Change is Good--Right?

Hello dear readers--are you still out there?

It's been awhile, and I wouldn't blame you for moving on. I felt the need for change, and have spent some time with a new website, and setting it up is like learning a new language if, like me, you are a Luddite. So I am done writing here. It's been a great ride, one lasting more than a decade. I've made a lot of friends, and learned a lot about writing. Please join me as I start a new venture at lindawastila.com.

Peace...

Faux Joy (Writing Down the Year)

Christmas Eve feels more like Christmas than the actual day. As a child, we opened our presents on Christmas Eve, a slow process where every one opened a gift one at a time. Stockings were opened in the morning, after a pan of pannu-kakku, a Finnish pancake slathered with butter and cinnamon and sugar. But now I'm an adult--opening gifts is relegated to the kids--and Christmas Eve is often when I begin to bake my cookies and write my letters and cards.

Writing becomes a reflective exercise--what happiness occurred since the last letter? What travels? What milestones achieved? I receive many family letters in the mail, and while I enjoy reading them, it always seems those families celebrate so much joy, so much unity and good times. The children excel, the family trips filled with smiling faces. I wonder--did anything shake the lives of these people I care about? Did anything scare them? Did their children become ill, or refuse school, or try to harm themselves? I hope not. I truly hope not. But I know my own letter masks the sadnesses we have encountered, the crises and fears and shattered hopes.

My letters and cards always go out late--it's the nature of the beast of someone on an academic schedule. I call them my New Year's cards. But if no cards or letters go out it's because the sadnesses were too much and too big to hide.

This year, I will write my letter. I will try to make it honest by touching on both happy events and those that filled me with grief. I am grateful that this year I can write a letter at all.

So in between batches of butter stars and nut biscottis, I will draft my words, find my pictures, commemorate another year passed.

May you find peace with those you love, and yourself...

Linda

TRANSITIONS

Another gray morning. Rain smacks the roof, a sound I once loved but have become immune to. Just as January signifies a new start, so does this month as school winds down, summer looms, and the season of leisure begins in a few short weeks. This year I worry about the tomatoes and the berries—will they ripen? One year when I lived in Massachusetts, summer never showed up. Many plants never bloomed, fruit never set, it was that cold.

One of my graduate students flew the coop this week. She is a brilliant young woman, an ambitious one, but most of all, kind and compassionate. Her parents flew from Taiwan and I met them, gracious people and proud parents. They are the lucky ones—they get to claim her forever. My student will start her new life in Boston, where she wanted to go, working with a colleague that once was my student. She will do well there—her new work group does important work and they are great folks. I feel pride and joy for her, but also sadness because we’ve worked together for almost five years, and there’s a little hole in my heart.

At work, soon I will shed old roles and take on new ones. Exhilarating and petrifying…

My dear daughter got into the high school program she applied to—bio-medical sciences. She wishes to be a forensic anthropologist. Truth be told, she'll be an amazing scientist: curious, seeking, persistent. In a few weeks my dear son returns home after nearly two years away at private school. He enters his senior year, though we’re still not sure where. I feel grateful and excited that my nest will be full again. And then… the nest will begin to empty again. I see families with babies and toddlers and I yearn for those times, long for the first words, first steps, first every things…

In three weeks I’ll fly to Denver for a week of writing. I’ll meet up with my good friend Barbara, an amazing writer and my soul sister. We met three years ago in Taos, and bonded immediately in the line for drinks at the opening reception. Another writer friend, whom I’ve not yet met, will also be there. We’re taking a juried workshop with Jenny Offill, author of the phenomenal Department of Speculation which managed to touch every nerve I possessed and rubbed it raw. I’m excited, and nervous; my own book, still in process, touches on many of the same themes.

My friend and writing colleague Jacqueline Bach has a cool blog called THE PROCESS PROJECT, where she interviews writers about their approaches to the craft. I'm up this week, so please take a look and read the wise words from over two dozen other writers.

What’s new with you? What’s old?

