I mean, I’m working on other things. There’s the blog, and then I’m prepping a microchap to send out tomorrow morning. But I’m not giving her the attention she deserves, and she’s angry about it. I projected to be done by tonight, and that will only happen if I spend the next six hours locked in this office without internet access. So, y’know…that’s not happening.
I’m only a few scenes and an epilogue away, though. I plan to write a scene today when I finish what needs to be done, and hopefully if I can find the time, I will be done with the first draft by the end of the week. That would be ideal. Then I can spend the rest of the month of February editing, as planned.
I considered hiring a professional editor, but it is way out of my price range at the moment. Mark wants to stary a GoFundMe for writing costs, which is a great idea in theory but probably not in practice. I don’t even know if you can make those for career advancement purposes, and honestly, I have enough trouble selling books and Patreon subscriptions, and that’s cash for a product, so what makes me think people are just going to GIVE me money?
I’m just out here trying to get my Patreon’s sold, really. That’s the best revenue for me right now, aside from folks using the tip jar…it’s over there on the side of the page, and is as close to a GoFundMe as I’m going to get. If you really do just want to GIVE me money, that’s how to do it. Otherwise, buy a product. Pick up my poetry on Amazon, or check out my Patreon, where for 5$ a month you get something new every week. All the proceeds from all these things go towards writing expenses…and coffee. Which I suppose, is a writing expense in its own right.
Anyway…professional editing set aside until some real cash flow comes, I will be doing it on my own, and then sending it to a few trusted sources for their notes. Then another edit, a polish, and its off!
It’s a huge task. I mean, I think of the microchap, which didn’t take me very long to put together at all. I knew I had a bunch of poems centering one topic, so I organized them and got it ready for submission. It took maybe two hours total. My WIP, however, has been going since November 1st. Much, much longer, if we are talking “spark” to finish…in that case it’s been over a decade. And here I am, on the last leg of the race, attempting to limp my way across the finish line by Friday.
I fell behind in literally everything regarding writing last week, and for once it wasn’t due to illness, just the impending holiday season plus some extra personal stressors. Suffice it to say this is not our best Christmas, but we are keeping our heads up. That said, I was preoccupied and so all writing endeavors were put on hold, ergo no blog update last Thursday, no work on the WIP, and me frantically penning a late newsletter for my Patreon. I wrote in there about my year in writing…which was silly because I’m also going to write about that here, and now.
This year has two halves to one unit. Writing is not just the actual words on the paper, but also the publishing side of things. Let’s start there.
My publishing year was dismal. Icky book sales, only two poems published, and still no release date for my mini-chap after working on it all year. I try to brighten myself, however, with looking at the financial side of things…I did sell books. I started my Patreon, providing me with monthly money for writing expenses. I made very small revenue on my blog, but revenue nonetheless. And soon my mini-chap will be published, and that will bring in funds as well.
Then, the actual writing side of things. I have a couple of new poems, and I polished up quite a good little short story, too. Most importantly, I dropped over 50k words into my WIP, and am hoping to churn out the rest by the end of January. If that goes to plan, I will be editing and then preparing for query sometime in March 2022. The novel is the moneymaker, folks…I know in my heart it will be published. And I also know that someday I will be sitting in an office negotiating a film deal. (I’m not trying to brag or anything, I’m trying to manifest.) And when that day comes, I will look back on now as the time when it all began, and I started to really make a career of this. I will look back at pitiful book sales and silly ad revenues and think…gee, what a year that was.
Anyways, I’m off to do the things that make the monies, as Christmas is in 5 days. A gentle holiday reminder that I now have a tip jar to the right of this page, in case you want to help me out with buying stocking stuffers. And always accepting new patrons on Patreon. And also books for sale. Just sayin’.
I didn’t update yesterday because I woke up puking at 2am. A quick jaunt to Mercy told me I would be waiting for several hours, so I went over to St. Joe’s, which is in many ways my preferred hospital for my situation. Mercy is close and has all my history, but it’s always 100 patients and 10 nurses, whereas St. Joe’s has this weird reputation for being crappy, so the ratio is completely flipped. I’ve never received poor service there, however, only the best. And yesterday they ushered me in quickly and had me medicated and calm within half an hour.
Anyway, that was not the first visit to the ER this week. Hopefully, it was the last, but now today I still feel weak and out of it, and am vaguely surprised I’m even sitting here writing right now. I don’t really have a topic, either; I just want to talk about Patreon.
