I have a byline at Westword. That's so fuckin' cool.

It finally hit me how cool that was when I was walking towards the Westword building to talk with my editor about some things the other day. I have a fuckin' byline at Denver Westword! I get some small ducats sometimes from Westword!

More than 17 years ago, when I first moved to Denver Colorado, I wondered how you got your foot into the door at places like Westword and The Denver Post. I might not yet have known about Denver Westword's office, but I did go downtown and enter into the lobby where The Denver Post was held, and I walked up to the security desk and asked how I could get a job there. heh. That's how I thought things worked, and really, up until I'd moved to Denver, things kind of seemed to work that way for me. I mean. . . Boise is a little bit smaller, and for the most part folks are pretty open and nice about what they know. Or were when I lived there. I'm pretty much out of the Boise loop these days. 

Since then, I've worked at a click-bait site (now defunct), written hundreds of articles, conducted numerous interviews, written for a minute over at Colorado Independent (their freelancer budget dried up), taken a handful of journalism MOOCs, and completed a grip of ghostwritten things that paid alright while they lasted. ...and this is all outside of the creative writing stuff I do (which generally doesn't pay, but feels good when it's published).

Anyway. . .this kind of work is so super humbling. I have a lot to learn since I've entered into journalism through the back door, and I get edited a lot. This work is challenging, but I think I like things that way. I'm always working upwards on the curve, learning all I can, and as part of that, failing a lot. Failing is part of the practice and the work. I get better and better by failing. That's just how it is. 

I like telling my students how challenging writing is generally when they say that they want writing to get easier and that they're just bad at it. I tell them writing is a learned skill and it is always work, always learning. I tell them that I just received an article or review or essay back from my editors or writing group that was red-marked to hell with stuff I needed to change for whichever audience, or because I was inadvertently hiding something that was too important not to be left out, or because my language was super fuzzy or flowery or not concise. 

I've been writing for a long time, sometimes get paid for it, and I still write shit. I still need other eyes to help me to see through it and to compost what's salvageable, and continue on with something better.

For the most part, hearing this allays classroom excuses. I am a working writer and I still write shit. It's okay. We'll all learn together. Give yourself permission to "write shit" (I first heard this sentiment, shit attached, from a workshop writer and editor Heidi Pitlor conducted at Regis University's Mile-High MFA program).

I'm not writing these things to brag. I'm doing this more so to take stock. It's important to take stock. I know a lot of really brilliant writers and journalists, and some of them work much harder than I do at just writing. A good deal of them have gone to journalism school and/or have been in the game for decades doing the thing more than intermittently. I piecemeal my life and my income from massage therapy, teaching, freelancing, and many other odds and ends when and if they come. I still do my best. And I still feel green. And when I start feeling like I'm failing too much, I take a moment to look at the tip of the iceberg, the stuff I have to show for the work I have been doing, which in some sense has been constant. 

I still feel so new at this, and at the same time, I've been able to take stock and see where some successes were, and this gives me a little more confidence to aim higher as I continue learning and writing.

Blah. This is another blog post with a flat ending, but I'm ending it here, just the same. I honestly needed to pick myself up this morning, and to do a little writing warm-up before I address the stuff my editors have sent back. At any rate. . .yeah. There it is, for whoever cares or wants to know. :P If you want to, we can talk about it (in the comments). 

Taking Stock, and Building a Snowball into the New Year

a lot of writing is about to happen

For the last long while, I have spent time working on building some momentum into the new year during the holidays. My hope always is that I build some kind of snowball that will roll through the new year with a fury. This year is no different.

While working on submissions late Christmas evening 2018, I found this exit document I had to create as a facet of my completion process for my MFA at Regis University last summer. I am tasked as an alum from my MFA program with speaking at the next cohorts' residency about post-MFA life. Over the last six months, I have been steamrolled with activity and accomplishments that I haven't been able to take time to account for until now. And finding this document from my MFA also allows me to take stock of what I have accomplished,and take note of what I would like to do and/or revise.

It's funny how quickly things happen and how quickly things change. Hopefully I will have more information for you soon, and in more frequent fashion than I have in the long last while. In any case I thought I'd post this document here to start. I plan to run through it with some updates as artifacts of note become available. I also plan to over the next month or so to go through each bit of this blog post and give updates on where I am now.

Ok, without further ado, here is my exit document to my MFA at Regis University for those who may be interested. Subsequent posts will further describe anything that at this point is fuzzy.

