Resignation

Hi All. As if it wasn't entirely obvious, the blog is too much for me. I have decided to resign from blogging until I have something to blog about. For everyone who ever visited Transitions Ink, thank you. And thanks for your comments and your friendship. Happy writing everyone!
TI

High Hopes

I do have high hopes for the blog, really. I have them for my writing, for finishing that philosophy manuscript, for applying to writers' residencies, for getting some exercise and eating properly again, for fulfilling my word quota each day, for getting up early in the morning, for staying in touch with my friends, for maintaining a sense of calm as I move through my day, for refraining from complaining. I do. I really, really do.

I Can Do It! And So Can You!

I started this post with the title, "Can I do it?" What a set-up that question is. As writers, it's essential for us to believe we can do it. Yet doubt plagues even the best among us (so I'm told). I'm on a mission to confront my negativity and self-doubt whenever I feel it creeping in to my attitude. I know there are lots of trite messages out there about the power of positive thinking, but in all things trite we find a kernel of truth. We might roll our eyes, yet deep down we know the obvious: we're not likely to get anywhere close to our dreams if we don't think they could possibly come true.

I look back on my recently completed MFA in Creative Writing and wonder now how I did it. One important factor was my commitment to the goal: while I was doing it I didn't doubt that I could. And neither did my friends who were doing it at the same time.

With that behind us, the real scary part has arrived. And it's this transition from student writer to writer, a transition a two-year MFA can only begin to prepare a person for, that brought back the doubt. It's this transition about which my gut instinct as I sat down to write this post was to ask "can I do it?"

And the answer to that question is: yes. I can do it. And so can you!

Back with a Meme: Six Unimportant Things about Me

Writerbug tagged me with the "six unimportant things about me" meme. I've been thinking of starting to post again. This is as good a start as any. Thanks for the push, Bug.

Six unimportant things about me:
1. My next computer will be a Macbook Air.
2. I can't eat garlic.
3. I enjoy grocery shopping.
4. I'm addicted to scrabulous.
5. I actually find committee work rewarding and enjoyable.
6. If I grew my hair long you'd be able to tell it's actually curly.

Now I get to the tricky part: I have to tag six people to do the same meme. The sad thing is: I don't think there are six bloggers who come here regularly once Writerbug is off the list. So, if you're here, you have a blog, and you're NOT on the list, please add yourself.

RB
Repeater
My Basement Years
Tammy
Khendron

The rules of the game are as follows:
1. Link back to the person that tagged you
2. Post these rules on your blog.
3. Share six unimportant things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your entry.

Thanks, everyone.

Thesis: Check!

I turned in the thesis on Sunday. Whew! What a relief that was. I have to say, it feels kind of anticlimactic, like I just faded and fizzled. Whatever. I don't think I could have spent another day on it without a long-ish break.

I also just finished a book review tonight. I need to remind myself not to agree to do that again. Thank goodness I had the foresight to tell them I could only do two of the three books they'd invited me to review. I should know better than to sign up to read extra philosophy! It just about killed me. It was due on February 20, then I got an extension to March 20, and I'm just waiting for a colleague to read it over and I'll send it off tomorrow. I did think the books were worth reading, but time-consuming!

Other than feeling like I'm chained to my computer (my attitude has taken a real slide over the past month or so), I've become pretty much addicted to scrabulous. I would be very upset if they decided to pull it from Facebook.

I finished another shawl, too. I've just got to block it and then I'll post photos. Started a new pair of socks a couple of weeks ago and I plan to get back to a summer project that I set aside a couple of years ago because it was too hard but maybe now, now that I've completed a Birch, I'll be able to handle it. We shall see.

Is This Normal? and a Reverse Schedule

I wonder if it's normal to think the stuff you wrote before and thought would be easy to work with is actually, well, just not that good? I'm revising a piece I used to think was nearly there, and suddenly it's not there at all. Before you think this is just the usual insecurities, let me say I've also revised a couple of other pieces over the past little while and I used to think they were just plain garbage. Now, I feel kind of good about them. I guess it's a kind of cosmic thing: you're given a little here and a little gets taken away from over there. Hrmph.

In honor of Bug, I am going to make a reverse schedule to handle the next two submission periods, for both of which I've been granted little extensions (really little, like from the Monday to the Friday).

May 1 Final versions of everything to reader, including approvals form.
April: Respond to advisor's comments and format thesis as required for bound version.

