Day 53: The Sunday Novelist

I just read an inspiring story about a biology teacher from Lyon, where I spent the first weekend of April this past year with my students.  He won the prestigious Prix Goncourt for his debut novel, L'art Français de La Guerre.  This prize isn't about the money--you get all of 10 euros--but you are guaranteed to sell about 400,000 copies of the book after the announcement is made.

The author's name is Alexis Jenni.  He's 48, and he describes himself as a "Sunday writer."  He has no intention of quitting his day job.

Mr. Jenni wrote two novel manuscripts before he wrote this one, but he had no luck with them.  This novel, which is 700-pages long in manuscript form, took him five years to write.  He sent it to just one publisher, Gallimard, and they took it.  And then this November, he won the grand prize. 

I read about him in the current issue of France magazine, and then found this article in The Guardian.  Allson Flood of The Guardian wrote:

A journey through France's military history in Indochina, Algeria and at home, Jenni's 600-page novel is told through the eyes of Victorien Salagnon, a war veteran who becomes a painter, and the young man he teaches to paint in exchange for writing his story. 'I saw the river of blood which flows through my peaceful town, I saw the French art of war, which never changes, and I saw the turmoil which always happens for the same reasons, for French reasons which never change,' writes Jenni in the novel. 'Victorien Salagnon gave me all of time, through war which haunts our language.'

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/nov/03/prix-goncourt-sunday-writer-alexis-jenni

The teacher/Sunday novelist/Priz Goncourt winner also writes a blog, the title of which, Voyages Pas Très Loin, voyages not very far (rough translation) is totally in keeping with the spirit of this blog, especially this week.  I just became a follower/member.  I love synchronicity. 

A dear friend who fits in the making of art into a very demanding, full-time job, told me that on Sunday afternoons beginning at 3 PM she makes art or crafts projects with a friend for three hours.  "It's easy to find reasons to cancel," she told me.  "I have a paper I have to write for a conference, and so much work coming up this week.  But once I get out of the habit, it's easy to just stop going.  So I have to just do it." 

This same friend rented a studio twenty years ago, before she had her own studio and I had mine.  On Saturdays, from 9 AM to noon, she used to share it with me.  Every Saturday morning, no matter what, I would write and she would make art.  Were it not for these sessions, I wouldn't have published at all.  That's because when I first started teaching, I had no time at all to write.  Not even the pre-dawn hours.  I had new courses to prepare, endless reading, and the grading was out of control, so setting aside these Saturday mornings helped me so much.  Everything I wrote and published those first two years on the job came, or began, from those morning sessions.  I wrote a lot of short-short memoirs and stories then (funny how we find the form that fits our time constraints), and I could always complete a draft in the three-hour time allotment.  Then I'd tweak and revise later.  I also wrote chunks of longer pieces that I could spend a few minutes of each day working on as the week progressed. 

There were always papers to grade on Saturday mornings, but I put them off to the afternoon.  And I would put off recreation--bike rides, and adventures in cross-country skiing--until Sunday.

But if I happened to live in Lyon, it would be difficult to devote all of Sunday to writing.  A world UNESCO site, Lyon is just a spectacular city.  When I was there with the students, a few of us spent much of the day on bicycle exploring the Rhône and the Saône rivers.  My bike ride in Lyon is one of my happiest memories of being in France last year.  The warm air, the spring flowers, the river view of people picnicking and smooching: it was all so romantic and festive.

Lyon is the second most prosperous city in France and is rated something like 38th overall in the world on livability.  There's a Roman amphitheater, a festival of lights, deep ties to the history of film (the Lumière brothers invented the cinematographer here), but get this: Lyon is the gastronomy capitol of France.  Need I say more?

I love the little bouchons, traditional restaurants with local wines, that often have strange puppets in the window.

If I lived in Lyon, I would have to wake up very very early to be a Sunday writer, so that I could write my minimum requirement of pages, but make it out of my art cave in time for Sunday lunch.  But then

It seems that every door opens into a captivating courtyard

the ruins of the Roman amphitheater in the distance

again, I operate very well on the rewards system.

Happy Sunday, everyone!

Who could resist a restaurant with this window?

Your table awaits you. 

