Category: On Writing

Posted in Current Events, On Writing

Sweet Pain, and Savoring

Posted on by Queer Mama Rising

*Content warning: self harm (historical)*

In the writing circles I have been gathered into, writers fall somewhere along a spectrum. One on side are plotters – those who outline, timeline, and map out how their story will unfold. On the other side are the pantsers – those who write “by the seat of their pants.” For those of you who know me outside of a computer screen, you may be surprised to learn that I am an absolute pantser. 

Fun fact: whenever I sit down to write this blog, I almost always know exactly where it starts, and almost never know exactly where it ends. Sure, most times I know what I want to write about as far as a general topic, or story I want to share. Occasionally, even that is a surprise to me. For someone who loves structure and clarity as much as I do, it vexes me to not be able to find a straight line in anything I write. 

Don’t get me wrong – I absolutely love writing. I love the feel of a pen in my hand, the ease at which the ink flows across the page. I love that a simple Word document can keep up with my racing brain, even if my fingers occasionally fumble on the keys. I love the aesthetics of writing in all media it takes, and I will buy any sticker with a typewriter on it I find. I love notebooks and stationary, and how fonts can be used to impart tone and how twenty-six letters can tell infinite stories. I have never considered myself as someone who suffers for my craft.

But the lack of being able to plan for “what comes next” definitely abrades my neural network, sandpaper rubbing against the grain. When it comes to writing, I cannot think linearly; and the longer I do it, the less predictable it is. 

The need is there – the need to put words to my feelings, the need to express the constant churn inside me. Recently on social media I saw the question circulating, “why did you write?” My prepared answer for when I’m famous one day is pretty much, because queer stories deserve to be told like anyone else’s. But under that, a far more raw and truthful answer – because I had to. It’s a compulsion. I don’t believe I could ever stop writing again. So even as I struggle to find a routine, even a rhythm, that makes it possible for me to hit the release valve on these dammed words, I know they must. And they will, whether I want them to or not. 

I recently finished a book called, What Happened to You? co-authored by Oprah and Dr. Bruce Perry. While I have long known the impact of trauma (both capital T and otherwise) on my own life, it was still incredible to hear the neuroscience behind it. Every word, carefully spoken by one author or the other, brought more understanding to my own struggles, as well as those of people I love. 

It was also the first time that someone besides my own therapist outright called self-harm an addiction. 

I’m not sure if I’ve ever spoken about that here. Likely in passing; it’s not something I hide. I don’t wear long skirts or pants every day, or long for tattoos to cover the memories. It wouldn’t matter if I never saw the scars again. I’d still miss it, and still think about the kiss of the blade every single day. 

It has been sixteen years, nine months, and fourteen days since the last time I cut through my own skin in order to find relief. Six thousand, one hundred, thirty-two days. 

The best part about that? I had to look it up. I stopped counting the days long ago. 

Oh, I remember the last date, the whole last event. That one didn’t scar – my body, anyway. I still think about it. Sometimes, I still even crave it. I yearn for that release. I dream of it, romanticize it, and I never go back. 

Not too long ago, I threw a pair of scissors across the room from where I sat. It took me a few minutes to realize why the hell I had done that. Yeah. It’s an addiction, and the lure of it is ever present. I called my therapist, then my doctor, then pulled out my WRAP plan and followed it.

Now here I am, over 800 words into this, and just now getting to what I actually wanted to talk about. Total typical pantser behavior. 

Another concept What Happened to You? brought to light was that of post-traumatic wisdom. There’s something to be said for living through shit and coming through the other side. You learn things – about yourself, other people, and how you relate to the world. You already know, far too well, what doesn’t feel good. If you’ve worked on your trauma, if you’ve discussed and analyzed and contextualized and gotten down and dirty with it, you know it. 

And if you know it that intimately, you can get to know the seeds the shadows leave behind.

One thing my therapist and I have been talking about a lot lately is learning to savor. Lately, just the past month or so, I’ve been trying hard to be more present with what is in front of me, and give my anxiety and depression less of my active attention. (Getting off social media has, annoyingly, been very helpful with this). And while ‘mindfulness’ has been a word that just irks me, thinking about presence and intention has struck a chord. 

On our trip to San Francisco, I had zero chill. Like, none. (There will be another post about that trip coming soon). The train car at the airport heard me clearly blurt out, “Holy shit is that a palm tree?” and “Oh my god, that’s a cactus!” I couldn’t stop staring at staggered rows of pelicans flying overhead in the sunset light. I laughed until I was breathless, chasing my kid in the surf. 

So hey… When’s the last time you looked back through your phone at the pictures you took, on a trip or at a concert or something you wanted to remember? 

I have looked at the ones from that trip nearly daily, and not just pulling them up to show people; but opening them on purpose to think about, and recall the feeling of wonder in my chest as I stared up the impossibly tall trunk of a redwood; to feel the warmth of the tidepool water on the beach, and the cool breeze between my teeth from my jaw dropping when we discovered herds of elk on the cliffs. 

This past week, on Wednesday, I sat down with my morning coffee like I do every morning. Coffee ice cubes, brewed with cardamom and cinnamon, a splash of milk; it was one of the most memorable cups of coffee I’ve had. Why? I’m not sure, but I do know that I savored every sip. 

Another thing – when it’s trauma that teaches you to savor, it also teaches you when it’s safe to do so. There’s a quote I keep thinking of and have yet to find again, about the overwhelming sensory experience in a modern-day grocery store (and no, it’s not the Jon Kabat-Zinn one, which is possibly misattributed anyway). But anyway, the grocery store? Not a safe place for me to be intentionally present and try to savor. Hell, no. Get me out of there as fast as possible. Grocery shopping produces (ha) such anxiety in me, that when I get ready to go, I make the list twice – once to know what I need, then to put it in order of my route through the store, which does not change. The kiddo even has made a little song to remind me that “it’s okay to be stressed, just take three deep breaths” while we make our way through the weekly hell. 

And now, with that behind me, I can savor. I have a beer that I really enjoy, my kid bouncing her way through a game on the beat-up couch, doofy dog under my feet, and I’m writing. Not at my usual time, not even at my preferred time – based on past routines, I should be cooking right now – but here I am. I can see the small smile on my face in the reflection, feel the cool air on my arms and warm socks on my feet. It’s raining outside, loud enough to get past my headphones, and is adding to the ambiance. 

I’ve got a bunch of chapters left to write for my novel, and not wholly sure what I’m doing with them. I’m already dreaming up the next series. And I’m writing a blog post, while remembering I need to keep working on my Skillshare class for social media marketing.

I’m safe, sheltered, fed, and warm enough. I should put on my reading glasses; I should drink some water. For a few more moments, however, I’m going to write – because I love to and because I need to – and just savor this little slice of time. 

… Where was I going with this?

Now go look at the pictures of fireworks you took, thinking you’d look at them someday. Make that day today. Call up a memory, a feeling, if you’re in a place to do so. Or make a new one – let a pastry melt on your tongue, wrap yourself in your softest blanket, or whatever is going to feel so good that when you fall asleep tonight, you can think of it again, and drift off with a smile. 

Take care of yourself. We all have to start there. 

Posted in On Writing

Work, in Progress

Posted on by Queer Mama Rising

“The time has come,” the Writer said, 

“To talk of many things:

“Of blogs – and books – and pseudonyms – 

         Of websites – and of wings – 

And why things may be changing – 

         And what the future brings.” 

(thanks and apologies to Lewis Carroll)

It’s hard to believe this blog has been live for over four years, and we are quickly approaching the time when I began to take it seriously, and what I consider its birthday. Of course, that ended up being six days before my wife had the audacity to die on me, forever altering… well, everything. I know I’ve mentioned my brave friend who asked me if I was going to keep that promise to keep writing, keep posting, before I even starting receiving the mail that follows such a death. And I have. I’ve fallen off in the number of posts per month over the years, when life and mental health struggles got in the way. But I haven’t stopped writing. 

