I’m on the road one last day. Travel has gotten old. I will have traveled 2000 miles in a week when this trip is done.
No inspiration yet. Probably because this van is not Starbucks. I miss Starbucks.
I could use a mini-vacation, a weekend trip to Kansas City to write and maybe pet kitties at a cat cafe. Anywhere but right here, where my knees are screaming and I can’t take pain meds.
Two days in a van did not yield any inspiration. However, a couple new developments in my writing life occurred, one good, one bad.
The bad first: A submission of mine on Submittable was rejected. I’m not surprised; I haven’t been able to find this particular story a home. Maybe it’s not a good story. I like it, but I consider myself a proud mom of what might just be an unlikeable kid. I get lots of rejections as a writer; I keep trying.
The good development: my niece is working on the sketches for the cover of my latest novel, Reclaiming the Balance, and it is coming along nicely. Looks like I have no excuses for not publishing it this January.
I don’t know a single writer who doesn’t have imposter syndrome (Ok, I know one who appears not to; he’s insufferable). We all take rejections hard, and when facing success, we feel like we don’t deserve it. I’m not sure why the insecurities but they seem like a universal.
I will keep on plugging, keep on editing the novels I have in reserve, and keep on waiting for inspiration for some short stories.
I’m trying to think about writing as I sit in a van barreling down the rural road. I’ll be here for seven hours or more today and tomorrow, so I might as well be productive.
I want to write some stories not relating to my world (the Hidden in Plain Sight stories). They aren’t coming to me. I seem to be on a hiatus writing-wise these past few days.
If life plays as it usually does, I should get an inspired idea just as I’m in a place where I can’t write, like the middle of applying fake blood on people. I’d rather inspiration show up during idle time.
Wish me a brilliant idea!
My go-to comfort food is somewhat unusual for a Midwestern US resident, I’ll admit. Typical comfort foods for my region of the US are things like chicken alfredo, cheeseburgers, and tomato soup with a grilled cheese.
My go-to comfort food is Thai namya, a light curried sauce over thin rice noodles with lots of cilantro. It’s spicy and mellow, warm and soothing, and easy to make, especially if one buys a premade curry paste.
I learned the recipe from my boss at the Thai/Italian cafeteria where I worked as an undergrad/grad student. I was the second cook, which was a rarity as I am very Caucasian. We would eat a family-style lunch most Friday afternoons that we prepared for ourselves. One of the dishes was namya, which we made with leftover flaked fish or ground turkey. This quickly became my favorite food, featuring both curry and comfort.
I had a lot of rough times back then, given that I had untreated bipolar disorder. I needed a lot of comfort. I lived a block from an Asian food store, so all I had to do is keep some sort of fish stocked and I could get the rest of the ingredients at a moment’s notice. I often used tuna, which was a little heavy for the recipe but was easy enough to stock. (An ideal fish would be a white fish like catfish.)
Even now, sometimes I have to have namya, especially on a cold day. I usually make it with ground turkey or catfish as I have been taught. Once I made it with a half-dozen bluegill I caught at the lake, and once (when I was feeling rich) crawfish tails. Just some coconut milk and water, green chili paste, fish sauce, and cilantro and that fish becomes my comfort food.
I’m on a trip downstate to visit a couple of interns at their sites, so I don’t think I will have time to write the next couple of days. I will bring my go-kit (iPad, keyboard, mouse, power supply) in case I get some time to write on the trip. I’d have to find something to write, as Google Maps and the interstate system (long story) have foiled my story idea.
Have fun!
About my trip, all I have to say is “Everything that could go wrong, did go wrong, but I presented my poster and got home”. It involved paying for another ticket to keep my husband and I on the same flight home, a delay causing us to miss our connecting flight, and me passing out the morning of my presentation. And I caught up on my sleep all day yesterday, which my psychiatrist would caution against, but the late nights traveling took a toll on me.
Now to get back into writing. I had a weird dream which almost turned into a book, but I thought it would be too cheesy because the fantasy angle was a bit thin and there was a vampire. And a court full of potential victims under a geas to stay and not kill the vampire. And the chosen girl revenging her father masquerading as a adenoidal, unintelligent servant girl. And at least three romance tropes: fake relationship, enemies to friends, and time travel. I don’t know if I could write her without her becoming a Mary Sue, at least in part because she’s the only one without the geas. And there were Edsels. And jousting. Did I mention the vampire? Not all dreams should become stories. (Spoiler: She does not fall in love with the vampire. The vampire is the bad guy, not just misunderstood.)
