Life Happens

And gets in the way at times. Like the past two weeks, work's been whacking me into a flubbery, brain-dead blob of silly putty. Among other things, work keeps pecking at my brain, my heart, pushing me off-kilter.

The day job is a complicated web, one rife with politics and intrigue and behind-the-scenes-deals. Lots of bad behaviors, borderline ones, and as I climb the ladder to the higher echelons of the Ivory Tower, I see more and more stuff I wish I didn't. It keeps me up nights, so I'm tired, too. But I console myself - all this soap-opera-boxing is incredible fodder for PURE, which deals with many of these very not-so-academic issues. So I absorb, like a sponge, try to stay quiet, and scribble madly when I can.

See? Even my prose sucks...

What little writing energy I do have these days is invested into the Poem-A-Day challenge, posted daily at POETIC ASIDES and, for the first week only, HERE.

The challenge is just that - a challenge - far more difficult than I imagined. Think of it as NaPoWriMo - a blitzkrieg of verse. And there's some damn fine stuff being spouted at Poetic Asides, so it gets... intimidating. But everything I post is pretty much a first draft, armatures for further revision and polishing later this year. I am committed to finishing out the month and continuing with my daily Vitamin P.

Of course, I'm (still) readying BRIGHTER THAN BRIGHT for various pitches and manuscript reviews and conferences and readings and contests - all that jazz. I'll be in Beantown for The Muse and the Marketplace at the end of this month, then the Washington Independent Writers conference in DC on June 14. 'Tis the beginning of the marketing season, so I'm busy.

My writing buddies have had some notable success the past few days:

>Jimmy the Prince has TWO offers for a publication contract for his brilliant DARK SIDE OF THE SOUL. TWO!!!!! I'm a reader, editor, nudger, friend, and am so very proud of him and his story.

>Kim of Kenai Peninsula placed in the top 5 (out of over 1,100 entries) Writer's Digest 11th Your Story - go Kim! (It was an excerpt from her novel TOWING WATER).

>Chrys from Orcas Island has an excerpt of her memoir MOONCHILD published in SHARK REEF.

>And Kelley has her first 'literary' short forthcoming in GUD.

Keep writing, friends; clearly, you're all doing the amazingly right thing. Peace, Linda