The Jarnal

There Be A Dragon’s Watchful Eye

I’ve been in the garden early this year. Today, the 29th of April as I write, Husband was able to fix the push mower’s cable and start it up. He mowed the small triangle patch near the road. The milkweed grows on one end. We checked; it hasn’t come up as of yet. When it does, we’ll fence it off.

The corner neighbors are on at least their second mow; we’re trying the “tickle method” of gardening this year. I have found great satisfaction in using the new claw tool to pull out roots that measure two feet or more. If they were deeper, I might resort to a pickax and use it as a Moby Dick metaphor in an essay, but I start those, let them peter out, stop writing my truth by starting to consider an audience. So how are you? Have you pulled weeds recently? Gotten dirt under your fingernails?

Another reason my essays wait to be written is because things come up – or in this instance, down. I went shopping on Friday with goals: Barnes and Noble to buy Alice Hoffman’s “Practical Magic” and cancel my “new and improved” membership before it began. Wegman’s for food, to check certain garden centers for flowers and Roma tomato plants, stop in at the leather shop. I did those things and came home to this:

It’s 7 feet 8 inches around to the left, 5 ft. 10 near the eye.

The way it came down was miraculous. The damage was limited. Since it happened when we were not here, we wonder if Whitney – a woodworker even in another realm – guided it down. We thank all the friends, relatives, spirits and deities involved in this predicament which isn’t exactly the greatest news, but also not the worst.

Reality has jarringly changed though. There’s a dragon eye staring at me as I prepare food in the kitchen. It distracts every time I see it. I sometimes thought spider webs would be reminders to get back to work on the Lettie novel. Before I left that afternoon, I was thinking of giving up on the current thing I’ve been working on. A reptilian tree knot stares at me in repudiation or encouragement – I can’t decide which and it never blinks as a tell, so I flounder for an answer.

What difference does what – or if – I write matter? At the end of the world or one’s life, is it more important to have read and learned, or produced? Are a million flashes the equivalent of one novel or three? If a poem by a no-name goes viral, does it cheapen an MFA degree? At what point do you write to the New Yorker inquiring about a story you sent in at the end of November? Yes, the auto-response says declare it dead after 90 days, but according to Duotrope it has taken longer. What is the point of the dream of being a writer if you don’t kid yourself into thinking fairy tales can come true and sometimes its in the form of how cottonwoods fall down with the maple tree working in tandem with the other smaller trees and roots to soften the blow to the roof which is a real life happily ever after story and that happened, so why not my story appearing in The New Yorker?   

I blinked, losing the staring contest, but not the argument. So say I.

I’m on the cusp of having a print publication being launched soon and I am thrilled to be a part of The Jarnal. (Go to this link to listen to me read “The Thinnest of Veneers” which appeared in Milk Candy Review. MANY thanks to Jim Tuttle for doing an amazing job with the audio!)) And surprise of all surprises – I have an acceptance for a poem – during poetry month, which is quite cool. Thank you to Donnie Secreast & Adam Gnuse at Artemis Journal for accepting “The Rushed Meditation”

~ It’s a drizzly Sunday here and the roof isn’t leaking. The tree services have arrived and given us quotes. We’re off to the world of dealing with an insurance company and contractors. I should write a story where the experience is quick and painless and people smile the whole time work is being done on a house. It’d be fiction, of course. I haven’t read many people being happy about renovations and it’ll be years before it will be funny, or maybe that’s just my way of avoiding another novel being written in vain, one where butterflies turn into whales and burn up while sailing into the sun.

Cheers and Salute. Thanks for stopping by and for the read

Crazy about time, springtime in particular

On the recent nights of tolerable temps, winter damage is assessed while admiring the early flowers. The winds have been fancy terrible, and we’re thanking the ghost of Whitney that the damage was minimal. A huge chunk fell near the kitchen door, a pine cracked while the vehicle it would have hit wasn’t there. Once the worst was over, the blue ladder on the stack under the windows flipped over which is a puzzlement since there was no reason for it to and the ones beneath are not askew. Since it was his ladder, we attribute those nice saves to him and offer a clamor of applause. Thank you Whitney

Many congrats and thanks to Andrew Stancek. He’s written a lovely book which I intend to post about on Goodreads when I finish it. (Reviews are hard to write because they bring up anxiety not only from school but from the psycho hippo ballerina episode of Gilmore Girls.)

I’m still on pace with my submission total goals. Sending packets of five poems to four places that take over a year for the average response according to Duotrope does a lot of the heavy lifting for keeping 25 things out at all times. And soon, I’m freaking going see my story in print! Many thanks to Jim Tuttle for recording my micro that will be included in the roll out to The Jarnal. Some of you may even get a copy though I am behind on birthday cards and the newborn I bought a book for will probably be walking soon.

