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Back in the US!

10 Wednesday Sep 2014

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I’m back! It’s been a whirlwind 7 months, full of many good changes. Now that I’m settled in again in the States, I’m jumping back in to a new kind of writing life, and I couldn’t be more excited.

So many things to tell, I hardly know where to begin!

First off, the trip was AMAZING. Andrew and I dipped our feet in the Ganges, improvised a bowling alley with plastic water bottles and a soccer ball, stuffed ourselves in Italy, and saw my family in the Netherlands. Easter in Spain brought the kind of theatricality, art, and mystery that only the Spanish can truly pull off. We semi-hitchhiked over the Albanian/Montenegrin border, planted over 3,000 onions, and watched fireworks burst over the Eiffel Tower on Bastille Day.

Through all of this, you can imagine, I was writing. Our trip blog, www.jatrip.wordpress.com, was a great way for family and friends to keep up with us, but I was also working on the novel I wrote during NaNoWriMo last year. It turns out trains are a wonderful writing environment for me: no Internet, a sense of physical motion to coax out the creative spirit, and gorgeous scenery to create a sense of simultaneous stimulation and peace, which I find helps my productivity tremendously. Over the course of the trip, I added nearly 10,000 words to the original 50,000 and revised over 90 pages of the novel, putting me around the halfway mark.

For anyone out there interested, I’m using The 90-Day Rewrite by Alan Watt to guide my novel revision. Such a great book. Watt (or “Al,” as he calls himself in the book) structures each day’s assignment in the form of a letter that talks about an element of craft or a thematic/dramatic principle of novels. At the end of each letter is an angle from which to approach that day’s revision (he suggests 2-3 pages of work per day). I’ve found the tone to be encouraging and wise. I mean, obviously the ultimate test is whether my novel springs to the NYT Bestseller list immediately ;-), but in terms of the day-to-day experience of novel revision, this is a great resource.

It took us a little while to get our feet back under us in the US and find our new momentum, although I think we didn’t waste any time. In the first two weeks after we landed, we toured, leased, and moved into our new apartment in North Bethesda, Maryland. Our move gives us much easier access to a major city than we had before. One of the things I learned about myself on the trip is how much I love the atmosphere of a big city. The visible markers of history and culture energize me and make me feel connected to generations of people who have done amazing things. I’m loving being close enough to DC to pop down and explore on a whim.

I’m also starting a new career! I’ve done the occasional freelance assignment before, but full-time work and grad school made it difficult to get any traction. Now, I am proud to announce that I am writing full-time! I’m doing a mix of magazine and business writing. There’s so many exciting projects to get involved in. I can hardly believe how lucky I am to be able to dedicate so much of my time to writing.

If you need a writer, know someone who needs writing help, or just want to check out my professional site, head over to www.dcfreelancewriter.com.

I will be keeping this site as well, mostly because I really enjoy writing here. This writer’s site is a place for me to be a bit more vulnerable and work more openly through the various ups and downs of making writing a thriving part of my life. I’ve also decided to continue to publish fiction and other purely creative work under my maiden name, while using my married name for professional writing. I need to get into a different headspace for the different kinds of work, so why not use distinct names for these different roles?

Ideally, I’ll post here once a week with updates on the fiction writing life, where to find my work, and thoughts on the books I’m reading (I finally wrote out my full reading list and it is out of control–I have so many wonderful stories ahead of me!). More likely, expect to see me about twice a month, more if time permits.

Oh, and if any of you are reading this who were here before the hiatus, thank you so much for coming back! The readers I’ve had here mean a lot to me, even if I haven’t done a great job in the past of showing it. I’m delighted that you’re back, and I look forward to meeting more cool people through this site.

Hiatus

11 Saturday Jan 2014

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Happy 2014! I spent the last five months unintentionally dark on this blog, but busy in the other parts of my life. I am happy to find that grad school has served me well in cultivating a writing habit. Without the eye of a classroom, I still made time for a NaNoWriMo novel and several short stories. I’m hoping to finish drafting my first piece of the new year in the next few days. 

