The Fifth Chakra

Surgery is now moved up to Thursday morning.

I hope that because it will be done sooner that the infection’s source is removed and then he will heal and then we can stop hanging out with surgeons all the time and we can all go back to a semi-normal life.

Maybe.

. . . in hopes that it becomes writing.  I was on a roll for about a week and then last week got crazy and my rhythm was broken and now I’m writing one piddling paragraph at a time.  It’s like rabbit turds.

Taken, with love, from jadepark.

Look at the list of books below. Bold the ones you’ve read, italicise the ones you want to read, cross out the ones you won’t touch with a 10 foot pole, put a cross (+) in front of the ones on your book shelf, and asterisk (*) the ones you’ve never heard of. Like jadepark, I’ve left unformatted the books to which I feel perfectly indifferent.

1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown) – I argue regularly with a professor about the value of trash. I see some books as the equivalent of Oreos, or Cheetos–they are not good for you, but damn, they are tasty. So, I started it and thought it was boring and stopped reading. The movie was mildly entertaining.

2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen) – I haven’t read it. I’ve read Northanger Abbey, Emma and some other one. All Jane Austen reads the same to me. As a lit nerd, it’s fun in terms of theory. As a reader, I’m not so enthralled.
3. (+) To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee) – Still makes me weep.
4. (+) Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell) – Entertaining. Like the movie more.
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien) – Read it in high school. Love the premise, the story, the maps, the ingenuity. Really hard to get through.
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien) – see #5
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien) – see #5, 6
8. (+) Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery) – I’d like to go back and re-read this book to see what I think now, but I re-read it in college one time when I was home on vacation and still loved it. I’ve read just about everything LM Montgomery ever wrote, including the novellas and “found” manuscripts. Between the ages of 9 and 14, I was always Anne in my dreams. Read the rest of this entry »

I haven’t been keeping up much here, mainly because I’ve been putting my energies into grading and writing (and a helluva lot of baking too). But, I think a followup is needed to the last post, on hitting my stride.

In the past week, I received word that I was accepted to both of the writers’ conferences I applied to. It has given me such a confidence boost; it’s outside validation that i’m not a total fraud. I think I realized that last night, even before I knew I had gotten into the second conf.

I met with my thesis advisor earlier in the day. I have a due date–APRIL 20. A chunk of a draft of a novel is due on April 20. I have two months. And this makes me so happy for some reason, that I’m somehow more of a real writer because of this. And then, my first story of the term was workshopped last night. GREAT workshop, btw–very helpful. Only thing is, the last few times I’ve been workshopped, I’ve had full-fledged panic attacks during them. Having others critique your work, even on a good day, is difficult enough. So I went to my prof and told her exactly what I was afraid of, and asked if I could go first to get it down with. She was wonderful (because she always is), and said that was fine, and to feel free to just walk out if I needed air, that she would cover for me.

And, of course, because I called my panic on it’s on little game, it didn’t happen. It felt really good.

I finally believe I’m a writer. I don’t know why I didn’t fully believe that before, but all this good news and good progress towards something feels so right. I think every writer–as well as ever teacher–often questions whether she is a fraud. And today, at least, I’m not questioning.