Dear Reader,
When my 9yo came downstairs this morning I said what I always say: There she is!
She made a face. I swooped in. Are you ok? Do you feel good? Did you have a bad dream? Are you hungry? My questions reached a fever pitch: Why are you so sad first thing in the morning?!
Mom, she said, you’re too loud.
Ah.
(It’s me though. I’m so sad first thing in the morning.)
The NYT mini took me more than ten minutes. My average is three minutes. This is a game I’ve only recently started to play. I’m not a hardcore crossword puzzler. Not to be dramatic, but the thought of doing a large one with a pencil makes me want to crawl into a hole and die. The minis are fun though. My grandfather did a crossword puzzle a day for most of his adult life, and he’s the only one of my grandparents who didn’t slide into dementia. He was in his full capacity until shortly before his death. Crossword puzzles or genetics? We don’t know.
My brain is in other places this morning. A possible explanation is I broke my screen rule last night and spent, oh, I don’t know, an hour digging through General Election polls to find a shred of hope. Which there is. There is hope. But, um, you know, Voldemort is out there collecting horcruxes…so….
Actual news here is I am pleased to report I finished the second draft of my novel currently (and will likely stay) titled Dead Dads Anonymous based on my short story of the same name and also based on my actual dead dad. 70,000 words. A complete overhaul from my first draft. I started this new draft January 20 and finished it last week. The second half of my spring semester was a doozy, but I’ve capitalized on this three week break. I said this on Twitter (insert grief emoji) but I’ve found my most successful essays are the ones I structure like a short story and my most successful stories are the ones where I let the vulnerability of an essay come through. All that being said, I have been writing alongside Matt Bell’s Refuse to Be Done, and he has a section toward the end about logic on the page. “The reader doesn’t want your logic.” As an essayist, all I do is put logic on the page. You can’t do that in fiction. You can’t explain to your readers why something is happening. It simply has to happen. I understood this on a certain level but it hit hard this time. “I looked as though I’d been slapped in the face,” she wrote in a cliché. (Seriously though, that’s how I felt.) This is a long way to say I took some risks in this draft that I think will stay as I go into my third. This draft will sit through the duration of June while I teach summer school then I’ll print it out and read it after I’ve had some time away. I’ll send it to my first reader and (insert grimace emoji) I am in the market for one more reader? Anyone up for novel tradesies? The draft won’t be ready until later in the summer. That’s the timeline I’ve given myself but, you know, life is dumb and my brain works against me so who knows. (Who will win the award for optimism today? Hint: not me.)
What else have I been doing literary wise? Oh, I submitted my first AWP panel. Fingers crossed. I have a short story I’m working as well. That just came back from some readers, and I have some revision to do and then come fall perhaps I’ll send it out. My last four stories and/or essays kind of flopped out there, and then I got busy with promoting my book so we’ll see.
Quick reminder that I’ll be in conversation with Miriam Gershow on June 3 talking about messiness in families and friends and writing. Should be a good time!
Speaking of mess in families, I finished Richard Mirabella’s book Brother and Sister Enter the Forest. Page turner! Highly recommend. The paperback is coming out soon. Add this book to your list.
I am still turning around ideas to collab with an actor to put on an event or class that centers on performance reading for writers. If you are interested, let me know!
Yours in Please Vote and Tell All Your Friends to Vote,
Stephanie
I also love the mini!!