ash rocketship • babble

three-fold anxiety, elephant gestation, and summer 2010

Right now, I am curled up in the mental fetal position at my desk eating my feelings in the form of a large-ish bowl of Life cereal. NO JOKE. I am stressed as hell because I have a novel workshop tomorrow and I am giving myself SERIOUS ANXIETIES over nothing. This ain’t my first rodeo, so I don’t know what I am freaking out about, but WHATEVER, I am running with it and when Life hands you lemons, you should take that shit back to the store and buy the cinnamon kind instead.

Part of my freaking out is just the general anxiety of knowing that some people I trust/respect are reading my (very, very raw) work and are going to tell me what I did wrong (and right, but that falls on deaf ears pretty much) for TWO HOURS in the very near future. The workshop system is fucked up on a lot of levels, but writers are nothing if not gluttons for punishment, so we just. keep. doing. it. I expect this insanity twice/three times a quarter and I deal with it pretty well.

The second part of the anxiety is really frustration. I’m not writing my book linearly. I don’t mean that narratively (shit starts at point A and ends at point B), I mean actual craft-wise. I’ve never written a novel before (three NaNoWriMo attempts be damned.) and I’m not the kind of writer that can force readable writing out when the spark’s not there, so I am jumping around in the timeline, fully aware of what is missing and mostly how it’ll shape where the story is going.

If my brain says, “Yo, write this scene that happens in the last third of the book,” I’m going to write the fucking scene that happens in the last third of the book. I’m not going to be all, “Nah, man, that has to wait, there are still a hundred pages between here and there!” because by the time I get from here to there I will have lost everything good about what I wanted to write.

Fuck that.

So, my classmates and professors get whatever it is I’ve written with outline and explanation of what is missing. I have worked HARD to make it as clear and understandable as humanly possible and I am nutso-insane SICK AND TIRED of having to apologize for it.

It’s not even the people around me! My readers are all REALLY SUPPORTIVE. It’s like I am being COSMICALLY SHAMED into changing the writing method that works for me and that’s total bullshit. I shouldn’t have to apologize for writing what comes easily, naturally. I should be able to write whatever-the-fuck I want to write without feeling like I am breaking some bullshit rules no one bothered to tell me in the first place.

I understand it changes the reads and critiques I’m going to get, but that’s my problem to deal with and one that I am fully willing to accept. I have no problem with, “Hey, I don’t know where this is, so I can’t be of much help plot-wise,” because I will be like, “HEY COOL, I APPRECIATE THE HEADS UP.”

I cannot legitimately be the only writer in the HISTORY OF WRITING PROGRAMS to write non-linearly while shaping the first draft of the novel. And I am real, real tired of having to kowtow and apologize like I’ve done something wrong.

Embracin’ my methods straight-up from HERE ON OUT. TAKE THAT, COSMOS.

The final part of the anxiety isn’t nervousness, it’s fucking-ready-for-this-shit-to-be-done-ness.

My MFA program is great and I am grateful everyday that I get to work with the people I do and that it’s turning out as well as it is and that I don’t, yet, have to work a real job and try to fake my way through real life responsibility.

But I am LEGIT ready for summer. I am in my EIGHTH month with this novel, not counting the three to four months I spent hardcore percolating the story way back in 2008 and I am SICK of this motherfucker.

I love the story still, probably even more than I did when I first came up with the idea, and my writing gets better every single time I sit down to burn through pages, but I am sick of talking about it, thinking about it, critiquing it, breathing it, living it. And I’m not even DONE.

The writing process BLOWS. It’s like African elephant gestation, an abominable pregnancy that is NEVER GOING TO END.

I know it’ll be worth it, that all the agonizing and stressing and misery and anxiety and suffering will be something I can be proud of, but eff that right now. I just want to get drunk and hang out in my BFF’s pool and crack wise about some serious bullshit and get up to some shenanigans.

