Death of a Writer Mama

This past week, I took Daniel to get registered for kindergarten. It hasn’t really hit me yet that come September, Daniel will be going to big-boy school, as we’ve been calling it. It hasn’t really struck me yet that within a few months, I’ll no longer have a preschooler on my hands, but an honest-to-goodness school kid. That means he’ll be doing homework, coming home from school later (although the school district’s idea of "full-day kindergarten" doesn’t quite match up to my definition, i.e. "What do you mean they’ll get out at 1pm on Mondays? That’s no different from what he does now.").  And it means I’ll probably be writing less and less about Daniel as he starts to gain his own identity.

The thing is, though, when was the last time I wrote about him in the Cafe anyway?

It’s not because I don’t have anything to say. Daniel’s been growing by leaps and bounds, and he amazes me everyday with what he says and does. And it’s not because I’ve been blogging less due to time issues (which, given the choice between blogging and working on a story that has a definitely deadline, which do you think I picked? Hmmm…been awful quiet at the Cafe, hasn’t it?). Actually, that is a good thing because it means I have been writing, which is always glorious. And yes, I have started actually writing out the 2nd draft of Willow as of this week. And boy oh boy, just the prologue alone is turning out GRRRRREAT!

I guess I haven’t been writing about Daniel because, well, I’m not really defining myself as a stay-at-home Writer Mama anymore.

When I first started writing seriously, I just had Daniel and was getting used to staying home without going out to the job or speaking to another adult about grownup issues. Where I lived, there really wasn’t much of anything else to do except do the whole ‘stay-at-home’ thing. Join playgroups, attend MOPS, go to parks, libraries, open gym, anything to get some sort of variety in my life. And at some point, I realized, hold on–I’m staying at home, raising our son. Didn’t I always say I wanted to do that and be a writer? Well, I got the at-home part down pat. Where does the writing part come in?

So I started taking workshops and going to writer groups and most importantly, I wrote. I wrote about everything I could think of. When I wasn’t writing stories, I wrote essays. When it wasn’t essays, it was blogs about my son. And since I was doing the whole Mommy thing, I considered myself a "Writer Mama", because at the time, it was my profession: writing and mothering.

But now, my profession has expanded to that of HR Assistant. In fact, ever since we’ve moved to Madison, I’ve gotten involved in a whole number of things that’s outside motherhood. I’m a co-worker, Wiscon book club member, scifi/fantasy writing group attendee. And a lot of what Daniel and I used to do, like going to the library or out to the gym to hang with other kids, is pretty much covered by him going to preschool. And Daniel is getting to the point where I do want to limit what I write about him, to protect his privacy (I can hear him now in 10 years—"Yeah, but what about all those potty training things you posted?" And I’ll tell him, "Kid, after all you put me through, be grateful I didn’t post pictures, you stubborn little—" and that will shut him right up.)

I haven’t stopped mothering. Oh, good gracious, no. I’m still involved in teaching and disciplining him. We still go to the park, and the library (though not as often as I like). He’s my pride and joy, and I take great delight in watching him play and work, when he isn’t getting on my nerves.

At the same time though, I’m finding that I deeply miss the community of Mommies I connected with because I had nothing else to do. Granted, if I hadn’t started writing, there would’ve been many, many days I would have been bored out of my skull. And I haven’t found the same kind of community here yet, though I’m sure they’re out there. In fact, I should start actively looking for a group that has working mommies in their midst.

And I know what you’re thinking. If I like doing the stay-at-home thing so much…nope. Not gonna finish that. Let me just take the liberty of rolling my eyes and saying, "Yeah, yeah, I know…"

In the meantime, I guess, "Writer Mama" doesn’t work for me exclusively anymore. Instead, I’m a "Part-time Working Writer Mama"? No, that sounds like I do it all part-time. "Working Writer Mama"? No, that implies that I’m a full-time worker. "Part-time Worker, 3/4-time Writer, Full Time Mama"?