Day 32: The Lazy Day Meditation

Today I opened up one of my books by Thich Nhat Hanh and came to this quote:

Have a lazy day.  Try to spend a day doing nothing; we call that a lazy day.  Although for many of us who are used to running around from this to that. a lazy day is actually very hard work!  It's not easy to just be.  If you can be happy, relaxed, and smiling when you're not doing something, you're quite strong.  Doing nothing brings about quality of being, which is very important.  So doing nothing is actually something.  Please write that down and display it in your home: Doing nothing is something.

From Your True Home, the Everyday Wisdom of Thich Nhat Hanh

I absolutely love this idea, and am committed, 100%, to spending one day of the week mostly lazing about, but what do you suppose Thich Nhat Hanh really means by "doing nothing"?  Are we allowed to water the plants?  What about the clothes you put in the wash before you read this paragraph?  Do they need to stay in the machine and mold?

This sends me to thoughts of the Amish, who can get rides in "English" people's cars, and eat fast food, but can't utilize this technology themselves.

And who will cook on the officially designated lazy day?  Can I just tell my husband I'm observing a day of doing nothing and let him do it all--the dishes too?

Away from the North Country, I have friends who honor the tradition of Shabbat, the joyful feast.  This occurs on Friday in the homes of observant Jews.  They stay home that night, light candles, serve a hearty meal that includes the challah they baked earlier in the day or the night before (because the baking of bread is considered a "creative" act you refrain from on Shabbat), and they eat something that has been slow-cooked, or dishes made in advance, because cooking is also a creative act.  (My friends in Pittsburgh grill a salmon outside, so people can get creative in avoiding creative acts, with delicious results.)  There's a list of 39 activities you're supposed to refrain from, the kind of "creative" acts that change your environment, many of them agricultural, and you're not supposed to use electricity (although things are set to go on and off on timers; religious observance is always full of delightful loopholes) or drive or watch TV.  

I imagine you are meant to refrain from using all electronic devices, which would mean that if you were observing Shabbat you would not be reading this post.

(For more information on Shabbat, read http://www.jewfaq.org/shabbat.htm.)

My own rule for myself on Sundays, as of this past semester, is that I can't grade papers.  Creative work is fine, and even encouraged: writing, daydreaming, reading-for-writing, writing in my journal, and now, the blog.  And certain physical chores like cooking, cleaning up, and doing laundry are fine too, because I enjoy that kind of labor.  But anything that feels too much like the "work" or my salaried working life is out. To turn my Sundays from drudgery days to a relaxing day of joyous feasting meant reorganizing my entire week in a major way, but it was worth it.  (If you're new to this corner, please see Day Four: How Sunday Became my Favorite Day of the Week.)  And if possible, I try to make my afternoon walk with Zoe go longer, and slower.  More akin to walking meditation than anything athletic.

photo by Tara Freeman

Photo by Tara Freeman

photo by Tara Freeman

I can never really do nothing, but I aspire to someday.  I'm getting closer all the time.  My favorite thing to do on a Sunday is to wear my pajamas for half the morning and bring the coffee or tea up to bed and read.  Reading is definitely an activity Thich Nhat Hanh would place in the"doing something" category, but doing it in bed, in my pajamas, is the most relaxing thing to do in the whole world other than canoodling with my dog and scratching her ears.

For meditation, instead of going over to the studio, I might do guided meditation horizontally.  Someone talks to me from a CD called Yoga Nidra and I just do what I'm told.  I'm very obedient in this one way.

Sunday lunch usually takes a lot of preparation, but today we're going to a brunch to wish a friend a safe and lovely journey at sea.

I tend to avoid what we would consider relaxing, laze-about vacations in favor of research trips I can use for my writing.  But a few years ago, my husband and I took a beach vacation to Zihuatanejo, and he's hiding in one of these lounge chairs.  It was fun (and we read a lot of books).

Emma Schneider-Ferrari took this picture of me when we were in Senegal.  She's a sophomore at St. Lawrence University--an English major with a passion for photography and travel.  The three minutes I rested in this hammock after an action-packed day of visiting villages were probably my favorite three minutes of the trip.

Zoe has always known how to laze about.
Photo by Tara Freeman

Have a great, lazy day, gentle reader.  If anyone has stories to share about doing nothing, and your favorite places to do nothing in, either at home or on location, please write in.

And what's for lunch?