Sometimes I see a submissions call for works on a theme and I think, I have something like that somewhere. And I scroll through my archives and dust off something old and revise it a little bit before sending it out. Because much of my past writings are short stories that I had to push to make them hit the word count for writing workshops. It seems natural to cut them back down to the flash-length pieces I originally intended them to be.

However, something about the spring weather makes me want to tackle massive projects. So I dusted off something else, something much longer than a short story. It’s a novel I wrote for NaNoWriMo in 2010.

I’ve struggled through many years of NaNo, but this one happened pretty naturally. I’ve even revised the novel a time or two, but it was always a half-ass effort, never knowing for sure what I intended to do with it.

But the story has been sticking in my mind lately, and I decided this is the project I want to take on this spring. And since the novel is actually based on a short story, I wanted to revisit that original work to compare the two.

My dad loved this short story when I wrote it. I was in college, sure I’d be a famous author one day, cut working as a graphic designer to get through school. So I formatted the story into a book layout, designed a cover, printed it, bound it, and gave it to my dad for his birthday. (Yes, I’m cringing that I thought this was a gift.)

Anyway, now I’m incredibly glad I did that, and that he kept it! Not long ago, I lost all my documents from 2003-2018. Now I have a hard copy of the story I can type and save in a dozen different places. (My dad also saved a few other stories I’d given him to read, so I have those too!)

I re-read the story and actually really love it. I can clearly remember when the idea came to me, but I didn’t remember how I wove the pieces together to make it work. And now, loving the original story so much, I feel invigorated to tackle the novel. And finally do something with it. So that’s where I’ll be for the foreseeable future.

Since April, I’ve submitted 44 times to 32 different outlets. For someone who hasn’t been on a submitting spree since… 2011? I’ll take that.

Out of those submissions, five are still out. Five were accepted.

• My one-sentence flash is published HERE.
• “Just a Little Crush” is published in an anthology you can find HERE.
• “Douglas Fir Give Me Heartburn: Exploring the Magic of Christmas Eve on Sesame Street” is published HERE.
• Another one-sentence flash is forthcoming from Rejection Letters.
• The last acceptance is a chapter in the Antiwrimo novel that will be published by Thirty West next year.

I wrote a hybrid chapbook with a friend and we submitted it to 7 places (included in my total numbers above). It’s still out at 2 places. We have a list of other presses to submit to in the new year.

This year I became a Priority Editor at Flash Fiction Magazine. I’ve learned so much about reading, selecting, and editing stories for publication. I’ve loved working with authors and feel just as excited to email them about publications as I am about my own acceptances. I also worked as a judge for one contest and will do that again in January. In the new year, I’m taking on new responsibilities, including leading editorial meetings and hosting their Zoom events. I love having my foot in the door of another publishing outlet, along with Split/Lip Press, which I’ve been with for a year and a half now!

In more personal writing news, I took a week-long flash workshop with Nancy Stohlman this summer and a 7-week course through SmokeLong Quarterly this fall. I’ve done a few one-off workshops too, with the likes of Kathy Fish, Tommy Dean, and Gotham Writer’s Workshop. In each course, I’ve read extensively, pushed my writing limits, and met amazing people. I’ve even started a workshop with one group, and we’re still going strong. Getting feedback from other writers and giving them mine as well has helped me grow so much as a writer.

I typically take my “new year” as birthday to birthday, but as someone who loves fresh starts and goals, I’ll follow the calendar year as well. I already made resolutions on my birthday and am well on my way to reaching them. As far as public resolutions go, I don’t have anything concrete.

• I want to submit more this year, especially since I’ll be starting in January instead of April!
• Hopefully that means I’ll publish more as well.
• I need to work on REVISION. I have so much work that I write and then put away. I’m in two critique groups and get amazing feedback, so I need to take advantage of the help these writers are giving me and really revise my work. I like the idea of it more than the actual action…
• I’d like to continue to grow in my publishing roles to really make the most of the experiences.
• I’d like to write a chapbook of my own, or perhaps a novella-in-flash.
• I’m already scheduled to take another workshop with Kathy Fish in January, but I might look to take more in summer or fall.

If you’re interested, check out my 2021 Year in Reading post.

Apparently, I’m lucky to blog once a month, getting this one in just under the wire. And I’m only writing because I’ve been reading about blogs lately, like old-school blogs. Blogs you read if you were in your 20s in 2008. Blogs that connected you to others or inspired you or created friendships.

I’m someone who used diary-x and LiveJournal. I met two of my best friends through LiveJournal, and we’re still close to this day, so I’m no stranger to connecting online. Blogs did that. And I miss that. But I also understand the need to be professional, especially here, in my writing space. But if it’s my writing space…

And off I spiral.

I look at my life and can’t believe I’ve been making a living as a writer for over a year now. If you told my eight-year-old self that this was possible, I think she would have been thrilled, but skeptical. Yet here I am, still thrilled, still skeptical.