Peace…

It's All About the Writing (or, My Insecurities For All to Read)

For the first time in ten years, since I've been writing, I'm finding myself unable to focus on the project at hand. Which is odd because my head and heart aren't as encumbered as they've been the past three years, so I should have all this room to write.

In part, it's my day job. I'm a professor, so I don't really have a job I can clock out of at 5 and then go home, kick back my feet, and suck down a glass of Cabernet. It's a job which I mostly love but which sucks me dry at times.

But even so, I should be able to get into my writing when that blasted alarm clock blares at 5:30 am. I DO get up, but even as I walk down the stairs telling myself to open word and not gmail, email, facebook, or that blasted twitter, I still do exactly that. Minutes pass, my hour goes, and I might have half-heartedly put in edits for a couple of pages.

I think the major reason I'm not into writing, though, is that I have two many projects. I have two books, finished, that need homes. I am pitching them, and this also seems to suck me dry--the tedium of researching agents, the tedium of writing query letters, the fear galloping ahead of me that these books will never reach the world, that I'm a hack, I'm wasting my time with this 'hobby'. The rejections slowly roll in, usually on a Friday afternoon (ever notice the timing of declines, fellow writers?), usually with some form of personalization but always with the latest market lingo, "I didn't connect with the writing the way I'd hoped to." 

And then there's The Minister's Wife, which I have just picked up again after a year. This work is a Mess. A Very Big Mess, and as I poke through pieces I realize I need a thousand pages to tell this story, it is too big, so what do I do? Change the story line? Reduce the POV characters? Make it into multiple projects with overlapping characters?

What really frustrates me is that all of the above isn't 'writing'. It's editing and revising, pitching and marketing, and I really feel I can't afford to stop these things because I need to get something published. And this need paralyzes me from writing new words, even though I have other ideas and projects lining up like jets on the runway waiting to take off.

I will plod along. This too shall pass. But I ache for more time to just write, I ache for some conclusion for the words I've already written. I ache for a modicum of validation that my writing is worthwhile, that it makes a difference.

How do you push past self-doubt? Any and all advice welcome. Peace...

Control Mind

Last week, on yet another murky day after a sunny teaser, I found myself absorbing everything I witnessed on my short walk to work: the woman obviously high and helpless propped up by a man who was not; the squalling of a toddler after his mother shook him hard; the empty booze nips rolling under brittle oak leaves; the pigeon picking at dried vomit.

I felt the gray. I felt the bleakness. And the air filled me with a hopelessness I found difficult to shake.

By afternoon, I was in quite the funk, further compounded by news that not one, but two, people I knew had died. One after battling chronic illness, the other by his own hand. I guess you could say he also battled a chronic illness.

I suppose intensity of feeling is a hallmark of being a writer, a painter, a creator. After more than a year of intense personal turmoil, I'd practiced a way to moderate those feelings: meditation. I practiced meditation so I could find peace and strength to stay in the moment, no matter how hellish the moment. I also practiced to be able to ride through those moments of intense anxiety and depression that my life was peppered with for so long. I like to save meditation saved me, because it helped me to stay mindful of instants I needed to be mindful rather than lose my shit.

But this day last week revealed to me how after six months of relative peace, I'd become complacent again. I went to meditation practice the next night, and the leader, a wonderful wise woman, asked: why do we meditate? After discussion, she summed it up neatly:

We practice meditation so the mind doesn't control us, we control our mind.

As a writer--as a person--I am learning the challenge of allowing feelings to wash over and through me, to let them permeate me, and then: to let them go.

Do you have a meditation practice? Do you wish you did? Let's talk.

Peace...

Taos Time

I've been away, in Taos, New Mexico. In this small town tucked almost two miles above sea-level, nothing happens with any regularity or schedule. No internet? No phone service? Oh well. I spent the week learning how to go with the flow, an easy feat since I was surrounded by mountains and writers.

