process story

Lately, i've been going through old poems and revising them. I've done this many times before: in high school, i revised poems from middle school; in college, i revised poems from high school; in grad school, i revised poems from college. Now that i'm more or less post-grad school, i'm revising everything.

Usually, this process is largely one of deletion. I'll pull out a line or phrase from a poem that i like and throw the rest away as irredeemable trash. I'll scratch out the main themes of a poem, rearrange the stanzas, and throw out half of it. I'll throw away whole notebooks full of boring and embarrassing scrawls. But as the years go by, i've gotten better. I've trimmed away a lot of the bad stuff and built on a lot of the good. These days, the folder on my flash drive is about 80% potential, with only 20% fluff.

This makes the revision that much harder. When you have a whole sonnet that is absolutely perfect except for one weak line, and you have to fix it without disturbing the meter, and you can't just delete it because then you'd be a line short, it can take weeks and months and even years of work before the poem is solid. Sometimes you put it away for six months or so, and then come back to it with fresh eyes. Sometimes you delete the bad line anyway and decide that the poem makes a stronger statement as a partial sonnet. Sometimes you start dreaming in iambic pentameter and wake up sobbing, declaring that you will only write in free verse from now on.

I'm at the point now where i actually have two poetry folders, one marked "in progress" and one marked "ready". When i want to send in some submissions, i pull from the "ready" folder. In between submission periods, i work on moving things from "in progress" to "ready". Sometimes i find things i'd forgotten about. Sometimes i go looking for something that i can't find, completely forgetting that i renamed it on the last round of revisions. And sometimes, even now, i delete and delete and delete.

It feels strange to be so business-like about editing my work. I mean, my primary goal is simply to make each poem as good as it possibly can be, but i am aware that the better my poetry is, the better chance it has of getting published. And getting published would be pretty sweet. Despite my strong identification with Emily Dickinson, it would be nice to have some recognition while i'm alive, however slight and passing.

It just somehow feels like it should be against the rules or something, you know? It's like i'm grading my own paper. I'm sorting through my poems and reading them and deciding which ones are good enough to edit and which are not, and then i'm editing them and deciding which ones are good enough to publish. I've never had anything published in my life! It's not okay for me to do this! This is supposed to be someone else's job!

I mean, technically, just because i think something is good to go doesn't mean anyone else will ever agree. I've sent things out before that i thought were pretty good, that other people thought were pretty good, that published, award-winning poets told me should be sent out, and had them firmly rejected. So i don't have the deciding vote or anything, but i feel a little bit like the Chief of Staff, deciding what goes on the President's desk and what gets handled by an underling. And i'm like, I just registered to vote yesterday and I can't remember the difference between Congress and the House of Representatives. I really feel like there should be another layer of authority between me and the President. But apparently i'm a grown-up now, and i have to decide these things for myself. So if you see anything published under my name, thank Obama, i guess.

I think i lost track of my metaphor a little bit at the end there.

blocked

It's been a tough few months for writing.

I thought i had an artist for my comic book, but she's realized she's too busy to commit to this project and has gracefully backed out. I'm not mad at her or anything, and i completely understand (and was half-expecting) her refusal, but it's still really disappointing.

My workshop group hasn't met in ages. We kept getting delayed by various things: work commitments, school, migraines, lack of new things to review, weather disasters, holidays, and so on and so forth. I really miss that weekly gathering of creative intellectuals, as well as the motivation of a deadline.

I found a journal of women's environmental poetry that was looking specifically for prose poems, and i was all geared up to send them a submission, when i realized there was a reading fee to do so. Never send out anything you have to pay for; there's no guarantee of publication, and there are plenty of places that are more than happy to reject you for free. Hypothetically.

There's a lot of really emotional stuff happening for me right now, but it's happening right now, so it's hard to write about it clearly.

Since discovering Netflix, i'm much less inclined to sit reading or writing in the evenings, and much more inclined to knit and binge-watch Dr. Who. Which, while good for my knitting projects, is bad for my writing.

But.

