Yesterday my firstborn child left the nest. Or rather, I shoved him out (gently, of course.) He’s only a senior in high school this year, but he’ll be eighteen at the end of September, and he’s more than ready to be on his own. He won’t truly be on his own anyway, given that he’s going to a boarding school in Colorado–one where he’ll be backpacking, white water rafting, fly fishing, skiing, and of course, taking all kinds of college-prep classes. Believe me, it won’t be a hardship for him.

I’ve been told by friends whose children have left home that I should “hang in there” or that it’s okay to cry. I hate to admit it, but I’m not at all angsty. He was ready and we were ready and he’s going to be having a hell of a good time without us. The house is going to be a lot cleaner and we’re going to save about $500 a month in groceries. It’s a really good thing! I do love him and miss him, of course, but Mother Nature makes sure we parents are ready to let go when the time is right. A teenage boy’s lack of personal hygiene and penchant for public belching ensure easy parting for the parents. (Perhaps it’s just me. Or him.)

While Eldest Son is making his big life change (and I’m adjusting to only having my 15- and 7-year-olds at home), I am also making a big life change. I have left Los Angeles Review to my highly talented co-editors and am moving on to other writing endeavors. While I’ll always be grateful for my time there, and learned much that will help me out in the future, the truth is that I need to buckle down and do some writing that will earn some actual money. (I promise it’s not because they refused to shower and belched a lot!) This means the kind of blogging-for-hire that I referred to in my previous couple of posts. While it is admittedly less romantic and lofty than poetry editing, I got my first freelance writing paycheck in today’s mail. It was tiny, but well worth the work I did to earn it. Truthfully, I enjoy that sort of writing. It’s straightforward, I’m good at it, and there are a million opportunities out there. It makes me feel good to bring in a little cash, too, even if it’s only enough to cover our wine bill.

Even as I write to the specifications of others, however, I will still be working on memoir and poetry (I didn’t make Best New Poets, again, but have been nominated by Redheaded Stepchild for a Best of the Web, bless their hearts). I have also been hit by lightning in that way that happens to writers when a super-exciting new project occurs to them. More on that to come. My fingers will be in several…uh…pots, or many chefs will be in my kitchen, or whatever (I can never remember metaphors) but I like to work that way. I’m optimistic and excited about what my future holds.  This is a good thing too!

As it turns out, I was invited to write some snarky gossip posts for that company I was hoping to hear from (see prev. post.) It was a lot of fun, although I was writing about a show that hasn’t premiered yet, so I had to do quite a bit of research. Unfortunately, I didn’t get the full-time writing-for-that-show gig in the end, but I was asked to send an invoice for the two posts I did, and THAT, my friends, was a thrill. It’s like being paid to eat.

It was also timely, as it happens. My eldest child is finishing high school at a boarding school several states away and I had to send an obscene check for his tuition last week. Next year, he’ll be in college, and the year after that, his younger brother will be starting college. I feel poverty breathing down my neck, and all of this is beyond even the impressive earning power of my corporate spouse. I’m really feeling some pressure to bring in a few bucks wherever possible, so I continue to search for freelance writing opportunities. (I never did apply to the er0tic writing ad, by the way. I’m just not sure I actually have it in me. Heh.)

Anyhoodle. Besides that, and pecking away at my memoir, and reading novels (have any of you read House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski?? It’s terrifying and awesome and really, really different), the summer has been full of hanging out at the pool, traveling to see distant family, and driving my daughter to and from camp. Next week we are renting a condo at the Jersey shore (yes, that shore….although in a different town from the show) and I look forward to spending many languid, hot days relaxing with my family before school starts again. I have no expectations for the week other than releasing myself from all stress and responsibility.  The older I get, the more I realize the importance of freeing oneself from anything that is toxic and/or anxiety-producing whenever possible. Life’s too short to do otherwise.

By the way, I haven’t forgotten that Best New Poets will be announcing this year’s winners shortly. They’re a little behind schedule, but apparently will be done by the end of the month. I’ve got everything in me crossed. I don’t really expect to be chosen, but if I am, it’ll make my whole year.

