Postscript

I'm applying to an MFA program.

I will be crying and writing my heart out.

thank God for little girls. . .

my favorite little boy

my favorite little girl

I reserve the right to come back to announce book deals, marriage proposals, cross-county moves

. . . none of which are happening but there is a new granddaughter!

(and finally the Guns 'n Roses album!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Check out Carrie's boxes

Carrie is extremely talented. Not only a great writer, but check out these bead boxes. (From New Mexico) I'm partial to the one called "Salsa." If you celebrate Christmas, you could get some early shopping done. . .

Go here:

here

over 700 unread messages in my box

Yikes!

Hiding in there was a solicitation for a story. Mr. Editor, I'm this close to having one. Double ha!

Writing quote for 10-02-08

It's none of their business that you have to learn how to write. Let them think you were born that way.

--Ernest Hemingway

Quote for 10-02-08

Difficult times have helped me to understand better than before, how infinitely rich and beautiful life is in every way, and that so many things that one goes worrying about are of no importance whatsoever...


--Isak Dinesen

Quote for October 1, 2008

When you look at your life, the greatest happinesses are family happinesses.

--Joyce Brothers

Writing quote for October 1, 2008

" . . . we look for stories with a human and thematic core, i.e. stories that display vision where writers, instead of “writing about what you know” (as the writing programs emphasize) write about what they can imagine. Another quality we look for is elusive but extremely important: it can best be described as a sense of estrangment from the world at the same time involvement with it; it exhibits a certain recognition of the simultaneous smallness and greatness of humanity, and demonstrates respect and compassion for all people and recognizes a peasant’s dream of owning a bicycle is as important to him as Napoleon’s dream of conquering Europe. This is a quality that only life can teach one; it cannot be learned in a writing program."

-- from the guidelines for The Long Story

Long time

I'm getting ready for a craft show and I work pretty close to full-time now so blogging's the first thing to go.

Not much writing, though I am this close to finishing two stories now--ha!

Creativity quote for 9-14-08

Learn to see, and then you'll know there is no end to the new worlds of our vision.


-- Carlos Castaneda

Quote for 9-14-08

We cannot really love anybody with whom we never laugh.

--Agnes Repplier

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

I am this close to finishing a story I love.

Hopefully tomorrow. Maybe tonight. Just got off work and haven't quite assessed how tired I am.

I'll know after I take the shoes off. . .

I said I'd write today

I must get to that.

Have a grand one:)

I really don't want to talk much more politics

but . . .


if John McCain won, Sarah Palin could resign from the office of vp, couldn't she?

She could step down now, citing her family's needs and such and no one would be really upset. It would probably be seen as a very supportive thing to do.

But she could do the very same thing AFTER a GOP win, right?

I've got to stop thinking on this, but I really think John McCain's trying to pull a fast one.

She was underaged

so I had to be there with my daughter so she could get a tattoo.

While she was getting it, I hung out in the waiting room (needles, shiver) and amused myself with the stripper pole in the middle of the room. I went through the album with tattoo examples and flipped through the tatoo magazines.

In the magazines, in every photo of a woman, be it an ad, a picture accompanying an article or a woman as a tatoo, someone had taken a black marker and X out the eyes and drew a dark line ____________ across the mouth.

I was intrigued and bothered. I asked the tatoo artist about it and he confessed that he had done it.

"I have issues with women," he said.

Uhm, apparently.

sleeping beauty

okay, just one picture with your nephew

Noah, don't you wake that baby up!

it took awhile to get him quiet.

Do you think someone at Coke reads my blog?

'Cause I posted how difficult it was to navigate the website and there's this email in my box

sender/subject line:

My Coke Rewards Gwen, enter codes the way that works best for you - it's easy Sat, 9/6/08

heh heh

nah, coincidence, right?

Actually the only thing I want to know from the Coke people is if they put the "for whites only" sign on this machine.

Interesting, huh? I may just have to become a full-fledged Pepsi drinker.

And if I were choosing a side (it would be symbolic)

** OBAMA 08**

Okay, I'm not a liberal ( a message for Tyler)

an independent or nothing.

Registered to vote 1st time when George W. Bush was running for his second term and I wanted to put in my symbolic "no."

If you read your Bible, you would understand that the governments are in the hands of the devil (otherwise he couldn't have offered them to Jesus) so believing that man-made governments are going to act in your best intersts is a little far-fetched.

Governments can keeep order, but they can't legislate good behavior, fairness, morals, etc. and those are the things that make or break your spirit.

In America, since I've been aware of politics, it seems there has always been the lesser of two evils at work; the Republican party used to be the Democratic party (Civil War History here/ if you know it you'll know what I'm talking about)but that's changed.

I dislike hypocrites and the GOP just wears that badge to the nth degree. I doubt most of them have ever read their bibles 'cause the party ideaology would be quite different if they did. They love ideas but they don't give a shit about people.

Abstinence? Then why the anticipated grandchild? If Sarah Palin wasn't ashamed of her daughter (and her failed ideaology) then why did Juno, I mean, Bristol have to hold the baby with the blanket covering her belly area? And Sarah Palin hasn't a clue if she thought that her ENTIRE life was not going to be opened for public consumption--'cause that's what we do here in America. Seriously, is that just dumb or what?

What I was saying about John McCain is that surely he is aware that he's old and unless you're on his medical team, nobody knows the true condition of his health, so if he's not looking to be around soon why not fuck with us (the USA)? Have you ever seen how angry this man can get at a hat's drop? He is rude and petty. Go to YouTube, see for yourself. It appears to me that he is like a child who, when not getting his way, throws a temper tantrum.

Please, John McCain is a little boy trying to prove himself to his father and grandfather. They were Admirals, he was not. Hell, he graduated at the bottom and he crashed several planes. But, ah, if he could be president! And it doesn't matter if they are dead-- issues with parents can reach beyond the grave.

Anyway, if he's president for a little while, he was still president, and I think that's all that matters to him.

Creative quote for 9-5-08

Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try!

--Dr. Seuss

Quote for 9-5-08

Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadow. It's what sunflowers do.

-- Helen Keller

Okay, I can't believe it's time to buy a new calendar

wow.

enjoying my last days of freedom

okay, of laziness. I go back to work next week. Monday morning, although that's just for paperwork stuff. Returning to the place I worked at before-- I consider myself having a three-month vacation. Different department, more pay, less days.

but it's not really a different department 'cause I worked there years ago, got a promotion that moved me to a different department as a supervisor and then I quit. (well, there's more to the story but in the end, I did leave.)

but I'm back AGAIN, third time, we'll have to see how long it lasts.