Two of my roommates have moved out, and have been replaced by only one person. And it is absolutely worth the $100/month increase in rent to reclaim a little more peace, stability, and room in the house. We are hanging superhero posters in the hallway and organizing a library/bar/office in the corner room. The one with roof access.

I've been living in a nest for two years because i was too afraid to put my things in the house, because of what might happen to them. There also wasn't a lot of room, with four people crammed into a three-bedroom apartment. Now i'm de-cluttering my room and living like a human adult, instead of a magpie. My desk is in the library bar, in front of a window, with elephants and pictures of Boyfriend and Christina Hendricks for inspiration.

I have a shiny new phone that i mostly don't hate. (I've been resisting the smartphone upgrade since the debut of the Blackberry, but there's no escape now. The Samsung Galaxy Stellar, however, isn't terrible. If i have to have a smartphone, i'm glad i got this one.)

I have a nerdy friend who is going with me to the Neil Gaiman reading and signing this weekend. I am going to the Neil Gaiman reading and signing this weekend.

I have another nerdy friend who wants to have a sewing and cooking and drinking date with me soon. I'm really excited at the prospect of getting back into sewing.

I have a sexy, smart, caring, wonderfully weird boyfriend who snuggles me and is patient with me and goes on adventures with me and helped me make sangria last week. (My sangria recipe is amazing, by the way. I'll have to post it some time.) Sometimes i write terribly sappy poems about him and then send them to him through snail mail. Isn't that so cute you want to vomit?

I have, like, six different jars of fancy honey in my kitchen waiting for me to eat them. I also have an ice cream maker. I see honey-sweetened ice cream in my future.

I have Netflix! And tons of yarn! And, currently, not a lot going on in my life! This equals SWEATERS!!! It doesn't get much better than handmade sweaters in New England. (Unless, of course, it's July and they keep posting heat advisories. But i'll be glad of them in the winter, which is probably when they'll be finished, anyway.)

I have an awesome tattoo idea that will, someday, when i have money again (when i die), be an awesome tattoo.

I got fan-ish mail yesterday.

My cat is super cute.

Ten points if you get that reference.

1. I also hate mayonnaise, and i can't wait to make this potato salad! (Side note: i have a bizarre desire to make my own mayonnaise some day. I don't understand why. Though i've been told that comparing homemade mayo to store bought is like comparing homemade chocolate chip cookies from scratch to stale sugar-free store-brand chocolate-flavored chip cookies.)

2. I waffle a little with Sarah Bessey. She has amazing stories to tell, and you can't deny her talent, her voice. But sometimes she's a little too sappy and feelings-y for me. Just personal taste.

Other times, however, that sappy feelings-y nonsense taps deep into something unexpected, and i find myself sitting at my desk, holding back tears. This is one of those.

"What is there to say? What can we do but huddle into rows of chairs, and clutch our hearts, and sob into our shredded balled-up tissues? What can we do but stand around and drink juice, red-eyed and hicupping? We'll sign up for a few meals when what we really want to do is lay out on the floor, beside you, and cry until we're empty because what else? There aren't old stories to tell, no laughter breaking through the sorrow. This is lamentation. I am fumbling for hope. Is there really comfort in the idea of a baby in the arms of Jesus when all we want is for that baby to be in the arms of his broken mama? . . .

God has asked too much of us."

3. So i've been on this whole get healthy kick this year, right? I want to be less jiggly, and have more energy, and generally feel happier and healthier in my skin, right? And then i read this article on Cracked, and i remember that terrible quote (i think from Kate Moss?): Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels. And i think, skinny can't possibly feel good enough to make any of that go down easily. Also, bacon. It's just not worth it.

4. I'm a white woman, so i can't really comment meaningfully on the Black Male Code, but i thought that this was a fascinating read. And, based on stories i've read and people i've talked to, this sounds like depressingly good advice.

"I thought my son would be much older before I had to tell him about the Black Male Code. He's only 12, still sleeping with stuffed animals, still afraid of the dark. But after the Trayvon Martin tragedy, I needed to explain to my child that soon people might be afraid of him.