In the past 4 years, I’ve written 74 installments for this blog, along with guest blogs, essays, chapters, letters, short stories, and drafted three full-length books – one in waiting, one independently published, and one about to be. 

My name is Riley Adaris, and I write queer fiction.

My name is Eliza de Rodillas, and I write spicy Sapphic romance.

My name is Queer Mama Rising, and I write this blog. 

This blog – this soft landing, this expression of the world around me and inside me – isn’t going anywhere. You can still find it right here, in your inbox, or on Facebook. 

What is changing is the world it exists in. I have been using Flannel and Ink as the umbrella for my books, and it’s time for the blog to have space there as well. The website will be under intermittent construction for a bit (currently it’s devoted to Riley’s book) but please check it out. 

If you’d like to follow my other writing adventures, please fill out this Google form.

If you’d like to follow me on Instagram for all said adventures, you can find me @flannelandink.

If you’d like to buy my book (and especially if you’d like to leave a review!) you can just click here. Reviews on Amazon are the only thing that pushes the book out for more people to see it.

This blog will return to its regularly semi-scheduled programming next week. Probably. 

Stay tuned. 

Posted in On Writing

Pride Goeth Before the Fall, That’s Why it’s in June

Posted on by Queer Mama Rising

I apologize for not getting a post written and published for pride month. Before the comments begin, this is a public apology to myself. I have had this waiting for me, half uncovered and completely unpolished, for three weeks now. One of my favorite things to say about pride is that I am still queer in July, so I guess it fits that I’m writing about it today.

In the words of my kiddo, “Pride is my favorite!” Of course, as only a four year old can make space for favorites, this joins a revolving list of craft items, activities, and occasionally, the refrigerator. 

Truly though, June is absolutely one of my favorite times. The advent of summer, the sudden drop in traffic as schools close, the rainbows that wash across communities and corporations.

I’ve been navigating the world as woman for my whole life; a queer woman for most of it and a solo mom for over three years. None of those spaces feel inherently safe to me. Pride, and the spaces where it is celebrated, give me a level of safety that I don’t often get to experience. In the midst of the throngs of rainbows and glitter, I can feel my guards come down, and I know without a shadow of a doubt that I am safe to be myself – unapologetically, unabashedly, unrelentingly myself.

I have a friend who is going to be traveling to the Midwest later this summer and it struck me the difference in our experiences and how there’s not going to be anyone in her family slipping her the phone numbers of service buddies who would be safe havens, in case she “runs into trouble” (I still have them picked out along most of her route, though). There’s not going to be the discussion on whether or not to remove certain stickers from the car; there’s not going to be a pact between her and her traveling companion for safety in numbers to use the truck stop bathroom. 

It is not paranoia or a persecution complex that makes me realize these things. It’s lived experience; I have made that drive with my butch, genderqueer wife. I’ve felt the stares and animosity and the threat that hangs in the air. 

It can be easy to forget the differences in the amount of privilege we each carry, my friend and I, in moments like this. I love her with every beat of my heart, she is my family; and still, I long for the understanding of my community. With my friend, I know I am able to safely talk about what I am living through in the context of being a queer woman. I also need to be able to not have to say it, and simply have it be understood as inescapable background. Pride allows me to do that. I don’t begrudge my friend the ability to go on a trip like this to not have to wonder if it’s a state safe to be in or if they’re going to be walking into the scene of a hate crime; I am so grateful, so glad that she will never know that. At the same time I yearn for my queer community, who already deeply understand what’s so hard to put words to, because it’s intangible and elusive; that feeling of safety that I get from simply being around queer folks, even more than I get from being surrounded by women. 

I was talking about this with another friend, one of the few cis-men in my life whom I trust implicitly, about the differences between a boardroom full of powerful women versus powerful men. He said he would definitely be more comfortable being in a boardroom full of women because in a boardroom full of men, he knows that at least somebody in there is going to say something stupid and he’s going to have to deal with that. But in a boardroom full of women, he said his only thought is along the lines of great, now we can get shit done. The safety of his person doesn’t even factor into his thoughts. 

(In keeping with the theme of this being 2-3 weeks late, I would take the bear, no question.)

I operate with the understanding that in this fictional board room – in any random sampling of men – at least one has committed assault on a woman. If it’s full of women however, the dangers are different. The danger to my physical person is much, much lower; I’m not concerned that I’m going to be assaulted or overtly sexualized. Instead my hackles rise when I voice my opinion and I am met with softer weapons: disdain or dismissal, tokenism or favoritism, or a general disagreement about how I live my life and navigate the world. 

Safety is never just about the body. 

By looking at me, any stranger on the street may or may not assume I am queer. I usually wear dresses and Doc Martens, have long hair and can usually be found chasing a four-year-old. In my experience, I’m assumed straight until proven otherwise, especially by men. I never forget that I’m queer and as I have gotten older, I am more comfortable with making sure other people don’t forget either. I keep up my rainbows on my team border on my Zoom screen. I also carry femme invisibility and the privilege that comes with that and so I feel it is my duty to proclaim and own my queerness. There is a lawn sign in one of the neighborhoods that I drive through that says, “if you have privilege, use it for good.” I try to do that. 

(An incredibly important aside: Being queer is not something I ever put down, however, it is part of my identity that I am able to hide if I choose. I am not equivocating my experience to that of folks who are Black, indigenous, people of color, disabled, or otherwise marginalized based on visible characteristics. I implore you to seek out and listen to those voices. Some of the authors, activists, and creators who’ve enriched my understanding include Imani Barbarin (www.crutchesandspice.com)  Sandra Yellowstone (first discovered at Disability Visibility Project), Alexis Nicole Nelson (@blackforager), Silvia Moreno-Garcia (www.silviamoreno-garcia.com), and Stephen Graham Jones (https://www.demontheory.net).)

Pride does not exist in a vacuum. It’s not over when the flags come down, when the rainbow washing disappears and rabid patriotism takes over in red, white, and blue just days later. Love doesn’t win without a fight. I know Pride doesn’t happen without corporate sponsors and police. Pride doesn’t happen without asshole evangelicals and  capitalism, without other power structures, without other oppression. We are not there yet, and I don’t know if we will be in my lifetime, or ever. It’s nice to think about, sure. I absolutely envision a world for my kid where pronouns aren’t a discussion, they’re simply accepted. Where my kid will be safe no matter who they love or who they are. I can make that the reality at home, obviously, but I still have to prepare them for what’s beyond the walls, and the different world that dawns July 1, to say nothing of the morning of November 6. 

This Project 2025 bullshit is absolutely fucking terrifying. I have a lot to lose in a revolution, whether ThE lEfT aLlOwS iT tO bE bloodless or not. Life has already irrevocably changed after the 45th president. I watched and screamed and marched and donated while my rights were stripped away and threatened further, while my community fights across the country for their lives. 

There’s a screenshot going around the writing communities I’m in, that if Project 2025 goes through, there will be bans on pornography (good luck, assholes, and call me a bootlegger) including smut. I write smut. I read smut. Gay smut. Taboo smut. Absolute porno scenes strung together with varying levels of plot with zero apologies. One writer, who is (rightfully) scared asked if she should finish her book, or make it less spicy. 

Finish it, I said. Absolutely finish it. Write more smut. Write it in dissent. Write it filthier, more explicit, more taboo the more they rattle their dicks at us. Write the banned books. 

Someone has to. 

Do I want safety? Do I want to be able to walk through this world and not be afraid of how it will harm me? To not always know that there is someone out there willing to commit violence against me for being me, knowing that “me” is a sailor-mouthed, relentlessly queer, smut-writing feminist with a minimal amount of puritanical blood coursing through my gay ass veins? A divorcee, a widow, a solo mom, a whitewashed adoptee, a solo mom who supports my kid in any and all fabulous gender expressions and identities?