Now that I have time to work on my manuscript, I find myself a little bit stuck. I’m not crying writer’s block, mind you. I don’t believe in writer’s block…or rather, I do, but I also know that there’s really no excuse for not writing through it, even if you just write all the things you’ve eaten in the last 24 hours and the three funniest knock-knock jokes you know. I mean, one can always write something, right? But I find that each time I start a new poem, it’s so far from what is in my head that I get frustrated and find myself unable to continue. Or the subject matter is completely inappropriate to the rest of the manuscript. Like the poem I wrote last week about…uh…bedbugs.  Yeah. It’s bad.

I gave myself permission to put aside the poetry and work on my memoir. (The funny one, not the serious one.) That went a little easier. But still, my heart isn’t in it. I suppose I will just have to push through, like we writers sometimes have to do. If we didn’t, nobody would ever write anything.

Meanwhile, a dear friend of mine came to me with an opportunity for writing website content. Specifically, television gossip blogging. People. Could there be a more perfect gig for me? Not only would I get to watch TV and read gossip sites for work, but I would get paid to snark about it. That’s like getting a job as an ice cream taster. Dream! Of course I applied. Am still waiting to hear.

But then I thought, if these people are looking for freelance writers, surely there must be other websites out there who need writers. (I know. DUH.) Honestly, it had just never occurred to me before, having been trained as a literary writer (literary=writing snooty shit for free, at least most of the time.) I figured I would spend my life writing high-brow poetry, intellectual essays, literary fiction, whatever, never make any money, and hope to God that my executive-level spouse continues to be the golden boy at his company forever. Problem is, my poetry, essays, fiction and other “literary” projects have been slanting more and more toward the silly, snarky, and pop-culture-oriented. What can I say? It’s who I am.

So, I’ve begun looking at other freelance writing opportunities. Some that I’m currently pursuing besides the TV gossip blog (which I’m hoping beyond hope works out): parenting blogging; general website content (short articles) on a number of subjects including entertainment, parenting, education, local attractions, etc…; and…um…erotic articles for a couples website. Oh yes. Will write it all for money, people. (Besides, my parents would be so proud!)

The fact is, there aren’t that many people who can write really well, and as we all know, the web is growing exponentially. There seems to be no limit to what people will read. Writers are needed for all that content. So contact me, world! I’m here and ready to write for you. Have words, will travel.

I’m sure nobody reading this will be surprised when I say that, despite my best hopes, dreams, and intentions, there is no way I’m becoming a physicist. Not in this universe, anyway. I’m sure in another one I’m accepting a Nobel prize for theoretical physics even as I type this. (Ha.) I tried, though. I figured out where to start, got an application for school, made a plan, but then life happened and I realized that I’m not willing to give up other areas of my life in pursuit of this dream. So I will carry on watching Into the Universe on TV, and reading everything Michio Kaku writes, and satisfy myself with being a lowly poet, editor, and pursuer of the good life. Sigh.

Speaking of poetry, the next issue of LAR is now in the hands of our Managing Editor, and except for one little collaborative project, I am now free to work on my own manuscript. I really thought I would have to wait until next week, when my daughter starts camp, but I managed to finagle a long playdate for her at someone else’s house for today, so I am dedicating those hours to writing. I’ve got a stack of poetry books I picked up at AWP to grease the gears, and three or four poem titles to work from. I’m excited. After almost two years of being more or less ignored, and not yet worthy of submitting, I’m going to dust that sucker off and wrestle it into something I can be proud of. Besides spending a reasonable amount of time poolside or beachside, it’s my top priority for the summer.  Will keep you posted as it progresses.

In other news, I did a reading at the Bowery Poet’s Cafe in NYC a few weeks ago. It was a reading of contributors to Naugatuck River Review, and my New York reading debut. I was very excited to be reading in such a venue, but unfortunately I got nervous, which manifested itself in a raging case of dry-mouth (for which I had no beverage) and so my part of the reading was a horrifying disaster. The audience was very kind, but it’ll take me a long time to get over it. Never again, as long as I live, will I step in front of a microphone without water in my hand. Because believe me, without spit it is impossible to speak, let alone clearly. As one friend of mine said after the fact, “Well, now the worst has happened and you’re still alive.” True enough, I suppose. So here’s a question for you, dear reader: Have you ever blown a reading or public speaking gig? Come on, share. It’ll help us all feel better…

I’m not a person who can stand the status quo for very long. I have a long history of changing my life up dramatically and impulsively (which, remarkably, I’ve only regretted once, and got out of that specific situation relatively unscathed.)  Almost 3 years ago, I moved from a 20-acre alpaca farm on a remote island in Washington state to suburban New Jersey.  I finished up my MFA after arriving here, and then jumped into helping re-vamp LA Review and all the editing fun that went along with it, and all of those things have kept me hopping along nicely.

