365 days of being a writer: day 216

I was writing last night up to the very last minute on a deadline that dematerialized. So I went to bed and forgot all about writing it up.

The anxiety of having to choose really really soon is going to start stressing me out. It's already stressing me out, but still in a good way--I feel that tide shifting a little. This decision is mine, and I have already sensed pressure to pick a school that would not be in MY best interests. What's crazy is that there are still four weeks until the deadline.

It's a good place to be, I just want to make a decision and get on the road!

Hopefully, I will get a new book review up on Xenith tonight, stay tuned.

365 days of being a writer: day 215

It has been so difficult to focus enough lately to write, but I need to. This evening I managed to draft an intro and outline for my next book review for Xenith. I wanted to finish it, but as soon as I would sit down, I'd pop back up with a task or errand.

I'm stalking craigslist in the town I imagine I'll be this fall, though I'm still not ready to close all the other doors. And then, there is still a lot of ballast in this town.

I read a lot, throughout the day.




The Super Blurry supermoon about to be snatched from the heavens by the claw-like hand of a palm tree.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

365 days of being a writer: day 214

Writing is a solitary act. As writers, we might look to others to form our community: to get advice before the fact and feedback and edits after, but the act itself and where we spend most of our time, is as one person hammering away at the words.

I used to hate being alone. Hated being left behind, physically or mentally. I hated being left out (I still do). But now, though I crave the circles of friends that I have had in the past--miss them like an ache--I can't wait to get home, to shut the door, put on a slippers and start typing or finish reading.

Part of that feeling is because at some point during the awesome suffocating heat of this summer, I will finally make my escape. All moments are now pointing to that moment like an arrow. Now, it isn't even an escape (though I can be grateful for the luxury it will afford) because I am leaping into something instead of just away from it. This town has come to represent a failure to thrive, a stuckness, while also showing me that I do have a writer's work ethic, I can commit to myself and my goals. I have done what I have in spite of setbacks.

I generally walk a fine line between selling myself short in every way possible and holding myself in such high regard as to be above the dues paying of everyone else. I know this. I am trying to do more celebrating, less self-pitying.


Every now and then I daydream about what I would say to the men who laid me off back in Austin  nearly three years ago. They would surely say, Who could have predicted what a good thing it would become? What a surprise!  And to that, I would say, NO. Nothing about what happened to me was good, or fortuitous, or even a foreshadowing of success. None of of the things that have worked out are a result of their actions. It is important to make that distinction, if just for myself. This is me rising up, not flying like a released bird.

This isn't to say I am an island. I have had so much help and support and shoulders to cry on and ears to bend til breaking &c. This is just to say that nothing has made me OK with being alone before, until all this writing. Which is maybe the most remarkable thing of all.

I'm also going to spend the next 100 days submitting work only to paying markets (book reviews and flash exercises excepted). Not that it relates to all the rest of this; it doesn't. I just don't want to forget that I said it.

365 days of being a writer: day 213

Happy Saint Patrick's Day. Rather than dwell on the fact that my jerky piece-of-shit cat totally blew his chance to live with a nice little hipster couple and their adorable looking stray cat, about which I am bitter AND disappointed, I would instead like to talk about synchronicity and jet streams of inspiration.

I've already linked to the great TED talk that Elizabeth Gilbert gave on creativity. Even though she is the author of what is right now almost the last book in the world I want to read, Gilbert says some things about genius and the creative process that resonate with me.

Such that, I have tried, in my way, to anthropomorphize my process a bit. It isn't adopting a new belief in so much as it's being open minded to different ways of interpreting the facts at hand. I could see a knocked-over garbage can on the street and think about the rotten hoodlums who must have torn through the neighborhood or I could wonder about the wind I must have missed, or the curious tip-overable shape of the bins in this city. It's about framing, rather than deciding to believe in genies. I have no idea why I just typed a whole paragraph of justification, but I'll let it be. (More after the jump...)

365 days of being a writer: day 212

Here are some things about grad school that scare me:

1. What if I can't write once I get there? Right now, I am having the hardest time focusing my brain. What if not having a day job to suck up all of my brainjuice every day DOESN'T CHANGE THAT?
2. What if I am awful at critical reading? I am the queen of missing the point. Driving by the forest cause I was wondering what kind of tree that was... I so hate feeling stupid and I am so prone to acting like a know-it-all. I sense a come-to-Jesus humbling is coming.
3. What if I am not a good teacher? Sure, I can talk a blue streak, but can I coach someone to improve? No idea. I can be so impatient and so damned judgmental--these are not the qualities of a great teacher.
4. What if the money runs out? If I have to choose between dropping out and taking out loans, I will take out loans. Then I will live on the verge of an anxiety attack for my last semester.
5. What if I hate it? This could happen. I am notorious for growing to hate whatever I previously wanted so goddamned badly. 
6. What if I can't make any friends and I die alone, choking on a chicken bone, in my tiny studio apartment?

OK. Now that it's all out there, it isn't cooped up in my head.

I heard some encouraging news from one of the schools today about the possibility of partially funding some traveling over the summer. It has definitely upped the ante. Spain! Man, I have wanted to go to Spain for YEARS and it has just never happened. Now, I have the chance to MAKE it happen.

Except in SPAIN

365 days of being a writer: day 211

Old crankypants stopped by here this evening. She had been gone for awhile, what with the good news and all. It may have seemed like she was gone, when really she was just hiding in the shrubbery waiting for a good moment to make a grand entrance.

Like when my stupid cat had to go and be a total jerk to the very nice young man who came over to check him out cause he and his wife want to ADOPT him. I let it get to me. I let those obsessive negative thoughts start swirling around, like how I would be stuck with the cat, and not be able to get a studio apartment, and never get out of here, and lose all my acceptances. Cue: CRANKFEST.

It would be funny if I were exaggerating.

Then, I just sat down at the old computer and wrote a blog post. Not this one, but this one. It's my first, an intro, for the MFA Chronicles. I asked another new member if I could keep doing it if I decided on an MA, and we think the answer is yes. So there you go. Yet another writing blog to maintain. Har.

365 days of being a writer: day 210

Earlier, I posted my statement of purpose. For posterity? I dunno. I said I would awhile back, if it got me in anywhere. Not that the SOP was what got me in, I mean the manuscript did that... But you know.

I poked around looking for some good contests/journals to submit the Night essay if it fails to place in either the Creative Nonfiction or the Iowa Review contests. I didn't have time for much else.

Someone emailed me back about PJ's wanted ad: a nice young hipster couple. I hope it works out. I have zero patience for much these days, and poor Peej gets the brunt of it. I am in planning and escape mode: I can't wait to be on my way.