365 days of being a writer: day 364 & 365

Here it is: Day 365.

I never had a chance to write yesterday, as several members of the cohort went out after we were released from our final orientation, and well. It was a long night.

Yesterday was a much more momentous day than today (in part because I have spent all of today recovering from a brutal "altitude induced" hangover--the altitude, she befuddles). After we finished the last of the teaching demos, we had some pizza with the second-years and our subject librarian, and then we were done with the colloquium. We're teachers now.

In the afternoon, all of the writing program met in our devoted building, The Carriage House. We heard three really amazing, inspiring speeches from the faculty and students and then our Director, Beth Loffreda stood up and said that our number one job for the next year is to write. We can be good teachers and good readers, but we need to write and write and write. She urged us to appreciate fully this time when so many people are invested in our words and our progress (because who knows when that will happen again). And most importantly (for me) she said this was our time to figure out the ways we fuck ourselves over as writers: our distractions and the stories we tell ourselves about our writing and our processes that keep our pens still.

We all walked out of there in high spirits (which was SO important after the mostly exhausting and occasionally frustrating colloquium all week).

How fitting is it that my "year of being a writer" ends the day before my year of writing begins?

Today, as I lay around nursing my bruised liver, I tried to think about the last year. One year ago today, I was pretty certain that I might never be where I am. While I poured my heart into my applications, there was the threat of a second shut-out hanging over my head. All fall and into the new year I tried to cultivate a habit of writing and submitting. And a bunch of stuff got published! I placed essays, book reviews, even a poem. I met hundreds of writers like me on Twitter and Facebook, trying to get into programs, into print, and into their own process.

This year taught me, above all else, that determination and hard work really can make anything possible. That's not some cheesy bullshit platitude: it's the stone cold truth. AND, Nothing easy or truly valuable happens overnight. Shit takes time and patience. The patience part is something I am hoping to cultivate here, now that the scrabbling part is over for a little while. I can exhale for a bit.

Thank you, everyone, for reading along and cheering me on and keeping me going. I may not post daily going forward, but I will still keep track of my progress here.

365 days of being a writer: day 363

I managed to stand in front of a classroom (full of colleagues, but still) for twenty-five whole minutes without bombing or losing my place and managed to make pretty good sense.

Right now I am sitting in a room that slowly became dark while I was staring at a screen. Coltrane has been on repeat so I could get some reading done. Today felt weird. Good, mostly. I have a better handle on my ability to teach these students, I think I will do okay at that. But all day, this creeping worry that I still haven't written, not really, since I've been here. This week has been as brain-frying as the day job used to be, more so even, because I've been listening and doing with every ounce of focus I possess.

My neighbors seem to smoke a lot of really good weed.

A week from tomorrow, I will review my manuscript with our eminent writer. Between now and then, I will listen to him read, attend a Q & A, and then perhaps join a gang going out drinking after. I suddenly doubt everything in that manuscript. I don't know what I was thinking. And now, I can't think of anything to write at all. Write? That's also what I am supposed to do here, to earn my keep, right? About... things, I suppose?

Now I can smell the strange mix of BO and Asofetida that wafts into my livingroom after dark each night. Somewhere below me must be an Indian laborer of some kind, just home from the what, coal mines? We have those here, but I don't imagine they employ exchange students from the city.

I still keep my windows open all night, though it is getting chillier each morning when I get out of bed.

365 days of being a writer: day 362

I feel a little bit better about teaching on Monday for the following reasons:

• We got to hear a bit more practical advice in today's session. There still wasn't quite enough "doing" for my hands-on self, but there was more discussion about in-class specifics rather than teaching generalities.
• I got to see my classroom. At first I was bummed out that it's in the Agricultural building (4th floor--my ass will be fucking STONE by summer break with all these goddamned stairs), but it turns out that the fourth floor is where all the plant sciences and entomology labs are. There is a locked door marked "Insect Gallery" just down the hall! I could have swooned from the awesome.
• I have fortified my organizational defenses. I went out and got a whiteboard for the house, an appointment book, notebook, file folder, and supplies for class. I still need to get a VGA adapter for my Mac, as the classrooms are not yet fully Apple friendly.

This evening I drafted out my demonstration, which I am NERVOUS about, but prepared for. As a good friend of mine says, "Everyone starts out a white belt."

365 days of being a writer: day 361

At one point this afternoon, I was fairly convinced that I could not be a First-year Composition teacher.

