Recent reads

In the last month I've gotten to read through a bunch of books in the ever-expanding pile of "to reads". Each was excellent, so I want to recommend them to my lovely readers:

Charity Girl by Michael Lowenthal: this is a historical novel, taking place in Boston during WWII. I learned a ton about an aspect of this time period that I had never even known about: women who were found to have STDs were often put in prison or girls home to keep them from infecting soldiers (even though the soldiers are the people who gave the infection to them in the first place...). The story follows one such "charity girls", which refers to the "loose" women who were giving sex away for free, as opposed to the prostitutes.

Which Brings Me to You by Steve Almond and Julianna Baggott This book is told almost completely through letters exchanged by two people who meet and almost have a one night stand. The letters serve as confessions about their past lovers, and they are all eloquent and thoughtful.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon I've been meaning to read this book for a while now, and I'm so glad I did. It's told in the first person by an autistic boy, and it completely drew me into his quirky, quirky world.

Read anything good lately?

Paris pictures

I don't have much time to blog these days, so I thought I'd upload two of my favorite pictures from my recent trip to Paris with my mom. One is of the two of us at the Musee D'Orsay, and one is of Baby Bo at the Eiffel Tower. Who's Baby Bo, you ask? He's a stuffed monkey that screeches when you squeeze his belly. Brian and I take him on trips (and lend him to friends to take with them) so we can get pictures of him sightseeing.

Some thoughts on teaching

I want to apply for a TA-ship at Lesley for the fall. The application is due in a week, and I cannot get motivated to do the two-page essay. Mostly because I have no idea what to write. The questions are: What particular interests do you have in relationship to an assistantship on campus? What particular skills do you bring to the position? What do you envision as an ideal mentoring relationship?

Maybe I'll just brainstorm on here about the questions, and hopefully come up with something. If you have any ideas for what colleges are looking for in this type of essay, how to begin creatively, etc., let me know!

*I want my assistantship to be a teaching assistantship, not a research assistantship.

*I have taught various forms of writing (creative, freelance, journalistic) to adults at various Adult Education centers around Boston for the past 5 years. I've also begun working with teens in high school classrooms, helping them with their writing.

*I love student interaction, and really feel that teachers learn as much from their students as vice versa. I also enjoy having discussions with students about their work because they usually bring such passion to it. And of course it's rewarding when you can see their work improving over the course of a semester.

*Skills I bring: Excellent writing, editing, and oral communication skills. The ability to give feedback in a constructive and polite manner. Highly organized and responsible.

* I'm not sure I know enough about mentor relationships in this capacity to comment on what my ideal relationship would be. I guess I would like to spend time in the classroom observing the teacher teaching, as well as to teach myself. I would also like to be involved in the grading of papers, and would need some mentoring in the beginning about what constitutes an A paper, etc.

Come one, come all!

Each night of Lesley's MFA residency, the teachers give readings, which are free and open to the public. Here's the lineup for this year:

Friday, June 22 | 7:30 pm
Leah Hager Cohen, fiction
Don Share, poetry

Saturday, June 23 | 7:00 pm
David Elliott, writing for young people
Marcie Hershman, fiction

Sunday, June 24 | 7:00 pm
Kyoko Mori, nonfiction
Katherine Russell Rich, nonfiction

Tuesday, June 26 | 7:00 pm
Rafael Campo, poetry
Lesléa Newman, fiction

Wednesday, June 27 | 7:30 pm
Major Jackson, poetry
Lloyd Schwartz, poetry

Hope to see some of you there!

MFA residency countdown: 2 weeks to go

I got week one's goals done: I submitted my submissions (how's that for redundancy?) and I prepped for the freelance writing class I'm teaching tonight.

But no time to wallow in feeling good about those accomplishments! On to week two's goals:

This week I have three goals:
1- work on the stories I'm submitting for my Harvard thesis
2- finalize the chapters I'm handing in to an agent on a non-fiction book I'm ghostwriting.
3- get my application in for a TA-ship

In smaller steps, this is how those break down:

* Everyday write something on each story. I need to focus first on some freewriting about the characters before I can move into the page-by-page editing. So, I plan to journal/blog about each story, each day. I think I'll start with writing letters from my characters to other people in the stories. That seems like a fun, non-threatening way to get into it. I'll have to do this before/after work.