Beyond the MFA: a list of short-term and long-term writing goals

• What are your short-term (next year or two) and long-term (next decade or so) goals for your writing career?

* Short Term: My short term goal is simply to start sending out as much work as I can. I want to put myself on a regular submissions schedule, which doesn’t have to be anything more than a nice slow consistent two submissions a month. I say this because I will be working on other projects, working full time, and also creating new work.

* Long Term: I am trying to figure out if I need to look for an agent at this point. I also would like to find one agent who is willing to grow with me as I write in various genres, some of which are experimental, some of which might not be heavy hitters as far as sales. I also wonder if there is a special someone out there who can work with me via my other creative outlets as well, such as creating web/print projects, working in music, news, etc? I hope that it’s possible not to need someone different for each different thing.

I may teach. I am toying with the idea but I am not sure how serious I am. Something I think I would definitely enjoy is creating workshops and classes that can help me to travel either to conferences, or as a free agent. It seems that this is something that can be done.

Here is another long term goal: I want to publish Identity Polyptychs / A Glossary of Unfinished Terms as two books soon at one of my top publishers. I wonder if I should enter them into a contest. If the timing is not right for any of the contests, I plan on sending work out piece by piece. I also think that “How to Honor Your Mother and Your Father” can be a chapbook on its own. I will finish this poem in the short term and send it out to publishers/ contests.

• Do you plan to seek representation for, or publication of, your thesis manuscript? If so, what’s your plan for doing so?

I do indeed intend to seek publication, no matter what happens in terms of representation. My thesis work is a little experimental, and probably not something any of the Big 5 or even mid-list publishers will want to represent (but who knows, sky’s the limit said my Lyft driver today). Also, after hearing Eric Baus speak about his process of publishing, I have decided to try to publish as much of my manuscript as I can in journals and such, and then seek a publisher either via contests (as with Graywolf) or other forms of submissions. I plan on asking my mentors and other folks in the program for assistance on this.

• What is your next writing project? And once that next project is completed, what are your long-term writing projects?

• Sweet Fictions (poems): I have a good deal of poems for this collection already and intend to add more. I intend also to create a list of songs to sing with a good deal of these poems when they are performed. This is something that has worked well in the past with performances.

• I would like to create some additional sections to Identity Polyptychs as follow: “The Trouble in My Speech”, wherein I address broken analogies on the basis of their problematic origins, such as in the section when I compare racism to a cancer that needs to be cut out, which can be understood as ableist speech. I would also really like to try to get to the reconciliation I have been striving for. It may be that this is for another book, another time, when I am ready, if that ever happens (I mean...surely, yes? It’ll happen!)
  
• I want to write a collaborative book with my mother about her stories. I’ve been planting the seed, and have written a poem and gleaned another from talking with her, one of which is in Identity Polyptychs, the other of which was published a long time ago at Pirene’s Fountain (“Mermaid, 1969”).
  
• I need to write more short fiction so that there is enough to be compiled into a book, or two, or more. I think I also need to take more craft lessons/ courses in fiction so that I can gain more skills and knowledge towards this aim.
  
• I want to turn my critical essay into an academic book, and need to write a book proposal. I also need to find a publisher after the book proposal has been composed.

• What are your deadlines? How will you hold yourself accountable to them?
  

I would like to send out at least two submissions a month for a while. I have only ever done this for three or so months at a time. What this includes: contests, guest blogs, podcasts, news articles, book reviews, and anything else that has a date attached to it. When I think of deadlines, I think I get a little nervous. However, when I think of them in terms of submissions, it’s really not that big a task and becomes totally a little more feasible in my mind. I can either send things I have already created or “write towards the assignment.”

• How do you plan to reconfigure and maintain your writing practice (absent the pressure of MFA due dates and deadlines) in the face of the demands of your job or everyday life? What would you like your writing life to look like and how will you make that happen? (And whom can you ask for help in order to manifest this vision?)

Reconfigure/ recalibrate: A big part of reconfiguring and maintaining a writing practice, for me, means changing the mindset of working my writing/ creative life around my massage therapy work, and instead scheduling my creative life as if it’s just as much (if not more than) a priority as that bread and butter work. Part of this also means figuring out how I work best, like if I need three days off to take a day to do nothing, and then the next two days to write, stem, edit, research, etc., I need to make that a priority in my life and stick to it, just as I would any other job or self care necessity.

