I am about to have a cavity drilled. I am behind in my deadlines. I am settled, pretty much, in my new job. I am on the verge of writing something real. I am reading two magazines and four books, which has meant just carrying one of each around with me since I don't have … Continue reading Where I Am When Summer Ends

I keep getting these ideas when I'm traveling. I don't have to be traveling far. They come when I'm walking the sidewalk. While crossing the street. On the subway. In an elevator. Climbing flights of stairs. Last week, they were flooding through me while I traveled in a crowded train on tracks running north alongside … Continue reading Traveling Ideas

It is apparently impossible for me to escape. I write long. Always, every time, I write too long. For example, I told you I write long twice, when all I had to do was say it once. Why? Why, I can't help it. I wish I could be pitch-perfect and precise, but I'm a rambler. … Continue reading My Long-Winded Way

* * * It's not that I don't know who I am. I do. I am in this body; I walk around in it; this is me. It could be that I don't know who I'm supposed to be. That I think I should be different, could be different, would have been had I not … Continue reading Sketches from an Identity Crisis in Progress

I am reading the stories of Miranda July. Last week I saw her movie. It was an odd film; I liked it so very much. But back to the stories. They're absurd. Raucous. Very brief, perfectly brief. They're odd, and yes, you guessed it, I like them very much. Elizabeth at Fluent mentioned this: they … Continue reading On Miranda July, Workshop Slams, and the Novel of My Dreams

I arrived at my weekend writing spot late this afternoon. No makeup. Messy hair, roots in desperate need of getting done. Enormous backpack housing laptop, script pages for current freelance adaptation, book for other freelance adaptation, notebook for notes, magazine for procrastination, big bottle of water. I will get a lot done tonight, I vowed. … Continue reading Elevator Confessions

I have been watching terrible TV. Yes, amid complaints of not having enough time to write my own fiction I am taking the time out of my life to sit before the flickering box and watch reality shows about nothing. It's the people in them that fascinate me. I like people-watching and eavesdropping on strangers, … Continue reading Flickers of Nonsense

Sometimes do you find yourself wondering, Is this my life? I have these moments often. Like now. Sitting here writing on deadline, a project that is meaningless, except that it's worth more than two months' rent, sitting here, thirty-four minutes before I have to get on the subway to go to my day job, where … Continue reading Life in a Box

Yep, it's that time of year again. The winds of rejection are blowing, last week right at me. There are the slips, the ones smaller than your hand that fly out of the envelope when torn open. The ones so flimsy they drift, because you let them, deep into the unknowable caverns under the couch. … Continue reading It’s That Time

I am a study in extremes. One day I feel good about something I've written; the next day I want to tear it up and spit on it and stomp it into an unrecognizable mush and kick it around a little after that, get my aggression out, make myself feel worse than I already do. … Continue reading High/Low