What I’ve Learned from Failure

I didn’t have to deal with failure in my childhood (except for those crushes that were never requited). I wasn’t quite a child genius, but I was gifted. I managed to get to college almost entirely on scholarships including a National Merit Scholarship. I got on the honor roll despite the most perfunctory study habits.

I came to failure late and hard. Particularly in submitting my writing, particularly novels. I have received enough rejection to paper my room.

What I have learned about rejection:

Don’t take it personally. If I have given my best, after reading guides on how to write, writing, editing, beta-reading, revising, and the like, it’s probably that my writing doesn’t fit the agent’s list or the journal’s theme I have learned, for example, that my poetry is not High Concept, as it doesn’t get published in high concept journals. This doesn’t surprise me because my Ph.D. is not in English/Creative Writing. My short stories are also not High Concept, being firmly lodged in the category of fantasy, romantic fantasy, and space opera. There are some places I’m more likely to get published in than others.
See what you can learn from it. I have had to grow as a writer by asking myself, “What is the takeaway from this?” I had to get rid of my perfunctory habits once I realized that one didn’t turn in one’s first draft (in my defense, it had very few grammatical or spelling errors). I read a lot of material on writing because of rejection.
Try again. Always try again.

Daily Warmup

Every morning (well, almost every morning) I sit in front of my computer staring at the WordPress site and its little white button that says “Write”. And I write.

In a way, this blog is the warmup exercise for everything else I do in a day, whether it be writing or work. This blog loosens my fingers up and loosens my mind up. There is a full day ahead of me to make of it what I will.

Sometimes that is merely existing, moving myself toward the door with my computer case for a day of work. Sometimes it’s gleefully playing with my cats. Sometimes it’s a productive day at home writing or at work teaching.

But the blogging in the morning is essential, framing my inspirations for the day.

Today’s tasks are monitoring and answering email from students and prepping for Camp NaNo. I have already answered five at 6:20 AM. (This is rare because my students generally abhor mornings.)

It feels like a good day, although one that would benefit from coffee. (Lots of coffee).

Remaking Myself

I want to remake myself. This is the reason I think I try so hard to get published, because I want to think of myself as an author. It would give me an identity beyond the one I have currently (professor) that I will lose when I retire.

It’s not a good reason to write, but I think it’s a fine reason to try to get published. I think remaking oneself is a noble pursuit, unless one is trying to remake oneself as Harley Quinn (As opposed to Harley Quin, for all you Agatha Christie fans).

I admire people who make themselves and remake themselves, flowing with the changes in the world. On the other hand, I believe that my writing is good and worthy of publishing, but I’m not apparently writing what agents want. Changes to flow with. Do I learn how to promote myself better and self-publish? Do I try to tailor my writing to the market — no. Then it would not by my writing. I will not remake myself by becoming someone else.

Have I already remade myself? I have written five or so books — Kringle in the Night, The Kringle Conspiracy, Apocalypse, Gaia’s Hands, Reclaiming the Balance, Whose Hearts are Mountains, and Prodigies. Ok, that’s seven, not five. I have put them through developmental editors and (most of them) through beta/alpha readers. One of them (The Kringle Conspiracy) has been self-published. Maybe I am already an author. Maybe I have remade myself.

I need a Spring Break

I have Spring Break next Friday. Yes, that’s it, one day of Spring Break. I understand the reason — the university doesn’t want the students to go out to Palm Beach and bring back COVID. But, ironically, the city has repealed its mask ordinance, and the students are having unmasked parties every weekend.

That week in the middle of the semester was an opportunity for faculty to recharge. Even with vacation spots still risky, we could sit at home and not do work-related items for hours at a time. Not answer student emails for a week. Not attend meetings. Time to write, sleep in, and occasionally do nothing.

There’s no use in complaining about something that was put in place for the right reasons. But the students are burning out, the faculty are burning out, and between COVID and working, I just want a break

My Family’s Curse

I believe that families have curses; however, what I mean by curse is a way of thinking, believing, or acting that hinders coping, relationships, and outlook. For example, a family that keeps trauma bottled up creates a dysfunctional habit that will pass from generation to generation.

My family’s curse is a killing of joy, a pervasive belief that joy is dangerous because good things never happen. For example, suppose there is a child who is looking forward to their birthday. Their grandmother says in a sepulchral voice, “Don’t look forward to anything; you’ll only get disappointed.” The child integrates this world view and passes it to their optimistic children so that children strangle their joy and grow up with the dreary world view.

Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels.com

I have only partially internalized the curse; I feel elation every time I write queries for a book of mine. And then the family curse wakens in my mother’s voice and version: “My grandmother said you should never look forward to anything, because you’ll only be disappointed.” Her version of the curse invokes a matriarch whom I have never met, but stands as the forgotten fairy at the christening delivering the curse.

The faulty curse wobbles around in me — I feel hope and elation, followed by guilt I should feel this way, and caution in my mother’s voice: “Don’t look forward …” I do not hug the family curse as a reality I should adopt, but it has not died in me either.

In Love with Social Media

I’m having two conversations at once — one with a woman I have never met, the other with a man who is 13 hours away. These are the wonders of social media.

