near miss

Last night was the improv jam. It's not a class; every Wednesday anybody and everybody from whatever level of improv they've reached (some haven't even taken one class) get together and "play." I'm starting to feel a little more comfortable in the big group without certain people like CG, the woman with whom I took level one and am taking level two (but she's been absent with health and family problems for several weeks, and I was out of town a couple of classes before that).

I took my nine ideas with me that I wrote down in my improv notebook - Romantic / Despair / Fight / Joy / Horse / Madness etc. - and that was useful; I didn't get through all of them, but it was a good springboard for getting me onstage. I still felt clunky some of the time, but I'm starting to find my improv stage legs.

After the jam most of us stood outside, some smoking cigarettes or drinking beers. T - the Indian dude I took level one with but who stayed on at the other theater after the split - asked what I've been up to. I told him I've been writing and doing improv mostly. A, another guy from our level one class who I don't think is all that good a performer and/but who thinks pretty highly of himself (it seems) - and, more importantly, doesn't seem too interested in me! - was standing next to T when we starting talking. T asked what I write and I told him I'm working on novel. He moved closer; A moved away.

There was a moment, as there often is in my life when talking with relative strangers, where sexuality comes up. I don't know why I'm not comfortable with it. (Well, I do know why, but I don't know why I haven't gotten over the discomfort in my life - but I'm working on it, and improv is helping.) T asked what the novel is about. I could see my mind working around Randy Reardon, the main character, his sickness - AIDS, the tell-all - and stumbled at that point of the revelation and then just went for it, just let it out, spilled the beans. And T didn't freak out or anything! Not that I really thought he would, but that's what goes through my head.

He told me he's taking a creative writing class this semester, we talked about his writing some and he said that most of the other kids don't like what he writes. I said, "Fuck them! It's not about them!" He described a story he recently wrote. It sounded a bit all over the place; he admitted that was the case, said he has a hard time sticking with one storyline. It's a bit like improv, I think, and I told him so; just going with what comes and not editing. I told him about Natalie Goldberg's book, Writing Down the Bones, which I recommended to him, and might even purchase for him when I'm feeling a little more flush (and, sadly, when looking for the link to her book, I discovered that I just missed a rare visit by Natalie Goldberg to my town).

Also, besides the fear of sexuality talk is my fear of intellectuality talk. T is a computer geek, inventor, scientist, etc. In other words, he's an intellectual. He's a very funny, instinctive performer, but a lot less absurd in his choices that am I. Well, he does a lot of weird things, but they seem a lot more intellectualized to me. Anyway, when I was describing the novel, talking about the seven different storylines that run through it, I was describing specifically the letters that Amitodana writes to August - one of the storylines - and T asked, "Is the whole novel epistolary?" My mind went blank for a moment.

I don't think I'm a stupid person; I know I am clever and smart enough to write a novel and plays and songs, and can usually come up with the word that means what I intend for it to mean, even if I don't know the exact definition. I use words in sentences that sound right, and often are right, but I sometimes misuse words. S has said that my vocabulary is the weakest part of my talent. (He didn't say it in those words, but that's the gist.)

And so, when T asked me if the whole novel is epistolary, I had to consider what he meant. I probably should have just asked him what it meant, but I was afraid of looking stupid. The word apostle came to me, which brought to mind preachers, storytellers, particularly Bible storytellers. Epistle seemed a similar word (there's a "pistl" in the middle of both of them!), so I made the leap to think that he was referring to the letter-writing storyline, and said, "Oh, no, there's prose and script and other things, as well." I think there was possibly a look of panic on my face (or at least I felt a look of panic directly behind my eyes and did my best to hide it!), but T didn't comment on it. And why would he?

That's the thing, I guess. I'm smarat enought to be writing a novel but fear people will think I'm not. I struggle with words like "epistolary" and other even less intellectual words than that. I would never use the word epistolary in my writing, I don't think, and I definitely wouldn't easily use it in a conversation (though I use words in my writing and in ways that I would never say aloud all the time). So I keep looking for the comfort in the idea that there exist many novelists who aren't (or weren't) as word-smart as even I am, and there are plenty of novels out there that are full of big words that are crap. It's really not something I need to worry about.

But I do. That and the Gay Thing.