I Won the Oregon Quarterly Essay Contest

I won the Oregon Quarterly Northwest Perspectives essay contest.

I had to write that twice because I still can’t quite believe it.

Yesterday I received a very unusual phone call, especially in these days of ubiquitous electronic conversation.

“This is my favorite phone call of the year,” said the magazine’s editor. “You won the essay contest.”

In response, I said nothing. I was too shocked.

I’ve entered this annual literary contest maybe seven times and never even been a finalist. And I won! Hot damn.

My essay is titled “The Friday’s Trilogy” and it’s an excerpt from my book, Chance of Sun: An Oregon Memoir, to be released this summer. It’s about one of the worst periods of my life, when I bottomed out in Portland 16 years ago.

Here’s what judge Debra Gwartney of Pacific University’s MFA program said:

"(I chose) The Friday's Trilogy, which I found to be fresh, alive, exciting and bold writing. I had some trouble following the first few sentences, but once I was in, I was in. A compelling piece of writing, heartbreaking and redemptive. Hard to pull off without being sappy, and yet she does."

“I’ll come back to earth soon,” I said to Guy Maynard at the end of our conversation.

“Well, don’t come back down too soon,” he said. “Moments like these are too few in our world.”

There will be a public reading of winning essays on the University of Oregon campus, May 4, 7 p.m.

What Did You Do Today, Mom?

After school, one day this week:

Chicken Noodle: Mom, you be me and I’ll be you.

Me: Okay.

Chicken Noodle: What did you do today, sweetie?

Me: I went to Kindergarten. It was so cool! I love it I love it I love it!

CN: Oh, that’s nice, honey.

Me: What did you do today, Mom?

CN: I wrote a book.

Me: Oh yeah? What’s it about?

CN: Courage and love.

Me: Wow. I really want to read that one.

CN: You have to learn to read first, honey.

Me: Oh.

Phoenix Rising

I suppose it’s about time to tell you all I got another book deal.

I know, huh?

Three weeks ago, I received an e-mail from an acquisitions editor at a press back east. He’d been searching for someone to write a travel guidebook about Oregon for one of their series. He came across my bio on the Willamette Writer’s website. Then he “followed me around the internet.” He read various essays and articles posted on my website, my Travel Oregon blog postings, and this blog. He thought I’d be perfect. He thought I was funny. He’d like to talk to me about offering me a contract.

I sat there in front of the screen for a long, stunned, surreal moment. Then I forwarded the e-mail to Capt. Daddy, adding a few excitable expletives. Capt. responded instantly and wisely—“call him.”

A week later I traded my signature on a contract for an advance. Now I have to write the book by Nov. 15. Not even kidding. But never mind about that. I’ve been writing professionally for ten years. Surely I can churn out 65,000 words in eight weeks. No problem.

The amazing part is that for years all I’ve been told is that to get a book deal, writers have to burn up the keyboard relentlessly pitching agents, chase after editors with finely-tuned elevator pitch in pocket, be willing to offer publishers one’s first-born child and grandma’s gold coins. I did all of that. For years. It didn’t work. (I even sacrificed the first-born child—ha, and ouch). But something must have worked. Because ten years into this little song-and-dance, two publishers in a year came to me.

Because of the tight turnaround on the travel book, both it and my memoir (about growing up in Oregon—how coincidental) will be out at the same time—next spring.

Far out.

This photo is of a painting my dear friend and fellow writer Suzanne Burns made for me three years ago, after I set fire to my first memoir and pretty much figured my dreams of publishing a book were dead. It’s been hanging in my office since, guiding me to places I couldn’t see coming. Suzanne saw what I couldn’t yet—with work and faith, something new would come along.

Someone suggested that with two books coming out, I should change the name of my blog. Nah. Lots more blooming to do. I might have to update my bio again, though. That book fire really is starting to feel like it harbored the Phoenix instead of defeat.

Happy New You Part IV

Long overdue for an update to my blog profile. I've been confusing people with the whole book burning thing.