Hmmm…gotta work on that….

The In-Between Time (or when one gets addicted to LiveFeed on Facebook…)

I’ve been trying to think of a good blog post to write. It’s been a slow month, writing-wise. The only serious project I’ve been working on is prepping Willow up for the 2nd draft. The past couple of weeks, I’ve been finalizing names, places, histories, backgrounds. I’ve also put up a new word counter, seen to the right. Everything should be set for me to start writing the new draft by March 2.

But other than that, I haven’t been doing much. I’ve been toying with a story, but I’ve pretty much been slacking in the one-story-every-week goal I set at the beginning of the year. At first, I figured I needed a bit of recuperating after the intense writing session I had in January. So I played a couple casual games. Got caught up on a bunch of short story ezines I’ve been meaning to read. Did some maintenance on Facebook. Did some more maintenance on Facebook.

Around the time I found myself sitting and watching the LiveFeed on Facebook, I realized I was no longer in the Recuperating Stage. I was in the Slacking Off stage.

It’s a weird time to be in when I’m between writing projects. Granted, I should be focusing all my hard work on Willow, but the stuff I’m doing doesn’t really feel like writing, although it’s just as important. It’s more like maintenance stuff, getting all the players in place and making sure my character has gray eyes instead of green and the name of his sister is "Daphne", not "Ashley". Therefore, it doesn’t really feel like I’m writing.

Likewise with the story I’m toying with. It’s more freewriting than anything, which is what I needed to do, just letting my mind and thoughts wander while my mind plays with story ideas. But it’s not like I’m getting to the meat and nitty gritty of a story, like what makes the story tick and what not. What I’m doing is pretty much mental doodling—not really serious.

So I’m at this weird in-between place in my writing, where I’m between serious projects. On the one hand, it’s an okay place, because it allows my mind to replenish its creative flow (I was about to write "juices", but then that got me to thinking about simmering meat, which got me thinking weirdly enough about cannibalism, because I watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory last night and Johnny Depp had this great line—okay, creative "juices" seemed just to creepy to write).

But on the other hand, it opens me up to tons and tons of distraction. Like watching Facebook’s LiveFeed. Because I really, really want to know what my friends are doing at that very exact moment…

What it is really, is that I have a productivity vacuum inside my head. When it’s pointed towards a writing project, yeah, I’m with it, I’m in the groove, things are rolling along nicely. But when it’s not directed towards a project, then it’s directed towards any old thing, which means I spend three days trying to escape out of a locked room… 

(Actually, you’ll be amazed at how addicting these escape-the-room games can get. Especially since the more you play, the more tricks you pick up, the easier the games get, which means you start scrambling towards harder puzzles…what? What do you mean I’m digressing agai–)

The point is…procrastination.

And the other point is…ummm….sometimes it’s good. Because when you recognize that you’ve had too much of it, it means that you’ve had enough rest and recuperation and you’re setting yourself up for your next project, which is good, because you can now look forward to your next project with eagerness, and it means that you can start looking at all the stories you have sitting in the sketching stage and think, "which of these stories can I flesh out more?" And you start thinking and start writing and before you know it, you got yourself another project to do. Which is good.

I think I’m ready for that now. And I think I need to wean myself off the LiveFeed. Too much Facebook can be a bad thing. Besides, the Facebook RSS Feed is far more useful.

Well. That was a nice rambling, makes-no-sense post. But considering that it’s something that I did after a week of nothing, hey, I’m feeling pretty productive. 2nd draft of Willow, here I come!

More thoughts on the closing of Realms of Fantasy & Year’s Best…

So I’ve been doing some thinking. Serious thinking. And I’ve come to a startling revelation.

Realms of Fantasy closing and The Years Best Fantasy & Horror Anthologies no longer being printed? Their ending don’t affect me at all.