Of fucking course I do. 

But maybe safety is relative. 

I feel safe (enough) in my neighborhood. I feel safe (enough) in my friends’ houses, in my communities. My kid feels safe (enough) at school. I feel safe (enough) at my local library, at the grocery store, at the hospital. It’s not the same as being in the midst of queer folks, but it’s enough for now, and it’s enough to fight for. 

Posted in On Writing

Come Away Home

Posted on by Queer Mama Rising

I want to write about tonight but it is late and I am tired. I want to write about Stonewall, about the cop car that sat there and I wanted a brick to throw for Stormé and Marsha and Sylvia. I want to write about the silver fox I met at the bar, who first captivated me with her existence, then her words, and finally her embrace. I want to write about standing inside The Stonewall Inn, absorbing the history of the iconic place, and meeting Max and Amy and Ronnie while I drank a Manhattan, not because of the city we are in, but because it was Hawthorne’s drink and I am standing in The fucking Stonewall Inn. I want to capture the fierce pride I feel, the depth of grief and despair I feel for our elders and ancestors in the community, for the hope and resilience I feel in the rebuilt bricks and boards around me. I want to write about coming here to New York, away from my child, away from my responsibilities, to recharge and rest and read and write. I want to write about all of this, and I will.

For now, though, I am still more than tipsy from the bourbon, whatever it was that the bartender poured. I’m still high on the strong hug from an attractive woman at the bar, the one who toasted my wife with me when she heard the news. I’m still soaring on the time I get with a close friend who lives too far away, the simple peace that her presence brings with her utter lack of bullshit and unwavering acceptance. 

I vibrate with the movement of the subway underneath us, the boards of this apartment creaking as they shift under my feet, wide enough to feel the space between them with a single footstep. I hum along with the dull cacophony of Alphabet City, the moan of lovers behind the surrounding windows, and the coo of pigeons tucked among the crevices of the concrete. 

I can’t help but absorb. 

The AirBNB my friend found is incredible. It’s like living in a thrift store that was curated with the love and attention of prop masters who have lived in various countries for over a hundred years, and never leaving empty-handed, but always with a deference to the history and solemnity of the items they took with them. Nothing in here feels forced or removed. It feels like a home, more than any rental I’ve been in. This apartment – the furniture, the copious oil paintings, the myriad of knickknacks, tchotchkes, and keepsakes – this is a den of passion and love for art and travel and love itself. There is nothing duplicated here; there is nothing mass produced aside from the garbage cans and what we bring with us. One urn is filled with canes of different heights and handles, one cabinet with salt and pepper shakers. The hats might not match the collection of hat boxes, but they exist harmoniously. The Tiffany lamp with its embedded peacock and cast grape leaves, the busts of iron and plaster and marble, the stacks of vintage suitcases and steamer trunks that tower to the high ceilings; all of it, a labor of love and devotion and joy in the evolution of beauty through over two dozen decades. 

I am here to rest and relax, enjoy the company of my friend and experience what I never thought I would in New York City.

I have been struggling lately – we are about 80% unpacked, hitting that spot where the motivation runs out and it’s hard to figure out where Random Thing, Exhibit G is supposed to fit into our new lives. It must, somewhere; right? We packed it up, thinking it important enough to take with us, so it must be so. 

I have been yearning, deeply, since recovering from my health scare. Having your mortality breathing down your neck like that can have that affect, I’ve heard. I am desperate to be held and touched, and keening to spend my time devoted to the craft and practice of writing.

I had an author event last weekend, and two wonderful friends joined me to help me sell my book. I almost hit my goal of 15 copies, selling thirteen – and sort of considering the goal hit anyway, as at least two people promised to buy the electronic version to suit their needs better. I felt alive there in a way that felt familiar but still sparkled with new energy. 

But I have been out of sorts since leaving the event, carefully packing away my author self and slipping back into the heavy – if comfortable – body of myself as mother, employee, and exhausted. It wasn’t until this week’s therapy session that I realized why it felt like I had gone from feeling so good, so high, to bleeding from my lip as I lay facedown after falling. 

This is the time of year I DO devote myself more to writing. It’s when I take my annual retreat – a handful of days away from my kiddo, away from chores and responsibility and adulting, and take myself out into the world in order to focus inward. I’ve been jonesing for it, my body remembering that it’s time to get away even when my brain needed a lot longer to catch up. 

Thankfully, this trip was already planned. It was supposed to be a reading retreat – books and tea and snacks, and a few excursions, from somewhere beautiful and unfamiliar. Something to break through the ruts that a hard winter bore down in us, a reminder that we don’t need to stay stuck. We can do more than exist, more than survive, more than tune out and follow where our feet are already pointing. 

It’s become so much more than that. 

I am reading – currently, an anthology of Indigenous dark fiction (it’s terrifying and immersive, and I highly recommend it). I’m also writing – I’ve added a couple thousand words to my latest book on this trip so far, and I’m only halfway through (both the book and the trip, so, plenty of space). I am resting, I am relaxing and rejuvenating. What I wasn’t counting on was the combination of comfort and inspiration. 

The way the light comes through the windows in the morning in a way I’ve never seen before, the Persian rugs that remind me of my childhood home. The paintings and piano that stood in my mother’s living room next to blankets made from southwest sunsets and parasol collections to rival any cottagecore Pinterest board. These are collections, not clutter, and arranged in a way that make this a home, that invite the visitor to sink into the velvet couch cushions and allow themselves to drift. 

This makes me feel, somehow, like my dreams are still there, still waiting, still possible. From the little ones of having a space for my tarot cards that doesn’t end up full of other stuff, to spending more time and energy banging away at a keyboard in the enjoyment of writing. In a few days I’ll return home to chaos, but this trip has been a much-needed reminder – I can have this. I can create this sense of home and peace and joy, I can prioritize my home and my peace and my joy. 

My friend bought flowers for the apartment her first day here. The tulips are overblown now, stems elongated and the blooms reaching all around like a slow-motion firework. In looking up this place and its history, she decided that the person who curated this amazing place was definitely the kind of person to have fresh flowers here at all times, and she was right. Before I leave, I am going to buy another bunch or two from one of the vendors who use them to color the street side of their open market. I want to give to this experience, even though I know I am taking far more away than I could ever hope to repay. 

This certainly isn’t the first time I’ve had to go away to come home to myself. Maybe it’s because this winter was insipid and hellacious by turns, and I’m just burned out. Maybe it’s because those gray days are ending, and I’m simply ready for the color to come back.  Maybe I’m just finally fully accepting that the dreams I had, when it included H and Oscar and a homestead in Vermont… those dreams are gone. And, that’s OK. Our family looks different now. Shit, I look different now, and I’m still working on coming to terms with that. 

Dreams change, but that doesn’t mean I can’t still follow them. And with a stop on the way including a best friend, a stack of books, and a gorgeous escape in the East Village, I’m ready to see what happens next. 

Posted in On Writing

“Hey, Have You Read…”

Posted on by Queer Mama Rising

I have been devouring books lately. 

While I always was a reader (save that anomalous period in my twenties), it’s hard to remember a time when I read quite like this. 

Maybe when I’ve been involved in a series; Brian Jacques’ Redwall comes to mind, as do the first five books of a most famous series involving an English wizard student. During my early teenage years, I read everything by Patricia Cornwell that I could get my hands on, about the forensic pathologist whom I hoped to emulate at the time. Prior to that it had been Lurlene McDaniel, the tragic romances of (some terminally) ill teenagers; after that it was Nora Roberts and the approximate six thousand books she’s written, as well as under her pseudonym, JD Robb. By these five authors alone I must have read somewhere between 200-300 books, and that’s not an exaggeration. This is also not to mention the everlasting Babysitter’s Club, Boxcar Children, and Judy Blume volumes that pre-dated any shred of romance or shadow of puberty. OK, so I totally read like this when I was a kid – or at least before college. 

