Same story, different decade.
What I love about reading and writing is that it allows you some sort of genteel discourse with dead people. Including your old selves. I keep scraps of paper, journals, letters I didn't send because they got too long-winded, or too revealing, or I was too lazy to get them into an envelope, let alone a mailbox. And I leave up old blogs. And I keep secret blogs, which are basically just an electronic version of letters I will not send. For whatever reason I felt like typing in a medium that can be scintillatingly close to public... but not public at all.
Today was a day when I happened to revisit some of my selves, and perhaps it wasn't a good idea.
I am back in a classroom.
Once again working primarily with students, who for a million reasons, most outside of their control, and my control, do not fit the peculiar shape required of a body and mind in our public education system. It's hell. Of the Jean Paul Sartre variety, involving the attempt to control other people. So... Hell for all concerned.
I have sent myself back in to hell.
It's not even well paid! The pleasures are minimal. The frustrations intense.
The thoughts that were swirling around in my head at the age of 22 in regard to public education, are swirling around again, and it has been 15 years. My life as a fractal.
Pause.
Realize that just as I keep coming back to hyper-frustrating work in education, I also keep leaving education. Which means...
In some undefined period of years, I will have said "Fuck this noise" and run away to do something else.
Hey That Self, I bet you are feeling pretty good right now, as you run across this message in a bottle. Nice work.
At the end of the day a little bit of self-congratulation should be acceptable.
Oh also, Past Self who chose the formatting for this blog, you really chose this font? And all the versions of me who blogged... good on you, but how did you have the chutzpah to think anyone would care? How did you know who to write to? The current creature who inherited you looks at blogging and tastes ash. I guess she just had a long day.
Wednesday, November 1, 2017
Saturday, November 29, 2014
Since I've Been Gone
Gone where? Gone off, not like milk, but like a damned warrior! Who sat down. A lot.
All through the month of November. And achieved this:
All through the month of November. And achieved this:
Which was so bad ass, it made the plaster crack even more when I drove in the thumbtack.
"This" refers to the certificate proclaiming me a WINNER.
When last I posted, I was going on about NaNoWriMo anticipation. Now- 50,436 words later- I am kicking up my feet, sitting in front of the pellet stove, happy to take a break from working on the novel without worrying about how it will affect my month's word count, and daily targets. Yesterday I plowed through the last 5,ooo words to take me across the finish line, and went to bed feeling relieved that I had met the goal I'd set for myself in signing up, and thinking "Writer's Ass has to be a real thing, a diagnosed occupational hazard."
Now, if you look at the fine print, 50,000 words doesn't necessarily mean a finished novel. If you finish the story in that number of words, it is a short novel, a Gatsby-sized volume. So really what I have accomplished is momentum, routine, and support. I've learned and fell in love with a long-form writing program, Scrivener. I am back in daily contact with my best friend from college, as we OCD cheerlead ourselves through the process. My cat has forgiven me for my three-year hiatus in the household, and steadfastly napped by my side as I worked away on my laptop. Dave gave me space, family and friends put up with email that pretty much only talked about word count stats. November was a really good month, so when Thanksgiving rolled around, coinciding with my wedding anniversary, I had a ton to be Thankful for.
As I was working through the last weeks of my job in June, I was following a guide about becoming a writer. Taking some of the first suggested steps, I wrote out what was driving me, why writing intrigued me, and writing goals for the year. I re-read the list this morning, and was happy to be able to check off one of the big goals- which I had down as "participate in NaNoWriMo." I was one of the luckiest participants, in that time was easy to carve out- the weather was terrible, and my boss is my husband, who totally supported me in the 50k goal. I am incredibly lucky in that he'll also support me through wrapping up the draft, which will take the month of December as well.
Incidentally, one of my goals was also to...
"blog to my heart's content."
Let's pause to admire how very wily I am as a writer of goals. I would "participate" in NaNoWriMo, I will blog to my heart's content. Give yourself leeway to fail, and I think you'll do just fine.
Thursday, October 23, 2014
NaNoWriMo Anticipation
The winds of a nor'easter are eating away at the last of our fall foliage, Dave's out for the count while dealing with the pain of passing a kidney stone, and I have the day to myself.
A dark, and stormy day.
The kind of day to stay at home and read a cracking good story. Or attempt to write one.
It's the latter bit that has me antsy in anticipation. A couple of years ago, my much hipper friend from California (she's quietly hip, not stereotypically hip) told me about this thing- NaNoWriMo. Huh? NaNoWriMo. As in National Novel Writing Month. A movement started by clever people who looked at much of the country's weather during the month of November and thought there must be some way to escape it....
...Did my research and found out the first year the NaNoWriMo month was June, and then the second year they decided they needed to move it to the miserable weather, hence November... knew it had to play in somehow...
.... It began with 21 people in the San Francisco Bay area getting together, 'cause why not? and now it's a 501c3 with 310,00 adult participants in 2014, spanning the six inhabited continents. They also do extensive educational outreach.
The goal is to challenge yourself to write at least 50,000 words of a first draft to a novel, beginning at 12:00am on November 1st, ending at 11:59 and its final seconds on November 30th. Since its first year in 1999, the organization has grown and expanded, and really worked to build community, help curate the experience, and above all, encourage people to throw themselves into writing, for love, for joy, for fun. Brilliant, no?
That's certainly what I thought. And then I thought "not while I have this job." I would always have a show opening in the middle of the month of November, which would mean my hours would be eaten alive by Theater. So a couple of Novembers went by and I thought "someday." The day after I finished the job, I registered on the NaNoWriMo site.