So here's me, modestly refreshed:

Me: mother, wife and writer watching 40 climb the front steps like a peddler pushing time and me with nowhere to hide. The writer part used to come first, the 40 used to be a 30, and marriage and motherhood were abstract activities I thought I’d try someday. Ah, growing up. If only it was the thrill promised when we were six.

I started this blog to chronicle my quest to publish a book. I’ve published all sorts of other things—articles, essays, even poetry. I wrote a first book. Then I set it on fire. I am now neck-deep in edits on a second book, and have a publisher interested. But as my mother says, “It ain’t over ‘til the fat lady sings.”

So the question remains—will I bloom, eventually? Or will I ditch the whole writing thing, adopt a xanax habit, abandon my own identity and live the rest of my life vicariously through my children? Hmm, let’s find out.

Nuts

A couple of weeks ago while I was tutoring at the college, my blood sugar crashed. I emptied my wallet of quarters and headed for the vending machine, wondering if I would find any sugar-free, protein-laden options.

Yay—Smokehouse almonds. $1.25. I plunked my five quarters in and watched the little metal corkscrew arm make its slow rotation…and then stop. My almonds dangled there, caught on their own packaging. Then, strangely, a nickel dropped into the coin return.

I gazed at it in my palm for a moment, wondering what the heck I was supposed to do with it. Was five cents the returnable deposit on my risk? And how was it that I hadn’t realized that I was taking a risk in the first place?

Stubbornly, I went back to my bag and got more coins. I didn’t really want to pay $2.50 for almonds, but if I don’t eat, it’s possible that I’ll suddenly begin to stab my students with their own writing utensils. In went another $1.25 in quarters. This time, the twisty arm rotated, making its low whir, and two bags of almonds dropped to the bin.

Out of curiosity, I pressed the “coin return” button, and received two dimes and a nickel.

I scooped up my loot and headed back to my post, unable to shake the feeling that the whole experience was metaphorical somehow. Sometimes the world withholds your almonds. You do what you’ve been asked to do and get jack in return. Sometimes you get unexplained gifts that you’re not sure even you understand. Other times you get everything you’ve asked for and much more. And sometimes, you just get caught on your own packaging.

Vending machine as karma.

This week, the almonds are good and stuck. But I am waiting for the coins. I know they’re coming, sooner or later.

A New Essay of Mine in True North Magazine

This quarter's True North Magazine features an essay of mine: Roots and Flowers: Loss, Grief, and Growth

Glory

On Monday, I walked to a meeting. The route was a stretch of Nye Beach in Newport, Oregon. The destination was a local pub. The person I was meeting was my publisher. On my back, I carried 160 pages of paper—my book manuscript, completed last week and fresh from the printer.

The sun shone brilliantly, there was barely a breeze. I was all alone. Two miles of packed sand, open Oregon air and exercise lay between our rented beach house and my fate.

Of course, fate doesn’t work like that. There isn’t really one defining moment that sets a course of everlasting glory in a regular life. Glory comes and goes, is persistently fickle. Every happy ending is interwoven with the beginning of another new challenge.

I thought about a lot of things on that two-mile journey. How much outside validation I need from my writing, and if I can learn to just enjoy its creation and appreciate the successes that appear. My family, and what really matters. How rooting around in your past and trying to craft it into something salable is as dangerous and messy as my friend Jessica said it would be when I started this project. And, just what the heck might happen during the next two hours.

But when I quit thinking and looked up into the stunning sky, at the powerful surf, breathed the sea air, I thought about how lucky I am. How incredibly metaphorical this walk was! My story about growing up on the Oregon Coast was literally on my back as I marched down the Oregon Coast to deliver it to someone who would decide its worth. Sort of like the pearly gates, but with kites and sandcastles.

Judgment is still to come. But on the walk back, after a great discussion, with a pint of Oregon ale in my belly and my backpack much lighter, when the beach glowed even more marvelously and I felt like skipping over the sand, when I located my chickens chasing seagulls and Captain Daddy ready to hear my story, I simply chose to revel in the glory for however long it lasts.