From 8:45 am until 4:15, with painfully few breaks, I sat in a room and got more and more confused and more and more anxious. I don't feel QUITE as bleak as I did earlier, but wow. The trepidation, she begins.

Now, I am going to finish grading a couple of "test" papers before bed.

I am finally online at home. More later.

365 days of being a writer: day 351

Day two on the road. Same as yesterday... no writing, unless you count a steady stream of tweets from the truck.

Here are some pictures from today:

If you look real close, you might see Wiley E. Coyote!

A beautiful presentation of fried ice cream at Adelita's in Santa Fe.

Speaking of Santa Fe, here's a shot of Palace Ave. When I moved to New Mexico with my husband in 1999 we lived just up this road. I would move out less than an year later.

After living under Phoenix's relatively cloudless skies for so long, I can't stop taking pictures of clouds. I want to lie under them and let their shadows move across me, chill me.

And the entire set is here (more coming tomorrow!) We are in Colorado Springs right now. The plan is to leave late after a good sleeping-in, and get to Laramie by six tomorrow evening. I can't stop smiling and laughing and being ridiculous. I could get used to this.

365 days of being a writer: day 350

Alright. I will admit, straight up, that no writing occurred today.

Instead, packing, truck loading, and hitting the muthafucking ROAD happened today. In lieu of scribbles, I took a bunch of pictures with my new Instagram app. So, here are the sights from today's drive.



Ponderosa pine forest signifies the climb out of the Sonoran desert. I can't get enough of the random dead and stripped trunks along the road, but it took forever to capture one at 64 mph.



After climbing up and over Flagstaff, the landscape flattened and stretched into the distance. The clouds were a wonder (after so many cloudless skies in Phoenix) and while they threatened rain and lightning, we saw only virga.



I am quite smitten with the filters. This could be frothy surf at the Oregon Coast or golden scrub fields on the road to Gallup, New Mexico. I want to put those cloud shapes in my mouth and suck on them until they've melted down.



I waited for fifteen minutes for this plant to finally step from the windshield to my side window, and then it was gone.



We don't know what the atmospheric condition is that caused these low-hanging fruit clouds, but they kept their shape from dusk to dark.

Tonight we sleep in Gallup where, I have it on good authority, there are more wandering drunks than anywhere else in America. Tomorrow, we shoot for Colorado Springs.

365 days of being a writer: day 349

As they used to say in the '70s, "All my bags are packed, I'm ready to go..."

Today was my last day at the day job and I feel pretty good that I spent most of it working. My coworkers were all fantastic and supportive. Even the girl at the little sandwich/coffeeshop was sad to see me go. She wanted me to keep in touch with them on Facebook. Who is this person that laughs all the time and makes jokes and friends?

It has been over two years of working hard to get to here. And nearly a year of floundering trying to find this road after the one I'd been on washed out. How many years before that was I out of alignment? I must have needed to step away from making art, so I could get more clear about the form my particular voice wanted to take. I really like drawing, but I write even on the days I don't like it--and there's the difference. There's something there, something about need vs want. I needed the time to figure that out. But shit, twelve years? Am I so dense, or is the universe so emphatic? It's late and I'm tired. This is no time to go all woo-woo about fate and destiny. And yet, how many times have your dreams come true? Who would stop me from singing and dancing in the middle of traffic or the sidewalk?

Warren and I will have no help loading the truck tomorrow, I'm a little worried about that in the heat. He's hoping it will only take us 5 hours. I was sort of hoping unrealistically for two. My mother insists she'll help. My arthritic, carpal-tunneled mom. Don't worry, I won't let her.

***

The dog days, or diēs caniculārēs, are traditionally the hottest summer days between July and August. They are marked by stagnation, lack of progress, and general malaise. Like the oceanic doldrums that forced Spanish galleons to jettison their horses, the dog days are an imposed time to reflect, an opportunity to purge the ballast, and the perfect time to realign one's direction.

And they are, for me, for this season at least, OVER.



"Leave all your love and your longing behind, you can't carry it with you if you want to survive."

365 days of being a writer: day 348

I feel like I should have a summary post about Phoenix ready to go, but I do not. Tomorrow will be my last full day living here for (hopefully) a very long time. I will still come visit my family, but that will be different.