Creative quote for 9-4-08

It is wise to learn; it is God-like to create.


--John Saxe

Quote for 9-4-08

When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.

--Victor Frankl

Writing quote for 9-2-08

Get on with it. Don't wait for the Muse to visit.


—Bill O'Hanlon

Quote for 9-2-08

Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.


-- Marcel Proust

It's not a movie, it's an event

This young woman two seats over from me didn't know about The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Is it scary, she asked the young man she came with.

He (sitting by me) told her no, that it was campy.

She didn't understand but he encouraged her to just wait and see what happened.

She kept making comments that made it clear she had no clue so she got squirted exra with the water gun, well, just because. . .

heh heh



There are evidently people who do this thing often. Inhibition wears off quickly if you want to have fun and it was.
I'd forgotten about the toast and there were some other props I didn't know existed but you could buy a goodie bag so you were completely prepared. Movie-goers in costume, men in ladies' underwear, boas for door prizes but I didn't win one:(

John McCain giving the GOP (and America) the bird

So I was away from the computer and all sources of the media so I had no idea what's been happening in the world and evidently MUCH!!!

I had given McCain's choice more thought and I figured I had a very good argument; now I'm sure of it.

Everyone has a story. In our heads, we are our own heroes and we have qualities that we love and qualities that we don't love so much and those we try to ignore. We write this story and see ourselves ending up somewhere, in a place that validates and vindicates us. We of course have to develop as a character to get us there.

Sometimes that doesn't happen.

This is what I think is going on with McCain.

First he is an old man. Do you know what men do at this time in their lives, 70 years old and such? They face their mortality. I don't know the theorist's name right now but my master's thesis was on this very thing: the last stage of life is integrity vs. despair-- you accept your life for what it was or you despair over it.

John McCain has always been the son and grandson of heroes. He graduated at the bottom of his class, crashed a few planes and ended up a POW and his value came from being "Somebody's son."

He and the media created this hero, this maverick image and he's tried to live up to it. The only place for him to go-- the very top-- being a white man and such is the presidency. Running the government of the wealthiest and sometimes very powerful nation in the world.

He wanted it and the GOP gave it to Bush. Don't know if it's true but I read that he was once in discussion with Kerry about being his vp. If that's true, then that shows how badly he wanted it.

Okay, so no one, not Hillary, not McCain, not the GOP was counting on Obama. So the story's changed.

And now John McCain is facing something he didn't have to face. He and Obama are pretty much even, and the polls are just a representative; we really won't know any numbers 'til that Wednesday morning, so maybe John McCain has decided he's tired ( maybe he recognizes that he really is old-- I mean Paris Hilton said so) and he doesn't want to fight.

He picks someone who clearly is unqualified and has some issues of her own that need her attention.

If he wins and something happens to him, (and she remains the vp pick) then America is screwed 'cause she won't know what to do.

If he loses, then the GOP loses.

To hell with you America-- you didn't recognize him for who he was and reward him with the presidency.
To hell with you Republicans, you never gave me what I wanted 'til it was too late.

Middle finger up in the air.

Writing quote for 8-30-08

A good writer possesses not only his own spirit but also the spirit of his friends.


--Friedrich Nietzsche

Quote for 8-30-08

Education … has produced a vast population able to read but unable to distinguish what is worth reading.


--G. M. Trevelyan

I'm off to the store

Yes, for some coke and some of those things I need for the movie tonight. Have a good one.

if it weren't for the fact I'm so addicted

and the thought of free Cherry Coke didn't thrill me to all Heaven, I'd chuck all those bottle caps I have 'cause that freakin site (mycokerewards.com) is not easy to navigate.

How the hell do I get my free soda????

(banging head against the monitor)

The HORROR!

The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

I'm going tonight to see it for the first time.

Gotta pick up some toilet paper

rice

a squirt gun

a newspaper. . . .

She would be ready for a call at 3 a.m.

someone said of the Republican vp choice, 'cause she'll already be up with her baby!!


hahaha

Wow! I think McCain just blew it

He picked a woman for his vp???????????????????????????????

hahahahahahahahahaha

This country for all it's talk about equality and stuff does not want a woman running it. I have this theory on how all the systems--the educational system, the legal system, the justice system, the entertainment system, etc -- all bolster the founding ideas of this country WHICH WERE BASED ON THE DESIRES OF WHITE MEN and women don't readily fit into the picture as true co-workers.

She was a beauty queen contestant-- that's what one story had to say about her??? See how trivial that is. Did he think women will vote for a woman just 'cause she's a woman? Hillary supporters will not run to her-- she's pro life, pro guns-- I would think Hillary supporters weren't thinking of the shared vagina as much as the shared values.

Like I said previously, I just like watching from the sidelines. This is truly a historic and interestingly crazy race for the presidency.

Time for me to go pop some more popcorn.

Quote for 8-28-08

Don't be afraid of the space between your dreams and reality. If you can dream it, you can make it so.


-- Belva Davis.

Writing quote for 8-28-08

You become a writer because you need to become a writer - nothing else.

-- Grace Paley

I lied

A couple of years ago, I said that I wanted to go back to filmmaking 'cause that was my calling and I made the statement that I could forgo writing to do so, but I know now that I was confused or something because even though I do plan to do films again, I don't know how I could have ever thought I could give up writing.

Did I say it (writing) was just something that I did, that it wasn't what I was?

Well, here's the retraction.

I lied. I am every word I will ever write.

Okay, I'm off to write

Have a great one!

Of course, there's that small matter of acceptance

My story has to make it into the anthology. That's FIRST. Then Ireland.

One small detail I must not overlook, ha!

Back and, yes, not so grouchy

The media headlines make me crazy-- what can I say?

Anyway I'm up and looking for a job and doing some writing. I have a deadline by which it is imperative that I have money coming in from somewhere but that date isn't here yet. So I'm writing.

My daughter who was living on campus moved back with me and she's not going to school this semester 'cause she's transferring to a college in Maine and she's just working and organizing her life to get here there.

My third son who didn't want to go to college last semester is this semester but he too has moved in with me.

Had to give up some space but not the writing room or the craft room which is my light-filled, sunflower-decorated, Boston fern-thriving haven.

