E. Lily Yu @elilyyu@mastodon.social

28.iii.40

"I remember talking with Paul Mourset...about the American ambassador in Paris at the time. ...an arrogant bounder. He was a millionaire, of course (apparently that's necessary in such a position), and spoke no French nor any other language, and did countless things like referring to Frenchmen as frogs in the presence of other Frenchmen or announcing publicly that French apples weren't fit to eat and sending ostentatiously to Oregon for large shipments of American apples."

2.xi.38 (Nov 2, 1938):

"The truth is that it is and will be much pleasanter for me to read book after book of silly 'mysteries than to make myself work. Of course, if I were a real writer, predestined, dedicated, I'd work in the face of everything.... But as it is now, I feel almost hysterical at the thought of concentrating on one thing. I am never left without interruption (here are the self-justifications!) for more than fifteen or twenty minutes..."

Last night I finished Stay Me, Oh Comfort Me, compiled from the journals of MFK Fisher right before she wrote the masterpiece that is How to Cook a Wolf (1942), in which, between the ages of 25 and 33, she divorces, remarries, watches Hitler take Paris, and cares for her second husband as he loses his leg and then his life. These are an extraordinary picture of the artist in embryo: doubt, resignation, careful observation.

In the Mar/April issue of Poets&Writers, Laura Maylene Walter interviews me and two other talented debut writers (Eman Quotah, Nancy Johnson) about launching a first novel during the pandemic. I'd subscribed to P&W for years and always hoped to be in there someday.

Perseverance persevered while we perseverated.

As with the secret goals in Untitled Goose Game that only reveal themselves once accomplished, I had no idea my life goals included being trolled by Ted Chiang and cheerfully heckled by a bookseller (I heckled back), but it turns out these are included, and now complete.

Going to spend the next few days dismembering a 14-lb turkey, dreaming up story ideas for the Seattle Opera project I'm on, finishing line edits on the novel, editing a novelette, and trying to record a good take of Valse Rustique without featuring neighborhood leaf blowers.

I am simultaneously delighted with and horrified by my life choices.

Happiness is a delicious space opera (Arkady Martine's A Memory of Empire), a full pot of tea, and a box of cookies.