365 days of being a writer: day 312

Can I bitch a little more about content-on-demand writing? The site I have been writing for just got a new batch of editors and now the same work I have been writing is getting lower and lower "scores" as far as content and structure. It is all shite, but now they're telling me I am not a good writer.

All this, and less than $15 an hour? I just can't bring myself to do them, anymore! I mean, who gives a fuck about the history of workmans' comp or how to grow squash or what kind of rocks are on Mauna Loa that isn't way better off finding that shit out in a LIE-BERRY?!

There has to be a better way to make some cash on the side. (Pre-requisite: I must still be able to respect myself in the morning.) I'm demoralized right now. It's fucking sweatshop writing, and I'm desperate, so they have me over a barrel. Can I imagine the sort of mindless work that I'd be willing to do? No. Hopefully grading papers. Heh. If anyone out there knows of an alternative to Demand, please share.

In better news, I am in the new issue of Creative Nonfiction! I could die from being stoked. One of my cnftweets made the Food issue. Go, buy one!

365 days of being a writer: day 266

I have spent the last 45 minutes trying to get an Internet connection when I am supposedly communicating very freely with a "very good" connection.

I'm fairly certain that this post won't make it up, and the coffeeshop is about to close. So much for being productive. I could cry.

Anyway, wonderful news today. My Coney Island piece is now up at Used Furniture Review!

Late Arrival: Coney Island, 2008

If you feel so moved as to leave feedback on the site, well that would be fantastic. That's all I can handle today.

365 days of being a writer: day 231

The barest bit of writing got accomplished today. We're talking tiny. But it was a rewrite, so that's something. My poor Utah essay-poem has just bombed everywhere. So, I asked some of my fellow MFA hopefuls to take a look at it. So far, no one has responded. This does not bode well.

I also exchanged about a dozen emails between faculty and students at Wyoming. I'm really going there!

Here's a scary thought: when was the last time you lived on $1000 a month? I will probably have to take out some amount of loans to make it through with sanity intact.

Today I also browsed through some of the affiliated study abroad programs that Wyoming works with. There are a few that offer a month long Spanish/rain forest ecology program in Costa Rica. Also, through the student rec center, they run kayaking, caving, and snow shoeing trips. SNOWSHOEING, you guys! Someone please buy me snowshoes for my birthday.

I'm pretty exhausted from all of the hopping around yesterday, so I'm calling today done.

365 days of being a writer: day 230

So, I will admit when I am wrong. Yesterday, I was wrong. My oldest friend in the world specifically said that I should not freak out until I heard from Wyoming, and I nonetheless freaked the fuck out.

And today, Wyoming called to offer me a spot in their program.

After crying a little bit and calling my mom, and writing to one of the professors that I consider a mentor to get his blessing, and hopping around my apartment like a rabbity nine-year old--I called them back and accepted.

I have written to both TTU and KSU expressing my sadness at being unable to accept all of the offers.

I'm going to attend the University of Wyoming's MFA program in the fall.

You guys!

So, for the second time this week, I am going to go cry a little but this time I'll be listening to a few more repeats of Queen and jumping on the bed before going to sleep.

365 days of being a writer: day 219

Long day! More messages from potential future classmates, and I sent a query to a lit site for a review of an upcoming book.

That's it. Still in a holding pattern until I pick one of these damn schools (one of which I will be honored and lucky to get to attend)! Then it's time to start packing. It seems far away, but I'll need to move in two months back to my folks and then again to city X two months after that.

OH MY GOD YOU GUYS! In FOUR months I'll be in grad school! Off to go cry myself tears of relief until I fall asleep.

365 days of being a writer: day 218

I'm tired. And I'm going to bed early.

Today, KSU let me know I won a scholarship that would add a bit of money to my stipend, if I were to choose them. I also heard some rave reviews from another TTU student.

The book review will go up Thursday morning, and I will post a link when it does. I listed a couple of things on craigslist, though I have not yet reposted my lousy cat.

365 days of being a writer: day 217

The newest book review is done, but it's pending. The editor has some other pieces lined up, and I am definitely NOT a line-jumper. I will link as soon as it's live.