So, PEACE OUT, SPRING 2010. I am ready for your scantily-clad sister Summer and all the debauchery and freedom she’s got jammed in her jorts pockets. BRING IT ON.

allergies are GROSS

so, i have a lot of kind of random allergies. i developed an allergy to strawberries as an adult (but i eat them anyway) and i can’t use 90% of face products. and my body reacts to allergies with HIVES. big, lymph-leaking hives all over my FACE, mostly, then usually my neck and chest. it’s gross and itchy and awful, so aside from strawberries (which has actually lessened in recent years), i try to avoid them at all costs. it’s miserable.

well, one of the things i am MOST ALLERGIC TO is weevils. which shouldn’t be a big deal, except every house has weevils! they like dry foods and flour and stuff, so sometimes they are just in a house and if they don’t get into the food, they just hang out looking for crumbs and shit and they’re tiny and mostly not bothersome. EXCEPT WHEN YOU ARE ALLERGIC TO THEM.

so when i see them, it is my first instinct as a bug-hater to squish them, only I AM ALLERGIC, so i have to run and wash my hands two or three times and hope that i didn’t touch any of my clothes.

so the other day, i guess i killed one and forgot about it and then touched my face. and i was sitting at my desk at four am and i was like, “fuck my face really itches.” and i was like, “ugh, i bet it’s dry skin. my skin is FREAKING OUT this week.” so i just resolve to not touch it and ignore it. but i am sitting there and it is getting itchier and i am like, “UGH FUCK I WILL JUST GO WASH UP” and i walk into the bathroom and look in the mirror and see this hot mess.

YEAH THAT’S RIGHT.

so gross. i look like my skin is going to fall off. FUCK HIVES IN THE ASS, MAN. so miserable. and they were all wet and slimy from lymph-juice and just. ugh. my life, non-stop misery.

it was nice to be able to show my parents though and be like, WHAT WHAT YOU SAID IT WAS PSYCHOSOMATIC MOTHERFUCKERS LOOK AT THIS BOOYAH.

(also, i know that looks like one side of my face flipped to look like two, but i assure you it is not. i just have a FREAKISHLY symmetrical face. seriously. the mirror effect on the isight gives me the heebies because my face LOOKS EXACTLY THE SAME. my gf says that’s why i often get approached/reached out to by random children and babies. she says they dig symmetry.)

SPURNED

Rejection. Rejection is stone cold. It is merciless and cruel. It doesn’t care that you’re having a terrible week or that your dog died or that you broke your finger when you fell down the stairs in front of the hot guy from your morning class. It does not care about your motivation, your attitude, your enthusiasm, or your patience. It will crush you whether it’s been a week, a month, or a year of waiting.

Rejection’s a monster.

You’ve been writing since you were a kid and got your creative writing degree and submitted a story to the lit mag at your college and got in and it was joyous and you were like, “Damn, girl, a published writer at twenty-two!” and patted yourself on the back and didn’t submit (nor really write) fuck-all for the next two years. Way to be proactive, Ash!

And then you submit a story a prof you respect said you should submit lo those whole damn two years ago and, since he made mention of it, you submit it to the lit mag he suggested. And you pat yourself on the back again like, “Yeah, I’m the man, being brave!” and you wait.

And you wait.

And you wait some more.

Then you learn that this random-ass lit mag is actually like, the third most competitive in the country and you shit your pants and go, “What the actual fuck was I thinking?” and maybe you freak out and you’re like, “Damn, they’re just hanging on to it to LAUGH AT ME AREN’T THEY!”

And you wait some more anyway.

And four months pass and you feel a tiny little zygote of hope blooming in the uterus of your heart and you’re like, “Nobody can laugh for four months!”

And you wait a little longer.

And then you get a slap so bad the fingerprints mark your face for a month in the form of a form letter.

And it goes something like this:

Thank you, Fuck-Face Amateur, for giving us four months of the hardest laughs you could imagine. Annie Grace pissed her pants twice and Frank Rebo almost had an aneurysm. This piece isn’t right for us. And none of your future ones will be either, but feel free to submit anyway. Shits and giggles don’t come along like that often.

Sincerely,
Bitter Editors Who May or May Not Actually Be Talented

And maybe you cry. And maybe you don’t.

Time passes and you get over it and you start to feel okay again. And in the meantime, you’re plugging away in an MFA program, writing a novel (which you’ve never even tried before) and it’s not going great and another short story gets shredded by classmates and professor alike and it’s like, “FUCK. Writing sucks. What the fuck was I thinking?” and you submit somewhere else because you have to and you pick another mag you know nothing about and you make sure you don’t learn anything about it PERIOD.

And you wait.

And you wait some more.

And four fucking more months pass (god damn if it ain’t your golden number) and you get… a fucking form letter.