My world is about to turn over. I left my job three weeks ago, and Andrew and I are packing up our belongings to put into storage when our lease is up at the end of the month. We are T-minus 19 days until we embark on a 6-month tour of India, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Ireland, Greece, Germany, and France. I am so excited for what this trip will do to change our perspectives, deepen our marriage, and seriously energize my writing!

Of course, this trip means giving up a lot as well. Our jobs and our townhouse are the first to go. We’re traveling carry-on only, so we’ll be limited in terms of wardrobe and the luxuries we’re used to at home. Also, I want to take advantage of the time to explore, so this time I’m not simply going dark on this blog. I am taking an official hiatus until August, when we return. The plan is that I will post pictures and some trip updates at our shared blog, http://www.jatrip.wordpress.com, when I have the Internet, time, and energy lined up to do so.

The Briefest of Check-Ins and Some Words About a Bride

12 Monday Aug 2013

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I spent a beautiful day watching my good friend (and good writer) Megan marry the man of her dreams, and also got to see a larger crowd of MFA co-alums than I have since graduation. Once the bride had departed, we stood outside the church and chatted about what we were up to. It turns out I am writing more than I thought I was. I’ve got three things I’m puttering with at the moment (a “proper” story, the kind of thing I’d submit for workshop; a exploratory finger into zombie fic; and a just-for-me Doctor Who thing based on a dream I had that is meant purely for fun). It was good to hear myself listing them aloud. I’m not sure I would have realized I actually do put in semi-consistent writing time without the experience of sharing that news.

I do want to say a quick word about Megan: She is one of the more dedicated writers in my graduating year, regularly submitting and polishing her work. It’s both inspiring and guilt-inducing, in the best way. Megan also has a knack for hope in her work that I sometimes have a hard time with. It’s easier, in some ways, to write stories where everything goes wrong. It can turn into the perfect negative of the Mary Sue: flawed people never achieving a true resolution at all. Megan’s characters have real problems and real interactions, but she can find ways to happy endings through them as well, which is harder and braver than it first appears.

It’s probably this attitude that has also led to the group of friends she has. I was invited to the pre-wedding festivities, and quickly realized friends from grad school, college, high school, middle school, and even earlier were represented. I was also happily surprised by how welcoming and generous all of these friends turned out to be. I can’t help but feel that Megan’s own generous spirit and eye for hope and happiness is what helps her keep these friendships so strong. It’s a good quality for love as well as fiction.

Aside

A Light Bulb Going Out: The Weird Way I Cured My Writer’s Block

29 Monday Jul 2013

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On Friday, I had a bit of a meltdown. It had been a hectic week, I was jealous about the successes my writer friends were posting on their Facebook pages, and when someone honked at me for no reason on the ride home, it was the last small indignity to push me over the edge.

I had been sitting in the downstairs bathroom for about 10 minutes with the lights out, feeling sorry for myself, when my husband poked his head in the doorway and astutely said that this did not seem like normal behavior, and that he had deduced that probably something was bothering me.

Obviously there was more than one problem on my mind that evening, but one of the things that came out in my tearful rant in the bathroom was that I was in the worst stretch of writing my current story: unsure of the ending, doubtful of the characters, hearing the disdainful voice in my head that pops up to suggest I scrap the whole thing. I knew taking time to get productive writing done would make me feel better, but all my inner negativity made it harder than usual to get my butt in the chair and do it.

So I wrote in the bathroom while Andrew made dinner. Silence is good. Privacy is good. Even darkness was good that night (that’s right, I sat in my powder room for 25 minutes typing by the glow of the laptop only!). I realized that in the depths of my self-conscious stretch, what I needed in order to function creatively was to feel like no one would be able to tell if what I was writing was bad. Being in a quiet space where no one could ask me how it was going (or know not to ask by my expression) helped ease my nerves. In the dark, I could even, oddly, pretend the room was truly empty–that I wasn’t even there–and use that to confuse my inner critic into silence. I felt a little silly, but by dinnertime, I had almost 400 words written.