It’s startling because I consider them the highest levels a writer can get in writing. When both of them folded, I was devastated, yes, in learning I won’t be getting any more stories from them. Which is sad, because from those venues I learned about Kelly Link, Theodora Goss, Nalo Hopkinson and other writers who inspired me to write.

But the startling part that got me was this: when was the last time I read either of those?

The Year’s Best Anthologies I haven’t picked up for a while because, well, I’ve been pretty busy; not to mention that my local library doesn’t have them on hand (actually, they do, but I’ll probably have to get it on loan from another neighborhood library, which could take a couple of days—not exactly self-gratifying if I have to put in an order for it instead of just taking it off the shelf I used to do in Chicago. Then again, I could always drive to another library that’s better stocked, but geez, that means that I wouldn’t be able to gripe about here…). And the last time I bought a copy of Realms of Fantasy was…ummm…hmmm…

Nowadays, I’m getting my short story fix online. There are a dozen of websites I go to on a monthly basis, and several more that I download to my mp3 player. (I swear, I will update my blog sidebar to show them) And these are all really good stories; perhaps not as the same caliber as what was in Realms of Fantasy, but I would’ve nominated them in a heartbeat for Year’s Best.

Yes, I’m still bummed that these venues are gone. But there are other markets out there. Markets that are easy to access. Markets that you don’t have to pay unless you want to. Markets that allow everyone to read, yet still have editors to filter out the really good stuff from just your average mediocre story.

This got nailed home to me this Sunday when my short story “The Liberation of Roscoe White” got put up at The Town Drunk. (What do you mean you haven’t read it yet? Stop what you’re doing and go read it! Go! Go now!). Some very good stories are on that sight (besides mine, of course). It’s nice that that I can give people a website and they can go and read my story for free, but it’s extra nice when an editor who runs a ezine tells me, “I like your story so much, I’ll pay for it to put it on my site.” That is nice.

The publishing world is changing. What does that mean to me? Well, it just means that I keep on writing and keep on submitting. I keep my eye on what markets are considered the best and send my best stories to them. And then I’ll keep writing. Granted, I’ll have to look to a new market to set my high standard bar to–

Then again, maybe I’ve already done that.

I just finished reading the Writers of the Future XXII Anthology. The first story was so-so, but there were other stories in there that blew me away.

One of these days, I’m going to get a story in there. Just you wait…

Speaking of which, congratulations to all the winners of the 4th quarter contest. You can find the winners on the WOTF website. The next contest deadline is April 1. All you writers better get writing.

It’s rest time; Cafe going on Christmas hiatus

So if I was Daniel a couple of years from now, I’d be like, “Wait a minute. We live about an hour away from Wisconsin Dells, with all the water parks and rides and fun, fun, fun…and we can go up anytime we want, and you didn’t tell me? Why aren’t we up there EVERY SINGLE DAY?!?!?“

And the part of me that’s Daniel’s mom would be like, “Well, yes, sure it’s fun, but we can’t be up there every day.”

And the Daniel me would be like, “WHY NOOOOOOOT?!?!”

And the Mommy me would say, “Because we don’t have the money to go up, and even if we did, if you go up every single day, eventually you’d get bored and don’t want to go anymore.”

And the Daniel me would be all, “YOU SUUUUUUUUUCK!”

And the Mommy me would say, “All right. Time Out. NOW.”

And the Daniel me would stomp off, all sucky and pouty, and the Mommy me would be all “DON’T YOU MAKE THAT FACE AT ME!” and then there would be tears and gnashing of teeth and high drama, yadda, yadda, yadda…

The point being…I need a break.

Actually, I’ve needed one ever since I finished my short story and sent it off to WOTF. The relief in knowing that’s done, in combination with all the Christmas parties that’s been happening here, has made me one tired chick. I need to recharge, start going to bed a little earlier, get my creativity meter back to full again. And seeing that most of my energy nowadays seem to be focused on reading through the Willow draft (now that She’s All Light is done, I’ve been zipping through Willow; sometimes getting 3-4 chapters done a week instead of just 1-2. Now that’s nice), I’ve decided to cut down on my writing chores a bit. That means that the Cafe will be closed for a couple of weeks.