I fell in love with public health reading my assigned incoming freshman book, Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder. Paul Farmer remains an inspiration to this day. That’s the last book I remember before schoolwork took over. I had ideas of being an English major on the pre-med track at that time. That first semester I took two heavier reading courses, one mandatory and one for adolescent lit, which introduced me to entire worlds – the ones that stick with me are Phillip Pullman’s Dark Materials. Those books still take up residence in my soul and influence my daily thoughts, that there is something under the surface of everything we see. The next semester, however, I took a class on the American health care system, and that beckoned me on to major and get my degree in public health. Luckily, it meant I got to read a whole bunch of other books – memoirs and sociology alongside the drudgery of biochemistry. I didn’t realize that the accounts of folks living with Downs’ syndrome or paralysis would be some of the last things I would read for a decade.

The dropoff was steep; I struggled with my mental health in my senior year and ended up spending some time on an inpatient psychiatric unit. I can look back now and have compassion for the young woman who was scared and alone, both vulnerable and stubborn. After that, reading was largely missing from my life. It was a combination of the medications (which I definitely needed) and major upheavals in my life: getting married, moving to Buffalo, and knowing almost instantly that it was all a mistake that I couldn’t make right. For the first time, I was watching TV regularly. I’ve seen more CSI, NCIS, and other various cop drama than I care to remember sitting on the couch in my husband’s grandmother’s house. I was still very depressed even if I couldn’t articulate it then. Finally I transferred my EMT card and got a job with the local company on overnights. It took two semesters to finish the few credits I needed to transfer back to actually finish my degree. The year of school days and work nights pushed me to the brink of exhaustion. I’d sometimes pick up one of my Nora Roberts for a bit of comfort, but reading was something, like writing, that had largely disappeared from my life.

Later, in the early days of our relationship, Hawthorne and I didn’t exactly spend our time together turning pages. We talked about it, though, extensively. By the time they left the field to go back to school and I changed companies to be outside the city, we were an official couple. I had a brief window where I’d always have at least one paperback at the ready.

Hawthorne knew I had not been able to indulge in books and reading the way I wanted, the way we talked about doing one sunny day. They wanted me to read more than romance, which I wholeheartedly agreed with, though it has always remained my comfort food. I had felt so stymied that I was intimidated by the sheer number of possibilities of “what to read next.” I will forever be grateful to Hawthorne for gently opening the doors to whole new worlds and drew me back into this beautiful genre I hadn’t begun to explore of creative nonfiction with authors like David Sedaris and Oliver Sacks. They also introduced me (in some cases, re-introduced me) to Hemingway, to Steinbeck, to Jeanette Winterson and Annie Proulx, Truman Capote and Flannery O’Connor. As I returned to the written word, I introduced them to Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Tracy Kidder. In the four months between Hawthorne starting school and me becoming the quality manager at my ambulance company, I read ten novels, two of which – Bridges of Madison County and East of Eden – are still some of my favorites.

It was an amazing way to build a relationship, on a bedrock of literature shared and mostly enjoyed. We had some failed trials, sure; I liked Lolita, but haven’t yet tried any Dostoyevsky; they never did get through more than a couple chapters of Nora Robert, and I liked more real science than they ever did. As for the myriad of sociological authors they left behind on our shelves? There’s only a few on my TBR: Proust, Foucault, Shelton.  

As I began to read more and more reports for work, I turned less to the shelves again, but never so hard as to forget their importance in my life. Even now I still have a tendency to absolutely inhale the volumes of Nora Roberts, gulping down chapter after quick chapter whenever I stumble across a new one. My mother used to buy me two of her books a year – one for my Easter basket, and one for Christmas. They never lasted a day. Now I willingly go on anticipated binges; I wait a while, cleansing my palate of formulaic cis-het, white, vanilla romance. Then I will frustrate myself trying to navigate the connection between the Kindle app and my library app to blow through four or five that have come out during my fast. I carry the Kindle to the kitchen to get fresh coffee, to the back door to let the dog out, and forget to feed myself (don’t worry, Lucy cannot be forgotten). At the end, I raise my head, utterly dazed and disoriented. It takes a couple hours for the headache to fade and my vision to clear, and few days for my neck to get back to the correct angle from being so intently bent towards the screen. (I’m rolling my shoulder out and correcting my posture now just thinking about it.)

After Oscar’s death, then Hawthorne’s, I have turned back to words. Writing them, reading them, watching my tears soak into the ink. I pushed myself through Joan Didion’s Year of Magical Thinking and thumbed the dog-eared pages of my favorite romances. When I began starting to piece my new life that I’d been given back together, I filled my shelves to bursting (they were already quite full) with self-help books with titles like Girl, Wash Your Face and You’re Not Lost. They had some good lines; there’s plenty of marginalia to go back to, but over self-help books just weren’t that helpful. 

I began reading again, deliberately, in 2021. That year I started nine books and finished five. One of them, Too Like the Lightning, remains unfinished – not because it isn’t amazing, but because I rarely have the time to devote to being totally immersed into a world so different than mine. Ada Palmer’s glorious stories demand of me a minimum of two uninterrupted hours to make any progress. 

In 2022, I made daily reading a habit I wanted to keep (with wavering success) and set a goal of 26 books for the year. Counting a 500-page novel draft from a friend, I hit the goal with an eclectic mix of gay romance, mainstream fiction, Brene Brown recommendations, and nonfiction books about the death of the body. There was the beta-read novel for a friend, two audiobooks, and at least 5 Nora Roberts on my Kindle. 

My goal for 2023 was 30 books. I planned on pacing it out, but then someone gave me TJ Klune’s The House in the Cerulean Sea.

Since then, I have had an insatiable need to stare into the pages, my eyes racing over the text, and never feeling like it’s enough. I feel greedy, possessive; I gather these volumes to me, unable to wait for the paperback versions, needing to feel the weight in my hands. The scent of new books, old books, the dust and the ink all further whet my appetite for them. I long to be in bookstores with infinite money and infinite time, and have visited three different libraries already this year.

On my little retreat in Provincetown; I brought several books that I had started or wanted to read, a mix of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction books on writing. To no one’s utter shock and disbelief, it turns out that when I have stretches of time to myself, I still will find a comfy spot and dive into a book until something interrupts me. I finished two books I had begun prior to the retreat, and read two more completed, and started a fifth. (I also may have visited every bookstore in town and purchased an additional ten titles but that’s not the point. In fact, I should be commended that it was only ten, especially since one of them was a used bookstore.)

I thought, okay, this is a little vacation fluke. I can’t keep up this pace. I’ll fall back into my old ways and struggle to get ten minutes of reading, my little goal, in per day. 

Turns out I was only partially right – I couldn’t keep up that pace, but holy crap, I am still reading more than I have in years. I’ve finished, what, three more books since returning? In three weeks? I am two books ahead of my goal per Goodreads. 

I keep a new picture on my phone screen to remind me that “what you are not changing, you are choosing.” I have been trying to get off my phone for a while. It’s hard. I like the distraction, the immediate dopamine hit, and I’ve also discovered a particular animal sanctuary whom I’m a little obsessed with. But man, I do not want to be staring at that little screen as long as I do. I’ve set limits on apps – 30 minutes on Facebook, 60 on games;  but I can easily make excuses to not follow the self-set rule. I find ways to circumvent it, opening things to read in my browser instead of Facebook, subtracting the Maps and Facetime minutes. Bad mental health days see the times spike; good days, where I hike or create or connect with live people, those days see the times drop. So, too, the days I spend reading – and that’s what I want. 

