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 305

Just two months left of this little experiment. I am going to have to start thinking about recaps and summary posts--in between thinking about moving, that is.

I have seven weeks left here, and I feel like I am not using the time optimally. I haven't done as much Spanish homework as I wanted, and my to-do list feels like it is languishing.

Part of the problem is being back on the Demand wagon. (I finished two more articles tonight, which met my goal of five for the week.) And part of the problem is the television.

In other news, the new graduate student directory is up at UWyo, and I am in it! That makes it seem realer and realer. Just like my new and improved bionic vision. I had very little scratchiness today and it seemed even more like just my eyes, seeing. I still get the sensation that I need to take my contacts out from time to time, but mostly: wow.

This week, I am going to work on something other than the completely birding essay. Perhaps it's time for some cats...

365 days of being a writer: day 302

I'm getting laser-eye surgery tomorrow. Will it make me a better writer? Probably not in any immediate sense, but if it does even HALF of what invisaligns did for my confidence 5 years ago, then look the fuck out, world.

I got about half-way through Grasshopper Dreaming today on my luxurious "Rapid" bus commute. It's almost a straight shot from a Park-n-Ride that's not too far from my folks' place. It's more expensive than the lightrail but it is a 35 minute straight shot, no stops. The reading is downright luxurious--and it's quiet! Because it's more expensive, these riders are more like the commuter train riders back east. They read the paper or a paperback or they doze or they talk in low tones to each other.

Compare this to yesterday's lightrail convo, which was shouted, since the two speakers were on opposite ends of the car.
"Hey man, where you been?"
"Home man, hadda take Cheryl to the hospital last week. Her fuckin ovary dissolved."
"No shit?"
...

Poor Cheryl.

Anyway, I was reading this book on the bus. It was written by the guy who will be leading my first graduate nonfiction workshop (in less than TWO! MONTHS!). He's an entomologist and much of the book is about his moral struggle over loving grasshoppers but having the job of killing them (integrated pest management). He used a great analogy: he's like the guy who tries to design a more humane electric chair. It's good for me, because I was just going off the other day about how people can't just hang out in the middle in the hopes of not taking an unpopular opinion--except Lockwood's in the middle and (likely) some of his views are unpopular to both sides.

I need to submit the hummingbirds, but I'm stalling. I'm hoping a name will come to me tomorrow while I am staring down a laser that's burning my eyes into more useful shapes. Also, that troublesome Demand article? Totally accepted. Ka-ching, baby!

365 days of being a writer: day 301

The two-week window for submissions to one of my Bucket List journals opened up today. I need to send the hummingbirds off, but I am fretful. The essay needs a better title.

I submitted an article to Demand last night that pays better than most of the how-tos I have written for them. It came back with lengthy edit requests. At first I was bugged, but I am committed to learning to take unasked for criticism with a more open mind. My over-reactions (in general) are the result of rushing to act. If I just take my time to respond to people and situations, it's fine. But in the moment, I get flushed and panicky and defensive. (Being prepared for and expecting criticism is totally different, these are ambushes that I'm talking about.) Anyway, all this to say, I waited until I got home from work to deal with it. And I even gave myself permission *not* to deal with it--but then I rewrote the article from a place of being genuinely appreciative of the editor who pointed out about a dozen little mistakes I have apparently been committing over and over in my formatting. Hopefully, what I know now will mean that my "grammar" score will go up. 

Even if they are paying me well below what is fair or right, copy-editing skills are valuable. I can learn from this.

And I can't believe I keep forgetting to put this up, but my review at Necessary Fiction is UP: Daddy's by Lindsay Hunter

365 days of being a writer: day 300

I wish I could make this post into a bunch of CGI word-warriors. Madness? THIS. IS. WRITIIIIIING.

The day started tense, got frustrating in the middle, and then mostly worked itself out at the end. I have two of my five articles in, and a new (to me) mountain bike to take with me to school--not that that's writing related, but it was a stressor hanging over my head.

I also finished two more essays from the never diminishing stack, this time from the last issue of Creative Nonfiction. I've had a block about reading it because the next essay is about killing starlings. Why not just write about stepping on hummingbirds next? Oh sure, drowning kittens is off the table, but starlings? Have at it.