I knew the true worth of that paper-bound journey, and almost didn’t care what anyone else thought of it at all.

Chapter 238...

...in which our heroine is nearly finished with final edits on her book. In between fits of terror, she is quite jublilant.


Honestly, she is.


(Well, she's sure it's coming, anyway.)

Up next:

Riches

Tax season mournful thought for the day:

“No one can stop you from writing. They can only stop you from getting paid for it.”

--Bobby Moresco, Hawaii Writer’s Conference, 2009

Silver lining: writing off this.

Rockin' the Bard

Of particular interest to anyone who has ever made-out in the back of a school bus...or wished they had...

An essay from my upcoming book, Chance of Sun: A Perfectly Imperfect Oregon Upbringing, is in this month's Oregon Quarterly Magazine.

Rockin' the Bard

"God It’s Such a Drag to Have to Live in the Past"

The other night I dreamt I was pregnant with my ex-boyfriend’s baby. This is impossible for many reasons, not the least of which is I haven’t laid eyes on him since 1996. (Oh, and my ten years of marriage, though I guess that doesn’t stop everybody from getting into this particular pickle).

No matter—in the dream, this situation was very real and posed many problems in my current life. Did I shun the boyfriend, stay with Captain Daddy and hope he’d agree to raise my love child? Did I ditch my family and go live with this baby’s father, to raise our illicit bundle of joy together? Maybe a baby was what we always needed. Maybe a baby would make him faithful, magically force him to appreciate me and love me as he never did all of those years ago. Maybe a baby would encourage us to put aside the self-destructive behavior towards which we’d been so prone.

In the dream, my boyfriend held me, spoke soothingly in my ear. He promised me everything. Of course we would raise this baby together. Of course there would be love, joy—all of my heart’s desires and more.

I awoke with Captain Daddy on my left and Chicken Little on my right in the bed I’ve slept in for well over a decade—far from Portland and the past. Far from pregnant, for that matter. I knew immediately the meaning behind the dream. The baby is my book. My ex-boyfriend makes a small but illustrious appearance in my story—the chapter he dominates marks the arc of the narrative. It was the lowest, most dangerous and chilling time of my life. And I do feel like, by writing about it, by publishing it, I am giving birth to it again. I am bringing events long-ago put to rest back to life. It’s unsettling, to say the least.

But as Chicken Little woke beside me in bed, threw an arm around me and kissed me a sloppy good morning, I knew the answer to the dream’s central question. Of course I would stay here. To write about the past, to unearth it, to put it on display is to bring it back from the dead. But I don’t have to go back and live with it. I can pull those things out of my personal history and still keep my feet firmly planted in the life I crafted from the Phoenix’s flames.

Still, for the better part of the morning, I couldn’t shake the image of my ex holding me so tenderly, gazing fondly into my eyes. Everything was going to be okay, he seemed to say. This time, there would be a happy ending.

Yin and Yang at the Pet Store

Recently I took the chickens to the pet store. I envisioned a fun activity with which to fill a foggy February morning. I imagined the chicken’s delight at my suggestion of a goldfish to bring home—maybe two, if I were feeling particularly magnanimous. What a good mother I am, I secretly self-congratulated.

Chicken Noodle had other ideas.

Once we got there:

“I want a kitty!”

“How about a fish?”

“No, a kitty!” She leapt around in front of the kitten cages.

“But look at these pretty fishies, aren’t they wonderful?”

“I want a kitty, I want a kitty!”

I steeled myself for battle. Put on my calm reasonable voice. “Oh, baby, a kitty is a really big decision. I don’t think we’re going to choose a kitty right now.”

“I want a big decision, I want a big decision! Please, Mommy, can I have a big decision?”

How many times have I asked for something small and cuddly like a kitten and instead found myself in possession of something clawed and unwieldy like a big decision? Asked for autonomy, got responsibility? Asked for romance, got marriage? Asked for maturity, got wrinkles? Asked for a published book, got the job of writing and editing it?

