Going Back to School

TL;DR - nerves about grad school, work, life, grief, illness, and writing

Tomorrow I start back to Grad School with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign online LEEP program working towards a Masters of Library and Information Science (MLIS) degree after taking a year off. I'm only taking one class called, "Community Engagement" and I'm really looking forward to it.

But I'm also nervous. Not nervous like I was when I started since I'd been out of school for several years and it was my first time doing any Graduate classes. But nervous that my concentration / focus isn't what it was due to my grief about Joy being killed, my two cats dying, and other life concerns like Kess having cancer and Bek breaking her humorous, though not her humor, making me feel more fragile than I know myself to be. I've also found, with the help of therapy, that I am mourning my mom since when she died, the family was consumed with making sure Joy was taken care of and I never really mourned her at that time.

This mourning, grief, and worry has stolen my focus, my sleep, given me nightmares, and taken my occasional migraines into the realm of chronic migraines. Don't get me wrong, I am ever so grateful and delighted that my bestie and my sister have both recovered. I am blessed that my job and my school have been so understanding of my circumstances. And I feel ever so loved by family and friends. But I still am grieving and I feel guilty for it going so long since I am just a bystander in all of this - it was not my body being crushed, having cancer, breaking, dying... Then, on top of that, I feel bad for feeling guilty because there is no timeline on grief. It's a vicious cycle of grief and guilt. (And yes, I'm in therapy. My therapist is awesome and helping me through this.) My other concern is that I know I need to make time to write even with work and animal care and grad school. My writing has been vital for me staying above the waters of deepest depression that I nearly died in a few years after Joy's rafting accident. I cannot and will not slide into those waters.

I had hoped to get my room rearranged and cleaned before my class started. But I have been sick and the migraines have kicked up a notch (which happens when all three of my main triggers - stress, hormones, and weather shift - hit me at the same time, especially when I'm sick) so my free time, including the weekend I had off, has been spent in bed. I'm trying to be okay with that. SELF-CARE is my mantra. I also keep reminding myself that yes, I am more than halfway through the MLIS program, I have all 'A's, and, when I started, I was working 2 jobs and taking double the course load, so I can do this.

I CAN DO THIS

I WILL DO THIS

*breathe*

A Look Back on Writing in 2019 & 2020 Goals for Writing

Even though 2019 was a rough year, one thing I did really well was making sure I had time to write and I wrote. I did not write every day, but I definitely wrote several times every week. I had been trying that "treat it as a job" approach for over a year, but it wasn't working for me. It sucked all the passion out of writing and I felt guilty if I didn't write during the times I had set aside due to a migraine or whatever. So I decided to try the "I Will Write Every Week" approach. Basically, writing became my place to relax and unwind. I was still writing down times to write in my planner, but it wasn't a, "YOU MUST DO THIS OR YOU FAIL AS A WRITER" type mentality. It was more, "hey, look at all this time you have to write! I know there's a lot going on, but once you get done with the stuff you HAVE to do, look at this fun thing you GET to do." Just a shift in perception and it made all the difference. It also helped that I had/have my writing groups and open mics as deadlines keeping me accountable. This is what I succeeded at this past year:

• Wrote every week
• Wrote every day for November & surpassed the 50,000 word mark for NaNoWriMo
• Sent out one Short Story (It got rejected, but with some pointers on how to fix the story so I'm seeing that as a win)
• Set up and started a Grief Journaling Workshop at the Library
• Continued with the Writers' Word Feast
• Visited an open mic I wasn't running
• Ran The No Shush Salon open mic
• Finished my memoir & gathered readers

Here are my writing goals for 2020:

• Send my memoir to my readers (Edit: DONE)
• Continue writing every week
• Send out writing for publication at least once a month
• Visit other (not run by me) writing groups
• Visit other (not run by me) open mics
• After getting back feedback from readers about my memoir (March 1), Edit it
• Figure out what direction I want to go with my memoir & go there

brain-storming an outline of my life - there are no dragons here

I started Grad school to get my MLIS (Masters of Library and Information Science) degree in the Fall of 2017. Thus far, I'm getting 'A's in all my classes! This is MONUMENTAL! While it may seem from the outside that I'm a good student, that has not always been the case. I have always struggled with reading due to my dyslexia and I've always had a difficult time focusing on just one thing. High school was tough on many fronts for me. I graduated undergrad with high marks (either all 'A's or 'A's and 'B's) only because in my undergrad career I transferred to a total of 4 different colleges/universities & transferring to a new place wipes your GPA. This was my saving grace since I was only a few points above failing after my first two years at University.

