Making the Leap

I've been thinking, lately, a lot about how "real" writers write. What I mean by real is writers who get published because frankly, I doubt many young kids with their noses pressed into books from the library dream about one day having a blog of their own. The aim has always been for the "literary sort" to be published.

I tried. Right after my BA, I sent out a round of poetry to small press journals. Most of them never replied, one nice magazine sent me back my self-addressed stamped manuscript with "sorry, not interested" scrawled across one page. No feedback otherwise. At the time, I took it as a sign that I must not be very good.

Then, I went to grad school. I went to an MA program where there was also an MFA track. I didn't know what MFAs were, at the time. I might have gotten one had I known, but I was already on the MA then PhD track & didn't see the need to switch. The MFA students were generally intense. They wrote, the workshopped. They fought, they had wild parties. I was married & less intense, and I also lived far enough away from where the MFA crowd congregated that they never really made it to my sometimes fairly wild parties. But I took away from that place the feeling that I was more a critic than a poet. I was jealous, but also focused on the teaching gig I was planning to have magically appear in exactly the place I needed it to appear. (Dreams. Ah. Innocence.)

So for years, I really did not write a single poem. Not anything worth calling that, really. A few lame scribbles. While I was pregnant with the kids I wrote the two poems that I'm most proud of in a long time about them, about a sonogram picture. And began thinking about, again, writing the novels which I have ideas about, even an outline for.

Here, in LA, I tentatively have written again. I went to one meeting of the student writer's group, got inspired by a couple of those poets & inspired by the theme to write a couple of good poems. Read a "how to" book called poemcrazy which I still quite like. When the new faculty member who joined us last year, who during her time b/w being hired and starting the Fall semester sat down and wrote her first book, which is now one of three accepted & well on the way to publication arrived, we talked a little bit about our shared interest in genre fiction. It was fun, and I went home one day last fall and wrote ten pages on a book I've actually got all mapped out.

But I haven't really written anything in forever. Class lectures, mostly. I wrote a few drunken poems a few weeks ago, mad at the world, mad at the difficulty in my life (Sean's problems, business, tiredness, life.) It's not that bad, really, but the poems seemed very mad & bitter. (Hey, I said I'd had a couple glasses of wine!) :)

In a few weeks now, I'll be done teaching the last semester I'll teach at the Uni where I work before I'm done for an indefinite period. There are multiple reasons-- the main two being first that my life-- especially the real estate part-- is way too complicated to add even a little bit of time for teaching. The other, less crucial one is that budget cuts are probably going to eliminate my position anyway.

So, I'm leaving the University for the first time in a few years. And I'm not planning to come back right away, either. What I do plan is writing. I want to write, I want to work towards publication. I have to plan to limit my time online, because it can really suck the day away and I don't have that much free time to waste anymore.

I have a business plan, too, and Andrew is very adamant that I work on that stuff. I will, but I will promise myself that I will make the leap to write my own creative work, too. I miss living in that space, that creative life. I will see what I can explore, and work, and write. I am really looking forward to that, and I really hope it pays off.

Whew.

Holidays, for me, are officially over today but my working vacation is still a few more days (a week, I guess). I ought to take down the Christmas tree today (we'll see). Kiddos are back in school, with not too much fighting the system this morning. I have soooo much work to do this week-- publishing my magazine, writing my new syllabus (at this time I only have one to do but may end up with two). I need to get a new perm, get my eyes looked at so I can get new contact lens prescription (by the way-- I think optometrists have a racket-- my eyes haven't changed substantially in 20 years but I need a new prescription every year? Humbug.) School starts back for us on the 13th, and I have a full load of classes, and will be pretty busy.

While I don't DO New Year's resolutions, what I am doing is planning one of the more typical things people do at this time of the year. This is not really inspired by the New Year. It's inspired by me getting on a scale when we were at Grandma's house.... something I rarely do. Ugh! Really? So, then= weight loss, fitness plan. I had so little time with my odd schedule last semester to work out, but I believe that this semester I have a little more free time in the day. My plan is to lose 20 pounds by my big conference, which is the PCA/ACA one in New Orleans, by April 1. To accomplish this I'll need at least two vigorous workouts a week, and a sort of diet. Mostly, just not drinking a glass & 1/2 of wine a night for a few weeks will accomplish an amazing amount. It's not that wine has so many calories (which it does, enough) but that after a glass of it, cheesecake et al sounds like a good idea.

Anyway. I hope to get all my work done properly this week. We'll see. In the meantime, here's a nice picture. Grandma has a lovely player piano, and the kids LOVE it. This visit, they actually did more than just bang on it. They tried to finger-play songs, and followed along with the machine. I have cool video, and this is a still from one of those videos. Please to enjoy.