without vanity

Went to Vegas….then flew home.

Spent 36 hours at home. Then left home to fly back to Vegas.

I think it’s the first time in years I haven’t checked baggage. I have never bothered with navigating the whole TSA ban on liquids, and then the TSA limits on liquids (less than 3 ounce of liquid per bottle, but everything needs to fit into a quart bag). It’s just been easier to check my baggage and not deal with that minutiae.

But when a family member is sick, I realized I don’t transport liquids (save for my bottle of contact lens solution). No makeup, no lotion, no special soaps, no perfume. I studied my makeup vanity for a minute earlier this week as I hurriedly packed–would I need anything in there? No.

Amazing–! All the liquids in my suitcase were items of vanity (including, technically, that bottle of contact lens solutino).

I traveled light. Just a few changes of clothes, and a few books. I could have fit it all in my laptop backpack.

Vanity takes up a lot of room and takes a lot of coordination.

‘fess up Friday 2

It’s the weekly ‘fess up Friday post!

I didn’t write much this week. Not fiction anyway. I wrote letters to a friend at Hedgebrook, blog posts, and diary entries. Oh and emails.

With my dad in the hospital and tons of work at the paying job, flying back and forth between cities to try to do both…and squeezing sleep/rest in, there’s not much room for the writing!

But soon.

And that’s my weekly writing confession for the week!

balls

There’s this piece called “Why You Should Touch My Balls” over at eyeshot.

I just love it. It gives me a chuckle every time I read it, and I’m seeking chuckles right now.

And see? Not all literary work has to be super serious.

litmag blogs

With the proliferation of blogs written by literary magazines, there’s a whole new level of insight into the publishing process and into the personalities who make the decisions on our literary submissions. How are they feeling about the slushpile? What did they do that day (before reading our work–was it a horrible day and how many works did they reject)? What are their opinions on literary matters?

We also get to see the writing of the very editors who look at our own work. Sort of a role reversal.

But with the exception of Howard Junker (whose posts are about his daily walks and travels as much as about the litmag world), most of the blog posts try to stick to the subject at hand: work at the literary journal and issues around the industry. Virginia Quarterly just listed all the reasons for rejecting literary works. It’s a stinging but honest list of reactions that has really opened up the guts of what happens to some of our work when it goes into that slushpile.

Of course, they then made a list of glowing reviews.

And then they apologized.

Oh, and now I’ve just discovered that they deleted the entire list of reasons on the posts. I wish I’d thought to copy and paste them here. The backpedaling surprises me. The deletion of the list of reasons surprises me too. It was an entirely valid list, and encouraged honest communication. Hrm.

Btw, Literary Rejections on Display has a discussion about this very topic…and has apparently entered a dialogue with the VQR.

Other literary magazine blogs (this is just a few):

• Ploughshares has a blog…and a post on this very subject of the VQR.
• Before it sadly went under, Small Spiral Notebook blogged
• Sycamore Review blogs
• ZYZZYVA’s Editor, Howard Junker, has a blog

bleah.

Bleah.  Will this siege of bad sickness and death not end?  My dad had a heart attack.  I have a lot of feelings about this.

self-publishing

Howard Junker brought up the interesting subject of self-publishing–literary magazine editors who choose to publish their own work. He names a few examples: The New Yorker’s David Remnick, and Brett Lott, editor of The Southern Review, who published a novel excerpt in a recent issue…and commenters also pointed out others like David Eggers. He leads out the post with his opinion on the matter:

“Fledgling writers ought to produce their own chapbooks & litmags & books, publishing their own work (and the work of their friends).

Established writers who are the editors of esteemed magazines ought to have the common decency not to publish their own work.”

Sort of an interesting intersection with my own writing life.

Recently, I was invited to become the fiction editor of a literary magazine (yay!)–one of the questions that came up in the process was what to do with the short story I’d submitted to the litmag. (I’d submitted it prior to being offered an editor position). Should I withdraw it, or should they go ahead with considering the story?

The literary journal clearly had a precedent to date of NOT publishing the work of any editors, but recently had become more flexible because a Famous Writer suggested that they put the kabosh on that policy. He’d urged to go ahead and publish their own work! So it became a topic of discussion with my unique situation.

I took the path of least resistance and controversy (my usual path when it comes to things when I don’t have a strong opinion) and said I was willing to forego publication to be the fiction editor. Also, with the exception of the names above, it sure feels like the industry standard to NOT publish the work of staff editors.

But I’m sure there are others who might be disagree or go a different route. Any opinions out there?

‘fess up Friday

I’m hopping on the wagon with The Literate Kitten who inspired this whole thing, and with Charlotte–I’m going to confess how my writing week has gone.

I have been largely discouraged about my writing. I am not sure if I remember it incorrectly or not, but even though I’ve always been a really slooowwww writer, the words in my head have always been the words that actually hit the page. But since my stroke, what I imagine in my head isn’t what ends up on the page.

Sometimes I just look at the page HORRIFIED wondering how the thoughts in my head, full of eloquent potential, translate into…THAT. Sometimes it’s literally aphasia–I use the wrong word. But mostly it’s just blech.