This will be a good thing. There’s some cleaning out I’ve been meaning to do, like taking down links I don’t go to anymore and doing some reorganization. I’ve also wanted to re-evaluate what exactly I want the Cafe to do. It feels like I’ve moved away from a lot of the mothering posts I did when I started the cafe–which makes sense, me no longer being a stay-at-home mom. At the same time, it seems like my book reviews are quite popular. Don’t know why…considering that everyone and his grandmother can post a book review. But go figure.

Anyway, don’t expect much from the blog in the next couple of weeks. I’m not going to be on total hiatus–there’s probably going to be a goody for you pretty soon, and if something really catches my interest, I’ll post it here. But don’t expect long winded posts either.

And yes, it is super, super cool to live an hour away from an awesome place. This past Monday, we spent a day at a water park. Yes, it was a balmy 85 degrees inside while outside the temperature read 9. Yes, I floated in a wave pool while overhead music played “I’m dreaming of a White Christmas”. Yes, if I was Daniel and a few years older, I would be be begging to go up to Wisconsin Dells from now until I graduate with a PhD from UW-Madison.

But luckily, Daniel is only four. And apparently, he doesn’t like rushing water tunnels that disappear into pitch blackness…especially if ‘Mommy’ went into it head-first screaming her lungs out. It feels good to know that I probably contributed to my son’s first traumatic experience.

And on that note, Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good rest.

More Thoughts on the Writers of the Future Contest

So I had a little more time to ponder my Honorable Mention for the contest and wanted to get my thoughts down.

I didn’t mention anything about entering the contest because it was a last minute thing. Before, I didn’t feel that I was at that level of writing to get in it. Plus it seemed like such a hassle–instead of emailing your submission in, it had to be printed out in a special format and mailed before a deadline. It just seemed too much work. Plus, the fact that it’s sponsored by L. Ron Hubbard put me off. I’m still sore after the whole Battlefield Earth thing.

But I bided my time and did some research on the contest. I also scored a couple of the anthologies from my library and skimmed through them. The stories were pretty good, and plus it wasn’t just all science fiction as I thought–there was some good fantasy stories in there too. Then around the beginning of May, a couple of weeks before we moved to Madison, I had a short story rejected and I thought, what the hey? Send it in to Writers of the Contest. It won’t hurt.

So I did, with the expectation that the most I would get out of it would be an Honorable Mention. Now, if I understand the Honorable Mention category, those are the stories that have something going for them, but are lacking something that would push them over the top into the Semi-Finalist category. I don’t know what would’ve happened if I got nothing. I’d probably feel pretty bad and get all dramatic, saying I’m done with writing and going into full-time organic farming. Thankfully, that didn’t happen, though when they started listing the first sets of HMs, I did get a little nervous. Strangely, the fact that I was on the final list makes me feel pretty good. I don’t know what being on the final list really means–if it meant that it took them that long to decide on the entries, or if they just stuck them all in boxes and my story just so happened to be in the last box, I don’t know. I’m going to pretend it’s the former. It’s more motivational that way.

Since entering the contest, I’ve been checking out the WOTF forum and I’ve just listened to AISFP #63, where Shaun Farrell interviewed the winners of last year’s contest. Plus, the WOTF website has a 10 minute overview of the award ceremony (winners of the contest are flown out to Los Angeles where they attend a week-long workshop plus the ceremony). At one point, it had me in tears when Brittany Jackson won the Gold Award. A black female artist! How awesome! It made me want to rush out and buy the book just so I can have her illustration on my bookshelf. (Well, the book trailer made me want to get the book anyway, but her illustration would be a nice bonus.)

