Tag: The Lonesome Bodybuilder

write it down! — All acceptable ways to create.

In the weekend threads of Ask A Manager, there are always one or two about writing. The writers always have solid tips…and they always rankle me. On the face of it, it’s ridiculous because it’s good advice, such as, have a set writing time, make sure your sentence structure is varied, and have beta readers. There is nothing objectionable in any of that advice, but I have two issues with it. One, it makes for bland and safe writing. Two, it doesn’t work for everyone, and it’s tended to be presented as The One True Way of Writing.

Addressing the latter first, I used to freak out any time I read these kinds of lists because I inevitably fell short on each one. I don’t plan my writing. At all. This is one of the near universal tips when it comes to writing–have an outline. Me, I laugh at your outline! I don’t, actually, but I’ve never written one. Anytime I try, I give up after one or two bullet points. I write mysteries, and you’d think that would be prime fodder for lists. It is, but not for me. The way I ‘plan’ a novel is by having the idea come to my mind or fixating on something and thinking it’s a good idea. I let it marinate for a day or ten, and the ideas slowly start flowing in. For example, the idea of a protagonist who follows her boyfriend because she thinks he’s cheating on her sprang to mind. The first scene of her seeing him snuggle up with a blond in front of his apartment as the protagonist sat, fuming, in her car immediately came to me, and I wrote it in a fairly short amount of time. As I was writing, the idea that she was from his past seemed logical, and the details started filtering in as I was writing. He went missing, and I knew from the very beginning who did the taking. That’s something that has been a constant for me when I write a mystery–I know who the perpetrator is from the start. I may not know exactly why or the reason may change as I’m writing, but the perp remains the same.

I guess you could say I do an outline, but I do it in my head. That may not be an option as I get older, but it’s easier for me that way. It also keeps things fresher, and whenever I try to force my characters to adhere stringently to my plan, they rebel by becoming flat on the ‘paper’. Yes, I’m an Old. I still think of writing as pen on paper, even though neither of these things is true any longer. I know it sounds woo-woo to say that my characters shimmer when they’re fully realized, but it’s true. There’s an energy that emanates from the paper when I keep true to their spirits. When I don’t, there’s nothing I can say or do to coax them to be real people. That’s why I like to say that I’m merely a conduit for my characters and not the actual writer. I don’t feel as if I have control over them, even though I do shape their worlds.

lots to think about! — A curious meditation.

The Lonesome Bodybuilder by Yukiko Motoya is a book my BFF, Kat, read and reviewed on Goodreads.com. I noted it as interesting and promised myself I’d read it one day. She gave it to me for my birthday with the joke that I had to read it because I was Asian, and that made me laugh heartily. I was eager to read it because the reviews I read mentioned it was an interesting take on domestic life, but with a surrealistic twist. It’s a collection of short stories, with the flagship story being the titular one. Each story is fairly short (well, most of them are), but they are packed with a lot to think about. I read the whole thing on my flight to Binghamton, but I did not leave the book on the plane as I normally would. If I buy a mystery book at the airport, I normally leave it on the plane or in the airport when I’m done with it*. I like to imagine the flight attendant or airport worker who finds it bringing it home to read in a nice bubble bath. In reality, they probably sigh at the extra work and chuck it in the bin, but let me have my illusions.

The first thing that struck me was how universal some themes are. Many of the stories dealt with the dissatisfaction of being a married woman to what might generously be called a lesser man. In the main story, the husband is a weak and insecure man who is sure his wife is unhappy with him. The story starts with the husband watching a boxing match on TV. When his wife shows interest, he accuses her of wanting to be with the fitter boxer. That piques the wife’s interest in bodybuilding, which she does faithfully over the next…has to be at least weeks if not months. She gets muscular, but her husband doesn’t notice. She wishes her training coach was her life partner, other things happen, and her husband gets suspicious and follows her to the gym. I know that it doesn’t sound thrilling from the way I’ve described it, but it really tugged at my heartstrings. She was engaging in an activity not typically considered feminine, and she was doing it in part to get her husband’s attention. It gave her some self-confident, but her husband’s eternal oblivion of her progress cuts her to the core. A rather shocking thing happens at her job, and she’s talking to her husband about whether or not she’ll be able to keep her job. He’s clearly not listening, and she gets angry. The one thing he likes about her is her hair, so she decided to test him. She told him she cut it pretty short even though she hadn’t touched it, and he said he liked it. She asked how much he thought she cut off, and he said maybe eight inches. It was a short scene, but it really underscored how checked out the husband was. This was before he followed her to the gym.

Another thing I liked was how she wove surrealism in with mundane life. She didn’t make a big deal of it or try to explain it, which is my weakness. I explain way too much shit. I want to give backstory where it’s not needed, and I know it drags down the story. Motoya simply states something and trusts you’ll take it as fact. For example, The Straw Husband, is about the protagonist being married to a straw man. She writes it as plainly as that, and at first, I thought she meant she was married to what we colloquially call a straw man. Or a man who was basically a yes-man. But, no, she meant a literal man made of straw, and she talked about how her friends thought it weird, but she didn’t go into deep detail. Me, I would have gone into her childhood, her dating history, and what made her choose such a man. It’s a bold choice not to do any of that, and it works.

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