But I have some personal goals, as well. Like, for instance, finishing my long-languishing poetry manuscript, which really just needs a few months of concentrated work to reach my vision for it, and then I can start the work of getting it published.  To that end, I made the decision to take a sabbatical from LAR for the next issue so that I can devote my few kid-free hours each day to writing, revising, and manuscript-assemblage.  I’m definitely going to miss the work on LAR, and I’m sure I’ll be pining for it while my fellow editors are putting together that issue, but I’m really excited for the opportunity to take care of my personal writing aspirations.

One of the big themes in my manuscript is physics. An odd thing to pair with poetry, perhaps, but I’ve loved physics since I first took it in high school, so it’s a natural pairing for me. During the last 3-4 years, I’ve devoured everything I can get my hands on that has to do with string theory, quantum physics, and all that hard-to-wrap-your-head-around universe stuff. I’m utterly fascinated with all of it, but not just the juicy stuff. I also love the simple velocity-of-a-ball type basic physics from college. In that college class, I got such satisfaction from using a formula to find the information that is lacking. I’ve said to many people that if I hadn’t been so math-challenged I might have become a physicist instead of a poet.

It never occurred to be that perhaps I could be both a physicist and a poet. Until now. This is one of the advantages to getting a little older (I’m not saying exactly how old, but old enough to start using expensive face creams. Heh.)  With the first wrinkles also comes a lot more self-confidence. I was watching the show “How the Universe Works” with my husband the other night and I turned to him and said, “I wonder if it’s too late to go back to school and become a physicist.” By the next morning, the decision had been made. I did some research, and within 24 hours of the original thought, I had a plan of action. (My husband, knowing me better than anyone, didn’t blink an eye over any of it.)

The first thing I have to do, of course, is get the math skills I lack. This is not a small task. It’s probably going to take me at least a year to get through the remedial stuff I need to review and then get up through calculus. I don’t know if I’m going to dig it and take it all the way, or if I’m going to get burned out and quit after a year or two. But I’m excited to get some new knowledge, to stretch my brain, and to fulfill a side of myself I’ve neglected.

How this is going to fit in with my desire to finish my manuscript, I don’t yet know. I think that, given how very different math is from poetry, how it uses a completely different part of the brain, I will be able to do both in a way that I can’t with editing and writing.  Plus, I will need my engineer husband to help me with the math, so it will likely happen in the evenings when he’s home–a time I never use for writing. We’ll see. The manuscript is my priority while I’m on my break from LAR, but I’m pretty excited for the math, too. As old as I sometimes feel, I’m a young woman, still, and have a whole lot of life ahead of me. Why not do something radical with it?

Man, I’m beat.  Seriously.  AWP ended Saturday and today is Wednesday and I’m still recovering.  Last year was my first AWP, and I was nothing more than a wandering poet, looking to soak up information and get lots of ideas for new places to submit.  This year I’m an editor, and that makes a huge difference.  Suddenly people want to talk to me.  I couldn’t just go to whatever panels I liked and then chill in my room this year–I had schmooze duty at the LAR table (did you see our gorgeous logo tablecloth?  It was bitchin.), I had certain publishers that I needed to visit at Book Fair, I had specific books and journals to search out, and there were events I was expected to attend.  Don’t get me wrong–most of it was highly enjoyable, but it wiped me out.

Highlights of the conference included: meeting many of our contributors who completely ROCK, reading my physics poems at the Mercury Cafe for the Naugatuck River Review reading, and attending the Red Hen Press reading and party. (I do love a party, it’s true.)  Also delightful was hanging out with my co-editors and especially my fellow Whidbey Graduate Caleb Barber, who I hadn’t seen in a couple of years, and whose book Beasts and Violins is absolutely brilliant and I strongly advise you to go buy it this instant.  It’s ok, I’ll wait.  Go ahead. You can buy it here.

