Tag Archives: logan

05.27.13
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Spring Cleaning

This has been a slow, quiet, weekend. Not the bad kind of slow and quiet–where you’re anxious to do more but feel trapped into doing something else, or worse, nothing at all–but the good kind that feels like a long stretch after a nap. The weather has been lovely, blue skies and warm without being hot. I’ve had the front door open most of the weekend, letting fresh air in. The child has been great: letting me have quiet time when I wanted to get work done, going with me to run errands or walk outside, snuggling up to watch Adventure Time… he even let me extract a huge splinter from his finger (first time I’ve had to do that), and while it was in so deep I ended up having to cut it out with a pair of scissors, he held mostly still and let me do it.

We did the quarterly laundry run to wash ALL THE THINGS (which is different from the weekly trip to the much-closer laundromat for just clothes and such). Every so often I like to have cleaned all of the blankets in the house, and to run the giant shark through the wash. I got some writing and editing done too, tidied the apartment, and even updated my website. (What do you think? Can you find everything? Free Fiction is new, and About Me is updated.)

With the new box spring, my bed is comfy again, and I’ve actually been sleeping.

This is the first time in about a month I took a break from job hunting. I’m very near to getting a day job, I think. I’ve put at least 30 hours a week into this job search (I know because I tracked it like it was a freelance job, so I could be sure I was working as hard as possible on it), with looking for open positions, writing a new cover letter for each resume, researching companies, and interviews/tests. I’ve signed up with the local temp agencies, and tested very well (typing speed, MS Office products, etc). After not getting any bites for a few weeks, I revised my resume, and that’s helped a lot. I’m now “under consideration” for a dozen positions; I was one of two candidates left for one job when they picked the other guy–an internal hire. I got into a final interview for another job, when we discovered they put the wrong hours in the ad.

I don’t take those setbacks personally. It’s like submitting a story–you can have the best, most wonderful, story ever, and it still won’t fit every market. Sometimes you have to revise it before it sells. Be polite, accept your rejections, and keep trying. I will end up with a good job eventually. I am qualified for the jobs I’m applying to, enthusiastic, and everyone who’s met me seems to like me. I was polite about the hour mix-up, so that place is keeping me in mind for their next open position.

Feeling confident about that, I spent this weekend getting other things done instead. I still have a lot to do, but the more I can get organized at home, take care of little things that have been bothering me (like my previous website theme), the easier it is for me to go forward from here.

And now? I’m finally going to organize my files. I even to get to play with my label maker.

12.16.12
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My son, and the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary

“Are we really prepared to say that we’re powerless in the face of such carnage? That the politics are too hard? Are we prepared to say that such violence visited upon our children year after year is simply the price of our freedom?” – President Obama at tonight’s memorial in Newtown

My son is 9 years old, and is in the fourth grade at a very nice public school. We live in a small town, in a good town, and we happen to live in the right spot for him to attend the kind of elementary school people move to be able to attend. We moved here partly so that he could be in this school system, and they’ve been wonderful – supportive, involved, and committed to the kids.

My son is taught by the kind of people who, I have absolutely no doubt in my mind, would give their lives to save these kids. I know it.

We all heard that on Friday a monster stalked the halls of a similar elementary school in Newtown, CT, and killed little kids. Beautiful, happy, loving, little children. Kids younger than my son. Teachers like his teachers. A principle and school psychologist who ran into the path of bullets to try to stop what was happening. A special needs teacher who died using her body as a shield that sadly didn’t stop the bullets from killing the little ones she tried to hide beneath her.

Tomorrow my son gets to go to school, and someone, one of the kids, is going to be talking about Sandy Hook. That’s what kids do. They hear more than we think, and they trade those rumors, sorting out the truths we think they can’t handle. My son’s teacher and special education director planned to have a guided discussion with the students, to make sure that they knew the basic facts – to dispel fear, to make the kids feel safer. Of course, we have parents who object to this, who think their kids will never find out, who think we shouldn’t be talking about this tragedy with impressionable children.

I promise that if you don’t tell your child, someone will, and they’ll want to know why it wasn’t you.