So my excitement for the contest has gone considerably up. I think I’ll continue sending stuff to the contest. I already have my next submission in the works–I just got to finish it up and send it out. Of course, I think every writer that enters the contest has the goal to keep submitting until they win or disqualified by a professional market printing their story. I think my little fantasy involves learning that I’m a finalist at the same time I get a notice that Realms of Fantasy has accepted another story.

A pleasant futile dream. But it’s still fun.

Here’s the WOTF Awards Ceremony from 2008.

When to write and when to polish (and when to wax poetic…)

So last week I was listening to the Adventures in Scifi Publishing episode where Shaun Ferrell interviews Neil Gaiman. Towards the end of the podcast, About 30 minutes in, to be exact, Neil said something that troubled me a little. It’s part of the advice every writer gets nowadays–to write, and write every day. That part, I have no trouble with. What Neil said next, though, did. He said, and I quote:

“It’s much, much better to go off and write 10,000 words filled with glorious mistakes than to think for three weeks and write a 1500 word little jewel, then polish that jewel for the next month or two until it glows, and you have one perfect little thing. While, someone else has written 30,000 words that probably won’t be usable, but they’re 30,000 words better now. They’ve made 30,000 words worth of cool mistakes that they won’t be making again.”

This bothered me because At first, I was pretty irate. Who does Neil think he is? How dare he–an established, well-known famous author with several books under his belt–tell me–a part-time secretary, full-time mother trying to juggle writing time with housework/preschooler’s naps–how to be a writer? It’s easy for him to say “write something every day”. He doesn’t have kids running through a tiny two-bedroom apartment throwing train tracks everywhere and complaining every five minutes, “I’m bored. This is boring. I’m boooooored.” (By the way, can you guess what Daniel’s new word of the day is?) Don’t he realize that I got to take whatever time I can get? I don’t have the luxury to pick and choose what I work on. Hey, if I was an established, full-time writer, I’d sit on my butt and churn out stories every day, revise a few more stories, find markets for them, send them out, and still have time to clean the house, cook dinner, read to my son, fly to the moon, solve crime, negotiate for peace in Sudan, stop global warming…

Mind you, now, these were the very first thoughts that came to mind when I heard Neil say that.

I’ve been thinking about it ever since. At this very moment, I am juggling two revision projects–one of which I’ve been revising over and over since last November, trying to get it as perfect as possible before sending it to…well…actually I need to find a market for it. Granted, it’s not a 1500 little jewel–it’s more of a 12,000 honking big jewel I’ve been polishing for quite some time. And since I’ve been revising it, I’ve done little else in writing–just that and Willow, really. Haven’t worked on any new stories or essays. Haven’t sent anything new out. In fact, this Agony Booth recap I started a week ago is the first new anything I’ve done since…since…

What was the last story I worked on?

Of course, I can make excuses. I can say that I was so stressed out at the beginning of the year with preparing our house for sale that it sucked my creative juices dry. The only way I could stay sane was to edit my existing stories, and it helped me out to focus solely on them. Actually, I won’t make that an excuse. That stressful time really did help me focus better on my story.

But at the same time, one can only revise and revise and revise without getting worn down. I need to have that spontaneous feeling again of whipping up a story out of thin air. I need to get back to the delight of wondering what word I will put down next. And I’ve been taking steps in doing that. I’ve been pushing myself to do more freewriting. Actually, I’ve been attempting to ease myself into it since July, and so far, it’s been a bit better. I just need to figure out timing and all.

When I first started this post, I was going to dispute Mr. Gaiman’s statement by saying, “You can write, write, write all you want. But what use is it if all those words are sitting on your computer, never to be polished into a story?” However, now I have to admit; he’s right. I need to start writing again, and by writing, I mean writing new stuff. It’s in the new stories that you learn how to write better because you are constantly working with new material to play with.

But I would further add that writing should be balanced with revising. At some point, you do have to take a story and polish it. You don’t see editors asking for first drafts of stories. They want something that’s your very best. And to be really honest, I like my stories to be jewels. It’s how they stand out. At least, I like to think they do. And then you have to submit. Because after all that work, if it’s still sitting on your hard drive, what good does it do you?

