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Progress continues and it feels good

Giveaway! Today is the last day to sign up for the The Walls Around Us giveaway.

This weekend I fell into the black hole of baby love, staying two nights at my sister’s house and letting the little ones laughter (and occasional tears) wash over me. Time slipped away and all the things I needed to get done, should get done, didn’t matter, because there were my niece and nephew splashing in the creek with redwoods towering above and because tiny hugs and bitty kisses.

Besides, I got plenty done in during the work week and even made it out to Cito.FAME.Us open mic on Thursday night, where I was able to visit with friends, hug it out with amazing MC Lindsey Leong, listen to gorgeous music from Alice Chen, the other half of Q&A, and to share some of my own words.

What I’m Reading

I am almost done with The 2013 Rhysling Anthology, which contains so many amazing speculative poems in a range of styles.

Next up, I have The Martian by Andy Weir, which is about an astronaut who gets left behind on Mars and has to figure out how to survive. I have heard so many great things about this book and I can’t wait to get started.

What I’m Writing

Poetry continued to be my main focus at the moment, from collaborative poems to individual poems and slow work on a novel in poems. Several poem drafts were started last week and one was finished. Progress continues and it feels good.

I have only recently discovered Google Docs, a wondrous invention that allows me to work collaboratively and to continue working on a single document from multiple locations, including my phone. Why oh why have I not used this before?

Published! Drink by Laura Madeline Wiseman is an amazing collection of poetry about mermaids and the horrors of being a teenage girl. My review was published this weekend over at Rhizomatic Ideas.

Submitted: A poem was sent off to The Plot.

Goal(s) for this week: Relook at my recently submitted and rejected chapbook to see what I can add or remove to make it stronger.

Linky Goodness

  • The amazing Lise Quintana wrote a powerful piece on What Happens When You Tell A Woman She’s Being ‘Dramatic’ – “With four words, my overwhelming feelings of fear and sadness were dismissed as invalid, and I was made aware that telling adults the things that scared me would never result in those adults trying to make me feel safe and loved. It would result in adults telling me that my fear was ridiculous, and that my perceptions of the world were wrong. That I could not trust my own feelings and should keep them to myself.”
  • The Subtle Linguistics of Polite White Supremacy – “Today’s covert version of white supremacy is a lot more subtle than having black overseers beat their fellow slaves. Nor is this power the same as buying or selling your slaves children for a good price, using black children as alligator bait, cutting open pregnant black women, castrating black men, generational rape and molestation of black women and men, and lynchings of those who were accused of making whites nervous. This is something more subtle than that. The ruling class has begun to employ a particularly clever passive tactic to remain in power while denying this power. They pretended this was the natural way for society to function and influenced perception by using double standards in language as a starting point.”
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Loving life and being lazy

My Saturday was spent celebrating my niece’s third birthday with a pool party at my apartment. It was so much fun watching her splash around and leap off the edge into the water — that girl has no fear and I hope it stays that way as she grows up. She’s a giant piece of my heart right now, her and her baby brother both and it give me so much joy to spend time with them.

Of course, it took three hours of scrubbing my house top to bottom, while crying Oh, my gawd, why is my house so filthy, in order to have guests over, only to have to clean all over again after they left. But I have no complaints, every bit of scrubbing was worth it.

Sunday was a big fat slug-fest because I was tired of functioning for the week. I feel no regrets…., okay, I feel some regrets, but only little ones.

What I’m Reading

I’ve just started reading my signed(!) copy of The Walls Around Us by Nova Ren Suma. As is no surprise to me, I’m already falling in love with the language and with these complicated girls. There’s a reason Suma is one of my favorite authors.

What I’m Writing

Just a little bit of writing got done last week, mostly on Tuesday night with some editing of a review I’ve been working on. I think I needed to take it easy in order to recover from the go-get-em attitude of the week before.

Accepted! I’m pleased to announce that Nonbinary review has accepted my essay, “Beyond Shahrazad: Feminist Portrayals of Women in The Arabian Nights,” for its 1001 Arabian Nights issue. I’m thrilled to know that all that hard work paid off.

Rejected! Two publishers have rejected my Sincerely Yours chapbook (le sigh), but there are two more out. If they both come back as rejections, too, I’ll have to reassess and resubmit.

Goal(s) for this week: Finish and submit a selection of poem(s).

Linky Goodness

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Now I can live again…

Last week my nose was rubbed raw by the grindstone and now I’m still recovering, although I’m feeling good.

Also, some other awesome things happened last week.

What I’m Reading

My reading of American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis and all reading for that matter has been put on hold, as all my available free time is devoted to researching and writing my 1001 nights essay.

What I’m Writing

The 1001 Nights essay is DONE! It’s done! Bang the drums! Toot the horns! The project consumed most of my free time over the last week and a half, with skimming of the 1001 Nights to note all the representations of women in the stories (a huge project), researching what other critics have had to say, and have been drafting the editing the essay — all of which turned out to be much more work than I thought it would be (which should not have been a surprise). But it’s done and submitted and I hope the editors like it. Regardless, I enjoyed the life consuming process and I’m glad I did it.

Now I just need to learn to channel two-thirds of that same energy into future projects, so that I can continue to get sh!t done.

Published! My poem “The Things I Own” is up at Thank You for Swallowing.

Goal(s) for this week: Finish that other thing that I put on hold while working on the essay.

Linky Goodness

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Saw Avengers: Age of Ultron over the weekend. My little geek girl heart was mostly pleased. The movie had a lot going on with a multitude of new characters in addition to a multitude of old ones, which made things a bit messy. But this in no way took away from the fun for me and it was good to see the characters I love back again. 

I have mixed feeling’s about how Black Widow is portrayed in Age of Ultron. One the one hand I agree with some that it’s nice to see some humanity brought to her character and on the other I agree with others who feel it could have been handled better. 

At any rate, though it wasn’t my favorite Marvel movie, but I had a good time.

What I’m Reading

I’m a little wary to be starting in on Patrick Ness’ final installment of the Chaos Walking trilogy, Monsters of Men, because I’m not sure I’m ready to have my feels put through a meat grinder, but here I go.

Everyone I Love Is a Stranger to Someone, poetry by Annelyse Gelman get more witty and fun and interesting with every poem I read.

More slow and steady progress on Don Quixote.

What I’m Writing

Ummmmm…. yeah… so…

I need to come up with a new routine that involves me going to a coffee shop or library in order to get actual work done, because as soon as I get home after work I slip into relaxation mode. This week’s plan is to bring my laptop to work on Tuesday and Thursday for just that purpose.

Goal(s) for this week: Submit the chapbook to a few more publishers. Gather together/edit poem drafts and submit to lit journals.

What’s Inspiring Me Right Now

I’m trying to meditate in the evening before I go to bed. Just 5-10 minutes of quiet breathing. I’m finding that after the few times I’ve done it, I sleep better and wake up more refreshed. So, it’s a good thing for me to keep up.

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#ShortReads Day 3: "Sing, Pilgrim!" by James Patrick Kelly

Published in Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine, November/December 2013.

When a seemingly ordinary chair appears in the middle of a sidewalk, it sparks a new religion and hope of transcendence. A very short and simple story that paints a picture of what the world would be like if there existed a religious relic that actually did something. Not a story with any deep emotion or insight and not the type to linger after being read, but a decent read.

Favorite Line(s): “It has been said that every age gets the chair it deserves, and the history of chair culture is checkered at best.”

It’s Short Story Month! What short stories have you read and loved lately?