I want to live a life where I do read voraciously, where I am spending my energies in saturating experiences like books or travel or laughing with friends. I want to be caught up in my life as I get in the lives of characters, to be focused and mindful of the story and my place in it. I want to think of seas as cerulean and feel my heart pound for fumbling first kisses. I want to remember the hum of magic just under the surface and the feeling that we are never really alone in the woods. I want to find the worms when I dig my hands into the earth, brush dandelion seeds from my daughter’s hair, and show her the world beyond these screens. It’s not easy to get away from all the distraction, but oh, it’s so worth it. 

This was long and rambling. Thank you for reading. I hope you keep reading, anything you stumble across. Blogs and books and cereal boxes and bottles of shampoo in the shower. It is thrilling to me that my words can be part of your reading journey. Thank you.

Posted in On Writing

En Queer Air

Posted on by Queer Mama Rising

I just came back from my second solo writing retreat. I started last year and decided it was going to be an annual thing, but both trips have been so beneficial for me, I really want to make it twice a year.

When I started writing this, I was mostly packed. I had my laptop and notebook out; that was it. The dishes were done, the linens collected and cute retro fridge emptied. All my bags were by the front door. 

I did not want to leave Provincetown. 

I had been twice before; the first trip with my ex-husband and his boyfriend, my memory was almost nonexistent. I don’t remember anything but walking alone while they held hands and walked ahead of me. The second time, with my wife and my cousins, was much better; still a little hazy in the rearview (and likely a beer or two), and close to ten years ago. My memories are blurred on the edges, photographs taken with too much joy and laughter to be in focus. I remembered the color on the streets, in the sky, on the people. 

From the moment I first walked downtown, I could tell it hadn’t changed. I mean, sure, I didn’t remember the exact art galleries or the placement of most of the boutique shops, and there certainly weren’t at least four recreational cannabis retailers. We hadn’t left the main drag then, and weed had still been illegal.  

Staying there solo for a whole weekend has been sating the craving in my soul for community, for being queer and creative, for the space to read and to write to my heart’s abandon. 

Queer spaces are few and far between in the real world, and when I’m out and about and it’s not Pride, the absence is noticeable. I feel it in my bones, a whisper the arises with every step on pavement. You are not safe here, not really. You are not the same, and different is dangerous.

I know I exist a lot easier, safer, than a lot of folks in my community. I am protected by my femme invisibility in a way many queer and trans* folx are not; I am protected by the privilege with which I was raised, and shows on my skin. Were I to stop saying the words “wife,” “queer,” “Mexican,” almost no one would look at me and be any the wiser. There is safety in the layers of privilege and protection. Still, I know how many “other” boxes I check, and I know the risks of being “other.”

But here, there is a lightness to my step, a shedding of the fear that inherently ripples through a regular day, a tiny rock stuck in my shoe. Here, I feel I am queer until proven straight. Here, when I walk into a bookstore full of pro-choice and pro-woman and sex positivity rally posters, and I cry, those tears are understood. The woman behind the counter has to ring me up twice after we get to talking and the transaction times out. She offers me the dyke discount, and I take it, walking away with pins and canon I hadn’t previously known. She shared her publication, and invites me to call her when mine is available. 

Here, the veil of threat that hangs over all strange men is gone. I am not leered at, by anyone. Children aren’t pulled away from anyone passing; the only up-and-down looks come from the drag queens who read you in the street the hour before the performance. Here people dress in clothes from the head shop, from the boutiques, the thrift stores and tourist shops, all mingled together. The colors of the town and streets and signs aren’t diminished by the rainbow flags; rather, if anything, the kaleidoscope of the town overshadows the six classic stripes.

I take my time; I walk everywhere possible in Converse and Docs, my skirt flouncing as I step on and off curbs. The goal of this weekend is to rest, read, hike, and write: my favorite ways to make myself a priority. Happy birthday to me, I’m going to enjoy it. This is the first time in five years I have actually felt like celebrating.

My last night there, I walked the mile from my AirBnB to the restaurant at 7pm when dusk was just stealing over, before the coyotes came out. I had two drinks and walked back in my dress at 9:30pm, alert, but not afraid of walking past emptying bars and through residential neighborhoods. 

There is safety in numbers, and the ubiquitous presence of queer and trans* folk was a balm over my fight-or-flight response, still healing after Hawthorne’s death. There is so much hatred in the news, so many people in my community endangered by the insidious poison spewing forth from other states; this gay-ass heart feels constantly bruised. Being in one of the oldest historically queer communities in the US takes the weight off my heart. I drink here because I’m safe, because even at a table alone, I am held. 

The second layer of ease is the sheer artistry I am surrounded with, created by hands and by nature. My first morning, I hiked the causeway at low tide, marveling at the curves the water carved into the sand, the glittering remains of seagulls’ feasts, the grace of the cormorants as they dove. My last morning here happened to be World Book Day, and I celebrated by finishing my 3rd and 4th books of the weekend. I took one to the woods and read poetry out loud, speaking the words into the wind and hearing the trees sigh in appreciation. 

On the map I can see the acreage protected by conservation; in the streets I see the bursting expression of beauty and love in everything from the tiniest sparkle of glitter to the towering sculpture of a snarling griffon. It’s in the flowers planted in tiny gardens, the colors on the houses jam-packed into neighborhoods with streets too narrow to pass on. It is in the library, open til 8pm on weeknights, in the plate glass windows of a hundred galleries, in the crystals embedded into stone walls. It is in the queens’ makeup, and the wrinkled smile of the woman who greets us at the establishment. It is in the voice of an unknown language that sings and reminds me, this is where I belong. Somewhere I can lay down the daily weight of danger, of not belonging, and be enfolded in the loving arms of a place so steeped in creativity, community, and a not-so-subtle “fuck you” to everyone who thinks any of us are less than. 

I didn’t want to leave, and already I yearn to go back. This time, I’ll remember so much more: the causeway and the hills, the way the sand blew across the highway, the comingled scents of lobster and taffy, the sea and pitch pines.

When I did finally leave, watching the rain begin in the rearview, I left with sand in my shoes, zero leftover cake, ten new books. This time, I leave with crystalline memories with the soundtrack of the sea, and a promise that I won’t stay away so long again.

Posted in On Writing

All Tools Need Recalibration, Sometimes

Posted on by Queer Mama Rising

We are a quarter of the way through the year; this is my fourth post, of a goal of 25, meaning I’m at least 4 posts off-schedule. And I’ll tell you, there’s something that’s been really circling in my brain.

Why am I writing this? Why am I so reluctant to give it up?

It’s not like I haven’t been writing – I have. I’ve got a couple different projects in the works that are insistent about the little time I have, and my attention no matter where I am. Soon, they’ll demand even more: a social media presence, marketing, and hopefully, in-person and virtual events. That’s a lot to squeeze in to an already full schedule of mothering, working full time, and general adulting. 

Many other projects sit unfinished; short stories, an essay collection, a Patreon under a pen name that I once had dreams of funding other projects. The simple truth of the matter is I will never have enough time to write all the things I want to, even if it were my full-time occupation that also paid the bills. Because once I start pulling those out of my head and onto paper and out into the world, they are replaced exponentially with new ideas. 

Don’t get me wrong, I love the ideas, the never-ending spiral of creativity. But the actualization of those ideas, the transcribing and editing and whatever comes next, takes the most finite of resources: time, money, and energy. Something’s gotta give. 

If you know me, or have been reading for a while, you’ll know I need a clear and framed approach. So here goes. 

Of the multiple potential routes from here, I see three solutions I’m willing to consider. 

  1. End the blog: or at least, the desire/promise to post every 2 weeks. This has already sort of happened naturally, except the need is still there, knocking.
  2. Change the blog: lower the drawbridge between what I write here, and what I write elsewhere.
  3. Change the goal: adjust downward from the goal of 25 posts this year to a number that feels more reasonable, and is in within reach, as long as effort is put in.