Write. Revise. Submit. Finding the balance between the three. ‘Course, there will be times when you can do only one. You may get so drained out of a family crises that you may just want to just revise something. Or not work on anything at all. That’s the best thing about writing–it’s pretty flexible to whatever circumstances you’re in.

Now if the whole Obama/McCain election was just as flexible, we’d be in good shape.

Cleaning + Writing = Happy Writer Mommy

Last week’s experiment turned out to be a success: doing cleaning with Daniel instead of putting him down for a naptime right away works a whole lot better than coming home, putting him down for a nap, then trying to write right away.

When Daniel and I get home, the first thing I do is put on music to clean to. Before, when I brought Daniel from school, we would immediately go into Quiet Time. So after I told Daniel to lie down, I had to sneak around and keep the apartment quiet. Not conducive for cleaning. I like to play loud music. It gets me into a cleaning mood. Now that I have Daniel with me as I clean, it’s not that big a deal. Last week, I played Spare the Rock, Spoil the Child podcasts, and Daniel got into the swing of cleaning along with me…

…Which showed me an unexpected benefit of all this: I’m teaching my son to clean. Before, he would sit before the TV while I’ll be doing the cleaning thing (then again, that was back when we were trying to sell the house in Roselle. Oy…still makes my head hurt thinking of it). Now, I give him small tasks to do. For instance, I let him set a timer for how much time we spend cleaning a room (5 minutes, thanks to FlyLady). I let him run and pick up stuff off the floor to see how fast he can do it. The kid is even cleaning his room now. To be honest, I’m pretty impressed by how much he wants to help. I know in a couple of years, it will be like “Maaaaaa….why do I have to clean noooooowwwww?” So I’m guessing I need to lay in all the groundwork I can.

It usually takes us roughly 30 minutes to get the apartment straightened out, then we do the whole Quiet Time routine of reading a story and putting on soft music to listen to. Then, I can concentrate on my writing, which, at that point, I’m ready to do.

I don’t feel like I’m wasting time anymore. I don’t feel like I need to rush to clean the kitchen before cooking. Overall, it makes for a very happy writer mommy.

A quick update on my latest projects: reading the 1st draft of Willow has finally taken off. I’ve been doing a readthrough of two chapters per week so far. Last week was really nice because I was able to combine two chapters into one, which will hopefully cut down on the word count some. I just need to remind myself that all I’m doing is reading through the story and making notes on what to edit. I’ve been tempted to start editing right there, and I don’t want to do that. Read first, edit later.

I’m also part of a MegaRecap for the Agony Booth. This is where a bunch of writers review a movie 15 minutes per writer. I’m not going to reveal here what we’re reviewing, but let me just say that after this movie, I will never watch a SUV commercial the same way again. (Oyyyy….) Stay tuned for when that gets released.

Now if you excuse me, it’s been a very, very busy weekend. I’m going to bed.

We’re All Connected (the Fun of Networking)

So over the weekend, I succumbed and got myself a LiveJournal account. This after a couple of months of being on Facebook.

It’s not that I’ve been reluctant to get on LiveJournal (that’s more my feelings towards MySpace). On the contrary–I seriously considered it when I decided to jump on the blogging bandwagon. But one look at what they had to offer had me going into a corner and tugging on the few gray hairs that I have. When it comes to networking, I’m more from the old school–underground email lists. The occasional forum or two. I think I missed the LJ boat by ten years–if it had been around in the 90s, I would’ve been all over it, coloring my posts with different avatar icons, moods of the day, the like. As it is, I’m still wondering how I’m gonna coordination LJ with the Cafe. Should I just keep the LJ account so I can keep tabs on friends? Make it more of an anime flavor?

