Days Pass Slowly

One day feels much like another lately; the heat keeps me from doing much outside and nothing’s going on inside. I’m waiting to hear from an agent, a publisher, and a journal, and that status doesn’t seem like it will ever change. I don’t feel very inspired or very optimistic, so I feel little drive to write or revise.

Times like these, I try to cling onto the belief that I’m a writer. I dream of being published, at least in part because I fantasize about being able to say “Hey, I’m a published author!” The likely reaction from people will be an anticlimactic, “That’s nice.” But it’s a little kid fantasy, an “I’ll show you!” Not very impressive.

Maybe this lapse in writing is good for me, although it does feel like an eroding of my identity. (Why my identity as a professor is not enough puzzles me, but there it is.)

So I wait for something to happen.

Summer’s End

My summer’s winding down. This might be the reason I feel so lazy right now, knowing that in less than a month I will be back to work.

I work as an associate professor at Northwest Missouri State University. I don’t know how professors are regarded in Europe (where some of my more regular readers reside), but in the US they’re widely regarded as suspicious characters who subject their students to arcane knowledge such as how to think critically and use unbiased data to draw conclusions from.

I have one last hurrah before I go back to work (which has the added bonus of keeping me out of beginning of semester meetings) — my annual gig at New York Hope moulaging. This also includes train travel with a sleeper car and hanging out to write in the Metropolitan Lounge in Chicago’s Union Station (waiting for my connector train).

But I have a couple weeks before then, working on classes before the semester starts and writing (I need motivation!) and resting before things get crazy.

Extended Metaphor

When I write the first draft of a story, I feel like I’m in the middle of a budding romance. I fall in love with the characters and I want to see what happens to them. The revelation of the story surprises and delights me.

And then there’s editing. I re-read and find all my characters’ flaws showing in the unfiltered morning light. I find holes in their stories, having heard them so many times.

But like any good relationship, my job is to look into the flaws and the errors and the mess and find the truth, the uniqueness of their story. But to do this well, I have to remember that theirs is the same story I fell in love with.

Wish me good happy things

Well, I got a rejection in a short story contest, but it’s not bothering me too much. I didn’t even get honorable mention. I think they were looking for literary fiction, which is high concept fiction that doesn’t touch genres. I write genre fiction, specifically science fiction/fantasy. I may need to be a little more specific as to who I send to.

I’m pushing myself to go drink coffee and write at the Game Cafe. I don’t think I’ve been there in two weeks, and that might be part of the reason why I’ve been having trouble motivating. When I’m feeling down, the closer I am to my bed, the harder it is to motivate.

My choices on projects are either: 1) keep revising on Gaia’s Hands or 2) keep writing on Hands (No, not at all confusing), the origin story for Grzegorz Koslowski (apologies to Polish readers; I can’t get that little mark through the l to work). I might feel motivated enough to go through Gaia’s Hands today.

Wish me luck and motivations and good happy things. I still have a couple submissions out there and one query to an agent.

Slump

Oh, I really need to get out of this slump!

It’s like I’ve forgotten I’m a writer, and all I want to do is nap all day. That sounds like depression to me, but I don’t feel depressed. Just tired, and relaxed, and totally meh.

This, I remind myself, is not who I want to be. I want to be a writer. I want to get a novel published, and maybe some short stories. I have two short stories and a novel (still Prodigies at DAW) out there, and a third short-short that should be announced any day now (I doubt I’ve won that one, but maybe I’m a runner-up?)

I’m wondering if winning the short essay contest at A3 has satisfied my desire to get published. I’m wondering where my drive to go further has gone. I’m wondering if I need a change of scenery, but the cafe is closed today.

I’ll push myself to write today, but maybe a bit later.

Some Days It’s Hard

It’s Sunday morning here in Maryville, on a dark morning following a torrential thunderstorm, with more rain on the way. I’m listening to classical music and drinking entirely too much coffee, followed by a good dose of King’s Oolong Tea 913, which I received from a friend of mine who’s currently back in China. No need to go out; just a long amount of time to do something.

Or nothing. Right now, I want to do nothing.

I took a break from writing yesterday, mostly because I didn’t feel well, but in part because my projects are as follows:

Gaia’s Hands, which is frustrating me because I can’t get a handle for improving it (this vastly rewritten and rewritten story)
A short story about one of the characters in Prodigies, which starts with a whole family dying in a bombing and gets more depressing from there.

Not much to grab onto, is there?