I’m back from the break feeling somewhat discombobulated, which is how air travel leaves me. I traveled through an airport once that had a “recombobulation room”, and I now wish all airports had them. San Francisco had a “quiet room” which I wished I had time to spend in. Now I need to be recombobulated before I write again. The goal is to do Starbucks and writing tomorrow. And to luxuriate in doing nothing today.
I hate air travel.
I haven’t been on an airplane for three or four years, but it’s inescapable when part of one’s job is to present research at professional conferences, something I have shirked for a couple years through loopholes. But now it’s time, with a trip to a conference in San Francisco.
The thing I hate the most is logistics. I can’t just plan a trip for two (my husband comes with me) and get reimbursed for travel. Instead, I have to use the university credit card to book my flight while simultaneously booking my husband’s flight, not on the university credit card, so we can get the same flight. I did this on my iPad while in the school office (The School of Health Sciences and Wellness, which the Psych department is part of, and I’m part of the Psych Department.)
I am not proud to say I made a mistake and put myself on a flight a day later, which had to be fixed this morning and cost us $288 extra because, like all faculty, I have to find the cheapest flights, which are economy class. I had to buy a new ticket for the return flight and could not cancel the old one. Imagine my aggravation. It’s all my fault; logistics is a weak point with me.
Then there’s packing, which isn’t too bad as long as I remember to pack everything in the car.
Then there’s waiting. That’s my least favorite part. I have to run a couple of errands before I go (including picking up a precious prescription).
Then the airport. Air travel in the US has become much more complex since I started traveling, and I’m grateful for heightened security, but it is a pain.
And finally, there’s motion sickness. (Yes, I have meds). And wondering if the door’s going to fall off your Boeing jet.
I now understand why people drink when they travel.
An end-of-semester status report:
My birthday weekend (when you turn 60 you get a whole weekend) has turned out to be — I’m having trouble finding the exact word. “Special” has an implication of something engineered to be perfect for one’s birthday. This was more like serendipity in action.
We arrived in Kansas City Friday night after eating dinner in St. Joseph up the road, and we arrived at the 21c Hotel, one of my favorite spots. It’s an artsy hotel, which appeals to my writer self, and part of the reason I do Kansas City trips is inspiration.
On Saturday, we started the day with breakfast at City Diner, which is truly a diner:
It has the settled-in look of a real diner, with hot sauce for your eggs and a menu of breakfast and burgers and fries.
From there, we spent some time at Broadway Cafe, so I could write and figure out a printing problem with a brochure I want to hand out for the book fair at the end of September. Broadway Cafe is a space for writing, and their coffee is perfect. I drank a depth charge (coffee with a shot of espresso) for the first time, and it was stout!
My husband and I were going to see Spirited Away at 3 at the Screenland Armour, so when we were done with coffee and writing, we noted that we would not have enough time to get lunch at Choga (way over in Overland Park when we were in mid-KC) so I suggested Blue Nile, an Ethiopian restaurant. Not only did that time out perfectly, it got us close to our destination of North KC for the movie. It was also tasty food.
Spirited Away is a classic Miyazaki film, artistic and fanciful. It’s a children’s movie, which hasn’t stopped any adults from watching it. I’m a Miyazaki fan, so it was a good choice for my birthday weekend.
After that, we went to pick up my birthday present, which was an orange Sailor 1911 fountain pen which we got at discount barely used. I collect fountain pens, so I was happy with the present and happier with the price.
We were too full from lunch to eat a full dinner at Waldo Thai, so we decided to have appetizer and dessert at the Savoy, a restaurant in the 21c. Oh, my goodness! Imaginative and tasty food! They treated me special for my birthday and put us in the private, round room. They also discounted us our desserts.
Today we’re winding down and sitting at Broadway Cafe again while I write this. A lesson learned — go with the flow, as the results are better that way.
I slept relatively well; I slept in late in my top bunk. I love sleeping in trains; the rocking of the train is soothing even when it sends me careening into the safety webbing. Waking up is a delicate process; using the toilet requires the other person steps out for a moment and pulling the beds back up requires some acrobatics.
As the train pulls out of Erie, Pennsylvania, I try to capture what I see, but things flash past me too quickly to capture it all. Warehouses tagged with spray paint, often artistically. Ailanthus, which can grow anywhere, lining the tracks. Old retired engines in a train graveyard. And then the country, where grapevines grow in endless rows and evening primrose lines the tracks.
The trip goes as fast as it needs to; we have another three and a half hours before we get to our destination. The rocking of the train lulls me into a trance. No worries; sometimes I just have to do nothing.
Bonus: Can anyone identify what song the title of this post comes from?
Words Like Me 