In This Fleet, Funny Novel, a Writer Makes Art and Sells Out in Hollywood
The heroine of Danzy Senna’s new book is a novelist envious of the material pleasures all around her in Hollywood.
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This first appeared in Lit Hub’s Craft of Writing newsletter— sign up here . On a Sunday in October, 2021, well into a second year of the pandemic, in the incipient stages of a new novel, I woke up to a total retinal detachment in my right eye. I describe the experience as palm branches tumbling down inside my eye. I recall being curious—so what happens now?—before terror swept in as a black curtain fell over my eye. My vision went black. Luckily, my husband, a retired ophthalmologist, knew what was happening and contacted a retinologist colleague who examined me and confirmed I had suffered a total retinal detachment. Two painful surgeries ensued, neither successful. I was not going to recover sight in that eye. To top it off, the remaining “good eye” was seeing double. Would I ever be able to see enough to read and write again? I went into a dark place. Then, grace! A medical acquaintance hearing how shaken I was gave me words that became string in my labyrinth: “Your eye won’t get better, Julia, but you will.” The first time I was allowed to sit up—not face down in a contraption to allow the gas bubble in my eye to hold the reattached retina in place, I headed for my meditation cushion. Now that the shock and pain had faded I braced myself for the worry-furies I was sure would plague me. Imagine my surprise when what came up was a sense of great relief. Something was being lifted from my shoulders—all those years of being the little racehorse, driving myself to write the next and the next book, to put myself out there, to help out fellow writers with blurbs and intros, to continue to be a viable writer—what did they matter now? Instead, I would have to learn “how to be idle and blessed,” and like Mary Oliver in her poem, “The Summer Day,” ask myself, “What is it you plan to do / with your one wild and precious life?” Incorrigibly, what I wanted to do was write one last […]
Click here to view original page at Julia Alvarez on Falling in Love with Writing Again
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The heroine of Danzy Senna’s new book is a novelist envious of the material pleasures all around her in Hollywood.
Kelly Blatz directing KJ Apa in ‘One Fast Move.’ Photo Credit: Frank Masi. Filmmaker Kelly Blatz chatted about writing and
