Life advice from my father

"You could buy cheap houses and become a slumlord."

deep thoughts on campus

Student walking ahead of me: "I can't wait for the day when talking shit is going to help me resolve things."

Sing it, boy.

the georgia mud

In an ongoing extension of Bold Moves 2012, I have decided to "real"-ify my website with blog posts about writing. So if you've any interest in my writing life, you'll want to take a gander/follow me over there.

This space, up on the second shelf, will remain what it was always intended for: life, in whatever form.

many mountains moving

Victories:

• Driving through a missile range
• Frolicking in the dunes of White Sands
• Seeing a camel, a roadrunner, and a vulture
• Inadvertently running through a triathlon
• Hiking a mountain
• Visiting a beautiful gym
• Eating delicious sour cream ("Las altos mexicanos," as Tony would say)
• Finishing Game of Thrones and hovering in the local Barnes & Noble, reading Daughter of Smoke and Bone at a kiddie table hidden behind a fake tree
• Finding time for blog posts with Flo

Defeats:

• Sporting a sweet sunburn on one arm post-White Sands
• Stepping on cactus while hiking
• Falling down trail
• Breaking camera while falling

I'll take the mountains.

Give me the beat, boys, and free my soul

After a few years, I'm back in the southwest today. Incessant sun and cracking skin. Pale winter limbs that will never take on the smooth brown of Italian ancestors. So be it. Few trees, no grass. Nothing to bind me to the ground.

equinox

"That woman has brought me to dark places," she said.

Fire is catching

As Flo would say, it’s like Christmas, my birthday, and Lord of the Rings all at once.

(Yay for being at least ten years out of the target audience! Hey, haters gonna hate and all of that.)

That’s why they call it the blues

Last night, I came home from work a little cranky. In the mood to hide out. You know those nights. The query and writing blues kicked in, which of course led to, “And what am I doing with my life?”

Thanks to the power of social media, I learned that my favorite collegiate gymnastics team was streaming its competition online.

As I watched, continuing to feel glum, a girl from the opposing team fell off of beam. She was clearly rattled and climbed back up, only to straddle the beam on her next skill.

Suddenly, my night didn’t seem so bad.

the bailout

This is what we call a life post:

I know how to flip out of the boat. No, no, thanks. Sudden change of plans. Different order of operations than anticipated. So sorry. I roll into the water and swim for the shore.

I can tell when others will do it. I hear the splash before they've made a move for the side. I imagine the hasty excuses.

But lately I want to take that waterlogged vessel out farther. Sit with bare feet as water rises over my ankles, over the bench. Take my chances. 

It was a tricky day to wear a dress.

February ended up dedicated to the querying/synposing/revising/sending/crossing fingers for the YA nov. Truth be told, it was a fun ride. And there's more to be done.

In terms of new material, though, I'm stepping back to the screenplay. That old chestnut. We've made it to Act III and now the two men are in the same room, and one has murder on his mind.

I write it one line at a time, very carefully.

I know that I can go back and take out all of the stupid stuff, revise the heck out of it, make it shine. I don't have to get it right on the first try. But I want to. As close as I can. The words might change, but I want the tone and the tension to be just right.

...

Read: Kayak Morning, Roger Rosenblatt

The Crossing

When those eyes and the nation to which they stood witness were gone at last with their dignity back into their origins there would perhaps be other fires and other witnesses and other worlds otherwise beheld. But they would not be this one.

One thing I admire about Cormac McCarthy: he writes on his own terms. Punctuation, dialogue tags, sudden large words--they're all used at his discretion. It doesn't matter what everyone else is writing. It doesn't matter what's trendy. He writes the way he chooses to.

Frequency

On the radio: something worth loving.

The heat and the sauce.

Today’s revision goals: Turn up the heat.

There’s sideways love in the YA nov. “Sideways” in the sense that it’s not in the driver’s seat, but it’s certainly in the backseat leaning forward. Though the character has a hot streak that’s crucial to the story’s climax, he’s fairly laidback.

And so he should be. I don’t want him running the show. But I’d like him to be a little saucier. Make moments a little more tense.

Connor McDermott, help me to channel your unending hots.

Note to self:

Editing is not merely the elimination of words. I tend to do that: strip down until the sentences are clear and bare. But I have to not be afraid of expansion, though I worry it will appear meandering and fluffy.

The story begins to feel like a body patched together. A snip here, a new layer of skin there. Blazing pink lines and soft white scars.

…

Additional note to self: putting in thirteen miles over two days after weeks of not a whole lot leaves one’s legs tender. Very tender.

Copperhead Road

Firing new synapses is one way to turn mental traffic from one direction to another. Like teaching yourself this dance last night when you saw the way everyone else kicked, and you felt your toes start to tap.




...

Read: The Fault In Our Stars, John Green

may the odds be ever in your favor

February has been a month of bold moves.

The only way to better the odds is to give yourself enough options. Within two days, I had entered five different lotteries: a writing contest, two movie premieres, a marathon, a concert. The first was most important. The marathon, well, I could live without gaining entry. In fact, I probably have a better chance of living if I don't participate.

I tend to lurk. Not in the back alley way. More like quiet reading and research without raising my voice. Or without saying anything at all. I wait. And wait.

Until now.

104 meets 24.

I thought it was a river, but it turned out to be a road instead.

self, meet self

I have to accept that some days (and, sadly, weeks), I am not going to run. I will try to wake up early, but it won’t be enough. There will be something else that I need to do. The voices of so many children who all need something immediately, hands reaching for me.

Soon, though. A time for black and electric blue sneakers. The hiss of cold air on surprised legs. The old slow way of rebuilding.

Real people, fake arms

The prompt: Rewrite "The meal was tasty" with a sound.

The response: "The morbidly obese man grunted as he bit into his eighth cheeseburger."

Inversions

We sat the kids down today for an inspirational talk. At one point, my fellow coach compared the practice and time required to be a successful gymnast to the preparations needed in school to attend a good college. “In fact,” he said, “gymnastics is harder. Fear, pain, injuries.”

I used that same logic when I had to make a long drive by myself at night several years ago. I was afraid that my Internet maps and mix CDs and ice cream that I promptly spilled on the seat wouldn’t be enough. I’d wind up lost or struck by another car or just…I didn’t know, but just worse off than I’d be if I’d stayed put.

When I sat in the driver’s seat, I thought back to practice. Anyone can drive. Not everyone can do aerials on beam, I told myself, and turned the ignition.

After the talk today, I thought about my present fears. About how reluctant I am to press “send” on an email and receive no, thanks, not right for us or silence.

Anyone can click a mouse. Not everyone can turn upside down and back up again.

Here we go, February.