I think that it will be really beneficial to round up a group of folks in which we can coax one another to stay on task. I belong to a writing group, but this other group would probably be flexible and provide the support for anyone who wants it, possibly by setting up a sort of forum where people can connect for the purposes of having immediate community, access to writerly goings on, and possibly a reminder circle of some sort that helps people keep on top of submissions and generating new work.

• How do you plan on cultivating a writing community?

My writing group helps a bit with this because even if we are all so busy, living different kinds of lives and doing a lot of our own creative things in our communities, we are constantly encouraging one another and lighting fires under each others’ bums.

Literary Citizen also works towards this aim, actively reaching out to the kinds of folks in the writing world I want to work with and listen to and promote, etc. I am being held accountable to this project, because now there are other folks involved with it as well. My guilty conscious won’t let me walk away from it. Not until it’s at a point where I can pass it on to hopefully some super solid and like minded folks. That’s going to take some doing, some effort, some time.

I plan to be better at attending as many readings and events as I can. For me, this means also in the art, music, and performance worlds. There may be more literary/music/art events on my end, as well, both performed and curated. My general modus operandi is to be as inclusive as I can, including folks who have fallen off wayside, who have wonderful work they are sitting on or stuff that’s in their closets, etc. I want to coax them to let their work see the world, and also possibly either publish them or promote them in such a way that publishers interests are piqued.

I also want to find those things that are aiding in Literary Citizenship by helping other writers who may have become discouraged to become empowered in their work and inspired. One example of this is that this week, I learned about a side project Rachel Weaver is doing via Colorado Writing School, where folks can sign up to a matching service to try to find a fit for a writing group. This was something that I was trying to figure out for Literary Citizen, but since it’s a thing that already exists, I would love to send folks to her submission for the service and promote that.

All in all, I want to be as helpful as I can while maintaining personal boundaries so that I can also accomplish my own work because accomplishing my own work has become hella important.

It is also very important for me to do all of this with an open heart.

• And how can we help?

I just want to say that I feel so inspired already by the inspiration and belief in my ability and the coaching/help I have already received from so many folks in the program. I owe so many thank yous (!).

I’ve already received confirmation that Literary Citizen can work out an internship situation with Regis, either for credit for the undergraduates or pay when we are able to do that for the MFA candidates. This will be a great help because already, we are foreseeing a lot of work that will require delegation. Further, this is a way for us to continue in both of our mutual missions of connecting with community.

The feeling of connection is something that has become very important to me as well, and the Mile-High MFA really embodies this idea of community support and participation. I hope that in some way the work I am doing is a mirror, and also amplifies that cause.

• How and when do you plan on enacting your Writing in the World Action Plan or otherwise contributing your writing talents to your community?
  

I’ve already begun work on my Writing in the World Action Plan, and have already taken assignments in the community for book reviews, readings (curated and performed). Literary Citizen is also part of this work.

• An updated curriculum vitae (including “MFA in your genre(s), Regis University”).

*see attached.

• A thesis manuscript query letter/cover letter (that you can use when querying agents, editors, and/or publishers about your book manuscript).

*see below.

• Any lessons about writing you’ve learned that you’d like to share with us.

“Write Shit” ~Heidi Pitlor.

• What Kind of Job?

While a good deal of my writing life is spent at home, I would like it to in some way help me travel to other places, plane and hotel fares paid + meals and a stipend. :P Perhaps this is some magic I could work through Literary Citizen, and if nothing else, perhaps I could be a free agent!

Figuring out what kind of writing job I should do is something I have been struggling with for a very long while, or maybe I should say experimenting with. Writing related jobs seem super challenging. Freelancing is catch-as-can. I’ve had gigs and then they disappear, or even have been interviewed only to end up feeling like maybe the person who interviewed me was researching information. But. . . it seems that most if not all of us do quite a bit of piecemealing our worklife together, and maybe that’s part of what makes it interesting.

I AM in the process of trying to figure out how to make Literary Citizen into a business. This feels much more fun than some offers that are already starting to come in for applying for adjunct professorship. I also understand that adjuncting is a stepping stone. I have not ruled it out.

• Presses I am thinking about (willing to take more suggestions!)

