... on the first day of my 46th year. I am a happy woman. I'm packed for Chicago (except for my shoes) and I have had a most satisfying day.
I applied for a job today that I'm really excited about and hope to be offered. I've applied for several jobs over the past couple of weeks but to be honest, no matter how much fun I think it would be, I don't really expect that I'll be hired to be a train engineer. Nor do I expect a call back on that position as a facilities manager at the Sandia National Laboratory. Honestly, it has been my intention to apply for the long shots first and then hone in on the more realistic positions after my trip. But the one that came up today was just too good to pass up.
C'est la vie. How fated is that? To learn of a perfectly desirable position on my birthday?
Contentment is wafting through my apartment in palpable waves. Miss Gladys (my cat) liberated a piece of prime bubble wrap from a package and took it to the cat bed where she is currently sleeping on it.
I have my itinerary planned for next week.
Powells bookstore the Museum of Contemporary Art The Metropolitan Library Jazz Concert on the deck overlooking Lake Michigan Millennium Park (concert in the park) The Skydeck of Sears Tower The Hancock Observatory Cubs Game Wicked
Roadtrip to Wisconsin for: Cheese The House on the Rock Frank Lloyd Wright home and museum, Taleisin
Restaurants Include: Les Nomades Mirabell Smoque The Parthenon Puck's
I'm packed and ready, except for this one pair of shoes I just can't leave behind ...
Every year I become more and more surprised that the number just keeps going up and I don't feel any older. I know that I'm nearing the age of my Granny from my earliest memories, but she was OLD already and I'm not. How odd is life.
I have been so spoiled this year with wishes, cards, e-cards, and presents. I love presents. For a long time, I didn't get presents for my birthday or very many other occasions. When people I worked with got flowers, I was always happy for them, and also a little envious because I wanted to be the kind of person that had flowers sent to her. When my girlfriends got presents for birthdays and Valentines Day, I smiled and genuinely enjoyed their pleasure in the gifts, but also had that pang of wishing that I was the kind of person who inspired the people (person) in her life to want to please her with beautiful things as well.
This year, I got SO spoiled. There's no such thing as "making up for". The gifts I've been given have nothing to do with the gifts that never came. The gifts I have been given this year have each touched my heart in ways that make me feel really humble. I've been given the gift of memory (as one person remembered something I'd mentioned a long while back and gave me something I wanted but was unable to find for myself), I've been given fun, beauty, extravagance, and the thoughtful effort that goes into searching for the exact right thing.
How Cool is That?
The only thing I have planned for today is to have my roots dyed.
I spent a great deal of time yesterday going through the tourism sites and planning my "itinerary" for a week in Chicago. Hooo boy are there a lot of things to do there. I'm gonna make next week into seven days of celebration of being happy, healthy, alive, and filled with the blessings of friendship, love, acceptance, and pleasure.
The Summer Writing Festival staff sent a lovely email this morning to let us know that they will be fully refunding our registration fee. The Airlines won't be giving a refund to anybody anyway anyhow anywhere until hell freezes over and even then they'll try to get you to take a voucher for a later trip.
So, I now have a ticket to Chicago.
And I had a hotel reservation for Iowa that can be changed to Chicago for the same price.
And I have money coming back.
Sounds to me like permission for a vacation!
I've never been to Chicago, just through Chicago. But next week I'm going to see the Museum of Contemprary Art, Millenium Park, the view from atop the Sears Tower, Frank Lloyd Wright architecture, a restauarant (or two) that was featured on the Food network ... One of my dearest friends lives not too far from Chicago so I'm hoping to meet up with her for a long overdue hug and catch-up session.
I made sure my hotel has internet. But I'm not sure how much time I'll be spending online with so much to do and see.
Due to the flooding in Iowa City sessions scheduled for June 14th – 15th and June 15th – 20th are cancelled.
The weekend session of the Iowa Summer Writing Festival scheduled for June 21 - 22 is cancelled.
The week-long session scheduled for June 22 - 27 has now been cancelled also.
The Iowa Summer Writing Festival will resume on July 6th. Updates regarding location changes for Summer Writing Festival events will be posted at http://www.continuetolearn.uiowa.edu/iswfest/
The University of Iowa will be closed until June 22, so our office staff will be unable to answer phone calls. Please address questions to: iswfestival@uiowa.edu
For up-to-date flood information, please check: www.uiowa.edu
In seven years we are told that every cell of our body has died and been replaced. Our lives have undergone dramatic metamorphoses of growth and development. We are new people.
If you're thinking of having one of those really luxurious pedicures where they massage your little toesies and oil your heels ... don't wear strapless high heels as you attempt to walk out the door.
I REALLY feel sad for the people in Iowa who are having to deal with the horrible flooding. And I really feel sorry for me because it looks like my Summer Writing Workshop is about to be cancelled. They have already cancelled classes for next week, and the waters are not expected to crest until Friday.