The time back has been good. Rain, oh glorious rain. Last night and this morning. The grandson is as gorgeous as ever. First haircut and he's walking (wobbling);-)

I've been notified that a story has made it to the final phase for an anthology which is set to be launched in November and I could be invited-- to Ireland. Now of course the bill would land on me and in a way, it seems so huge-- did I mention that I want to get married in Ireland? Canada is second choice. But I digress--
I would LOVE to go to Ireland. Am afraid to put it to the universe and not so. I wasn't thinking I would meet B.B. King but I thought I could. And there's other instances in my life when the impossible was made possible.

No, I have to believe. Faith the size of a mustard seed.

I AM going to put it to the Universe. If there is a reason for me to be in Ireland, it will happen. Life will, I've witnessed before, conspire to make my wishes come true. And if not, then there's a reason that will be revealed at a later time. If not this, then something better.

So we'll see.

And John McCain wasn't the only POW

so he needs to stop milking that cow.

He is referred to, in some corners, as Songbird McCain.

And there's a reason for that.

"Hillary Democrats" are whiners

and sore losers.

They should learn to take it like a man.




** this is only intended for those who have said they will vote GOP instead of BO. And not that I'm advocating anyone for prez 'cause of religious views, I don't vote.

Okay, only once and that was because I HAD to say "no" to another term of George W.

'cause I can't trust you

to follow a link.

Another

blogger

suggested I read this essay that he wrote and now I'm suggesting you do the same:




Why I Do Not Write



I started my education late. This means (if it means anything at all) that my reading and writing days began late in my life. I tried hard to play “catch up” with other students who, as my college professor told me when I decided to be an English major, “had been reading and writing all of their lives.” And to a large extent it was true. I had classmates who read Milton’s Paradise Lost by the time they were in fifth grade. Another classmate in graduate school wrote a short story every single day as an exercise. Amazing, I thought to myself. These testimonies never ceased to both surprise me and depress me. Even now, eight years after graduating from one of the top English graduate programs in the nation, I still ask myself the same question: What makes me worthy of being called a “literary person?” Am I a writer?

I wrote the five sub-title sentences today, as I was in the process of writing a segment of what I will now begin to describe as a “novel.” The word itself lends itself to so much pretentiousness that I am embarrassed to use it. The story I am writing has been “boiling” over in my head for a few years now. I have written sketches of things and tossed them aside over the years. The confidence to call one’s self a writer was one I never possessed. I don’t think that I possess it today; even after spending countless hours in the last few days hammering what I am arrogantly calling a “novel.” Now, only eight pages from finishing every blank page on this notebook I have to wonder. Has this been time well-spent?

Perhaps people who read this might think this is really a case of low self-esteem. But it isn’t so. It’s more like frustration. If you don’t believe me, try this one on for size. Several years ago, the number one book in the “New York Times” bestseller list was Dennis Rodman’s As Bad as I Wanna Be. The book was, as the title implies, a defiant declaration of attitude. “If I want to be a writer, I’ll be a writer… and don’t you forget it,” it seemed to say. And so in the flash of a wink, Dennis Rodman, known for his basketball records, his on and off-court antics became what so many “wanna-be” writers (if I may use the colloquialism) covet: a bestselling author. Again, it may sound like I am just bitching. But it’s really more than that. Perhaps jealousy, you say? Well, not that exactly. It has more to do with the actual title of “writer.” Who gets to fill their mouth with self-pride when they say, “I am a writer!”

Everyone is a writer nowadays. Visit any major mega bookstore today and you’ll be surprise at the amount of “bargain” books piled up (always at the entrance) waiting for attention. The Little Book of Zen Sayings, How to Live Correctly, the list goes on and on. It amazes me that behind every single one of these books there are people, the writers. There are so many of them that I can’t even begin to compare myself to a real author. They seem to command respect and tribute from us “posers.” Or do they?

I can’t really make a generalization here but it might be safe to say that most bestsellers today are not about emotional losses or unfulfilled dreams. Murder, thrills, mystery, and frills claim most of the spots on the bestsellers list week after week. Most readers in America want to be scared for their money, or challenged to figure out a murder mystery. They want the escapism that (on the average) $24.95 can buy. And make it last too. No bestseller mystery or thriller can claim a spot of success if it is under 200 pages. Success of this type is fast, filled with glitz and potential financial gain. But there is another side to the writing craft; the side that wants to print stories of deep emotional scars, of loss and romantic desperation. I am not sure America wants to read that. There seems to be no money in that. Or else, for every hundred Stephen Kings, Dan Browns or J.K. Rowlings there can only be one Toni Morrison, Paul Auster, or Ellen Gilchrist.

When can I call myself a writer? It’s not about the dollar signs, at least not yet; or the high-level agent contracts. It’s really more about the title “writer.” An acquaintance of mine, a published author of science fiction novels, tells me that I am a writer. “If you write,” I remember her saying, “you are a writer.” While the sentiment is well-intended, it does little to quench my agony. Who is a writer? One who writes? Is it really that simple? Shouldn’t one know a bit more about life to declare one’s self a writer? Sure, I could keep a journal, or research literary theory and write academic papers. Those people are writers—they write! But I am talking about imaginative writers who by the power of their own will and mental strength create worlds of fiction as real as the empirical one we live in. That is precisely what my acquaintance does. Even though I don’t read science fiction, I consider the genre one of the most demanding in fiction writing. The whole purpose of science fiction is to make the fantastical real, the unbelievable as real as water and fire.

I don’t consider myself a writer but rather an escape artist. That’s what I do when I am writing, really. This so-called novel I am writing helps me escape the world I worked so hard to make for myself. The world is not bad, that’s not the point. The nature of human beings is progressive, and, invariably, once our lives slow down, our minds take off to invent a fiction larger than ourselves. We survive through this escapism. Right now I am trying to survive, if not for me, then for the sake of a character in a story I myself have constructed out of mud. Let me not forget that the story is also about a woman whom not only do I “kill” early on, but also “prostitute” her memory to the same man who has “stalked” her for the better part of two years. Again, what makes me believe I can fashion a world out of my imagination and make it so real as to shake the foundations of emotions and life? There might be giants among us, but “gods?” I hardly think so.