The first two essays failed to knock me on my ass, as others have of late. They were both good, but too heavy in message for my taste. It's interesting, because in both cases, I consider the author to have an overt motive (and maybe that's what I am responding to): in the first, she's a psychiatrist and the essay is all about how she has thoughts about horses and child-rearing that aren't bogged down by an unhealthy obsession with sex like everyone else's and in the second, the author is chemically-sensitive and uses the delicacy of butterflies and their habitat to highlight how chemicals are killing everything beautiful. I will call these the Expert writers, whereas I hope to be more of an expert Writer.

365 days of being a writer: day 298

We descend, we descend. First, time takes too goddamn long to hurry up and get over with its long, hot, trafficful days. Now, it comes rushing past, like school kids heading for the buses after the final bell, an unstoppable babble.

I finished three Demand articles today. I need to finish an average of five a week from here on out to make enough money for the tires and the few other things I need. I will do my best to finish them early each week so that I can spend the weekend working on my other writing.

I started Townie today, and finished an essay in Alimentum. I have this huge backlog of lit magazines that I really want to read--so I decided to focus on the essays, as trying to read them cover to cover was too daunting.

I'm hoping to get some bus passes tomorrow that will afford me the pleasure of a little less driving. That will make everyone on the road happier, I think. Not just me.

365 days of being a writer: day 297

How long did I last before I came slinking back to Demand articles? Two weeks?

I spent all the little bit of money I saved on books and coffees. And now I need new tires before I move to a town with actual winter. Demand is the only way to make more money right now, since I still can't seem to sell any decent writing. And every other penny is going toward getting out of debt.

Now that June is almost half over, the next seven weeks will speed by. I am supposed to get back in shape, write several essays, read a big stack of books, and study Spanish. And try to make $400 off Demand. That's about 26 articles. I am hoping to finish three tomorrow.

In cheerier news, I finished Never Cry Wolf in two days. I am taking a break from the official reading list to Read Andre Dubus' Townie.

Journals on my list

Call it a writer's bucket list (in no particular order and subject to change without notice):

1. Orion
2. Creative Nonfiction
3. Flyway
4. Alimentum
5. The Sun
6. Bellingham Review
7. Outside
8. Audubon
9. Smithsonian
10. Poets & Writers

And the online journals I want to get into:

1. Brevity
2. World Hum
3. Terrain
4. Superstition Review
5. Slate

365 days of being a writer: day 276

I'm still here, and if you're reading this, you must be, too. Since the world did not end, I did in fact have to drag my ass out of bed and get stuff done.

I have been fighting a migraine all day and it is finally winning, so this will be short.

I did not get up particularly early this morning, but I gave myself permission to sleep in--why else have a weekend?!

This afternoon I managed to submit three Demand articles and research two more (woo!) I am nonplussed that my "scorecard" for both research and mechanics has slipped. I don't agree with that assessment, but there's not much I can do about that--the content editors are an invisible and faceless group on purpose.

Tomorrow morning I am going to go over some really wonderful feedback I've received on my hummingbirds essay and see what can be incorporated.

365 days of being a writer: day 273

Someone in my online writers' group said today that I am the hardest working writer they know. And I got a little bit choked up. This means, in part, that I need to get more sleep tonight than I have been as I've been a total crybaby all day, but also that sometimes a little external validation is an amazing and delicately glorious thing.

Because lately? I have been feeling like a really UNPRODUCTIVE writer! All because I am not writing beautiful essays. I'm writing Demand articles and tech specs and plans for a cool new project involving writers--and yet, if someone to ask what I am writing, I would say "oh god, nothing!" I'm also able to berate myself for not making more time for writing. It would be funnier if it weren't true.

So, tonight I'm leaving the library at 8 instead of 9 having come here almost directly from work and I'm going to go home and spend some time with my newest fiber project (a green shawl) and maybe read a little. Because, damnit, I am working hard and trying to be a good writer. It doesn't have to kill me to be true.

365 days of being a writer: day 265

I relived day 263, twice.

The third quarterly from the 52 | 250 blog came out today: Thirtynine And I am in it! You can find me under week #34: Floating Away.

I also found out that was rejected for one special section on Demand and approved for another. Baby steps, I suppose. Already I have added two articles from my new section to my queue that are plant and food related.

You know what's tough? Naming things. Essays, websites, articles. Names are tough. I have played around with Wordle before, for naming essays. But if it's something bigger, like your whole blog, how do you go about doing it? I suppose some among you will just tell me a thing names itself. Like the way a writer I know commented on yesterday's entry saying essentially that fiction isn't something the writer does, but it's an event that happens--you just have to take good notes.