At the moment, actually, I am kind of digging it. No, not the wrinkles. The book writing. It is prickly and unwieldy, that’s for sure. Not to mention speculative. But as once went a wise quote in an otherwise horrible movie, the name of which I’ve forgotten—“The hard thing and the right thing are usually the same thing.”

And you know what? I have learned so much already in the process of writing this book. Just this six-month project has made me a much better writer. I have learned a lot about myself, too. Who knew there was so much left to learn, ten years into this little writing career of mine?

A decade ago, I asked for something small and cuddly—the right to live as an artist, and forge my own path. And got something prickly and unwieldy—the right to live as an artist, and forge my own path.

Isn’t it beautiful?

But no, we did not get a kitten.

One-upping Mr. Nelson

Last week I was invited to a middle-school classroom to talk about being a writer. It was one of those moments that made me go “huh?” and look over my shoulder for the real grown-up/real writer who was surely standing behind me. “Oh, you mean me?” said my inner ego, who is nerdy, shy and still only 12 herself. She violently fears a room full of eyes on her, not to mention that she hasn’t a single thing to say.

But once I got there, perched on a red cane chair in front of twenty 7th and 8th graders, I surprised myself. I talked about writing, and kind of couldn’t shut up. I think my allotted time was ten minutes, and when I finally came to a sort of conclusion, thirty minutes had passed. The students were totally engaged, asking questions. One kid even tape recorded me. I can only hope that I was more entertaining and inspiring than the lawyer who’d launched this career series for them earlier in the week.

The kick of it was that it was really cool to talk about how I got here, and remind myself where “here” is. I worked my ass off, and it kind of even worked! It reminded me that talking about what you love is easy. I love talking about what I love. And I love writing. I even told them—with pride—that when I was a kid I used to spend every recess in the library. Even though at the time it made me a complete outcast, I see now that it was a crucial step in my developing identity. So there, Bangor Elementary.

But it wasn’t all about me. I told those kids they can be writers. All it takes is doing it, and doing it, and doing some more. Voila! You’re a writer. Unlike some things, like pro ball, which I could have done until I was brain damaged and still never excelled. I told them they didn’t even need to wait— starting today, they could be a writer. One kid said, “So I could submit an essay to a magazine right now?” I said, “You go for it. No one is going to ask how old you are. Just do it.”

Which got me thinking about Mr. Nelson. He was my 11th grade English teacher. He was a curmudgeonly sort who delivered fill-in-the-blank tests with questions like “How thick was the rope in The Old Man and the Sea?” He barely spoke a word to me all year long. Then on the last day of school, offhand, without smiling or even looking me in the eye, he said, “You’re the best writer in the junior class.” I was so stunned I just stood there like the dead fish in The Old Man and the Sea (was there a dead fish in The Old Man and the Sea? I don’t really remember. Surely there was. I am sure at one point I had to answer a test question about how long it was, and its species).

I’ve thought about that moment a lot, especially given that it took me another decade to decide to try to become a writer. Mr. Nelson, why not mention that little tasty tidbit of teacherly opinion a tiny bit earlier in the year? Why not encourage me? Why not point me in a direction that I totally wanted to go but hadn’t embraced yet? Why not be a mentor instead of just the giver of ridiculous tests?

That’s what I wanted to do for those kids. What I wish someone would have done for me. Why not? There’s always room for more of us.

I know, this is a long post. I told you I couldn’t shut up.

Happy Blogoversary To Me

Today is the one-year anniversary of this blog! Bust out the champagne!

Oh. It's 6 am. Well. Coffee will do. Slip a little something in it, if you must.

Here’s a Blooming Year One redux.