Tonight I’ll be back in my usual spot for writing, but I’m filing away the weird trick of literally shutting myself away and turning off any other distractions–even the lights.

Let me know if you try a dark writing session, or if you have other weird rituals that help you shake off a block!

What I’m…Publishing!

26 Friday Jul 2013

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My schedule says you’re due a book review, and I’ve got a juicy one I’m excited to talk about, but we’re going to have to interrupt the posting schedule for some fun news. I’m proud to announce you can now check out “Doll Baby,” the first story from Room Full of Strangers, at Monologging, a “Local-Global Collaborative Magazine” founded by another writer in my graduating year.

“Doll Baby” tells the story of two sisters: Sarah, a nurse who has indefinitely postponed her independence to care for her ailing mother, and Amy, fragile but free, who brings a lifelike doll to dinner with disastrous results.

Jeff Barken and I worked closely together in the last year of the program, critiquing each other’s work, disagreeing on several aspects of writing and the writing process, but always engaged in the discussion and interested in hearing a different perspective. You’ll find information on his book at Monologging as well, along with stories and essays from writers in Baltimore or across oceans.

So go check out “Doll Baby,” the wonderfully eerie photo that illustrates it, and the rest of the mag!

Room Full of Strangers, or Fresh Beginnings

01 Monday Jul 2013

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This past semester was a game-changer. At the beginning of this year, I “finished” assembling a manuscript of seven stories to submit as my graduate thesis and my first self-published book. Over the next few months, I worked with a brilliant editorial group of other authors-to-be, critiquing each other’s stories, offering design suggestions, and pouring more than one glass of wine to get through the stress of the most demanding four months of our academic career.

I cut one piece from my collection, changed endings and beginnings, and pushed even deeper into the heads and hearts of my characters than I had realized I could. For design, I took inspiration walking around the city that has become so much more familiar to me in the past 4 years, and a serendipitous moment of light and shadow striking rowhouses on St. Paul Street became a cover and a home for six short stories about choices and relationships, the moments we feel suspended in a bewildering space where we are strangers even to ourselves.

My book, Room Full of Strangers, has been out for two months to the day, and I am down to the last 20 copies from the first print run!

To celebrate the jump from MFA student to grad and the publication of my first book, I am relaunching this blog, with a few fun changes: I’ve freshened up the design and added a page where you can take a look at (and order) Room Full of Strangers. I’m also excited to announce a new weekly posting schedule:

Mondays: Writing life and the creative process. A mix of nuts and bolts, updates on what I’m writing and how it’s going, and more abstract or big-picture thoughts on how to incorporate an active creative life into the everyday.

2nd and 4th Fridays of the month: What I’m Reading returns with books that will make you think and (hopefully) jump-start your creativity.

A final note: Publishing a book and then trying to rustle up a blog audience is the opposite way to go about things, so my very first step on this relaunch is wrong! (Incidentally, there’s a fun article about writers and failure here–if I’m failing, I’m in good company). So let’s not think of this as a blatant plug for my shiny new book. My ultimate dream for this website would be to make this a fun hang-out spot for writers and any other creative types to talk shop, read good books, and get good work done. I hope this becomes as much your space as mine.

Why Getting Married is Like Doctor Who

19 Friday Oct 2012

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Andrew and I celebrated our fifth, and last, dating anniversary on September 24th. Next year, we’ll be celebrating in a new month and starting the count over at one with our first wedding anniversary.

The home stretch of wedding preparations has been a tumultuous couple of weeks. Family stresses, work demands, and the last few pre-cana videos we’re trying to watch before, you know, the cana all bubble around and beg for attention, and suddenly I find myself thinking a lot about Doctor Who.

