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 [...]

My Civic Duty and How It Involves Dim Sum

Jury Duty in Manhattan isn’t all hardship. The courthouse I was in today was steps away from Chinatown, which to my mind means one thing and one thing only: vegetarian dim sum! (How could I not take advantage during lunch break and search out the place I always have trouble finding in order to have [...]

Finish It Already

“Have a good writing day,” e said to me at the door this morning. “Now finish it already, goddamn it!”
The “it” that has taken residence in the apartment, larger in the room than the largest elephant, is of course the revision.
It is a hurdle to write something you don’t want to write anymore, made worse [...]

Writing Spot on Lockdown

My weekend writing spot (a members-only organization in Manhattan) has a lot of rules:

No talking in the room.
No slamming doors.
No hogging bathroom keys.
No swiping magazines.
No leaving desk unattended for more than an hour.
No leaving dirty dishes in the sink.
No leaving the coffeepot empty.
No leaving food in fridge for more than a week.
No bringing in guests, [...]

Stabs at a Writing Life

I’m not thinking about much else but writing these days. Only, I’ve been exhausted—and here I type this with a headache—probably because I’m trying to push myself so hard.
I am under deadline with a freelance writing project—and I am behind, very behind—and the day job is cutting into my time. I try to write every [...]

Older, Slightly Wiser, and Stuffed Full of Blueberry Pancakes

I am one year older today. All the things I’d wanted to accomplish this year didn’t happen, but I’m not beating myself up over them. I thought last year might be “my year”—but now that I’ve been through it, I can tell you it wasn’t. I’m not down about it, though. I think it helps [...]

A Barely There Summary of AWP Day 3

To anyone who hasn’t attended this conference before: if you decide to stop reading now so I don’t exhaust you with the summary of my last day—I’m exhausted enough, no use passing it on to anybody else—just know this conference is most definitely worth it. Not only am I glad I went, I would do [...]

AWP Day 2

I am too worn out to come up with a better title for this post, that’s how much happened today.
The AWP conference this morning started early, too early for many, I imagine, seeing as how my first panel was sparsely attended for such a huge room. This was “On Adapting and Being Adapted”—about novels being [...]

A Day of Books, Stories, More Books, More Stories, and Long Lines (AWP Day 1)

I’ve been at the AWP conference all day. So many writers. So many choices. Such narrow escalators. Book-fair tables for miles. Only three stalls in each women’s bathroom, talk about lines! Let’s just say it’s been a jam-packed day.
The first panel I attended was “Shaping a Short Story Collection”—first thing in the morning, in a [...]

Appointment

One perk to living in New York City that I’ve just learned about is if a New York agent likes a story you published in a journal and contacts you to see if you’re represented and you say no and then she wants to see more work and you send in more stories and an [...]

Simultaneous or Bust

My submissions have been sent out into the world.
Yesterday, I tried four Kinko’s copiers until I scored and found a decent one. Last night I printed cover notes, stapled, sorted, SASE’d, and addressed envelopes. There was a satisfying stack at the end of this—made smaller by the few magazines that now accept online submissions—and I [...]

Ever Been to the AWP Conference?

Wow.
The annual Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP) Annual Conference is in New York this year!
And I was just out at lunch talking about how we can’t afford NYC anymore and maybe it’s time to leave.
Anyone ever been to this conference? I want to go—but of course I have to request the days off [...]

Invasion of the Ice-Cream Song

I am high up on the twelfth floor, banging out these pages at a laborious pace that is killing me slowly on the inside, down in there where it counts the most. And yet for some reason all I can hear, from the street twelve floors below, is the ice-cream truck. It’s blaring its song, [...]

More Noise Please

I write this amid pipes banging from the radiator, video-game revelers in the apartment downstairs, a dog barking, and high-heeled pacing above my head. My neighbor just slammed her door again, making the walls shake. Soon a car alarm in the parking garage across the way will go off, as it likes to late at [...]

Winter Wonderland (Or Something Like It)

Remember snow? That white fluffy stuff that buries the car and closes school and makes for a cool fort at the end of the driveway? Maybe I shouldn’t admit this, but I miss it.

I can’t make much of a fort with this.
It’s also no good for snow balls, and shoes must be carefully chosen, as [...]

Warm Again, and Willing to Admit My Mistake

The heat’s back on, and I am relieved to admit that I was wrong—apparently such things can be fixed on a Sunday. Who knew?
It’s nice to be wrong sometimes. I’d like to be wrong about all my cautious pessimism when it comes to my writing career, too. I’d like to be wrong about work, wrong [...]

Cold-Induced Wisdom

23 degrees F this morning. Not so bad at all, not when you have a pot of boiling water at which to set your feet, a heating pad for your fingers, and the infamous Puffy Coat, which could house a family of Eskimos. If it gets bad tomorrow, we’ll burn the 500-page Hollywood Issue of [...]

Too Cold

It is 27 degrees outside; I’m not sure how cold it is in here without heat since last night.
It is too cold to read a book.
It is too cold to wear my wedding ring.
It is too cold to walk on the floor.
It is too cold to touch my own nose.
It is too cold to type [...]

Brrrrrrrr

The boiler broke last night and our building has no heat. It will take a couple of days to fix. The pride and joy of our home—the heating pole in the bathroom so conveniently placed near the toilet—is dead-cold. To keep warm we will huddle under coats while wearing other coats, triple up our socks, [...]

Lost: One Glove

I lost a gray-and-white-striped glove somewhere near Broadway and Astor Place. It was in my pocket one second and gone the next. Below is a picture of its mate:

The glove was given to me by my mother. She knows how much I like stripes. It can be worn interchangeably, either on the right hand or [...]