After AWP, I came back to an inbox full of submissions. This is a good and wonderful thing. Except that submissions inevitably mean rejections, and that’s no fun. I think a lot of writers have the idea that editors take some sort of sadistic joy in rejecting people. There may be a few like that, but I’m definitely not one of them. I feel terrible when I send rejections. I know very well what it’s like to get them (I’m a submitting writer too, of course) and I just hate to wreck somebody’s day like that.  But it’s a necessary evil. The worst is when I have to reject someone I know personally or another editor who has published me in the past. Uggghhh.  But not everyone’s poetry is right for LAR, even though it may be very well crafted. And I have two co-editors who get equal say in the matter, so it happens. It happens way too often. Perhaps I’m too empathetic to be an editor.

One thing I do want to say: when I get a submission I have to reject, even though I am forced by time constraints to send a stock rejection, you all should know that not only do we read each and every submission very carefully, but we read your cover letters too. And I really dig cover letters that are personalized somehow or are funny or have an interesting twist. I wish I had the hours available to personally respond to all of those because sometimes they really make my day.

Off now to pick up my oft-traveling spouse from the airport.  Will try to update more often, I promise.

We’re full-bore into the Spring reading period for LA Review and I’m enjoying it more than I have for any previous issue. I think I’m hitting my stride in this job, and so many of the previous inefficiencies and hassles have been ironed out, leaving a streamlined process in place.  This allows me a lot more time to devote to reading and responding to submissions. I can’t even describe how amazing it is to read a poem that’s just right and get that feeling in your gut. And then to send an acceptance — fabulous!  I want to grab the poet by the hands and jump up and down and scream teenage-girl-style whenever I send an acceptance.  I think there is a feeling out in the trenches that editors are crabby old curmudgeons and take great joy in finding reasons to reject people, but honestly, the editors I know (myself included) are working writers themselves, know how it feels to be rejected, and go out of their way to find poems they love. (In fact, I got TWO rejections this past week. So yeah. I know.)

There are all kinds of resources out there for writers which talk about dos and don’ts when it comes to dealing with editors. Writer’s Digest and other writing magazines, various how-to-publish books, websites, and even books like Poet’s Market or Writer’s Market will give tips and hints for sending submissions.  After a year-plus of reading submissions myself, I have a few extra tips and hints. Granted, a couple of these might be LAR-centric (every journal has their own peculiar likes and dislikes) but I’d wager that these are likely true for most well-respected journals.

1.  Your genitals are not worthy of poetry. Oh my GOD, you wouldn’t believe how many people write poetry about their junk.  Men and women both, although definitely more men than women. I’m no prude, and erotic poetry can be very good, but your specific bits and pieces? No. Out of dozens of genital poems, we have not considered accepting even one. Most of them just gross us out.

2.  We are NEVER going to take a poem about incest, rape, or any other sort of taboo sexual kink (this would not include a very well-crafted poem from the pov of a victim–I’m talking about speaker-as-predator.)  Come on, that’s just so inappropriate for a mainstream journal, and it makes us feel like we need a shower.  No poem is good enough to justify that subject matter.  Send it to a fetish mag, not us.

3.  If we reject your submission, PLEASE wait until the next submission period to submit again unless otherwise invited. Those who bombard us with multiple submissions per reading period, generally getting rejected every time because what they’re writing isn’t right for the issue or is just not well-crafted, end up spoiling any future chance they might have.  We’re human and we get annoyed when we’re bombarded. We’ll remember your name if we see it a billion times, but not in the way you want us to.

4.  Grow up. If your work is rejected, if you are asked to revise, or if there is some other issue with what you’ve written, responding with anything other than polite professionalism is completely inappropriate and will put you firmly on our mental blacklist. We’ve had people respond to us with rage, whining, and passive-aggressive woe-is-me bullshit. I don’t take that kind of crap from my teenage children and I seriously resent having to respond to writers as if I’m their mother, too.