Today I turned down the University of Washington as graciously as I could. It was more than a little nerve-wracking, but I couldn't afford to go, even if they found me money for the school year. Over the weekend, I also badgered Penn State into rejecting me already, and they were kind enough to do so.

The tally:
MFAs: U of A - accepted; U of Wy - waitlisted
MAs: Texas Tech - accepted; KSU - accepted

I'd like to take one more school off the list by the end of the week. But for now, I will sleep, perchance to dream of a leetle paper-filled office with a short line of goofy undergrads waiting to ask me what a braided essay is.

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

My Statement of Purpose

Last year, every school rejected me. This year, all but one have not rejected me. While much of my manuscript has been (or will be) published online, I thought I would share my SOP after the jump. When it came time to write this, I searched high and low for "winning" examples. I only found a few.

Not that I think this is the best statement ever. Already, I cringe in spots when I re-read it. But it was mentioned in two of my acceptance calls, so I figured it couldn't HURT the discussion. I have stripped all identifying sentences (note: this was modified for each school, most notably in the last couple of paragraphs).

Which sounds better: "Third place" or "Second runner-up?"

This year I entered the NYC Midnight short story competition. The contest works like this: at midnight on January 13th everyone who signed up was assigned a heat number, and each heat was assigned a different genre / subject. Writers had 8 days to write and submit a story (2500 words or less) and synopsis in their genre / subject; mine was "Horror / Pawnshop." Here's my submission...

ZOYA'S RING


Synopsis:
A down-on-his-luck gambler commits a terrible crime to get back in the black, but instead of gaining a fortune he finds himself losing everything. Is he being tormented by guilt or something worse?

Elisa will save me. I just have to get to her. We are supposed to meet at the corner of Jefferson and 11th and she's bringing the money. For once, I'll do the right thing and get that damn ring out of hock. My steps become faster as I catch sight of Gino's Deli.

Dipping my toe in the proverbial lake

There is a bigger essay in my trip to Alaska. One I am trying to tackle right now, as a matter of fact. In the meantime, this was my first print publication that wasn't knitting related. This essay originally appeared in the Rio Review, Spring 2009 edition.

Leaving Alaska

Every muscle and bone in my body seems to ache as I settle into a scoop-shaped plastic seat at Gate C1. Out the giant windows I catch glimpses of the Alaskan wilderness that has been my home for the last eleven days. I feel a touch of vertigo as my mind bounces between the dense woods so many miles away where I broke camp for the last time yesterday and the shiny glass and steel that surrounds me here in the Ted Stevens International Airport. My notes tell me that I have hiked nearly 47 miles in the last week and a half. I have been up the side of a giant continental glacier, and down slick mud banks to the edge of more than one lake. I reread the notes to remind myself that it all really happened. The airport is so sterile that even the pine needles seem to have dropped out of my boot treads at the door.

I am excessively early for my flight but it is one of only 9 flights out of Anchorage today and I didn't want to miss it. But is that entirely true? I think about it, and am confident that I have not missed the city at all since I stepped out of the cab last Monday to meet up with the hiking tour group. However, last night, while trying to sleep in the modest downtown hotel, I am sure I missed the smell of cedar camp fire coals and the rustling sounds of sleeping bag against tent side that filled the nights outside.

The fifteen-year poem

This poem was published by the Rio Review, Fall 2009. I wrote the first draft in 1993 as part of a poetry seminar in art school. The editors wanted several changes, some of which I agreed with, some I didn't. Here is the version I would have printed.

LIKE THE WEATHER
In the darkness
he murmurs
something about rain
           his fingertips on her cool skin

flicker
like the light of one hundred
finches, parakeets, love birds
in Hawkes' Molotov cocktail
dream
          whose feathers
swish and float
before the rush of fire

—This stillness
between them

a possibly skillful sound:
rain on the cool roof
wraps around the windows

as sheets twist
around bodies twined
tracing arcs
in the negative space

These moments
           between seconds

the clock chatters quietly
tick-talks to itself
but its black thin arms
aren't moving

Hair and hips sway
to the tune of fingertips
or cold clock hands
The rain echoes the rhythm
of dying songbirds
           against the glass

while quietly
between fingers
pressing
           feather light

two pulses whisper
to each other
something about the weather.