It’s because of social media’s ability to transcend place and time that I survive through the COVID era of distance and extreme caution. I am not an extrovert, but I love real conversations, the ones where you get beyond “how are you” and into things like culture, beliefs, and stories.

I was on social media in the 80’s, before there was social media as we know it. In college, I spent time on the PLATO system, which was mostly an educational system with functions that were used as social media as well as instructional communication. We had what we called “notesfiles” (which became Lotus Notes, and influenced later social media) which would be equivalent to Facebook’s Groups and subreddits. We had chat, known as term-talk, group chats — anything familiar to today’s social media user.

What PLATO didn’t have was a beautiful visual interface, instead having a line command interface much like pre-Windows computer; the ability to go to other sites to do research, and access to dating sites (although this is arguable; I had gone on two or three blind PLATO dates before Match.com existed. We didn’t worry about this, because were were a close-knit community, even though some of us were states away.)

Today, social media is so much more amazing than I expected it would be. Beautiful visual web pages, sites and apps that can facilitate sharing lives (Facebook), sharing pictures (Instagram), bond with video clips (TikTok), date (numerous, but I met my husband on Match.com), or become a base and despicable being (4chan).

And today I can open up the world with social media. I become just a little more cosmopolitan, vicariously.

My Wedding Anniversary

Today I have been married for 14 years. Given that I’m 57, that means I got into the game relatively late. This is not surprising, because I’ve always been a late bloomer.

I probably haven’t introduced my husband sufficiently. Richard is five years younger than me, and another late bloomer. He’s a delightful match for me, being nerdy, bookish, funny, and very tolerant of my mood swings. Here is a picture of us from our wedding. We look older now.

We got married on St. Patrick’s Day, mostly because it was the first Saturday of Spring Break for me. I’m part Irish (and part everything else in the Caucasian category) and Richard is not Irish, being biracial Chinese/German. So we made Richard an honorary Irish person. Our engagement rings are Claddagh, and our wedding rings are Celtic knotwork in honor of the wedding date. Richard laughs when anyone asks him if he’s Irish, though.

It’s been an interesting 14 years. Three job losses, one psychiatric hospitalization, one house move, and COVID. A lot of laughter, house projects, and trying out Asian restaurants. Eight cats, three dying cats to stand vigil over, both our mothers dying. Bad puns. Problems solved.

It’s been an adventure so far, which is what marriage should be. Someone to help survive the hard moments, to grow with, someone to share the good moments with, someone to grow with. I finally found this with Richard.

COVID Vaccine Part 1

Yesterday I got my COVID vaccine. Apparently in Nodaway County, MO, there are more vaccines than people who want to be vaccinated in Tier 1a and 1b right now. So Nodaway County Health opened the queue up to faculty, of which we have many. There’s a loophole, because Phase 1b includes K-12 teachers but not college professors. The loophole is that now, faculty are counted under “government”. (Which is true, as we’re at a state university. That way the vaccines don’t get wasted and the faculty are protected.

So, the shot. It didn’t hurt a bit — until I left the vaccination station, and then I felt a burning streak across my right arm. Yow! It went away quickly.

I didn’t feel any symptoms at all until I went home, and then all it was was a mild fever and a mild achiness. This morning, I have residual aches in both upper arms and upper back. Nothing bad, not nearly enough to keep me off work. (Ahh for Tiger Balm!)

So it looks like it’s going to be okay. My next vaccination is April 7th.

The Feeling of Living

Daylight Savings Time. And a storm. On a Sunday. I slept until 7 because the sun did not peek through my windows.

I almost stayed in bed all day. I just about asked my husband to bring me breakfast (pancakes and turkey sausage) in bed. But if I had, I would have missed Bowie Symphonic Blackstar through the speakers and the sight of the trees bending in the wind under sodden grey skies.

I have plans for today. I will work on the pre-beta reader edit on Kringle in the Night. I might binge watch Monsters Inside Me because of its medical drama and wonderful illness simulation. I can watch some Babylon 5 with my husband and gaze at the porch swing rocking wildly.

This is how I can tell I’m not depressed, because there’s something to come downstairs for. I seek out productivity. I try to make things happen in my life because that’s who I am.

It feels like Spring. It doesn’t, however, feel like Spring.

In my life, COVID banished Spring. Teaching classes from home, not going out to restaurants and the café, and missing the warm days on campus where people gathered by the pond on campus and lounged in the hammocks — none of that remained under COVID.

I didn’t go out when COVID first hit. My husband made all the trips to the grocery store because that’s his job in the particular division of labor we have. So I didn’t get to see the toilet paper shortages, the people defiantly not wearing masks, or much of the sunshine. My most vivid memory was looking out the window to see a sliver of blue above the houses. COVID, then, was a darkened corner where I sat waiting for the all-clear signal, which never came.

The restrictions have lightened up, but I still don’t trust Spring. The virus still threatens and we still stand apart from each other. The blue sky seems distant, outside the house, beyond the mask. Clusters of students once again drink and party outside their houses, but their feeling of safety is not shared by those of us who are older.

I may trust Spring again if a torrent of rain, what we called a gullywasher in my childhood, overtook my neighborhood. Sheets of rain cleansing, if not the virus, my tainted memories of Spring.