5.  Adding onto the previous rant, do not slam journals on the Internet. Not only is it totally unprofessional, but we editors are plugged in everywhere. We’re on Facebook, listservs, Twitter, and we read blogs. When I send a standard (and believe me, it’s not personal…it’s never personal) rejection, or if I respond to you and you don’t get your way with something, and then you go online and tell everyone what a bunch of bitches work at LAR or how we were unfair to you or whatever, we’re likely to see it. You didn’t just burn that bridge…it went up in a movie-style explosion.

6.  And finally, remember that editors are human and have feelings and when we’re unfairly or inappropriately treated by you (see 4 and 5 above), we will inevitably share that with other editors. Don’t get a reputation as a wanker, a whiner, or a jackass.  It doesn’t happen often–thank God, most writers are lovely and completely appropriate and professional–but when it does, it can be devastating for you and your career.

I think that pretty much covers my submission pet-peeves for today, but I may add to this down the road.  Meanwhile, I leave tomorrow for Portland, Oregon to celebrate my father’s 70th birthday with him, my stepmom, and my aunts and uncles. They’re all awesome, hilarious people and I’m very much looking forward to the getaway. Most importantly, it’ll keep my mind off Monday night’s LAR reading at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe in NYC, which I am hosting and OMG!PANIC!AAHHHH!WHATIFNOBODYCOMES?!  Obviously, I’m going to need a glass of wine that evening.  Heh.

Yep, I’ve been neglecting you, dear blog readers. Given my mood, it’s something of a miracle that I’m posting now, but I want to get the devil off my shoulder. The one who is whispering that if I don’t post soon, I’m going to lose every reader I have and die alone in a slimy, 16th-century alley while starving and dressed only in filthy rags. (My personal shoulder devils have a flair for detail.)

The truth is, I’ve been overwhelmed by this reading series I’m planning. It’s for Los Angeles Review, naturally–the New York series, since I live so close to the city. Why not? We have contributors from all over the world, not just LA, including many in the tri-state area, so it makes sense to have some readings here. The thing is, I’ve never planned a reading before, so I’m learning as I go, and boy am I learning. 1. Don’t try to find a venue 7 weeks before the reading date, especially if some really obvious venues have been placed off-limits, because you won’t find one with any availability. 2. If you send out a mass invitation to every contributor for every issue (instead of, say, the most recent issue), you will get positive responses from virtually everyone, leaving you with waaaaaay more readers than time. 3. Don’t tell anyone anything about the details until you’ve got it all settled and in writing, or else you will have to backtrack and change plans on people and people don’t like that. Also, 4. be ready for the whole dealio to stress you way out, causing nightly apocalyptic nightmares. Make sure you have someone available to hug you early and often.

All that notwithstanding, things are nearly settled and it looks like the event will be taking place at The Nuyorican Poets Cafe, which I am extremely proud of booking. I consider it a coup, as a matter of fact. It’s March 29 from 7:00-9:00 pm and we have, at the moment, thirteen awesome readers participating, in all genres. Come one, come all, and bring your friends. It’s going to be a great night. Also, they have booze there. If you can’t come in March, come for the second event on September 13. Same time, same place.

Anyway. We’re also getting close to our next reading period opening up for Issue 8, and AWP fast approacheth, and so on and so forth, so the rest of my life has fallen to the wayside, writing included. I find myself, for the first time ever, craving a month at a writer’s colony somewhere. I’ve typically been able to balance writing and an overwhelming life, but not at the moment. Perhaps it’s that winter is getting me down and I have less energy than usual. Yes, I think spring would help tremendously. Sun, where are you???

It’s currently about eleven degrees in New Jersey, and I am freezing to death. My house is 116 years old and has its original windows. Even with the storm windows (circa 1960s), the freezing air comes through the glass. Our furnace isn’t keeping up and it’s only 60 degrees in here. I’m wearing multiple layers of clothing and fingerless gloves. I can’t wait until summer.

Oddly, instead of eating my head off or hibernating under my covers, which is my normal response to deep winter, I’ve had a sudden surge of creativity in the past few days. This is odd, because I typically don’t feel this way until springtime, but I find myself with the overwhelming urge to browse fabric stores and do some sewing, or to create a collage, or to finally learn how to cook. That last one is the most surprising because normally the thought of cooking makes me break out in hives. I am not in any way a natural cook. I find simple recipes confusing. I have occasionally attempted cooking in the past, but it has always ended in disaster. Once, my then-five-year-old son, who will eat anything, actually threw up right at the dinner table after taking a mouthful of my meatloaf.