I spent a week at a writing conference working with BK Loren who, if you've never read, you should. An award-winning author, she's a woman who wields words that way RC Gorman wielded a brush. In THEFT, a novel about stealing on multiple levels, BK immerses the reader in both character and setting. She writes with transparency, something all writers should strive for. Emotion drives her stories and essays; an undercurrent which makes every page believable and satisfying. A generous teacher--a mentor--I'll miss the intensity of our classes.

My classmates and I--six of us--work-shopped our entire novels. Months before the conference, we read each other's books. Nothing develops intimacy between people faster than reading each other's stories. By the time we met, it felt as though we all knew each other. I am blessed to have developed friendships that will extend beyond the novel.

Taos is beautiful county. The sky doesn't stop, even when interrupted by the blue-green of mountains. Back in Baltimore, I close my eyes and see the clouds rolling in from the west, enveloping the mountain ridges, the sun streaking their underbellies in red.

More later--on BK, writing, the process, the experiences. But I just wanted to say I was back.

Peace...

GRAMMAR RULES

I read a lot of stories--in my workshop and as editor--and I find it funny how some writers present flawless work, free from typos and punctuation woes and egregious grammatical errors, while others present what reads like a rough draft without even a word checker's blessing.

Although these rough stories often have that elusive thing I think of as voice, the first paragraphs are so riddled with inaccuracies I find myself getting annoyed, angry even. Why waste my time? My eyes are too tired, too impatient, to wade through multiple split infinitives, gerunds running wild, and ubiquitous and improperly used semi-colons; they drive me mad.

On the other hand, when a writer in control of her material breaks a grammar rule, exciting things can happen. Like effective fragment use. And starting sentences with conjunctions can make the reader pause in a powerful way.

Myself, I eschew adverbs, gerunds, and improper use of possessives. But I love, love, love the effective use of fragments.

And you?

What grammar or punctuation 'rules' bug you the most? Which rules do you love to flaunt?

And why?

What to Say?

This the question I have asked myself the past month as I ponder the blank white space of this blog.

It isn't that I don't have stuff to say (me? with no opinions?), it is just that many of the things I want to say are not ones I want to haunt me in cyberland beyond my physical demise. But I haven't been in the mood, to write here or hang out on facebook or twitter or bloghop. Just not in the mood to socialize. It also doesn't help that the cold I had two weeks ago morphed into acute bronchitis, which has left me feeling weak and flaccid and full of throat tickles that become full-body coughs when I talk too much.

So what can I say?

The kids are good. Both of them. Number One Son is finishing his week at Rock Shop Camp. Number Two Daughter performed in three shows of THE LITTLE MERMAID before full houses. Somehow my husband and I have agreed to host a slumber party tomorrow for three girls and two boys (separate levels of the house). Indeed, #2 and her two friends are embarking on a sleep-over marathon, a progressive slumber party of sorts. The question remains: will she be a human I care to interact with come Friday?

Husband is good. He revels in the garden, his creation. Despite the whacko weather, it is one of the best years for flowers. We'll see how the raspberries and kiwis fare as the second round of stinkbugs hatch.

Myself, I am three weeks into my sabbatical. I am working on a couple of grant proposals with potential collaborators, and fleshing out my own proposal on opioid analgesic use and diversion. I spent a week at Common ground on the Hill and wrote some flash memoir and learned to play my native American flute. I have read six books. I have made zucchini bread every week, several pies, a batch of triple-berry jam, and read in the hammock when it is cool enough and/or not raining. We have shot off fireworks and eaten ice cream most nights.

In terms of writing, some big decisions on my current project THE MINISTER'S WIFE. The stories have become too sweeping to keep this as a novel of linked stories, so it is becoming 'just' a novel. Which is fine. I have been struggling with forcing the various stories into boxes that are the wrong shape and size. It is freeing to let the stories rip. All this upheaval thanks to my wonderful instructor and classmates at Hopkins.

I usually can't write flash while in the midst of novel land, but I will have a few small non-fiction pieces coming up in Flash Fiction Chronicles and Awkward Paper Cut. Will keep you posted on those.