April 4 Penultimate versions of everything to advisor, including approvals form.
April 3 Finish revising "Are We There Yet?"
March 31 Start revising "Are We There Yet?"
March 25-31 Revise "The Narrow Border"
March 21-24 Revise "The Table"
March 17-21 Revise "My Mother's Kitchen"
March 10-16 Revise "Nothing Was Said"

March 7 Second submission to advisor.
March 7 Revised versions of "My Mother's Kitchen," "The Table," "Nothing Was Said," "The Narrow Border," and "Are We There Yet?" to advisor.
March 3-7 Re-read and tweak everything.
March 1-3 Revise "Are We There Yet?"
February 25-29 Revise "Nothing Was Said" and "The Narrow Border"

Put like that, it actually doesn't look too bad. Wish me luck. The first "leg" coincides with a snowboarding getaway (this Monday to Thursday). The plan: hit the slopes in the a.m., hit the keyboard after lunch, take the evening off.

Wayward Blogger, Miscellaneous

I know from my own blog-reading preference that a blog with a focus is more attractive than one without. For example, the latest blog I'm really enjoying is Zen Habits. Why do I like it? First of all, it's pleasant to look at. Simple and easy to navigate. Second, I really like the whole zen idea because I crave simplicity in my life. So that's an attractive world view to me. Third, I pick up stuff I find useful there. For example, there is a set of strategies for emptying the inbox. As someone with an inbox that has about 1500 messages in it right now (at least I don't have a backlog of unread e-mail), while at the same time having a strong preference for an empty inbox, that gives me a possibility and a strategy for getting there. I like that, too. It's also a blog where there are links between articles. Because it has a unifying theme, when there is a post that relates to an earlier post, he points that out and provides a link.

Anyway, my own blog is a mish mash that even people who know and like me can't, I'm imagining, find particularly compelling as a 'read'. It doesn't even excite me! So I think that's one of the reasons I've taken to blogging infrequently. That and the frenetic chaos that is my daily life!

More miscellany: I got comments back from my advisor and they were positive, despite my sending her a package that fell short in volume and quality. At least I'm getting there. She's very encouraging and thought well of the revisions. They were substantial and I'm still at it.

The "barely there shawl" (note to RB: the colour is Brick) is coming along nicely. I'm doing research for an article I'm writing about knitting and the research requires (requires, I say!) me to knit at meetings and presentations and so on at work.

We're crawling through Season Six of 24, which we have on DVD. I'm squirming more than usual. Must be getting soft.

Weekend plans: lots of writing. Dinner out with friends tonight. Two movies (it's a long weekend here -- new holiday, "Family Day," because the government decided we needed a long weekend in February to fend off depression, suicide, etc.): The Kite Runner tomorrow night and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly on Monday afternoon. Some exercise: at least 30 minutes of something every day. Measured use of "scrabulous," which has made its way to the top of the "fun ways to procrastinate" list.

Revising with a New Narrator

I'm back from a short trip where I had the great pleasure of meeting up with Writerbug and RB for dinner at an oo-la-la French bistro (good pick, Bug!). Now, it's time to hit the keyboard. I had a long layover at the airport yesterday, long enough to find an ac outlet, plug in the laptop, and try a whole new approach to the pieces I'm revising. I've got three separate but linked pieces and I'm going to try to unify them into one long story. Last semester, I wrote something else in which I landed on a narrative voice that I feel good about. I'm going to try to have the new narrator tell the old stories and see how they change. Wish me luck -- it's an experiment for which I have high hopes.

Since the other part of my trip involved a somewhat demoralizing experience which I've had three days to revise my perspective about, it was on balance a combination of highs and lows. You could say I broke even.

Sunday Scribblings: Fellow Travelers

I like the literalness of today's prompt. Fellow travelers has come to mean almost anything but fellow travelers these days, that most people's first thought is about those who are on the same life path as them. For example, my fellow-writers, especially those whom I've met through the MFA, were the first to come into my mind when I saw the prompt.

Twenty-five years ago I went to Switzerland with a bunch of kids from local high schools to do five weeks of French Immersion in a small Alpine village built high on the side of a mountain. They tossed us in five to a room, and on the bunk opposite mine was a girl named Karen. She and I turned out to be kindred spirits. We liked getting into exactly the same kind of trouble, the same kids got on our nerves, we supported each other in our crushes on different boys without ever having a crush on the same boy, we had up-market tastes in champagne and chocolate (particularly for sixteen year-olds), and, finally, we swore we would return the next summer. Which we did. Together.