Ending the blog would remove the self-induced pressure and internet accountability (which, mind you, has been incredibly loving and gentle when it does come) of posting on the bi-weekly schedule. With my daughter getting older, there is now more to do with her – events at the library, birthday parties, sports and activities. This often comes on weekend mornings, historically my most productive writing time. 

Winter sapped my energy. Now that we have turned the corner into spring, albeit a chilly one, I had hopes of the switch flipping, and the tap of words just flowing. That hasn’t been the case. I am still tired, I am still struggling to wake up in the mornings with enough eyes-open time for myself before the day starts.

Perhaps the biggest reason to continue the blog on a schedule is simply the fact that I enjoy it. I’ve learned, with time and therapy, that reason is valid AF. 

So that knocks off choice #1. I’m left with changing the blog, or changing the goal. 

I’ll start with the latter, since it’s less anxiety provoking. Changing the goal is not really an issue for me. I work in managing change, for crap’s sake; you can’t do quality improvement without rocking the boat. And I support those changes, and the people making them. I know it’s not easy, it’s not comfortable at first. And sometimes, the goals we set need to be adjusted because of factors outside of our control. Even if it’s because of things that are within our control, they can need to change: maybe the original goal was too ambitious or aggressive, or it just does not fit anymore. Right now, 25 posts seems like a lot to catch up on, if all other things remain the same. 

Changing the blog? That’s a little scarier.

For over two years I’ve used this blog to explore grief, to maintain hold of some sort of thread of consistency after Hawthorne’s death; I’ve used it to complain and work through why things are so goddamned hard sometimes. I have hoped that by voicing my struggles, others who might stumble their way here might not feel so alone. Delusion of grandeur? I don’t think so, but it’s possible. All I know is that when Oscar died, there was one (1) blog about a queer family and stillbirth; an excellent one, to be sure, but only one I could find. 

More recently I’ve been writing about writing – not to steal the title from one of my favorite bloggers at Writing About Writing, which you should also check out. I’ve also written a couple fiction pieces, and a couple reworks of writing prompts I’ve had from other spaces. For the most part, the divisions between the different types of writing that I do have been secure and unbreached. What would it mean to do so?

I write under two different pseudonyms, for the sake of distinguishing and protecting the content and myself. I’ve got family who read this (thank you, love you all) whom I would not be comfortable reading my more, uh, explicit content. And I’ve chosen a name to publish my book(s) under which I’m not releasing here. If my wildest dreams come true, I want a little bit of separation for my daughter and my family. Maybe should have thought about that before I started this, but hey, I hadn’t even thought about writing a novel, let alone publishing it. Those goals definitely changed, so I guess now we will see how long I can successfully keep those separate. 

Also, I write these quickly. My novel has been in the works for nearly two years. But for me, blog posts aren’t painstaking works; sometimes, like today, they come out all at once. Sometimes there are weeks in between the start and the finish, but the actual writing/editing/tweaking time isn’t more than 3 hours. I’ve got friends who have been working on a single piece that will go on their blog – they’ve been refining and perfecting, moving with it as it morphs and changes – and it’s amazing (still, can’t wait to see that piece online, hmm?) That’s just not what my blog is for me.

Which brings me back to the changing the blog to work better for me, to have it meet my evolving needs. Over the years – and it feels astounding to know that it’s been a plural number of years now – I have used this space for exploration of my grief, of life after loss, of family and writing and myself. Sometimes I wonder if it’s too “journal-y,” but based on what my actual journals look like, the answer is definitely no. 

Natalie Goldberg says that we need to dive through and compost our thoughts in order for something halfway decent to come from it. In Writing Down the Bones, she says that “Our senses by themselves are dumb. They take in an experience, but they need the richness of sifting for a while through our consciousness and through our whole bodies.” This would still be a space for exploration, it’s just a matter of what I’m exploring.

At the end of the day, I realize that this is my blog and I can do literally whatever I want with it. I answer to no one for this. No higher power, no internet-at-large. You read it for whatever reasons you have – you support me, you like to ramble along the twists and turns of my brain, you’re bored and this shows up in your inbox. For whatever reason you show up, thank you, I appreciate you. 

And I’m going to keep showing up. Clearly the answer is not to stop writing, not when I’ve punched out over a thousand words of this on a solo Saturday morning. I could move the goalpost, and aim for 20 rather than 25, doing 2/month from here on plus a couple extra. But I don’t think I’m going to do that. I’m going to stick to the original goal of 25, knowing that I’ll be re-evaluating again come the end of June. 

Which means that the content is going to change somewhat, and this time, I’m not putting restrictions on it (don’t worry, fam, the sexy stuff will still be elsewhere). I’m just going to say, don’t be surprised if you read something that seems a bit different than my usual. And one day if you pick up a queer novel with a strange name you’ve never heard before and pieces of the story seem familiar? Maybe you’ll remember a blogger who had trouble with self-imposed deadlines. Or maybe you’ll just enjoy the vague familiarity, and you’ll let yourself sink into the story as if it were the couch of an old friend. 

However it goes, I hope you enjoy it, and I hope to see you along the way. 

Posted in On Writing

Grace? Yeah, I Know Her.

Posted on by Queer Mama Rising

I’ve learned to give myself grace over these past two-plus years; as someone who has always found relaxing to be stressful, it was a hard lesson. I needed to learn how to let things go, how to swim with the tide and let it carry me, without feeling guilty for it. Not everything had to be a struggle, even if life with a three-year-old can otherwise indicate. 

Now, I think, it’s time to give myself some goddamn accountability. 

This is said with no self-directed anger, no guilt, and no shame. There is no judgment to pass. I have given and given and accepted and accepted the grace from myself and others for what I have done and not done, and for what I have lived through. The past few years have been a lot; the past year, the past month. 

The days have been so, so long. I wake up, my child wakes up. We go to our respective daily responsibilities with different levels of engagement, with their different structures and purpose. We come home at the end of the night, tired; we eat, stare at the TV and each other, read a couple books and head to bed. There’s a lot of scrolling involved, a lot of half-hearted conversation. I have learned to be at peace with both wanting to do more, and knowing that these last blustery nights of winter are not going to be the time.

We’re supposed to get a big snowfall in a couple days; there’s been precious little this winter thus far, just enough for two quick snowy adventures. We haven’t even busted out the snow pants yet. Now here in mid-March it sounds like the lion finally has sank his claws into the low hills and curves of coastline, dragging the dregs of winters along. I won’t be running this week, though I’m cleared to, and I’m feeling physically better than I have since last May.

I made it out for a couple solid walks this week, walking out my door at work and letting it slam behind me, keeping my pace quick as I crossed neighborhoods and made my way to the beach. The sea was restless and high, prowling along the shore. She’s waiting for something.

I felt the pull of the tide, shifting and tense, echo in my veins long after I left the sands behind and made my way back to the office. I try to channel the energy into work, seat-dancing with the jitters, getting psyched up for a major project kickoff the next day. 

Until my director called and told me I was off the project; it had been recategorized to another (albeit more appropriate) department. The hours I’d put in on it this specific project for the past four months were for nothing. 

Anger spilled from my eyes in hot tears, tightening my throat on the repetitions of, “this is bullshit.” I felt overlooked and invalidated; thankfully, I’m close enough to my supervisor to ask if this is because of something I’ve done, and she was able to quell those worries before they even had time to blossom. 

The following four days were tough. Something about this felt pivotal; I remembered the sea’s edge, the cold foam that rolled up along the shore as waves broke further out in the harbor. Suddenly the surf seemed far away, as if I walked along a cliff edged with small stones that bounced their way over the edge. Change felt imminent. I talked with friends about it, paced and swore. I wished I was able to not throw myself into things like this. Why did I sink so much of myself, so many of my spoons, into the hours that I traded for pay? Because I care about my job, and I’m passionate about my field and the potential in it. OK, well, if I didn’t care about the job so much, would it be easier on me? Would I be less tired, feel less discouraged and down if I could find a job that didn’t challenge my heart and soul so much? 

