Sometimes You Like the People

Either you like the People or the Process or the Product.

Sometimes, if you are lucky, it's all 3.

Here, it's the people.  It's a good, friendly office, not like 711, or at least different.  I'm not growing into my best self, like I am when I'm there, but there's still an opportunity for power & leadership. The process is pretty painless for the most part.  The product is nothing I see.

Oedipus was the process, mostly.  The people were lovely, except when Estelle would yell (of Arrested Development, of a 60 year career, of not having had anyone yell like Jeffrey Tambour, I know how Jessica Walters feels)

If the product is the money, its not even something I feel.  Just numbers on a screen, having to go back and forth.  Tetris with numbers, filling in all the spaces, paying bills as they fall. And there are always rows falling away.  Time lived and paid for.  And more time to come.  More paychecks falling down and away from me....

Falling Out and in Love with the Man(uscript)

Falling Out and in Love with the Man(uscript)

Sometimes it's good to be obsessed with your writing.

And then sometimes, it makes you sick with the intensity.

So it's good to be able to take a step back, and get back into your life. AND, you'd be amazed at how much easier it is to edit when you have a little perspective.

And then, when you get back into it, there's a lot of THERE there. Sure, trim away all the fat.  Lots of crap, but now it's easier to let go of it.

And I'm sure it'll be a cycle.  I need to get through this draft.  And then, rinse, repeat.

I'll forget again. But I'll fall in love again.

Readable Draft/SUNSET

I hope you are as fascinated by the novel writing process as I am.

I'm taking 2 classes (1 on Query Letters to Lit Agents and one on World Building in Fiction). Getting an editor lined up, workshopping one of the chapters.  Very exciting.

My goal this month is a readable draft.  I have the structure, and 250 pages of scenes, notes, and things to write.  I want to send out the first 50 pages to my editor asap.

I've published several short stories and plays, but getting together a giant chunk of something (with a full time job plus travel) is tremendously difficult. But rewarding!

Note: in the hotel rooms where I find myself focusing on the craft, I am MEZMERIZED by the sunsets.  I always get a room with a view so I can THINK!

NYC Doesn't Give A Fuck

You can have a life, a DEVOTION around the cult of NYC.  You can be its slave for years, trying to get it to love you back.

But it doesn't give a fuck.

You can starve, can live in a closet, can work 24/7, can work as a barista, can perform on Broadway.  you can make it there one day and feel like you are starting over the very next.

Other cities will welcome you back with open arms.  Embrace you like your Mom.  Alumnae returning to the geographies of their youth.  New York will be like, 'Oh, did you leave the party?"

Every neighborhood, every block is a new beginning.  You start from scratch, you reinvent yourself.  Hopefully smarter this time. 

You can go for years and never run into any of your previous friends, or selves.  And then you can spend 24 hours playing "This is your life", and seeing mirrors everywhere you go.

You can walk by the place of your depression, at your happiest future NOW, and NYC doesn't even blink.  It doesn't register you.  You do, however.

I Like The Escape

It feels like we only enter and exit.

We drive up to the parking lot, walk up to the doors.
And never soon enough, we walk down the stairs, carrying our burdens and laptops.

Start our cars like we start a race, and before you know it, we are back in the same parking spaces.

A Dream of Escape

A dream of escape.

Here in the Northeast in America, we are under a cold snap.

Since Christmas, we have been suffering with below zero temperatures and into the predictable future (according to the iPhone).

And then, with or without a cold (which I have), we are essentially trapped indoors.

I've been lucky to have a writing project to take me out of myself.

The BEST vacation I can ever have. 

Walking by the Pond

The other morning, it was 23 degrees.

I wore 2 shirts and was able to walk easily, in a freeze, as if things were NOT new to me, yet again, even if it had been such a long time since I walked.

The pond was still there, my thoughts too.  I wished for a computer and some quiet time, but 8:30 am Meetings all week. 

And then there is the Boy to occupy my mental energies. 

The only people I see are the Crossing Guard near the school; she waves.  We talked on Halloween, she liked my costume and I liked hers.

And the man who stares into space as he sits in his running car, where that lady used to be.  I somehow got a sense that she voted for Trump, I don't know how-some conversation we had, or she had with my mother. The kind of person who smiles at all the kids and who dies alone in her bathtub with some gin sitting on the rim. Funny, the things you think of in a town like this.

There is a strict line between the townies and those who get up and out.  The industrial part, the industrial parks, the commuters and the college kids.  The cab drivers ask me my age, because SURELY we grew up together.  But no, I didn't go to PUBLIC SCHOOL and didn't hang out in the places they did.  I was home watching black & white movies.  Doing research for my future life.