So what are you up to?

Peace...

Randomities

Yesterday morning I ran into a friend, a woman of great wisdom whose last name I do not know. We see each other on the metro sometimes, and yesterday, as the snow dropped off branches and slid off roofs in great sloppy chunks, she recounted a snowy day two years ago. She had just left her husband, an abusive man, and her youngest son had been diagnosed with a kidney cancer that would bloom into three different cell lines. She stood on the metro platform, despairing of her life, feeling the deep indigo of depression settle in her with an inky sigh, when she noticed the tall ornamental grasses bending under the weight of snow. Each long blade, thinner than a knitting needle, carried a few inches of snow. Occasionally more snow would fall on top, and the blade would bow deeper, the snow would tumble off, and the grass would spring back upright. She told me: God never gives us more than we can take. We bend but when we go as far as we can, God releases our load. I carried this image with me all day.

I am re-writing my third person narrative in first person because Maryam feels so distant to me. I want to bury myself into her, find her essential truth, the nugget of her. She is elusive, this character, and I think it is because she is too much like myself.

For class, we are reading The English Patient. A lyrical masterpiece. If I could manage one page of Ondaatje's genius, I will die a happy writer.

I have a sabbatical coming this summer. Six months to think. To experience. To read. To ponder. I am focusing on pain and opioid medications and the thin balance between medical use and abuse. An issue I have considered for almost twenty years, starting with my dissertation. It seems forever until July 1, yet I know it will be here in a blink, and the 6 months past sooner than that.

Time is the enemy these days. If you think about it. Which I try not to.

The Spring issue of JMWW is out. I am very proud of the three pieces of fiction, gorgeous words rendered by Tara Laskowski, Nate Pritts, and Emily Kiernan. As a writer, I always feel thrilled and humbled to see my word in their home. As an editor, I feel like a midwife of sorts. Please, read--you will be moved.

Peace...

Where I Have Been: 2012

The last day of the year is as good a time as any to take stock of where I've been. The past year brought challenges--loss of our spiritual community, an over-demanding day job, adjustment to life without the presence of people we loved--as well as rewards, including healthy and happy children, a beautiful home and garden, good friends, weddings and other celebrations, and adventures with family and friends. The year also brought a bit more (and much-needed) diversity to my life.

Hitting the half-centennial mark this year brought several realizations: time on the planet is short; there is no need to rush; small items carry more weight than large. I've tried to take a slower approach to most facets of my life, including writing. My yoga practice has helped in this regard, helping me become more mindful of the instant, and of those around me. But those of you who know me know I have a difficult time staying put, not pushing on to the next 'to-do'; learning to linger is my continuing challenge.

The year in review:

Family: My children are finding their niches, and I am thrilled they find themselves creators: of art, of music, of small bits of beauty. They became more resourceful this year, and independent. My husband also found time to garden, to explore new religious and spiritual practices, to think outside the box. We saw grandmothers, nearly every aunt and uncle, cousins--some several times over. We visited alpaca farms, bowling alleys, home-made ice cream stores, beaches, flea markets and yard sales, and much, much more. We are blessed.

Friends: When my husband lost his church, we lost our built-in community. It has taken some time to rebuild, to find new ways to connect with those I knew in the church context, as well as to develop new friendships outside of a spiritual home. A small group meets monthly to w(h)ine; other friends come from my writing spheres and work. And of course, there are my cyber friends, some of whom I met in person. For all of you, I am grateful.

Work: I am fortunate to work with an amazing team of students, post-doctoral fellows, and staff on two projects with clinical and policy importance: antipsychotic use in nursing home residents, and reporting state-wide use and consequences of alcohol and drugs. But in 2012, work remained the one area that overtook my time; like kudzu, it is difficult to trim back. While grateful for my job, a goal for the upcoming year will be to better manage the expectations of work with the rest of my life. 