I'm sorry if this is boring. No one wants to read this. But I might as well keep it for something later... it's not going to get better. This is pretty much me brain-storming an outline of my life. I'm not delving into stories or details, just broad strokes. Lots, and lots of things are missing. It may develop further later, but not now. You have been warned! Proceed no further, there are no dragons here!

I thought I had hit my lowest levels of depression. This was when I was raped, but blocked it, yet hated myself without remembering why until years later. Despite one suicide attempt and lots of self harm, I managed to scramble out of that hole in Texas, follow my parents to Illinois, and got my AA at a community college. I was pulling my life back together. I decided I wanted to work in theater professionally as a Stage Manager or a Designer or something. (That was before I knew all the math that went into set design.) I was even dating someone who valued me. But I didn't feel I deserved that nor did I truly understand what real commitment was. So I ended it and dated someone not so good for me and fell back into another hole as different parts of my life fell apart.

This was the time that my oldest sister's accident happened. This was the time that my fiancee (even though I had never intended to get married, he had talked me into it) dumped me. This was when I found out I was pregnant and had an abortion. This was when I was suicidal again. This was when I was selfish and the worst big sister to my two younger sisters when they needed me most. This was when I went off to another University even though my mind, heart, and soul were not in it. (I was following the path the "more together" me had started instead of stepping back and reassessing.) This was when I lived with the biggest potheads on campus. Even though I did not smoke, the apartment was so permeated with it that I was high almost the whole time I lived there. This was when I found out that my body reacts poorly to pot. This was when I dropped out of University mid-semester. This was when I asked for help at the on-campus therapist's office, I was brushed off and it was either drop out or kill myself. This was when I moved back home... again. This was when I cut myself off from my parents and my family even though I was living in their basement. This was when the basement flooded, I fell into 3 feet of sewage water, and I lost all my writing of my youth. This was when my mom had a breakdown because the same flood destroyed almost everything she had saved for my oldest sister (who is now brain injured - functioning, but has to be cared for 24/7 and has serious memory issues) from her childhood. This was when I became even more self-centered and selfish. This was when I moved in with other friends, was a terrible housemate, and tried to kill myself there. This was when I reached out for help at a regular therapist's office. They really should have locked me up, but instead they made me promise not to kill myself before my next appointment and if I didn't show up for that, they would call the police on me. This was when I missed my next appointment. Nobody called or came to get me. This was when I realized nobody cared nor should they care if I didn't care. This was when I self harmed, a lot. This was when I fell and impaled a screwdriver into my knee. This was when, even after I called my dad and others for help as I bled everywhere, I realized I had truly screwed myself. This was when I took a vacation from work (I was working at Borders) so that I could kill myself without anyone being bothered. This was when I locked myself in my room swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills, another of pain meds, and drank a bottle of vodka as a chaser. This was when I woke up three days later in a pool of vomit and piss, but very much alive. This was when I realized I had cut myself off from my housemates, who had been friends, so much that they if they checked on me, they decided to leave me be. This was when I decided to live. This was when I resorted to self-harm to remind myself I was alive. This was when I moved back home... again.

I took 5 years off from schooling to get my life sorted. I sort of did, thanks to becoming friends with my bestie. She was going through some trauma of her own, so I set aside my selfishness and focused on helping her. I also met and fell in love with her cats. She took me to a shelter so I could get my own cat. Oliver. The first pet that was mine. The first soul I saved. That was truly a turning point for me.