While I like the romantic notions of this idea, it can be a crutch for a dreamer like myself. The dreamy writer says, I only write when the writing hits me like a sack of flour. Well, I can't live waiting around to be bashed in the head with a brilliant idea. Lucky those who can. I want to write every day. Some days it will be inspired, some days it will be drudgery, but it will be my craft and I will be honing it. To those who find their creativity to be like a train, and who can afford (I don't just mean financially) to wait by the tracks, I salute you.

So, back to names. If the name does just happen, then my inability to spot it or suss it out from the jumble or carve it out from the stone is a shortcoming. I'd prefer for the sake of argument then, to pretend it is an answer to be riddled out. I don't know the answer to the riddle, or even the steps for solving it. For now, it's just a lot of dumb-idea throwing and following of tangential ideas.

PS, I am loving the newest Wordle for the blog:

365 days of being a writer: day 263

I was able to spend a few hours at the botanical garden this morning, but since it was so early, I somehow arrived without a pen.

What kind of lousy writer shows up to quiet, nature-drenched writing time without a pen?

So instead I walked around looked at cacti and succulents and birds and lizards. I watched a fence lizard attempt to seduce another fence lizard. There was a rock dove on a next with chicks. And many wilted datura were flaccid on their stems in the bright sun. Spring has sprung.

I was able to add to the outline of three articles and had a wonderful exchange with an editor who was rejecting one piece, but already accepted another. That's progress, at least we conversed! And hopefully my Coney Island piece will be up next week.

365 days of being a writer: day 249

Happy Easter.

PJ went to his new home today, which was rough. And then some crazy lady I've never met came to brunch at my parents and brought her cat in a carrier. She deposited the crying cat right next to the table. I ate as fast as I could and then went outside in the bright, bright sun and tried not to throw up.

It is worth mentioning, because I am at heart a selfish creature, that I am sad because I fell out of love with my cat. Not so much because I will miss him, because probably I won't for long. Ice queen. It's been a long day full of sugar.

However, it was not without writing. I finished up another article. I have almost made enough to pay for my renewed passport. I also took a stab at an edit of the hummingbird essay to send off to a competition.

365 days of being a writer: day 248

I had high hopes for my productivity today. I am about to head home from the coffeeshop with the best soundtrack always to spend one last night sitting on the couch with the cat who isn't mine anymore.

It's the best news ever that he has a home. But that doesn't mean I am not sad, mostly that I am so hard to live with that I can't sustain a relationship with even a cat, and that the cat is the one who has to suffer (by not understanding) for that. He will be fine. This new girl already loves him and feels that they are fated to be together.

So, I wrote a new Demand article (on birds!), researched another, read some Annie Dillard, and wrote my cat a dear John letter. And tried not to bawl at the coffeeshop over my fickle and prickly nature that always has me heading into the next phase alone.

And in other maudlin news, here's my 52 |250 submission for last week's theme, "Cold Front": Glacier . As usual, since it is a poem, I have no idea if it is ok or awful.

365 days of being a writer: day 247

I just turned in two more Demand articles. That is five for the week, I believe. I am on a ROLL. While I don't love the actual writing, I am pleased that the site at least affords me the luxury of writing on topics I really know about--this week it was academic and tech writing. In the past it has been a lot of project management stuff.

Also, possibly the best news ever: I think I found a home for PJ. I will know for sure on Sunday morning, if the really nice young woman actually comes back for him with a cat carrier and the same good attitude.

The plan for the rest of the weekend (should I choose to accept it) is to write up the two reading list books, get out a new draft of the hummingbirds to send off to Crab Orchard, and read the shit out of the Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. Her prose is so damn luscious, I just want to fall into the pages and stuff them in my mouth.

Thank the good green Earth it's Friday.

365 days of being a writer: day 246

A soundtrack for today:
Unchained Melody
Unchain My Heart
(Don't Break) These Chains

I submitted another Demand article (library, baby!) and drafted out the supporting material for two more. I also conversed with a bunch of writers far too much.

Having finished Dr. Moreau last night, I decided to give myself a day off of reading list. But tomorrow I will start Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. This weekend, I hope to write up Silent Spring and the creepy, creepy Doctor.

Things I am looking forward to: the eventual (I hope) publication of my Coney Island piece on Used Furniture Review and of Finisher in Thunderclap! Press issue #6; dinner somewhere since I transferred $25 from my Demand earnings (go money!); having a cat free home (someone new is interested in PJ as I am losing faith in the current interested party, having heard no news for two weeks); another (non)lazy weekend chock full of reading and writing--since it is ALMOST! Friday.