My New Year's Resolutions

1. Create as many shitty first drafts as possible
2. Move every day
3. Read nonrequired texts often
4. Write more letters to friends

365 days of being a writer: day 227

It still looks like CNFer numero dos is going to keep her Wyoming spot. Do I check every hour, to see if she's changed her mind? No! Of course not! That would be Crazy.

I couldn't quite get out of bed this morning. It's good if Wyoming doesn't happen, I can't help but believe, but man I miss the mountains so much. But, if the universe feels that I need an MA, then I will abide the universe's not-so-subtle recommendation. Because, see? I am LEARNING, universe.

So the morning was spent doing about an hour of Spanish homework (my first past tense! fue ¿Qué día fue ayer? Viernes!) and definitely not staring at my iPhone.

It took forever, but I eventually made it to the library. I gutted a third of the blackbird essay and then added at least as much new material as I had cut. The goal had been to double what I had, but I am trying not to cling too hard to my failure to meet it.

When I got home, I tried to fix my fucked up printer. It's a huge bastard, and suddenly acquired a chronic and evil jam. I figured out the cause of the jam in about 2 minutes, fixed it and was feeling like such a badass. My prideful boasting was short lived however, as the repeated crumpled up and jammed pages seem to have tripped some untrippable error with the print head. This is why I hate these crazy complex machines. This is why I want an old portable typewriter. Now I have to throw out a thirty pound piece of equipment that should work just fine. And now I need to buy a new printer. 

Mostly I am just frustrated at my inability to fix something. Here's where I can take it to the next level of crazy, though: I'm signing up for the next 2-8 years being years where a printer or a new head gasket or a root canal might may not be possible no matter how necessary.

How the hell does my brain do that? And how do I stop it? In better news, I bought Tallest Man on Earth with my last ten dollars and I don't even regret it (yet).

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).

365 days of being a writer: day 209

Not since I quit smoking have I committed myself so successfully to a thing as this writing exercise. I just wanted to note that to myself, out loud as it were.

I'm not always driven. Most days, I would gladly stay nestled under the blankets, surfacing only to read or order in some Chinese food. I have to fight daily against my nature, which would rather put off until later those unpleasant and boring tasks that make up so much of a life.

It seems, though, that I can only succeed in one direction at a time. Either I am running and working out and looking great, OR I am writing every day, submitting, and revising, OR I am knitting great piles of presents and apparel and designing patterns. My brain can't seem to do all three. So, these past seven months, I've gotten saggy and achey, the yarn is dusty and unmoved, but the words have piled up in great mountains.

I would like to think that once school starts, I will be able to spend a small bit of attention on one of the other two. Is this crazy? Will I be too freaked out and exhausted to do anything but school work? Won't there be time for a morning run or swim at the Rec center? Can I knit during lectures? Should I not worry about such tiny things just yet?

The last thing I did this evening (before writing this post) was write for an hour. I drafted next week's 52/250 and started to move around the text in the blackbird essay. I have a market that I want to try it on, and the deadline is April 15th. So much is due on the 15th: I'm glad my taxes, at least, are done.

What's your point?

While cruising Twitter today, I "overheard" an exchange between two of my favorite writers-on-twitter.

@karriehiggins said to @JHammons : I love Wordle. Great tool with students, too! Helped some visualize the point they were really making (or not making).

Well, I figured I would make one for this here writing blog and see what came up. Here it is:

/via Wordle and thanks to @spitballarmy

Wow. I know I use "today" too much, but with a daily entry it's hard not to... but "going"? All of these things I am GOING to do? And how come "write" is only medium-sized? (I'm glad that "motherfucking" is so prominent. It is my favorite curse word, and is applied liberally to people, places, and things.)

It bears considering. And modifying. New Wordle to be posted again at the end of the month.

365 days of being a writer: day 69

Nothing today directly contributed to my being a writer, except a quick email to photographer that I am going to cover in a post for a magazine blog. I could call it a day off, but several things indirectly contributed, so I will call it a working vacation.

