writing skills/profession

Hump Day, Right?


Lost track of the days. Partly because it was the Long Weekend but Rob is on holiday and I measure time by his schedule or Dee’s schedule in the summer because the familiar road markers of my schedule are on hiatus.

There is really nothing to blog about today. Some might argue that I rarely write about anything of import, so why would today be any different? But it’s very true of today. It’s just Wednesday. I will take Dee to swim lessons and then skipping camp and be home in time to make lunch and help Rob pour cement for the sidewalks around the side of the house and retaining wall out back by the drive.

On the writing front, I tossed around Eubie ideas because I promised a bit of flash for Friday and because I think Eubie has a novel in him. A short one. Angst driven urban fantasy with a dollop of social commentary. It’s a shame I don’t have the time to knock that one  off because one of my favorite agent blogs is open to submissions again – but I have memoir and Sundogged. The latter took a wild turn and I have to redirect it. I still think I will have it done before school starts. At this point I am aiming for done and will work on polish in the fall. 

Rob read the four chapters of memoir I pounded out last week.

“It’s compelling,” was his quick and dirty assessment. I think that’s good. He did go on to clarify later that he thought I’d done a decent job of the writing. He wouldn’t tell me that if he didn’t think so regardless of how awesome a wife I am because he is a Virgo and a precisionist when it comes to the written word.

I’m going to polish it over the next couple of weeks and then perhaps let someone other than Rob read it. I am leery to lend it out, but I need to know if it is “compelling” to someone who doesn’t sleep with me, and I could use the extra beta readers. I think most writers have a number one reader, but I’m betting also they have second and third opinions as well.

Write It and Weep


Having secured Rob’s interest and commitment to the memoir, I revisited the opening chapters because I have never been happy with them. I spent the week vomiting forth memories and have about 3000ish words between the first and second chapters. Wound picking aside, condensing a four year time period to three chapters and having them make sense has proved challenging.

The emotional assault has been a bit of a challenge as well. On Tuesday, Rob came home for lunch and as we sat down he looked across the table, sized me up quickly and asked,

“Are you doing okay?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Why? I made good progress on the memoir updates today.”

“Which is why I asked because you have that look about you.”

The look that says I have been scraping scabs and peeling layers of flesh, figuratively speaking of course.

And it’s probably not the best time of year for such work with the date of what would have been a tenth wedding anniversary looming, but if not now – when? Like actually living my life, I can put off the memoir until memories don’t evoke deep feelings but just when the hell would that be? I just don’t buy into the idea that grieving is finite or can be done to death by focusing on it exclusively until it’s mastered. It has to be integrated and that can’t happen unless one goes about the task of living.

But you don’t have to write a book, do you?

Well, it seems to me that every bereaved person plus his/her dog writes a book, so on this score I can finally count myself among the normal and it’s not being widowed I want to focus on.

Although I have to tell some of that tale, I want to tell the story of me and Rob and our  rebuilding because  it’s the journey back that counts. Most everyone goes through hard times or horrific times, but not everyone comes back. I did. Rob did. I think that is a story worth sharing because there seems to be some misguided idea among those who’ve lost that there is a mythical and finite amount of happiness in the universe that is distributed in a half-assed and nonsensical way with the undeserving receiving more than their fair share.

I got slapped a bit on the subject this last week when I commented on a widow blog to the effect that our happiness and contentment are within our control and when we see others receive blessings we feel they didn’t earn that perhaps we don’t know the whole story. I really don’t believe that happiness  is a lottery thing. The times in my life when I have been “unhappy”, and I question the actual existence of the state positive or negative, is usually because I wasn’t trying to be “happy”. I was just waiting for it to happen. Like magic. Which doesn’t exist I am told.

Anyway, I was told that sometimes it’s too much to just hold body and souls together let alone look for “happiness/contentment”, so there you remarried lucky person. And though sometimes it is, it doesn’t change the fact that neither state will fall on a person like manna.

And so, I am almost done with the super painful chapters which is worth weeping over the keyboard a little for a while.

So Bad They are Good


Up for some bad analogies. Writer Unboxed is holding a bad analogy contest through August 4th for anyone so inclined.

My old English supervisor, Jerry Wadden, used to read us some gems at the fall conference every year. It was one of the highlights of the meeting.

A quick google came up with these gems for your inspiration pleasure:

The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you’re on vacation in another city and “Jeopardy” comes on at 7 p.m. instead of 7:30.

Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

Her date was pleasant enough, but she knew that if her life was a movie this guy would be buried in the credits as something like “Second Tall Man.”

Actually that last one could clean up nice.

Between this, Nathan, a memoir and a novel, I am going to be busy.