The Job Hunt

This spring,I decided to go ahead and get one of those permanent-type jobs, one where you show up at an office building in nice shoes every day and don’t have to hound your employer for payment since it automatically comes bi-weekly in check form.  I started the application process two weeks before school started, because I did not want to start a new job in the middle of summer.  I thought getting a job two weeks after sending out resumes was a plausible outcome.

That eager optimism is gone.  It took about six weeks for it to die.  Job leads have fizzled, interviews have led nowhere, and flat-out rejections arrive in my inbox daily.  I now have what you might call a “lack of confidence.”  I stay up late at night worrying about the future and feeling very sorry for myself. Desperate for affirmation, I sometimes, in the early hours of the morning, put my face about two inches from John’s and wait for him to wake up.  If he doesn’t wake up, I pinch his nose so that he can’t breathe. 

“What?  What?” he gasps.

“Do you think I’m smart?”

“Yes.  Let me go to sleep.”

“Do you think I’m pretty?”  By then he’s already dozed off, and I have to pinch his nose again. 

Needless to say, we are both cranky in the morning.

I loathe job hunting.  I’ll find a job advertisement and think to myself, "This suits me to a T!" only to be deterred by an arbitrary specification.  Here’s an example of a promising copywriting position:

·         Must have a minimum 4 years of total, technical writing or copywriting experience with track record of increasing responsibility  (I do!) 
·         Ability to convince and drive receivers of communication to take action (I have four kids.  Got this covered.)
·         Collaboration and team building skills (There is no “I” in teamwork.)
·         Superior English writing skills (I do not split infinitives.)
·         Writing samples required.  (I have those guys!)
·         Must speak fluent Greek.  (What the hell.)

How hard should it be to find a job that pays at least $40,000 for 20 hours a week?  COME ON.

Sometimes, friends will give me helpful suggestions.

“Working in the lunch room is a great way to keep an eye on your kids in school!” they say.

“I almost have a master’s degree,” I want to say.  But I don’t.  I smile graciously and start singing, “sloppy joes, sloppy sloppy joes!”  I would probably make a great lunch lady.

As I contemplate my future career in food preparation at the local elementary school, I begin ruing the day. 

I rue the day I decided to get my degree in Literature and not Marketing or Communications or even Library Science!  I rue the day I let my teaching certificate expire!  For now I am useless.  I rue the day I ignored the little voice in my head that said, “taking Greek language classes will really behoove you in the long run!”

And then, I think the craziest things:

Maybe I should have gone to law school.  Maybe I should get an unpaid internship at the age of 35, like Chandler Bing on Friends. Maybe I should become a doula.  Or an artisan of some kind.  Or a mystery shopper.  Or the person who does overnights with the Girl Scouts at the zoo.  Or a bank robber.  I hear there’s good money in bank robbery.

I spent this morning combing the internet for job possibilities, and then devising plans to launder the money I’m going to rob from banks.  Is it suspicious to pay for a new roof with cash?  Does the IRS pay attention to things like that?  Is the IRS hiring? 

Today, I had to get out of the house.  I went to Wegmans to eat lunch by myself.  I made eye contact with no one, because I was irrationally fearful that someone would blurt out what happened on the series finale of Dexter, and I had worked very hard not to look up any spoilers on the internet. Staying at home without my kids has made me weird and creepy.

At Wegmans,  I grabbed a sub, a diet Pepsi, a copy of ABC Soaps, and found a small, quiet corner where I could read in peace.  Robin is coming back from the dead, and ABC Soaps had the scoop.  Job hunting on the internet and General Hospital-watching go together like peas and carrots.  There’s no reason I can’t tweak my resume while watching Sonny descend into yet another bout of madness. 

Is ABC Soaps hiring?

It's really only been six weeks.  That's not very long.  And I have things to do, like hounding my freelance clients for money, sticking the frozen dinner in the oven, and chasing Kiah off of Mt. Laundry.

Why don't you just fold the laundry?  That way, maybe Kiah wouldn't be compelled to lay on it?

Sheesh.  People are so judgy of the unemployed.  

Don't Use Psychology On Your Wife

I am writing a “novel.” I am putting “novel” in quotations because I find that “putting things in quotations” makes things appear “less pretentious.”

A few months ago, I had two chapters and a lot of problems. For instance, I didn’t know how my “novel” would end. This is a serious problem discussed in detail in the imposing “Plot and Structure” book I picked up years ago when I was a part of the Writer’s Digest Book Club. I belonged to a lot of book clubs back in the day. There was the Disney Book Club, the Cookbook Book Club, and the Writer’s Digest Book Club. Never mind that I didn’t have kids and didn't cook or write. I had dreams. And writing a “novel” has been a dream of mine since I first picked up a pen to write the thrilling short story, “I Wish My Parents Would Get Me a Dog.” (I was so naïve back at six.)

Today, I have 8 chapters, a notebook I carry around with me in case I suddenly get inspired right there in line at Rite Aid, those incredible Sharpie no-bleed pens, Papermate pencils, a sort of outline in the aforementioned notebook, a complete set of Calvin and Hobbes cartoons for when I get discouraged and feel like crying, and most importantly, an ending.

I have an ending.

Several months ago, I read the first chapter to my husband, who is the meanest person in the world. He loves me, but he can be very, very cruel. He gave me “constructive criticism.” I was told my theme was cliché and that my choice of certain words “ridiculous.” Then, he gave me a kiss on the forehead and told me to work on it.

I’m not even kidding.

Last night, I asked John why he hadn’t asked me how my “novel” was going. He put down his book and said, “How is your novel going?”

“Do you remember what it was about?”

“Yes, of course I remember what it was about.”

He didn’t, which really doesn’t bode well for me, I guess. He asked for the “manuscript.” I refused because his last criticism had gutted me.

“I gave you constructive criticism!” he protested.

“NO!” I said. “You gave me criticism. Constructive criticism means saying some nice things, too.”

“Actually, psychologists say you shouldn’t say nice things when giving constructive criticism because when you actually criticize, the person won’t take you seriously. So, no, I didn’t tell you good things. I told you helpful things.”

First of all, men, never use psychology on your wife, especially when she’s writing a “novel.”

Second of all, I can find no such evidence of his above thesis. Dr. Clifford N. Lazarus, Ph.D says to sandwich criticism in between layers of positivity.  Dr. Clifford N. Lazarus has the most awesome name I've ever heard and therefore I believe everything he says.

Finally, I’m reluctant to ever let John read anything of mine ever again, though undoubtedly I will because I actually respect his stupid mean opinion.

This is all leading up to the following: I may ask one of you to read my “novel” one day soon, and when I do, I only ask that you please use the sandwich method of constructive criticism.

(If people are going to use psychology on me, I should at least be allowed to choose the type of psychology.)

All I Know About Hockey I Learned From The Mighty Ducks

When deciding whether or not to accompany John to various soirees, I seriously consider two things: the horrors of mingling versus good food. Sometimes the food comes out on top. Sometimes it doesn’t. On Wednesday night, the food was linked to a free Sabres game, so I went. I had a massive hankering for a stadium cheeseburger.

I had a bad day Wednesday. My cowlick refused to conform to the basic architecture of my head, I had a huge zit right smack in the middle of my forehead, my kids were completely stir-crazy, and I’d received what I’m sure are the first of many rejections in the mail. Writing rejections are the worst. There’s no sugarcoating. They never say, “It’s not you, it’s us.” They might as well write the following:

Holly,


It’s not us, it’s totally you.


This isn’t what we’re looking for at all.


I guess you can submit again sometime, but get a clue first. Sheesh.