How Selfish is that to be all pouty about missing out on my writing workshop when people are losing their homes and possessions they've workd so hard for?
And Tim Russert died.
And Mary BEAT me at Scrabulous.
And although I did go out briefly today, I'm still a little worried about this new Balcony Bra inspired look.
This One (Two) is for you Dixie Rose
Tell the truth, it's too much! That's not attractive.
45 year old boobies owe it to the world to keep their little eyes down and not attract attention. But no. Thanks to this balconey situation they are making eyes at the passers-by on the street below.
(And yes, the necklace I'm wearing is a birthday present. I was SUPPOSED to be having my birthday party/dinner in Iowa City, but it's looking like unless we want a snorkeling party ... it's pretty much cancelled)
Ladies and Gentleman, is there anything that cheers my heart more than a coupon which can be combined with a sale? When I hit the mall in search of a new bra the other day and discovered that not only did my favorite store have a sale going on but that I could also use the $10 off coupon I've been hoarding, my heart went pitter patter.
The bras in question were pretty with lively summer colors and they had several in my size. (I know that only about 25 of you have met me in real life, so I'll let everyone else in on the story now. I'm a DDD or G cup depending on how the bra is made. Sigh. Now you know.) I'll also be 45 years old next week and over the decades gravity has imposed it's undeniable stamp on my parts.
The bras in question were labled "Balconey" bras. Okay, they LOOKED normal. I bought two.
Uh, I now have cleavage to my CHIN. I didn't know it was possible to push my girls up that far. It's kind of interesting in a Dolly Parton sort of OMG sort of way, but I'm afraid to leave my house. What if I knock someone down with these things?
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Notes from Workshop:
Fictional Seeds:
Lisa Lenard-Cook defines fictional seeds as those ideas that get stuck in your head. It's an image, or a sentence, or a scene, or a situation and you can't let it go. Many of us get one of these inspirational flashes and sit down to write our masterpiece only to have it peter out after about 15 pages. What happened? It was a great seed!
Lisa suggests that it takes no fewer than three of these seeds to make a compelling story. In her novel Dissonance (which I highly recommend to all) she combines the seeds of a disturbing family secret, a concentration camp survivor, Los Alamos, New Mexico, memory and music theory. The result is a book that I was literally unable to put down until I finished it. On every page I found something that made me want to know what happened on the next page.
Time in Story:
Time happens according to two different principles. Chronos is the time according to the clock. Kairos is time outside of time, spiritual time. This is what happens when you are 8 years old, you've packed your books for the day and you're waiting for the bell. The last 6 minutes of the day are longer than the preceding six hours.
Pacing must account for both types of time. Your character wakes up goes through morning routine and an hour passes in that first paragraph which establishes the chronos of your story. But not every paragraph equals an hour. Scenes which involve great emotion are kairos and may require many paragraphs.
Managing time in your story is both a process of knowing whether your scene is in Chronos and Kairos and of staying true to the Chronos of your story.
I have a story that I have loosely called "The Year of Behaving Badly" but it's not 365 pages. It moves in and out of the story's "present" with scenes of emotion. So far it's only about 200 pages long, and my cousin has suggested that I change the title to "Tell Mama What?" because bad behavior isn't attractive to her.
Start All Over Agaain:
Just because you've typed "the end" doesn't mean that your book is ready to be sent off to agents and publishing houses. Set it aside for at LEAST two months, preferrably longer. Then start all over again with revising and rewriting. Revising is working with the material you have, rewriting is literally starting all over again.
Which does your story need? Sit down and read the book yourself, start to finish, in one sitting. SO if you have to clear your calendar for a whole day or two, do it. It's this process that reveals such oversights as a character who broke his arm this morning playing tag football this afternoon. Or the woman who moved to Israel last week appearing in the supermarket today. Fix those things.
Then what? Here's where you reach out to valued readers. Ask your carefully chosen panel to read your book and tell you what works and what doesn't. Listen to them. You're a writer. Don't be afraid to rewrite until the story you tell is the story that connects with your reader and communicates what you want to say.
Lisa's book is called "The Mind of Your Story" and the bits I've included here are but a few of the highlights of a 3 hour workshop.
I had intended to devote this blog to recapping the very interesting material that I gleaned from Saturday's workshop but something else has come up, so to speak.
So tonight I'm sitting in my chair, sipping a glass of water, reading a book that is irritating the crud out of me because the literary minded author decided not to puncutuate any of her character's conversation as conversation when my phone beeped to let me know I had a message.
A picture message
Which turned out to be a photo of something that I wasn't sure was anatomically possible before this evidence appeared on that tiny little screen.
Now I had to decide, should I text the sender back and inform her that she had sent an image of her lady parts to a total stranger?
... you read something that makes you wish you could take the English language in your arms and reassure it that the bad man with the 900-word sentences isn’t going to hurt it anymore.
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