Anyway–so it’s been especially discouraging with my fiction. I just got SICK of dealing with it this week. I set my novel aside. I set my fiction aside.

And I decided to try to write an essay about my stroke. I’m facing the same old challenges–the loose handful of words and concepts in my head aren’t exactly what end up on the page. It’s like some evil monkey eats up my words en route to the page and then shits them all over the page in some stinky pile. But of course it’s not a monkey, it’s me.

It’s getting better–last year at this time I couldn’t write fiction at ALL. The words in my head REALLY got lost on the way to the page–they didn’t even make it. It was super frustrating. But even though it’s better, my frustration is still very much there.

But at least it’s different subject matter, and well–I did get my framework for the essay down.

So that’s been my writing week. A lot of self doubt, and a feeble redirection.

p.s. I feel very sheepish about bringing up the stroke so much when it comes to my writing. It doesn’t affect my life much elsewise–just with my writing.

addressed from Hedgebrook

A friend of mine is at Hedgebrook–annnnnd she’s staying in the same cottage I was assigned years ago!!!

I remember that when I was at Hedgebrook, I corresponded with a friend S, who had herself stayed at Hedgebrook a few years prior. Her excitement and nostalgia for the place buoyed me on certain days and I remember, because of her enthusiasm that even in my loneliest moments there, I held every minute as dear and precious. Even if I didn’t understand what I was going through, or even if not every moment was pleasant, I had a sense it was important and to be remembered. She also said that she felt she was experiencing Hedgebrook again, vicariously, through me.

And now? Remarkable! I know exactly how S felt–because now as I email my friend at Hedgebrook, I’m overwhelmed by excitement and nostalgia for that little haven on an island in Puget Sound. She’s in the same cottage! I can imagine her now, spending her first night in the cottage, figuring out how to navigate the ladder to the loft, how to get a fire going in the wood stove, organizing her writing space.

I was not always happy at Hedgebrook–there were lots of agonizing, lonely moments for me. There were moments that I felt like Toru Okada, the narrator of The Wind Up Bird Chronicle, sitting alone in the bottom of that dark deep well, unaware of how much time had passed and wondering if his absence had any impact on anyone, digging deep into his soul to keep his psyche and mind intact. But like Toru, I also experienced other worldly moments only reachable through extreme solitary focus.

Time moved very slowly there–and at times the agony was quite literal because I had a persistent headache for the first week of my stay. I found the place very beautiful but what I wanted to do was invite friends over or really, have my husband stay with me to enjoy it together. But I learned to appreciate the beauty by myself. I was wrenched from a life where I focus my eye on others and I was forced to move that wandering eye back onto myself.

It was not easy. But it was so valuable.

And I met a friend for life while there. I think that was the most wonderful find there, and it was totally unexpected–she arrived on a day where I’d given up all hope that I’d find someone to talk to, possibly the loneliest day of my stay. I hadn’t laughed for days–the other women writers were very bright and focused people that I respected…but dude, they NEVER LAUGHED. There were other more complicated relationship issues at hand as well, but the essence was that there was no laughter.

In my life, laughter is a consistent presence. I judge my work on laughter–if I can go a whole day at work without laughing or giggling, it’s a sign to me that something is terribly wrong. I just laugh a lot. And I had NOT laughed in a week.

I did not realize it at the time, but I was just dying. So when it happened that R and I were in the Farmhouse, after dinner alone…and I laughed at a joke she cracked, the ice utterly broke. “I thought I wasn’t funny!” she shrieked. She’d told a similar joke at dinner, to grim faces. Of course she was funny, she is f*cking hilarious. She was my medicine–the kind of medicine without a bitter taste, that tasted good. Herbal medicine. With lots of sugar.

Because of her and the kind staff there (one person came by and found me crying in the pump house and consoled me by saying that I was detoxing–that some women come by and write up a storm, and others take the time to decompress), I have largely happy memories of the place. In fact, I remember it mostly as a haven, for the things that I have walked out with. A great friend, wonderful scenery, beautiful weather, a heavenly cottage, and renewed strength from my solitary. I emerged too, with some novel writing, and a new short story.

And so, for my friend, I wish her all the good things while at Hedgebrook–I wish her many visits from the bunny rabbits in the meadow, a glimpse of Mount Rainier, a happy day on the beach with a friend, a nuzzle from a llama across the road, and many good epiphanies.

And to her–I am grateful for the rushing back of good memories of the place.

no win-win

Dudes, I think there are more gophers lurking about. Of course he wasn’t the only one–and of course, you can’t end a game, or a story, on a tie.

Someone has to win and someone has to lose (there are no “win-wins” in good stories, just in good business practices). Some movie companies feel like there can be win-wins, and thus the trilogies (each side gets a chance to win again). But even trilogies largely end up with a tie-breaker.

So the story of my garden resumes again. I noticed little holes, little pockets, and I noticed the curiosity of my dog highly piqued at the garden (she would stare intently at the garden for hours, looking for a way to sneak in and start digging/hunting). In fact, my dog was the one who pointed out the whereabouts of this gopher hole, one I uncovered with a shovel.