Over the next eighteen months, Karen and I had an idiosyncratic tour of Europe. We went to Athens without seeing the Parthenon, went to Amsterdam without seeing the Van Gogh Museum, and zipped through Italy without stopping in Rome, Florence, or Venice. We made our way to Crete, where that first time, staying there for three months, I didn't visit Knossos (I would see it later). It was the itinerary of two seventeen year-olds with no interest in anything but bars, boys, and beaches. Priding ourselves on travelling light, we hardly even shopped.

After three months in Crete, living on opposite sides of the Island (I in Agia Galini, Karen in Iraklion), I chose to return to Canada to attend University. Karen stayed. She's been living in Crete since 1983. I've been back to see her a couple of times (that's when I saw Knossos, and of course, I've since been to the Acropolis site and seen the Parthenon more than once).

Karen just visited Canada in December. She's thinking of moving back but is worried about culture shock. I can't imagine what I'd be like today if I'd followed her lead and stayed in Crete. But when we see one another, we're as close as we ever were. We were fellow-travelers, embarked on the adventure of our lives. It took us in two different directions, but there is something about being on the road together when you're young that creates an unbreakable bond no matter what other paths you might ultimately take.

For more fellow-travelers' stories, go here.

Photo credit to Wikipedia.

How Slow Can You Go?

Something tells me I've had this title before. In any case, I'm sure I've had this thought before. I'm revising. Why is revising so SLOW? Writing is the strangest endeavor you can imagine. Here I am, I want to write more than anything else. And today I had a whole day stretching out before me, a nice blank page, if you will, for writing and nothing but writing. I've been kicking away at this revision, or at least at trying to envision the revision, for the whole week. All I've come up with is that pretty much everything in the original needs to be scrapped.

The piece is called "Finishing the Story," and an underlying theme is the way we complete our parents' stories. This one focuses on my mother, whom I, of course, love. Suddenly, I have no idea how to write about people I love and know. As a writer of memoir-style non-fiction, I know that writing about her is really (or at least also) writing about me. Anyway, I'm having the opposite of an aha moment. I'm having a "huh?" moment instead. And it's painful. And so the day has been somewhat tortured as I try to figure out what matters in this piece.

What do you do when you're stuck?

On Track, Sort of

I kind of slacked yesterday on the writing, but I made it to yoga and even had a brisk walk later in the day. Today I managed to get in some work on my thesis and on my book revisions, wrote a few letters that needed to be written, spent 20 minutes on the elliptical machine AND did 30 crunches, and stuck to my healthy eating plan.

I think the exercise and smart eating are really important. When I do that, I feel better. When I feel better, I'm more energetic. When I'm more energetic, I have an easier time writing. And when I write, I feel best of all! I'm also giving myself a break by having very low expectations. As long as I do something in each category (a page here, 30 minutes on revision there, a little turn around the campus before lunch, a couple of yoga asanas) I'm satisfied.

Anyway, I'll definitely try to branch out a bit in blog topics, but in the "as long as I do something" lifestyle, I can't promise it'll be much more interesting!

Objective #1: Shake the cold!

My main objective today is to shake this darn cold I picked up at the residency. So I am not doing the 5 a.m. thing quite yet. Bug has already started posting her schedule. That impresses me and makes me feel as if I should have one, too. Okay, here goes:

Monday night: Go to bed early to sleep off last bit of cold

Tuesday:
6:30 Yoga class
8:15 Breakfast
9:00 Morning pages
10:00 Academic book revisions (work on chapter two)
12:30 Lunch with a friend
2-5 Meetings
Evening Work on "Finishing the Story" revision and order books for the semester

We'll see how Tuesday goes before making any plans for Wednesday.

As you can see, the blog is going to be super-gripping for the next little while!

Still Here

Just before the end of the MFA residency, which ended today, Bug, RB, and I re-committed to the blogs. In just six short months, it will be our turn to read at the graduate student readings, teach our own graduating student seminars, and walk the stage at graduation.

As usual, the residency inspired me to throw myself into the writing with all I have to give it. If it's going to work this semester, the 5 a.m. starts need to be reinstated.

Ready, set, ....