Mainly, I cleaned the hell outta my bedroom. Not just in terms of the rhinoceros-sized fur clouds that the cat seems to leave everywhere, but also weeding out unnecessary possessions and ragtag organization. My abundant yarn, for example, used to take up 3 space bags that kept filling with air and tumping over. Now it all fits into plastic bins which are stacked in a way that I am sure is not perfect feng shui, but is at least more orderly. I also started with a total of five plastic bins, a laundry basket, and a cardboard box full of miscellaneous papers, toys, flotsam and etc. I managed to reduce that junk by over half.

It took a 17' truck, packed solid, to move me into this place. When I move, I want to fit in a ten foot truck. If I get into school, I will need to fit in a smaller space than I'm in now.

Ultimately, less stuff equals less stress and I need all the less stress help I can get. My room feels bigger already, more open and maneuverable. I like that my closet and shelves all function. There is still some excess (I don't need that Grindhouse lunch box, but I really like it.) I hang onto things that I think I should keep, even when I don't want to. That not wanting to takes up valuable mental energy.

And, all the stuff I am getting rid of is going into my garage sale, which will hopefully make me some application money. How's this for today's moral: Sometimes being a writer means taking care of the shit that allows me the mental and fiscal space to write.

Links to things writerly or readerly

This will not become a links blog, but I have recently come across a couple of things I want to bookmark.

First: this amazing writer's residence in Costa Rica. I now have a dream house, and its name is Casa Kike.

Ursula K. Le Guin's beautiful fictional excerpts from a therolinguistics journal: The Author of the Acacia Seeds

Pat McNees' site, Writers and Editors, has a great links page that I have been working through: Style, grammar, diction. Take a break from playing Bejeweled and stalking your high school boy/girlfriend and try out some grammar quizzes instead.

The Brooklyn Public Library sends out books newsletters, by genre or audience. I signed up for several.

MIT's OpenCourseWare offers course material, including reading lists, assignments, and in some cases, lectures. The list of Writing and Humanistics courses available is impressive (and may be what I "take" for Fall).

365 days of being a writer: day 1

I was going to call this experiment "365 days of trying to get into grad school" but another Spring's worth of rejections and suddenly my conceit falls flat on it's conceited ass before May.

If I really want to be a writer--like, really--then every day needs to be reaching toward that goal. Some days it will be in small ways, other days it will be all I do all day.

Today, I heard back from the University of Washington. They would consider a non-fiction manuscript, if I wanted to enter the program in the fiction department. There are several reasons why I am considering this.

I have also decided to remove Hollins and UNC Wilmington from my application list. Hollins because I can't get past the smug self-satisfaction that is all over their website and UNC because I kept forgetting it every time I tried to remember all the schools I was applying to. It's a good program, but it clearly doesn't have a hook for me. Colorado may get axed as well, as I am not sure if they take non-English majors. I still need to call on that. And that leaves Ohio State at Columbus, U Minn at Minneapolis, and U Wyoming at Laramie all tied for "one of you has to go." My initial plan to apply to 12 schools this season has been curtailed by the economy fucking me over yet again. Plan B is to try to keep it to 10. Here's hoping ten is my lucky number.

Last week, I sent a packet of writing and an update on my life since my BFA to one of my former thesis advisors. The schools really want to hear from my former professors (which I think is kind of nuts) so I reached out to Jack. I only checked my email about eleventy-thousand times to see if he had responded yet.

I also poked around for a writerly job. It would be dumb to quit the one I have, but I'll be too poor to go to school if I don't. This is a major burden on my mind, so I check craigslist somewhat neurotically. But it's something that really needs to be set aside for a bit, so I am hereby doing that.

That was today: admin work, and no writing. Except for this. Tomorrow, I will commit to 30 minutes of brainstorming, with the condition it be on my glacier essay, and not on my Statement of Purpose. Here's to the year starting... now.