My worry if I take another break is that I will quit writing, because, frankly, it’s easier not to write. Part of the reason I write this blog is to force myself to be productive, to take the hard path, the path I really want to see myself walk down.

So we’ll see what I want to write today.

Thanks for listening!

Still I write

This is one of those days I have to force myself to write.

It’s Friday, I don’t have anything I have to leave the house for today, it’s going to be 94 degrees (F; 34.5 degrees C) out, I’m wrestling with Gaia’s Hands, have no ideas for a new short story …

And I’m feeling a little down. I’m wondering if there’s such a thing as micromood swings, or if it’s just the heat getting to me. I’m not depressed or anything; just not feeling like I’m on the verge of something wonderful happening.

But still I write. And that’s the important thing, to write even when it feels like the last thing I want to do. Just a small amount will do — just a blog post, just an hour. Just a submission. Just a moment of creation.

Neither my feelings of defeat nor my feelings of impending success actually presage the future; they are simply extrapolations of feelings that may be influenced by my strange chemistry. My actions, however, are what’s important. Without stepping forward, I have no chance of success.

The County Fair

This morning, it’s 81 degrees (Fahrenheit; 27.2 Celsius) at 5 AM and it’s going to be 100 degrees F (37.8 C) with heat indexes of 105-110 F (40-43 Celsius). I don’t know if this is global warming, because it seems to always be this hot for the county fair.

County fairs are for kids. Their agricultural/homemaking roots still linger in many of the events — livestock and 4-H project judging, photography and quilt competitions. A carnival blocks off the main street, with a midway and luridly decorated rides. Fair food consists of funnel cakes, fried oreos, and bratwurst.

Children come for the rides; high schoolers wander in packs to see and be seen in their purple hair and tank tops. Adults shepherd the children or come for the country music and their children participating in the Young Miss/Mr. Maryville competition. Girls in matching spangled outfits perform choreographed jazz dance on the stage.

I walk around the fair feeling like an outsider, even as I know some of the people I see. I didn’t grow up on a farm. I don’t identify with country music. I don’t have children. I wonder, not for the first time, where my place is.

Interrogating Josh Young again

Josh slipped into the seat across from me, looking fey with his slight frame and mischievious smile. “You were looking for me?”

“Josh, how do you feel about Jeanne?” I ask, knowing that I would catch Josh off-guard.

“Oh, boy,” Josh said, taking a deep breath. “I don’t want you telling me she’s old enough to be my mother, or she’s out of my league, or that I have the rest of my life to find someone. I’ve heard all those already, and I haven’t even told my mom about Jeanne yet.” Josh pushed straight black hair out of his almond-shaped brown eyes.

“Ok,” I smiled. “No advice. I just want to know for the sake of this story.”

“Jeanne’s the one. That’s it. No matter what people argue, I know she’s the one I want to marry.”

“This isn’t just ‘I want to go out with Jeanne, then,” I noted. You’re serious about her. How can you be so certain?”

“At my age?” Josh raises his eyebrows.

I slump in my seat, abashed, because that was exactly what I was thinking.

“What does it mean when you’re certain of something? Does it mean you can read the future? Or that you’re deluding yourself? We never know until it shakes out. My age or my lack of experience doesn’t make that any different than for anyone else.” I definitely had the disadvantage in this debate.

“What if you’re not the one for Jeanne?”

“It’s entirely possible I’m not. But if I don’t end up with Jeanne and I find someone else, I will always remember that she’s not Jeanne.” He squinted and looked in the distance; I wondered if he tried to see that reality.

“Are you attracted to Jeanne?” I venture timidly.

“I am. And you’re surprised, because everything you’ve been told suggests that would never happen. We’re both writers, and we both have active imaginations. Do you really believe in a world where younger men are never attracted to older women? Wouldn’t that world be poorer for it not happening?”

“Yes, it would,” I admitted.

Platelets

So I’m hopefully giving platelets today.

The process behind giving platelets involves doing nothing for two hours while having a needle in one’s arm. You sit in the most comfortable lounge couch with warm blankets and pads and a tv screen in front of you.

I’ve gotten pretty good at surfing the internet one-handed on my phone, and the only tv I ever watch is during these sessions.

Sometimes I meditate, because it’s pretty quiet in there. Sometimes I watch with wonder as the machine works its magic and seperates the platelets from blood and plasma and gives me back those fluids.

It’s not two hours wasted. It’s a two-hour break from my mind, which always wants to be busy. And I may be saving someone’s life.