But last weekend my girlfriend, Virginia, was visiting and she made a delicious soup for us one evening. It made the house smell amazing and didn’t look too difficult to do. A couple of nights later, I managed to successfully make squash soup using a kit from Whole Foods with very clear instructions (and the help of the afore-mentioned child, who showed me how to use our Cuisinart.)  Now I’ve gone and ordered a cookbook and want to try some more challenging things. Imagine how much money I could save by actually cooking dinner for my family instead of depending on take-out? I could probably even afford a vacation or something! The mind boggles.

The question, of course, is how funneling my creativity into sewing or cooking or art might take away from my writing. It will, there’s no doubt. There are only so many hours in the day, after all. But what I’ve always found is that any creative endeavor ultimately feeds my writing in some way. Although I may not crank out the pages as rapidly as I would if I were only writing, the pages I do complete will be stronger for it. I’ll be less burned out because I won’t be focusing all my creative ju-ju in a single direction.

I’d be curious to know if other writers and artists go through periods of wanting to dive into more than one creative genre and feeling a great drive to…well…create. And what other types of things do you do besides your chosen art form?  Anyone?

I’m imagining that you all are out there tapping your fingers on your computer screens impatiently awaiting my next post here, since it’s been so long.  Such imaginings give away my tendency to think I’m the center of the universe. Well, I AM the center of my own universe, after all, so it’s a natural progression that I would be the center of everyone else’s as well. But no, I realize that probably a whole three people have noticed I haven’t updated and everyone else is getting along with their own lives, being the centers of their own universes.

The reason it’s been so long since I’ve darkened the door of this here blog has to do with my mother.  Oy, my mother.  My mother has a nasty and particularly cruel neurological disease called Progressive Supranuclear Palsy.  It’s extremely rare so you probably haven’t heard of it. Suffice it to say that my 65-year-old formerly vibrant, law-practicing mama is now a helpless old woman stuck in bed, who depends on someone else to do absolutely everything for her, and who, if she declines the feeding tube she will soon need, will probably die before the year is over. A couple of weeks ago, I went to visit her. She lives 3000 miles away, so it’s difficult for me to get out there often enough. And although it makes her desperately happy when I do visit, it’s stressful beyond description, given our fractious past, my own guilt, the relentless expectations of my extended family (and our resulting near-estrangement), and the fact that I seem to have a bulletproof wall separating what’s happening to her from my emotional core. Stress notwithstanding, I have yet to shed a tear. I do what needs to be done and try to show her as much love as I can, but the grief that I should be feeling is locked away and I have yet to access it.

So why am I telling you all this? It’s probably TMI. You don’t even know me, after all. Why should you care about my sick mother? Well, because many people (most, even, I would wager) have some sort of difficult relationship with one or both parents, and many people have to deal with the slow, gut-wrenching deaths of loved ones. What I’m going through is not all that special or unusual. I sense that it is a situation readers might relate to. Also because the complexities of my relationship with my mother growing up, and the way it affects what we’re going through together now are central themes to almost everything I write. It is certainly a central theme of my memoir, even though the memoir is humorous and I spend most of it telling stories about my relentless dorkitude. While I can look back at my many missteps as a child and laugh (and they were truly funny in the way only the very sincere and dramatic child’s behavior and thoughts can be), the fact that my socially-perfect mother disapproved of my whole persona much of the time is a key part of the story. Writing about that time and poking gentle fun at myself is my way of re-parenting myself with less disapproval. (I don’t have a degree in psychology, but I’m pretty sure I could play a therapist on TV.)

The point is, I got mired in it all after the visit, and then it was my birthday, which I like to celebrate for an entire month instead of just a day, and next thing you know it’s been weeks without a blog post.  (Also, I am still a poet and was overcome with the compulsion to spend a day writing a poem about my husband’s love of a C.K. Williams poem featuring the low-hanging balls of a basset hound. When the muse calls…)  My apologies to you three people who have been waiting for an update.

The good news is, I’m back now. And I’m getting back to the bad fashion memoir chapter I started before the trip to Seattle. My writing buddies were promised it at least a week ago and I have a lot of catching up to do.