From,
A very, very mean editor.

Little did they know I would later attend Buffalo’s most highfalutin event on a Wednesday evening. That’s right. My day was bound to get better!

And what does the stay-at-home mom wear to a post-work highfalutin event at a hockey arena? These are the types of fashion questions that boggle my stay-at-home mom mind. John intended to go in his suit. If I had gone in a suit, people would’ve assumed I’d come from work. I would be faced with awkward, “What do you do?” questions. So, I opted for jeans, a nice top, and high-heeled boots. I made John change into khakis and a sweater.

We were very underdressed. And there were no cheeseburgers. Just a lukewarm pasta bar. I shook hands with one of the most powerful men in New York State government, and stood by sanguinely while John chatted with Mayor Brown and former Mayor Masiello, who shook my hand and told me it was lovely to see me again.

We’ve never met.

“The food here sucks,” I told them. “I want a cheeseburger.” (I didn't really say that.  But I was thinking it.)

One state legislator shook my hand for what seemed an excessive amount of time and then gave me his card, and told me to call him if I needed anything, anything at all. The card is still in my jacket pocket, and I intend to use it the next time I get lost in Buffalo.

“I'm looking for the exit to 33. No, I don’t need a GPS; I have your business card.”

At least there was the hockey game to look forward to! And we had great seats. Unfortunately, we were seated next to a perfect contender for that show Girls Gone Wild, and she also happened to be a Rangers fan. In the middle of the first period, we moved down and proceeded to watch the most boring hockey game that has ever not been broadcast on Time Warner Cable.

Luckily, at the beginning of the second period, Buffalo’s only gay, black, die-hard Sabres fan joined us, automatically raising our spirits, warming me up with a good cuddle, and flamboyantly explaining the makeup of the Sabres’s fourth line, which was helpful because even though I’ve watched hundreds of Sabres games over the past 15 years, I still don’t know what icing is.

“Icing! Icing!” I yell.

“That’s not icing,” says John.

“High sticking, then? Was it high sticking?”

Honestly, everything I know about hockey I learned from the Disney film The Mighty Ducks.

“Treat it like an egg, Gerbe! You’re not treating the puck like an egg! Form the flying V! Where’s the flying V? Why don’t they ever do the flying V?”

This is when John buries his face in his hands and doesn’t come up for a while. Gay, black, die-hard Sabres fan wasn't embarrassed to be seated next to me. We scorned the hot Rangers fan and yelled at Ryan Miller for his lazy goal-keeping.

On the way home, John and I listened to a most excellent podcast called, “How Did This Get Made?”, a show that discusses movies so terrible they’re amazing. They deconstruct gems like “Jingle All the Way,” “Twilight,” and “Superman 3.” We listened to the podcast about "Superman 3", or, "Superman: The One Where Supes Gets all Rapey."

On Wednesday night, I took a gamble, and I chose food over the horrors of mingling. And I lost that bet. But I had a good time anyway.

Mayor, it was lovely to see you again, too.

Neurotically Yours

Woody Allen:  Neurotic Looney-Bird

Dear Blog,


Today, I was absolutely certain a man was following me in Wegmans. I turned down the soup aisle; he turned down the soup aisle. I skipped four aisles and went straight to frozen foods, which I never, ever do, and so did he. Then, abruptly, he grabbed a box of ice cream sandwiches and briskly passed me on his way to the checkout line.

I don’t know what his game was. It’s very possible he just needed soup and ice cream sandwiches. But that seems unlikely.

This incident prompted a conversation with the husband.

Holly: I think I have the neuroses.

John: Excuse me?

Holly: Neurotic. I think I’m neurotic.

John: What do you mean?

Holly: Don’t you know what neurotic means?

John: I know one definition of neurotic.

Holly: What?

John: Never mind. Why do you think you’re neurotic?

Holly: I’m not telling you until you tell me your definition.

John: (Sighs.) Well, when a girl starts acting all crazy, guys will say, “she’s neurotic.”

Holly: Oh. (Pause.) You never say that, though.

John: No. Never. I would never say that.

Holly: I should hope not. Okay- I think I worry too much about little things that don’t matter. I worry constantly. I’m highly anxiety-prone. I apologize like a fiend for silly things. All indicators of the neuroses. (Silence follows, followed by what sounds like snickering.) Are you laughing at me?

John: No! I would never.

Holly: See, now I’m feeling like it’s not neuroses at all. Perhaps my anxieties are well-founded.

It went on like this, but I’ll spare you the rest, and move on to a conversation that took place yesterday:

So yesterday, my brother and I were discussing Betsy Lerner’s classic book for writers, The Forest for the Trees. In it, Lerner addresses six different kinds of writers, including: The Ambivalent Writer, The Natural, The Wicked Child, The Self-Promoter, and The Neurotic. Despite my self-diagnosed neuroses, I do not quite fall into the category of “The Neurotic” writer. I’m an Ambivalent to the core.

(Josh never said what he was. He’s probably “The Natural.” That would figure. He’s hitting ‘em out of the park like Ray Hobbs while I’m picking daisies out in left field.)

Here’s the first paragraph of Lerner’s chapter on “The Ambivalent Writer.” My thoughts are in italics.

Do you have a new idea almost every day for a writing projects? (Yes!) Do you either start them all and don’t see them to fruition or think about starting but never actually get going? (Yes! Both! Indeed!) Are you a short-story writer one day and a novelist the next? (I wear many colorful writing jackets.) A memoirist on Monday (Well, there’s you, dear blog…) and a screenwriter by the weekend? (Nope. No screenwriting. Too technical.) Do you begin sentences in your head while walking to work or picking up the dry cleaning, sentences so crisp and suggestive that they make perfect story or novel openers, only you never manage to write them down? (Yes! Such a waste.) Do you blab about your project to loved ones, coworkers, or strangers before the idea is fully formed, let alone partially executed? (No. But only because I’m shy.) Have you ever accidentally left your notes, diary, or disk behind on a train or plane and bemoaned the loss of what certainly had been your best work? (Yes, yes I have.) Have you ever been diagnosed with any combination of bipolar disorder, alcoholism, or the skin diseases such as eczema or psoriasis? (No. Dear God, no. Maybe the first a little, but no skin diseases. I do abuse Benadryl.) Do you snap at people who ask how your writing is going? (Yes.) What’s it to them? (Indeed.)

Do you fear that you will someday wonder where the years went? (I do. I do.) How it is that some no-talent you went to high school with is being published everywhere you look? Or some suck-up from graduate school is racking up prizes and being interviewed in the “At Lunch With” column of the New York Times, a series you used to enjoy. Now you can’t read it at all without thinking back to your classmate and the fawning way he used to schmooze your professors. (I know just the student. He wrote magical realism novels. He thought he was freaking Marquez.) God he was so transparent. (He really was.)

If you can relate to the above, you certainly have the obsessive qualities, along with the self-aggrandizement (Ouch. Was that necessary?) and concurrent feelings of worthlessness (It’s true. I am dirt.) that are part of the writer’s basic makeup.

It goes on. It’s a great book.

In order to arm myself with evidence that I am neurotic (because neurotics are forever in search of tangible proof), I took a test by the foremost authority on psychological matters: the website Psychologist World. According to Psychologist World, I am 86% neurotic, and should probably have my head shrunk on a daily basis.

These results are rather shocking.

Thankfully, I do not have OCD tendencies like some neurotics (it seems like very hard work to be a neurotic writer. How annoying it must be to have to have 12 perfectly sharpened pencils and a coffee with exactly two teaspoons of sugar before you started writing at exactly 8:32 in the morning? Gore Vidal had to have coffee AND a bowel movement before he could start writing.)

