Work-wise, I am in grant-writing hell. One reason I am quiet in the blogosphere. Call me crazy, but I decided to rework an NIH research proposal on chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and depression. I kind of think they're linked--if you take your antidepressant meds, I have a hunch you might improve adherence to COPD meds and have better outcomes. But maybe it's the other way around--breathing better makes your depression better? I dunno, but I have a statistical work-around, thanks to my brilliant post-doc and students.
Did you hear--I got promoted? To Senior Fiction Editor at JMWW? For some reason uber-Editor Jen Michalski trusts me enough to play Goddess with submissions, and with the careful eyes and discerning tastes of the rest of the fiction editors, perhaps I will get more comfy with this role. But I am learning--SO MUCH! Like Submittable never sleeps... never... and, like tribbles, the inbox seems to reproduce over night.
Got a story coming out at Smokelong Quarterly next month. Booya!
Finished up a second draft of THE RUNAWAY, another chapter in THE MINISTER'S WIFE, my project-under-construction. But at 12,000 words, it is almost a novella. I usually have no difficulty in murdering my lovelies, but this time...
Reading THE HUMAN STAIN by Philip Roth. My first full-throttle Roth experience. He is effing brilliant at characterization and, yeah, maybe he is self-absorbed, but who cares if the reading is this good?
What are you writing and reading these days? And please, pardon me if I stick out my tongue--I'm merely stretching my toes. Namaste...
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You've been busy! Congrats on the fun new editor position, and on making headway with The Minister's Wife. Yoga, toe or otherwise, would be a huge help for someone with so many irons in the fire. :)
ReplyDeleteYou do all this, and you somehow manage to do it with perfectly polished toenails. Wow.
ReplyDeleteWhat have I been doing? Er.... um... how does absolutely nothing sound? And I'm doing it with chipped toenails.
Fantastic news about the promotion and all the writing publications! So cool.
ReplyDeleteCommiserations on the research proposal issues, though. There's always something to stress us out.
And I had no idea that there's a muscle that goes all the way from the second toe to the tongue. That's interesting. Maybe that's a possible reason why the toes can be erogenous? Just a passing thought.
Jai
Congratulations - on all fronts.
ReplyDeleteThanks all, it is all good.
ReplyDeleteI do yoga because if I don't make myself go to class, I don't relax. I live life hard, and that has its pros and cons, the main one being not doing anything. Which is central to both yoga and creativity--the non-doing allows one to be fallow and receptive to ideas, images, and the like.
Cathy, the ONLY reason my toenails are painted is because I had the yoga feet workshop and the polish was chipped and I did not have remover, so I slapped on a coat--the polish is bumpy and still adhered to skin and cuticle. The toe separators, however, do make toe polishing a breeze.
Nine more days of proposal writing hell. Today I accidentally deleted my endnote library with all my references. That was bad. I owe my post-doc mega. Peace...
Congrats on the editor position - sounds like it will be fun and interesting!
DeleteYoga for feet...love the idea and I somehow think my feet would too.