Posts

Showing posts from June, 2016

Choices

Sometimes you have choices. * Put color on all your hair this month, or just cover over the roots? * Schedule a pedicure or just throw some new polish over the old? To bring this back to writing... * Ignore feedback from beta readers, or accept every suggestion? Or, here's a thing. Maybe it's not really an either-or. Maybe you have a third option, or even a fourth. Okay, not so much for the hair color, but with your toenails, yes. Your third option could be a home pedicure, something a little more thorough than throwing new polish on top of old, but less time-consuming or expensive than a salon pedicure. Similarly, you don't have to accept feedback from beta readers. You don't have to reject it, either. You can evaluate what you've heard and decide what you think brings your work closer to what you want it to be. And do those things. Or not. And maybe finding "the right choice" is just doing what best fits your life right now , that helps you le

Glamour

Image
This isn't about Glamour the magazine, though I loved it both long before and long after I was the age of their target demographic. It's about something that appears in The New Yorker every week on the page with their guide to who's playing where in the city.  Can't quite read it? (Sorry for the bad photo.) Underneath ROCK AND POP, it says, "Musicians and night-club proprietors lead complicated lives; it's advisable to check in advance to confirm engagements." There was a time when this small statement would have represented, to me, the height of glamour. I mean, for The New Yorker to issue a public excuse for the complicated nature of my life! To be given carte blanche to be unreliable--even irresponsible--by the magazine of the intelligentsia of THE most glamorous city. The smart set, the jet set, the rat pack, the brat pack. Like that. My idea of glamour has changed. Or rather, maybe I've outgrown the whole concept, in the same wa

Showing Up. To Listen

So I'd written a big long thing but I just deleted it all, because here is the important stuff. Last night I went to the Thunder Pride Literary Night. Here's a link to the event , which was absolutely wonderful--good writing from near and far in a supportive environment. Because sometimes it's okay to stay home and take care of things in your own life. To be an ally in name; to listen, but from afar. And sometimes, it's important to show up, and listen in person.

Punting

I'm a planner, I admit it. In fact, I was planning so hard last night, trying to see how I could make the most of my morning hours, that I couldn't sleep. So I overslept this morning, and everything ran  late. Go figure. And yet: Eisenhower (or someone) possibly said, "Plans are worthless; planning is everything." My day has gone more smoothly than it would have, even though I forgot one key ingredient (a piece of tech, naturally) that I need to do the work I planned to do this afternoon. But that's OK. Through the years, I have learned to punt, metaphorically. (And not in the sense of going out in that type of boat known as a punt, but in the sense of kicking away the football on 4th and long.) So: planning or plans? Of course, all this planning/punting relates to revisions. (What DOESN'T relate to my current work, whatever work it is I happen to be doing at the time?) Yes. I'm revising. Or rather, I'm taking thousands and thousands (many te

Three Thoughts of Home

1. 'Tis the season to receive rejections (and then re-send those pieces out again). Recently, I've noticed that more rejections include words such as these: I wish you the best in finding a home for it.  " Finding a home ": that really is a good metaphor for publishing an essay (or short story) in a publication. I've written before about feeling as if characters in a story, when it finds publication, have friends. This is a similar phenomenon. And so even though I thought I had found the perfect publication for the most recently rejected essay, I was mistaken. It's good to know--I sure don't want it to be there if it's not welcomed. So, on to the next publication. 2. It's time for me to switch journal notebooks, and I was flipping through the one that's full. It has entries from January, when I was just back from a vacation at the holidays. In it, I wrote Home is imperfect but it fits you like that leather couch: it gives where it nee