Instead, I worry about bizarre things. Is spending an hour writing a travel article as lucrative as spending an hour clipping coupons? Will wearing my hair in a pony-tail every day make me go bald? Why has everyone forgotten that Arkansas was raining birds a few months ago?

All of this to say that for a person who is suffering from both the neuroses and the ambivalence, I wonder how it is I'm faring so well. In fact, I think the quiz results might be greatly exaggerated and I'm rethinking my fervently held for 1 hour conviction that Psychologist World is the foremost auhority on all things psychological. 
So- no major self-realizations in this post.

And with that, dear blog, I must go. I have to finish my novel before the man from Wegmans finds me, murders me, and throws me in a freezer right next to the ice cream sandwiches.

There are worse ways to go, I'm sure.

Neurotically Yours,

Holly

An Education

I’ve taken up transcription work. I thought it would easy, quick, yet strangely lucrative work. I was, yet again, wrong. The last three days have been spent at my laptop, earphones attached to my head, where I am trying hard to transcribe the ramblings of an aging contemporary painter being interviewed by an art critic who is married to the words “um,” “uh,” and “like.” I’m trying to do this amidst the babbling of my four-year old sprite who has become obsessed with the idea that I have a juice box hidden somewhere in the house- a juice box I am cruelly withholding from her.

“Juice box!”

“Ella. There are no juice boxes. We are a no juice kind of family. I promise you, I don’t have any juice boxes in the house.”

“I WANT A JUUUUIIICE BOOOOX!”

“I don’t have a juice bo- do not touch my headphones! Those are my headphones! Mine!”

Working at home with kids is for the birds.

Also vying for my attention is Adam Sandler, who is trying to teach me all about the word “crunchy”. He is the guest-star on Sesame Street this morning, an honor that apparently is an even bigger deal than hosting Saturday Night Live. Cookie Monster’s cookies are crunchy. Poor Cookie Monster. The macaroons John brought me back from Albany are soft and chewy.

John has been suffering from the cholera for the past week and a half. Which is totally unfair. A while back, the two of us initiated a contest to see who could lose 15 pounds the fastest. Getting the cholera gives him an unfair advantage. He has lost 12 pounds and is looking a little like someone who is suffering from the cholera. Also, he keeps bringing me back the world’s most tasty almond macaroons from Albany- a cunning maneuver on his part.

I nibble on my macaroon as I listen to the aging painter whose ramblings are much like his art: abstract. I’ve spent inordinate amounts of time researching the proper spelling of various LA art locales, the names of prominent contemporary artists in the 1980s, and dinky towns in places like Japan and Hawaii. Who spouts off anecdotes about Queen Liliuokalani of Hawaii? I’m beginning to think my artist friend is a tiny bit pretentious.

The good news is: I’ve learned a little bit about the origins of the Bauhaus architectural movement. Information that I’m sure will help me in a future game of Trivial Pursuit.

“Who designed the modern architectural landmark Disney Hall?” they’ll ask, and I’ll say, “Frank Gehry, b@#ches!” And they’ll say, “Holly. It’s not your turn. Please stop doing that.” And I’ll say… nothing. Because I’ll be quite embarrassed.

The twins are having baby carrots for a snack this morning. Carrots are “crunchy.” Between lessons from Adam Sandler and the aging painter, I’m getting quite the well-rounded education.

For My Mom

I wrote this poem a decade ago for my mom, but never showed it to her.  So, mama, I post it today, an ode to the awesomeness that is you, the classiest woman I know.  Happy Mother's Day!


My Mother Preparing Dinner

She pauses to say hello when I come in
But is unable to let herself slow down, as if she somehow has lost the ability,
Lost the long sigh that accompanies a longer break, a quiet space between time.
She no longer watches television, because it requires being still.
Her hands move in rhythm, patting and squashing, peeling and turning.
Her eyes see the children, running and yelling;
She calms them before they disrupt her cadence.
She listens about the play I saw; the blue opaque glasses are set next to the plates.
She listens about the day I was sick; her feet spin to keep up with her hands.
She listens and listens and scurries, and the evening carries me,
Sitting silently at the table, watching, basking in the little details,
Like the scuffed kitchen floor, the browning bananas, the copper skillet sizzling.
For twenty minutes we are across from one another
And then the room seems to close in on her,
Or perhaps it’s the night music
That makes her unstoppable, unrestrainable,
Dancing to the symphony of running water and tinkering silverware.


And I know you don't have a copper skillet, mom.  It's called "poetic license."

Ribbons and Ink

Today's Scribophile post:

The Christmas I was fourteen, my parents bought me an electric typewriter for Christmas. It was my second typewriter; the first was small, pink, and I had to turn a wheel to choose the letter I wished to type. The new electric typewriter was grey, had a cover, a full-sized keyboard, and a backspace that activated an erase tape.

My desire for a typewriter stemmed from those rare occasions when my father would take me with him to work, where I entered a scene straight out of Mad Men. He worked in a high rise building where all of the secretaries sat in cubicles outside the attorneys’ offices, clicking and clacking away at their electric typewriters as fast as Clark Kent. It was captivating white noise.

In only a couple of years, typewriters in the work place would go the way of the dodo bird, but at the time, only a few had computers in their homes. My mother still pulled out her manual typewriter to fill out forms and write letters.

I wrote two books and countless stories of unrequited adolescent love with that electric typewriter. I still have them filed away, somewhere. I spent hours holed up in my room, typing until my joints ached. I dragged my parents to the office supply store and shelled out babysitting money for new ribbons and paper. That typewriter may have been the best thing that ever happened to me as a writer. I became obsessed with getting the thoughts that percolated in my young brain out, noisily, into printed format. I loved the whole typing process: the whirr of the machine when I turned it on, the methodical inserting of the paper, turning the feed rolls, engaging the shift lock, hitting the carriage release, and of course, the noise of the type striking the paper, making perfect ink impressions that would occasionally smear if I hit return before they dried.

Eventually, my parents bought our first computer: an Atari. A primitive printer came soon after, and it was noisy, but without my typewriter’s pleasant demeanor. It sounded like an instrument of torture each time it eked out one piece of printed paper. While the typewriter clicked away complacently, the printer made a loud and unseemly racket.

A better computer came in time, and I was allowed to take the Atari with me to college. I gave the computer up quickly; my roommate had a newer model that could access something called the internet, plus a campus-wide electronic mail system. The Atari went back home and gathered dust. After college, I got married, and happily, the new husband came with a set of Cutco knives and a brand new Dell.

In the years we’ve been married, we’ve purchased newer models. We’ve gone from the old bulky grey monitor to a sleek, black, flat-screen monitor. We have, in what seems an unnecessary indulgence, two printers: a laser and an ink-jet. We share the computer. Hundreds of Word documents and pictures have been transferred from computer to computer over the years.

This Christmas, the husband got me a netbook- a nice sized netbook with nearly a full-sized keyboard, and a tough, kid-proof exterior. (It crashed about five hours after I opened it, and I am still waiting for a replacement.) When the new netbook finally comes, I will own my very first computer. With my own secret passwords. My own files. My own, well, everything. My excitement is palpable! It feels almost like the Christmas I got my typewriter, especially since I found a program online where I can download typewriter sounds for my keyboard called “Home Typist.” The website claims that “the program is useful for home typists. At every touch of the keyboard there is the new sound, which makes the process of typing more interesting, amuses and reduces stress and helps to produce rhythmic typing.”