Specifically, the tenth Doctor. Even more specifically, some of the things he talked about near the end. My youngest sister best expressed one of the things I love about David Tennant’s interpretation of the character: “You can feel the weight of all the Doctors in him.” This is someone who knows who he’s been before, even knows that this isn’t by far the first time he’s changed. And even so, when he’s told his time is coming to a close, it’s an upheaval.

Even though Time Lords regenerate, the Doctor says, it’s still a kind of death. His face will change. So will his personality. He’ll keep some important parts of himself, but the way they are expressed may be very different. There’s no way to tell beforehand. The Tenth Doctor is afraid going in, and sad, and at least a little angry.

The beautiful thing, though, is the next season starts and we get to see what happens next. The face and voice are different, true. Some people miss the old Doctor. The Doctor himself has to work out what he likes now, how he responds to stress–who he is in this new context. But those important parts that are kept emerge quickly: intelligence, compassion, kindness, a sense of wonder, his memories of everything that has come before. And the new Doctor is more playful, and he is perhaps a bit less guarded with his emotions, and he is maybe more patient than he used to be.

Marriage is a regeneration. I’m starting to really sympathize when I see the Doctor exploding with that orangey-yellow light. I’m bubbling with change. My benefit is I know more about my future than the Doctor gets to, and get to transform in a much happier context than Time Lords do. I’m also guaranteed a pretty snazzy companion.

I do have moments when I think, “I am going to miss my name,” or “I am scared I won’t recognize myself as a wife.” Engaged couples don’t often talk about those moments, or at least not publicly. It feels cruel, or ungrateful considering the unfathomable blessing that it is to find someone you want to love for the rest of your lives. But I think they should.

And then I imagine those first days and weeks of marriage, still crackling with energy, still discovering how people see me differently, how they hear me, what I’ve kept or lost or gained. Nerdy as it is, it helps to see the Doctor flow from actor to actor. New face, new style, but on the most fundamental and important levels, the same wonderful character. I’m not going to start a whole argument about which Doctor is objectively better, but if I could pick which one I would rather be, I’d go with Matt Smith–the Doctor with a marriage.

Tomorrow, at 2:30 pm, I start the biggest adventure of my life. Geronimo.

Ray Bradbury

28 Thursday Jun 2012

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The first time I found Bradbury was through Something Wicked This Way Comes, the book that devoured me so utterly that I had a moment of panic when I looked up and realized it was July instead of October. The lyricism of the writing, the horror of the situations, and the strength of the strange friendship between two such different boys captivated me, and I knew I had to read everything this man had written.

The first time I found Bradbury was in the Golden Book of Children’s Literature, my tome with green script on the side, with embellished old fairy tales and Rikki-Tikki-Tavi and Kipling and Aesop. The story was “Switch on the Night,” and there was a character called Dark in that one too, but not at all like Something Wicked’s nightmare carnival man. Dark the girl embodied night–crickets and stars, porch-lights and croaking or chirping frogs, the soft wings of owls and the texture of black tree branches against midnight sky.

Both of these stories are true–the first time I read Bradbury knowingly, and my actual first encounter. It turns out I have been discovering and rediscovering Bradbury for most of my life. The horror of the carnival stories, murderers, and people trapped within their own private fears; the sweet nostalgia for the mythical small-town America; the exhilarated rush of space and machine, and the prickling alien-ness that they hold; and always, the great human yearning toward understanding of self, of other, of loved one. I read and reread and stopped by his row on the bookstore shelf just so I could rest my hand against the block of books for a moment.

I took Bradbury with me to college. He was my Honors project. I combined literature and sociology in a way I hoped he’d be proud of, following his keen interest in people rather than the classifications he always eluded. Not quite sci-fi writer, too complex for moralist, too nostalgic for a doomsday prophet, too optimistic for pure horror. Dandelion Wine and From the Dust Returned, Fahrenheit 451 and The Golden Apples of the Sun, Martians and Greentown, Illinois.