Graywolf Press

Tinhouse

Ahsahta Press

Noemi Press

Yes Yes Books

Field Office

Tarpaulin Sky

Subito Press

Uttered Chaos Press (Laura Lehew)

WTAW Press

Les Figues

Pirene’s Fountain

• To Do List (not listed on our Graduate Portfolio list but I want to put them here anyway so I can remind myself that they are on my to do soon list):
  

• Make a list of people who will help sustain writing/ submission schedule.
  
• I am thinking of organizing a group of folks who can be a sort of telephone tree for one another. We can just lightly check in and remind each other what we’re about, etc.
  
• Make a list of folks who will promote work, come to readings, etc.
  
• Make a Local List
• Make a National List
• Make an International List
  
• Make a list of people you would really like to have in your literary circle and connect with them.
• YES!
  

Dear Matthew Dickman and Camille Dungy,

I have attached a copy of my manuscript Identity Polyptychs/ A Glossary of Unfinished Terms, as a submission to Tinhouse Press.

This hybrid work explores identity through the process of moving towards reconciliation in regards to familial strife and estrangement. It also questions race from a place of in-betweenness and unknowing, carrying forward via performative action by acquiring the language and understanding needed to define and reclaim selfhood.

I have recently completed an MFA in poetry and fiction from the Mile-High MFA at Regis University. I have published work at Pirene’s Fountain, The Colorado Independent, Denver Crossroads and elsewhere. I have three reviews coming soon from Full Stop|Reviews. Interviews. Marginalia, and I am currently establishing a web and print project called Literary Citizen: Writers Shaping Culture which will feature writers, editors, publications, venues and more who are working towards positive change on many fronts.

I feel that you make beautiful books, and I would be ecstatic if my work was published by your press. Thank you very much for your time and consideration.

Best,

Tameca L Coleman

Is it highfalutin to post a short history of your writing life or even your MFA entrance essay on Blogger?

A mess of writing stuff. Photo by Tameca L Coleman

I don't know if it is highfalutin, but a couple people have asked me to post it (that's only a little bit weird...but I still love you anyway):

Essay for Application of Admission to Regis

In my mid-twenties, I thought I was going to completely give up on writing. There were many reasons for that. For one, the way seemed hard. So many friends I thought were doing well told me this. Many of those friends have stopped writing, committing their work to boxes in their closets or hard drives. Some of that writing has been shredded, burned, or deleted – forgotten, in any case and relegated to the past.

I wasn't sure if any of my writing was any good. Sure, I'd been encouraged by my school teachers from grade school through graduation, but by the time I was twenty five, I hadn't much more to show for my writing than my own files chock full of juvenelia.

I had no interest at the time of going back to college (I had been cut from a music program because I “didn't fit in socially”) but the idea of higher education kept eating away at me. Maybe this is what finally prompted me to step foot into the Log Cabin Literary Center (now called The Cabin) in Boise, Idaho. It was a nice compromise and it began to fulfill this craving of wanting to be a part of a group of practicing writers who were creating, publishing, and talking shop with other writers.

At the The Cabin, I met many talented and accomplished writers like Annie Proulx, G.E. Patterson, Dagoberto Gilb and Janet Holmes. The Cabin hosted intimate writing workshops with these writers, and of course weekly workshops with a local community of writers who were at multiple levels of seriousness and experience. I loved this group, so I decided to register for The Cabin's writing retreat that summer for a more intensive experience.

There I met many more writers. I remember sitting at a dinner table with Robert Wrigley, his wife Kim Barnes, Lance Olsen, Joy Passanante, Billy Collins and others. I was mostly silent because there was all of this experience around me. I silently made a promise to myself that the next time I sat at a table full of accomplished writers like that, I would be one of them. I wanted so badly to be an equal rather than just a student (though, we are always students, I've grown to realize).

Since then, I've moved to Denver, a place where I have met many more writers in many different genres, many of whom I regard highly. I've gone to some conventions, picked brains, finished an undergrad where poetry and linguistics were my focus. I have even published a little, and some of my income is generated by writing news content, ghostwriting, website and pamphlet content creation and at times, coaching people how to write better. I feel that this is pretty good success but it doesn't necessarily allow me the time to devote to some of the ideas I want to explore in poetry, fiction, music, and whatever genre might fit.

I work with a couple of pieces of advice at the forefront of my mind. During my undergrad, a literature professor told us that we should all try to write everything, even if we fail miserably. I think that is how I found myself writing news. The opportunity came up and I thought, “Why not? I get paid to write and I can learn as I go.”