Actually, there’s a more basic reason why I decided to get on LJ (and look at me, already reducing it to an acronym. What next, injecting geekspeak into all my posts? shoing mi mad leet skillz?) It’s all because of Networking.

Establishing a fanbase on the Internet is easy nowadays. Writers aren’t limited to obscure print journals anymore. A whole slew of online publications has opened up where we can send our submissions to, many in which are free to read. So it’s certainly easier to find someone, anyone’s work online. You don’t even need a journal. If a writer is truly desperate, they will put their work up on their own site, themselves. But most likely, they would provide links to where the stories are at online.

But it could sit there forever if no one knows about it. So the writer posts to many different places. Hey, come see my work! He posts it to his friends. He posts it to the forum he’s on. If he’s smart, he’ll put enough tags on it so that it shows up in Google searches. Now he’s getting hits. Not everyone checks out the story, but a few interested individuals do. If the writer is exceptionally good (and this is what separates the average look-at-me-I-can-write-a-story writer from a writer) that person will subscribe to the website and keep a look out for new material from the writer. Pretty soon, he’s built up a fanbase. And if that fanbase really likes his work, then when he does get that book deal, he can put a call out for his fans to buy his books off of Amazon, and they will do it…

I’m seeing it happen several times already. Heck, I’m going to be part of it myself. When Mur Lafferty’s book, Playing for Keeps come out in a couple of weeks, I’m going to get it. Even though she already has the whole book out as a podcast. I’m going to support her work, because, well, I’m a fan of her podcast.

So what does this have to do with me being on LJ?

Well, obviously, I’m at the low end of the writer’s spectrum. I got a few short stories out, I’m working on more. I’m putting a lot of time and effort on my work (so much so that it’s been a little hard balancing it with Willow–but that’s a post for another time) But it all doesn’t mean diddley-squat if no one knows it’s out there. One of the first things writers get advised on is establishing a presence out on the Net, so people who read your work will go to a place that has one-stop information about you. It’s why webpages are so important for a writer. But I think it goes deeper than that. I think in order to establish a presence, you not only need to have a webpage, you need to be involved. Actually network with people, so they can remember your name.

So that means getting involved in forums. Leaving comments on blogs. Not being a wallflower. It’s not hyping your writing everywhere you go–that gets obnoxious fast. You simply get out there, make some friends, show off your interests, and leave your website as a calling card. That’s it. That’s all. And the best part is, you gain a lot out of it. You meet new people, get to express your opinion. Gaining more confidence.

So I got LJ up and running. I’ve been pushing myself to get more involved in forums. In fact, I just became a moderator for the Agony Booth forum, which is a new thing for me. And though I can’t say I have a definite fanbase yet, I’m working on it. In fact, I just had someone tell me the other day that they started reading “Daughters of Sarah”, intending to just read a couple of pages, and wound up getting sucked in all the way. She looks forward to reading more of my stuff.

Granted, it’s someone who’s in my writing group, but still…that’s one.

Six days left until Cheesehead status

Cheesehead. Cheese…head. Headcheese. Cheese for heads. Heads for cheese.

As you can see, I’m preparing myself now. Once I get out to Wisconsin, there’s going to be a lot of mocking going on. And most of it will come from Chicagoans, so I might as well get used to it.

Since we’re this close to moving, I can now officially go on the blog to say, yes, we’re moving to Wisconsin. We’re in the final stages of selling our house, and this Saturday, we’re getting a Budget truck and hauling our butts out of Roselle.

So while I still have the time, I’m going to write this to myself now, before the guilt sets in.

I’m permitting myself not to write these next couple of weeks.

If I do write, I’m not going to beat myself up if I only get a few sentences done. I’m going to allow myself days when I’ll say, “I’m just too busy. The stories will have to wait.”

If I do write, I’m going to have fun. Do little doodles. Sketches. Poetry. Flash fiction. Freewrites. Total, blathering nonsense.

I allow myself to be absolutely disorganized and unstructured. I’ll write whatever will comes to mind.

