Sent two stories out so now there are three

in submission.

If they get accepted, then I will have completed 5.

Only 95 submissions/acceptances to go. Ha ha.

Damn Michael Jackson and the lot of them

Thin Lizzy hawking a pair of jeans?????

Aretha and is it furniture polish?????

And if the Beatles are bastardized one more time. . .

Arrrgh.

Advertisers can really ruin it, you know.

Got semi -admitted to the media arts program!

Have a few things to do-- $50 admission fee, heh heh-- and the admission process is on track. Am soooooooooooooooooooooooooo excited. I was getting all giddy reading about the program. Classes start up for a new term in January. Enough time for me to get myself resettled and (insert laughter here) ORGANIZED!! Ha, ha ha. First is a screenwriting course, a computer graphics and some general education, which I may or may not see if I can substitute prior credit for. On one hand, I wouldn't have to take the courses. On the other hand, I would get an A+ in English 111, now wouldn't I???


Anyway, got the number for an organization that's shooting a movie here and looking for crew members. Thinking of volunteering just to get my feet wet again.

Bebe Moore Campbell has died

Her book "Your Blues Ain't Like Mine," a fiction based on the Emmett Till murder is a powerful and incredible piece of writing. Among the books of hers I've read, it remains my favorite.

You can read it here:

http://www.maynardi je.org/columns/ dickprince/ 061127_prince/

and briefly about her here.

All I want for Christmas

Okay, I don't do Christmas; I just love buying the stuffed bears and mooses and penguins and the gingerbread men cookies that come out during this particular time.

I don't give gifts, but I accept them;-)

So if you were thinking of giving me something, I'd so love the new book by Alice McDermott or the new short story collection from Margaret Atwood.

You're so generous and kind. Thanks.

My heart's every desire

Sometimes, like today, I'm feeling like I truly can have every one of them and I'm willing to say YES to whatever I need to in order to do just that.

Yes, yes, yes!

Ready, set. . .

Some of the reasons I'm currently where I am: To get some serious writing done and to relearn some media skills.

The day before I left New Mexico, there was a commercial about a school offering tech skills so that one might become an editor, production assistant, etc.

I was thinking I needed something short term like that and I waited for the location of the college. It was in the same city I was moving to! Even crazier, when my friend Carrie and her husband Dennis picked me up, I was telling them about the things I was hoping to accomplish while I'm here and I mentioned the college and Dennis teaches there! Next week I'm going to start the process of getting enrolled. Looking forward to it.

Part of it is a healing thing. In college I had to take some journalism prerequites and then I could move into my chosen division. The first professor I had in the production side said that journalism wasn't a field for women as well as some other unprofessional things. Teri, a student in the class, and I would bitch about him but neither of us ever thought to complain to the dept. Hell, we were paying to be taught not demeaned. Anyway, the class was divided up to do a televison project and I held a position that others had previously messed up when it was their turn. Lucky for me I grew up having learned to keep my cool and focus when everything's crazy around me. And in a tv studio, so many things have to happen simultaneously, that it can quickly get crazy. I kicked ass though -- so well that the prof commented me before the class when he was critiquing my group's work(begrudingly but what else could he say?). But still I never really felt comfortable in classes after that, felt like I didn't belong, so by enrolling in this media arts program, I will be reclaiming my right to be in the field and also building on the competence, smarts and creativity I already possess. Let's see what vision I can bring to the screen now.

I'm also trying to get some things finished. I'm the cover story for the December issue of a literary magazine back in Cruces and I had directed the editor to several previous interviews that I had done. Rereading them myself, I was dismayed to find that many of the things I'd said I was doing were still undone. So this week I'm pulling together two chapbooks and I'd have four of those six mentioned in an interview done. Some chapbook contests I might enter. I'm also looking at small presses. And Lulu.

I'm ready. And some things are now set.

I just have to shoot the starting gun. I just have to let myself go.

A thirty-minute commute to work and then again, back

Time enough to write a micro story. So today I did.

And speaking of books

I found another collection of stories-- Flash Fiction Forward that I didn't have enough for, I found when I got to the register, but I didn't ask to have the book held. Not a good thing. It's in the store somewhere, but not any where I (nor the information clerk) can find it.