My son has autism, but he knows what it means to lose someone he loves. To have someone chasing him around the apartment, making him laugh, being important to him … and have that person never walk through the door again. I don’t think he understands death yet but he knows what it means to say goodbye, to miss someone, and not understand why they don’t come back when he asks me for them. I’m glad they’re going to talk to him tomorrow, because I don’t want him to be confused, or scared, any more than he already is in a life that is missing a lot of the language skills he needs to navigate tragedy on his own. His life is already hard. I’m not going to make it worse because I wasn’t ready to talk about this.

my little guy

my little guy

For the record, I own guns. And I am willing to sit through any waiting period, fill out any amount of paperwork, even give them up entirely, if it means that not another small child is killed by a one.

12.16.11
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Holiday Traditions

I don’t have a lot of family traditions. Growing up we had big family Christmastimes that weren’t about religion – we rarely prayed before a meal and didn’t go to church – but over time my family drifted off or passed away, so there aren’t reunions to go to anymore. I don’t go “home” for the holidays. I don’t get carried away with decorations and for the most part I don’t spend money on the trappings of holiday cheer. I would never buy a Christmas tree just to fill up my living room with something expensive, flammable, and dead. I have a small box of ornaments I like, but if my apartment caught on fire, that wouldn’t be what I saved*. It’s just so much stuff, in my opinion.

That isn’t to say I get all bah-humbug when the winter rolls around. Far from it! I love the winter, can’t wait until it snows, and do like a warm and happy home to be in when it’s cold outside. It’s just that for me, the holidays aren’t about celebrating the size of your tree or how many presents you can afford to put under it. What matters to me are the people you spend your holidays with, and what you can do to make them feel loved. You can spend several days decking your halls or you can spend that time reading books to your child, making cookies for your spouse, putting another log on the fire, and enjoying your life. Which one is better?

For me, it’s the family time.** Continue reading →

08.11.11
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The Things I Don’t Talk About

The more I write, the more people ask if they’re seeing bits of my life in those sentences. It’s bound to happen; it happens to nearly every writer. My writer friends who are women tell me it happens to them more than it does to men, but my writing friends who are men aren’t exempt from it either, so I think it’s this thing where a reader wants to have uncovered the greater truth of the story – and the greatest mystery, the greatest truth, is “What The Author Really Meant”. It’s why we read interviews, isn’t it? This desire to know the author is why we read blogs, and why we authors write blogs. If you want to know us, it stands to reason, you’ll read our work too.

But I don’t talk about myself. I talk about writing. I have a Facebook page and a Twitter feed and a Google+ account and I almost entirely talk about writing. This is on purpose, as I think it’s the writing you’re all really interested in, and the writing is all you really deserve to get. If you know me, in person, up close, you know other things about me, because you’ve been there for those events. I don’t hide anything from the people I spend my time with, and I don’t really hide anything from all of you. I just don’t mention it. If you read carefully you will have discovered that I have a child, and you might even know he’s a boy, and that he’s 8, a detail I mentioned I’ve mentioned once, in a tweet. You may know that I was married, and I am not in that relationship anymore, and if you are very astute you may have guessed that I am in a different relationship now. I have a day job, in some kind of office, I don’t work weekends, and I have just acquired a cat. That’s quite a lot of knowledge, really, if you think about it. You know, too, that I am a woman, probably since birth, that I have reddish hair and pale skin and freckles, if you look closely enough. You might know that I am overweight, but have lost weight recently, that I read quite a bit, and write not as much as I’d like, and have published a little, and been published a little more. You might guess that I am in my late 20s, which is what everyone says they guess, or you might know that I am actually 37, which I’ve never been afraid to tell people.

See, you know so much about me already. Is it enough? Will you read this, and feel satisfied, and go on to read my stories as if the words on the page are the only ones you need to know?

Of course not. You want to know everything.

What else could I say that would inform you, as a reader? The truth is, I don’t think I have to say anything. I don’t think the things I’ve already said should change your opinion of my work. I know it will, for some people. For some people, something as basic as my gender will shape their thinking of my writing for the rest of my life. I have avoided joining “women writers” groups simply because I don’t think you should care. (I went ahead and joined Broad Universe a few weeks ago because I realized refusing to do so means I lose out on people who might only pick up my writing because I am a woman but who might stick around because I am a damn good writer.) I don’t think it should matter that I am white, either, though I’ve discovered there are people for whom that matters quite a bit. I don’t think these things should make the tiniest bit of difference in whether you decide to buy my books, or in what you think of my stories. I know a dozen women, about my age, with at least once elementary-school-aged child at home and at least one divorce, and I can guarantee that we all write differently. We are each individuals, with secrets that will never be known, made up of factors that you will never completely understand.