If I were going to be so absorbed by something that it had the power to drive me to tears of any kind… did it need to be a job?

Yes, of course, I thought. I need to work. Working provides health insurance, stability, and a paycheck, which provides food and shelter and more stability. Those are basic needs that a job meets. Satisfaction comes after, then passion. Cool, cool. 

But what if… 

I grabbed a notebook and the first thick pen I could find.  

What would it look like if I took this writing thing seriously?

Not quit my job seriously, or like all the success stories of pretty white girls who “just went for it.” I’m 36 year old solo mom with student loan payments about to restart. The farthest I’m going to “go for it” is picking up the jar of medium-heat salsa at Wegmans for an untested recipe. I’m not moving to Bali for six months to write my book, or turn a fitness instructor career into a successful entrepreneurship. For those that did, good for them – that’s just not me, not where I am, and really, not what I want.

I want my stories read. I want people to read them, talk about them, enjoy them. I want my words to mean something to someone, whether it’s an inspiration or a moment of recognition, or a laugh in a dark moment. I want to connect with people. I want to tell stories I see myself in, see my friends in. I want to be part of the movement of more queer representation in fiction. I don’t need to be the next TJ Klune (though holy shit, if you haven’t read him yet, GO), but the mark I want to leave on this world is in that line. 

I’m currently sitting on 6 half-finished blog posts (yes, I’m still very behind) and two novels – one in its 9thround of edits, and I’ve been querying agents for, and one that is a rough draft of the second book in a series of seven. How long am I going to leave them sitting on my computer? How long am I going to wait?

The first novel – a standalone fiction piece, about 250 pages – wasn’t planned. Oops. It had started as a short story, and just kept going. It still needs some polishing, some work; looking back and editing it, I can see how far I’ve come in my writing since “finishing” it, so the tweaks continue. Still, I’ve sent out eighteen queries to agents for representation. I’ve had 8 outright rejections, consider 2 more to be rejections (waiting for a response for over a year), and have 8 open and sitting in agents’ inboxes. 

I wrestled with the idea of going the self-publishing route for an absolutely asinine reason – I felt like maybe I hadn’t paid my dues as a creative person enough. The memes are out there: “Stephen King was turned down 80 times. Keep going.” Agatha Christie had a bunch, John Grisham, Jack London, NK Jemison. 

I was absolutely shocked when I received my first rejection – a form email the day after I had sent it. I wasn’t shocked by the rejection, but by my reaction – I had done it. I had sent it out into the world. The letter felt like a rite of passage, and did not discourage me in the least. Some of the rejections I’ve received have been helpful, giving advice on what to clean up for my letter, or story or synopsis. A few have been just templated, [INSERT NAME HERE] that leave me nothing to improve. 

I have also had three actual people read, finish, and provide excellent feedback on that novel’s first iteration. Some of the points, I acted on; others I stood by, all for one reason or another. The consensus I came away with was, “this is pretty good, and could be even better.” 

After voicing my artistic angst at not “paying my dues,” to someone who loves me enough to not scoff (until later), I was able to let that notion go. I need a publisher to get my book printed and distributed, not to validate my talent. I wanted an agent to make the connections and worry about the marketing, not to pat me on the head and tell me that we will try again.  

If I don’t hear back with a positive response from an agent by my 37th birthday, I’m moving ahead with self-publishing. Based on that timeline, by the end of 2023, I will be a published author.

I had to pause after writing that. Sit back, take a healthy gulp of coffee.

How’s that for some goddamn accountability.

Posted in On Writing

Well, FINALLY

Posted on by Queer Mama Rising

12/5/2022

There’s something wonderful about intending to go to bed early, and just read for ten minutes; then finding yourself at the end of a book, your feet freezing from being in such a position that they fell asleep without you. 

This is what I aspire to.

As a writer – a title I am still getting used to calling myself – my goals are amorphous(?). They are shapeshifters; I want to write full-time, I want it to pay my bills so I don’t have to commute any more. I want to afford a small house where the floors don’t creak until Lucy’s old enough to sneak in, and that’s when they alert me. I don’t need to be famous,  I just want my stories known. 

I want to keep people up past their bedtime reading my books. 

When I finished what I (foolishly, naively) thought to be my final draft of my first novel, I gave it to my closest people who would not blow smoke up my ass. They had some great notes and critiques, and told me all their thoughts, good and bad. And one told me they’d stayed up later than they meant to reading it. 

I carry that like an ember.

12/30/2022

I have done no writing this December, other than the 200 or so words above. Not a blog post, not a journal entry, not even scribbled thoughts from my walks. I don’t know why, exactly. Maybe I needed that break after November, where I wrote 50,194 words of a new novel to win NaNoWriMo. That seems legit, right? That’s a lot of output for one month, especially while balancing being a solo mom to my toddler, working full time, and trying to keep up with the rest of life – which, admittedly, some of which went to crap.

Maybe I ran out of motivation; it’s not always easy to get up and moving and settling down to pull words out of my brain at 5 AM, and often harder to get back to that after putting Lucy to bed.  I know my mental health took a dive; what poet Jarod K. Anderson refers to as “brain weather” was dark fog and thunder for days on end. But did that happen because it’s winter and I have SAD as well as complicated grief? Or did it happen because I stopped writing daily, all of my carefully structured routines fell away, and the darkness took the opportunity to close in? 

1/27/2023

It’s January now, less than a week left. The writer is there; I’ve got lines and paragraphs that are waiting to find a home, waiting to be taken in and finished and find their place. I’ve got quotes and prompts aplenty, creative fodder galore (quick, name that tune). I’ve updated my inspiration journal, my reading journal, my daily journal. My writing? Not so much. But she’s there; maybe buried under blankets of inactivity and depression, but there, and stirring. 

This is not going to be a good blog post. This is not going to get my voice out there and be read by anyone other than those who have subscribed, and honestly? Maybe only half of those folks, too. 

That’s OK. 

This blog is for me. I have other writing projects that aren’t for me. I write and edit things for work, for friends; there are a few of you who might read this whom I owe some thoughts to, and I promise I’ll get to them. I’m working on edits for two novels I’ve written, and one in progress. I have multiple short stories and flash fiction sitting, waiting for their turn. Those are different. Those are the stories I intend to put out there only after high polishing and buffing, and hopefully, professional publishing services. 

This is where I practice, where I make mistakes. Where I stream it out and write from the heart, whatever comes out. There’s no guise, no plan, no plot or structure. It’s raw, sometimes more so than others. It’s public because just knowing it’s public gives me the accountability I need to return, even when the words are slow to come, even when the document sits open for fifty-one days. 

My goal for this blog in 2023 is to publish 25 posts. I was torn between 24 (2 per month) and 26 (once every 2 weeks) and split the difference. In one aspect, I am already behind; I’m not going to get two out this month, which means I’m already playing catch up. 

In another aspect, I’m just getting started.

I haven’t spent the past weeks since NaNoWriMo idle. I’ve been in consumption mode; I’ve been reading more than ever, searching out inspiration instead of passively scrolling. I’ve been back in the MasterClass series, hanging on the words of N.K. Jemison. I’ve got podcasts lined up, and plans. So many plans. Best of all, I finally have my pen name for what I intend to publish – with or without a publishing house.

Two major things I have accomplished since NaNo might not seem like the sort of things one would crow about, or even call accomplishments. For me, they are. One, I’ve set a date to self-publish my first novel. If none of the queries I have out to agents come back positively by then, I’m partnering with a service to publish my own novel. 

