Going through old files is a huge part of being a writer – I hoard even slips of paper with words on them, so I have to take a firm hand with my paper gremlin tendencies and pare down both physical and digital files frequently. On the other hand, it’s a well-known idea that writers HAVE to save things, because one never knows if one’s dud lines or story seeds or bits of fragmented ephemera are going to suddenly sprout buds and leaves and turn into the rootstock for your next award-winning series. It’s a push-pull as always, and requires a mental vigilance that I don’t always exercise. Honestly, like most of us, I err on the side of saving everything.
Fortunately(?) Google is there to harp at you about running out of file space at convenient intervals, so I have been rooting through my digital files. I stumbled across some forgotten journal entries that I wrote during grad school, and laughed out loud at this one from 2003, when I’d first had the nascent draft idea which eventually became MARE’S WAR.
(Am also giggling because this is basically one long run-on sentence and heralded my em-dash abuse epoch so CLEARLY.)
My first workshop with (REDACTED) — September 24 — The workshop was one of the best I’ve had since first semester — workshop with (REDACTED) was basically pretty useless, because internally I accused him constantly of only caring about the bottom line, how things would sell, and we’re just not there yet, but I liked this one. This is an entirely new piece of writing — about a woman dying, and the hospice nurse sitting by her, and flashbacks to her childhood, young adulthood, flashbacks from her children about incidents growing up — it’s much more complex, and much more experimentally crafted, yet much less deeply felt in some ways — the other piece was semi-biographical, and I want so much for my friend who died not to be forgotten that I was heavy-handed and totally muffing it. I feel like writing this piece has maybe finally tapped into something real with me, something new, and it’s an adventure I’m on, and I’m much more sanguine about who goes with me, because I don’t know where the hell we’re going. It’s that “Road Trip!!!” mentality, you know? Everybody just jump in the flippin’ car and let’s floor it. I didn’t care what they thought/said, and that helped so much.
I am also just beaming that I got notice from (REDACTED) — I had been laughing at everyone hero worshiping on him in a big way and totally trying to play it off as banality and indifference — but he wrote — on a short paper I wrote for his novel craft course — “There is grace and fluidity to your writing, even here, that makes it easy to enjoy.”
And the gods ascended!!!
Shame on me. But I’m a praise slattern. I would do anything for a kind word. Just another postscript from my happy, happy childhood… I feel today like maybe I could get paid for writing someday. Just maybe.
It’s a good feeling.
Art by Simini Blocker. Check out her amazing prints.
It’s finding nuggets like this that make me reluctant to burn all my writer’s notebooks in a big bonfire like Amy LV did. I still have the diary from childhood that memorializes the day Jay fell headfirst off the monkey bars.