Next Saturday will be that someday, and I am truly beginning to chomp at the bit. I have a title. That was the first thing to drift by. I have a lead character and a probable genre. A premise, even. And today I have a gorgeously terrible day to write. But it is my first time embarking on the challenge and I want to do it purist style- prep by all means, but no drafting until Nov. 1st.
So I have created my author profile, set up my novel, with the title and synopsis- and because I was puttering, even a cover image. I wrote to my friend to celebrate that I had remembered my sign-in password, and to passively put the thumbscrews to her to participate this year because it would make the process exponentially cooler if she were there. And because if I got a buddy, I would get a badge on my author dashboard at the site. But mostly because it'd more fun with the friend who led me to it in the first place.
I even went on the discussion thread dedicated to the community of people in Maine who are onboard this year- discovering that during the month of November, the Tim Horton's in Old Town is a hot spot for NaNo writers.
Now it is a little like waiting for Xmas. I fully expect to have my backside presented to me on a platter by the process of writing lengthy fiction, to pretty much fail left and right, and back myself into narrative corners, and generally have a big old mess by the end of the month- but it will be a glorious mess for the mere fact that it came into existence at all. And once you've done something once, it comes easier the more you do it.
Since I clearly feel like writing, and sharing, and generally rainy day puttering without actually vacuuming or doing laundry, here's what I have posted re: the November Novel to Be, which I have currently designated as a mystery. Which sweetly assumes I will manage to create a plot.
Quiet in the House
M.W. Hiltz
In a small town, you grow accustomed to death. Lusitania Pike's first experience was stepping over her mother's body on the way to school, her second left her not-quite-a-widow. Now a costume designer and seamstress, she navigates the waters of the local theater in the wake of the founder's sudden death in the middle of the summer season. As the community struggles to ensure that the shows go on, questions of legacy, belonging, and blame must be answered- or buried with the body.
This image editing and synopsis work is deeply reminiscent of how my cousin Torrey used to make trailers for films he'd not yet made. The Municipal Liaison for this area has already kindly messaged me to say it looks like a novel she'd like to read- Gentle Blog Reader(s), it is a novel I surely hope I will manage to write. The things I will learn...
A dark, and stormy day.
The kind of day to stay at home and read a cracking good story. Or attempt to write one.
It's the latter bit that has me antsy in anticipation. A couple of years ago, my much hipper friend from California (she's quietly hip, not stereotypically hip) told me about this thing- NaNoWriMo. Huh? NaNoWriMo. As in National Novel Writing Month. A movement started by clever people who looked at much of the country's weather during the month of November and thought there must be some way to escape it....
...Did my research and found out the first year the NaNoWriMo month was June, and then the second year they decided they needed to move it to the miserable weather, hence November... knew it had to play in somehow...
.... It began with 21 people in the San Francisco Bay area getting together, 'cause why not? and now it's a 501c3 with 310,00 adult participants in 2014, spanning the six inhabited continents. They also do extensive educational outreach.
The goal is to challenge yourself to write at least 50,000 words of a first draft to a novel, beginning at 12:00am on November 1st, ending at 11:59 and its final seconds on November 30th. Since its first year in 1999, the organization has grown and expanded, and really worked to build community, help curate the experience, and above all, encourage people to throw themselves into writing, for love, for joy, for fun. Brilliant, no?
That's certainly what I thought. And then I thought "not while I have this job." I would always have a show opening in the middle of the month of November, which would mean my hours would be eaten alive by Theater. So a couple of Novembers went by and I thought "someday." The day after I finished the job, I registered on the NaNoWriMo site.
Next Saturday will be that someday, and I am truly beginning to chomp at the bit. I have a title. That was the first thing to drift by. I have a lead character and a probable genre. A premise, even. And today I have a gorgeously terrible day to write. But it is my first time embarking on the challenge and I want to do it purist style- prep by all means, but no drafting until Nov. 1st.
So I have created my author profile, set up my novel, with the title and synopsis- and because I was puttering, even a cover image. I wrote to my friend to celebrate that I had remembered my sign-in password, and to passively put the thumbscrews to her to participate this year because it would make the process exponentially cooler if she were there. And because if I got a buddy, I would get a badge on my author dashboard at the site. But mostly because it'd more fun with the friend who led me to it in the first place.
I even went on the discussion thread dedicated to the community of people in Maine who are onboard this year- discovering that during the month of November, the Tim Horton's in Old Town is a hot spot for NaNo writers.
Now it is a little like waiting for Xmas. I fully expect to have my backside presented to me on a platter by the process of writing lengthy fiction, to pretty much fail left and right, and back myself into narrative corners, and generally have a big old mess by the end of the month- but it will be a glorious mess for the mere fact that it came into existence at all. And once you've done something once, it comes easier the more you do it.
Since I clearly feel like writing, and sharing, and generally rainy day puttering without actually vacuuming or doing laundry, here's what I have posted re: the November Novel to Be, which I have currently designated as a mystery. Which sweetly assumes I will manage to create a plot.
M.W. Hiltz
In a small town, you grow accustomed to death. Lusitania Pike's first experience was stepping over her mother's body on the way to school, her second left her not-quite-a-widow. Now a costume designer and seamstress, she navigates the waters of the local theater in the wake of the founder's sudden death in the middle of the summer season. As the community struggles to ensure that the shows go on, questions of legacy, belonging, and blame must be answered- or buried with the body.
This image editing and synopsis work is deeply reminiscent of how my cousin Torrey used to make trailers for films he'd not yet made. The Municipal Liaison for this area has already kindly messaged me to say it looks like a novel she'd like to read- Gentle Blog Reader(s), it is a novel I surely hope I will manage to write. The things I will learn...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)