Patreon is the single best way for me to earn a monthly income through writing. A monthly income means a website that never goes down, and ad funding for my books. What is Patreon, you ask? Well, it’s a monthly subscription service connecting you to creators. If you visit my page, you will see I am creating poetry, short stories, essays, and more. Now, there are three subscription tiers, and should you decide to subscribe, you should ABSOLUTELY DO THE CHEAPEST ONE. I mean, it’s super sweet if you want to send me extra money (PS this blog has a tip jar over on the right) but I don’t know how to work the extra features so frankly, you won’t get what you paid for. Do the 5$ subscription. I will be plenty grateful and you will have access to everything.
And what is everything? Well…we have poems, stories, book chapters, chapbook excerpts, vlogs, essays, newsletters, and cover reveals. At least a piece a week unless I am laid up, I try to provide my subscribers with an insight into the writing process for me as well as my life as a writer. Everything is unpublished, new, or raw at the time that I post on Patreon, and it’s the only place to find my fledgling videos, The Vociferous Vlog (which I really have to work on this weekend…oh please don’t let me get sick again.)
All I’m saying is that if you like me, and you like what I write, and you’ve got 5 bucks a month…I will happily trade you some words. I really enjoy doing my Patreon, and I am hoping it picks up a little not just for monetary purposes but because I like the platform for connection that it provides. There isn’t anywhere else I would be comfortable sharing the first chapter of my WIP, or starting out making vlogs.
I’m editing the page a little later today to give possible subscribers a taste of what is being offered, so there will likely be two or three pieces available later, but there’s a lot more available once you subscribe. Either way, I hope you check it out and consider subscribing.
That all said, my shoulders are killing me. I’m headed back to the couch for a bit. Happy Friday.
Back before the world got sick, I forced myself to attend an open mic poetry reading at a local bookstore. Then, that ended because of the pandemic, and I retreated back into my little anxiety shell and didn’t come out for a year and a half. Then, last week I saw an ad in the paper for a writing workshop. There were only a few slots available, but I figured what the heck and threw my name into the hat. Two days later I received an email saying I was registered. Turns out, it was also a free event, so I was even more pumped because in case you were wondering, poetry collections are not best sellers.
But then, as it does, my stomach came out to play on Friday and sent me into a tizzy. Saturday, the day of the workshop, I felt better physically, but terrible mentally. Firstly, I did not take my meds the night before because I was fearful of throwing up again. Secondly, they pumped me full of the strong stuff at the ER and it was still wearing away come Saturday afternoon.
At 3pm, I was near tears, scared to go, unprepared, rushed…all the feelings of anxiety that like to stop me in my tracks. I was even a little sick to my stomach, which made me all the more worried. Mark did what he always does, and that is get me through it. He remined me how excited I as when I got the registration email. He reminded me how badly I wanted to get out into the world again, and he reassured me of my talents, as he does every day. So, I got dressed and drank some coffee and got in the car and went.
Awkward at first, as always, I was maybe the second person to arrive. I settled in and we got a box full of goodies (photo below) with a notebook and a journal in it, along with supplies for making tea bags. First, Julio (whom I met once before at that bookstore, so it was a little easing to see a face I knew in the room,) gave a talk about the histories of tea and the cultural and religious significances, and then discussed the tea flavors we had and what they symbolized, which was very interesting. I jotted down my combinations I wanted to try: hibiscus mint for mom, lemongrass mint for Bernie, and lavender chamomile for me.
After our selections, we took to writing about our flavors. I didn’t get anything very good, because I was writing longhand which is just TORTURE in my opinion. But I of course typed it up and then cleaned it a little, so you can find it below. Everyone else shared their pieces, and they were lovely. I like open mic style things because everyone’s flow is so different. You have free form, traditionalists, rhymers, alliteraters, slam poets…so much variety.
After the journaling and sharing, we put our tea in the bags and decorated tea boxes. Then, Bianca, who seemed to be the one in charge, gave everyone a personalized cup (and you just know I love stuff with my name on it.) We had a little open mic, where you could share whatever, and I read Sick Since Sixteen because it was the first poem that came up on my phone. It was a good choice though, because I received both snaps and “mmmh’s” which is like a standing ovation in the poetry world. Then everything broke up and most people started heading over to The Gypsy Parlor across the street for an iced tea tasting, and that’s when my brain screamed “NO. GO HOME.”
So, I gathered my things and thanked my hosts and left, dejected.
See, the mingling bit was the part I was looking forward to the most. I barely know any local writers, and it is so hard for me to get out of my shell and find actual humans. And my stupid brain said no, then triggered my stomach to agree with it, causing me to gag on the corner of Grant and Potomac. Sometimes I feel like that stupid brain-gut connection is truly ruining everything good and exciting in my life.
