Luck?
22 Feb 2012 Leave a Comment
in blog Tags: employment, fiction, job, life, publishing, writing
Well, kids, I have a very legitimate-sounding excuse for posting so infrequently this month. Two, in fact, if you count my birthday (which, if events were any indication, very few people do).
I was busy getting a job! (Well. Another job.)
That’s right. A PUBLISHING job no less. After years of hoping and wishing and occasionally interviewing, I landed a position at a small press in Boston. I am the newest employee at Academic Studies Press. Here is their website if you’re curious. It starts as part time, but it could very well become full time in the future. I’ll be starting in two weeks.
One might think that the extra employment means less time to write. I’m hoping that this will go a long way toward straightening out all my financial crap, which I find very draining, and I will have more energy and feel more motivated to write. Of course, doing healthy things like exercising would probably give me more energy than working, but I’m going to ignore that fact for now. Just about everyone in this economy gets that money troubles do not make for a good state of mind to work on things such as writing.
Sad, isn’t it? Following your passion almost always takes a backseat to somehow managing to pay all your bills. I think that’s something wrong with the world.
Still very little inspiration coming my way. Gotta do my taxes and clean my room. Also, have to somehow make a massage appointment with my groupon. Why the hell did the place have to be in Newton?
Strangest Things #2
19 Feb 2012 2 Comments
in Flash fiction, Microfiction Tags: creative, fiction, flash, microfiction, writing
I was cleaning my room – just a basic straightening, actually, not even a thorough clean – on a regular old weekday. Queen’s Innuendo album played at a mild volume from my computer. And when I moved my hamper, I found a shooting star in the corner, flying back and forth.
Of course, just as anyone would do, I made to pick it up. It shot out of my hands leaving a trail of stardust and began to zip all around the bedroom. Its burning body left streaks across my vision, but I could not stop looking at it. I tried a few more times to grab it, but it moved too quickly. I couldn’t catch it. I gave up after not too long, turned off the light, and lay on my bed, listening to “Ride the Wild Wind” and watching the shooting star buzz all around like some kind of heavenly housefly.
Happy…
18 Feb 2012 Leave a Comment
I completed my 25th birthday a week ago (well, a week and two days, but who’s counting – besides me?). I say completed because I didn’t really do anything to celebrate that day. Just came home from work and made a tasty dinner… (celebrating happened on Saturday. But why am I still talking about this?)
The point of bringing this up was not, in fact, to describe exactly how the days surrounding my birthday went, but to say next that this is part of the reason I really want to self-publish this year. (That is, I want to publish this year, and I am recognizing that I will probably have to take it into my own hands.) First significant (that is more than a few pages) work published at 25. Sounds good, don’t you think?
The thing is, I make the getting published this year resolution all the time. So who knows how this will go. I also have not done much writing in the last few weeks/months. I am hoping that the new computer I am soon buying will help motivate me.
Here is my question to you: Where did my inspiration go?
Another Life #21
11 Feb 2012 2 Comments
It’s nice how simple the world is, don’t you think? People say just what they mean. Getting what you need is easy, and hard work always pays off. People understand each other, products do exactly what they say, and if you can’t find the words, whoever you’re trying to reach just manages to read your mind. You always know where you stand.
Strangest Things
07 Feb 2012 Leave a Comment
(This might be the most blunt metaphor I have ever written…)
Only two peaches on the tree. Strange.
The first hangs easily within reach, ripe and ready. So simple to pick it from the branch and eat right there.
The other peach is twice as large. The perfect yellow skin is slowly darkening to a most enticing orange. And it will take a ladder to harvest it. I can tell; when it’s ready, it will be the epitome of peaches.
It seems greedy to take both. Which do I pick?
Hyperharmony
01 Feb 2012 2 Comments
In one small part of the world (a world), there are trees, streams, birds, bugs, flowers, grass and underbrush, and no people. Because there are no people to label and classify these things, they do not mark the boundaries of their shapes. To say that there are trees and streams and birds describes this place as a person would see it, and not as it is. In this place, at any moment the birds are the flowers, the streams are the trees. They pass through each other’s forms, as much as they have them, as easily as space through space. The animals leave no footprints on solid but compliant ground. Everything has its part, but each separate part merges into the others with pronounced ease. Human eyes, craving order, draw exact outlines of the forms. The consequence is just as beautiful, but too comprehensible to make the same sense it once did.
Another Day…
30 Jan 2012 1 Comment
Another screw up. …Crap
I got my MCC artist fellowship application done, got the submission all set to go, printed it, and hand delivered it to the office. I was worrying that I was missing something, but I looked over those submission guidelines numerous times and didn’t see anything about a cover page. Looking over them yet again, I noticed that they ask for a printed copy of your work summary with the manuscript. Somehow I didn’t see that at all before. The way these things go, I probably disqualified myself right there.
All I can say is, oh well. I didn’t think this submission would actually get me a grant. I only submitted it because I’d decided I was going to. That’s all. The end.
It’s possible that the first formation of the collected Another Life tales is the only good that will come out of this… plus the discovery of a place where I can print manuscripts cheaply! As opposed to the $.50 per page that I’ve been spending…
I feel a little stupid for having done this. EVERYONE knows, read the submission guidelines carefully because if you don’t follow them they are not going to consider your work. And yet… I somehow managed to skip over that one step when reading them over and over and over. Seems unnecessarily silly, to me.
It’s done now. So, on to February. In between work and turning 25, I am going to spend much more of my free time working on writing.
I always say that, but this time I mean it!
Where’d January Go?
25 Jan 2012 2 Comments
in about writing, blog Tags: fiction, flash, microfiction, submission, time, writing
On Monday I had nearly 40 views on this blog. And they were all me.
I was going through my Another Life posts and whatever other microfiction pieces I’ve put on here, collecting them to put together as a submission to a writing contest. More on that later.
In the meantime, I just wanted to let you all know I’m still alive. You know. In case you were wondering. And I am hoping to have more strokes of inspiration in February than I did in January. More for you to read. I hope you’re excited.
Another Life #20, or, This Life
08 Jan 2012 1 Comment
in Flash fiction, Microfiction Tags: another life, creative, fiction, flash fiction, microfiction, writing
Mid-chase, I have forgotten who or what it was I’ve been trying so hard to catch. Heavily winded and distracted by the demands of everyday life, the focus of the pursuit is lost.
But when you have been going for so long, how do you stop? The momentum is too strong, and I keep running toward something now unknown. I can’t even be sure I’m heading in the right direction. In part, I am standing still, never making progress. And elsewhere, I am still running so fast that I can’t see what flashes by.
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