How can I sit at the computer, listening to

this

and not share it??????

Okay, back to work.

Ah, yes, once again

deadlines looming over me. Will be writing today but not at the blog.

Have a great one :)

Writing quote for 2/28/07

A writer is working when he's staring out of the window.

--Burton Rascoe

Quote for 2/28/07

Faith moves mountains, but you have to keep pushing while you are praying.


--Mason Cooley

Quote for 2/27/07

Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.

--Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Creative quote for 2/27/07

Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.

--Erich Fromm

Creative quote for 2/26/07

The creative mind plays with the objects it loves.

-- Carl Gustav Jung

Quote for 2/26/07

Love is never lost.

--Washington Irving

Quote for 2/25/07

Happy are those who dream dreams and are willing to pay the price to make them come true.

--Anonymous

Writing quote for 2/25/07

But words are things, and a small drop of ink, falling like dew upon a thought, produces that which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think

--Lord Byron

"Sometimes"

is this 90-something-word story that I wrote that I absolutely love. I sent it to Hobart but it was rejected, though it was liked, and the editor suggested I send it to Monkeybicycle for their one-sentence stories so I did and it got accepted but they were going to publish it when they had a bunch 'cause I'd had one published before and that's how they do it but then there was the ultra-short contest at Binnacle that I wanted to enter because the first year of it, I had to withdraw my entry because it was accepted by another magazine and the second year, I didn't have anything to submit so I wrote the editor at Monkeybicycle and said "is it okay to withdraw" and he said no problem so I did and I entered it in the contest and the story was in the short-listed 100 (out of approx. 600 entries) but didn't make the final cut for publication so I sent it to Staccato but they weren't reading at that time and then it looked like they were ending publication so I sent it to BarrelHouse and the reject said "Fascinating, but too short" and then Staccato was going to reemerge via a blog so I resent it to them but I didn't hear anything so I sent it to Boston Literary Magazine and the editor said she liked it but might I consider it being in the 1st person so I tried it but didn't like it so I wrote and told her such and then I sent it to Ghoti and they said yes.

If I were wearing my journalist's hat

I would write that my reading in San Antonio was an "intimate" affair, which is code for "not a lot of people showed up."

But that didn't mean that I didn't have fun and that I didn't make a connection. I love the magic that happens when you share your work but especially when you can look out into the eyes of those people there and take the time. So intimate is sometimes nicer.

Vincent and Grisel are awesome people. They are from NY and are gonna give me some names of reading series/people I might contact there. Did I mention how much I love reading in New York??????

Also Grisel is Black and Cuban and might prove a resource for a story I'm working on about Afro-Cubans. A wonderful poet to boot.

Vincent did a performance poetry piece called Metaorgasm and it was mind blowing! Such energy. Made me want to explore if I've got that kind of poetry in me.

The other feature was a musician and a dj and when he was doing his thing, some images were coming to me and so I got his number because he might be a musician I can use for background music when I get back to filmmaking (and remind me to tell you why I'm not in school like I was gonna be). Anyway, he and his girlfriend want to buy a book when I have one. Two guaranteed sales--YAY!!

And I got my name in the San Antonio paper. I like that:)

3 Margaritas, a lone mariachi and two really cool women

Friday night I met and had dinner with two women I know from an online writers group. Liesl (who's been nominated for the Caine Prize) and

Stephanie

.

What a delight they were!

"You must come to South Africa," Liesl told me when we were saying goodbye. "I won't be there forever."

She's been offering to put me up for a bit when I go for years now.

And I will. Somehow, I will.

Go Greyhound

I love to sit in the very back of the bus when I travel by such. When I went to San Antonio, there was a lone girl sitting in the three seats across from the toilet thing. I asked if someone was sitting there but she just looked at me.

I repeated my question.

Again, the dumb-founded look.

In my head, I said, "I paid for a seat and I want the one by the window" so I claimed it.

We got to chatting.

"The reason I didn't understand you," she told me, "was because I'm stoned."

"Oh,"I said.

She asked where I was heading and I told her.

"Where are you going?" I asked.

"To Corpus Christi," she replied. "To a rehab."

13, 12, 11

13 stories to write and I've hit 100. At this point 31 need further research, like for two, I need to visit a Native American reservation, and one has to be an Apache one for the sake of something in the tale; I need to talk to an obstetrician and this doctor that I talked to years ago when I was writing this story about a rare genetic disease that affects only male children; the wolf reintroduction program, etc. etc. etc. I've got my work cut out for me. Right now I'm working on revisions of those not needing any research. So much easier:)

12 photographs to crop and send somewhere. A few of them are really really cool if I must say so myself and I will. I took a photography class in the 7th grade and I love the stories a picture can capture and tell. So now I've added "photographer" to my bio when I'm submitting work.

11 poems to revise and send somewhere. Two of them rhyme and I like that. Hope an editor will as well;-)

39.43

That's waaaay too many hours to work in Just One Week! Now I remember why I quit my full-time job to become a writer.

Just two more days and then that guy's vacation is over! It cannot, I tell you, come too soon.

I much prefer working at the computer, stitching words together, or sometimes flinging them[;-)} whatever. Course bills don't get paid and one's stomach tends to grumble but if that's what it takes to live up to the title of starving artist. . .

hahahahahahaha == did I say something about when I'm rested?

Forgot I agreed to cover this guy's shift while he's on vacation. A 40+ week though my boss says it really won't be. I'll believe that when I start getting sent home early!

