We hit the magical day of 16 yesterday, the day that many psychologists say new habits are forged. Congratulations, intrepid writers with recently created finger callouses! I’ll go ahead and admit it now: missing a single day doesn’t hurt your chances of forming habits. But hey, we’re over the basic threshold, so don’t hold my secrecy against me.
Well, hidey ho, we’re at the halfway mark of the NaNoWriMo challenge. I am going to suggest something that I promise is not wacky, although some people may think it’s clear out of left field.
Stop writing this afternoon, and pick up a book. Read More…
I’d heard, along with the other people who live in the U.S., about the influx of whole-body scanners to our airports. More than one’s average bear, those of transgender heritage disdain these things because well, it goes against our whole mantra of “I’m not just what I am in my pants/skirt.” In this narrow chamber, we are. Thinking about these things abstractly and then coming face to face with one, as I did last Wednesday, I discovered, are two different animals. The disgust after reading a newspaper article pales in comparison to stepping into one of these scanners. Read More…
We’re on the back stretch now, and if this were an actual horse race, there would be almost as much distance to travel backward as forward, so stopping now would be close to useless. However, NaNoWriMo is an extended writing event, so we can take an easy trap door out of it at any point if we want to. Before we all push the Quit Now button, however, I want to point out a few things:
1. You will never be in the middle of this novel in the same way again. Read More…
I was once on the steering committee of the Syracuse University Women’s Studies Department, so sure, I hestitatingly crashed the afternoon plenary given by Chandra Mohanty (who is now the chair of that same department) and M. Jacqui Alexander. They spoke about pedagogy and collaborative writing, but this was a front, really, for reframing global-wide heteronormative, misogynist, xenophobic neocolonialism. For it has been a few epochs now since a sizable portion of the world’s population lived free from borders. Mohanty and Alexander would like to push back against the conservative movement that has created a whiplash since the tragedy of 9/11, capturing “immigrants,” “terrorists,” and “citizens,” and redefining America in a way that is too narrow to sustain itself. Read More…
This is about where the guy who’s been eating potatoes and only potatoes starts to sound a little freaky in his blog:
Potatoes originated in the mountains of Peru. These varieties are wild and beautiful and come in an assortment of colors. One color you can often find here in the US are purple potatoes. My question is, if you ground them up in a blender and put them in your hair, will your hair turn purple? Tune in tomorrow for the answer!
Hopefully nobody’s dyeing their hair over NaNoWriMo. Yet. Read More…
One-third of the way through the month, and that wasn’t so bad, was it? Only six more days until a bonafide habit has been established. So the work is all for something, awesome. But it’s Day 10, so that means we’re well into the weeds of this project, and if the manuscript draft is a third of the way through, we’re at or nearing a transition. Exposition is over, and we’re in the meat of the story. For me, that means I’m focusing on scene work. Read More…
We’re leaving on a jet plane for Denver in a few hours, and I’m excited in part because Denver is a city I’ve only seen once, a long time ago, but also because I love writing from hotel rooms. Nice TV on in the background, bed at easy access for naps or when I need to ruminate, broad desk and lovely view of somewhere else for quality pondering time. I can get some take out and type away over lunch. There’s something appealing to my creative side about writing from Somewhere Else, which is what we had in mind when we made the short-term move to Seattle. So a trip out of town is now a kind of hop to Somewhere Else’s Somewhere Else. And I quite enjoy that. Read More…
If there’s a moment when the realization that everything one has been writing sounds hollow, forced, and insipid, this is it. This is optimal burn-the-paper-and-run time. The Let’s Pretend This Never Happened, that’s what this is for many people. But as I carefully considered my story line before November began, thinking about what would be a familiar yet novel idea, generating likable characters and figuring out transitions and the mechanics of the arcs, I shouldn’t back away now. No, it’s not because I’m more than 50 pages into the thing. It’s because when I had my wits about me on October 17, I knew there was a good book here, and I just need to trust myself. Read More…
I want to offer a suggestion, of sorts, that is born out of decades of research. Well, not really research so much as a lifetime of experience with front-line medical staff, the stories from my friends, and the reading I’ve done as an adult about where our health care system is weak, and who falls through the cracks in its tired structure. No way is any of this scientifically stated, and hopefully I won’t rely on generalizations to make my points, but I’m sure if I do, someone will point it out to me. So let me just jump in with my suggestion.
Health care and health insurance ought to be the next priority for the queer community. Read More…
Trans/plant/portation 