The week of Fourth of July, I alternated between lounging with family by Clear Lake to hanging out in a camper cabin on the coast for some writing and reading R&R (which I may or may not write a blog post about), to binge watching horror movies with my cousin, to chilling at the Yuba River. I came home feeling energized and relaxed, only to have the “real” world slam into me and I rather quickly went back to feeling overwhelmed in work and writing and life in general. At some point I’m going to have to learn how to cultivate that sense of calm, even in the rocky waters of everyday life and the stresses involved. Not an easy task.
In general, I have not been in the mood to touch a computer when I get off work, which is why my posts have been more sparse here and elsewhere. I’m choosing not to be hard on myself about my level of productivity (since it’s not even as low as I keep guilting myself into believing) and am instead giving myself what space I can.
What I’m Reading
I just finished up Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta, which I read in a single day — something I haven’t done in ages. It’s a powerful coming of age story about friendship and rivalry between different groups in a small community. It also has a mystery that gets pulled up out of the past. There’s a lot of humor and a lot of tragedy and it all weaves together beautifully.
I’m part way through She Walks in Shadows, an anthology edited by Silvia Moreno-Garcia and Paula R. Stiles that is full of female-driven stories inspired by Lovecraft. Some great stuff in here so far.
What I’m Writing
I’m currently in the middle of the Write Like Your Alive, a 31/31 project being hosted by Zoetic Press. I’m behind for the moment, with only nine of the 31 poems completed. I’ve been moving slower through these than I have with previous similar challenges, being more careful in choosing what to put down instead of just powering through. Many of these are poems that I’ve outlined or have had stored away in my head for a long time, so it’s a good feeling just to get them down on paper.
I’ll be traveling this for the day job, which will provide me with a bit of hotel time in which to dive into some more writing and hopefully that will help me catch up.
Goals for the Week:
- Draft a multitude of poems
Linky Goodness
Why Calvin and Hobbes is Great Literature, by Gabrielle Bellot:
“Though focused on suburban American characters, it crossed cultural borders for me in Dominica because so much of it seemed universal. I lived at the edge of a mountain village, and on the days when the wind had stopped blowing and everything felt still and stricken with the melancholy of a too-short Sunday I enjoyed retreating into a room and disappearing into the world of a book collection of Calvin and Hobbes. (I had them all.) Then someone would call me through the halls of our house, or I would simply look up, and it was like waking from a trance. Suddenly, it would be evening, the wind up our mountain like the breaking of soft sea waves, the brown moths already crashing madly into the lamps or dying in the wax pool of a lit candle, the breadfruit leaves already like the silhouettes of monstrous bats in the dark, the night already having begun to put on her starry pearls. I loved disappearing into beloved books and reappearing into reality, with a shock, some hours later.”