Writing 101, or: I’d Rather Talk About Margaret Atwood

Blogging prompt I was supposed to use some time last week (Thursday maybe?  Let’s say Thursday):  Recreate a single day.

Remember Saturday? How I ate a lot of cheese and expertly hand washed my sweaters?

Way ahead of you, Writing 101. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay ahead of you.

So I’m just going to write about Margaret Atwood instead, who is incredibly ahead of us all.

I wasn’t really aware Margaret Atwood had written yet another novel until about a month ago, or at least it was buried deep in some hidden corner of my brain. Ever since, I have been obsessed with The Heart Goes Last, and I’m dying to read it. I keep telling myself I’m going to wait for a library copy, but it will be published tomorrow, and I’m kind of leaning towards the “Fuck it, I need this now” option. Prime is the great enabler of my terrible financial decisions.

All I know is this novel is about a married couple agreeing to spend alternate months serving a prison sentence (for reasons I don’t know), which is bound to be so very bitter and bleak and darkly funny. And in this interview with the goddess herself, she says it’s about sex robots. (I really feel you should read the interview. It includes a brilliant 5-word Margaret Atwood story: “Wanted him. Got him. Shit.”)

Have you read the MaddAddam trilogy? Please, please do. I’m hoping for more of the absolutely dismal picture of humanity MA gives us while writing women characters who are so enviably strong and capable. Mostly Toby from Year of the Flood.  I can’t think of anyone who writes as beautifully sarcastically as Margaret Atwood, who has given us “Say about others what you would have them say about you. In other words, nothing.” Also “There were a lot of gods. Gods always come in handy, they justify almost anything.” And probably my favorite of Margaret Atwood’s: “People cry at weddings for the same reason they cry at happy endings: because they so desperately want to believe in something they know is not credible.”

Because I don’t get to brag about this a lot, this is my fancy signed copy of The Handmaid’s Tale. Seethe with envy, reader(s).