I began a new short story yesterday. It started as a warmup for a day of writing, but a few hours later I was still within it, toiling away. I think this was a trick I played on myself. I’ve already resolved to write short stories this year, though yesterday was not the day I planned to start. So why was it the thing I started with? Probably because it’s the thing I should be writing.
blogging
Writing in 2018
I didn’t write a ton in 2017, mostly because I was busy revising a project, revising it again, and then creating auxiliary resources (like a series synopsis) for submission. Once that all got handed over, my job as a writer became: WAITING. For the first time in two years I was without a project to hold my attention, and it was a feeling that was both liberating and stupefying. What was I going to work on next? I’ve avoided asking myself this for ages, for two reasons.
How to avoid your publishing dreams in the summer of 2016
It’s hard to write in the summer. At least for me. And maybe I’m alone in this — other people brag about how much writing they’re doing on Twitter, but the quiet irony of this pleases the jealous and bitter part of me (which is, really, most of me) greatly, and so I have to repeat myself: It’s hard to write in the summer.
Read moreHow to avoid your publishing dreams in the summer of 2016
On Being an Adult and Avoiding Quicksand
I know someone who is my own age, and who knows how to do taxes. This, to me, is nothing short of arcane magic. Something forbidden and locked away. A knowledge so base and powerful that even a vague understanding threatens to undo a carefully calculated peace in the universe. If you are a millennial and you know how to do taxes, what’s next? Alchemy? Necromancy? Horcruxes and 401K’s?
Kitty-Cornered
I’ve been living in my current apartment for almost ten months, but only recently did I learn that the monstrous church kitty-corner to my front stoop is abandoned. I know what you’re thinking, and I agree: I, too, had no idea I was this interesting.
God Don’t Like Ugly
“What?” I say. I take my headphones off.
“Looks like barbed wire,” he says to me. I don’t know his name. I don’t know anyone’s name on the SL5 bus to Downtown Crossing. Especially not on a Tuesday morning.
He’s pointing at my ring. “Oh,” I say. “I can see that.” My ring is an oxidized ring of silver made by Elise Moran, inspired by the branch of the weeping cherry tree. “It looks like…” says the man. “It looks like…”
Returning
My life has been a lot of circles lately.
This–as in this act of typing up a post–is the most recent circle. The most recent return.
Today Jackson and I are hiding from the rain and writing. At least that’s what our headline for the day was. “JACKSON AND RYAN RETURN TO WRITING.” A more accurate headline would be: “JACKSON AND RYAN GET MANICURES AND THEN WATCH TWO EPISODES OF ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK AND THEN LISTEN TO LANA DEL REY AND BRAINSTORM WHERE THEY WILL ORDER FOOD FROM.”
Community Service
The walls of the school enclose a large, overgrown courtyard choked with ivies and brambles. A glossy emerald carpet of pachysandra washes over the stone tiles on one end, like a receding tide, and a few students are pulling at it with rakes and sheers.
“We’re not supposed to go past this,” says one student to me as I walk over to supervise the community service. ‘Supervise’ is my assignment, but really I am just curious, and I’d sooner like to find myself sitting in the sun with my book open in my lap. The student goes on, “Because there’s poison ivy.”
“I’m immune to poison ivy,” I tell them.
Educating the Ignorant on the Majesty of Ursula, Sea Witch and Gay Icon
Growing up, I thought Disney’s The Little Mermaid was about Ursula. I thought the movie, though oddly focused on that emaciated red-headed hoarder*, was actually a film about a business-savvy octopus lady’s dream of political conquest, and the unfair regulations she was forced to overcome. **
*(This isn’t thin shaming so much as it is a response to Ariel’s most famous frame, in which she is grotesquely disproportionate. This is compared to the rest of the movie, where the animators did not render her a bobble head).
Read moreEducating the Ignorant on the Majesty of Ursula, Sea Witch and Gay Icon
April is LGBT Month! #LGBTApril
Laura (of Laura Plus Books) and Cayce (of Fighting Dreamer) are doing this great thing called LGBT Month this April (#LGBTApril), and I’m participating!
I mean, I guess I’m always participating, because every month is LGBT Month for me, but it’s more fun to do these sort of things when people are making cute banners for you, and when you’ve got a tribe bristling with restless inspiration and do-good vibes.