* During break times at work, try to get in edits to the non-fiction book

* Also during breaks, work on the essay for the TA-ship

Ugh, this is going to be a crazy week!

phew--submission sent!

I got my stories to my MFA program a moment ago. Only a few days late. And, really, the organizer said she would start posting them
the week of June 4th. This is still that week. So, am I really late?

delinquent!

I don't know how this happened, but I turned delinquent. I should've handed my MFA submissions in alredy, but alas, I haven't. And now, instead of working like crazy on them, I'm blogging! Ahhhh!

Labels

At the NEWS reading, one of the other readers read a great piece titled (something along the lines of), Things I've Been Called to My Face and Behind My Back. An inspiring piece that made me think of the many labels I've carried at various times in my life. Here are some, in no particular order:

vegetarian * mamma * bug * writer * editor * bitch * difficult * lovely * cute * smart * hardworking * slug * angel * favorite daughter * CJ * ceej * Chrissy * Chris * strong * a cryer * woman * girl * honey * babe * short * shortie * thin * student * teacher * creative *crafty * nag * pig * selfish * gardner * anxious * hypochondriac * fun * uptight

3 weeks til residency

I realized I have quite a bit to get done in the next three weeks. I consider these weeks between when I hand in my last manuscript for the semester and the residency my weeks off, but of course they fill up with other work fast. So, here's what I need to devote myself to for the next few weeks.

This week
(Beginning) Finalize my submission for residency
(End) Redo my Freelance writing course syllabus (which I'm teaching next Mon and the Mon after.

Week 2
Revise one of the stories I'm working on for my Harvard thesis. Work on finalizing draft of Dr. memoir.

Week 3
Revise the other story. Finalize Dr. memoir draft and get to agent.

Of course, I also have a bunch of pre-residency reading, but I can hopefully get a lot of that done during my commute, and the rest of the work done in the evenings. Luckily I have some fun weekend plans planned to keep me relaxed (hopefully!)

Sunday Scribblings: Country vs. city

I spent most of today sleeping, when I should have been revising the stories I need to hand in in preparation for my MFA residency at the end of the month. I don't know if it's allergies or what, but I've had a huge headache since I woke up. (Hence all the sleeping). Anyway, I decided that in this break between naps, I'd multitask--doing both the Sunday Scribbling and some character development work. Here's one of my character's, Janine's, take on city vs. country. For other scribblings on the topic, click here.

I've lived in the country and the city, and everywhere in between. From Paris to Manhattan to upstate New York, I've called lots of places home. I don't think my soul was meant to stay put. And I don't think I have a favorite type of setting, either. Sometimes I need the craziness of the city, sometimes the calmness of the country.

But what I do need is a better sense of what I'm doing with my life. For the past 15 years or so, I've let random people and events push me from one place/job/life to another. A boyfriend wants to move to Paris? I went. A friend has an extra room in Barcelona? I was there in two weeks time.

I've liked these adventures, and I've learned a lot about the world. But for some reason I haven't learned enough about my own needs. (That reason has a lot to do with the fact that I learned to suppress them as a child, after my mom died and I didn't want to make my dad's life hard.) But now, my father has died too, and I'm an orphan at 38. I have no parents, no husband, no kids, and only a few friends scattered across the globe.

The only errand I have left involving my father's estate is transporting his bee collection to Delaware (from his house in upstate NY). After that's done, I can go back to Manhattan and... I don't know what. How does one go about figuring out what they want? Or, more pressingly, how does one figure out how to figure out what one wants?

2 Readings, 2 days

Before I left for vacation, I basically just sorted everything into two mental piles: things that needed to be done before I left, and things for later. Then I got back and realized that "later" was here.

So, in that spirit of completely ignoring things coming in the future, I managed to sign myself up for my first and second public reading back to back. On Tuesday, I read a chunk of a short story to a thesis forum at Harvard, and then last night I read another chunk of that same story at a New and Emerging Writers series (see pics here).

I've always hated the idea of reading aloud. I talk fast in general, and even faster when I'm nervous, so I've done very poorly on presentations in the past. I took a speaking class in college, which helped a bit, but not enough to stick with me in the years since graduating.