Somehow, I don’t think it will be quite the same. Also, I don’t think the patrons at Starbucks would appreciate the noise. So, I’m left with my memories… and high speed internet access. Just the same, I feel incredibly lucky to have been around at the end of an era- an era when writers could be inspired by the musical cadence of an old-fashioned typewriter.

This Post is the Result of an Impassioned Argument

Today's Scribophile post: 

This week, I caught myself in an impassioned argument with an ardent movie buff about the movies of M. Night Shyamalan (I like movies but wouldn’t go so far as to call myself a buff. More like a late-night couch potato.)

My friend, I’ll call him T-Bone, insists that the only decent movie Shyamalan made was The Sixth Sense, and even that was overrated. He says Unbreakable and Signs were tolerable, but the rest were, and I quote, “utter crap.”

I was indignant. I thought Unbreakable was brilliant and Signs was subtly spooky. (Plus, I liked that part in Signs where Joaquin Phoenix had tinfoil on his head. That amused me.) I loved The Village. I had to admit that the movie’s “twist” wasn’t great (I figured it out within the first fifteen minutes of the film, and this from a person who is consistently and pleasantly surprised at the end of Scooby Doo episodes), but, again: Joaquin Phoenix! And Ron Howard’s daughter! What a charming and original love story! Despite its predictability, I thought The Village was a worthwhile film.

I concurred, however, that The Happening was, and I quote myself now, “utter crap.”

The awfulness that was The Happening, and now, the awfulness that apparently is The Last Airbender, has sent former Shyamalan fans over the edge. At previews for his upcoming film, Devil, there have been reports of jeering! And laughing! As someone who is fairly certain she sat next to M. Night Shyamalan in a NYC café, making us nearly best friends forever, I am horrified by this behavior!

T-Bone wants Shyamalan to stop writing movies. Forever. He thinks Shyamalan can perhaps direct movies, but feels audiences needn’t be subjected to any more illogical plot twists or imaginary beings called narfs.

“I’m disappointed,” T-Bone admits, “because there might have been something really great there.”

I wonder. Was The Sixth Sense the best he had in him? Do we all have a best within us, and when it comes out, nothing will ever remotely compare to it? Or does the success of a particular piece of work, whether or be a novel, a movie, a piece of art, make a person strive too hard when they work on their next project, so that their compositions feel forced or inauthentic?

Ernest Hemingway was an exception to this rule. After the war, as his life began to spiral out of control, Hemingway’s writing suffered. He became his own worst critic, dismissing entire manuscripts as rubbish.

Hemingway was in bad shape. His love life (lives) were rocky. He drank too much. His novel, Across the River and into the Trees, was poorly received. His critics jeered. His reputation soured. Gertrude Stein called him names. Times were bad.

Then, in 1952, Hemingway published The Old Man and the Sea. Perhaps you read it in high school. In 1953, the book won a Pulitzer. A year later- the Nobel Peace Prize. And boom goes the dynamite. Papa was back on top. (Critically, at least. Soon after his greatest success, he was involved in two near-fatal plane crashes, each with left him with severe injuries that caused him extreme physical pain. His drinking worsened, he became clinically depressed, and he shot himself in 1961.)

I admire Hemingway for not discarding writing altogether. He worked, through chronic pain, through the jeering, perhaps just because he couldn’t not write. And something magnificent came out of it.

So, I for one, believe Shyamalan should keep making films- even writing films. (And no- I don't think Shyamlan is a Hemingway.) Perhaps I’m a bit deluded. But some movies, some novels, some short stories, are more than just “good”. They leave an indelible imprint on culture and individual memories. Ingrid Bergman’s single tear in Casablanca. The yellow brick road that meanders through Oz. Those remarkable first lines: Call me Ishmael; He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish; The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there. Those closing lines that tug at your soul: Remember Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.

This isn’t really a post about M. Night Shyamalan. It’s about pursuing a dream of greatness- even when you feel you’re failing. Even when someone else tells you you’re failing. Even when Gertrude Stein calls you names.

And I hope, sincerely, that M. Night Shyamalan makes another great movie. And I’m pretty sure he will. The dead people I see told me so.

Teenage Angst Poetry

I'm so buying this book.

I’ve decided to bring a little culture to my blog. On this Friday, I would like to share a poem with you. The idea came to be when I was sorting through my piano music and I stumbled upon my weathered notebook of teenage angst poetry, a compilation of brilliant verses composed by yours truly in the early nineties.

I was a hard-core romantic who had crushes on only a handful of mostly jerk teenage boys. Incredibly shy, I had one very well thought-out method of attracting their attention: I ignored them completely, looked the other way when they came into a room, and did my best never to talk to them. You will be surprised to hear that this strategy almost NEVER had the desired effect.

So, my lonely heart wrote poetry. Mostly love poetry. Which now makes me want to barf a little bit in my mouth. The rest of it is just plain angst-ridden, because, let’s face it, being a self-absorbed teenage girl with frizzy hair and no sense of style is tough.

The poetry is everything you’d ever want from a lovesick, tormented teenage girl: melodramatic, packed with in-your-face symbolism, and it rhymes.

I was an exceedingly talented rhymer. I’m not even going to be humble about that.

So here is a short example of one of my earlier pieces, entitled “His Eyes.”

Ahem.

His Eyes

Liquid eyes I would float in forever,
Eyes that drown my soul instead.
I get lost in those deep liquid eyes,
One day I will drown and be dead.

In case some of you aren’t deep enough to get this, I will break it down for you.

So, there was like, this guy who, like, was so perfect that my love inspired me to listen to my Journey CD, like, 15 times in a row one night. He had, you know, the MOST AMAZING eyeballs. They were all watery and maybe, like, sort of hazel with tinges of gold. But my love is totally unrequited and he doesn’t even know, that, like, he’s killing my soul.

Unfortunately, when I was growing up, we didn’t have cell phones or the internet or even the Twilight novels, so we spent a lot of time writing lovesick poems.

Maybe next time I’ll share the poem where I purposefully misspell the word cry (crie) because I thought I was being avant-garde.

If you’ll excuse me, I’m off to find my Journey CD.

Scribbling

I am a blogger for the writing website, Scribophile.com. If you feel compelled to read my thoughts on the struggles and joys of writing, my posts are published every Friday.

As a blogger, I get a free premium membership to the site. I have yet to figure out what this means, exactly, but I figured I’d better take advantage of it. I made up a lovely pen name, critiqued some people’s stuff, and garnered enough points to post a short story of my own that other writers could critique.

I waited with baited breath to see what people might say.

The story received mixed reviews. I was surprised that I didn’t take any of the criticism personally. There was no throwing of myself on the floor while moaning that I’m a worthless nobody, which relieved Caleb. (I’m kidding, I’m kidding. This has NEVER happened. Don’t call social services. Not yet, anyway.) I was, however, a little miffed that people didn’t get my subtle brand of humor.

In a nutshell, the story (which was written a couple of years ago) is about a girl trying to come to terms with the existence or non-existence of God. Deep deep stuff. It’s relatively short, only 1300 words, and is divided into five sections: Hannah’s (Hannah is my poor, confused protagonist) childhood, Hannah’s teenage years, Hannah’s college years, and Hannah’s early motherhood years. In the last section, Hannah’s husband bites the dust in a heroic fashion.

It’s a comedy.

Sort of.

Here’s an excerpt from “the college years” section.

Jason and his roommate, Seth, engaged in impassioned theological arguments and discussed people like Kierkegaard, Luther, and the Christian Platonists of Alexandria. Hannah knit them scarves as she sat, cross-legged, on Jason’s bed, and listened with acute interest, absorbing information and later writing what she learned down in a black and white composition notebook she kept under her pillow in her dorm room.