Anyway, I went home. I made my tea, and it was delicious. Soothing chamomile and destressing lavender. Very helpful. Then I typed up what I wrote in my journal, and texted Sahar to tell her of my woes. She suggested I try to network virtually, which I don’t know if I would be better at. I decided to follow the hosts of the events fb pages. Hopefully that will keep me on the radar for upcoming things.
Julio is having an ugly Christmas sweater open mic, which seems pretty cool, but who knows if anxiety will let me attend. I will try, though. I will always keep trying. In the meantime, I shall sip my tea and write in my journal and hope to make a new friend that I can talk about the business of words with. Someday…
4pm
Gram was British,
so 4pm meant tea time.
Our cups,
filled with cream and sugar,
(honey and lemon if you were sick.)
Biscuits were a necessity,
though mother would say
“It’s too close to dinnertime!”
“She’s already overweight!”
No mind paid by Gram,
tea and cookies at 4pm.
Rose Red tea,
so I could collect the porcelain figurines,
and terrible shortbread
from a blue metal tin,
She would have been one-hundred on Saturday,
but I lost her when I was eight,
her body as cold
as the cup of leftover tea
on her nightstand.
One night, I was managing a show called The Last Meeting of the Knights of the White Magnolia at a tiny bookshop in downtown Buffalo. I could fit maybe 15 people comfortably in there at a time, but this particular evening at least 20 folks showed up, one in a wheelchair. It was my job to handle the crowd while they were in the small space, and so I did what had to be done. I stood on the stage area and announced we were all going to play a game of Tetris. The crowd laughed. I then comically rearranged all these strangers so that everyone could sit comfortably, and so the woman in the wheelchair could get a spot in the front row. For five or ten minutes, I just riffed, no problem. In my head I thought, what is this, if not acting? I mean, it’s basic improv. I’d been onstage acting for so many times in my life at that point, that it was just natural.
Now, I don’t believe I have lost this ability, but technology has altered it. As it turns out, I have no stage-fright, but I am painfully camera-shy.
I never liked having my picture taken, and with the advent of the selfie I was very cautious. But now, things are changing again, and it is videos that rule the world. And I just can’t.
I’ve made a few. The ones where I introduce myself and read a poem are best. The one I made for the suicide walk didn’t turn out too bad, but I stumbled a little, and my palms were sweaty, and my heart was racing. Then came the Patreon idea.
On my Patreon, I have The Vociferous Vlog, where I read a poem and then talk about the inspiration behind it. In theory, it’s a really good idea, but as it turns out, videos are not my strong suit. I should have realized…I’d always rather read the article, y’know?
The first one I made was ok, but E and I did it together and couldn’t quite get the angle on the camera right. I was far away and not as clear-sounding as we had hoped. The second one was worse, because Mark tried to hand-cam it and shook the whole time, which wasn’t even obvious until I uploaded it to the computer. Then, it looked terrible. I looked good, but I also kept my eyes down the entire time, which is something I will have to work on.
You would think I would be better at this. And also, I’ve done plenty of Zoom calls during the pandemic, and never felt this way about those…perhaps because I’m talking with someone? PLUS, my Patreon is just starting out and only has a few subscribers, so why am I bugging over people I KNOW seeing me in a video?
No really, I’m asking. I have no answers.
I know that you could drop me in the middle of a stage and I could entertain for an hour. I know it. But to get me to film myself doing five minutes of poetry talk on my own? Nope. I try to summon the theater person deep within me but I guess she’s sleeping (likely due to some SSRI’s,) and won’t be coming to my aide today, at least.
I’ve been sitting at the desk for half an hour. I wasn’t sure what to publish today because I had three topics in mind, so I did a poll on Twitter and in 5 minutes its’ going to tell me people want to read about the Twitter experiment I did yesterday…and they will. But I’m in a contrary mood and gosh darn it, it’s National Poetry Day. How can I not write about my favorite form of expression?
But that leaves me with more choices…share some poetry, as I have in the past-my little outliers who have no homes? That’s what I usually do. Alas…she is mad at me, and that is all I can think about today.
She…is my book, A Lovely Wreckage.
She’s a year and a half old and we are already in an argument. She doesn’t think I’m doing enough…she wanted things like a signing or a store shelf to sit on, and I couldn’t get her those things, so she said I was a terrible mother and shitty writer and slammed the door in my face. I tried to coax her out of her room with the discovery that she was now for sale on the Walmart website, but this was fruitless. She is angry and refusing to sell.
Thing is, she knows she could do it. She knows she’s a lovely little debut that would have been much better received were we not in the midst of a pandemic at the time and ever since, and she’s bitter about it. And she’s not wrong…she shoulda had somthin’.