Anyway I'm tired and all I have energy to do is rub my feet.

Everything else is on temporary H-O-L-D.

I'll be back.

Life coming at me REALLY fast

Left Las Cruces later than originally planned. Got back here at 1 in the morning yesterday. Slept all morning, then went through the luggages and then it was back to work and I got home last night around 11.

I'm so tired.

A possibility of a tv appearance on a black tv program. Have to get some bio stuff sent out to them.

And I've got to follow up on Chicago.

A job offer that will give me the schedule I need and a raise is forthcoming to boot.

I have sooooooooooooo much to do today;I need an assistant and a husband and a wife!!!!!

This weekend when I'm fully rested, we'll sit and chat about my trip. It was good. I've missed my kids. I love my life:)

I'm still in Cruces

I'll be back in Az tomorrow and I'll share the reading tale.

And then there's that chapbook

"Mother Love" is going to be published by Unlikely Stories Press. Hashing out details but I should have a chapbook maybe late March, early April.






!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So I called this publisher to see if he might want to publish a book of mine. . .

His press had published a work of mine before.

I was looking at the website to get this year's contest info so I might enter/win and be offered the chance to have a story collection published. There was a note posted that made me think that maybe I didn't have to win the contest--hell, maybe I didn't even need to enter the contest-- so I called and I asked about the possibility of me sending a collection (the novel-in-short-stories) and the publisher asked who he was speaking to and I said, "Gwendolyn Mintz" and he said, "I know your name" and then he told me that they were judging a contest right at the moment and it might be awhile before I heard from them, but all I cared about were two words he uttered: "Send it."
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm off!

Going to Las Cruces to see my kids and then onward to San Antonio. Gone 'til Tuesday.


Be good.

I *still* have to pack

Aye, procrastination, thy name is Gwendolyn.

Creative quote for 2/08/07

You need chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star.


--Nietzsche

Quote for 2/08/07

Plunge boldly into the thick of life, and seize it where you will, it is always interesting.


--Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

I gotta pack and write and go to work , , ,

no playing at the blog today.

Creative quote for 2/07/07

Creativity comes from trust. Trust your instincts. And never hope more than you work.

--Rita Mae Brown

Quote for 2/07/07

To succeed. . . you need to find something to hold on to, something to motivate you, something to inspire you.

-- Tony Dorsett

Mark your calendar & go for the cupcakes!

March 21, 2007, 8 pm

In The Flesh Reading Series, Happy Ending Bar
http://inthefleshreadingseries.blogspot.com
With Gwendolyn Joyce-Mintz, Joel A. Nichols, Suzanne Portnoy (The
Butcher, The Baker, The Candlestick Maker), rest of lineup TBA.
Free cupcakes will be served.
302 Broome Street, NYC
Directions: B/D to Grand, F to Delancey, J/M/Z to Bowery
Free.

Quote for 2/06/07

Our greatest glory is not in never falling but in rising every time we fall.

--Confucius

Writing quote for 2/06/07

You can't wait for inspiration, you have to go after it with a club.

-- Jack London

Quote for 2/05/07

If you make friends with yourself you will never be alone.

--Maxwell Maltz

Writing quote for 2/05/07

Writing a poem is discovering.


-- Robert Frost

I like the Panthers anyway

;-P

Go Bears!

They will emerge victorious!

Quote for 2/04/07

There are four questions of value in life: What is sacred? Of what is the spirit made? What is worth living for, and what is worth dying for? The answer to each is the same. Only love.


--Don Juan deMarco

Writing quote for 2/04/07

Write without pay until somebody offers to pay.

-- Mark Twain

a week from today

The Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center
presents

SASS!
(San Antonio Second Sundays)
a reading series and open mic

February 11, 2007
7 p.m.

featuring
Gwendolyn Joyce Mintz
poet and fiction writer

and

our Cantos y Cuentos feature
Lowdown
(Marco Cervantes)
DJ, producer and MC

hosted by
GRITO
(Grisel and Toro)

@ The Lupe Lounge
1304 Guadalupe Street
San Antonio, TX 78207
(210) 271-3151

$5 suggested donation

Writing quote for 2/03/07

A writer never has a vacation. For a writer life consists of either writing or thinking about writing.


--Eugene Ionesco

Quote for 2/03/07

. . . the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes 'Awww!'

--Jack Kerouac

-

Quote for 2/02/07

It is not length of life, but depth of life.

--Ralph Waldo Emerson

Writing quote for 2/02/07

I started out with nothing in the world but a kind of passion, a driving desire. I don't know where it came from, and I do not know why-or why I have been so stubborn about it that nothing could deflect me. But this thing between me and my writing is the strongest bond I have ever had-stronger than any bond or any engagement with any human being or with any other work I've ever done.

-- Katherine Anne Porter

Let's add Massachusetts to the literary map

A reading penciled in for later this year and I should have a chapbook of my early poems by then!

Working on Chicago, Chicago

THE A-T-L (Atlanta)

another NYC

and a return to Baltimore

With a minute to spare

Whew! Got that last submission in at 11:59. Now it's time to sleep.

Today is the first day of Black History Month. Go read something by a Negro.

Surely you've heard of one.

Writing quote for 2/01/07

Writing is a form of personal freedom. It frees us from the mass identity we see in the making all around us. In the end, writers will write not to be outlaw heroes of some underculture but mainly to save themselves, to survive as individuals.

--Don Delillo

Quote for 2/01/07

Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end.

-- Seneca