’s music at different times for different reasons – to feel the fierce abandon of “The Fly,” the anger of “Mofo,” the yearning of “Streets.” Because a song describes a desire so private that I can’t, or won’t, seek it anywhere except inside the music. Or because I need to put a name to some specific pain so I can cry over it, and begin to be healed. The power of music: a stranger sings our innermost self. I put U2 in my headphones to hear myself, and the songs I like best are the ones that are most about me.

But I come to the concerts to see four men make the music happen right in front of me, and here the songs I like best are the ones that are most about them. Forget about being pulled up to dance, or getting the autograph outside the stage door. That’s not where the real juice is. If you want to meet the band, then watch them make their music, because in the instant when they give themselves over to it you will see their souls. You will know all about them in those moments. I have seen their fierceness and their anger and their yearning. And I have seen “Elevation” live, and know that whatever else they may be, Adam, Larry, Edge and Bono are people of joy.

See for yourself.

This is the 2001 Slane performance of “Elevation,” full of joy. The power of love to bring us out of the dark of ourselves into the sun. The jazz of the four-way relationship, the heightened awareness of each other that comes from 25 years of playing together: you can feel it when they share a look, when they lean toward each other for a note.

And above all, there is the sheer joy of making music. Bono can’t wait: he howls it out as the audience quivers in the moment, and then Larry counts them in tap tap tap tap, brings his sticks down BLAM and the lights come up and Bono leaps into the song. Watch it fill him so completely that it propels him around the stage and makes his body move, move, move. Watch Adam lean into the music and smile that private smile. Watch Edge dance with his guitar as Bono sings about jubilation. Watch for that twirl of Larry’s drumsticks at the end. And look at Bono smile as he walks back toward his band. That, my friends, is the joy of U2.

You make me feel like I can fly
So high
Elevation

The power of music: our worlds collide and I am sharing soul with my Irish brothers, whom I never love so much as in these moments when they sing themselves and take me with them. Not let’s get naked love or some kind of worship, but the electric connection of shared humanity: they are full of joy, and so I am too. It’s such a human thing to do, to show our souls and make joy for each other. And that’s why I come. That’s why I wait in line and stand until my back is frozen and offer up my heart. I come to see U2 be human and make music. I come for the joy of it.

Of interest to writers

Well, certainly of interest to this writer.

First, John Scalzi’s excellent post on the harsh realities of the business (and this follow-up). I wish I’d had this when I taught Clarion West this past summer. It would have saved a lot of conversation. I could have just said, “Go read Scalzi’s #4,” et cetera.

Speaking of which — the 2008 Clarion West workshop is now accepting applications, but put your skates on. Deadline is March 1.

Looking for an agent? Colleen Lindsay has just hung out her shingle…

If you’re at all interested in screenwriting, I recommend looking back through the comprehensive coverage of the WGA strike at Deadline Hollywood Daily. If you’re not too worried about being linear, then start with this blow-by-blow reporting of the recent events leading to the recently-announced deal. And don’t just read the post — ponder the 300+ comments that follow, and what they reveal about the human cost of the strike. The last strike was in 1988, when there was no technology for this kind of immediate, urgent public discussion — and it reveals the huge losses for many below-the-line people who aren’t writers and didn’t have a choice, and the long-term damage to writers and the industry as a whole. In these comments are redline levels of excitement, despair, empowerment, uncertainty, and vitriol, interspersed with some thoughtful examinations of Hollywood business and the writer’s place in it.

Book publishing isn’t as different from Hollywood as you might think — book writers may not have a union, but we do have some of the same issues. There are lessons here for every writer.

Nicola in Santa Cruz

Nicola will be doing a thing at UC Santa Cruz on Tuesday, March 11. The ANWAGTHAP reading is terrific, the hypnogogic pieces are downright amazing, and Nicola herself is smart, funny and loves nothing better than to talk with people about whatever comes up.

The event is open to the public, and I’ll be in the audience to cheer her on. Join us if you happen to be in the neighborhood…

Naked truth

Question for you.

Do you have secrets? I ask that because as a writer, I imagine many of your personal theories and philosophies and fantasies and the like get written down on the page, in one way or another, disguised or not. You’ve also down your share of interviews (although I’ve only read two) where you answer personal questions. And you’re very candid, very refreshing.

I guess I wonder if you have boundaries that you don’t cross in interviews, or even on the page. Things that you keep close and keep closed, if you would.

Writers always say that if you can’t tell the truth about yourself then you can’t tell the truth about others, and that in order to write — really write — you have to be willing to be excruciatingly honest with yourself, no holding back. You write and by doing so you look at yourself in the mirror (so to speak) and write from what you find. When that happens, when you write a novel, when you do an interview, do you feel hollowed out afterwards? Are there things you hide from the general public (which I realize would include me)?