There's also another book I want called "The Art of the Short Story" which takes a critical look at certain stories and it has essays by famous authors regarding techniques, etc.

Would love to use the Borders coupon to cut the price on that one, but Borders also is selling "It's a Wonderful Life" and well, I just love Jimmy Stewart and all. I'll have to pull out the board game that covers the movie. I was supposed to be living in the northeast and Susan was gonna come over.

Ah, well. There will be no snuggling this winter. Too hot, no snow.

Will probably change the menu from hot chocolate to Margaritas on the rocks.

New collection of short stories

I found a short stories collection at Borders which featured "new voices." It's called "Pieces" and was published in part by MTV.

I've gotten through four of the stories and they are INCREDIBLE. Awed and jealous at the same time. When I'm done, I'm gonna review the book and should my review be published, I'll hook you up with the link. There are some stories in there (if you are a lover of the short story) that you should definitely read.

If no takers for my review, then we'll just publish it right here. Hoping to get through this week. Definitely a book you stay up late at night with.

I'm thinking you're like 35. . .

I've met this guy here who is Young Enough To Be My Son. (Asked him to guess my age. Off ten years, his first guess.) Yes, it's cute when he flirts but if he were serious in any remote sense, I would say no. I rarely go five years difference either way ('cept I'd make a huge exception for Mr. De Niro were he divorced and interested in me).

Back in New Mexico, a few years ago, there was this guy who kept asking me out. I told him not possible, 'cause he was half my age ("Think stamina" he told me--ha!). I was telling my kids later that night that he asked me out again.

"Oooh," my oldest daughter said. "Gwen gets her groove back."

Uhm, hello. I told her I so never lost it;-)

007

Saw the latest Bond flick. Roger Moore will forever remain my fav, but this new Bond is a contender. The film had surprises and thrills. I was expecting a lot of gadgets and technology(though there is a "first aid" kit which is a surprise) but got story/character development instead.

Love those kind of movies the best.

Like you've never called a black person a nigger

That black guy who cut you off in traffic and under your breath you called him *that* -- the "n" word. It came out so easily and you relished the momentary high 'cause it felt so powerful but then you were shocked and embarassed because you aren't a racist. . . are you?


---------------------------------------


Richards' tirade wasn't about race although he latched onto a sterotype--it was about power. Getting heckled on stage is HELL HELL HELL. He wasn't in power and he simply chose the easier way to tip the scales. Society taught him how to do that (we still label people to keep them beneath us), but what Richards didn't understand was you're not to say it outloud. GASP!

We need to hear from someone with some experience here. Can someone get Mel on the line, to talk to Michael.

We need to hear from Eminen-- how many times has he called Dre or 50 a nigger when he was angry?

We need to all go to Seinfield's house and watch "Crash."

Reconstructive surgery

Decades ago I lost all of my disks with no hard copies of stories. I rewrote one several years ago and although it didn't seem to me to have the same "feel" as when I first wrote it, people who read it thought it had something, it was published, end of story. Sorta. I was going to include it in a chapbook I'm readying for a contest and I just am so ambivalent about it. I miss the original.

What really sucks is that there were four other stories that I really liked and they're gone and I'm scared to attempt to reconstruct them. Okay, one I don't mind because I've decided on a whole new approach to it--switching protag from female to male, switching the pov from 1st to 3rd limited-- but the others -- I'm just paralyzed at the thought.

I try to tell myself that writing them now would give them the value of my experience, but in my writer's heart, I think that the stories were the best when I first wrote them and whatever I might write now will be second-hand. So I don't do anything about them and that frustrates me. I'm afraid to try and rewrite but I won't throw away the notes in that folder; instead I fret over them.

Ugh, indecision is such a bitch.

When I get married

I want my pictures done by Anna and Steven Wing.

misc.

I've got two numbers for comedy clubs in the area. Gonna call to see if there's an open mic and maybe possibly get back on stage. Test the waters and see if I'm still funny. Write some new material. Feel the joy of laughter all around me and knowing that I created it.

