Sentences as Time Periods: Editing Birdie Miller’s Biographical Sketches

Writing Reflection

Yesterday, Sally and I discussed how sentences are their own time-periods. I have often found it difficult to write sequential scenes with physicality: I tend to divide the actions, divide the body. As a result the sentences may be short, choppy, and abrupt with the discontinuous events . This is very contrary to what I think about the body: I firmly believe in the mind/body connection, unified sequence. I had difficulty translating this in my writing. Considering the sentences as a time-period helps me understand the sentence through this connection: the sentence as a space for embodying and connecting, not separating. Time carries an action and space: time becomes the set-piece. 

These sentences build the metre and time-space of the scene, and so, the novella at large. Below, I am practising setting this metre by editing my biographical sketches of Birdie Miller. She is an old foe/friend of Dina Madani (from my last blog post), though they are now estranged. Birdie is a hard-working professional, operating in staccato rhythms. I thought, to reflect this, her sentences should be short and abrupt: but I now understand that her quick actions and rapidity are accentuated by being hosted in the larger moment of a stung-sentence.

Scene One: Birdie’s Body

Draft: 

Birdie Miller snacks on millet and seeds. When she feeds herself, it is like she would a dog: gruel in a rimmed bowl. She eats at a table, forked and knifed. That is, if she is not walking or in the back of a taxi, then it is finger-food. Food is an afterthought; she understands its necessity as a car needs oil.  

Edited: 

Birdie Miller snacks on millet and seeds, and feeds herself at a sharp o’clock like a pet. If she is not walking or in the back of a taxi, balancing finger-food, she eats at her desk, forked and knifed, armed before the computer. She understands the necessity of food as a car needs oil. 

Scene Two: Birdie Braves the Bar

Draft:

Birdie went to the bar, hoping to find whatever those wandering souls found—a drink. A drink would do. She couldn’t remember the last time she had a drink. She kept cold tea in her office fridge, pretending it was whisky when sponsors or advertisers visited her office. She pretended it was whisky when she was stressed and needed to assume a different character. She poured it into the glinting crystal, gave it a frequent aerating twirl. It was often over-steeped, the tea-bags bitter with waiting-- offering a suitable scrunch of her nose. 

She couldn’t remember what alcohol tasted like. Acidic—sour, perhaps? She would discover soon—among these waifs, searching. Or, perhaps, they weren’t like her--just, relaxing and revelling in a free evening. Right, fun. Maybe that’s what this was about, not being a vagrant. Going from the office to town to home: she forgot about the middle place. 

Let her be ordinary, then. She laid her coat over the back of a bar stool and hopped on to the seat, clutching her heels with her toes. She straightened her body to face the wall of dim-glistening bottles and glasses, chattering among the bar-bustle. Birdie glanced to her sides—customers consumed in their own moments--smoothed her hair back and re-adjusted her necktie. The delicate layer of her silk blouse thundered with her heart--up and down—thud, thud. 

A drink—simple, like ordering spaghetti. It even stained in a similar fashion and asked to be removed with a blotting of baking-soda. She told the bartender as much when she ordered. 

Edited:

Birdie went to the bar, hoping to find whatever those wandering souls found—a drink. She would keep cold tea in her office fridge, and pretend it was whisky when sponsors or advertisers visited the office, or stressed, antsy to assume a different character. She poured it, over-steeped bags bitter with waiting, into the glinting crystal, gave it a frequent aerating twirl, and a suitable scrunch of her nose. 

What did alcohol taste like: was it acidic or sour, perhaps? She would discover soon, among these searching waifs. Or, perhaps, they weren’t like her, and they were simply relaxing, revelling in a free evening. Maybe that’s what this was about, not being a vagrant, but a creature of comfortable routine: going from the office to town to home -- she forgot about the middle movement. 

Her coat ladled over the back of a bar stool, and she hopped on to the seat, clutching her high heels with her toes. An ordinary woman, she straightened her body to face the wall of dim-glistening bottles and glasses, clinking and chattering bar-bustle: glancing to her sides, at the customers consumed in their own moments, smoothing her hair back, and re-adjusting her kerchief. 

A drink, simple, like ordering spaghetti: it even stained in a similar fashion and asked to be removed with a blotting of baking-soda. She told the bartender as much when she ordered.

Scene Three: Birdie Considers an Old Friend

Draft:

Birdie postures herself before the window; she leans her hip against the wall and rests her left arm on the sill. Her wrist twitches, yearning to move, disturbed by the dust that is surely swept between the knots of her merino sweater. But she cannot distract her body. She is a statue’s shadow: dark and shapeless, but stone-still: two stick-legs merging into one slim trunk, silhouetted by the sun. 

That was the muffle and cough of a car she never thought she would have to hear again. She tries once more, to give a bend to her locked knees, but they remain pin-straight. She tries for a deep inhale, to give rise to her chest: but still. It is loud now, rattling the glass panes: not just a distant whisper – the whispers she has heard before in her nightmares, or when the boredom of office meeting rooms took her to strange places, she consoles by calling the imagination instead of memory. That is the muffle and cough of a dead woman’s car. The car the woman died in.

Edited:

Birdie postures herself before the window, hip leaning against the wall, and left arm resting on the sill. A wrist twitch, yearning to move, disturbed by the dust that is surely swept between the knots of her merino sweater. But she cannot distract her body, a statue’s shadow: dark, shapeless, and stone-still: two stick-legs merging into one slim trunk. 

That was the muffle and cough of a car she never thought she would have to hear again. Her locked knees refuse to bend. The engine is loud now, rattling the glass panes, not just a distant whisper: the whispers she has heard before in her nightmares, or when the boredom of office meeting rooms took her to strange places, she consoles by calling the imagination instead of memory. That is the muffle and cough of a dead woman’s car: the one she died in.