This evening, I packed all of my clothes and shoes and coats. I think I have about twelve coats right now. Ninety-five percent of the books are packed. How it is that seven can be "essential" I'm sure I don't know. There is a profusion of papers that I need to deal with tomorrow, as well as packing up my computers and travelin' backpack.

I got a bit stressed out today, thinking about how to spend my last evening. What a waste of energy! The only way I could have spent it was packing. It isn't a bad thing to want time to do what I need to do. It's okay to say no, to say to myself, you need to take care of yourself this evening. I feel a deep tiredness, down in my marrow. Is this what exhaling feels like? Or is it finally letting all the tension go, as I will when this desert city is in the rearview? I feel like I could sleep for a week, even though it is the one of the last things I actually want to do.

This is what leaving Texas looked like, just over two years ago.

365 days of being a writer: day 347

I'm glad I got a fair bit of writing done in Austin, because I am not sure how much will happen over the next few days.  I've got two projects left at work to finish, and two days left to do it. That and my teaching seminar homework may be all I can handle. Today I rounded out my winter wardrobe with a couple of long coats, one quilted and one wool.

Remember that construction paper chain I made back in April--before I gave PJ away, before I moved back into my folks' house? It used to drape all over my mom's bike: one link for every day left here.

 It's now down to this:

365 days of being a writer: day 346

I am back in my bedroom. It's hard to say "home" since I'm leaving it in four days.

This morning I got around 600 more words and then knocked out another couple of hundred in between delay announcements at the airport. All in all, I pulled off over 3200 words over the course of a three day vacation. I know that isn't much, but it's a lot compared to the nothing I had been producing. It bodes well for the future (knowing I can sit down and write every day when I don't have the day job to deal with).

I'm leaving in four days. Did I mention that? So freaking amazing.

365 days of being a writer: day 345

Still on vacation, and still very much enjoying it.

This AM I managed to get 600 words down. It would have been more, but there was a band playing at the coffee shop. I can't write through live music. It was crowded, dogs were barking, children squealing, and a saxophone was wailing. Hard to focus.

But I still got some time in on the keys, so I was happy with that.

365 days of being a writer: day 343

It was my last Friday at the day job. And it was a travel day.

Most of what I got done was technical, so I don't have much to say about it.

But today was still a remarkable amazing day. I paid off all of my debt! And now I'm on vacation.

More later.

365 days of being a writer: day 342

I told a friend today that the thing I liked most about the world and my life right now, is how many more adventures are on the horizon. Now, I don't have to point out to most of you (of my six die-hard followers, though the one newbie might have to catch up) how wild that is to hear my own self say.

There have been many many MANY times this last year (and the year before and the year before) when there wasn't really anything that I liked most about the world. There were always important people to me; there was always some dim hope on the horizon--I mean, it was dark but never that dark. But actual optimism had escaped my reach. "Everything works out" has always been my motto, yet I'd lost faith in the outcome. It's easy to say now that good, shining, changeful things are on the horizon, but I still feel like it's true: things are better because I worked to make them better, not because they just became better.

And I will be the first to admit that I did not go to that work whistling like one of Snow White's dwarves. I was dragged to it, bawling and exhausted most days, by some force of will that I can't seem to harness when the alarm clock goes off, but that's always there for me when it really counts. I am stubborn as a mule. This is usually not one of my more charming characteristics, I know this. I try so hard to temper it with generosity. This dogged mulishness that once upon a time got me into and through art school seems to have come through again. And again, I am just as amazed as anyone else.

BUT, no one is an island. Or a rock. (Even Paul Simon had Art and Edie.) I had so much support to get here, these past few years. I would like to appreciate out loud and without reserve the following people (in no particular order):