--------

Talked to a man at the one of the organizations that Delano Lewis(the former U.S. Ambasador to South Africa) directed me to. I think it's a fit there. They were looking for someone to do exactly what I want to do. Coincidence? Nah, I really think not.

-------

First thing in the morning

getting up and going to work.

Really stinks when it's the last thing you want to do.

ooooooh another acceptance and a rejection. oh.

So the acceptance doesn't count in the 100 subs (I write 100 new stories, sub and publish 100 new stories) I'm trying to complete. It is a reprint of a work that appeared on a site that is now defunct. But the former mag "The Apricot" was wonderful and Poor Mojo's (where it will show up at some point) is more than wonderful so it all works out.

I'm ready for 2007

or at least I want 2006 to be over already. What a year this was. I'm not exactly calling it a bust because there were some things that helped me move along but it certainly didn't go the way I thought it would back in December 2005.

Besides, there's a beautiful sunflower calendar I want to buy from Borders.

Do you need a copy editor?

I was reading a book about writing and was dismayed at the spelling errors until I got to a point where I understood the writer was from England. Ha!

***

In a review for one of Edward Jones' books at Amazon.com, a person said that he/she gave up reading it because of the grammatical errors. When I was reading "All Aunt Hagar's Children," I found that there were more errors than I would have liked-- cause used for a shortened 'because' but cause is what makes something happen so the word should appear as 'cause.

But the bigger thing is that in the story "Root Worker" which is an excellent read and from a writer's standpoint, an incredibly structured work, Jones says the girl is ten in one place and then says she's twelve in another. (He will leave a scene and come back to it later, sometimes much later, in the work.) I read and re-read to make sure I was a dunce, but no, he's not consistent and the copy editor at Amistad is slacking off.

Or maybe they need one.

I called and asked. No, really. I called HarperCollins and spoke to an editor who said she'd pass my message on.

The writing life

Two acceptances; a poem and a micro story. So now I have one work out. Just one? I used to keep at least 50 works (reprints included) in submission at any given time. I need to get busy submitting.

But I need stories first.

Was thinking I'd write a novel during November (ha ha) but we know how last year went. Cried "uncle" after three, four days?

What I decided to do was simply write every day during November. Thirteen days now. Much of my writing (hard copies, disks and all) got left behind (my move was rushed and sloppy and harried) so I'm writing all new stuff until I go back and get the rest of my things. A work called "An Early Fall" about a boy who witnesses his father kill someone was finished (well, the rough draft)Sunday. Decided yesterday to write a story from the newspaper. A nine-year old killed herself and of course that article struck me. After work I churned out close to a thousand words. When I'm done here, it's exercising and morning pages and then back to the story.

I'm beginning to see a change in my writer's world. I used to not work seriously on stories until I had the end line (I want to know where this is going) but I haven't a clue in this new story about what's going to happen. Opening myself up to new ideas. I know it's about the aftermath and what happens to a couple when their child, a young child, has killed herself. Have to go deep inside myself and feel (no tears for the writer, no tears for the reader, someone said.)

And of course there are parts of the process that are always exciting and fun---Watch me pull a story out of my hat.

Hmmm, hope I'm so unlike Bullwinkle and I bring the right hat!

I think I'll become a Cowboys fan

Not!

But I'm impressed with Romo. Sunday's game against the Cardinals was on at my job. He's good and the other teams are sometimes very, very sloppy. Adds up to a Dallas win. Damn them.

O. Henry Awards

Edward Jones' story "Old Boys, Old Girls" (from his recent collection "All Aunt Hagar's Children") was chosen.

Read it!!!!!

Who'd of thunk

So I just might like it here. It's temporary 'cause the Northeast remains the goal/dream/desire & damn it, I'll have to move those books again (aaaaaarrrrrgggghhhhh, but oh well and okay.

In the meantime:

Godfather's Pizza

a funky clothes store with a Ms. Pac Man arcade game on the second floor (and it's only a quarter to play!)

a Borders bookstore


I'll keep looking for more reasons.

George W. Bush

on the campaign trail. Watching a news clip and as he's entering the plane, he's being instructed by someone off to the side not to hit his head on the airplane panel just as you enter.

HA ha ha

I wonder who helps wipe him.