The other piece of advice came from Robert Wrigley at The Cabin retreat way back when. I had signed up for a one on one session with him. I needed to find out if I had any potential in writing poetry. He looked at my poems, which mostly were poems I'd written in junior high school, and he was very encouraging, very positive. I asked him about college, and he admitted that it's not for everyone. He also said “You go to school for short cuts and community.” ← This made more sense to me than anything anyone else had ever said to me about college. It was honest and has stuck with me ever since.

 I have a foot in many worlds and I have friends at multiple levels of seriousness and experience in those worlds. I'm always looking for the community, and to be a positive force in that community. I want to be able to promote that community and the work that is coming from it. That's why conversations I have had with staff at Regis mean so much to me. It is apparent that the program's focus is to build and maintain community, not just for one graduating class or even within the program, but more broadly. I want to be a part of that!  

* Here is another, older, probably better written essay about Why I Write from my undergrad. 

* Also, writers are assholes...or are they? -->

"Writers are Assholes"

photo courtesy of Steve Eggleston

The other day, over a beer and fried pickles, two friends and I talked about many things including writer's groups.

"Writers are assholes," one friend said, "I'll never attend another writer's group again."

The other friend agreed. I found that I couldn't agree, really, so I asked them to explain.

The one friend said something close to what follows:

"Every time I have tried to get together with other writers to work, they agree to the gatherings, and then pass out copies of their own work for everyone else to read and be really resistant to feedback. In fact, they just won't take it and then, they'll go on to mention how awesome their work is and tear everyone else's work to shreds for no reason. Sometimes the critiques aren't even constructive ("This sucks!). Sometimes they don't even know how to string two sentences together. It's frustrating. It's maddening."

I thought about this. I had been to some workshops like that, mostly as an undergrad. On the whole, though, I seemed to have had some really good experiences with writing groups.

I asked if I could tell them about my experiences. They gave the go ahead. I'll repeat them here plus some:

In college, I was president of a poetry club that a friend and I had founded. Sometime during the course of the year, attendants (of which there were no less than 10 every single week) asked us for poetry writing workshops. This made me nervous at first. I hadn't even finished my undergrad yet. But nonetheless, there it was. People came to our meetings, stayed two or three extra hours after so they could share their work, receive and give feedback. The workshops were productive, fun, and consistent. 

There were a few things that were very key in the workshops' success. Our poetry meetings were very inclusive. We'd invite members to present on topics they cared about. Then at the workshops we would gauge where writers were as far as receiving feedback went. Not everyone was there to publish. Some attendants wanted to feel that their work had potential. Some just wanted to write and share their work. It was our opinion that all of this was okay.

For me, meeting the writer where s/he was became pertinent. I'd ask questions to gauge like, "What kind of feedback are you looking for today?" and then continue when the answer had been received. I would mention what I  liked most about the work, favorite or strongest, most moving parts of the work and how the writer could grow as a whole (speaking while keeping in mind where the writer was). I would tell them colors or images if I saw them, emotions, things they could hold on to and recognize. The critiques were not highfalutin and this kind of workshopping became the model on which this particular group was based. 

***

I have attended a few odd or so workshops with some of the local slam poets. I was not able to attend consistently but I could see that they had a really consistent group attendance. The goal was to write performance poems, and really good ones, poems that captured the audience and won them. One of the leaders and many of the attendants were already receiving significant attention and had been working in the poetry community for a long time.

The temperature there was kind but it was not without its work. The workshops also felt inclusive. Attendants would workshop one poet's piece at a time as a group. After listening, they would take turns and tell the performer/writer what really worked for them, what hit them in the gut and the heart, what didn't, what was unclear, cliches, and on and on. No one left angry, as far as I could tell. Everyone was there for that particular goal. Everyone gave something and everyone gained.

***

I belong to some other writer's groups, currently. I work with a group of ladies who gather two or three times a year for poetry writing marathons, to share and workshop, talk about ideas, memories, stories, and to celebrate our accomplishments. It's always a wonderful time and we get a lot of work done. Between workshops/writing retreats, we check in and support one another.

I also sometimes attend other groups. I study formally in paid workshops with accomplished writers as well as have gatherings of my own to discuss everything from grammar to craft and reading. Sometimes I'll meet with someone once over coffee or tea. Sometimes, I touch base with an ongoing group, some of them hybrid on-line/3-D meetups of writers in just about every stage of development, some of them academic-minded, for example, some of them just getting started. Sometimes the meetings surround a small project or a fun writing activity like exquisite corpse.