She was a tattooing apprentice at the time, so I offered up my skin as canvass. I already had two smallish tattoos and had found the pain and ink comforting. Besides, she was one of the best artists and the most "safety first" conscientious people I had ever met. She was also punk/goth as fuck. I found that tattooing could replace my need for self-harm and it left a mark of art in my skin instead of just scars. I had plenty of those, now I wanted art, beauty, a life worth living.

I went back to school and graduated in the top 10% of my class. I had a degree in Writing with a minor in Directing. I was teaching freelance writing/theater classes, writing on the side, running events (also freelance), and working part-time at a used bookstore, Kate the Great's Book Emporium. I had also gotten accepted into the grad school at my Alma mater, Columbia College and was looking to get a great Fellowship.

But then the place offering the Fellowship folded, Kate the Great's closed, and I found out that I had been doing my taxes wrong for last couple of years with all my freelance work and I owed the IRS thousands of dollars. (This on top of the loans I had taken out of college...) This was when I thought I was going to fall down that hole of hating my life, feeling like a failure, self-harm, etc. again.

But I didn't.

I had built a life that focused on helping others, including my family when I could, and I decided that to get myself out of the funk I was in, I would help others. I planned to continue my work with Free Street teaching theater and writing to inner-city youth once the break was over and I began looking for animal shelters to volunteer at. That's when I found a job at an animal shelter. It was full-time with benefits and they would use the W2 for taxes instead of the dreaded 1099 that got me where I was owing thousands. I actually applied and interviewed on a whim. I didn't get the job, 'cause I couldn't start right away. But then, two weeks later, when my teaching gig was about to be on a 2 month hiatus, they called me again. Apparently, the person they hired hadn't worked out and would I still be interested? YES!

I, at first, thought I could do both. But shelter work is physically and emotionally draining. I began to put my all into it. (I have that tendency... My mom called me her "all or nothing" girl when I was little.) Even my writing became more about animals. Within a year and a half, I got promoted to Feline Care Coordinator / Adoption Counselor. The pay wasn't great, but the work was fulfilling. Exhausting but fulfilling. Then it started to be more and more exhausting and less and less fulfilling. I was not enjoying myself. I was crying every night. But the interesting thing there was I was no longer crying for me, I was crying for the animals I could not save and crying in frustration over the people who treated animals as disposable. Oliver had passed a while ago. He had bone marrow cancer. Even though we still had cats, Sebastian and Miyu and Nova and Eva, they were all my bestie's cats, not mine. I loved them, but they were hers.

Then there was Meander. My dear old man now. He was named Sebastian and, coloring-wise, he reminded me of Oliver. I fell in love! He's such a handsome cat and he really liked me. But due to his name and his look, I told myself no. Besides, there were so many cats that needed homes, I couldn't adopt them all. Then he was adopted. I thought, "good. I won't be tempted." But then the woman brought him back. He went back up for adoption, but he was NOT adjusting well to being in a cage again. He bit an intern. That is a death sentence for a cat in shelter. I cried and told my boss I HAD TO adopt him. She let me. He's the best! I renamed him Meander and, even though he was already 4-6 years old, he took to his new name very well and even comes when called (sometimes... he is a cat, after all.)

Ugh! I haven't even gotten to the Horrible House or dog walking or things in my dating life or self identity or stuff from my childhood in Venezuela or my struggle with my family’s religion or my struggle with writing/dyslexia or my in and out about my sexual identity or how I ended up in libraries! But I'm late for my date with myself! But hey, I'm writing and this is not too terrible... I may just make my memoir my NaNoWriMo project this year...

My plan... For once in my life I have a plan that's not a nebulous, "let's see where this path takes me",  kind of thing.* 

The plan:

• Get my grad degree
• Finish my novel(s)
• Get a full-time library job
• Get novel(s) published(?)
• Buy a house (with Bek and possibly Ben)
• Keep writing & getting published
• Open a small sanctuary 

* not that there's anything wrong with following paths just to see where they go! I will always stand by my less directed younger life since it led me to all sorts of interesting, amazing, and educational places and people. It also led me to the place where I can make the plan I am now constructing. Will it work? Who knows! But it's all very interesting!

Nanowrimo 2017

Long time no write!