Perhaps Jorge Luis Borges was right. His vision of the writing process concealed in it not arrogance, but a general consensus that “what is good belongs to no one.” I have written quite a bit in the last few days, even with a bit more discipline than I ever did before. I hope, regardless of how the “novel” (it does sound pretentious, doesn’t it?) works out, that the habit of writing is now for me a permanent one. I’d hate to think that this notebook is coming to an end; this is the penultimate page. I am afraid of how the next one will go. How fast or how slow will I write? How many issues/stories would I put on it before I decide on a specific one? I think that was primarily the problem with the notebook that is now closing its last few open spaces to my pen. Perhaps I will continue to write. The anger is beginning to subside now. It is not difficult to compartmentalize these feelings and translate them into the fictions I wish my life had been in reality. It is an agreement we make with ourselves. Once the years have passed by and our grandest hopes have also gone with the days, we tell ourselves, “It is okay, I can make this; I can harness this emotion into a story to validate not only my reasoning but my most intimate fears.” We do it everyday. It is inherent in us. We struggle to make a bad situation better, to survive from one day to the next in a job we hate, in a marriage that is not working out, or counting our luck for the lump that turned out to be benign.

And that is what writers do, and I cannot. They are able to recall the original emotion that made the experience lovely, desirable, hateful, terrible or great and end up creating a fiction that takes its place; they fulfill the demands of their amazing hearts with the ease of a scalding knife cutting through butter. This is the moment when “the mirror of fiction” gets turned around and the original equation (that fiction must mirror life) is reversed, and fiction seems—at least for a time—more real than any real-life experience. A literary friend of mine calls this escapism, and I can’t say I disagree with her assessment. We seek something that will make it less painful to look at our own lives; a selective-judgment point of reference that allows us to say “see, that happens to other people too!”

We live in a fiction we craft ourselves to escape the pain of real life. Most times it needs not to be written down. We embrace Jay Gatsby’s mastery of reinvention because we are never at peace with our lot. Our “Americanism” does not allow us to accept the defeat gracefully. We turn our back on reality and embrace a fiction of our own making. And who could blame us? In the age of “reality” television, each of us deserves a bit of personal fiction.

Writing fiction is like putting all your emotional eggs in the proverbial basket. If I were to be cruel about it I would say that writing fiction is a fiction itself. I have no idea what the numbers are today, but who isn’t writing a novel today to try and be the next Dan Brown? Fly around in your own private jet (as in a fiction of sorts), land in your own airport next to your mansion, etc. I live with the reality that writing fiction is just a pain in the ass—plain and simple. That is why I hate it so much. Writing fiction helps me escape to a world where things are fashioned at my will, but what writing “giveth with one hand, it taketh away with the other.” The time I spend writing a story that I might not even finish is really time boiling over the painful reality of lost loves, betrayals, defeats, victories (real or imagined) moves, changes of heart and so on. Should I continue writing? If time is an issue, then I could just read what others write; or better yet, master the Six Suites for Cello Solo by J.S. Bach. On the other hand, should I yield to this feeling of wanting to create these worlds, these characters? How egotistical would that be? Do I really have anything important to say to the world about my deep emotions? There is no answer. And now there is no more space. I just reached the last line of the last page of this notebook. If the answer were to come right now I would have to start a new notebook. And do I really want that? Yes, I believe I do.

Writing quote for 8-25-08

The young fiction writer--you--carries a burden of sorts. You are lugging something around that seems to be part of your being, or as we would say now, is "hard wired" into you, so much so that you have become its container, but the only way to express it--almost literally, to bring it out--is to write it. What "it" is, in this case, is a piling up of selves, of beings, and of stories that are being experienced from the inside. What is it like to be you, to be me? You can't answer that question by answering it discursively. You can only answer it by telling a story. That's not therapy. You're not sick. You're just a certain kind of human being. It's exaclty like the necessity the musician has in humming a tune or playing a piano, or the necessity an artist has in doodling and sketching and drawing and painting. It's almost involuntary. Something needs to get out: Not expressed but extruded. As the composer Camille Saint-Saens remarked, "I write music the way an apple tree produces apples."

--Charles Baxter from Letters to a Fiction Writer

Thought for 8-25-08

Many of the world's finest Oriental rugs come from little villages in the Middle East. Each rug is hand-produced by a crew of men and boys under the direction of a master weaver. Since ordinarily they work from the underside of the rug-to-be, it frequently happens that a weaver absent-mindedly makes a mistake and introduces a color that is not accoringg to the pattern.

When this occurs, the master weaver, instead of having the work pulled out to correct the color sequence, will find some way to incorporate the mistake harmoniously into the overall patern.


It is a useful object lesson, for we all can learn to take unexpected difficulties and mistakes and weave them advantageiously into the greater pattern of our lives. There is an inherent good in most difficulties.

-- Norman Vincent Peale

From the "oooooh, this pisses me off" files

Simon & Schuster gave Foxy Brown $75,000 and Lil' Kim $40,000 to write books that they never delivered. Brown's book was due in 2006 and Lil' Kim's was due in 2004. Both rap stars are being sued.


Okay, first I'm pissed 'cause "REAL WRITERS" could use those kind of advances, but I'm also confused and befuddled. Both of them were just in prison -- did they not have time to write????


heh, heh. . . I'm just saying. . .

Writing quote for 8-15-08

Writing has laws of perspective, of light and shade just as painting does, or music. If you are born knowing them, fine. If not, learn them. Then rearrange the rules to suit yourself.


--Truman Capote

Quote for 8-15-08

Do not seek to bring things to pass in accordance with your wishes, but wish for them as they are, and you will find them.


--Epictetus

TGIF

Going to hang out. . . after I clean my house, do the laundry, do the grocery shopping, pay the cell phone bills, get some things ready for Goodwill to pick up. . .

Always a bridesmaid

My micro "What You Should Have Done" made the short list for the Binnacle Ultra-Short contest (last year, my micro "Sometimes" made the short list) but no cigar when it came to winning.

:(

And yes that meant no money for

traveling.

Even Greyhound has gotten ridiculous with its prices and restrictions on baggage. Did not go to Jackson, Mississippi to do a group book signing, although I'm hoping to meet up with the group in Sept and Oct for some Mississippi signings and one in Mobile, Alabama.

Anyway Life didn't take me to Jackson 'cause I had to meet these people who were from Jackson, MS and in Nashville visiting first 'cause they're going to help me when I do get there.