But these times I managed to do well! People said I didn't speed read, and had decent inflection. The best part was that I didn't hate being up there. I was nervous, but not sweating-through-my-shirt nervous, like I've been in the past. I do need to work on staying up there for more than 7 minutes though. Both times I cut my reading way short because it seemed I had been up there forever when in reality it was less than 10 minutes...

A shout out to Fat Charlatan, who lovingly accompanied me to the first reading as my moral supporter (and read beautifully at the 2nd). And to Poetmom and BostonErin who organized the NEWS reading as a way to get new writers' voices out in the community.

Bonjour!

I'm back from what turned was a wonderful trip to Paris. My mom was a truly wonderful travel companion, and we had fun painting the town rouge. The most amazing side effect of the vacation is how incredibly relaxed I feel! I mean, relaxed in a way I haven't felt in years.

I spent the long weekend--gasp--doing whatever the hell I felt like! Brian and I soaked up some sun at a free concert on the Esplanade and row boating on the pond near our house. I gardened, with a sense of desire instead of obligation. Even today's tasks of unpacking my suitcase and hanging out with my in-laws weren't super arduous (though I did need a nap after the latter).

And what I realized as I went out for coffee and pastries this morning (one last day of guilt-free vacation eating), was that I want this feeling to last. No, I need it to. So no matter how much I feel I *need* to take on X, Y, or Z project, I cannot simply do so at the expense of my stress level. No longer will I try to cram as much as I possibly can into every day in the hopes of getting a return on the time- investment some day in the future. I will only do as much as I can while allowing myself to stay calm and present and relaxed.

Along those lines, I'm going to try as hard as I can to give myself one full day off a week--no email, no work work, no school work, nothing. I'm not sure that this is feasible, but I think it's worth a try!

Aurevoir

I'm off to Paris tomorrow! "See" you all in 10 days or so.

Knitting pics

I'm very bad about remembering to take pictures of the things I knit before I give them away as gifts. When I do remember, I'm equally bad about actually getting the photos off the camera and online. So, here are some things I made for people for Christmas: some baby gloves, a bookworm bookmark, and an Ipod cover. Just wanted to share. Next week, I'll get a pic of the pocketbook I knit for myself and am quite proud of.

Good articles

Some good articles about writing/publishing that I recently came across:

This one talks about the fact that publishing a hit book is still a mystery and why. I love the line about it being a bad idea to leave business decisions up to people who go into their line of work (publishing) out of love, not money.

I think Poetmom will especially appreciate this one. It's about the importance of blogging for musical artists (and much of the info is relevant to writers). The lede profile is of a blogger who wrote a song a week for a year (much like PM's poem a day for a month project).

Sunday Scribblings: Second Chances

This week's Sunday Scribblings had me stumped. I can think of minor things I'd like to do over, but nothing major. So I started to think about the topic in terms of my characters. My goal in just about every story I write is to give my characters something they wish they could do over, but to have them learn enough from the experience caused by the tragedy/mistake so as to make them somewhat glad they went through it.

And I guess maybe that's how I look at my own life, and why I can't think of too many regrets. I try to take something away from the crappy times my mistakes cause so that even if I don't enjoy them, I'm glad to have gone through them in some way.

PS--I'm taking myself off line this weekend in an attempt to relax, so I'll come visit others' scribblings next week.

Reading list

I am about two inches away from being school-work free! What a glorious feeling! As I alluded to in an earlier post, one of the best things about this time between semesters for me is regaining the ability to read for pleasure.

What is it that makes reading for a deadline/class so different? Even if I like what I'm reading for class, I find it harder to just submerge myself in it. I'm guessing it has to do with feeling the need, with school reading, to stay apart from the story enough to stay alert to why it's working, what the author's intent is, etc. Whereas with pleasure reading I can jump right into the deep end of the characters' lives and setting.

That said, here's what I plan to read in the next month, deep-end style:
* Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky. (I'm 100 pages in and really enjoying it.)
* On Beauty by Zadie Smith
* What is the What by Dave Eggers
* Which Brings Me to You by Steve Almond and Juliana Baggot
* Maybe a Sue Grafton mystery thrown in there. There's nothing like breezing through a good mystery.

For my reading for the semester, I plan to make some suggestions to my mentor this time. In the past I've let them do all the suggesting because I want to be exposed to different things. But this time, I'd like to read at least two of the following:

* Later, At the Bar: A novel in stories by Rebecca Barry
* The newest Alice Munroe
* Possibly Winesburg, Ohio. I'm into the idea of reading a few collections of very linked short stories. Not that that's what I'm working on, but I like the idea.