Writing: I'd like to think this year focused on quality over quantity. Being a part-time MA student ate into my available writing time, even though the classes themselves produced a lot of knowledge and a lot of words. To quantify: 2 blogs; 265 blog posts; ~60,000 words on THE MINISTER'S WIFE; 39 poems; one proper short story; a dozen micro-fictions; countless revisions of older stories. 

This past year, 16 stories or poems were published (5 in print), netting me $75 and a Pushcart nomination (for COCHINOS, found in the summer issue of MiCrow). I thank the editors of Smokelong Quarterly, Pure Slush, Right Hand Pointing, Microw, Scissors and Spackle, Blue Five Notebook, A Baker's Dozen, The River Poet's Journal, Metro Fiction, and Press 53 for finding merit in my words. Also, thanks to Robert Brewer for selecting a poem for the 2013 Poet's Market, out this past September. Two stories found their way into books: LUCKY in Gorge, a novel in linked stories (Pure Slush Press), and WHITE in the Best of Friday Flash II anthology.


Every morning I try to remember what a gift it is to do just that: wake up. Every breath is a blessing.

And you? Where did you go this past year?

Peace...

Working the Shop

Now that class is over, I can finally write.

You would think that a semester-long class focused on writing and critiquing original fiction by students would serve as a catalyst to writing.

Think again.

You hear horror stories of workshops which end up in complete disaster: of writers' egos bruised to shiny purple; of over-bearing professors; of the one student who manages to be the professor's darling; of the workshop hog; of workshops run amok.

This class contained elements of these horrors. At least I have a thick skin. At least I have workshopped before and have a barometer of my writing strengths--and weaknesses.

So now, I am free. I can get down to the real business of writing, of writing unencumbered with doubt. Now I can polish my stories and shop my work.

Peace...

Six Years Baby!

Yep, that's how long I've been writing. I mean the creative stuff, the novels and poems and short stories. Six years today I rested my laptop on my knees and began BRIGHTER THAN BRIGHT, a story that took my character Benjamin and I longer and further than I ever imagined.

Writing back then, I felt a tad insane--I had never felt so compelled to do something. But writing then was a compulsion, one that kept me writing 3, 4, 5 hours after my children and husband went to sleep. I think of those first 4 months as a manic rush to get Benjamin's story down, before the words dried up. That first very naive draft ended up at 183,000 words. Since then, the story has taken many turns, adding the second perspective of Phoebe, murdering a handful of secondary characters, interweaving multiple subplots, hacking out more than 80,000 words. The novel is finished--for now--though I contemplate yet another drastic surgery.

Six years is a long time. I figure since then I have written more than half-a-million new words. And probably three times more words rewritten in the revisions. These words find form in 2 full novel, 1 partially-completed novel, 72 micro-fictions, a dozen short stories, and 135 poems. Oh, and 505 blog posts on this blog. Them's a lot of words. A lot of hours. In OUTLIERS, his ground-breaking book about the exceptional, Malcolm Gladwell says to become good at something you need to practice it for 10,000 hours. By my own estimates, I figure I write between 1,500 and 2,000 hours a year. I am good writer, certainly better than I was this day six years ago, but I still have a long way to travel to great.

And that's okay. My heart trills when I see the progress I've made as a novelist, a short story writer, a poet. Writing still brings me joy--joy in the product but more, joy in the process. I love the challenge each new idea brings me. I like to think it keeps me young in my soul if not in the body.

Thank you for following my writing journey, for sharing your words and thoughts. Here's to another six years, baby!

And for those of you looking for my second small stone, please go==>HERE.

Peace...

While I Was Away...

A micro-burst of wind, sodden with gulf-stream moisture, gusted a path through my neighborhood, leaving downed trees, shingle-less homes, screens and shutters scattered over lawns. We arrived to this mess yesterday, grateful for the relatively minor damage to our property and that no one died.

Yes. I've been away. Did you notice? We journeyed north to visit family. Then, I spent five days work-shopping PURE at Lesley University's annual summer writing workshop. Like the storm blasting through my town, the week left my head awhirl with ideas and words, the intensity further fueled by caffeine, wine, and sleep deprivation.

