I'm writing again.
Not a lot.
Just a little.
And things are coming along.
Ever so slowly.
I like it this way.
I also hate it this way.
Two weeks ago I dusted off some novel pages and read them to a crowd. A few things happened that surprised me. First, I wasn't nervous. I am always nervous when I have to get up in front of an audience and say anything. My nervousness reaches its pinnacle when I have to read my own work. Last summer, when I was invited to read at Politics and Prose for Kimbilio, terror was the only thing on my mind. Family came in from Philly and Virginia to hear me. My cousin videotaped (is that a thing or do we just say recorded now?) it, Dolen Perkins Valdez was the main attraction. It was both one of the best experiences I've had as a writer but also one of the most stress-inducing. It went fine. I read. People clapped. My parents looked proud. My hands would not be still the entire time. I clutched the sides of my dress the same way I'd done when I delivered my grandfather's Eulogy, which was the last time I read something I'd written in public.
While I cannot say for sure why I wasn't nervous. I have a suspicion that it has more to do with the work than anything else. I am, I realized, confident in the project that I've been working on for so long. Far more confident than I should be considering how long it's taking/how little time I've had to devote to it.
Starting this week--maybe tomorrow--I haven't picked a day, I'm going to attempt to write 2 pages a day for forty days. Consider this my religion.
Usually teaching Fiction inspires me to write more but that's not happening with the same kind of east as it used to.
Book Update:
Just finished reading: The Star Side of Bird Hill by Naomi Jackson (I cried on the subway reading this. That seems like endorsement enough.)
Currently reading: A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
Listening to: Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay by Elena Ferrante
Knitting Update:
Honey Cowl--Unfinished
Fetching Gloves--Unfinished
Not a lot.
Just a little.
And things are coming along.
Ever so slowly.
I like it this way.
I also hate it this way.
Two weeks ago I dusted off some novel pages and read them to a crowd. A few things happened that surprised me. First, I wasn't nervous. I am always nervous when I have to get up in front of an audience and say anything. My nervousness reaches its pinnacle when I have to read my own work. Last summer, when I was invited to read at Politics and Prose for Kimbilio, terror was the only thing on my mind. Family came in from Philly and Virginia to hear me. My cousin videotaped (is that a thing or do we just say recorded now?) it, Dolen Perkins Valdez was the main attraction. It was both one of the best experiences I've had as a writer but also one of the most stress-inducing. It went fine. I read. People clapped. My parents looked proud. My hands would not be still the entire time. I clutched the sides of my dress the same way I'd done when I delivered my grandfather's Eulogy, which was the last time I read something I'd written in public.
While I cannot say for sure why I wasn't nervous. I have a suspicion that it has more to do with the work than anything else. I am, I realized, confident in the project that I've been working on for so long. Far more confident than I should be considering how long it's taking/how little time I've had to devote to it.
Starting this week--maybe tomorrow--I haven't picked a day, I'm going to attempt to write 2 pages a day for forty days. Consider this my religion.
Usually teaching Fiction inspires me to write more but that's not happening with the same kind of east as it used to.
Book Update:
Just finished reading: The Star Side of Bird Hill by Naomi Jackson (I cried on the subway reading this. That seems like endorsement enough.)
Currently reading: A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
Listening to: Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay by Elena Ferrante
Knitting Update:
Honey Cowl--Unfinished
Fetching Gloves--Unfinished