The next couple of weeks are going to be crazy. Therefore, I permit myself to take time out for myself, to get away, to pray, to be alone with God, to escape into His presence to be filled again.

I also permit myself to grieve, knowing that I’m giving up a life I’ve known for six years. And I permit myself to get incredibly excited, because I’m about to start a whole new adventure in a new state.

Finally, I permit myself to go with the flow, have fun doing it, and not stress out over things.

Turtle.

Downsized Writing

For a couple of weeks now, I’ve been digging poetry.

It’s not because April is National Poetry Month. I didn’t even know it was until I saw it mentioned on one of the blogs I visit. No, I’ve been reading the 16th Annual Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror Anthology (which I will do a book review on in the next couple of days–I promise). In it were some really good poems–Hansel, A retrospective, or the Danger of Childhood Obesity by Tom Disch; Seven Pairs of Iron Shoes by Tracina Jackson-Adams; Reading Myth to Kindergartners by Jackie Bartley; and After the Chuck Jones Tribute on Teletoon by Sharon McCartney (an ode to Wile E. Coyote and my favorite one). After reading those and other in the anthology, I started doodling around on my own. I haven’t been writing one per day–more like when the mood hits me–but so far I’ve written 5 poems in two weeks. Not bad.

It’s not like I haven’t written poetry before. When I got back into writing, I jumpstarted it using poetry. But once I started working on Willow and short stories, poetry somewhat took a back seat; it was something nice to dabble in, but I didn’t want to spend all my energy on it. That’s a shame, because I believe that my writing is heavily influenced by poetry. It’s using the same concept of finding the right words to convey the right image, and doing so in an almost lyrical manner.

It seems that my current fascination with poetry reflects the downsizing in my life. We’re in the process of moving from a 3-bedroom house to a 3-bedroom apartment in Madison, which means putting a bunch of stuff on Craigslist, giving other things away. It’s a little unsettling seeing empty space where our couch used to be–and I know I’ll be unhappy when the dresser I had since the beginning of college gets carted away. The upshot of this is that we’ll be getting new dressers once we get to Madison. It’s just a little sad knowing that we’re moving to a condensed lifestyle, even if it’s only going to be for a few months.

And yet, it’s also thrilling. The day we signed the lease, I was awake for most of the night planning out where to put furniture in our new apartment. Considering that I tend to snub HGTV, I’ve been bugging my hubby with: “If we get rid of the entertainment center and store the TV, we can use a smaller cart to put a computer screen on so it will fit on this wall. Then we can put the futon over here so it won’t get in the way. And then we can get a shelved headboard for our bed–that will eliminate our need for bookshelves, so we’d have more space to put a desk…”

Great. I’m turning into my mother AND my mother-in-law.

But I can’t help it. The challenge of decorating such a small space is one I’m taking up with great relish. And it’s the same excitement I’ve been finding in writing poetry lately. It’s short enough so that it doesn’t take too much time, which I’m scarce on nowadays. And yes, it doesn’t pay well, but it’s a form of writing that is very respected, if it’s done well.

I’ll end with something I churned out the other day. A Writer’s Digest blog, Poetry Asides, has been doing a Poem-A-Day challenge for the month of April. One of the writing prompts was “snooping on another conversation”. So here’s my tiny little contribution. Enjoy!

===============
$20 bucks an hour

“They had us in rooms,
Couldn’t do nothing
We’d watch TV, read books
and they always took blood…”

she stretched out her arm
to show the track marks
tiny bruises speckled
like moldy grapes

“We couldn’t do anything
they wanted to track
how the medicine went through
our bodies
constantly taking samples
our arms, legs…”

She let her sleeve fall.

“Was it worth it?” someone asked
She tilted her head.

“Well, I got a hundred fifty bucks.”

She rose from the table,
swayed slightly
catching herself with a
pinpricked hand.
“I’d probably do it again,”
she told us,
tugging down the hem
of her floral dress.