What the week was NOT - a writing retreat. We were in community 12 hours a day, reading, critting, discussing craft, listening to the fabulous faculty read their works, pontificating ours. No la-dee-da days hanging in bookstores and coffeeshops for me, though I did hit Starbucks every morning when it opened for my usual hour of writing. And I did get to spend a little bit of time in Harvard Book Store (the BEST Indie bookstore anywhere) and Grolier (the best poetry only store), and drinking beer and licking ice cream with fellow writers.

Most nights, I wandered the same streets as my characters, sinking into their lives, their heads, their voices. One evening I sat on the same fountain rocks where Ben first kissed Phoebe in front of the science center, waiting for the lights in the glass complex to take over the day and scribbling madly.

I'll post more later, including cool exercises to help crack open idea- and word- constipated forebrains. But first, gotta breathe and catch up on stuff...

The Reading... Picked up TONS of books and started them all, including TOLSTOY LIED and FROM A SEALED ROOM by my instructor Rachel Kaddish, GOODBYE TO THE ORCHARD by Lesley MFA director and poet Steven Cramer, CHARITY GIRL by fiction instructor Michael Lowenthal, LIVING IN STORMS, a poetry anthology about the moods of manic depression, LIFE AT THE MOVIES by Peter Selgin, and more, so much more...

The Writing... Reworking the first section of PURE. Revising GONE, a short story for the Harbinger*33 anthology. A poem is accepted at Tattoo Highway, the first of mine to see print. A second poem was accepted by an anthology on psychiatry and creativity.

Hope all is well in your writing worlds... peace, Linda

Celebrating All Things Rat

Auspicious.

Passionate
Meticulous.

Comsummate.

Charming.

Intelligent.

Ambitious.

Eloquent.

Practical.

Industrious.

Artistic.

Humane.


Moonrat.

2008. The Year of the Rat.

The Year of the 2ND BLOGIVERSARY of EDITORIAL ASSISTANT, Moonrattie's Blog Extraordinaire.

We of the Mischief sing your praises.

Congratulations Dear Moonie for the tremendous success of your quintessential blog chock-a-block with wisdom and words and whimsy. In this rather cut-throat world of writing and publishing, you have touched and humbled me with your kindness and generosity, your ethics and philosphies, and your honesty and forthrightness. So many times I contemplate throwing in the towel on this thing called writing, but then someone - an agent or editor or author - serendipitously imparts the words and support I need to hear. You are one of these rare people, and I wonder if you know what an inspiration you are to your fellow writers.

I am sure you are a fine editor; I am positive you are a super human.


You grace this business. You grace this world.

Thank you.

Peace, Linda

Rules for Writers, The Fine Art of Racing, and What Have You...

Lots of schlepping this blistering week between Baltimore and DC for two professional meetings: AcademyHealth, the national health services research assocaiton, and the Washington Independent Writers, the largest writing organization in the US. We changed our name - American Independent writers - to reflect our size and our geographically diverse membership.

FABULOUS session by thriller author JOHN GILSTRAP (Nathan's Run; Six Minutes to Freedom) and lit/fantasy author KEITH DONOHUE (The Stolen Child) on Working to Write, Working AND Writing? That is, the difficult decision to chuck the day job to write full-time, a temptation most of us harbor. Donohue closed with this:

RULES FOR LIVING THE DREAM

1/ Be born rich (Ha!)
2/ Marry money (Double ha!)
3/ Be a poet, be a recluse, or be a priest (I'm married to a minister, so my life's busier than ever)
4/ Teach (Yes. I do this. But it has nothing to do with writing and everything to do with drugs)
5/ Develop an elegant variation of OCD (Does hypomania count? With an extra dash of anxiety thrown in for good measure?)
6/ Create up problems for protagonist and story (Actually, it's the other way around - they make problems for me)
7/ Write every day (THIS I do. But it's only because I become an insufferable bitty otherwise)
8/ Get a dog (We had one, but she peed all over the place and had agorophobia, so we decided to get a bonsai plant instead)
9/ Don't have kids (Does Sears take 'em back after 90 days?)
10/ Use time wisely (Goddess knows I try...)