I wrote a blog called Schrodinger’s Chapbook about her and she liked that attention but then she never sent a royalty check so who knows…children are so moody.
All kidding aside…I really need to sell some books. Everything I’m reading tells me that I need to be shoving my book down the throat of every person I meet, and honestly that is not something I’m capable of. I wish I was, truly, so that I could give her everything she deserves. We have worked so hard. We are so tired.
So, today, on National Poetry Day, I will give you a poem. One of hers. My favorite of hers, actually (my mom’s too!) And I hope that you love it, and I hope that you love her…lord knows I do.
Even when she calls me a hack.
Dead Nerves
I quit smoking but this poetess
needs her hit, her puff, her drag and
I can still taste nicotine on my fingertips like
the sweat on your skin but
it’s a phantom sense
like the tingling in my toes-
Dead nerves.
I put on black nail polish and an old flannel
because I feel like sixteen again when
the wind whips my hair up
into the tornado that hangs over my head.
Rain clouds are for amateurs and I build weather formations
to hide my intentions.
I dance with demons and dummies but it’s all the same
as being young and in love,
before needles prickled at my skin and
left me numb and frightened.
These little bits of a broken heart,
these sharp shards that leave
faint pink lines on my skin
keep me from second guessing my silly self.
This itching in my fingers is a reminder
of bad decisions and salty storms,
that youth betrayed me.
Dead nerves in my hands
like dead nerves in my heart.
Sometimes, I will be super hyped to do something and then my brain will be like “haha, no,” and then I end up sitting on the couch eating cereal straight out of the box and watching old episodes of Fringe. Oh depression, you vicious mistress.
So, I drag myself into the office and check my email and socials and try to prepare myself for the day. I open a word document to start writing and then suddenly there is a garbage truck outside my door, banging and clanging its way slowly down the street. No hope for concentration, so I pop over to Submittable to check on my poetry submissions. No change. Ho-hum.
Then, to the blog! Alas, no topic. Nothing, because depression ate it, like a hungry teenager raiding the refrigerator in the middle of the night.
I can’t focus my thoughts. I look at my yellow umbrella that hangs off the bookshelf to my left and think that I should have taken it to the beach with me on Saturday. I look at the star on the wall that says “One Day at a Time,” and I think gee that’s great, now someone give me a cigarette! I look at the ceiling. There are cobwebs in the corner. Perhaps I should sweep them?
Anything, anything, anything but write.
After this, whatever this is, I am going to attempt to put my chicken-scratch notes on my chappie into type, Then, put those typed words into an email, and send it to my editor. Real, actual, needs-to-be-done work.,,but my serotonin levels don’t give a crap. I also want to work on new submissions since it is August now, but that seems like a faraway chore at the moment.
Oh, and I want to clean my house, because I had my four kiddos plus G this weekend and the joint is wrecked.
First, I guess, I will drink some coffee. I will be grateful that the street is now fairly quiet, and I can write and work in peace. I will sit here in this office chair until all my tasks are done, because while my brain and hormone levels and all that garbage may be telling me one thing, my heart is telling me another: you can do it.
When I edited A Lovely Wreckage, we (my editor Mark and I) made changes, of course. Not a whole lot, because they were individual poems that could stand alone without the collection. However, Mark made some suggestions, and looking back I’m pretty sure I took all if not most of them, because they line4d up with the idea I had in mind.
Tuesday Afternoon ain’t like that.
When Zachary (new editor) suggested format changes, I was all for it, and here is why: I wrote the piece for performance (more on that later.) This was rewriting the piece for reading purposes. It’s a different ballgame, and I am all for his format suggestions. Also, there were some other aspects he suggested changes on…some I like, some I don’t. Anyway, I made the fatal mistake of sending it to Sahar, who reads everything I write including various correspondence and many long text messages. As my best friend, you would think she would have glowing things to say, but no, she hated it. My mistake was not telling her in advance about the performance vs. reading thing. Of course, she hated it. She heard me read it…she heard me perform it. So did Mark. He’s going to hate it, too.
But as Kevin said to me during one of our deep conversations that we fit in between inside jokes and YouTube videos, you’re not writing for your friends and family, you’re writing for your fans. Your friends and family are going to love whatever you do in the end. They’re not the real audience.
So, my cousin Erin read it. Yes, family, but Erin has the talent of being extremely blunt when asked to be, no holds barred. And she enjoyed it. Likely, because she never read the original. But really…what is an original?
When I worked in theater, every single play I ever did went though massive edits during rehearsals, from straight-up script rewrites to blocking reworks. Everything was moved around and crossed out and added on until you got the final product, and that is what is going on with this mini-chap. That is what has always been going on for it.