One of the things I love about Bradbury is the stories he told about himself. He swore he remembered every instant of his life, including birth. He said a carny named Mr. Electrico had recognized him, age 12, as the reincarnation of his best friend, who had died in his arms in the first World War. He said Mr. Electrico had knighted him with lightning and commanded him to live forever, and he said it all with such conviction that I believed him.

Last Wednesday, Andrew called me up at lunchtime to tell me Ray Bradbury had died. Of course I started crying. I feel like I lost my grandfather. He formed my writing self, the play of it, the love of people and where people go wrong, the yen toward short and strange. My first thought was, What do I do if Bradbury is dead? What does the world mean if Mr. Electrico misspoke about that boy, all those years ago? How do I make sense of the world anymore when he isn’t here?

Bradbury made me feel like the mythos that you formed around yourself as a child was okay to carry into adulthood. More than okay, it was something to fuel you, feed you. He created himself like a story. Sometimes my friends tell me I see the world in different or strange ways; there’s a trio of us in which I am indisputably the loopy one, not because I think I actually am so silly as all that, but because I suppose there is a fancifulness and a sense of play that is more alive in me because Bradbury lived it so well.

Rest in peace, Mr. Bradbury. Live forever.

Learning to Look

14 Thursday Jun 2012

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I’m already freaked out about publishing a book by next spring in order to graduate. I’m starting to get more heart-fluttery (in both the good and bad ways) about creeping up on the 4-month mark to the wedding. I haven’t been writing much in any format. It’s a weird, transition-y time.

The good news is I’ve got lots of help in planning, and the best news for my writing soul is that I’m doing an independent study this summer about slowing the heck down. Ekphrasis, as I think I’ve explained before, is art inspired by art (poems from paintings, paintings from music, recipes from novels, etc.). I think it’s awesome. When I was preparing the study, I made up a long list of things I could do in the sphere of ekphrasis that would be challenging and interesting and tangibly rewarding: read so many academic articles and so many books, visit museums so many times, write this many stories at an average of so many words each.

The professor diplomatically told me she loved the ideas I was coming up with, but pointed out that what might be harder and even more rewarding for me, albeit in a less obvious-to-outsiders way, is to spend the summer learning to look. Develop a relationship with a painting instead of approaching it intending to wring out a story. Learn to see what’s not on the canvas. Accept the idea that it would be just fine to spend the summer on one artist, or one painting, if I found something that really spoke to me.

I’m trying. I saw Hashiguchi Goyo’s Beautiful Women at the Walters last week. I chose a painting to focus on, tried to pay attention to the details, wrote a little, tried to avoid the easy angle, wrote a little more. I’m not sure I’m doing it right yet. I’m worried I’m still trying to force story out. But I’m going back again on Sunday, and maybe I’ll look at something else, or maybe I’ll look at the exact same piece as before and see if I see something new, or if it’s closed itself off to me and I have to start from scratch.

Gearing Up for Summer

16 Wednesday May 2012

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The blog hiatus was an unplanned one, but very much needed and appreciated. This has been an eye-opening semester, full of great writing from all over the world and seeing just about everything as a potential book. My final project for my Literary Publications class was a nontraditional book, which I will show you later this week. I finished up last week with about half a dozen new flash pieces, sections that can turn into larger stories, and a revised version of a story that was a lot of fun to write.

This summer, the plan is to write lots, read lots, wander museums in pursuit of my ekphrastic independent study, plan the rest of the wedding, get fit for said wedding, get back into the writing-submission game, find a new place to live, and go on a mission trip. Relaxed yet? For those reasons, I am not promising to also commit to a rigorous new blog schedule, although my goal is to resume posting on a (roughly) weekly basis. Here’s to the summer of changes.