But that’s not what it’s about tonight. I’m thankful for those jobs, grateful for what they’ve given me. But tonight is about creative writing. It’s about cracking my shell and inspecting my process as it happens.

Getting an idea. Writing. Revising. Reading aloud. Revising more.

I won’t submit this piece until later, so I’m sure more revision is to come. If you told my twenty-year-old self that this was possible, she would have smirked in your face. (She hated revision.)

But I feel like I’m twenty again. I’m grateful that I don’t have a full day of college courses and work waiting for me tomorrow, but there’s something invigorating about staying up late (shhh – to a single parent, 9:45p is indeed late) and writing and focusing on creativity and forgetting about the endless To Do lists and have I cleaned but did I call and how will I manage drop off and pick up along with…

Not tonight.

I feel lucky to write and get paid for it. I feel lucky to write because ideas won’t leave me alone. I feel lucky to submit and get rejections and try again. I feel lucky to be part of creative writing workshop groups that let me read and critique great stories and give me necessary feedback on my own work. I feel lucky to read and edit other people’s writing, to send them acceptances and take part in their excitement in some small way. I feel lucky to work with an amazing press and support their fantastic team and writers and readers. I feel lucky to be so connected to the literary world while still knowing there’s so much left to explore.

All my life, I’ve wanted built-in bookshelves. It’s something I’ve dreamed of since seeing Beauty and the Beast. Except I don’t need the rolling ladder, because I’m already tall enough.

My dad is a talented carpenter. You can point to anything in my parents’ house and many things in my house asking, “Where did you get that?” and the answer is, “My dad made it.”

As I transitioned to a life working from home, I commissioned him to make a standing desk. He not only made a standing desk, but he made it so the top level was removable. I can sit or stand and work at my laptop or write by hand. I couldn’t have imagined something so good, but he threw it together with scrap wood, promising to make something better whenever I needed.

He built bookshelves for two rooms of his own house and I’ve admired them frequently. But I’ve previously lived a somewhat transient lifestyle. I moved apartments every year, moved away for grad school, then traveled for months at a time while keeping my things in a storage unit. My furniture is hand-me-downs. To date, I’ve only bought two tables, a bed (all 3 I still have), and one couch (RIP). Even though I’ve lived in my own home for years, built-in bookshelves seemed like a commitment I wasn’t ready to make.

But the pandemic changed everything. It helped me see what I valued in my life. I made a major career change. I focused on myself and my writing. And I knew that I was finally ready to commit to built-in bookshelves.

Cue wood being impossible to find and insanely expensive if you were lucky enough to spot it. (I could write an essay about me being ready to commit when it wasn’t possible, but I won’t. You’re welcome.)

However, my dad is amazing, and he kept looking. Finally, he found some wood and starting building my bookshelves. I helped as much as I could, which was mostly holding things in place, staining the wood, and aligning the shelf mounts to hold as many books as possible.

All of this to say… look at my bookshelves! And THANK YOU, DAD!

BEFORE:

WITHOUT:

DURING:

FINISHED:

WITH WORK LIGHTS INSTALLED:

I recently lost 15 years of data due to a corrupt external hard drive.

• Three and a half degrees’ worth of research and projects. Graphic design. English. Creative Writing. Library Science.

• Fifteen years of photography portfolios and outtakes. Art. Band photos. Portraits. Personal images.

• Notes, journals, and photographs of my travels up and down the West coast, visiting countless National Parks, going abroad to England.

• Four years of photographs of my kid.

Most of my writing I moved from computer to computer and kept on smaller USB drives since the files didn’t take up much space. But the photos I backed up every month, determined to not lose an image. I didn’t want my computer to crash and leave me stranded.

On the plus side, my computer didn’t crash. My 12-year-old iMac is still alive and trucking. I got a new PC just because I couldn’t be without one, due to the nature of my work. So when I found that my drive didn’t work, I tested it on four different computers, tried two different types of software, took it to the professionals.

Nothing. All gone.

I try to feel upset about it but I can’t, really. How often did I look through those files? Not often. I plugged it in a few months ago to find a certain image and some notes, but that was it.

I made prints of most of my kid’s baby pictures, so it’s not like they’re lost. I re-downloaded the digital images from Shutterfly so I still have those. Some of my travel photos are up on Flickr; not even a fraction of all of them, but at least there’s proof.

And isn’t that all these files are? Proof that I went somewhere, saw something, did the work and earned the degree? It’s not that different than losing things in a house fire, except it’s by far the better option. A ruined hard drive compared to a ruined home. Thankfully my shelter is intact, and that’s what I focus on. The things that I lost… I can just recreate them from here. Take new photos, revitalize my portfolio, revisit the National Parks so my kid can appreciate them, too. Make new memories and stop living in the past.

It’s time to move on. Start fresh.

Today I’m thinking of the time a male classmate walked out of workshop with me. He said, “I find that when women write stories like yours, they’re usually true.”

I’m thinking of the editor that rejected my story. He said it seemed like I didn’t understand depression, so I shouldn’t write about it.