I'm not really sure if writers are assholes or not. Maybe we all are. Here I am writing a blog post about something unresolved in a conversation I had with friends. I guess, for me, the key in all of this is knowing what you really need or want from a workshop. When you know what you need or want from a workshop, you can then decide whether the one you are attending works for you or not. You are allowed to walk away and make new groups or connect with others depending on those needs and wants. You steer the boat.

Lately, Writing Samples Can Maybe Look Like This

This picture is neither here nor there. It's just
a picture of some possible blog ideas. 

I just wanted to share this. It was part of an application I turned in for a social media customer support position in Denver. I'm not sure it was what they were looking for but who knows? Maybe? It's fun stuff to guess, in any case. I'd love any feedback should those writer friends out there have any. Peace!

Writing Sample

An Example of How I Connect on Facebook:

After a friend recently introduced me to a girl band from Japan that mashes up Japanese Idol-Pop with Metal, I started a conversation about it and I also felt the need to do a little research:

My Response to Seeing BabyMetal for the first time: https://www.facebook.com/sireneatspoetry/posts/10100178757630793

The Research: https://www.facebook.com/sireneatspoetry/posts/10100179147968553

These two posts also resulted in multiple posts on my page and shares from my posts sharing either metal bands from Japan, the US or thoughts about BabyMetal.

Blogging:

Self-Made Internships

An Introduction to an Upcoming Music Research and Outreach Blog

Meetings with Mentors

Reinstating an Anchor for Creative Writing Discipline

The New Poetry Journal

old poetry journal cover featuring some of the poets
whose work I studied during the course

It's been almost four years since I completed my undergrad in writing. 

Many friends from the program I attended have gone off and on to amazing MFAs, have published pretty significantly, or have become technical writers, content writers, slam poets of note, blog writers, adjunct professors, poetry award winners, and writers on the sides of many other things like myself. 

I feel that I have lost my academic discipline, rigor, and mind-set to the point that even keeping to a simple writing schedule has been challenging because of all the transitions of life. I think that discipline and rigor are important. Write, draft, write, draft, etc. and all the reading and living and absorbing that goes along between the writings and redraftings. . . and then of course there's the finishing and the sending off part (because too many of us never even try publishing, even in a world where publishing has become as simple as this blog post). 

Writing needs to be a practice. It needs to have some sort of routine or anchor. 

example pages from old poetry notebook featuring found poetry
and one of the poetry experiments form the class

I've been wanting to get back into writing in a disciplined way, with goals and deadlines, projects and brainstorms, research and more research. I especially have been wanting to get back to this work because I feel obligated. I make claims sometimes that I am a writer, a poet, and there are people who are asking me to either perform work or submit something, and there are still others asking if I might host a workshop, salon, or another non-sequitur exquisite corpse party. I feel obligated, not only to those calls and inquiries but to my own call which becomes an anxious one if I am not doing this work. That call trumps any fear that my work might suck or that it might not mean anything to anyone.

I wasn't sure how to start. I own more than 2000 books, at least two bookshelves of which contain poetry anthologies and chapbooks, books about craft, books about poets, books of letters from poets to poets, etc. It's just too overwhelming. Aside from the library, there are the local poets I want to keep tabs on, the poets from the hub of my home town, friends from school, and I of course want to keep up with and continually hone my own craft. 

In college, one of my professors had us make a Poetry Journal in one of her classes so that we could really marinate over poems and poets we learned about during the course of the class. In the books, we tried out poetry experiments, looked for and pasted in found poetry, pictures of things, pictures of poets, and works of theirs that we had copy-changed. We listed quotes that we liked from the poems, pasted in lines, stanzas, wrote our thoughts about them, wrote letters to the poets we admired and asked them questions, told them what we thought. . . .

a collection of favorite lines from some of the
poems of Mina Loy.

I have thought about that journal off and on since then. I have even posted a couple of things from that journal onto this blog with the intention of posting more (see "Accessible Poetry First," as an example). Things have been transitioning for me so I haven't been able to scan what pages I really want to include but I have many blank notebooks and lots of pens. 