And why do I need to be in Jackson? That's where the Freedom Riders ended up and that civil rights icon that I told you about last year moved from Nashville to Jackson to further orchestrate things. She disagreed with MLK about continuing the Freedom Rides, a fascinating woman. Last year when Fisk University gave me her email, I wrote and introduced myself. I wasn't sure what I wanted exactly from her, but it's getting clearer. I think it's time to write another email.

And I found out about a book called "Breach of Peace" which chronicles the arrest of the Freedom Riders. Not all of the riders were black, there was one man, from Germany, who took part because he said he didn't want to be a good German who turned his head or something to that effect.

Anyway, I've got stuff I've got to start sorting out-- I'm excited how it all seems to be coming together into something, heh heh.

The plan was. . .

to work like crazy so I could buy a car and pay for my youngest children to take driving lessons and to buy me some time so I can write 'cause I've only written three stories this year and all were flash, two were micros and I really need to get back to my writing. Need to. Yes, I need to. I sooooooo want to.

But I've digressed.

That was the plan, however, the oral surgeon had to take out four teeth instead of two so the amount of money I had to pay was more than I was expecting to. The jobs I had lined up in Nashville fell through, though I found two others, but they didn't pay like the two I'd been working on. Then my son said he'd take driver's ed in school and I thought I might get a reprieve, but then he changed his mind as soon as his sister (who took classes first) got her permit. Okay then. No reprieve, just pull out that bank card. I arrive back only slightly better (financially) than when I left.

But that's supposed to be. This summer I was brought face-to-face with some hard places within myself, in regards to two things: money and men.

Things I would rather just keep hiding from, thank you, but *that* was soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo not the case.

Still I know what I need to do in regards to both and a car is still in the works.

Quote for 8-11-08

Reading gives us someplace to go when we have to stay where we are.

--Mason Cooley

Writing quote for 8-11-08

"When it comes to creating characters, I'm a cunning and repentant thief. I steal all kinds of qualities, quirks, and language from people I know and from total strangers. . . "

--Maria de los Santos

Yikes!

Got to get packed 'cause I'm out of Tennessee early tomorrow morning. It'll take a day & 1/2 to get back to NM. I'll elaborate later but this summer was NOTHING like I'd hope it'd be but it was *interesting,* yeah, that's what'll we call it . . . and not just for me-- there was Manny so being Manny, Ludacris so being Ludacris and nobody loving the (cough, cough) home run king. Well, boo-f**king-hoo for Mr. Bonds.

Quote for 8-10-08

We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.


--Plato

I've got so much to tell you

Hopefully I can get that done this week.

So how are you?

Some thoughts: The U.S.A., Rev. Wright & Grisel's dad

Read

this

I'm packed

Next week I leave for Nashville. At some point I'll be in Mississippi doing some group book signings/readings. I hope to actually go to Atlanta to research a novel I may one day write and to Alabama to research a novel I may one day rewrite.

And this summer I plan to rewrite the rest of those 100ish stories I wrote. I think there's 80 , 82 to work on. Anyway, they're in the luggage (the one I'm taking onto the bus with me!!!!!).

FI-NAL-LY!

When I was in AZ, Carrie shared this movie with me, which was actually a series of flash movies-- directors were given an old-fashioned camera and a (short) time limit and they had to create a film. Afterwards, a micro work came to me and I wrote it down just that way and proceeded to send it out. Rejected, rejected, rejected, rejected, rejected, rejected, uhm rejected. . .

I decided to rethink the piece-- did some editing-- sent it out again and HALLELUJAH! "CEllA's Round Trip" is going to publish "35mm (a foreign film)" in their first issue.

An extra fiddy

And the prize money is $550, not 500 like I first said.

A HUGE thank you to Beate Sigriddaughter for her generosity!

I won the Glass Woman Prize

THE GLASS WOMAN PRIZE

THE WINNING STORY FOR THE THIRD GLASS WOMAN PRIZE is Gwendolyn Joyce Mintz's story The Story of My Life (So Far). Please read it at The Story of My Life (So Far) in the online magazine FRiGG. The story was also previously published in Cacophony. To learn more about the author, please read this excellent interview of her by Kelly Spitzer.


I received 261 entries for the Third Glass Woman Prize, all of them moving, many of them excellent. I will post the authors and titles of the twelve top contenders for the prize shortly. As before, I may also post the stories of those authors who give me permission to do so. Thanks to all who submitted! I am excited about your writing, your passion, your thoughts on things that beg to be written. Our voices are important. Above all, keep writing! Ursula Le Guin writes: "We are volcanoes. When we women offer our experience as our truth, as human truth, all the maps change. There are new mountains."




The FOURTH Glass Woman Prize SUBMISSION period is now in EFFECT. It will be awarded for a work of short fiction or creative non-fiction (prose) written by a woman. Length: between 50 and 5,000 words. The top prize for the fourth Glass Woman Prize award is US $600 and possible (but not obligatory) online publication; I will also award two runner up prizes of $100 each and possible (but not obligatory) online publication.



Subject is open, but must be of significance to women. My criterion is passion, excellence, and authenticity in the woman’s writing voice. Previously published work and simultaneous submissions are OK. Copyright is retained by the author.



There is no reading fee.



Submission deadline: September 21, 2008 (receipt date; anything received after that date will be considered for a future prize). Notification date: December 21, 2008.



The winner will be announced on this website. Submissions will not be returned, rejected, or otherwise acknowledged except for the winner announcement. I promise that every submission will be read with respect and with my commitment to the voices of women in this world.



One submission per person per prize submission period, by email, with "Glass Woman Prize Submission" in the subject line and the text pasted in the body of the email (no attachments!) to:



glasswomanprize@comcast.net



or in hard copy and via regular mail, to:



Beate Sigriddaughter
333 East 16th Avenue, #517
Denver, CO 80203



IMPORTANT:
If submitting by email:
- "Glass Woman Prize" in subject line
- Text in body of email

I will regretfully ignore submissions of anything other than specified above, for example: attachments, more than one piece of writing in a giving prize reading period, more than 5,000 words, poetry, or submissions without "Glass Woman Prize" in the subject line of an email.



Some additional information



Who judges the contest?



At the moment I am sole judge. If the prize grows, I hope to be able to invite other women writers to judge.



How is the prize funded?



The prize is funded with ten percent of my personal income. It therefore has a chance of increasing in the future.



Why?



Because this is something I would have liked to have received for myself. Since I haven’t, at least not recently, and in order to make things right with the world all the same, I feel I have to offer it to someone else.