First post: Popcorn

Blog Inspiration: Late Bloomers

Hero's Challenge, Act I: Consult

Foreshadowing: Free the French Fries

Plot Twist: Plot Twist

Hero's Challenge, Act II: A Bloodcurdling Halloween Horror Story

Audience favorites:

The Lost Weekend

We’re Going to Potty Like It’s 2009

The Farm Share Blues

Torn Between Two Lovers

The Perspective Express

Roots and Flowers

Post That Best Describes My Glamorous Life: Baby You’re a Star

Post I Should Reread When I Get Bat-Shit Crazy: Onward Intrepid Writer

Blog words written: 31, 400

Visitors: 2533

Personal Take-Home: It’s been one heck of a year

Hero's Challenges, Act III: to come

With that, I’m out for ten days. Santa delivered (Santa Brings The Heat)—I board a plane for Hawaii tomorrow.

PS We’re dropping Chester off on the way. I'll take pictures.

PPS It might be time to change my bio blurb to the left. Book burning? What book burning?






Aloha!

Just Another Bat-Shit Crazy Writer

Well, I’m back. You didn’t notice I was missing? Just read the posts written from Thanksgiving until the week before Christmas, especially this one. They were written by my evil twin. Between you and me, she needs to be institutionalized. Or at least heavily medicated.

I must admit that I am not one of those serene, surefooted writers, who ease their way through creative days with persistence and grace. No, I am the kind who hurtles along like an over-stimulated toddler on a new Christmas tricycle, obsessive to the point of compulsive, until suddenly the wheels come off and I careen into the ditch.

Self-doubt and anxiety catch up to me in a swirl of black cloud. I frantically swipe about for my creative self, desperately afraid that if I can’t find her instantly she’ll never come back. If I can’t keep the magic momentum moving, I’ll stagnate and never write another word worth the price of tomatoes. This fear builds. The harder I try, the more I can’t write anything. I become paralyzed. I don’t sleep. I don’t eat. I just quiver there, in the ditch.

It ain’t pretty.

It’s been this way forever. You’d think I’d get it by now. During the years I spent writing my first book, I thought that it was just the topic. Once I finished writing about my dead baby, this fear/ocd cycle would cease. Well, guess what? It’s been two years this May since I set my baby book on fire, and still I behave like the poster child for the bat-shit crazy writer.

At least I don’t write with a pint of whisky in my desk drawer. Or a pistol.

Being as it is New Year’s and all, I am going to make a resolution. Next time I get all bonkers, I am going to see it for what it is—indication that the well is temporarily dry, not something else bigger, like, say, my career and identity imploding in a spectacular, traumatizing, publicly-humiliating, soul-destroying end.

“Back away from the computer,” I will tell myself. “That’s it. Real slow. Put down the mouse. Back away.”

I’ve tried everything else, believe me. Nothing but time away from writing cures the frantic paralysis. I seem to require intermittent distance from a project in order to be able to see it again.

I can spend that time gripped in front of the computer, having a gigantic fear-cow but producing only the occasional lonely sentence. Or go to the movies with the chickens, man. Go to the mall. No one cares if you’re bat-shit crazy at the mall.

Anyway, I am back in the saddle now and feeling perfectly excited and capable of finishing my book. I only have three essays to finish for a solid first draft. Of course, now I also have a newsletter and six magazine articles to write.

No matter. As long as she sticks around, Madame OCD can do anything.

Missing: Life Force. Please Return. Reward: Chestnuts Roasted on an Open Fire

This whole book thing is sucking the life force out of me.

I know, I know. It’s what I’ve always wanted and I should be able to find the joy in it and by complaining I sound like a big fat whiner and nobody likes a whiner.

Captain Daddy and I got mired in a teeny, weeny Marital Moment about this the other night. Here’s what I said, roughly, over a beer at the local pub:

The bottomless soul-searching necessary to unearth the history and truth that will make these essays good is like letting 100 angry leeches feast on me from the inside out.

Sacrificing organic creation for “sit down and create something beautiful about Topic X—now GO!” is like the Bataan Death March for the fragile artistic soul.

When I sit down to write, it hurts. Metaphorically, but also physically. Like someone is taking bites out of my head.

