Meandering

Late afternoon was spent wandering the cobblestone streets downtown with a certain someone, sucking on fresh-fruit smoothies, trying on Gucci knock-off sunglasses and floppy hats, holding hands through the crosswalk, avoiding the sunny side of the street for the shade. “What are you going to write tomorrow?” he asked me, and I said I didn’t [...]

Elsewhere

The unfairness of life hits me early this morning, when I think of someone I know whose dream it is to have children and the terrible struggles she’s gone, and is going, through at this moment and this past year. Each time she tries, the universe slaps her back down. It humbles me—for no matter [...]

My Summer Vacation

I’m taking my summer vacation starting this Saturday through July 11. Guess where I’m going? Broadway—about a 15-minute walk away. Or maybe a nearby cafe to get a change of scenery, maybe that Starbucks on Christopher where I wrote the freelance books, maybe there. Yeah, I’m taking my precious vacations days this summer to not [...]

4 Minutes

I get interrupted a lot at work—today I decided to time it and it’s not half as bad as I thought. On average, I get bothered every four minutes. Put my head down, read a page for a while then always in the middle of a paragraph, a sentence, a thought someone appears at my [...]

Strange Sense of Mourning

It’s odd. I feel like I’ve lost something and I’m only now letting myself get sad about it. Not that I’ve lost the novel by saying I am almost prepared to declare it finished—more that I’ve lost this fantasy in my head of what Life as a Writer would be. It’s not what I expected. [...]

And I Lean…

I'm leaning toward no.
As in, no major revision.
I want to do a few character tweaks, following some recent feedback I got from a friend in the film industry, to make sure my intentions are clear. I don't think it will be too much work, and I think the manuscript will be better.
But other than that [...]

The Mood Swings of Possible Revision

I like it just the way it is. Look—I'm not even wanting to line edit. That's a sign.
Oh, but what if [this] happened instead? The story would be totally different if I did that.
How much fun that would be! Like a whole new novel! I'm actually getting excited!
Hmmmm. But everything else would fall apart once [...]

While Entering the Building…

Scene: Lobby of building where I write on weekends. I enter the elevator and one of the security guards gets on with me.
Security guard: You've been coming here for years. What, are you writing a book or something?
Me: Yes.
Security guard: What's it called?
Me: What?
Security guard: Your book.
Me (blatantly lying): It's untitled.
Security guard: You don't know [...]

First Things First

Step 1: Open the file.
Step 1: Open the file.
Step 1: Open the file.
I am still on Step 1. 

While Buying a Lotto Ticket This Morning…

Scene: Newsstand, Greenwich Village—still damp from rain
Me: Could I have a quick pick Lotto, please?
Newsstand guy: Just one?
I nod.
Newsstand guy hands me the ticket.
Newsstand guy: I hope you win and you come back and take care of me.
Me: …
Newsstand guy: I hope you win and you send me back. All I want is to go [...]

Scared of My Own Words

I'm scared, I'll admit it. I came to a decision this week—not the one that some people here advised, not yet. My decision is sort of a half-decision: I am going to reread my novel.
That's it.
It sounds like a little, tiny thing, I know, but it's a move in a direction I've been avoiding for [...]

Dreamed Themes: Lost Writing, and Airplanes

Two nights in a row I've dreamed now of somehow losing something related to my writing. Two nights ago it was my iBook—with new, fresh writing on its hard-drive—left behind on a plane. It felt so real, having lost what I thought was my best writing ever and being afraid that I could never recreate [...]

Unfinished Stories

More things are unfinished than finished. I have a series of folders on my computer that go deeper and deeper into archived levels showing fits and starts of stories I barely remember writing. I found one that's just a page and a half long from the year 2000; I still like it. I found another [...]

Writing Young

Most of my characters are younger than me. Like by a decade. I don't know why I write so much younger than I am. I never thought of it as YA fiction, not ever, just fiction that happens to feature narrators who are 16, 18, 21 tops. I have a vague memory of someone in [...]

Time Anxiety

This is a constant: my fear of time slipping past me, things I should've would've could've done, had I had more time. Impatience is my worst fault, or at least the one that comes up most often. I want to have done so much more than I have. I shouldn't be obsessing over the revision [...]

The Sit-Back-and-Wait-to-Be-Asked Strategy… Success Rate: 0

Yeah, my freelance writing strategy isn't working so well. I finished the one writing project and have been waiting, fingers crossed, not really thinking of the consequences of having to live under a whole other deadline… waiting to see if they will ask me.
They haven't asked me.
I want them to ask me.
But, also, I want [...]

Gray Person

I am reading a book while E watches the new episode of Deadwood. It's a book I put aside weeks ago and just picked up again in the middle of a chapter to find this passage, told from the perspective of a very imaginative little boy:
What if the water that came out of the shower [...]

A Very Many Voices

Do you ever wonder what the correct answer is when it comes to revising a piece of fiction? In my case, a novel, my second, sitting in its little box in the dark, cluttered hole I call an apartment, waiting for me to decide its fate.
I'm hearing voices in my head, and they're all saying [...]

Morning Dread

Before the alarm went off, I had that feeling of dread—the same from junior high till now, working a 9-5 (or 9:30-7 and beyond) job—knowing I had to get up for work and not wanting to go. This morning the alarm sounded and I climbed down the loft to the ground floor to turn it [...]

Setting Foot off the Island

This afternoon I am leaving my island for a work party upstate. I don't like to leave the island, even to Brooklyn. Last weekend we went to Governors Island, which is still a part of New York City and only a 5-10 minute ferry ride back to the southern tip of Manhattan, and still I [...]