Torture Limbo
Waiting to find out if I can scoop up a house in the neighborhood I’m trolling.
Just kidding. It’s not really torture. I’m still very optimistic. It’s just a little hard to wait for something you want and need very badly and very soon.
Professional Rejection
At least that feeling (optimistic torture limbo) distracted me from the fact that the last book I sent out to publishers has now been rejected by three of them. It was “only” a kids’ book, but still, who wants to be rejected? No one, no matter how many books he or she publishes in his or her life. I’m going to print out my ms and show it to my friend who is a good editor. (It’s Brie! Hello, Brie!) And see what she says. Something might be fixable about it. I thought it was good when I was done with it, but maybe it still needs something added or subtracted. Or maybe I’m just wrong.
That happens. Sometimes I’m wrong, and sometimes I fail. That’s part of what it means to be a human being. Or so they say.
Outside the Comfort Zone
Besides that, I wrote a few poems. Don’t ask me why – the reason is very convoluted. See, someone invited me to read at a poetry thing, and I pointed out that I wasn’t a poet. But the someone said, “Just read your prose as if it’s poems.” But I think that’s a cheap, sort of shady thing to do, don’t you? So I thought maybe I would write some poems. The first one was okay, but not as awesome as I’d imagined in my dreams. The second one I’m very pleased with. I think it’s pretty awesome. Maybe I’ll write more poems. Or maybe I’ll just read the second poem at the poetry thing, and then fill up the rest of my minutes with prose.
I’m very good at bittersweet essays. But I think writing bittersweet essays all the time, and never challenging myself, would be a cop-out. Sometimes I think that, I mean. Sometimes I think I’m just being stupid and making life hard on myself for no reason.
A Whole Big Canvas
If/when (When. WHEN!) I get a house (my house), I feel an oncoming tsunami of creativity, with the house being my canvas.
I think of all the times in my old life that I wanted to make things, and people (that person) hated on that aspect of me and on the things it made me make. And… no more. There are no more jealous, destructive haters living in my home. I think of my last few years in apartments, feeling like there was no use making things for temporary residences, and no effing more. My house is going to be beautiful. I can make things turn beautiful. You will see. My house will be art. People will see it and say, “Now that house belongs to Gwen. I can tell. And it looks freaking awesome.”
For that reason alone, I deserve to have my bid accepted. Accept my bid, people, and I will make a beautiful house.
(I’ve been practicing, making little beautiful things. I know I still have it in me.)
But what about the writing?
Well, god, I don’t know. I mean, I know I’m going to write something new soon. I have to write a new book, right?
Or do I?
I don’t know. I go to the Borders, the Barnes and the Nobles, and I see the sea of books that other people wrote. And even if every single one of them was a very good book, I wouldn’t have the money or the time to read them all.
“Maybe,” I think, “There are already enough books.”
Seriously, maybe there are. I mean, what’s the use of writing a book if you don’t really have something to say? Or to evoke? Or, at least, something that will make people laugh really hard?
I don’t know. I have several half-baked ideas in my head, but nothing that nags at me, you know? Yet. Nothing yet.
It’s okay if I never write another book, you know. If I feel like turning into a complete suburban woman – a single mother Martha – then that’s okay.
Do you see? It’s okay, no matter what I do. I’m giving myself permission to do what I feel like doing. (In the hours between work, homework, housework, and bed, I mean.) And it’s o-freaking-kay.
I Wish
I admire and slightly envy artists who’ve reached the point where they can get paid to do whatever they want. Like Wong Kar-Wai did with his movie 2046. Or like Quentin Tarantino with Kill Bill, except in that case it’s more sickly sour grapes bile I feel and not really admiration at all.
But still. Y’all get what I’m saying. I think the key is to do whatever I want, even if I don’t get paid for it.
But it’s hard to feel that free… When there is no money, I mean. And when you’re always working, homeworking, houseworking, then going to bed.
But still. It’s fun to try. All you can do is try. So that’s what my life will be made of.