• My parents, who took me in without hesitation (twice) and gave me the space to get out of debt and apply to schools and store my shit. I am lucky to have them and lucky they'll still have me.
• My sister, who brought me and all my earthly belongings out here and who for months was my only friend. 
• Jeff C, who gave me a ton of love and support when I needed it most. Thank you, not least, for the adventures, for holding me while I cried, and for listening to a lot of shitty first drafts.
• Warren, Ramona, Scott, and Chandler who have each let me talk their fool heads off while talking myself off of ledges COUNTLESS TIMES in the last couple of years. I wish I could adequately thank y'all for being such compassionate and indulgent friends.
• Jeff Q, who didn't want to be published at first, but is maybe coming around to the idea. And who, in the meantime, has been a tireless cheerleader, editor, designer, Spanish tutor, and friend.
• Gail and Dennis: two professors who believed in me, which is a powerful and amazing thing.
• Maya, who gave me a writing gig just when all seemed lost. It was the nudge I needed to get back up on my wobbly feet.
• My WFM coworkers, especially my "bosses" Jeff and Jane, who knew that this was all I wanted and who helped me every way they could. Everyone else on the team: thank you for happy hours, bowling, running, helping me move, listening to my stories and all the rest.
• The writers I have met through the various online spaces I frequent, who have encouraged, cheered, and mentored me, and who have even traded mix tapes with me. It means the world to me to be a part of a vigorous and interesting community; thank you for including me. I can't possibly list all you cnftweeters, draftees, and colonists--but I hope you know who you are.
• The editors who have printed my work, giving me a sustaining swagger.
• All you lurkers/FB friends and etc who tell me when you see me that you've been following along: it's really the coolest thing ever to know you're out there cheering me on.

It's late and I need to pack for a mini vacation before the move. If I forgot you, it is only because I am tired and overstimulated and ready to GO GO GO.

365 days of being a writer: day 341

Antsiness has kicked in.

As of the end of the day tomorrow, I will have exactly one week left. ONE. WEEK.

Tomorrow I will be sending off my manuscript to the school to pass along to our eminent fictioneer, Mr. Whitehead.

Today, I edited more of that crazy document at work and a short story of mine that I am seriously considering sending off to a contest. Editing < Writing. But, it's progress. It's moving forward. It's doing the work to get to where I want to be. How lucky am I for this opportunity?

My legs and feet and hips and whole body still feel like I've been sitting in this one position too long. I need to unfurl, stretch long, fill out the shape I am. I need to take a long, brisk fucking walk!

I'll be spending the weekend in Austin, and I might do the spiral notebook thing again and take pictures of my entries like I did back in November. I have this new fancy macbook, but I'm sort of afraid to take it. We'll see.

365 days of being a writer: day 340

I broke down and grabbed some Demand assignments today. I'm not sure if I can get them done before they expire, but I will try to knock out at least a couple.

I also spent a few hours editing a technical report on battery tests. This is the glamor of technical writing: replacing 75 occurrences of ultra battery/ultrabattery/Ultra battery with 75 UltraBatteries. I can format the hell out of your word document. Need sections? I can give you sections and styles and some kick ass tables of contents. I will be ruthless in changing all of your body paragraphs to Normal. There will be no extra carriage returns. (Remember when there was an actual carriage that required returning?) I will not tolerate any fudged headings. Or spaces when you should have used a tab. Or tabs when you should have used a style. Like, if I see one more crazy "outline" that has been created manually, I'll scream.

Also, we've gone over this before, but it bears repeating: there should never, ever be one bullet. One thing is not a list. It is just a thing.

I edit in stages: First I check all the borders, pagination, headers & footers. Then headers and captions; and tables of contents, figures, and tables. Then I check all of the trademarked words for correct branding. Finally, I scan the body of the text, looking for unnecessary engineer speak, such as "in order to" instead of just to.

Glamor without end.

Except, in this case there IS an end, in seven workdays. SEVEN. But the real beauty of it, is that if I need work, documentation is usually being written poorly SOMEWHERE in the world, and I could help remedy that. For very small durations and at slightly better than modest compensation. My new motto is that there is a bright side, damnit. Who could be hurt with a little optimism? No one, that's who.

365 days of being a writer: day 339

Can you hear the train? It's faint, more a feeling than a sound but it is coming.

After work, I went to Giant Coffee and wrote a bit in an old fashioned spiral notebook. I am gaining a little bit of momentum maybe on this bus piece, and that felt good.

Today, Sterling McKennedy, posted this gem about beginners.

Ira Glass on Storytelling from David Shiyang Liu on Vimeo.

It bears repeating. Especially when things seem not to be hitting their mark. I get easily frustrated by the gap between what I want to write and what ends up on the page. Art school was exactly the same way, though, so I know this is a temporary condition.