The Boxer

(This short story was the first runner-up for Austin Monthly's first short story contest. It was originally featured on www.austinmonthly.com.)

She had just half of a second to re-think, to regret, to repent, before her left hand made contact with the white girl's jawbone. The cracked leather of her glove connected with the smooth skin of the gringa's face with a hard and unforgivable crack too fast to stop. A young cameraman on the side of the ring caught the moment: Sandra Cavelli's neck is thrown back, an arc of sweat and spit and blood is curving up from her head turning her into an exotic crested bird; her body, soft with release, is bent backwards in mid-fall—on tip-toe, she is an open parenthesis. And to the left, Maria Vargas—her killer hook still extended—is a hard backslash; every muscle of her small frame is tight in a concentration of force that had already managed to take down 17 other women from Laredo to Dallas. Maria's teeth are clenched on her mouth-guard seemingly in a snarl, while Sandra's mouth is slack, her moan so stark it is almost audible. What would earn the photographer his first check was not the timing of the shot, but the strangeness of Maria's expression as she won by a knockout: fear. The caption that ran with the photo in the Beaumont Enterprise said “Vargas afraid of own strength as Cavelli falls hard in the first round.”

Maria was not afraid of her own strength. She was afraid of spiders and of small, dark spaces and of getting lost in a corn field, the stalks to tall to see over. She was afraid of her father's discipline and she was afraid of God's wrath. She was especially afraid of drowning. But none of those fears were the reason for her wide eyes and pinched grimace in the prize-winning photograph.

#3: Seeing is Believing (excerpt)

“If you look out the right window, there’s a Western Meadowlark on a fence post. That’s the first one we’ve seen the whole day.”

“Okay.” I know what a Western Meadowlark looks like so I don’t move from my position in the backseat, but if I don’t answer my grandma she’ll tell me to sit up and look at it. Even at six I understand that ‘if’ is not a command and ‘okay’ is not a promise.

I am lying across the backseat of my grandparents’ light blue Honda Civic hatchback. In the days before seatbelt laws, I have loosely constructed a nest from the clutter that fills the car: a blanket across the seat protects me from the protruding seatbelts and the odd pinecone; a camera bag serves as my foot rest; and one of my grandpa’s quilted flannel jackets is balled up under my head. I am concentrating on a word find while the three of us, my grandparents and I, head for the beach.

When we all go on a trip together, my grandfather drives. My grandmother tends to get distracted by the view and as a result can be a bit reactive with the brakes. Grandpa doesn’t talk much when he’s driving except to mumble appropriate responses to her observations.

“Will you look at that barn, it’s practically blown over!”

“It sure is!” His response is both animated and automatic. Like me, he probably knows that my grandmother’s enthusiasm is best returned right away unless one wants to get into a longer conversation about barns and their interesting propensity to fall down along roadsides.

When it is just Grandma and me in the car, we will develop these themes at length. She wonders whose barn it might be and what the poor situation is that has led to this overt state of neglect. Maybe somebody died. Or maybe the land has been sold to someone disinterested in barns. She is interested in a lot of the things she sees. We will stop the car and take the barn’s picture. She will explain how the textures of the washed out wood will be very lovely against the tall yellow grasses growing along its sagging sides. She will carefully crop out the tractor overgrown with berry brambles so that the composition won’t be too busy—but leave in the leaning fence posts that seem to point to the sunken roof. We are almost certain that owls have taken up in the eaves, but the closeness of the road is probably keeping the foxes away. If there are any within reach from the public side of the fence, she will gather dried teasel stems or cattails while I walk along the ditch that is inevitably next to the road, picking at white Queen Anne’s Lace and yellow Buttercups. She will get back in the car only after her curiosity has been fully expounded upon and the scene recorded.