I’m thinking of the blurred lines between truth and lie. Why call writing fiction if you think it’s about me anyway?

I’m thinking, how much do we know about an author, just because they’re giving us a glimpse inside their mind?

I’m thinking, why differentiate something as fiction vs. nonfiction if you think you know better, anyway.

I did it. I dedicated three weeks to creative writing.

Of course I still did paid work. I also did housework, parenting, mowing, and managed a few unexpected things that were fairly stressful in their own right. But I did it all. And I produced over 18,000 words of new material.

I started with Jami Attenberg’s #1000wordsofsummer, writing 1,000 words a day for 14 days. I initially thought I would write creative nonfiction essays about my childhood. I had a list a page long of memories and topics. I wrote one. On the second day I hit a stride with a topic that I subdivided into three days’ worth of material. On the fifth day, I remembered that I needed to write flash pieces for a chapbook I’m compiling with a friend. There were nine pieces, so I spent the next nine days writing those. The last day was mostly a free-for-all, but I did it. Over 1,000 words every day.

Then I went right into Nancy Stohlman’s Going Short: Beautiful Flash Fiction workshop. She gave us readings and prompts for five days. Participants wrote flash exercises, up to 800 words, for each day. I pushed myself like I haven’t in so long. Knowing people would be reading and commenting on my writing lit a fire that I haven’t felt since grad school.

I didn’t realize how much I missed the workshop environment. Thankfully a few people from that course seem interested in keeping it going, either as accountability partners or an informal workshop. I’m eager to nurture those relationships, because the quality of writing and feedback in that course was amazing. I can’t remember the last time I felt this inspired.

I’m encouraged to take more courses for my writing. I’ve let that side of me go since college and grad school. I started thinking it wasn’t worth pursuing, but what I got out of this class was worth every penny. I’m hoping to take a more intensive workshop this fall, and hopefully continue taking workshops every “semester” or so. I think it’s worth the investment and I really enjoyed doing this.

Now… should I submit the work I created this week?

I’ve been freelancing and ghostwriting for ten months now. This is what I’ve wanted to do since I was a kid, even if I didn’t know the specifics of how it’d work. I had a vision of me sitting at a desk, writing, and supporting myself that way. I didn’t know what I’d be writing or who for, but it’s come to fruition and I couldn’t be happier.

I spend my days researching interesting topics, many I’ve never given much thought to, so I can write about them. This satisfies my need to learn. I don’t get bored because every day is something different. I’m someone who regularly goes down research and Wikipedia rabbit holes, so doing it for a purpose (and getting paid) hits the spot.

I balance daily work with bigger projects lasting two weeks or longer. I get to really immerse myself in this research and work closely with clients without focusing on the quick turnaround. Basically, I’m getting the best of both worlds.

My creative writing, however, has been pushed to the back burner. I’m writing at least 5,000 words a day for work, so when I stop, I usually just veg out with a book or random thoughts. I make notes about story ideas and things I’d like to write eventually, when I find time.

That time is now. I’ve decided to kick off summer by prioritizing my personal writing. It starts next week with #1000wordsofsummer with Jami Attenberg. It runs for two weeks and a Slack channel is set up for accountability and inspiration.

After that, I’ll take a week-long course with Nancy Stohlman. Her book was one of the first I read with my recent return to writing, specifically flash fiction. I’ve been writing at Lightning Flash every weekday (6 days a week in April) for four months now. I’ve even submitted to five places in the past two months. Not an astonishing feat, but I haven’t submitted since 2011, so it’s definitely something.

I look forward to prioritizing creative writing for the month of June, and then hopefully being able to find a balance between paid work and creative work for the rest of the year. I have some goals I’d like to meet, and marking goals off of my list has always been a great motivator for me.

For as much as I felt “Zoomed out” last Spring, I’ve been loving how connected I’ve felt to the literary community lately. This past week’s SMOL Fair was no exception. SMOL Fair is an online book fair for small presses, created because most indie publishers felt AWP was charging too much for a virtual fair. SMOL Fair was completely free for vendors and participants, publishers had killer deals, and there were tons of giveaways going on.

It felt great to discover small presses I wasn’t familiar with and blow my budget to support them and their authors. I have about fifteen books coming my way, and I’m excited for the bookmail and the chance to read new authors and experimental forms.

There were also dozens of readings being hosted last week and over the weekend, which gave me even more of a chance to find new authors and connect with them. Even though the event was entirely online (specifically Zoom and Twitter), I was able to network with other presses, authors, and even a few librarians who want to help bridge the gap between indie publishers and library systems.

I have to admit, it made me miss my previous ALA Conference experiences; there’s nothing like going from booth to booth and making connections and picking up new books. The antisocial side of me loved that I was able to remain in the comfort of my own home and sign on and off as I pleased. I also can’t deny how nice it was to not have to pay for travel, lodging, and conference admission. Definitely a mixed bag of excitement and nostalgia, but overall the fair was an amazing success and I’m excited to see how it develops in the years to come since it was so accessible.