I truly apologize if these questions are intrusive. I am just curious, but sometimes my curiosity can get the best of me. I’m just very intrigued.

Luey

Hi, Luey.

I think healthy people have boundaries, and I certainly have them.

I have secrets, too. But “secret” is one of those words that means enormously different things to different people. And it’s meant different things to me at different points in my life. I’ve kept secrets at times in my life because I thought I would break if anyone knew them, that my life would be over…. I don’t have those kind of secrets now. They are not worth it.

But I am in many ways a private person, interview candor notwithstanding. I think it’s possible to be both candid and private, it’s just a question of where those boundaries are. I can tell the truth about myself: I just don’t always choose to. Not that I lie about myself routinely, that would be exhausting, but just that my personal boundaries are more rigorous in interviews, in conversation, in the world of human interaction. There are things that I don’t share because they will hurt other people too much. There are things I don’t share because they will hurt me too much. That’s life.

But the boundaries between me and my work are much more permeable. I use myself in my work all the time, all of me, even the parts that would hurt me or someone else in the real world. Some of those things are obvious to people who know me. Some of them, no one but me will ever recognize. Sometimes I don’t even know until they are on the page — but at some point I always do know. That is what comes from expertise — knowing when a piece of writing is true, and knowing (often only later) what it is true of.

I had an extended conversation with Robin on Virtual Pint (the “let’s sit down and talk” area of my old website before I discovered the Beauty That Is WordPress) about this notion of when/how the writer finds herself on the page. The VP archives are a total mess right now, but I plan to move them all over here at some point, so I’ve decided to start with that conversation. Here it is, in chronological order:

Meaning and vulnerability (April 2006)
Naked (July 2006)
More naked (November 2006)

As you’ll see, I’ve been through some changes on this. And that’s the thing about being honest, you know? We can only be honest (or not) about what we know… but I don’t know all there is to me yet. When I was younger, I thought that I was supposed to know all about myself, that self-awareness was a zero-sum game. And that if I didn’t have it, I wasn’t a real adult, I was only pretending — or worse, trying my ass off and failing, failing, and that any second now the real grownups around me would realize it.

I don’t think that anymore. Now I see it as a process, a becoming… much the same way I currently see writing. The more I see it this way, the more closely bound my self and my writing become for me.

But I don’t look in a metaphorical mirror when I write — I look at the characters. I don’t write “about myself.” I don’t use consciously use fiction to explore my own issues or my own psyche, although every story has some of me in it. Characters turn up with hopes or fears or dreams or joys or grief that feel just like mine…. and when those moments are real on the page, that’s when a story starts being true.

Interviews do not hollow me out. They are work, sometimes enjoyable, sometimes a chore. Writing fiction and screenplay makes me temporarily insane in ways that I very much enjoy, but I suspect are sometimes a trial to the people around me. If you want to know more about that, you can find it in a story called “Dangerous Space” — the relationship Duncan Black has with music is a very extreme version of my relationship with writing. And the way Mars feels about music is exactly how I feel about it.

Was that conscious? No. I wasn’t planning to write about my stuff. But it was right for those characters, for that story, so I used it without hesitation. I will put myself on the page anytime I need to if it’s in service of the characters, of the story, of making it true. If it’s just to roll around in my own stuff, well, I hope I am enough of a real writer to know that wouldn’t be real writing.

And no apology necessary. The nice thing about being a grownup is I don’t have to answer people’s questions if I find them intrusive (grin).

Carpe diem

Here is a beautiful and loving tribute to Heath Ledger.

It makes me ashamed of all the time I’ve ever wasted. I don’t mean time spent staring at the ocean, or reading Travis McGee when I ought to be washing dishes, or lying on the grass watching clouds go by — that’s all time well spent, in my opinion. But all the time I’ve wasted on bullshit, pettiness, avoiding work, letting fear win, or feeling sorry for myself for more than 15 seconds. Any time spent diminishing myself.

Seize the fucking day, people. Kiss it hard and use it for something good, because one day will be the last day. And we can never be ready. The best we can be is full of days well spent.

Boys will be boys

Torchwood is back this weekend. I am happy happy and want to share, so here’s a little taste of season 2.

As if this weren’t wicked fun enough on its own, there’s a little extra treat for all us Buffy and Angel fans (let’s all channel Drusilla now: Spiiiiike…). You can get James Marsters’ take on Torchwood here.

And a lovely interview with John Barrowman, Captain Jack himself, in which he sums up everything I love about the show:

“It’s one of the best playpens ever. I get to go to work and play with gadgets and drive really big, fast cars. I get to shoot aliens and fly spaceships. And I get to kiss everybody.”

It really is more fun when he’s around.