When we showed up to our first life drawing class we were all awkward, blushing. No one wanted to stare too long at the model (okay, except for that one creepy kid); no one wanted to catch themselves fixated by the way her thumb was curling over her knee in that strange way you'd never noticed thumbs could do before. Our lines were heavy and misdirected at first. Even the excellent draftsmen and women among us were afraid of something ("Why are your models always floating? Where are her eyes?") But, with practice, the lines we saw through our eyes became the lines that our hands made on the page. Neither a perfect reflection of reality, but instead a version of it in soft charcoals or heavy contés. I won't belabor the point and get all maudlin, missing my blackened fingernails and jeans with dark smears on the thighs from brushing off pencil shavings much. Point is, I got better at drawing by practicing it. It makes amazing perfect sense that I am going toward another studio degree. Right as goddamn rain (why didn't I think of this sooner).

Clutch and twist your suitcase handle til the leather makes a small popping sound. Check the clock again. If you cock your head just right, you might be able to hear the owlish screech of the whistle.

365 days of being a writer: day 338

Right now in Phoenix, a fantastic thunder and lightning show is carrying on around us. The last rumble shook the whole house for several seconds. The rain is light, but steady. People's giddy voices can be heard floating across the neighborhood.

I actually wrote for most of an hour today. It felt great to be in a bit of a groove, even if it was at an awful Barnes and Noble cafe. I have been wanting to write something about riding the bus, but couldn't get into it. After reading the Colossus of New York, I decided to try his omniscient / first person narrator style. I could be wrong about what it's called, but it seems to be a great way for a bunch of "characters" to talk at once about an experience. He uses it for the crowds in NYC: on the subway, at rush hour, at the beach. It seemed like a good technique to try out for the experience of riding on the bus.

Anyway, as an exercise, it got my pen moving. I don't know if it will end up "being" anything, and I especially don't know if it does, if I will submit it TO Whitehead with my manuscript. ("Hello, I'm your biggest fan! Please let me know how well I've copped your style.") But PEN! Moving! I also packed up the entire EXTRA box of books I have somehow managed to acquire in the two months I've lived here. The fuck. And a tub of knitting and sewing stuff that I had left out with high hopes for productivity. Tomorrow begins my last full week at work and my second to the last week in the straight world.

365 days of being a writer: day 337

My car got all weather tires this morning. I did a few more errands, and packed one suitcase from my borrowed closet--long sleeves that I will need later, cords, a bouquet of dresses.

It isn't easy living in someone else's house. No matter how effusive their kindness and generosity, you still aren't a resident. You are a visitor. It'll feel good to unpack my buddhas and not-buddhas and set my bookshelves back up. Blast my music (within reason, haha!, in case my landlord knows how to Google). Maybe do some surya namaskars in my own living room. Walk around my new town until a few houses and store fronts begin to look familiar. Get settled into a new routine.

I am enamored with the current horizon, y'all. That's the truth. I can't wait to run into the future's arms and bury my face in its chest. 'Cause my future? VERY ATTRACTIVE.

I still can't seem to sit my ass down on the ground and write some words. I could list excuses like, "I don't have a desk or even a chair that isn't in the middle of someone else's life" or "who can perform the requisite pacing when it is so motherfucking hot?" But really, I'm just too giddy. Instead, I've been reading and studying un pequito español. That's all I've got for now.

365 days of being a writer: day 336

This is when I am supposed to sit down and type overandover "I can't think of anything to write." Because I am so giddy in my thinning pupa right now, I decided to give one last look-see at my manuscript. I managed to get 28 pages compiled. I read through the first piece out loud and changed a couple of things that appeared in the last two since the last read.

That is not the sum total of all that I have written this calendar year, but it's close. There were a few book reviews, some flash work, and a ton of cnftweets. I am not going to get all down on my level of productivity--I had a job to deal with, and if this whole crazy adventure is going to work, I've got to learn to be more compassionate with myself. But, when I see it all bundled up in less than thirty pages, it's tough not to feel a pang.

I'm revisiting a playlist, to keep my traveling spirits up: spitballarmy, 17 April 2011. Fred let me listen to this playlist before it went live, and I wrote the poem to go with it. This was only a week after accepting my spot at UWyo and it seemed fitting then (and now). Crazy how long ago and just-yesterday that feels.

365 days of being a writer: day 335

You guys! It's almost here, for real.

I am trying to write something and I am having a tough time. (Well, I'm technically probably trying to write about 3 things and having a tough time, but I'm just thinking about this one thing right now.)

It's difficult because I feel like my headspace is sort of at odds with this piece, but I'm trying to work through it anyway. I am starting to feel like all of my muscles are atrophying, no running, no yoga, no consistent writing. I'm soft in the middle.

I need to do some writing situps and some real situps. But all I can think about is GOGOGOGO