What are you reading???

Submission: Sent!

Though I literally waited til the 11th hour, I got the last submission of the semester done in time (I sent it out at 11pm last night!). It's very rough. The ending is insanely rushed. But it's out there.

For next semester, I'd like to work on really perfecting my annotation writing. It's something I seem to fluctuate on, with my biggest problem being that something that seems obvious and clear to me is not to an outside reader.

I have a few more to work on my last IS submission (which, to be honest, I haven't even started!). It's just editing two 2nd drafts of chapters, though, so I'm not too stressed. I can't be--because I have to squeeze it in to a very hectic week work-wise and personal life-wise.

I'm SO looking forward to this weekend. For the first time in like a hundred years, I will have NO work to do. In fact, I plan not to turn on my computer. Brian will be away, so I will have plenty of time to myself to regroup. Ahhhh...

Reasons I want to cry

I'm feeling insanely overly emotional today (Poor Brian!). So I thought I'd make a list of reasons I want to cry. Maybe it will help:

1. I went to a baby shower. I hate baby showers. As much as I truly want to be able to celebrate my wonderful friends who decide to have babies, I leave showers feeling like shit. Probably because I have yet to be at one where someone (most often a stranger) doesn't ask, "So when are you going to have a baby?" Now I know this is logical talk for the occasion. But can't anyone see why this might be a tad personal? This time, oddly enough, the question was directed at my husband by another man. And he was pushy! He asked if we had kids, and B said no. Then he said, "Well, you will eventually right?" B said, "Um, probably." Luckily for him he could leave it at that and transition to another conversation. I, on the other hand, am still reeling: do I want to have kids? When? Why? What if I hate him/her/parenting?

2. I've had a cold for a week now. It's a low grade cold, but it's made me exhausted.

3. I am so far behind on my shitty, shitty story it's not even funny. And while I truly admire my mentor and her advice, I think this is her fault. Giving a compliment every now and then wouldn't be a bad thing! And, in fact, it might make the thought of you reading my next story not so scary as to make me not want to write it.

4. Work sucked this week SO badly. For reasons I can't go into on a blog. But let's just say that the tissues atop my desk? I went through a few boxes this week.

5. I have to spend my Saturday night writing a crappy story I don't want to write.

In typical Bug fashion, I can't post such a negative post without some balance. So, some things I'm happy about:

1. I decided to buy a Mac for my new laptop (the PC I'm typing on is slowly dying.) This is a big relief because I hate buying computers, but I'm psyched on the idea of a Mac for all the reasons given in their very cute TV ads.

2. I made my pregnant friend a beautiful hat for her baby.

3. I was able to verbalize the fact I was feeling shitty before I acted out on it. (Yes, I realize that "accomplishment" is something you might praise a 3 year old for)

4. My garden is coming up.

5. As of next week, I CAN READ A BOOK OF MY CHOOSING!!!! You have no idea how excited I am to do this.

6. In two weeks, I'll be in Paris.

7. A small part of me knows I am very proud of the work I've gotten done this semester (though really, some outside praise would be nice!).

Sunday Scribblings: The ocean

The ocean played a big part of my life when I was growing up. Where I lived on Long Island (New York), you could get to a few different beaches in half an hour. And there was ample parking at these beaches, and lots of room for people to spread out. I remember going as a kid a lot, but my more distinct memories are of being there as a teenager.

My first serious boyfriend and I used to go to the beach together all the time, usually at night with a group of our friends. Innocent kiddies that we were (at that point, at least...) we would play minature golf and take walks in the sand. I have beautiful pictures of all of us on the beach watching the sun come up the day after prom. Another time, during the day, he let me put my hand on his chest while we sunbathed so he had a reverse shadow of my hand on him all summer. (And then I broke his heart and we all moved on with our lives...)

Now, the ocean is still technically close to me. Boston, after all, is a city on the water. But getting to a nice beach is not so easy. It usually entails driving for an hour, spending an insane amount of time trying to find parking, and then walking a mile carrying all your beach crap. No wonder I don't go as much as I used to.

I'm hoping with this post someone will alert me to a close, convenient beach that I just don't know about. Anyone??

For more scribblings on the ocean, click here.