Last night, I opened up Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey's book Thrall and I couldn't get past the two first quotes on the page preceding the contents and the poems. I was reminded of my old poetry journal from class, found one of my blank moleskins and made my very first little entry, the quotes, my thoughts about them, and soon, there will be snippets featuring lines that I like best, quotes from the poet, and perhaps even some of my own work as response. I am excited about this because it feels like direction. It's an assignment, self-assigned, and an anchor back into the discipline, an anchor of study that relates directly to craft.

Learning to Write Articles for Percentages of Pennies Per Page View Inspires Me to Keep at It

In Summer, 2010, I got together at Under the Umbrella cafe with two other writers to chat, become re-inspired, and glean some ideas about writing.

I had been thinking a lot about all of my talents and joys and I wondered how I could implement more of those things into my life. I have had more than fifty jobs because it is challenging for me to not become miserable when my interests and abilities are not engaged and of course, I have been searching for that job that is a joy and not a challenge because of the lack of engagement related above.

I had come across the Strengthfinder book and while it offered some really good insights about how I work best and how I learn, I still felt a bit lost. Most of my skills have been best utilized in my volunteer work with internships and non-profits. I enjoy working in those sectors because there is usually a lot of freedom there to explore, learn, and hone skills. Of course, the pay is not great if it is a tad above nil. A lot of CEOs at non-profits get a pittance if anything at all. Also, my work description, if it existed, was fuzzy and not backed by proper certifications so that I might move forward with those skills into future employment. This was probably mostly my fault because at any of those situations, I have usually had the freedom to at some level create my own position. I suppose as a writer, I can write that in, create the titles and such if I need/want to....

At any rate, getting back to the meeting: One of the things that I really wanted was to step significantly back into my writing life. I wanted to learn ways in which I might be able to make a little money with it. I'd heard that you can still make some ducats writing sci fi and romance novels but these are things that aren't too much of an interest to me, despite my attempt to write just about everything. I'd applied for a technical writing position and made it halfway through the editing portion of the interview, and when I became so bored to literal tears, I decided I couldn't go that route. I would pull every hair out of my head in grips.

The three writers at Under the Umbrella talked a bit about freelancing. I'd wondered if freelancing was a bit dead. Nonetheless, I seemed to know people who did freelance and at least two who did well enough to eat and have shelter by. One of those people was at the table.

I knew that I had become a fairly decent writer. I'd won some awards and scholarships for writing and have even published a little. When I wrote for a fellowship, despite the site saying that those who were not accepted would not get a letter, I got a letter saying that my work was worthy of some program, that there was no doubt I would do well in any program that might accept me, and that perhaps I should try the fellowship again with new material.

The chat at Under the Umbrella was a relief as well as a boon. Recently, I have been trying to fulfill the advice that I obtained there from the freelancer who feeds and houses himself with the work. The advice was a simple first step. Write a blog post everyday on any subject, about 250-300 words, before making inquiries into freelancing gigs. Write about everything. Write about products in your fridge. Write about books you've read, records you've listened to. Anything and then Presto (!) you have a portfolio.

I've taken the advice to heart, even if I don't make the goal of writing something 7 days a week. I have to keep in mind that I am learning, too. I want to write very good articles that are informative and valuable to readers. I haven't practiced journalism since Junior High School. Not everyone takes blogs seriously, and I don't even know if anyone really reads these things. The solution? A dear friend of mine told me some time ago about Yahoo Voices. It's a website which is very similar to Examiner or Yourhub. Anyone can submit articles to the site and there are varying levels of writerly ability there. I have been watching some very good writers, some freelancers, to try to gain more skills. I have also begun to submit to the site on a regular basis. I like the site even though I rarely make a per article up-front pay (and the most I have made so far is $3.02). The boons from the site are priceless to me, though. Even the percentages of pennies I earn per page view are incentive for me to continue. I am making more there with a writing exercise than I am on my blog and the possibility for an audience is increased by the nature of the site. Further, when I ask for up-front pays, I get very good tidbits from the editors who teach good journalism (ie using full disclosure, getting permissions, and nixing assumptions in articles). The experience is good and helping me keep my gumption up.

I'd suggest it to anyone who wants to try.

No Shirking

Last night, I told someone I haven't had time for poems though I saw poems brewing. The truth is images and ideas come to me fluidly, serendipitously. They are brilliant like the fiery sunset I watched last night as some friends and I descended from the mountains from a special time together in love and meditation.

Images like that leave their imprints. They are gifts, metaphors already written. . . .

I told my friend I hadn't time to catch them, just yet. Putting them onto the page would have to wait. I would have to mix them into lines and stanzas later, whenever time permitted.