“That’s SUCH BULL*&%*!” Jason would often exclaim. Jason’s impassioned exclamations always piqued Hannah’s interest. He was the first Christian she had met who unapologetically swore in a loud and brazen fashion.

One afternoon, she asked her suite-mates what they thought about God.

“God is, like, within all of us,” said Stacy.

“I’ll tell you one thing. God doesn’t want us to kill babies,” said Shana.

“God is dead,” said Sam.

“Didn’t John Lennon say that?” asked Stacy.

“Yeah, I think so,” said Sam.

My critics’ major beef was with the conversation between Hannah and her suitemates. A UK critic was sure I meant flat-mates. A couple of critics informed me that John Lennon said that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus, not that God is dead. A third critic noted, with disapproval, that all of the suitemates’ names started with S.

This all amused me. I purposely had Sam wrongly attribute Nietzsche’s quote to Lennon. I also purposely gave the girls S-names- I thought it added to the humorous flow of the conversation, because the suitemates were obviously dingbats.

I was told the story needed to be longer. I was told I lacked focus. I was told the story was well thought-out. They found a lot of typos. That was embarrassing.

It was an interesting experience. Throwing your writing out there and asking for honest feedback is like begging for a piece of humble pie.

I often say to John:

“John! Nobody gets me!”

“Well, you’re very mysterious,” is his reply.

“Yes. Yes. Mystery is my passion,” I say, mysteriously. That is why I used a pen name when I posted my story. And it is why I will use a pen name when I rip apart other people’s writing on the site, as well.

"No passion in the world is equal to the passion to alter someone else's draft." -H.G. Wells

Ann Patchett and I Could've Been Friends...

“A friend of mine wrote on Facebook that he was suicidal and thinking about jumping off a bridge. So I poked him.” Tom Rhodes.

This is my way of saying I’m feeling pretty good lately. I’ve been exercising, I’ve been getting out some, and I’m hopeful about the sunny, warm weather promised later this week. If it rains on Easter, I know a meteorologist who will never see Christmas.

In other news, my blog seems to be dying a slow and natural type of death. This is me trying to revive it:

So, Ann Patchett was in town on Friday. Who is Ann Patchett? She’s just about the eighth to tenth greatest American female writer writing today! (If you have not read the novel Bel Canto, please do so yesterday.) I picked up John at work and we ventured to the local community college to hear her speak. I was so excited! I put on lipstick for her.

Ms. Patchett is obviously brilliant. She was funny and thoughtful and seemingly gracious. She name-dropped (I was talking with John Irving…), talked about her hatred of technology (she will never be on Facebook-sigh), and gave us some insight into what it was like to write her most famous novel (that’s an awful day when you kill your characters.)

As I sat listening to her speak, I was pretty sure that Ann was going to by next best friend. It was all so obviously meant to be. I would go up to her and say: Hey… I know a great little bistro. Let’s grab a panini and discuss Thomas Mann.

She would reply: That’d be great! I have such trouble getting people to discuss Thomas Mann with me!

I would say: Why would anyone not want to discuss Thomas Mann?

And she’d say: I know, right? I like you!

This never occurred, mainly because she floored me with her thoughts on a particular subject of interest to me.

I will set the scene for you. A student asked Ms. Patchett what she would have been if she had not been a writer. Ms. Patchett replied that if she could be reincarnated, she would be reincarnated as a woman with eight kids, just to see what that experience would be like. She admitted she has never cared for children.

“I have no interest in children. Not mine, not others,” she said. “Children take up all your time and don’t go away.”

Now, she said this all casually, in a lighthearted manner. She went on to explain that the things she enjoys most, listening to music, reading, and writing, could not be done with a two-year old running around. For her, the choice was obvious: books or children. Since she cared little for children, she chose books.

After she finished speaking on this topic, I turned to John.

“I am floored!” I said. “Simply floored.”

I have no problem with Ann Patchett’s disinterest in childbearing. It doesn’t offend me in the slightest. Two-year olds are noisy. And distracting. And they leave snot all over your cushions.

But I submit that most anything ANY adult enjoys doing best cannot be enjoyed with kids about. If everyone took this into great consideration before acquiring a child, we would have a lot fewer people in the world today.

My problem was her either/or attitude. Instead of saying “children or books” she could have just said, “I just never had an interest in having children.”

Yes, having children makes writing more challenging. When they are awake, I can’t read a page in a book without someone asking me for a cheese stick. (They love cheese sticks.) And no, I can’t run off to the Amazon to research my latest book. I mean, if I had a latest book, which would suggest I had an earlier book, which I don’t. I suppose I’m proving Ms. Patchett’s point here.

I was bewildered by her comments. Her dream was to become a writer. What happens if someone has two dreams, say have children AND be a writer? And what if that person is by nature, quiet? What if her personality is a lot like Ann Patchett’s?

I did a little bit of research. I looked up well-regarded (living) female writers to see how many children they had. Here’s what I found out:

Margaret Atwood-1 daughter
Anne Tyler- 2 daughters
Ann Patchett- 0 children
Anne Lamott- 1 son
Alice Munro- 3 children
Barbara Kingsolver- 2 daughters
Jhumpa Lahiri- 2 daughters
Joyce Carol Oates- 0 children
A.S. Byatt- 4 children
Toni Morrison- 2 kids

Average: 1.5 kids.

My conclusion: If AS Byatt ever comes to town, I’m totally going to hear HER speak.

Make Money Writing 101

It’s hard to gauge how well I am doing as a freelance writer. The thing is, I’m not a pushy person. It is not in my nature. I have a hard time “selling” myself. (Not because I don’t think I’m great- clearly I’m awesome- but because I’m petrified of “annoying people.” I am SHY, world. The world does not accommodate shy people, but that’s a topic for another blog post.)

Just the same, I’ve been freelancing now for almost a year and I’m generally pleased with how far I’ve come. I have enough regular clients that I don’t have to search out new work, unless I really want it. I have gained one excellent client through a referral and am really actually enjoying the research and writing (for the most part) I am assigned.

I’ve slowly upped my pay-rate and have turned down many, many potential clients whose pay-rates were too low (too low even for illegal immigrant laborers!) No, I will not write you a 500 word article for $1.00. One guy came back and said… okay, okay. $1.50. I took it. (No, not really.)

Several people have contacted me wondering how they might break into the freelance writing biz. It’s actually not that difficult. As with any home business, it just takes time to set up. For those looking into getting started, either as a career possibility or just for fun, here is Holly’s Make Money Writing 101 course for the interested.

First you have to KNOW what you want to write about. Being a housewife/mother with a degree in English, I felt like my potential writing topics were limited. However, there is a market out there for parenting/ family-life related articles. I’ve also found a niche in health-related and fitness topics, arts-and-crafts topics (which is kind of a stretch for me) and literary topics. (My favorite current job is writing short blurbs for the backs of classic books-on-tape.)

The good news: there is a market for nearly any kind of writer. The bad news is that it’s easy to get distracted and try and create too many “niches” for yourself. Freelance writers who specialize in a particular niche are more desirable than the jack-of-all-trades writer. Professional resume writers, academic writers, and lyricists who have experience and success in their fields can expect to be paid well. Figure out what you want to write about, find out where your market is, and take the time to get really good at what you do. It will take a good year to establish your “business” and longer to make decent money.

People will pay you for:
• Blog writing
• Magazine articles (print and online)
• Book reviews
• Newsletters
• Sales letters
• Song lyrics
• Press releases
• Web copy
• Brochures
• Manuals
• Resumes
• Greeting Cards
• Academic papers
• Ghostwriting
• Grants
• Scripts
• Fliers
• Technical writing
• Interviews
• Biographies

People will also pay you to proofread, edit, and will pay for consulting services.