Why the name Glass Woman Prize?



I’ve been playing with the glass woman concept for a while. I want women to be able to acknowledge, transparently, who we are, and that who we are is not trivial and unimportant, despite the fact that it is not typically rewarded in a man-made and money-motivated world.



Here’s my original description of a glass woman as I would depict her if I were a visual artist: a woman of glass, with a blood system and gut system visible inside her, pipes and veins, and in those there would be bits of poetry, newspapers, roses, sentimental things, baby’s teeth, locks of baby hair, all kinds of lace bits, birds, and foxes, ice-picks, wedding rings, veils, and wedding cake doves, graduations gowns, tarot cards, sacred stones, pressed flowers, and a whole lot of joy and a whole lot of sorrow. She’d have a flute and a piano key, an ankh, and a woman symbol (♀), everything, anger and joy, hiking gear, rock climbing gear, motorcycle gear, dirt, fear, bras, lilacs, mirrors, underwear.



What about the brittleness of glass? I would make it unbreakable glass, transparent, but shatter-proof.



Why no reading fee?



Because I absolutely hate the way every other journal or other entity nowadays uses reading fees for contests as fundraisers. I can see their point. I still hate it.



What am I trying to accomplish with this?


I want to help along the cause of women expressing themselves authentically and fearlessly and passionately. It has something to do with a contribution to justice and soul growing in the world.

One of my ex-husbands once said that women don't support each other. I want to either change that or prove it wrong. This is my small gesture of changing the world.

$500!! My biggest prize to date!

I opened my gmail this morning to find that I've won $500 for a story. Can't give you details 'cause the "official announcement" is not mine to make but I am humbled and awed and just plain happy!!!!!!

Quote for 5-6-08

Reading is a basic tool in the living of a good life.

--Mortimer Adler

A 'cool' hot read

Susan's book has been named a runner-up in the Romance category for the 2008 Beach Book Festival hottest summer reads.

Yay!

I'm soooooooooooooooo weak

"What are all these caps for?"

I had a bowl on the kitchen counter with about 20 bottle caps.

"I'm saving them; for every eight, I get a free coke."

"I thought you gave up soda."

Uhm . . .

me

When I was a (really)starving writer some years ago, I would pose for my artist friends; they didn't have to pay huge fees for someone and I got some quick cash. (And yes,once, I posed nude.)


I found this sketch that a painter and sculputure named Tracy did.

Those seemingly random lines next to my head are actually part of Gabe who also posed for the 3-D work and though I think the world of him (he played my boyfriend in a play once) I only saved the part with me 'cause I'm all about me

me

me

oh, and

a flash about the civil rights movement was published in Poor Mojo's (over to the right under my stories, find "Revolution")and the anthology about Mississippi with another flash about the civil rights movement will be out in May. And there's a possibility of reading in Mississippi in connection with the book's release! I'll read in all 50 states yet!

gjm update

okay, really there's little to update.

I've given my 2 weeks notice and I'm going to use my unused paid time off $$$ to buy me some time.

2 of my kids are getting braces and so I've been scheduling dentist appts. ad nauseum. Oral surgeon as well. Yes, I will have to get back to work SOON to pay what the insurance will not. But, still I'm gonna take myself some time. Besides, the govt. is giving free money away next month, isn't it?

At this point there are no classes available to teach come fall, but no worries 'cause the first semester I taught, at the interview prior I was told there were no classes. "I heard you read and I wanted to meet you," the woman-who-would-become-my-boss told me. The day before the semester began, three classes opened up. So, we'll wait and see.

I did get to spend some time volunteering at the tv station but had to give it up 'cause my hours at my job changed. Found out that I still love production, something I do want to keep pursuing.

And I'm knitting! I'm no

Sharon Hurlbut

but I've knitted something long and continuous; you might call it a scarf. It kinda looks like one--kinda;-)

I have three stories out and one I need to get (back) into the mail, other than those, though, I'm clean out of stories.

The photography subs have not faired well. One yes, some no's, some silence, a send-again-'cause-we-can't-open-what's-on-this-disc (and make it hard copies instead) and two that idle in the reading (waiting) period. Not giving up. I've collected about 250 story rejections so that's prepared me.

other than the above, I'm just looking for a kitten, enjoying my fish and playing in the dirt.

plant pack poet progress

Strawberries, this time. Yum; I so hope they bloom

Nothing stays in boxes except seasonal stuff and the green bathroom. Usually homes we've lived in had two bathrooms; one was green and one was blue. Only the blue bathroom with the aquatic theme this time. Am getting the rest of my stuff out of storage next week -- the final purge! Everything will have a place and everything will be in that place!

It's poetry month. Been reading lots of poetry. A line or two of my own. I haven't written a poem in forever. But I will again. Sometime. Soon. I hope.

Seriously working on one of the two Viet Nam stories with Bob Arter. Collaboration is interesting. He's very good and his style matches mine. That makes it easy. His experience in that war fleshes out these stories I've been wanting to rewrite for a very long time.

Yay!

If you read nothing else today,

read Susan's recap of American Idol.



hahahahahahahahahahahaha

Creative quote for 4-20-08

My task . . . is to make you see.

-—Joseph Conrad

Quote for 4-20-08

Complete possession is proved only by giving. All you are unable to give possesses you.

--Andre Gide

Looking at it another way

So the bears aren't the only thing I'm trimming.

Getting rid of books as well. I've been waiting for Office Max to put the bookcases I want on sale again and finally, they have but no matter 'cause I don't need many more. I've gone through my non-fiction and cut that stack in less than half. Lots of self-help that I've grown past. Biographies that I thought I might be interested in at the time I bought the book, but Mr. Burton, all that truly fascinated me about you was your passion for Ms. Taylor-- I'm sure the rest of your life might be just as fascinating or provide me with a 'why' you and this woman were so mad about one another, however I just ain't got the time to read all about it.

Fiction is next. Short story collections are pretty much safe, but there are few novels I really, really want to hang onto. "Brave New World," "Orange Laughter" "Beloved" among others are the ones I will never part with, but Fern Michaels, the last of Danielle Steele (okay, not the paperback ones that introduced me to her but her latest stuff was ???????) well, those books are a credit at Hastings (there's some cds and dvds I could get in exchange) waiting to happen.

So what I'm trying to say is that I've changed my perspective and I've decided that I don't need more bookshelves, I just need less books.