It's 5 a.m. I have been awake since twenty to three after only having slept a short time.

I haven't written much in the last year. I have finished a journal, intermittently made myself sit down to free write and I know better. All of this is fleeting and the filter through which I see any of this right now changes. Plus, the memory -- it can't be trusted. Memory is such a tricky thing.

The poems are brewing. The gifts present themselves. I must be willing right now, no matter how busy I am, to give something to it. My conscious tells me so. The nervous sour smell in my room tells me so.

I want to sleep and I want to sleep soundly.

Story Collecting

During the last portion of my undergraduate degree in writing, I decided to take an interpersonal communications class. Among all the things I learned, familial story telling intrigued me the most. I learned that families could become close-knit by telling each other their stories. A close-knit family is something I have craved since I was a kid. Both sides of my family are spread across the country, literally, and none of us keep in regular, open contact, let alone tell stories about our lives to each other. We know little about each other over our impressions of who we are. The impressions are something, certainly, but without experience of another, there is no or little rapport.

I want a rapport with my family members. Because of this want and this knowledge that stories can build family closeness, I decided to take another class about writing biographies. I had an urge to become a story collector, to compile the stories into a volume for my family members to share. I wanted to contact my aunties and uncles, what grandparents were left, and have conversations with their great-great grandchildren. This became overwhelming to me, not only because of the long lists that began accumulating in my mind of persons with whom I wanted to contact, but because those I contacted were hesitant, closed, almost unwilling to share the stories that I asked for. I related that we could just remember the good things, the happy times, fun quirks and tall tales if there were any, but the hesitancy remained. I was even told to just "make stuff up."

I almost gave up then. Of course, I needed to complete my assignments for the class, else fail, so I inserted some fiction.

During that time, I consulted my mother a lot. Out of all the people I interviewed, she was the most open to share. In fact, she gushed. I couldn't keep up, and I had to call back many times with questions to fill in the gaps.

I know that my Mom wants to write a book sometime about her life, and I think she should do so. I am not sure if she has put word to pages, yet. I do know that she is eager every time I call to ask her about her memories. Because of my mother's eagerness, I decided to start a series of interviews and poems related to her stories. It's a way for both of us to satisfy something. I can deepen the relationship between my mother and I through story telling, and we together can begin putting her life to pages.

Sometimes I feel as if I am doing something wrong, that she should begin her book, and I should leave her stories untouched until she is ready to write them. The trouble with someone else writing your stories, is that there will always be another filter through which the story is being told.

One example is the first poem of the collection I am writing for my Mom from her stories, called "Mermaid," which documents some images from her time in Okinawa during the Vietnam war. My mother commented to me that her time in Okinawa was one of the happiest times in her life. It wasn't enough for me to document the images she related as just that. I applied my own irony, my own filter, and then published the work.

The poem was published last year in the online poetry magazine called Pirene's Fountain, and follows:

Mermaid

When Mom wasn’t making cakes
or practicing her off island dialect
of Japanese to the scowling market ladies,
when she wasn’t taking classes on ikebana,
when my sister and I were not at school
on the Kadena air force base,
she drove us across Okinawa.
We’d hang out of the windows,
hair plastered to our necks, enthralled
by green on green, terraces and vineyards and jungles
green, women with baskets on their heads
traveling down the road in their bare feet.
We passed cart-driven men, their ox carrying
bundles of sugarcane. We left them in dust,
giggled as we passed, waved and smiled,
pointed until Mom made us stop.

These were the best times for me:
When the car arrived at the reef,
after we’d seen the oranges, yellows,
and the reds of the sun setting over the water,
after fried chicken and Nehi soda,
after the first sighting of stars,
we hunted cowries with our flashlights,
the drying starfish and conk shells there.
We found shells nicked by seagull beaks,
with something inside of them, still living.
We found sea glass, coins, trinkets, sand
dollars and oyster shells.

One night there was a woman
balanced on a rock over the water.
She was just sitting there, running
a comb through her impossible length
of hair. At first I thought
her a mermaid, but her feet
folded to her side like arms
hugging in close. Her tattered
skirt and ill-fitted blouse
waved in the cooling night.
Her hair, greyed-black, whipped
at the rock, just as the air force jets
sped across the sky on their courses
to and from Vietnam.

She became a silhouette against the sunset,
etched behind my eyes, forever.