My writing is informed by all of this, and none of it. It’s just as likely that the next story you read of mine will have been inspired by a news article, or a piece of fiction I read as a child, or a story I thought failed (and you’re holding my written attempt to do it right). I don’t make an effort to write about my life, and I doubt very much that there’s an autobiography in my future. I’ve explained this, over and over again, and I know it doesn’t matter. Some of you will still read my writing, and want to know what I’m really trying to say. The question is, if you knew everything about me, what would it change? Would my horror be less frightening? My erotica less sexy? My science fiction less inspired by science fact? Let’s find out.

Here is the quick and dirty story of me: Continue reading →

03.14.11
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Road Trip

The last few months have been hard for me. I’ve had drama both personally and professionally, a two-month bout of unemployment, and a really nasty case of strep throat (which I am just barely recovered from *cough*). I have writing that needs to be done and editing projects I’ve been ignoring and a few opportunities I’m certain I’ve lost at this point. I have moments where I think it’s all coming together and then some other exciting* thing happens and I’m back at “now what?”

This weekend was supposed to be good. I had a couple of road trips planned – for a total of 20 hrs on the road and a little over 1000 miles driven – which I love because I get to sit in my car and listen to music and not have a lot of other responsibilities beyond arriving safely at my destination. I was supposed to meet up with some very good friends, talk writing, drink, laugh, and forget about life for a while. It didn’t happen, because of things which were beyond my control. Again. Again! Too much has been happening in my life which isn’t my fault and I can’t stop and which spirals out of control around me. Which, I realized, was precisely the problem. Not the fact that life happens, often in nasty ways, because I still prefer living over the alternative. No, my problem is that I’ve been trying desperately to hold on to the facets of my life which matter to me, and to try to make decisions without having all of the facts in. I can’t have any control over the big things in my life right now.

Me, give up control and let life happen? Oh, I’m not good at that. Waiting for other people to decide if I’m worth something to them, or trusting that someone else will keep my best interests at heart? That’s scary, and I’d rather not, thanks. But trying things my way hasn’t exactly gotten me what I wanted either. Saturday night, plans cancelled, I got in my car, and drove away.

About 45 minutes later I ended up in Asbury Park, home to the Stone Pony and the Wonderbar and the ocean and a which was a place I’ve never actually been before. It was something new. I walked around the strip, looked out at the sea, and let go of – everything, really. Stress. Worry. Control. I just breathed in and breathed out.

Afterwards I stopped off and got a donut.

Driving home I knew I had to start over. I considered my options and realized that there are some very real, very solid things in my life, which often get overlooked when everything else comes crashing down:

1) I have a child. He’s my responsibility, he’s not going anywhere, and I quite like him. Whatever else I do next, he’s coming with me. (I discovered his usefulness Saturday afternoon when, in a fit of ennui, I was lying on the livingroom floor, like you do, and he decided we were going to play “airplane” whether I liked it or not. Five minutes of him trying to push my legs into the right position to support his weight was absolutely hilarious, and I cheered right up.)

2) I like writing. I like editing. I like taking an idea and turning it into a finished product, and having that change people’s life in some way. Dagan Books started out as a way to print one book, and I’ve been unsure if I truly have what it takes to turn that into a publishing company with a consistent print schedule and a staff and, frankly, responsibilities. A lot of my lost momentum the last few months, where DB is concerned anyway, has been because of that uncertainty. I’m not unsure anymore.

And the biggest one …

3) I know what I want. I can see in my head what I want my life to look like, the kind of person/people I want to share it with, what makes me happy. I may not definitely positively for-sure have those things, but I know now what it looks like, and that makes finding it so much easier.

Some times you have to stop thinking, breathe deep, and start with what you know. Drop the things you’re unsure of, let go of holding onto the past or the possibilities of something that isn’t working for you, and find the things that you’re so certain of you don’t even think about whether you’ll have them – you know you do.

Yesterday, I started editing IN SITU again. This week will see new blog posts about writing, and my #cook365 project. I may not know where I’m going to be living in 6 months, but I know what I want right now.

Thanks for being patient while I sorted it out.

* In the worst sense of the word.