I was far from alone in laying out these instructions. Across the country this week, parents were talking to their children, especially their black sons, about the Code. It's a talk the black community has passed down for generations, an evolving oral tradition from the days when an errant remark could easily cost black people their job, their freedom, or sometimes their life."

5. Patton Oswalt is freaking amazing. I've been thinking about this letter all weekend and will likely continue to ponder it for a long time.

6. Okay, seriously, Hayley Campbell? I love her.

"I think Pumping Iron -- and I don't think I'm alone here -- is one of the greatest films you can watch in nine parts on YouTube. For starters there's Arnold Schwarzenegger, all smiles and absurd accent, being genuinely charming but mostly weird in tiny underpants."

Humorous writing, just like all other forms of artistic expression, is partly art and partly science. The science part -- knowing how to set up a joke, knowing how to structure the punch line, knowing what should follow the punch line? Hayley has a Ph.D. in that science. She also has the raw talent to pull of the "art" part. And she apparently lives a life of absurdity and adventure (and normal, banal things like going to the gym) which is rife with material. I seriously love her. Hard.

food and faith and feminism and flove (i couldn't think of a "romance" word that started with an f.)

So my boyfriend and i were talking recently, and he made a comment about how my blog's voice has changed to a "feminist tirade". He has a point; i've become more aware of feminist theory and feminist issues lately, and i've been reading feminist blogs (four in particular, whose archives were amazing and from whom i have learned a lot). These things do color my writing, and of course when i am reading lots of feminist blogs all week long and then i do a weekly link roundup, there will be lots of feminist stuff in at least one post every week.

For those of you who have gotten tired of the "feminist tirade", rest assured: i'm about to start working my way through the archives of some cooking blogs. I'm also about to finish my year-long Bible-reading project and start a new Bible/spirituality reading project (more on that below). Both of these things will color my writing. How could they not?

For those of you who like the "feminist tirade", rest assured: that stuff isn't going to go away. I may have finished the archives, but i have added these blogs to my feedly, which means that while the concentration of feminism will be lowered, it will not be eliminated. I am a feminist, and therefore you could say that everything i write is feminist (whether or not it is a tirade is a little more subjective).

For those of you who haven't noticed any change . . . um, thanks for reading, i guess?

What to expect moving forward: Stuff about food. I'm changing the way i think about food, the way i shop, the way i cook, the way i talk about food. It's slow, and if you don't talk to me in person every day you might not even notice it, but i am trying to be more intentional about issues of food. I don't know how much of that will show up here or in what form (recipes and photos? links to other people's recipes and photos? rambling meditations on what i like to eat? mmmmmm, chocolate chip cookies . . .), but there will be more food stuff.

Also: stuff about God. I've always had God-ish posts here and there as something was on my mind, and in the past year i've tried to post at least once a week about my personal faith issues and feelings, and this will continue with a slightly different look and feel. I'm reading the Bible straight through again, but more slowly. I'm also reading more books of theology and philosophy (and i get to decide what counts as "theology and philosophy", so expect some "Year of Living Biblically" and "The Things They Carried" alongside of Henri Nouwen and "The King David Report"). Instead of posting journal entries about my Bible-reading thoughts, i'll be posting journal entries and prayers and meditations and reviews on everything spiritual i am reading and all of the thoughts and feelings i am having.

Also: stuff about my boyfriend. Because he is awesome and reads my blog and talks to me about stuff in my life and loves me and is good to me and is super snuggly and wonderful. But he's also internet-shy, so he won't be on here all the time and he won't be on here in any detail. Because i love him and try to be good to him as well.

What's in a name?

When i first started writing seriously, i decided to use a pen name. I planned to write YA fiction, and at the time i wanted to be a psychologist and to work with teens. I feared that people would think that my work was fictionalized case studies, and in order to draw a firm line between my creative writing and my counseling, i decided to do them each under a different name. After all, even if everyone in the world knew that the two identities were the same, by deliberately giving them each a different label, i would (i hoped) help my readers and clients to compartmentalize my work in the same way i did.