If you are talented, dedicated, and headstrong, you can make money writing e-books, your own relevant blog (NOT A FAMILY LIFE, PERSONAL BLOG LIKE MINE!!!), or one of those antiquated dusty things with bindings that people used to peruse through before the internet. Regular books, I think they’re called.

E-books are taking off. Lots of non-fiction, informational books are being published as e-books and can be viewed on the computer or on ebook readers like the Kindle, the SONY Reader, or Apple’s brand new iPad.

Making a LIVING as a freelance writer requires intense marketing skills, which I greatly lack and hope to improve upon this coming year.

Where do you find your first writing gig? They don’t just fall on your lap, unfortunately. You have to be proactive.

I have found most all of my work online. Proactive people seek out jobs. They send query letters to various magazines or they send informational letters about themselves to local businesses advertising their services. A lot of writers find business by advertising themselves on Craig’s List. I have a “professional” website now that will probably never land me a new client, but it is useful: I use it as a reference when I apply for a job.

Here’s a list of online resources where you can find websites that pay, job markets, and writing contests and informational articles. This has been a work in progress and I may add more later.

Sites where you can bid on jobs: There are a number of sites where you can sign up as a freelancer (writing, graphic design, etc.) and bid on writing jobs. The lowest bid, of course, doesn’t necessarily win. Buyers look to get cheap, high-quality writing. You are competing against people from all over the globe, some perfectly happy to write for $2.00 an hour. However, sometimes, there’s a great job on these sites that pays well. It just takes time to sort through the slave-labor jobs.

Elance.com
Guru.com
Odesk.com
Freelancewriting.com
Getafreelancer.com
Ifreelance.com
Scriptlance.com

You can join some of these sites for free while others require a monthly fee. The sites usually take a percentage of the buyer-provider transaction, something to take in mind when you are bidding! I found my first regular client on Odesk.com. I’ve found that Elance.com seems to have the best paying buyers.

Content providers: There are a number of sites that pay for and then distribute content on the web. I’ve already written about my experience with Examiner.com. The problem with these sites is that the quality of writing can be low because there are few to no editorial guidelines, and the pay is weak. However, a lot of people use the sites to network or just to write about something they actually care about. Here are the most common content sites:

Associatedpress.com
Suite101.com
Examiner.com
http://www.helium.com/
DemandStudios.com
eHow.com
Triond.com
Life123.com
Orato.com
HubPages.com
Xomba.com
Livestrong.com
Firehow.com
Constant-content.com
Textbroker.com
Aci-plus.com: (Pays for academic papers.)

A lot of these sites are pay-per-click sites, meaning that you get paid according to how many people actually take a look, no matter how long, at your article. Some provide revenue-sharing, which means that you could make decent money on an article over a long period of time. Demand Studios pays a flat fee of $7.50 or $15.00 for an article and it also offers a revenue-sharing option. (For a content site, that’s not too bad, actually.)

Constant-Content has fairly stringent editorial guidelines and reviews each individual article. You can get paid up to $75.00 for selling full-rights to your article. I wrote a 600 word article on adult acne (something I happened to be researching for personal reasons at the time-sigh) and sold it within two days for $30.00. I’ve only bothered with Demand Studios, Constant-Content, and Textbroker. You have to really comb through Textbroker to find good-paying jobs. I like that I can make $30.00 in an hour at Demand Studios if I really put my mind to it. (Typing super fast helps.)

Making money on content sites requires some SEO (search engine optimization) skills, marketing knowledge, and choosing topics that sell. For instance, the #1 Examiner on Examiner.com is the Twilight Examiner. Twilight as in Edward and Bella. A parenting blog marketed to a local audience just wasn’t gonna make me a lot of money, even if I spent hours promoting it. However, these sites are great for someone who wants to write about something they care about while making some grocery money.

(Read this article for an interesting look at content-mill websites: “I Was Sucked into Content Mill Writing by Anonymous.”)

Writing Markets: There are a ton of free writing markets on the web. Good jobs get taken fast, so I subscribe to various ezines make sure I’m on top of the job market. Here's a small sample of the best markets out there:


Worldwide Freelance Writer: Sign up for their newsletter and receive an e-book with 25 writing markets that pay at least .25/word.
Writer Gazette: Krista Barrett’s freelance writing site is a Writer’s Digest top writing site. Krista is just a normal girl who shares a lot of information for free. Sign up for her weekly newsletter and check out her job board and contest listings.
Mediabistro.com: Their job site lists freelance opportunities and full-time job listings for writers/ journalists/ editors. It also has links that tell you how to pitch ideas to specific magazines like Self, Redbook, and Sports Illustrated.
Writer’s Market: 5.99/month will get you a listing to pretty much every writer’s market out there. Or buy the book; it comes out once a year. The “paid services” section online has hundreds of free listings of contests, conferences, and other useful stuff.


Fiction and poetry writers:

Duotrope’s Digest: Has over 2800 poetry and fiction markets.
Poets and Writers Magazine: Literary markets, contests, grants, job listings
Writer’s Digest: Writer’s markets, competitions, and tons of useful articles for writers.
Funds For Writers: Exactly what it sounds like.

Old fashioned methods are still really great ways to find freelance writing gigs. Again, it takes some persistence and personal drive.

• Cold call local businesses, organizations, educational institutions and see if they are in need of someone to write marketing materials/ brochures, etc.
• Check out the no-name pamphlets and/or magazines in your doctor’s office. Someone writes those inspirational stories of people who live with rheumatoid arthritis or those informational articles about what vitamins will make your hair look shiny.
• Contact your local newspaper with story ideas. (Small-town newspapers, too!) Write articles for local magazines; those free circulations you grab at the supermarket are always looking for quality freelancers.
• Know someone famous? Are you tenacious enough to try and get in contact with someone famous? Interviews are ALWAYS marketable. In fact, you can probably shop a good interview around and get a great price.
• I was audacious enough to contact a business owner and point out the many spelling and grammatical flaws in their promising website. I offered to revamp the whole thing. Surprisingly, he agreed! We are working out a contract.
• There’s a market out there for book reviewers. You can always get a free book in the deal, but if you are confident enough, you can get paid well to review an author’s book. Often, they require that you post a review on several different sites. Of course, it takes time to actually read the book. With the rise of e-books, more and more authors are desperate to find third-parties to market their material.

Other interesting places to visit:

The Beginner’s Guide to Freelance Writing

6 Sites that Pay You for Writing Book Reviews

The Answer Factory: Demand Media and the Fast, Disposable, and Profitable as Hell Media Model

5 Tips for Marketing Your Freelance Writing Business

This past year, I have done a lot of technical writing, a lot of fitness writing, some reviews, a lot of website copy, and I just found out a short essay was accepted to be published in an anthology. I recently submitted a short story to a literary magazine. I hope to have time to write more fiction this year, but have also promised the official husband of Holly Goes Lightly that I will write my thesis proposal and get the damn thing done with. Argh. It just feels like such a waste of time and money… but I could use the actual degree.

This year, I would also like to try and submit to actual publications instead of doing so much ghostwriting. Again, this takes me being proactive, and that just seems so… exhausting. I am also trying to network with an online community of writers to garner support and to share ideas. Which brings me to to my question, dost thou haveth ideas to shareth?

To fellow writers: please use comments to suggest other great ways for freelancers to make money writing and to share your writing goals for the year. Holly especially needs marketing advice!