Creative quote for 4-19-08

The thing that makes a creative person is to be creative and that is all there is to it.

--Edward Albee

Quote for 4-19-08

We usually get what we anticipate.


--Claude M. Bristol

Quote for 4-18-08

The best place to seek God is in a garden. You can dig for him there.

--George Bernard Shaw

doing what I thought would be "unbearable"

Giving part of my bear collection away.

Really.

Not as hard as I thought it would be and it's a wonderful feeling seeing others enjoy the bears and bear stuff as I have.

irony

In the Ft. Worth Greyhound station, there is a framed poster on a wall honoring Rosa Parks and what she did for the bus system.

???????

It was Greyhound and Trailways that disregarded the federal Supreme Court ruling against discrimation/segregation in interstate travel in favor of the states' laws requiring such.

dirty hands

been busy planting sunflowers, daisies and tomatoes. still to go: green beans and more sunflowers.

Quote for 4-17-08

Laugh as much as you breathe and love as long as you live.

--unknown

Literature quote for 4-17-08

Rereading, we find a new book.

--Mason Cooley

I couldn't help myself. I had to touch B.B. King just to prove that he was really in front of me.

And no, he didn't call security 'cause security is the one who let me in!

I am very strategic at times and I chose to go to Nashville because there is a B.B. King Bar & Grill there. I thought he might go there; in fact, I called and asked if they thought he might. The woman I talked to said she didnt' know.

No matter. It could happen.

It could.

The trip to Nashville by Greyhound was uneventful except for the Mexican guy who was whisked off the bus by Border Patrol, and the guy who was whisked off the bus and handcuffed by Border Patrol after the dog sniffed something illegal in his bag, and the woman and her daughter who were left behind in Fort Worth 'cause the bus was on a schedule to get to Dallas;-)

I got there the day of the concert and spent the afternoon fixing my hair and fretting over what to wear.

The concert was to start at 8; my daughter and I had plans to eat first, but we got a late start and didn't get down to 2nd Avenue until 7:30. We went to Big River to see what time they closed and it was going to be at midnight. We'd go back.

At the Ryman Auditorium, we made our way in and searched out the concession stand. A hot dog and a pretzel 'til we could get dinner.

When I'd purchased my ticket, only single seats were being sold. My seat was on the main floor. When my daughter got hers, one of the last two tickets available, she got one on the balcony. We decided to try and sit together, offer someone in the balcony my main floor seat in exchange. There were two guys who were together so that wouldn't work. I asked a man sitting by himself but he declined. Huh?????

Well, my daughter told me to go take my seat and only half-heartedly, I did. There are pews on the main floor. It was dark and I hadn't a clue where I was supposed to go so I got an usher to help me find my seat. After the opening act, I went out to chat with my daughter about the performance but she wasn't in her seat.

I went back downstairs, lingering at the table selling t-shirts and posters.

I have allergies and my eye was watering. I was wiping the tear away when this guy said, "Don't cry; you'll get to see B.B."

I laughed.

"Let me see how this looks on you," he said, raising the t-shirt he'd just bought up to me. "Look at her smile," he told his friend. "Let me see how the other side looks." He turned the shirt around and held it back up to me.

He was from Tuscaloosa, Alabama; his friend, from Nashville. He had a book about B.B. King, which he let me flip through.

"What kind of shoes are you wearing?" I asked.

He asked why.

"'Cause I want to know if you'll be able to catch me when I run with this."

He laughed. "Don't let this fat fool you," he said. "I will run you down."

The book was a Christmas gift from his wife and he'd brought it hoping to get it signed. Reluctantly, I gave it back.

We chatted. They couldn't believe, and they could believe, that I'd come from New Mexico to Tennessee to see B.B. King.

"You ever been to one of his concerts?" The t-shirt buying/book-bearing guy asked.

"Nope. You?"

He said no.

I asked his friend if he had.

He said no too.

"I guess we're all virgins here."

I left them with those grins on their faces and returned to my seat, which I found was actually someone else's seat. Looking for seat 6, the usher who had helped me previously had counted in ascending order from the aisle when she should have counted in descending order. My seat was now on the opposite side of the pew.

"You been to a B.B. King concert before?" the man next to me asked.

I said no.

"He's great," he told me. "Look at all of them, taking pictures of Lucille."

I looked at the stage where people were taking pictures of the guitar on stage on their phones and with cameras.

I got a little upset because the ticket said no video, no cameras, no audio allowed so I'd left my camera phone back in my daughter's apartment. GRRRRRRRRR

The lights went down and these two men came on stage and started playing guitars. When they finished, B.B. King was announced and the crowd went insane. Standing ovation. People took their seats except the guy two pews in front of me.

Sit down, I kept thinking. Sit the f*&^ down.

"SIT DOWN!" someone behind me yelled. A couple more times and the guy did.

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

A perfect view of B.B. King!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

He performed sitting down, citing his age (he's 82) and his health. Still the concert was wonderful. He's humble and funny and gifted. My favorite "The Thrill is Gone" was the last song.

He stood and threw out guitar picks to those in the front pews. Someone placed a cream-colored coat on him and he walked stage left; I thought for a minute he might do a James Brown, throw off the coat and return for another song but the lights came up and sadly the concert was over.

I met my daughter where we had agreed to meet. She'd bought me a poster. Leaving the Ryman, we saw the tour bus and walked over, but there was only one guy standng in the light rain by the door of the bus.

We decided to head to dinner.

"Bring your ticket stubs and you can get in free at B.B. King's," this guy was calling outloud.

"Is he going to be there?" my daughter asked.

"Yes," he said. "But you didn't hear me say that."

Okay, we now knew the rest of the night's agenda.

We had dinner and then headed to the bar and grill.

We got a table and listened to the house band for awhile. "Maybe he's not coming," I said.

We decided to go outside and wait. There were several policemen clustered together before the club and based on what I'd learned about 2nd Avenue and the police when I'd worked there last summer, I knew that something was about to happen. Sure enough two buses pulled up. One parked across from the club on the adjacent street. The other parked before the club, just down from the front door.

A small crowd gathered around that bus. My daughter urged me to move over with the crowd, but I shook my head. I was thinking that I'd get a better view because I was nearer to the door, Unfortunately, there was a second door just down from where I stood and that's the door B.B. King was wheeled into.

The crowd applauded as he passed.

Grrrrr, I thought. Still he was in the building. We went back in.