Because obviously, i would be such a famous writer and shrink that it would be virtually impossible for anyone to be unaware of my work in both fields, and if i wasn't up front about my ethical separation of the two, there would be a huge scandal and lots of interviews with Barbara Walters or Tim Russert about my deception of the American public. There is no arrogance quite like that of a fifteen-year-old who is the smartest employee at the sandwich shop. (I worked at a Quizno's in high school. Business was slow, so i would often write during down times. 75% of the other employees were high school dropouts, and the other 25% would probably never even apply to college, so yeah, i was the smartest one. Kind of like being valedictorian of summer school.)

As i began to write more and more and to expand my genres, i started to worry that people would read my poetry only in light of my short stories, or vice versa. Perhaps both were equally good, but people would hate one genre and love the other, simply because they had read my stories first and were disappointed by my poetry simply because it was so different. Or perhaps my poetry would be terrible but it would be published anyway because it had my name on it. (Remember, i was most definitely destined for literary greatness. No question about it. Plus poetry is really easy to publish and people go crazy for it and take it very seriously.)

So i decided to create a different pen name for each genre. At one point, i had about six worked out, and i was practicing signatures for all of them. Because of course i was.

The first pen name i'd picked was very important to me, for personal reasons. And because it was so important, i did not use it when i started this blog, or when i created my twitter account, or when i did various other online/public things. I wanted to reserve it for "real" writing.

And then, as i immersed myself more and more in online writing communities, and as i began sharing about my offline writing projects, i began to feel that i had made a mistake. I also became more and more disenchanted with the idea of multiple pen-names for one life. It all seemed so contrived and artificial. The name 'Diana Lark' in particular could hardly have been more obviously false. What seemed beautiful and interesting and appropriate at seventeen and nineteen seems trite and wrong at twenty-three. And more and more, i find myself returning to that real, important, personal name, and wishing that i had stuck with it from the beginning.

There is a lot wrapped up in a name. There is family history, world history, mythology, poetry, and etymology. There are connotations, different for each person who hears the name. There is the way it looks on the page, typed or hand-written or signed quickly on the inside pages. Name is identity. Name is power. Name is definition. Name is prophecy.

Over the next few weeks, i will be shedding the name Diana Lark in favor of the new one: Judith Elsroad. Thank you for following Diana all this time, and let's get geared up for Judith! It ought to be quite a ride; one of my Twitter followers had a dream last night that my tweets were read on NPR under a different name. So, prophecy?

sharing is caring

On October 8 2011, i was cleaning my room. It was a Saturday, and my boyfriend was rehearsing on campus. He was planning to come over during the afternoon break for . . . Well, for some afternoon delight. I was cleaning my room and watching the West Wing; i like to have the TV on in the background while i work. I put on a DVD of a show i've seen a million times and i grade papers, or write papers, or cook, or clean. And this particular episode was 'In Excelsis Deo'. When my sister called to say that Adam had been blown up, it didn't really make sense to me right away. My roommate walked by as i was hanging up the phone. Sensing that something was wrong, she asked what was going on.
"My brother was just blown up," i said. And i laughed a little: isn't it ridiculous? My brother, getting blown up? Isn't that the silliest thing you've ever heard? Big things hit me slowly.
It wasn't until half an hour or so later when John came into the room that it really sank in. I began to tell him what had happened, and i began to cry. He took me in his arms and sat on the edge of the bed and held me. And then the funeral scene in the episode began.
"Sobbing" is not the word for what i did then. "Bawling" is closer the mark, but still doesn't quite hit it. You have to use old, outdated vocabulary to come close to my reaction to that funeral scene: keening, lamenting, wailing. John jumped up and turned off the TV.
A year and a half later, after my brother completed the Boston marathon, after the marathon was the focus of a terrorist attack, after i was stranded in Boston and then in Revere, trying to get back home, after i finally got home and then went to work all day, Mark Oshiro posted his review of 'In Excelsis Deo'. Everything comes full circle.

