Entries from February 2008

February 29, 2008

Punctuation Mark –

Found via Perpetual Folly…

You Are a Dash

Your life is fast paced and varied. You are realistic, down to earth, and very honest.
You’re often busy doing something interesting, and what you do changes quickly.
You have many facets to your personality, and you connect them together well.
You have a ton of interests. While some of them are [...]

February 29, 2008

more on rejections

I have sent out three stories to thirty-three literary journals. So far I’ve received fourteen rejections, three of which have urged me to submit again (citing that I was not sent their “usual” rejection slip).
Last night, I received two of those fourteen rejection slips, after a long and exhausting day at work. [...]

February 27, 2008

Homesick

I often wonder where my eternal homesickness stems from. I am constantly restless–regardless of how happy I am in my current environment, I never feel entirely at home. As a result, I constantly dream of other settings, in a display of what I shamefully think is disloyalty to my place of residence, or a [...]

February 25, 2008

was it too much fat or the flu

I had dinner at what is generally recognized as a good restaurant in San Francisco–I enthusiastically ordered the marrow as an appetizer. Mrmmm. Marrow.
When asked to explain what marrow tastes like, or if it’s highly fatty (”What does it taste like,” my friend asked, adding quickly, “I don’t want to EAT it–I just [...]

February 25, 2008

winter there, spring here

The snow fell heavily–at times I looked out the window to a landscape that looked like it was draped in fog, but I knew it was just millions of snowflakes. If I looked closely, I would see the snowflakes falling from the sky, sometimes sideways in a gust of wind, but mostly in a [...]

February 24, 2008

novel progress report

This year, I vowed, I would finish my novel. A complete first draft. No goals of perfection but a goal of an entire story trajectory, a goal of getting about 100,000 words down on the page. Words that hopefully string together to tell a good story and produce characters that sing to the [...]

February 23, 2008

10 Signs A Book Might Be Written By Me

Charlotte tagged me to do the self-explanatory meme called “10 Signs A Book Might Be Written By Me”…
Okay. Summon the thoughts…

There are Korean or Korean American characters in it.
There’s a talking animal (or two or three) in there somewhere.
The book is plot-driven.
There might be a Jewish theme in it, too.
My characters tend to like [...]

February 21, 2008

resolve

I want to be more disciplined this year (while of course still maintaining some whimsy and joy).  A lot of goals fall under the headline of that discipline…and I’ve realized I’m awful at discipline.  I have GOT to get on the treadmill.

February 18, 2008

8 Things About Me

Koreanish tagged me to list 8 things about me…
I’ll happily oblige!

I was born in New York City. I now live in Berkeley. In between, I lived in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. I was happy in New York. I am happy in Berkeley. I was terribly unhappy in los Angeles. [...]

February 17, 2008

home to raccoons

I’m home. After weather delays and nine hours on a Southwest plane! We traveled through sleet and torrential rain (rrrreally torrential, in Chicago) and sunshine (San Diego) and fog (Oakland). A flight attendant who spotted me on the third leg of the journey opened her eyes wide and said, “You’re still [...]

February 16, 2008

A2

I’m here in Ann Arbor! Walking around with a wad of facial tissues in my pocket–but I LOVE it! I love the cold and I love bundling up, and I love all the snow, and I loooove seeing my friend. She and I met at a writers’ colony a couple years ago [...]

February 14, 2008

bedridden

I’m supposed to be flying out to visit a good friend in Michigan tomorrow–but alas, I am sick! Can you believe the timing? The fever arrived yesterday evening, and against my better health judgment but not against a career judgment, I went out to dinner last night instead of staying home and [...]