Half of what I write is complete crap anyway and ends up in the file on my computer I named “shitcan”.

At the end of the day I want to slip into a coma and sleep for like 17 million hours.

When the chickens run past me screaming naked with peanut butter smeared on their bodies and hitting each other with sharp objects all I can manage is to stare at them blankly as if they are a bad television show that I would turn off if only I could muster the energy to locate the remote.

And I am feeling, well, just a little bit done. As in DONE. But I can’t be DONE, because I am not done. And there’s something to be said for showing up and persevering, but sometimes maybe there is wisdom in knowing that one is just DONE.

At which point, Captain Daddy gave me a rather bored look which implied that he’s heard this all before, and perhaps I was overreacting just a tiny bit, as well as maybe whining in that particularly irritating “my pain is bigger than your pain will ever be” melodramatic self-pitying shortsighted way.

And he mentioned gently that part about this being my long-lusted-after dream. And that lots of things in life are hard work, especially things that are worthwhile.

Which made me pout.

But I know he’s right. (Don’t tell him, because he’ll just do that “I was right” happy dance and I’ll have to throw spitballs at him made of tinsel.)

Do you think I just need a break, and beautiful things will bubble back up to the surface? Or is my coma permanent? Yesterday I took a rest by addressing 125 Christmas cards and holiday shopping for three hours in a 14-degree snowstorm, but the answer to this question did not become immediately apparent.

Joe Has Something to Say to My Friends

Captain Daddy and I recently watched the original documentary “Woodstock”, made in 1970 one year after the illustrious event itself. I was born that year. Even though my parents weren’t hippies, watching the film explained them, their generation, and the last forty years in some interesting ways.

At turns appalling and deep, “Woodstock” turned out to be a strange catalyst to introspection for me, a sort of underlining tool for the years of my life thus-far and the coming-of-age essays I am writing for my book.

In any case, the film is an experience not to be missed. It promises a “living vicariously through one’s television” sort of evening. It made Captain Daddy shake his head repeatedly and say, “I was born thirteen years too late.” It made me think that if I’d been born thirteen years earlier, I’d have gotten into a whole lot more trouble than I already managed to do.

Many an unforgettable performance is on display here. Jimi and Janis do their thing, the latter in a quite fascinating state of intoxication and each just a year away from tragic death.

But my favorite performance by far—the one that you’ve truly not lived until you’ve seen—is Joe Cocker singing “A Little Help From My Friends.” I, personally, was rendered speechless. And those back-up singers! Wow. Watch the whole thing. He’s just getting warmed up in the beginning.

I send Joe out now as a little Thank You to all of my friends and family who have seen me through many ups and downs in the last decade, particularly in terms of my writing. Sometimes your love has been tough, but I know in my heart that underneath it all you’ve been as enthusiastic as Joe. I appreciate each of you immensely.

Blooming Eventually, Repeatedly and Currently

The meeting with the publisher went very well. If all goes as discussed, my book will be on the shelves next fall.

It’s the strangest sensation.

Driving home, my brain was short circuiting. I have every reason to think that this is actually happening, after so many years of it not happening. I am going to publish a book. And yet…that moment is not quite here, not just yet. When does one actually bust out the champagne? When the book goes off to the printer? When it’s released? At the launch party? When it’s positively reviewed? Sells well? When the next book deal comes?

I said to my mother, “I just realized that there will never be one final moment of victory. Just incremental triumph.”

“Like life?” she said.

Which reminded me of a message a friend sent me a few weeks ago responding to this blog. Here’s part of it:

The way I look at it is that women are ready to bloom at any moment. We are not the annual flower that blooms once in a lifetime, whose beauty is awed but is fleeting and temporary. We are perennials - ready to bloom over and over with the proper amount of care (love, sun, etc!). It is the person who thinks they have bloomed once and it is over who begins to molder. Sometimes we are dormant, but the bloom is always in there waiting for the proper care to bloom again.