It started with a line from a poem by another woman, for chrissake. It was a challenge…take a line from her poem, and start a new one of your own with that line. I picked a line; I wrote a poem. I won a prize. I polished the poem and deleted the other poet’s line. I added to the poem…a lot. I edited the poem. I sent it off to be picked, and it was. And so…I continue to edit the poem, changing things to make it better than it was, albeit different. Enhanced, I prefer to think of it.
Kevin also said that the only person whose opinion really matters is my own, which is definitely true. What comes out will be what I wanted it to be, no matter what is printed on the page. Some of the edits are big leaps for me, but some that I am willing to take to put out the best possible finished product, just like I would do if I were working a show. Kill your darlings, and all that jazz.
Sigh. I suppose I am off to reread. I will sit with it a bit, then make some more edits, then send it back to Zachary who will likely throw it back to me and so on and so forth until it’s ready to roll. All I need is patience and a clear eye.
Now, I know very little about science, but somehow, I know about Schrodinger’s cat. For those who don’t, here’s the link to the Wikipedia page, and also I will try to explain the most basic principle of it in kindergarten language.
Say you put a cat in a box with a substance that may or may not kill it, and seal the box. Now, with the box sealed you don’t know if the cat is dead or alive. It’s a thought experiment, like that one about the trains and whether to save one or 100 people. It has something to do with quantum mechanics and again, I have no idea how this information got into my head. Anyway…
Sahar was in town a couple weeks ago. Seeing as how our favorite restaurant that we’ve been going to for 20 years just went vegan, and we are most definitely meat eaters, we have been on the hunt for a new spot. This found us at Dog Ear Bookstore and Café.
I love that place. I have been there many times over the years and have consumed a great many cups of chai tea with friends. This is the place where I discovered the poetry readings that I used to go to…I do wish they would start those up again!
I ordered a delightful roast beef sandwich called the Charles Dickens and we settled into a table for some conversation. There wasn’t much honestly because texting exists, so Sahar and I have managed to remain joined at the hip despite being a state apart. So, we ate our sandwiches and lamented the passing of our old restaurant.
After eating, we went into the back, into the book shop, on a mission. See, this is the shop where I dropped off a couple copies of my chapbook a few months ago. Honestly, it’s not worth it to me monetarily to sell it in stores; I get the most cash from Amazon purchases, but it was important to me to get it into at least one shop so I could say I did it. And of course I took it directly to Dog Ears.
We browsed. I searched the poetry shelf; Sahar looked in local authors. No book.
I was perplexed. What does this mean? One would assume, I suppose, that it sold out. Yet, the proprietor told me he would call for more copies if that happene4d. He has not called. Still, I could not find the book.
So…if you put a chapbook in a bookstore, with people who could possibly purchase it or not, is the book dead or alive?
Now, had I backbone in that moment, I would have simply asked. Flung open the lid of the box and found out if the cat was dead, so to speak. But no, I’m chicken, so we left quietly and I wondered all day instead. But now it’s weeks later, and I’m still thinking about it, because that’s the way my stupid brain works.
It knows very little about science, but it’s a pro at over-analyzing.
Sometimes, I’ll be sitting at my computer minding my business and Jesus will walk in and demand some of my time.
I wrote a poem about that once.
Anyway, today He comes in the door and tells me good things come to those who wait, and I tell him to get off my back already. As Chuck Palahniuk wrote in Fight Club, “You can’t teach God anything.”
So, I go to check my email and sure enough there is word from a man named Zachary telling me to forward my manuscript to him…the MS that I have had in limbo for a year now, waiting to be put into print. I understand the mix-up…they had staff changes and, y’know, a pandemic. The world slowed down for us all. I am just grateful that this morning I got a little nudge in the right direction.
Jesus looks at me and says: “Get up out of the dirt.”
I intend to accomplish several things in the coming weeks, all of which are scary and foreign to me, but which need to be done to better myself and my surroundings. Today, I am out here working on my writing, so neglected since before my surgery, when I was at my sickest, and after, when I was at my weakest. Now, I feel better and stronger, though tentative, but happy, also. So, I shall take strides to improve the areas of my life that I have neglected, just like my writing.
Today I am going to my preferred bookshop/cafe with Sahar, my port in the storm. Nothing could kick off my journey towards improvement better than lunch at one of my favorite places with one of my favorite people.
Don’t get me wrong, my inner self still fights with Jesus.
He’s all “You can do it! You’re so strong!” and I’m over here incredulous. What does Jesus know? He’s only the Son of God.
Ham 'N Eggs 