What I have been working on is the first few pages of new thing in order to enter competitions calling for the first 5000 words. I entered the two that close on the 31st of March and the 1st of April respectively. I believe the next one closes on the 6th  of April which gives me plenty of time to polish the called for first 40 to 50 pages. The pages are written, but they do not shine like the first 20. The last call I’m interested in answering asks for the first 1250 words and those are honed so well, I’m happy to call them mine. I even have a synopsis done proving once again that every book I write is written a different way.

I’m sad to report that the whole mind/body/work output seems to be tied together. This morning I let Jillian Michaels torture me, then I did some ab work. Even as I was in the shower reminding myself that I could take today off and pull away from the story for a while, I came up with clever scenes.

Still, I’ll persist in this quest for rest. I’ve intentionally structured things to ease my stress and today’s dinner is warm-ups that will take 5 minutes. The laundry is done, so are the dishes. The floors are tolerable – new cat sheds more than I’m used to – so I have had to adjust to seeing some fur, otherwise I’d go mad hunting down and vacuuming up every tuft. Perhaps I’ll read, or stare at the wall, but it will start soon, and include this:

This tiny window of ease won’t last of course, and that’s okay because neither do the spring flowers, so I might as well enjoy them before the winter slinks back to cover them.  

 Thank you for stopping by and for the read. It is appreciated.

Clashing Goals after Making Bellows

What do you do when your goals conflict? You’ve asked yourself that before, haven’t you? As an activist, artist, acrobat, airplane designer, or by whatever term you use to describe yourself. (Human being the all-encompassing reality, but a) how generic and b) I shan’t digress…)

My 1st world, white woman problem is that I told myself and others that my goal this year was to have 25 submissions out at all times. As of the most recent, gorgeous, informative Sunday morning, I was down to seventeen. Twenty if I count the In-Progress or Received entries on Submittable, one of which will soon turn 7 years old. It’s getting a cake this year. I’ve already brought unicorn ear and horn birthday candles and a tub of chocolate frosting for the big day.

So, I have failed with that goal before the month is out. Part of me knows I can get right on that; sending out roughly ten submissions is not exactly easy, but it is doable. I scratch my ear and reason that if I averaged submissions like banks averaged daily balances, I’m probably still at 25 a day, but my calculator doesn’t know how to do that kind of math.

Inspired by Rory of Gilmore Girls which I’m binge watching again, I made a list. A mental one. (I wanted to go with “I went mental …on a list” but it isn’t that funny, I mean, it’s so unfunny, I’m explaining the idea of the unfunny joke I didn’t even tell – it’s that bad. It reminds me of the little skit Paris Geller the guy she ended up marrying did when they switched editorships.) (I’m not that far in the series yet, but it’s close.)

It wasn’t a list either, more an assessment of desires and priorities. Thoughtful reflection, long walks in the woods, meaningful deliberation. Psyche! I watched some TV and realized it didn’t matter if I did or did not have (or keep) 25 things out. If all my ready pieces were accepted at once then I’d be in a pickle, wouldn’t I? Yes, I do know that is called rationalization and I mixed it with a little wishful thinking, but you know what? I have had two acceptances this year already and I hope you’re half as excited as I am!

The wonderful, gracious, amazing Laura Black accepted one of my pieces for Fictive Dream’s Flash Fiction February! It will go live on Saturday 4 February 2023 so check it out – as well as the rest of the month’s posts – some of the most interesting things I read all year are in this series. Be sure to especially check out Nina Fosati’s piece which comes out on the 24th!

On top of that, the amazing, gracious, wonderful Tara Campbell and Michael B. Tager of Mason Jar Press have also accepted a piece of mine. The original story was written back in ancient times and was titled “Two Wrens for a Farthing,” then “What Isn’t Silk” – which I kept when I sent it out recently. I reworked that thing laboriously, had the fantastic Nina Fosati look it over for nits, retitled it and sent it the first day of the submission window for The Jarnal. I am seriously thrilled it was accepted – and the suggested edits were minimal. (Such relief and happiness!) Now, secretly, I jump up and down every so often when I remember I’m going to be in this print anthology! I still can’t believe it. Occasionally, I squeal. It scares one cat, concerns the other. The Jarnal III : Transitions, edited by Tara Campbell with managing editor Michael B. Tager will be out in May.

So, I’ve got that going for me, holding up that rationalization, which led to another where I downgraded the goal into an aspiration; I do want to get back to it, and will, but right now, well… I’m working on a novel.

Do you know how loathe I am to speak such a thing – even if it’s only in my head, or now, on a screen? Lucy. Charlie Brown. Football. Here I go again, and I’m not sure I want to, but – knock on wood – so far it seems okay and therefore I’m full of doubt. What ifs cling to every dust mote in my undusted house. Breakfast dishes leer. If I clean the house my anxiety will go away, but perhaps that’s where a lot of stories go, dumped out in mop water, flushed down a tidy bowl.

In 22 days, I’ve written 26,000 words. Three betas test drove the first 20 pages and said, “Keep going.” (I went to that file to count days and it took all my strength to not to open it anew.) So, like Rory to Yale, I’m going somewhere I was not headed, though I was headed there all along.

Cheers and thanks for stopping by for the read.