Why I No Longer Write for Examiner.com

There aren’t many careers for mothers of four who want to stay home. (Especially laziesh mothers who have degrees in English.) I decided to give freelance writing a whirl because, unlike other home-based businesses, it requires almost no overhead cost. I had a computer, half a brain, and basic tech skills. My start-up fees entailed the purchase of two books on freelance writing and a subscription to Writer’s Digest.

I found Examiner.com on some job-search site. Examiner.com is basically an online newspaper that focuses on local information from area natives. I needed a spot where I could create content to send to potential employers. Examiner.com provided a place to do just that.

I wrote some articles for the website. When I applied for short-term freelance writing gigs, I would include a link to my Examiner.com page. I think the site did help me land some jobs, though they were low-paying jobs. Really low-paying. Like, insultingly low. But I had no “experience,” so I took the jobs to build a sort of portfolio.

I was the first “Examiner” in the Rochester-area. (If this is my one-time claim to fame, oh please shoot me now.) I applied for a job and also lobbied for my fair city to be deemed important enough to be included on the site. It worked and I was soon dubbed the “Rochester Parenting Examiner.” There are now over 50 Rochester Examiners who write about various subjects like cosmetics, paranormal activities, and the Rochester Red Wings.

Some facts about Examiner.com:

-They pretty much hire anyone.

-They pay pittance. (It is a pay per click site… you get paid according to how many people visit your site.)

-Employers that pay well do not regard Examiner.com as a serious venue for freelance writers.

Examiner.com has some really good writers. However, it takes time to troll through the garbage to find them. A lot of articles are simply regurgitated material from other websites. This is what the internet is turning into: the same information over and over again presented in different ways. (I get a ton of solicitations from employers asking me to “rewrite” articles. It’s not plagiarism if it passes Copyscape!)

Examiner.com started getting pushy. They have $50.00 incentives for any Examiner who gets someone else to become an Examiner. I started getting tons of e-mails encouraging me to recruit friends and family members to write for the site. Did you know that you can write about anything? Rochester has an Egypt Traveler Examiner! Really! There’s an Orleans County Firehouse Examiner! There are now several Examiners who write about mothering and parenting issues. There is a Rochester Health and Happiness Examiner, a Rochester Golf Course Examiner, and a Rochester Makeup Examiner. There are three Rochester Movie Examiners. (The Rochester Makeup Examiner is a teenage girl who resides in a suburb of Rochester. One of her sidebar topics is “red lips.”) If you have an interest in an obscure niche, say the Catahoula Leopard Dog, you can have your very own blog about it on a national website.

Examiner.com is a legitimate site. It is not a scam. However, it definitely takes advantage of aspiring writers who are searching for legitimacy. While it offers an outlet for creativity, Examiner.com is not concerned about stellar content. There are no editors. No one gets reprimanded for misspellings or syntactical errors. Here’s an example of an interesting sentence that could have benefited from a little editing:

Landscape lighting for Christmas comes in so many more forms than ever before. (From the National Backyard Living Examiner.)

(I do not pretend to be some great writing talent. I have an unhealthy love affair with the comma and am a big fan of the sentence fragment.)

My major beef with Examiner.com is that someone out there is making oodles of money on someone else’s pithy little article about cooking turkey testicles for Thanksgiving. Some bigwig is gaining profits off of freelancers who spend hours writing articles for .20 a pop. People are making an actual living by exploiting someone else’s dreams of publication.

Oh well. Such is life. I’m jumping off that boat. Having said that, if you’re interested in becoming an Examiner, let me know. I’ll jump back on the boat and pocket that $50 no problem.

Some of the Rochester Examiners I DO read:

Rochester Atheism Examiner Viktor writes well and is controversial. His posts make me sooo angry, but that’s why I read them. I love a good debate. He even had an interview with the smoking man from the X-Files.

Rochester Crime History Examiner Michael Keene is by far my favorite Rochester Examiner. I can’t help but get drawn in to his tales of crimes of the past. I would totally buy his book if he ever publishes one.

Rochester Unemployment Examiner Michael Thornton is an expert on his topic and writes timely articles about an important, current issue.

Postscript: Those looking for other ways to make money writing should check out my incredibly informative post: Make Money Writing 101, which is immensely popular and was recently nominated for a Pulitzer.

NaNoWriMo Update

About NaNoWriMo.

NaNoWriMo is dead to me.

I’m so over it. This novel cannot be written in a month. There’s just way too much raw material to be dissected and put back together in a short amount of time. (This is me being facetious.) Projected finish date: December. Of 2020.

My protagonist is still in the basement, though the chapter is now filled with various flashbacks and back-story. Inevitably, I’ll have to return to the basement and finish that whole bit.

This writing business is very tricky. You have to be consistent. You can’t introduce someone by one name, for instance, and then refer to them by another name later on in the story. It gives readers a lack of confidence in their storyteller.

Also, you can’t switch tenses and points of view all of the time. If you start writing in the past tense, i.e. she walked down the street or she kicked the dog or she drank the fizzy, vile tasting liquid (I know… you’re intrigued now!) you have to KEEP WRITING in the past tense. You can’t, for instance, do this:

She walked down the street and kicked the dog. She wished she hadn’t consumed that vile, fizzy liquid. She moves toward the house. She is quick on her toes, now. She sees the dirty cop.

Which is why I have decided that in order to make sure I am consistent, I am going to write my entire novel in the Present Perfect Progressive tense:

Throughout the entire year, she has desired to walk into the basement. Since her youth, basements have held special significance to her. In fact, since 1992, she has known that walking into that basement would be… significant.

It’s going to blow your socks off.

I’m taking a short break from the “novel” to work on a short story that has been in progress for over a year. I’d like to finish it.

My problem invariably goes back to my short attention span, which might be attributed to my inability to follow through with anything. This probably has something to do with my childhood or someone yelling at me about some project I actually completed or maybe it has something to do with my fear of going over Niagara Falls. It could be anything, really.

I’ll keep you updated. Maybe.

NaNoWriMo

I am participating in National Novel Writing Month. I'm vying to complete an entire novel in the month of November.

I am already set to fail at this, but it was really fun for the first few days when I was meeting my daily word goal.

A novel is at least 50,000 words. Right now I have… a lot fewer words than that. If you want to be a serious contender in NaNoWriMo, you have to be writing during every spare second that you have. Lately, my spare seconds have been few and my husband, God love him, doesn’t like it when I disappear for hours in the evening to write. Something about “spending time” together or some such silliness.

I finished the first chapter of my “novel” and sent it to my dad, which was very very brave of me, to critique. He certainly didn’t pretend it was the next Anne Tyler or anything but he did encourage me to continue.

I’ve gotten stuck.

Perhaps you’ve seen the Frank Capra film “You Can’t Take it With You.” If you haven’t, go and rent it right now.

Penny Sycamore, mother of James Stewarts’ paramour in the film, sits day after day in the middle of her living room writing her endless novel. She finds she has gone and written her protagonist into a monastery. Every character in the film who traipses through the living room (and there are quite a few who do so) is questioned as to whether or not they have ever been in a monastery. Penny never has, and doesn’t quite know how to get her protagonist out of the setting. Here are some lines from the movie:

Penny Sycamore: Were you ever in a monastery, Mr. Poppins?

Poppins: In a monastery?

Grandpa Martin Vanderhoff: What's the matter, Penny, stuck?

Penny Sycamore: Yes, I've sort of got myself in the monastery and I can't get out.

Grandpa Martin Vanderhoff: It'll come to you. Remember how you got out of that jail.

I have written my protagonist into a basement with a bunch of giggly teenage girls and I can’t seem to get her out. The novel isn’t even about giggly teenage girls and I don’t know how I wrote her into this mess.