And here, just for fun... what book are you?

You're Siddhartha!

by Hermann Hesse

You simply don't know what to believe, but you're willing to try
anything once. Western values, Eastern values, hedonism and minimalism, you've spent
some time in every camp. But you still don't have any idea what camp you belong in.
This makes you an individualist of the highest order, but also really lonely. It's
time to chill out under a tree. And realize that at least you believe in
ferries.



Take the very cool Book Quiz
at Blue Pyramid.

and find out...

Hmmm... then check out the shenanigans of friends and fellow writers TWIZZLE and MAGS on their quest to meet GARTH STEIN in Cambridge. More than politely listening to Garth merely read about that fabulous dog Enzo, their adventure involves Fire Trucks, Bar Stools in Lynn, and Mucho Vino. Perhaps too mucho vino... with Garth partially in tow.

Happy writing, happy reading... Peace, Linda

Getting Grubbie

I'm back.

Exhausted. Thrilled. Energized.

What a fabulous conference - the Muse and the Marketplace. Sponsored by GRUB STREET. In my old stomping grounds of Boston and Cambridge, no less.

The generous writers sharing their knowledge and experiences: superb. We're talking about Anita Shreve (Body Surfing), Jennifer Haigh (Mrs. Kimble), Chuck Hogan (Prince of Thieves), Julia Glass (Three Junes), and Karl Iagnemma (On the Nature of Human Romantic Interaction and The Expeditions; I've blogged about him before, this scientist-writer, and he is soooo cute in person). Bret Anthony Johnston (Corpus Christi: Stories) gave a fabulous session on point of view; he is a natural teacher.

And of course, the keynote speaker was Jonathan Franzen, who's reading from The Discomfort Zone moved me to tears as he related Kafka and Rilke (my personal poetry fave) to seeing his family members as individuals rather than mere relations. Beautiful.

I met several cyber-writing friends, including Steve from the Nudge-Nudge Collective, my on-line writing group, and MAGS, and TIM. And though not a friend of mine, I did chat with the incomparable Janet Reid, agent with a 'tude.

I went to this conference for a number of reasons, but mostly as a litmus test of sorts: to see if I've been deluding myself these past two years about this writing path I've journeyed on. I sought validation for: 1/ my writing; and 2/ my heart.



In reverse order... I realized as soon as I met Steve and his wife Dee in the 1369 coffee house in Inman Square that my heart was indeed in the right place. I love writing. I love talking about it, sharing it, reading the writings of others.

My writing... was validated, in ways I could never imagine. First, during Editor Idol. When the first page of BRIGHTER THAN BRIGHT was read aloud by a professional actress before a crowd of a 100 and three editors posing as Randy, Paula, and Simon made it without an interruption, followed by three nodding heads and "yes, this is good. I'd read more," you couldn't have pulled me down with an angel. The meeting with a agent who runs what I'd describe as a boutique agency grounded me a bit more, but her words of "you have talent" and "this submission rose to the top" gave me more reason for elation. BUT... (there is always a but, isn't there) my story is a quiet literary one, a story without the "WOW" factor called for debut works. It seems that a fate worse than not publishing may actually be publishing without either strong sales or reviews. I was advised to make another editing pass on BTB, then keep it in reserve after the first book is published.

At first, her advice kind of devastated me. But then, I realized she was looking at me, the career writer. She was looking out for me. And perhaps she saw enough good in those first 20 pages of my freshman effort to think I have more books in me.

Guess this means it's time to move onto PURE.

BUT... I will market BRIGHTER THAN BRIGHT. One of my teachers, a wonderful mentor named Lauren Mosko, agrees BTB is probably best suited for a small press. And I am okay with that because I am not sure what path I want my writing to take - commercial or literary. And more and more, the agent scene is the commercial one. And perhaps the most stressful one.