I shoved a trap in there. Within an hour, the gopher ate the carrot in the trap, but had evaded trappage. I waited some more.

I’m still waiting.

But now my days of going out in the garden are on hold–this cold has turned into a full fledged flu, and I’m now sitting at home, utterly crabby at every work email (I need to stop checking my work email but like my novel, I can’t stop looking at it). I’m also definitely wallowing in discouragement over my writing.

Thank you for your comments and all your emails–you know who you are, supporting me and rallying me on. I gotta dig deep muster up my will.

I’ve been thinking about will these days–what keeps people going under dire circumstances? I often wonder how people keep surviving, despite the worst of circumstances. I’m the girl who’ll point to the news and say, “Dude, I would NOT deal with that–I’d probably kill myself!” My husband will tell me it’s the human will to survive. Hrm. I wonder if I’m human, because the survival will is not too strong in me.

But then I do start thinking about things that drive me forward. Maybe my things are just different from everyone else’s. Because there are a handful of things in my life that would drive me to survive, let’s say, a death camp.

Okay, I guess I shouldn’t write a blog post while feverish.

hrm.

I am officially sick. Is it still the cold/flu season? Some pesky bug got into my system at the last minute–I even wonder where I caught this awful cough.

Anyway–sorry for the doldrums posting. I am feeling awfully pessimistic and feeling awfully whiny. But oh well, we all have our individual roads to take in life.

huckabee

I wonder sometimes if I’m pulling a Huckabee–striving past futility.

I’m fairly ambitious in my exterior, fairly rock-like, too. Or at least I like to think so. But after being rejected almost thirty times by litmags in the past few months, after not getting into a residency…I am deeply questioning myself as a writer.

I wonder if I can write anymore, since my stroke. I realize all my publications and residency acceptances came before the stroke. I wonder if this is just the freaking end of me as a writer. I wonder if I should just stop writing fiction.

I wonder if the universe is waving a Big Huge Sign at me saying, “You can’t write. Nice try, though.”

And if so–what would I do with myself? Just suck up oxygen until the day I die? That’s kind of what I feel like I’d be, if I weren’t writing, even though in the whole realm of things writing ain’t much. But it’s what I thought I had to offer.

I’m surrounded by overachievers. People who are doing things in the world, starting companies, experiencing success in business, experiencing success in the arts. They are so awesome and I applaud them, and to some extent they all inspire me to do better, to do my best.

But lately, I don’t think my best is anywhere near good enough. Or that my good is anywhere near good.

G*d help me–maybe this is just a passing feeling, even though it’s a feeling that’s lingered with me for quite some time now.

heightened sense of smell

I went to my SECOND yoga class last night. It was more difficult than my first class–the instructor was more demanding, the class more crowded, the poses focused on core muscles (the weakest point in my body). I was trembling, I felt my body STRETCHING!

But I still loved it. There is something about yoga that is NON-competitive and it really just makes me focus on myself and my capabilities in that moment. One of the gifts of my stroke (yes, there are gifts) is having been forced to live in the present tense–quite a relief from my normal self. My normal self spends 80% of its time fretting and worrying about the FUTURE. The FUTURE looms LARGE in my mind.

The stroke gave me a bit of a cure from that, robbing me of my short term memory and the ability to juggle things in my head, retain them…in short, the stroke robbed me of the tools/ingredients for worry. I could ONLY focus on the moment and enjoy that moment, for in half an hour, it would dissolve into the recesses in my mind, lost, like the fading of a picture.

And so it goes with yoga. I’m still not 110% in love with it yet–it takes an effort to get my butt to class, but once I’m there, I’m liking it a lot. And afterwards, I feel a great sense of peace.

The after effects of yoga are quite notable. I feel more flexible already, I feel the hint of improved posture. And this week? I have an incredible HEIGHTENED SENSE OF SMELL. I can smell EVERYTHING!

For better and for worse–this morning I was at the Chinese consulate and waiting in line outside, I was nauseated by the smell of cigarette smoke. I tried very hard to keep reading my New Yorker, but I just could not ignore the overwhelming SMELL. And then when we were let inside and we took our places in the seats, our numbered tags in hand, I was overwhelmed by the SMELL of PEOPLE. The smell of people breathing through their mouths, the smell of people who hadn’t showered, the smell of moth balls! It was incredible–and a bit unexpected.

I mean, I always look at my dogs, just reveling in the scents of the world. Sometimes, I’ve envied them their acute sense of smell, they seem to take such intense pleasure out of it, sticking their noses out the car window, sniffing their food and trembling with joy! That.is.not.what.I.experienced this morning.

Then later, I accompanied a friend to lunch–I didn’t eat because the place was not kosher for passover, but I did take pleasure in being out in the sunshine–but oh man. The place SMELLED. Like a kazillion kinds of smoky food. The cacophony of smells was dissonant. I had to step outside. My friend wasn’t bothered by it at all–but how could he NOT have smelled all of that?

Oh, and I immediately picked up a cough last night after yoga. A bit of phlegmy cough. I thought perhaps that was because of yoga.

But I think the cough and phlegm might be–the flu? Argh. But it’s nearly May!