Personal Disclaimer

I wonder if I should walk around during the day wearing a sign that says:
I don’t really feel like talking.
Topics I do not want to talk about include: my writing, your writing, writing in the past, writing in the future, my progress with my outline, the beautiful state of California, lunch and what to eat [...]

Monster in the Subway

I am very, very disappointed in myself, and this disappointment turned me into a terrible monster today, made better now only because e made breakfast for dinner and helped me henna my roots, a process my mother used to call a “hennema” (pronounce like “enema”), which makes me laugh. And a hennema’d laughing monster isn’t [...]

Dead Drive

I might be quiet for a while. My computer died this morning while I was starting it up to write… It’s at Tekserve, and I won’t know if the data off the hard-drive can be recovered until next week. The earliest it will be fixed and returned to me is Friday, May 9. Yes, I [...]

Honestly

I really have no idea how I will manage to finish this revision today, honestly.

Absolutely No Reason to Be Awake This Morning

Folks, I finally turned in the first draft of the work-for-hire novel I was writing that had been driving me batty. I was two weeks and one day late from the original deadline, how mortifying. No feedback yet—though my heart, head, and gut are telling me I didn’t do such a good job, as this [...]

What HAS Happened: I’m Publishing a Book!

Below I expunged all the things that haven’t come my way lately, and do you know why? Because things were brewing for reals and I am—no joke—about to tell you some good news that I was hinting at before:
I just got a formal offer on my first original tween novel from Simon & Schuster!
It’s not [...]

Warning: Ugly Ahead

If you know me in real life, please be warned: March will be ugly. It is very likely that I will be a monster for the rest of the month, possibly into early April. I can feel myself going rotten already, and I’m not yet clear on how bad it will get.
So you’re aware, I [...]

Drizzles

Oh I had a tough morning. The morning before the morning—when it matters, when it counts—I did get a decent start on the novel due in March, so that was good. Then I got to work and, I don’t know, the world shifted. No stormclouds, just drizzle I guess. My mood turned all drizzly. I [...]

Behind, But No Matter

I’m somewhat behind. But this morning I think I came to a good stride. I finally got out some words that gave me my high, so as of now, even if I don’t reach 50,000, it doesn’t matter.
Silly confession to follow:
I felt a tad ill on Thursday. I was at work and noticed that my [...]

What You Love

It would never have occurred to me, years after graduating college, that the place would mean as much to me as it does now. College was good, sure, but I had always thought that graduate school was where my real-life happiness began, where I wrote fiction full-time, where I edited the journal, when e came [...]

Stopping Point

Page 50.
That’s all I’m gonna get today.
You know it; I know it; we all know it.
I have to be happy with page 50…
Okay, so page 50.
Will someone carry me home now? I’ve reached page 50 and I’m too tired to walk.

Birthday Letters

Dear Oral Surgeon About to Extract My Mother’s Teeth This Morning:
You will have your drill in her mouth at the very minute I was born. She called to warn me last night. She is in such pain, and this is the only time her appointment could be scheduled—though she felt bad that it would occur [...]

Everlasting Debt

The iBook being unsalvageable (though E plans to take it apart and see what can be done with its parts), I am now right back where I started. The universe works in mysterious ways. At the moment the universe seems to want me in huge debt and filled with guilt over buying a new computer [...]

iBook, Come Back to Me, I Am Still Here

In irony, in terrible terrible irony, my iBook went kaput. The screen turned striped, and faded, the grinding sound was abominable, and then it was like watching a mushroom cloud dissipate across my whole entire (screen) life. (I had not backed up in a long while.) I was devastated. I woke up this morning and [...]

Hello There

(written this morning)
I am returning to my story after only a day away. Last I left it, on Monday, I had come to the conclusion that it was at best choppy, at worse hopelessly immature. I was well aware the end had holes, so a paragraph would float aimlessly toward the last page, not anchored [...]

My Brain Gets Revenge

The headache? It’s baaaaaaack. It started yesterday. Even after the pounding stopped I felt a tingling pool at the base of my neck, like my brain was floating loosely just under the skin. I took the day off from work today—I never use my sick days—but I have them, and I suppose they are meant [...]

The Mailbox

I had been home a half hour when E asked me if I had picked up the mail from the box downstairs. I bolted upright on the couch. The mail? I had no memory of getting the mail when I passed the mailbox, but how could I have passed the mailbox without getting the mail?!
I [...]

Kick Me

I am in need of a good kick in the pants. I thought, for some moments, that this weekend might be it: I ran into a fellow graduate of my MFA program and we talked about regrets before a row of sinks in the bathrooms. She had some, though she didn’t like to use the [...]

A Good Day?

I had a decent day yesterday—some might even call it a fine day. A good day? I’ll even say that.
But first there was panic. It was early, still dark out, and I was leaving to go write at Starbucks before work when, as usual, I went to reach into the little blue ceramic holder on [...]

The Headache

This headache comes and goes. It’s here, then it’s masked by pills, then I think it’s gone only to feel it creeping back again, then it’s in full force, and somehow I get to sleep, but when I wake up it’s still there.
Possible reasons for the headache could be:
* Intense anxiety over our artistic future
* [...]