Author: lleachie

I am an associate professor of human services at a regional Midwestern university. I am also a writer of fantasy and romance, hoping to get traditionally published. I have one husband and am owned by four cats.

Odd Place

I’m in an odd place about my writing.

Weeks ago, I gave up the need to be published. Since then, I’ve been writing stories, submitting those and poetry to various outlets, where they may or may not get published, may or may not get any readership if they’re published.

I’ve gotten a few more rejections from agents for Apocalypse. It doesn’t bother me much.

It seems to me that I poured myself into my writing because I wanted recognition. I wanted readers. I wanted to get a shiny star for publishing.

I had an empty checkmark on my bucket list.

Now that I have gotten runner up on a fiction contest and about to see some flash fiction in publication, I’ve checked that box.

My one worry is that I don’t feel as possessed about writing. No dreams of being published dangled before my head like the proverbial carrot. I could never quite reach it. I feel like maybe I’m slowly giving up, and I don’t know if I want to do that.

I guess seeing how this evolves will be another adventure.

I need to wake up

Ok, it’s not an exciting thing to write about, but I’m seriously about to fall asleep on the keyboard  and wake up hours later with little squares imprinted on my face.

It’s Monday. Truthfully, I’m not superstitious about Monday — yes, it’s the first day of the work week, but I find things are just as likely to go bad on, say, Thursdays. Definitely Thursdays. This is just your typical “I only got eight hours of sleep last night and I’m still tired” sort of tired.

I’m drinking a cup of coffee, a grand cup of coffee from beans Richard roasted. It tastes of butterscotch and berries. Still, I’m having trouble waking up.

Girlie-Girl is laying on my mouse, purring. It makes it hard to get any work done, as you may imagine. But it makes Girlie happy.

This is how I get through Mondays — by thinking of all the possible good things that could happen. 

As soon as I wake up.


Sleepy Sunday — and boy, do I need it! I spent the better part of the week running from here to there, with a long train ride taking longer than expected, no time to compress before the semester started, and with two computers (home and work) to be repaired, I got through that admirably.

As I sit here in front of my new computer with horribly coffee that we ourselves did not roast, I think the secret to my calm about writing lately has three sources:

  • Living as if I’ve already been published (which I have, if you include short stories and flash fiction;
  • Making sure I have a lot (queries, submissions and the like) out there;
  • Not writing novels for a while (although I’m sending one to dev edit soon, the last of my backlog) and sticking with shorter writing.

Driving myself, I’ve noticed, doesn’t get me any closer to success, but it does make me grumpy. But at the same time, I can’t let it go completely.


Largesse

In a retail miracle, the Microsoft store in Oak Park Mall gave me a new Surface Book 2 even though my old and dysfunctional one was a month and a half out of warranty.

Although I’m grateful for this, I can’t help but wonder if I would have been afforded the same leeway if I had been darker skinned. I think of white privilege all the time now, and it taints my pleasure at receiving the benefit of the doubt, the under-the-table deal, the nice gesture.

And, damn it, it should. I should be wondering. I should be questioning, because things aren’t going to change for my black and brown friends unless I quit taking generosity for granted.

Some of you are going to disagree with me. Maybe many of you will. But I want generosity to be distributed to people despite their color and ethnicity. I want people not like me to receive largesse. That doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate good gestures, it means I appreciate them so much that everyone should experience them.

Slowing Down

So, I’m taking the advice of an editor I met at Gateway Con and putting novels on the back burner until I get something on the track to publication. In their stead, I’ve been playing with short stories (my first love) and flash fiction. And submitting same.


I’ve gotten a lot of rejections, more rejections than acceptances. This is not unusual. I have lost count of the number of rejections from agents and publications. I’ve become somewhat serene about the whole thing, as I can always revise and try again and feel that hope.

Sometimes I feel like I’m not really a writer anymore because I’m missing the angst. That says something interesting about how society sees writers, or how writers see themselves. We have to be driven. We have to fail. 

What if writing, rather than publishing, is the reason I write? 