Those who have experienced mental illness first-hand will probably see flashes of themselves in this post. Those who have not experienced it themselves but have seen it in a loved one might find this interesting. Those who have no experience, either first- or second-hand, with mental illness are first of all either lying or deluded, and second of all should still read this for the writing.

Sometimes, commercials are just plain dumb. And sometimes, they're a little bit worse than dumb.

But this almost makes up for it.

I fell in love with Kate Inglis' writing last year in a way i haven't fallen for words in a long time, in a way where i want to kill her so her talent can stop eclipsing mine and i want to sit at her feet and learn from her and i want to be her pen pal and friend and i want to write something that will impress her and i want to quit writing so there's no chance of overshadowing her brilliance and i want to quit everything and just read her words, all of them, even her journals and shopping lists and birthday cards. And here, she marries words with images and rekindles that first flame. She doesn't post often these days, but the posts are well worth waiting for.

And the brilliant and lovely Hayley Campbell posts a second collection of Brief Interviews with Hideous Men. Not to be confused with Men Call Me Things, though i'd argue that they are related, Hayley's transcripts of actual conversations is hilarious and terrifying and acidic and very very typical.

Emily Angelou? Maya Dickinson? Emilya Dickelou? Mayily Angeson?

A few nights ago, my boyfriend and i were getting ready for bed, and he asked me to tell him a story. He does that from time to time, and it never goes well; i'm not good at spontaneous story-telling, and anyway i mostly write non-narrative poems, so it's completely out of my wheelhouse. So i always ask him what kind of story he wants, and he always says, "I don't know; you're the writer," and then i tell him that i don't do that kind of writing, and then he whines, and then i snuggle him to sleep.

But the most recent time, when i asked him what kind of story he wanted, he said, "One that would make a lot of money."
I laughed. "If i had a story that would make a lot of money, don't you think i would have sold it by now?"
"No, because you write poetry," he countered.

Ignoring the irony embodied in his own words, i had a flashback to senior year. In our senior seminar class, we had an assignment designed to make us seriously consider our career prospects as English majors. (Hint: they are not bright.) Those of us on the Creative Writing track had to research the market, look at publishing houses and magazines and journals and calls for submissions and find out what was profitable, what our demographic was, what our chances were for success. There were four graduating English seniors that year: two Literary Analysis, one Creative Writing (fiction), and one Creative Writing (poetry). The fiction writer was writing a Christian teen romance novel which will almost certainly sell. I thought it was okay: fluffy beach fiction with structurally sound but stylistically flat writing. But that hasn't gotten in anyone else's way, so she has a good shot. Anyway, when it was my turn to talk about success in the poetry field, the professor called in some other experts.

So we sat there, me and Beach Fiction and the two Literary Analysts, and Benji and McCann (published poets, both), and KP, and we talked about what it means to be a successful poet.
"Emily Dickinson never published anything in her life," McCann pointed out.
"And Maya Angelou made a million dollars last year because she sold out to work for Hallmark," Benji added.

Then there was a debate about Maya Angelou, and whether her more popular, money-making poetry was as good as her earlier work, and whether any of it was as good as Emily Dickinson's work, and whether either of them would be read in another fifty or a hundred years, and does success as a poet mean that you get published and are famous in your own time, or that you're still read after your death, or both? Or what if you never get the recognition you deserve, but you're still talented and you feel good about your body of work? What does it mean to be a successful poet?

I've been looking at submission calls again lately and getting depressed. It's hard and scary and heartbreaking and awkward and forward to just send people your poems and ask to get them published. And what's the upside? You get published and then you have to start sending things out again? You get a ten dollar check and a free magazine and you can't tell anyone about it because the poem they picked is the one where you yell at your mom or the one about the time you had to buy Plan B? You get published and then some other random publication actually asks you for work and then you have to find something that's polished and ready to go? And then you've published all of your stuff and then you have to write more? And what if you only had ten good poems in you and then you've sent them all out and then you're faced with the inevitable truth that you suck, that that part of your life is over, that you'll spend the rest of your life showing visitors the laminated magazine page with your poem on it and serving people coffee? You send out a submission packet and promptly die of embarrassment and anxiety?