I have been consumed by work and school and not writing enough.  BUT I did have a story published in August called, "The Photo Essay On the Human Race" through thewifiles.com

This short story is the basis of the novel I'm working on for Nanowrimo. I started at midnight and wrote for half an hour - 296 words so far & I'm writing with my Writers' Word Feast group to keep this writing going.

Here is the title:

Title: On the Preservation and Development of Relations between Earthanoid Inhabitants and Incognito Visiting Intergalactic Students Living Amongst Them, an Academic Perspective

Subtitle: How We Never Arrived to Earth

Synopsis: After the disaster at the Intergalactic Photographers’ Convention, Henrietta, Ga, Peeve, and Ted travel to Earth in Ga's incredibly, and somewhat eerily, comfortable spaceship. They don't get there. But on the way, they find asteroids that eat stars, spaceships from a thousand years ago, and the happiest dragon in the universe. They also stumble into a war between robot guilds and inadvertently destroy a couple of planets. Plus, they go to Space Court.

On Feeling Like an Impostor

I am not a well published writer. I've had one short story published recently, a few pieces published years back, & lots of lovely rejection letters to attest to my continuing to submit my writing. Outside of the possible publications, I have several short stories that just need a bit of polish before I send them out, other short stories that are bare bones, a novel that is "finished" but getting a massive overhaul, another "finished" novel that is set aside, three other novel starts, two barely formed novel ideas that I have jotted down notes and have done a bit of research on, a cluster of memoir vignettes, and article ideas (like this one) that I want to work on when I have time.

I feel like I have been a writer my whole life. I was “writing” stories before I could write. As soon as I could form sentences, my mom told me that I was making up stories. When I was a bit more cohesive with my ideas, I would dictate these stories to my mom and she would write them down for me.* (They were terrible, but she was very tolerant.) Even though I have dyslexia, writing was a huge goal of mine so, after a lot of struggle and with a mom who would not tolerate a teacher calling me slow and stupid and even though we moved to Venezuela in the middle of all that**, I learned to write.

All of this, despite my lack of published work, says in my mind that yes, I am a writer.

And yet…  And yet recently at my writers’ group I had someone say that I wasn’t a “real” writer; that I wasn’t serious about my writing. For a couple of days, I believed them. The evidence? I have goals other than writing, I don’t have a consistent writing schedule***, and I don’t support myself with my writing.

There was another writer there who writes every morning for 2 hours, supports themself with their writing, and their entire life is about their writing. They didn’t agree with the person who said I wasn’t a real writer, but they didn’t dispute them either. I, on the other hand, got very defensive.

After a couple of days of self doubt I thought, why do I care what this other person has to say? By their own admission, they have never been published and rarely write. Upon reflection, I believe that they were trying to find common ground with me and didn’t realize how hurtful their words were. But, let’s be honest, it’s not about them, it’s about me. I doubt myself as a writer. Therefore, if anyone says anything that reflects that doubt, no matter how deeply I’ve buried it, it comes rising to the surface like some monolith of my personal insecurity. I feel like an imposter.

I wish, at this point, I could say, “and this is how I destroyed my feelings of being an imposter.” But I can’t… because I still feel like an impostor… sort of. I write because I’m a writer, and it doesn’t matter if I’m published or not. Kafka was never published in his lifetime. Laura Ingalls Wilder was 44 (my current age) when she became a columnist and didn’t publish her first novel until she was 64, and the Marquis de Sade was 47 when he published his very controversial novel Justine. The list goes on and on… Here’s a article about 10 Great Literary Late Bloomers and here’s the website dedicated to Late Bloomers called Bloom. This should make me feel better, right?

But then my thoughts spiral into, maybe I’m just a really crappy writer. Who am I to be giving other writers advice? How do I dare to run a writing group and an open mic? I wonder why I even bother writing since all the great things have already

Self-doubt sucks. So, dear reader, I pose this question to you: What do you do when self-doubt comes creeping around?

  

*All of the stories that my mom transcribed for me, along with about two thirds of my earlier writing, was lost in the basement flood of 1995. That was a terrible year.

**I have started writing about that. So meta!

***I’ve never been good at the, “get up first thing and write every day”, philosophy since I am not at all a morning person.