The second is even more of a victory. Every so often, when I would write before, I’d come across something that sounded close to my poems, or someone who sounded more like me but so much better. And I’d stop. If I wasn’t going to be the best or the first, what was the point (I need to be cautious, my gifted child status is showing)? 

This changed in 2022. I remember the exact moment; I’m not going back to check, so forgive me if you’ve already heard this story. I had taken myself on a solo writing retreat in the mountains for three days and nights. I brought along The Night Circus on a whim. On my second full day, as I added more hot water to the clawfoot tub that had gone tepid while I was engrossed in Erin Morgenstern’s world, I felt the ground shift. Beliefs and doubts, worries and hopes were tossed around like Boggle cubes and settled into a new pattern, a mosaic tableau that rolled out, just waiting for me to take the first step.

I was reading something incredibly magic and engrossing; and it made me want to write. I wasn’t dismayed, I wasn’t disheartened that I could never write that well.

I wanted to write more.

I wanted to bring people into my world, into my stories, to captivate the reader, to pull them along the plotlines and pitfalls.

It took 35 years to figure out I could be inspired, not outshone, by people who were good at what I wanted to do. I guess that shouldn’t surprise me, seeing as it took 34 years to realize I didn’t want to “have it all,” as I had been raised to believe. 

Better late than never.

Today, in the final days of January, I have more than doubled my word count for December. It’s nothing that will get me on the NYT bestseller’s list, but it certainly has not been a waste. I had already decided that my word of the year is “Forward,” following the concept of non-zero days, something I learned on Reddit (yes, inspiration is everywhere). Any progress is good. Another quote I’m keeping in mind, and I am not going to go down an internet rabbit hole trying to figure out where it first came from, but it was still important for me to learn: “Anything worth doing, is worth doing half-assed.” 

As I’m sure it is for some of you, this is a MAJOR adjustment from the idea that “anything worth doing is worth doing well,” another maxim I was raised with. 

So while my blog goal will stay at 25 posts this year, it’s just that: a goal. I may or may not make it. I will absolutely try, but as long as I can continue the forward momentum, no matter how small, I’ll take that as a success. 

If you’re still subscribed, or still reading after this ramble, I hope you’re coming along for the ride.

Posted in Beliefs and Practices, On Writing

Girl, You’ve Got to Be What Tomorrow Needs

Posted on by Queer Mama Rising

When I woke up this morning, two things came to mind: I remembered being extremely wary of mystical readings until just a few years ago; and I cannot begin to count the number of times I’ve been told I have an “old soul.” My feet hit the floor with purpose, knowing I wanted to tap into that soul today. I readied for the day, getting Lucy fed and dressed, the dog out. I did the things that needed doing; took Lucy to daycare, picked up prescriptions, called to get a repair on the car.

The sky is Oscar blue, brilliant and deep in the spring air. The maple tree extends her shade, bright new leaves reaching for the sun, a blanket of her fallen flowers in her shade. My new plastic Adirondack chair was covered thickly with samaras, helicopters that never quite touched down. I feel insulated from most of the noise of the city around me, and the tension in my shoulders finally starts to slide away. 

Since my birthday, I have had ideas knocking around my head. Essay topics, snippets of poems, ideas for long-form and short-form stories; fiction, nonfiction, memoir, academic writing. I feel surrounded by words; if this were a Disney film, my hair would catch and lift on a breeze of prose, as the words wound themselves through my animated world and the townspeople joined in my song. Je m’appelle Marjanna, et j’ai quelque chose pour dire. 

I kept my birthday very low-key this year. I had a beautiful weekend where I was more focused on myself than I had allowed myself to be before. One of the gifts I gave myself was today. I am off work today. I took the day off, on purpose; I have no appointments, no reservations. I’m not sick, and neither is my kiddo. 

I took the day off so I could write. 

Those reading it may not gasp at this thought, but I certainly did. I practically heard the record scratch. What a crazy idea, I thought. Taking a day off to write. 

I texted some friends; want to hear a crazy idea? Sure, they said. I told them. 

“Cool. So what’s the crazy part?”

I do not take days off lightly. I don’t take days off without reason. To do so, and focus on writing, on me and my craft, feels over indulgent. Who am I to think that my writing is so important that I can skip my actual job in order to focus on it? I must have some ego to think I’m good enough to justify that. 

The audacity of me. 

Self-doubt began to slither in the door that sarcasm and negative self-talk left open. It climbed like smoke, scaling the walls, winding around my body, curling tendrils around my fingers. I tapped out my thoughts on the bright screen in front of me. 

No, it’s silly. I can’t. I’m not really a writer. I’m not published, how can I actually be a writer? This is stupid.

Three dots, blinking. 

“You write, don’t you? You’re a writer. Take the damn day.”

Sometimes we need reminders of what’s true in our lives. When the night closes in and the doubts follow, it’s easy to get trapped in the sticky, negative thought spirals that can drag you down. You start to follow that path down, down, a sickly pale the only light you can see, so you follow it. 

It leads nowhere; it takes you through caves and channels you didn’t know existed, paths you thought you left behind long ago. It is the upside down; you’re not sure if it’s real, but it’s all so familiar, almost comforting. It’s easy to stay, in this dark world you know; you’re tired of fighting, tired of trying. The effort to get back is too much, why not just sink in? The darkness gets its hooks into you, a thousand tiny daggers; it feeds on you, draining you of your energy, your will. 

It is so insidious, so quick to come when you slip. It is opportunistic and cagey, using your own thoughts and words against you, twisting and distorting everything you have worked for, dismantling the structures you so carefully built. 

And it lies. 

The smoke shrank back as I pondered that answer. I write, yes, this is true; doesn’t that make me a writer? I cook, but I’m not a chef; I stitch, but I am no seamstress. What makes writing different? 

I cook to feed myself and my family, to show love and to share with them. I stitch to relax my mind and keep my hands busy, to show love and to share with friends and family. 

And I write for me. 

Me, first. I write for Oscar, and I write for Hawthorne; I write for my father, my mother. I write for all those beyond the veil, whose stories are left in limbo; and I write for those here as well. I write for my friends who can’t find the words; I write for those who hurt, for those who question. For those who wish, and want, and dream. I write for Lucy, that she may know who I have known. 

And.

I write for me. First. Foremost. Finally.

I recently was a guest on a podcast where I talked about confidence (among other things). I felt like I rambled, and the final version hasn’t hit the air yet, so I am not sure how it all worked. I enjoyed the experience so much; I loved talking to the host, and getting to dig into my interpretation and experience with confidence. A lot of my readers thus far have been friends and family; if you’ve been around some years, you know that confidence has not been something that came naturally. If you haven’t known me long, it may or may not surprise you. 

Confidence, to me, is an energy. It’s a force and a flow, something that can be harnessed or let loose. It shifts; it waxes and wanes. As with any energy, there can be disruptions, and you need to reset. On the podcast I mention those friends who help make that happen.  

No one can shake my confidence like I can, when I follow that path, when I let myself be carried by that thick gray smoke. I am a master at getting in my own way, at talking myself out of things. I flip to feeling guilty and self-indulgent very easily. It’s hard for me to see that it is an act of love to do things for myself, too, not just for others. I am learning every day how to love myself. 

I had a tarot pull for my birthday, a full-year spread to welcome 35. It’s been on my mind, daily; I’m not so skilled at reading the cards yet. My mind plays with them like Lucy with a Rubiks cube; futz around with it, shake it, chew on it a little. This is the first time I’ve had such a major pull. I have an app (which feels a bit like cheating, but I like it) for a daily card. I believe that you bring as much to the cards as they give to you. Some days it’s a BOLO, sometimes a new perspective. Some days, it’s the piece that completes the picture.

My card this morning was the Four of Wands, and the key words given were Home, Backbone, and Foundation. Not a bad omen for my first day off to pursue being a writer.