December 2008 Archives

In Times Square, it's
twenty minutes
past midnight,
there's a broken champagne

bottle at our feet,
slipped loose
from a pal's
whoops.

Garbage floats by like kids
in a Halloween parade. Cops
clip-clop past on horseback, keeping
elevated sight lines secure.

And that's about it.
The crowd's gone.
Seeped through grating
down to the rumble.

Cold streets left to
we scattered few
post-apocalyptic
topsiders.

He ate
too many oysters
there's a barbecued

pearl
forming
somewhere.

Forget not the mud caked juice box,
those traces of familiar sweetness locked in
hannukah gelt coin coverings dented
dirtward
next to
a plate or two of shaded eggplant parmigiana.

There was a party here. There were frightened
earthworms. Thunder. Gray light. And children being
irresponsible.

if "the last thing
I want
to do
is
upset you"

does
that mean

"I want to
upset you,
after
I'm done with
all my other
projects?"

Photo credit: Chelsea Hadley.

In which Reinhardt talks about why she rarely uses her notebook, how her first book may have been the easiest to write, and getting a sixteen-year-old to translate into IM.

Dana Reinhardt is the author of three novels for young adults. Her most recent book, How to Build a House (Random/Lamb, 2008), tells the story of a resilient teen who leaves her split family and life on the coast for a summer in Tennessee. Reinhardt's pre-novel-writing experience includes working in the foster care system, fact-checking for a movie magazine, working for PBS' Frontline, and time spent as a reader for a young adult line at a mass-market paperback house.

We chatted by phone eons ago (she's very patient). I read through the conversation last month while simultaneously attempting to tackle a novel during NaNoWriMo, and her words rang so true -- there's great advice here for artists of all stripes, and especially for writers.

Dana Reinhardt on the web: danareinhardt.net

Cecil Vortex: Do you have a writing routine you hold to?

Dana Reinhardt: I do. I try my best to stick to writing every workday. It's a bonus if I do any writing on a weekend. I try to write Monday through Friday as if I had a real job. My goal for each day can change but in general, my rule is that my workday's not done until I have three pages, which is roughly 1,000 words, maybe a little less. So it's somewhere in there. I generally don't let myself off the hook until I've done that. And sometimes I can do that in 40 minutes, and sometimes it takes me ten hours. But I try to have that done every single day.

CV: Is there an outline you work off?

DR: I don't work with outlines. I know a lot of people do, but I don't. I mean, I know where I'm headed, usually. Before each book so far that I've written, I know generally the arc of the story and how I want it to end. And sometimes I'll have certain things I have an idea that I want to have happen halfway through. But in general, for me, the fun about writing is finding out what happens between the beginning and the end of the story.

CV: Do you try to get a first draft out and then go back and revise? Or do you tend to polish as you go?

been thinking about
my great-grandfather's beard.

I can't compete with that.

Puffy-white sketched
lawyer-still.

Coffee, ironed tablecloths, small spoons.
Not one drop swings
loose.

Cigars for all. Corona de Luxe
smoke drifts
over old Europe squares.

Sons in perfect pose. Even the camera man
had his act together.

Smoke alarm
went off
last night
for no reason.

Hoping I didn't die
and don't know it.

Apologies
if next time you see me
I'm a scary ghost.