So I will continue to plug away on my novels. And my poems. This IS getting ridiculous==> LOVE SONG ON THE INNER LOOP Based on a prose piece from a novel-in-progress.

I feel blessed, blissed, exuberantly happy I am writer.

At least today.

Peace, Linda

I AM a Hack

As evidenced by my POETRY. <====SEE HERE. Scroll down the link...

Hmmm... maybe I should give up my night job, you know - that novel thang. Peace, Linda

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

Idus Martiae

I think of the Ides of March not so much a metaphor for impending doom, but more a time of uncertainty, of shifting tectonic plates. Of blood coursing through veins too fast, too hot.

I watch the earth in our garden crack, the soil heaving upward; I like to think of the repressed plants rebelling against the last of the cold and thrusting upward to the sun. That’s how my heart feels this time of year: yearning, striving, desiring something more, something greater. It’s my time of restlessness, of pacing behind my psychic boundaries like a caged cougar.

Big day for me, the Ides of March. Some 15 years ago, I defended my doctoral dissertaton, a watershed of sorts. Today, when I woke early to write, I wished Ben, the protagonist of Brighter than Bright and Pure, a happy 28th birthday. Then a couple of hours later, my son woke with a fever and a sore, swollen throat that compelled us to rush to the on-call pediatrician, who diagnosed strep (again!). And then, as if our family life is not complex enough, we adopted a four-year old Sheltie mix, a cute red-head named Georgie. It’s been a full day. A wonderful day, despite the unease of change thrumming through me.

Big writing week:
• Icarus Arisen. A poem that’s teased me for over two months. I’m quite happy with it, but threw it in a red manila folder anyway and will revisit it before shopping it around.
• Finding Out. A short non-fiction piece about the conception of my son after years of infertility. A personal milestone for me (both my son and the writing of this piece). Also marinating in the manila folder.
• The damn synopsis. I spent at least 30 hours on this over the last two weeks. But I managed to eke out a half-decent draft for my WritersOnline class and Nudge-Nudge Collective to review.
• Brighter than Bright. Committed to a reading at our Unitarian Universalist church in two weeks. Gulp.
• The Muse and the Marketplace. Booked my flight and hotel for this Boston Grub Street sponsored writing conference in late April and signed up for an agent review of my novel. Great writers: Jonathan Franzen, Anita Shreve, Karl Iagnemma – among others. Pumped is an understatement.

Keep writing… Peace, Linda

Wabi Sabi

Impermanence and imperfection.

I first became familiar with wabi sabi as a potter and sculptor. Clay is a temperamental, mercurial medium, subject to extremes of temperature, application of caustic minerals and elements, the whims of carving instruments and the desires of artisans to literally beat mud into shape. Indeed, a goal of potters working in porcelain is to pull the clay surface so thin it achieves a sublime and ethereal translucence.

Even after many, many years of working in clay, most of my pots and sculptures suffer imperfections: huge, rending cracks, asymmetrical centers, glazes that crawl beyond desired borders. Sometimes, I got lucky - the mistakes turned out beautiful, like the glaze on a recent raku tile that emerged from smoldering ashes a greenish gold rather than a purple metallic. But usually, the mistakes are irreversibly ugly; after all, there is not much you can do to correct a huge crack.

Or is there? Japanese potters celebrate their imperfect pots by stuffing the cracks with gold leaf.

When I read the latest version of BRIGHTER THAN BRIGHT, I still see flaws. Not huge gaping holes - these have been fixed, if not with gilt and glue then at least heavy hack-sawing and prose propping. But I'm finding as I rewrite, I fix the blemishes and then, on yet another reread, revert them back to their original imperfect form.

You see, there is beauty in these mistakes.

Wabi sabi - nothng is perfect, nothing lasts, and nothing is finished.

What a relief...

Peace, Linda