In need of one more bag, I grabbed this little green duffel belonging to my dad just before leaving Virginia last September. Now, I keep finding all this cool shit in it that is literally from another time. After that Scottsdale wedding weekend back in April, I came across a receipt from a cafe in Gare du Nord in Paris, when the family went European Vacation for my college graduation present. Then, unpacking it this morning after using it for a weekend visit to La Bella Los Angeles, out fell a box of matches from the Halcyon Hotel in London's Holland Park. Since we didn't stay at the Halcyon as a family, I have to assume those matches are from a prior trip my dad had taken to London for business. What's next, I wonder? The remnants of a Russian cigarette? The stub of train ticket to Berlin? I guess some people wouldn't find any of this as interesting as I do, but I just think it's kind of neat that 9, 10 years later, I'm still finding artifacts from so long ago in this tiny, nondescript piece of luggage.
Or, my family's just really careless about unpacking.
Monday, June 19, 2006
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
Talking about writing again
I think if I ever become even minimally successful as a writer, I'll stop blogging and move on to a quarterly update or something like that. I guess because what speaks to me when I read other writers' blogs, especially the kinds of writers who only produce highly-anticipated hardcovers that go right to all the bestseller lists with no qualms or questions, is when they convey humility about the writing life--and not how loved they are, and how doted upon, and how much they deserve it.
That's not to say I think all of the above isn't just once a writer has met some success and wants to write about it, the Man Himself only knows they probably struggled as hard as the rest to get there and want to share their excitement and accomplishments with their friends, families and fans. It's just to say that I've always been more able to relate to writers (including those very successful writers, especially those writers, on remembering the early days) who talk about and admit to experiencing the things that have always resonated with me as a writer--the loneliness of living in your own world with a bunch of people who don't even exist, the feeling you may be insane for preferring to hang out with these people in place of the ones who actually do exist, the frustration of spending most of your time working at a job that will probably never pay you, the upset of reading a book that really sucks and knowing how well it's selling while every editor in New York just came back to say your book is the one that really sucks, the fear that you will die before you ever get there, the fear that you are actually a pretty shitty writer, the fear of hurting your friends and family if you write anything that even slightly resembles something they've said or done, the horror of thinking about your friend's uptight mother reading a raunchy sex scene you wrote...and then, the unthinkable, that when you finally do get published, your book will get nothing but one-star reviews and be described as the literary version of Gigli.
It's funny what you learn about being published once you actually get published. If you're like me, prior to it happening, you think your whole life will change once it actually happens. Then, if you're like me, you find out your life really doesn't change all that much except that you can tell people you had a book published. Even then, they usually think you mean that you paid a print-on-demand service to make your manuscript look like a book and you've got some copies for sale in your living room.
But, there are the upsides. I've made a few new friends. I've gotten to know what people other than my best friend think of what I wrote--good and bad, it's still interesting to see how total strangers react. Sometimes they get something out of it that I wasn't even trying to give them. Sometimes, they were hoping to get something out of it that was never even there.
Another upside is that now, when I attempt to get published again, I can say I've already been published and so, with editors I'll have a little credibility.
Now I just have to get back to writing books. Oh, yeah. Tell me how to do that again?
That's not to say I think all of the above isn't just once a writer has met some success and wants to write about it, the Man Himself only knows they probably struggled as hard as the rest to get there and want to share their excitement and accomplishments with their friends, families and fans. It's just to say that I've always been more able to relate to writers (including those very successful writers, especially those writers, on remembering the early days) who talk about and admit to experiencing the things that have always resonated with me as a writer--the loneliness of living in your own world with a bunch of people who don't even exist, the feeling you may be insane for preferring to hang out with these people in place of the ones who actually do exist, the frustration of spending most of your time working at a job that will probably never pay you, the upset of reading a book that really sucks and knowing how well it's selling while every editor in New York just came back to say your book is the one that really sucks, the fear that you will die before you ever get there, the fear that you are actually a pretty shitty writer, the fear of hurting your friends and family if you write anything that even slightly resembles something they've said or done, the horror of thinking about your friend's uptight mother reading a raunchy sex scene you wrote...and then, the unthinkable, that when you finally do get published, your book will get nothing but one-star reviews and be described as the literary version of Gigli.
It's funny what you learn about being published once you actually get published. If you're like me, prior to it happening, you think your whole life will change once it actually happens. Then, if you're like me, you find out your life really doesn't change all that much except that you can tell people you had a book published. Even then, they usually think you mean that you paid a print-on-demand service to make your manuscript look like a book and you've got some copies for sale in your living room.
But, there are the upsides. I've made a few new friends. I've gotten to know what people other than my best friend think of what I wrote--good and bad, it's still interesting to see how total strangers react. Sometimes they get something out of it that I wasn't even trying to give them. Sometimes, they were hoping to get something out of it that was never even there.
Another upside is that now, when I attempt to get published again, I can say I've already been published and so, with editors I'll have a little credibility.
Now I just have to get back to writing books. Oh, yeah. Tell me how to do that again?
Thursday, June 08, 2006
You may notice in my profile it now says age: 31. I am AGING.
I have a gorgeous new niece named Avaleigh Love...but my sister and brother-in-law will not be selling her photos to People for $4 million.
Today my co-worker and I engaged in a worthy debate about liberalism vs. conservatism. I can't believe I didn't get interested in politics until a few years ago. I'm sure I missed out on a lot of good arguments with some Dems I used to know.
Did you know that roaches eat their dead? The other night I saw one carrying another away on my patio. What was most disturbing was that they were of different roach species. I'm so glad to have been given this opportunity to broaden my zoological knowledge.
I have a gorgeous new niece named Avaleigh Love...but my sister and brother-in-law will not be selling her photos to People for $4 million.
Today my co-worker and I engaged in a worthy debate about liberalism vs. conservatism. I can't believe I didn't get interested in politics until a few years ago. I'm sure I missed out on a lot of good arguments with some Dems I used to know.
Did you know that roaches eat their dead? The other night I saw one carrying another away on my patio. What was most disturbing was that they were of different roach species. I'm so glad to have been given this opportunity to broaden my zoological knowledge.
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