Sigh.

I could scrap the whole scene and be out a couple of thousand words. I could just skip and go on to the next chapter and come back to it later. I could admit utter and total defeat already and move on to something else, which would be just like me. I have a rather short attention span. Or, I could go with it and see what these giggly teenage girls do next. I have a feeling they are up to no good.

She could be stuck in this basement forever.

To my writer friends… what do you do when you get “stuck?”

Chase Twichell, Poetry, Ecology, Zen Buddhism, and Cookies

The American poet, I have learned, is usually at least one, or perhaps all, of the following things:

1) An ecologist/ environmentalist… which of course, makes sense, since poets are the ones noticing the minute details of nature and describing them in, sometimes, lurid detail (The spicy stench of the stinkbug as its juices explode on the sidewalk…)

2) A Bush-hater. Ironic? Not really. I mean Bush, the former president(s), especially the second one with the W squished between his first and last name. Not a shrub.

I don’t mean they hate Bush the way your neighbor hates Bush. I mean, HATE. Like, they dream about his ultimate demise and death by a barrage of words of affliction. (Poets are generally not fighters; they are adamant believers in that age-old phrase “the pen is mightier than the sword!” The truth of this statement was best exhibited in the last Indiana Jones movie. Remember? When they were in the tank? No- not the latest Indiana Jones movie. I like to pretend that one doesn’t exist. But I digress…) Some people, namely mothers and spouses of soldiers, really sincerely wished Bush had called off the war on Iraq. I think poets like to rail against the war, but never truly wanted Bush to pull the troops, because who then, pray tell, would they have hurled their words of affliction at?

3) Zen Buddhists.

I am none of these things, and perhaps this is why I am a lousy poet. I love nature and hiking and sunsets and little purple violets and drying hydrangeas and the smell of an Adirondack spruce (must be Adirondack, please). But, I do not let thoughts of oil spills and acid rain and the threat of the extinction of the spotted owl consume my thoughts so much as to warrant, well, a poem.

I don’t particularly like Bush… thought he was a crappy president and I do believe the war was based on false pretenses. FALSE PRETENSES! But again, even with the caps on, I can’t muster enough passion (what does that say about me?) to warrant a, um, poem.

This evening, poet Chase Twichell read to a group of earnest college students (and grad students, too) a collection of poems about discovering the self at the University of Brockport Writers Forum. Chase Twichell is a Zen Buddhist, which is, I think, different from a regular Buddhist.

Man, if I wasn’t a Christian, and had the choice of funky eastern religions, I might just choose Zen Buddhism. I would so pursue ultimate reality through greater consciousness like it was my job. To do this, you have to meditate a lot, which sounds very restful and kind of like sleeping ,which is, like, my favorite thing to do in the entire world.

Ms. Twichell said that we are NOT unique but are all a part of one great consciousness. We think we are unique, but that is just the conditioning of our culture and our upbringing. There is nothing new under the sun. I knew that, because God said it first, I think, in the bible. But, I know something Chase Twichell DOES NOT. I have played the game let’s create a sentence no one else ever has before! This is the game where you string random words together to make a completely original statement. Here’s one:

I am going to the Adriatic Sea to eat conch and smell seaweed while stringing toilet paper on my brother who is a sea monkey from Andalusia.

I don’t think anyone else has ever uttered those exact words in that exact order. (If you've seen it elsewhere, let me know right away!) Therefore, I put something unique out into the universe, the sound waves of which are still traveling miles and miles away from earth, and I did it without transcending into the greater consciousness of the universe. Does that, y’know, count for something? And isn’t that kind of like poetry? Really bad poetry?

The evening began with a Q & A with Ms. Twichell. She didn’t talk about being Zen until it was almost time to start the reading. In the meantime, we thought of interesting questions to ask her: What was her writing process? Who influenced her as a poet? When does she know her poems are ready to be fossilized? AND why is the sky blue and the grass green and in the ultimate reality, which can only be achieved through enlightenment, is the sky still blue and the grass still green or is it, like, reversed or totally different and are there more colors that we can’t even conceive of because our mind, is, like, not open enough?

My favorite comment came from the student who compared her poetry to “Duende.” He very politely apologized to the rest of us because we “probably have no idea what I’m talking about” and then he said to Ms. Twichell, “but I’m sure you do.” Very smooth, dude! Putting yourself on par with the famous American poet! I literally felt the rest of us fade away so it was just the two of them, discussing the influences of the Spanish poets on her work. It was a very Zen moment.

I wanted to say, hey, man. Lorca and I had lunch and a long conversation about death and the sublime last weekend over at Jines, so who’s enlightened now? But I'm shy so I stayed quiet.

After the Q&A session, I listened to the words of my fellow classmates as we tottered down the hall to the auditorium.

“Her language is just so, so, like, immediate!”

“It’s uncommon to hear someone so naked.” (An actual comment.)

“Oh, Lord have mercy… there are cookies at this event???” (That was me.)

I liked the poetry. I really did! I even listened to most of it. You know when you’re in church and they go ahead and sing all of the verses of a hymn instead of just the first and the last? And how, toward the third verse, you kind of trail off and start daydreaming about lunch or when communion is gonna start because you’re kind of hungry? That’s what it’s like to listen to lots of poetry all at once. For me, anyway. I get overloaded and have to take a mental breather.

Chase Twichell was very cool, for an environmentalist-Bush-hating-Zen Buddhist. She didn’t seem to take herself too seriously, which is important in a person, I think. She had a sense of humor that was light and self-deprecating, which I also approve of. She had very cute blonde hair and wore a pink shirt. (Nothing says friendly like a bright pink shirt.) She read her poems with evocation and answered our questions gracefully with a confidence that, I’m sure, comes from years and years of presenting her work in front of gushing young students who want so badly to be published in the Kenyan Review. So, yeah, my teasing is tinged with jealousy, because I am a lousy poet.

Just the other day, my mother said something beautiful about hydrangeas… about how lovely they are even after the flowers have died. She reflected on the way they dry so beautifully and how the leaves become tinged with brown, like an old photograph. I was all let’s make this a poem! Death is like a hydrangea…

But here’s where my mind went. I could not get any further than the “both humans and hydrangeas dry up and wither and die” analogy. I got stuck because humans, after they cease to exist, are left soulless and pale and full of stinky liquids that need to be drained. I suppose one could write that in the years before death, wrinkles and age spots and yellowed teeth are like browning hydrangeas. I couldn’t quite make it work. And then my mind wandered off, as it does so often, and I started thinking about whether or not I wanted to be buried or cremated and why it is, exactly, that Christians as a people seem so opposed to cremation? And then I thought about whether or not I had signed the back of my new license to be an organ-donor and about how sad my kids would be in the aftermath of my passing and that I better write out a list of things for John to do (or not do) when it occurred, things such as: don’t buy crunchy peanut butter, don’t talk with the twins’ speech therapist about politics, and for God’s sake, wash behind the kids’ ears because, believe it or not, they do get grimy.

And then I thought about my funeral, and what hymns they should play, and the scent of the flowers I wanted to fill the sanctuary, to cover up the sour smell of death… hydrangeas really are so beautiful. And then I found I had come full circle.

But I couldn’t make a poem about it.


The All of It by Chase Twichell

I stood naked in the icy brook
Under stars. I lay on hot granite
Crisped with pearl-gray lichen
We crushed beneath us.

He tied trout flies with dog hair
And feathers, cooked the little fish over the coals, on green sticks
He later burned, leaving nothing.

Was that it? Exactly that,
The Inside Knowledge,
The All of it?


What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. Ecclesiastes 1:9