Still, my workshop requires me to turn things in every week for review. And when i'm applying for English teacher jobs, it looks good if i have some publishing credits on my résumé. And knowing is better than not knowing. And even ten bucks is better than nothing. And who knows? Maybe i'll be some kind of Maya Angelou/Emily Dickinson crossover: an introverted white lady who doesn't title her poems and makes some money off of them while she's still alive. Okay, so i guess that's less of a Maya Angelou/Emily Dickinson crossover and more of a Profitable Emily Dickinson, but whatever.

saving me (writing)

Last but not least, the ability to put words to paper is the one thing that has saved me time and time again. It's the whole reason for this blog. Well, that and my crippling inability to display my latent narcissistic tendencies. (Kidding. Mostly.)

saving me (vulgarity)

You know George Carlin's famous seven words?* Shout them out. Scream them at the top of your lungs. If you're not quite ballsy enough for those seven, something milder is okay. Find the dirtiest word that you can comfortably say out loud and yell it. Think of it as catharsis: there's all that darkness and filth and pain inside of you, and it has to come out one way or another. This way is fast and a lot more fun than you might think.

*Shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, tits.

saving me (time)

There is no quick fix. There is no perfect solution. There is no switch to turn the lights back on. Work as hard as you can, fight as hard as you can, but know that you will have to wait for the dawn.

saving me (secret)

Have things that you cherish. Have things that are important to you. Don't give them away. Sometimes selfishness is okay. Keep parts of yourself to yourself -- don't give everything you are to everyone you meet. Have some secrets.

saving me (revolution)

Find something new, something that excites you. Find something old, something that bothers you. Find something you want to change. Find a change being made that you want to get behind. Find something you want to oppose. Find something you want to support. Find something to be passionate about. Revolt. And in so doing, revolt against the darkness.

saving me (quiet)

Sometimes you just have to burrow into your own head and stay quiet for a while.

saving me (poetry)

It's what i do. Rock bottom produces incredible poems.

words, words, words

Hello!

I know you're all DYING to know what's happening with my comic book, so here's a quick update: STUFF. STUFF is going on.

One of my roommates (the Outlaw) is also a writer, and we've both been sorely missing the regular workshops that we had when we were in school. Recently, we decided to start workshopping again, hoping to draw other people in and forming a real writing group. So far, we have two and a half people.

The Outlaw and i have met twice. The second time we met, i gave him what i had so far of my comic script, and i got some really great feedback -- helpful, constructive, informative, encouraging. I have a LOT of work ahead of me, but i'm energized about it, so it won't be too bad.

We've decided to meet every week, and to vary the format: week one, we will workshop our own individual pieces. Week two, we will work on a collaborative play/short story thing that was Outlaw's idea. This gives us time in between meetings to write and revise based on workshops, helps us keep up our momentum, and allows plenty of time for thinking and reading and re-reading.

The half person has been invited to join the workshop meetings and is excited. Hopefully, we will have our first meeting with her next week.

So i'm re-writing my prologue and expanding it, and then i'll continue with the rest of the story, editing and darkening and writing, writing, writing. I'm very excited to have other people look at my work, and to see work from other people. There is nothing more inspiring than a really good workshop.

And if you live in the Boston area and have been looking for a writing workshop, let me know! We'd love to expand the group further.

saving me (obstinacy)

See defiance.

saving me (negation)

Sometimes when everything is slipping away from you, you can hold onto the things you're not. I'm not poor. I'm not alone. I'm not unintelligent. I'm not untalented. I'm not living at home. The list could go on and on.

saving me (musician)

One musician in particular: my unbelievably wonderful boyfriend.

saving me (love)

Love in all forms. Love from others. Love for others. Love of others for each other. Love for books. Love from my cat. Love for steak. Love from the earth. Promised love. Past love. The hope of future love. Making love. The love of others for one another. Ingrid Michaelson's songs about love. Love, love, love.

saving me (knit)

I've been knitting for over half my life. It's nostalgic, it's simple, it's absorbing, it keeps me busy when i get twitchy, and it produces something beautiful.