A spectacularly bad day

Yesterday was my first day of fall semester at Northwest Missouri State University, where I have been teaching for 21 years. And it was the most spectacularly bad day I’ve had in ages. I’m still laughing about it.

It started with getting in to Maryville after five hours sleep. That’s okay — I get dressed in my good clothes and put on makeup and even get my parking hang tag and card swiper (for attendance) before arriving at my office. I have time for last minute prep. I hook my computer in and turn it on —

ZAPZAPZAPZAPZAP… my computer keeps making this buzzing noise, and I turn it off and on again. And it doesn’t turn on. I grab my cell phone to call the help desk, and find I left my cell phone at home. And I don’t have any Nepresso pods in my office. 

I borrow the old spare computer and — it doesn’t work either.

So, instead of covering the course site and syllabus, I have to completely wing two sessions of case management. I did marvelously, at least. I can’t answer student emails. I can’t text Richard. I can’t look at cat videos to de-stress.

All I can do is laugh.

So I type this on my home computer (which is itself broken in that it doesn’t have any USB ports working) which I might bring to school while waiting for my work computer to get fixed. I can’t hook it up to the projector without USB ports, so I’ll have to wing it again today. 

Good thing I have a sense of humor.

On the Lake Shore Limited

So I’m on the Lake Shore Limited, barreling toward Chicago. I think I’m still in Ohio — nope, according to Google Maps, I’m near Goshen, Indiana. The train is apparently running two and a half hours late, and I’m hoping we’re not any later because we need to connect with the next train in Chicago, and we don’t have that much layover.

Meanwhile, breakfast was spent in the cafe car with the most beautiful scenery on the trip: the sunrise over Sheldon Marsh Nature Preserve, with a still pool of water on each side of the train tracks. The view was like this: (Click for video)

My adventure is close to ending, and the beginning of the semester is about to begin. For me, that means teaching human services classes at Northwest Missouri State University. I’ve already put together some homework in case I don’t make it home in time (as I’ve said, we’re spectacularly late). Here’s hoping for a good semester!

ENDEX (as they say at the end of a preparedness training exercise)

Another New York Hope in the books; I think the numbers go like this:

Three moulage artists

Ninety distinct moulage applications

Scenarios: Urban search and rescue, rural search and rescue, wilderness search and rescue, cityscape active shooter, swiftwater rescue

Injuries ranging from pneumothorax to head injuries minor and deadly, to impalements, open fractures, burns, intestinal evisceration, scrapes and bruises, and throw in a couple heart attacks and mentally disturbed roles.

Staff members — a surprising number I haven’t counted, but categories are coordinating staff, logistics, lane CEs (who run the scenarios), team CEs (who manage the student teams), safety staff, transportation and moulage. 
******

I slept for 12 hours last night. I’m hoping to get some brain cells free to write today as I wait for the train back home — and on the train back home, as I’ll have a lot of free time. 

Right back to first day of classes.

Let me know, though, if you want to see more moulage pics.

Day 2 moulage

Day 2 of moulage: I’m already tired, and I’ll be here till at least 9 PM.

This is such a great opportunity, though, because we’re under the supervision of Will Lanfear, who does moulage for a living (ok, among other things). We talk shop, and I learn all sorts of new things to try out at home. 

The Hope exercises, of which there are currently three (Missouri, Florida, and New York), were created to train college students in emergency and disaster management majors to use their skills in as realistic learning environment as possible. The exercises aim for the optimal amount of stress for learning — too little, and it comes off as frivolous; too much and the learner shuts down. Now others take an opportunity to train, especially at Missouri Hope, where we have nurses, emergency personnel, and the National Guard both creating the learning opportunities and learning themselves.

This is where moulage comes in — we exist to make the disaster scenarios as realistic as possible. You saw a couple of our pieces yesterday. Moulage is 3/4 knowing your materials — skin and bone wax (theatrical products), gel blood and paste blood (not really blood, but theatrical products again), gelatin, latex, and greasepaint; and 1/4 looking at gory pictures and saying “I want to learn to do that!”

So that’s what I do, and that’s how I’m spending my last week of freedom before the fall semester starts.