Now is a perfectly appropriate time for the champagne. Ahead lies more uncertainty and certainly more work, but it’s too easy to skip the small triumphs while waiting for the big ones. I’ve done enough of that in the last nine years. There is always something to celebrate, and I intend to start toasting. Care to join me?

Thanks to Jennifer for the comments.

A Bloodcurdling Halloween Horror Story

Imagine a dark and blustery night, a room cast with shadows. A writer polishes her working manuscript. The publisher has asked to see what she has so far. (Plot Twist). She adds fancy words, changes the formatting, calls on the universe for extra powerful positive thinking. The wind blows like a demon out her office windows. Will this be the realization of a ten-year dream? Or just another disappointment? Zap – she hits the send button on Halloween night (well, not exactly. Three days later. But it makes a better story this way).

Then she waits.

The publisher receives the manuscript and reads 50 pages within 36 hours. He emails the writer, responding with words so enthusiastic some are unfit for print. He loves it. Really loves it. He fell in love with the character, her growth and setbacks and little triumphs. Thinks maybe his press can’t do this book justice.

It is the email she’s waited a decade to receive.

But she doesn’t receive it. Unbeknownst to her, it languishes in her junk mail alongside a sales pitch for Discovery Toys. She doesn’t want any Discovery Toys. She does desperately want a book published. She waits, biting her nails, cursing every doctor who never gave her xanax. Would the publisher have responded by now? Maybe not. Maybe she’s a terrible writer. Maybe he hates her. Maybe the universe hates her. Maybe she should sell Discovery Toys.

She waits.

The publisher waits.

The email waits.

The wind blows.

Finally, six days later, before she’s had her first cup of coffee on a Tuesday morning, she opens her junk email box. What is this? Could it be? Such amazing things said? About her work? But the date—last Wednesday? Dear God, no! The horror, the horror! Do emails expire? Has he changed his mind? Has he decided she’s ungrateful, crazy, delirious on xanax? She emails him back immediately.

She waits.

Shouldn’t she be celebrating? Not yet. Not until the junk mail universe has righted itself. Blasted junk mail universe! She spins in anxiety. She neglects her children. She forgets to take the trash out. She drinks just the tiniest bit of vodka.

Finally, the publisher emails her back. He wondered why she hadn’t responded. He hasn’t changed his mind. They have a lot to talk about. He’ll see her next week.

Stay Tuned for A Terrifying Tale of Gut Wrenching Distress!: Getting What You’ve Always Wanted

Sorry About Those Totally Wasted Seven Years

I got the completely wrong college degrees. I’ve never been bothered by this. At least I have some college degrees. And their wrongness is an accurate reflection of my nature (blooming ev-en-tu-al-ly). I didn’t know and/or embrace what I wanted out of life early on.

Who cares, because I got what I wanted in the long run—a self-made, totally authentic writing career. People pay me to write. Sometimes. That supercedes all ill-conceived college degrees, right?


Yes. Until recently. Feeling the need for something new, something less speculative, something to prepare me for the not-so-far-off future when I’ll need medical benefits, I recently looked into teaching writing at the local community college.

And learned that, two college degrees and ten years of professional writing aside, I am not qualified to teach even pre-college level writing. To do so, I would need a MA in English. (Not even an MFA in writing, incidentally, which I think says something about the controversy around MFAs in writing. Someday I’ll blog about that).

It’s the first time I’ve regretted my academic past, or rather regretted that I wasn’t more directed in my academic past. No point to this regret, naturally—it won’t change anything. And in the big picture, I believe you can’t be where you aren’t yet. In 1996 when I started down the road of MS in Natural Resource Education, I wasn’t a writer yet.

But the question remains—what now? Do I live with my inapt resume, or correct it by getting another master’s degree? Hmmm. We are education junkies in my family. But yikes almighty, back to school? (The third option is to write a mega best-selling novel, which would pay for those medical benefits.)

By the way, I took a teeny tiny job as a writing tutor at the community college instead. Apparently, I am qualified to do that. Next post: Blooming is reacquainted with comma splices, run-ons and fragments.