Morning Musings #3: Writing Problem

My biggest problem when it comes to writing* is that I have TOO MANY things that I want to work on. 

Example: I NEED to finish editing The Peculiar Predicament of Poppets, but the story "Transmissions from Mars" keeps telling me things I don't want to forget and once I jot those ideas down, I want to work on that. Then there's the super political, very dark and highly satirical "Nobody's Property" story that I want to write about an extreme feminist group called Vagina Denta taking over the White House. On top of that, as I get stories ready to send off, I keep needing to edit those too... 

I've been told that it's a good problem to have and I agree. I'm glad that I never have to struggle for ideas. I am blessed, I am privileged, I am prolific. But sometimes, I'd really like to control the flow. (Did this suddenly become a feminine products commercial?)

*aside from that not getting published thing. But as long as I'm sending my writing out, that's not on me.

Writing Woes & NaNoWriMo

I have three novels and lots of short stories to work on, but my head and my heart hasn't really been in my writing these last several months. I know part of it is because I have a lot going on - a promotion, two jobs, working on two HUGE events along with my regular ones, housemates moving out, a pretty steady flow of foster kittens, getting ready to launch cemeteryguardians.com for it's second year, and just the regular business of living. But also, I've been feeling a draw to work on my nonfiction... to tell the story of my life... to write about my sisters... a memoir about my family... to write about Joy's brain injury... to write about how that one event completely changed my family. This is something I have been trying to write for twenty years, ever since her accident first happened. But almost three years ago my mother died and she has always been my best fact checker whenever I've written about our lives. Also, writing about something so true and personal is really hard and draining. I fear using what my family has gone through for my writing. I worry about not being true to what happened. Memory is faulty, and I have a brain that likes to embellish and fictionalize. I know that writing is cathartic, but I fear that sharing my life with strangers will not be fair to the people who share my life.

About seven months after my mom died, H is for Hawk came out. This memoir by Helen Macdonald was about her father dying suddenly, something I related to on a very personal level. But it was also about how she threw herself into training her hawk and secluded herself from the rest of the world. This experience is very different from mine, though I do tend to throw myself into whatever I'm doing, I've never had the luxury of time or money to step away from my life. But the emotion, or attempts to side-step emotion, in the story were very familiar. It helped me. It also made me think that if my writing could possibly help someone else, I should write my story.

So my plan is that in November, I will work on my memoir for NaNoWriMo. Over the first week of November, I am visiting one of my dearest friends in Rode Island and since she is an amazing author, I'm certain we will have time to write. I don't know if it will stay a memoir, and that's okay. All I know is that I need to write my life.

Progress Report on The Peculiar Predicament of Poppets (Plus, blatant pandering with pup & cat pics)

Today I had the day OFF! Well, not entirely. I'm house-sitting for Phoebe, this beautiful pup:

Adorable Phoebe!

Also, I had to stop by the shelter to get more cat food for Björk, the pregnant lady cat I'm fostering. She is VERY preggo and eating constantly. She's super sweet too! Here she is enjoying head scritches:

"Keep scratching, human!"

Anyhow, between walking and playing with Phoebe and visiting our cat boys and preggo kitty, I took myself out writing. I feel like I made a LOT of progress on my novel, The Peculiar Predicament of Poppets. Here's where things stand:

• My novel is now over 40,000 words, more than halfway through. (I thought I'd be revising all the things by now, but I've been slowly making my way through each chapter and they insist on getting revised before I move on.)
• I KNOW how the novel is going to end! (I just gotta get there now...)
• I fixed some character glitches.
• I got rid of a few characters that weren't fitting.
• I discovered things about some of my characters.
• I love you, google maps, for having "walk" & "bike" options so I can figure out how long it would take my one character to walk / pull a cart across state lines and how long it will take another character to reach her destination on a runaway horse in 1871.
• As of now, there will be 30 chapters in 2 parts. I have 16 chapters fully written and the rest have at least a spark of what they're about.
• I sketched out the layout of a scene to give me a better idea of movement. I haven't done that since I was writing stage plays. It was good. I need to do more if that!