We got a table and watched people dancing to the 70 and 80's funk. I kept my eyes on the door to the room where he'd gone into. I thought anytime now, he'll be coming on stage, but suddenly it was a quarter to two in the morning and the house band had finished their set and the stage was pitch black.

We decided to go since the waitress told us everyone is run out by 2:15. My daughter went to the restroom and I waited outside. The buses were still there, so I went and glanced through the windows into the room where I knew HE was.

There was a man sitting on the couch and he waved at me. I know how to play the game so I smiled my prettiest smile and waved back.

He told his guy something and the guy came over and opened the door.

"Is that guy with a band?" I asked.

"A band?"

"This band?" I held up my ticket.

"Yeah."

I asked if there was any chance I could get an autograph, but the guy assured me there was no chance and closed the door.

I returned to the front entrance to get my daughter, all the while thinking how I might get into that room.

I told my daughter what had happened and as we passed the window, we both smiled and waved and the guy on the couch had another guy go to the door and invite us in.

Turns out he was a security guard for B.B. King. We sat down and flirted, chatted and schmoozed . . .

This older guy came over and was talking to us. A second older guy came over and asked Reggie (the security guy) if we were his children.

He said no, that we wanted B.B. King's autograph.

Reggie told him how I'd come "all the way from New Mexico to see B.B."

"She didn't even come to see me," my daughter told the older guy. "She only came to see B.B. King."

"On a greyhound bus," Reggie added, shaking his head. He'd already warned me that felons ride on Greyhound buses.

"Well, if you want his autograph, what you doing here? He's over there."

"I . . . I can go over there?" I finally got out.

He told me that when B.B. King was ready to go, he was going to take him out and he wasn't going to stop, keeping him in the cold and rain for us to get an autograph.

My daughter and I got up off the couch and walked across the room.

B.B. King was sitting at a table and turned as we approached.

"Mr. King," I said, "I don't want to bother you, but I was hoping to get your autograph and this man over there said it would be okay if I came over and asked you."

When he said okay, I unrolled the poster and set it and a pen before him. "I've been trying to see you since 2006."

"Girl, I've been playing for 110 years and you're just now seeing me," he joked.

I nodded. "I know. . . " Sometimes, you just think you've got forever, you know?

Anyway, a relative of his sitting at the table started chatting with me. After he signed the poster , my daughter slipped me her ticket and I set it before him.

"You just don't want me to get any rest, do you?"

I met his smile with one of my own.

"I do. I want you to rest," I assured him, and it was true because I knew that he was heading to another Tennessee city the very next day, "but that was for me and this is for my daughter."

He turned to my daughter. "Hi Daughter," he said.

My daughter told him hello and that his show was incredible.

"It was," I told him. "You are amazing."

He gave me the ticket and I handed it back to my daughter. She was readying her camera phone, but I shook my head. I didn't want to be that presumptuous.

But in that quiet moment that followed, I just had to reach out and touch his arm. A momentary touch and a squeal and then a thank you and goodbye.

On the way out, we thanked Reggie and walked out the club amazed at the events and not really 'cause we'd planned for the very thing, though we hadn't a clue how it would happen.

I put the poster in my luggage that I planned to check. I was taking some things that I'd left last summer and I only had so many arms.

When I got back to Las Cruces, my luggage was nowhere to be found. Seems Greyhound will send checked baggage on a bus separate from you if there's too much baggage on the bus you're on. They don't, a service representative told me, guarantee that your baggage will arrive at the same time you do!!!!!


GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

They'll pay $250 for lost baggage(though the representative assured me that my bag, at the point when I called, was "delayed" not yet lost!) but B.B.King's autograph was priceless.

Double GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

But the luggage appeared and I got it and my poster and here's the autograph:




and I'm happy beyond words. The thrill is definitely not gone!

B.B. King just days away !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I could be a Pointer Sister, I'm SO EXCITED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Leaving early tomorrow morning. And, of course, no I'm not yet packed;-)

This is Roscoe. I made him last year in New York around this time. Found the photos from the trip in my unpacking.

I said I would post the picture. I have. Cross that off my list of things I need to do.

And more coolness

My story

"An Early Fall"

is in the March issue of Static Movement.

They have a discussion board and a man named Mike read the story and commented that it was "Very reminiscent of the short works of famed writer, the late great Richard Wright. Gritty realism mixed with human frailty, violence, and fatalism."

Ooooh, thanks!

Mother Love-- A review

A review of my chapbook by Steve Hansen in the March issue of Word Riot. Coolness.

I've been moving

Three weeks now trying to get settled into this really nice house. "This is the house we've been waiting for," my daughter said.

Oh, yes.

Two kids with bedrooms of their own, a room for me to write (not just a space in a room to claim as my own--HEAVEN!) and another room that's the arts/crafts room; ie, a separate room for my sewing. One bathroom, but it's big. I've got that aquarium I've always wanted to have in a bathroom and I've got FERNS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Got about eight plants in there. Love it.

When I thought I was moving to Vermont, I purged. Evidently, though I didn't purge enough and I've been parting with even more stuff.

But, no, not the bear stuff. Never, ever the bear stuff!

B.B. King ticket in hand

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

Not going to San Fran-- would have to leave Nashville almost immediately after the concert to make it to San Francisco for the awards ceremony so I'm just gonna spend an extra day in Tennessee, return to Las Cruces and then take my kids to Az (it's Spring Break); visit Carrie and get my stuff.

My favorite little boy with the first book I've bought him.

"Dear Ms: Mintz: We are pleased. . . "

Could read that much of the email when I opened my box. An acceptance for "Maybe Today" for an anthology of stories that take place in Mississippi.

So much better than the subject heading "Decline work" from an email sent by a journal that didn't, uh, want my work.

branch and 'bow

dandy

The cutest baby in the whole wide world

ouch

just got my 3rd rejection in 2 days

yes, I'm blogging a lot today. . .

it's because I'm supposed to be working on a story;-)

The Best of 2007

Short story collections (that I read):

1-- Mothers & Sons by Colm Toibin

2-- Brownsville by Oscar Casares

3-- Working Men by Michael Dorris

artistic quote for January 22, 2008

The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place; from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider’s web.


--Pablo Picasso

quote for January 22, 2008

God is the experience of looking at a tree and saying, "Ah!"


--Joseph Campbell

a possible NYC reading

Yay! Details when/if it happens. Seriously working on the one in Canada.