Oh, never mind

"Scent Memories" is not actually going to be published right now. The lit journal that accepted it has gone on an extended hiatus. Blah. Back to the submission board.

Burning Out the Old (again)

As is our family tradition, last night was spent with a small gathering at home. We used the last hour or so of 2011 to burn out old issues from the year and manifest new energies for the new year. Sitting around the fire pit, each of us wrote on a piece of wood (or two) and tossed the fuel into the already roaring flames.

Several months ago I was feeling distracted and burdened by a box of rejection letters I had sitting on a shelf in my office. I queried suggestions on FB for dealing with them and decided that burning them at end of the year sounded like the most satisfying.

There were several years when the letters were a representation that I am, in fact, a writer because I had written enough to send pieces out for possible publication and been rejected. There were several rejections for one essay that is about to be released in an anthology. Realizing that this one particular essay had to be turned away before it was ultimately accepted felt pretty good.

I kept a few letters out of the burn pile because they had specific remarks or feedback that were complimentary or that I wasn't sure I had recorded in electronic version. I keep a record of where and when I send writing out and what the basic responses were. This way of course I don't resend the same piece out redundantly.

After watching the papers burn it occurred to me that even if I missed a couple of nice words, there is simply no need to keep anything negative around. I don't need rejections to prove I am a writer. I no longer feel the need for that particular badge of honor.

So I tossed the rest in and watched them release the last of the negative energy that I know will ultimately be reabsorbed into life in general and redistributed into something more productive.

Annotation Nation

A FB friend just pointed this site out. As I haven't been offering annotations/book reviews lately, this site offers ongoing additions.


http://annotationnation.wordpress.com/

It's been a long time coming

For the first time, I am writing about my first marriage.

Twenty-nine years ago, today, I swapped vows with my first husband. It ended badly a few months later.

For a good portion of my adult life I wouldn't even admit to the marriage. I used to make a point of wording my sentences very carefully when discussing former husbands so that someone had to listen very, very carefully to hear that I could count more than two. I have a son from my second marriage and a daughter from my third (which is where I parked and have stayed for 22+ years), so it is impossible not to refer to at least one ex-husband. I was mighty clever for a long time, and no one figured it out.

In recent years I have been more open about it, but I share very little information with anyone beyond my immediate family and close circle of friends. I'm honestly not sure exactly who knows what because I talk about it so little.

I was trying to decide if the story I am ready to tell would be best written as an essay or a short story. So far the essay approach is winning out.

I'm kind of excited.

Acceptance at Last!!!

I was going to post the acceptance email here. But it felt odd, so I won't. I had an essay, currently entitled "Scent Memories," accepted for publication by a press called Insolent Aardvark.

Insolent Aardvark

It is one of my favorite pieces that has been rejected by six other publications. I did a reading of it 2 or more years ago for the Redwood Writers Club and got a really good response. I changed the title for this submission; titles are not my strongest writing, so I'm wondering if that last change is was pushed it over the top and got it accepted.

I sent it out because my friend James Celestino had a short story accepted by the same publication. They asked him if he could refer some non-fiction writers because they didn't have enough pieces from the open submission period. He contacted me, I sent one it and IT WAS ACCEPTED!!

Funnily enough I'm not jumping up and down screaming, as I have done in the past when something was accepted for publication. I am feeling okay about it. And posting the information online. And texting my kids. *sigh*

Triumph is a good feeling.

Back in the Saddle Again

Whew! It has been one very long year for lots of reasons. I finally feel able to sit down and focus on creative writing again after a long battle with near apathy.

Last month I sent out two submission. One was the second piece of flash "fiction" that I have written. The definition of flash fiction seems to vary from publication to publication and anywhere from a 300-1000 word maximums. I have had a moment in time rattling around in my head for quite awhile and finally decided to write it down. It is only a few sentences long, a very, very short story, and I think it will leave potential readers filling in their own meanings.

The second piece is an essay I wrote several years ago. The publication wanted an essay that was something like 500 words less than the one I wanted to send. So I took a good long look at the pages and ultimately cut more than 500 words. And of course it is now a much stronger piece that I feel really good about. The art is certainly in the revision.

I'm also back to work on my book about investigating my own molestation story. I have cut a great deal out of the the original idea. I was simply trying to include too much, and it made the story unwieldy to write. I have decided to focus entirely on telling the simple story of being molested and the investigation and comparison of my memories to the facts I uncover. I have tossed out the retelling of my experience with PTSD. The memoir component that will reflect on my reactions both then and now will likely prove to be interesting enough to write and hopefully to read.

Writing and submitting again. Yep, that's me back up on that horse!

Books Part 3

This time around are three completely different books; each is an incredible piece of literature for very different reasons.

Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing
This story has been told already, several times in fact. It has been the subject of at least two other books, including a pictorial of the actual events as captured by the ship's photographer. Lansing's style of story-telling, however, takes the reader far beyond the retelling of a harrowing event. He spends time developing characters, much like a novelist would, and he begins with the ship herself as she struggles to survive long enough to see her crew off safely. Riveting, fascinating and sometimes terribly disturbing, I could not put this down.


Lit: A Memoir by Mary Karr
This is a follow-up to Karr's earlier memoir, The Liars' Club, where she danced deftly between observing her parent's demons and fending them off. Here she attacks only her demons, and does so in a brutally honest and incredibly creative way. Not may authors can get away with prose like:

"Through that fishbowl lens, you’ve been looking for the truth most of your life. Recently that wide eye has come to settle on me and I’ve felt like Odysseus, albeit with less guile and fewer escape routes, the lens itself embodying the one-eyed Cyclops."

AND

"I shit you not!"

And once again she goes beyond the naval gazing effect of the confessional memoir to share her descent into alcoholism and climb out into the arms of her newly discovered God. So good on so many levels.


The Kiss by Kathryn Harrison
This is not for the faint of heart. It is the story surrounding Harrison's incestuous relationship with her estranged father. There are no real details of the sexual encounters included, only the raw emotional truth that resulted. I kept asking myself how something so horrific could be written so beautifully. I have read some of her fiction, which is quite good, but the level of writing here is above and beyond the other attempts at retelling her story through fictional characters. As difficult as this must have been for her to write (and I once heard her tell a story about just that) the truth truly set her creative powers free.