Dear Talentless Hack,

Thanks so much for the bozofest that PDF turned out to be! God damn did we have a good time tearing it apart up here. Even printed it out and pinned it up on the hall bulletin board for everyone to see. Please submit again in the future, we run out of toilet paper often.

Sincerely,
Those Who Can’t Write, Edit

And you are bitter as FUCK. And you don’t cry because you have steeled yourself for this moment. But then it rains. And you’re stalled in your novel. And your mid-program check-up is rushing on you and you’re barely at half of what you have to turn in twenty-three days from now and FUCK.

And then you pick a fight with your girlfriend and everything sucks. And you step in cat puke and you leave your car window open in the rain and your parents fight and you run out of milk and some dickbag eats your hot cheetos.

But rejection?

Doesn’t give a shit.

Note: But you go balls out on that rainy night and you submit that rejected story to a writing contest anyway because that’s what writers DO.

Note²: But you at least manage to give yourself a massive boner when the right title finally nails you in the face after it’s spent TWO YEARS with a REALLY REALLY SHITTY ONE.

Note³: And you realize that, truthfully, you haven’t even given this submission shit one one-hundredth of the chance you have to in order to ~make it~ in the industry. And that statistically you’re batting like .300 which isn’t so bad after all.

woof woof

i have the cutest dogs in the world. you can contest it, but you will lose.

muggles

phoebe

casper (idk why i don’t have more of her, she is my secret favorite shhhh)

napoleon

despite what these pictures show, none of these dogs are calm, solemn, serious dogs. they’re all idiots. ESPECIALLY MUGGLES who looks like a god damn professor in these pictures. “the square root of pi times the circumference of my turds is equal to the number of times i will tap tap tap into your bedroom while you sleep JUST TO CHECK THAT YOU ARE STILL THERE AND HAVE NOT ABANDONED ME LIKE YOUR GIRLFRIEND DID.”

you know they’re so cute they make you want to fall over and barf and then choke on your barf and die.

waiting for october

Today, I got an EXTREME hankering for Halloween.

I’m a big fan of the end of the year holidays; Halloween and Christmas have been neck in neck for years and in the last few I’ve realized that I’m never going to be able to choose between costumes and presents and that I’m okay with that.

But today I got all wound up thinking about fall. I love autumn anyway, the way the air smells and the wind and the way southern California cools down in this back-and-forth way, spread between days that are miserably hot and bitingly cool. I like that fall is just a little bit melancholy — the end of the year is coming, summer is over, school is back in session — and that once you’re right into the thick of it, when everything’s yellow and orange and shades of brown, you put on a costume and walk around in the dusk light and get treats! It’s brilliant and thrilling. I’ll never get tired of the anticipation of it, even though I haven’t trick-or-treated in years.

Disney does Halloween right. I haven’t talked about my love of Disneyland yet, but it’s BIG and their treatment of holidays is just one of the reasons why.

I love that each land has it’s own theme for the holiday and I love Frontierland and Main Street the very most.

Disneyland at Halloween feels like everything you imagine Halloween should be.

And I love love love the Halloween Tree.

Since Halloween is… quite far away (210 days!) I’ll settle for perusing flickr for images to live vicariously and listening to my fall playlist.

recently

categories

three-fold anxiety, elephant gestation, and summer 2010

allergies are GROSS

SPURNED

Note: But you go balls out on that rainy night and you submit that rejected story to a writing contest anyway because that’s what writers DO.

Note²: But you at least manage to give yourself a massive boner when the right title finally nails you in the face after it’s spent TWO YEARS with a REALLY REALLY SHITTY ONE.

Note³: And you realize that, truthfully, you haven’t even given this submission shit one one-hundredth of the chance you have to in order to ~make it~ in the industry. And that statistically you’re batting like .300 which isn’t so bad after all.

woof woof

waiting for october

a s h

recently

categories

three-fold anxiety, elephant gestation, and summer 2010

allergies are GROSS

SPURNED

Note: But you go balls out on that rainy night and you submit that rejected story to a writing contest anyway because that’s what writers DO.

Note2: But you at least manage to give yourself a massive boner when the right title finally nails you in the face after it’s spent TWO YEARS with a REALLY REALLY SHITTY ONE.

Note3: And you realize that, truthfully, you haven’t even given this submission shit one one-hundredth of the chance you have to in order to ~make it~ in the industry. And that statistically you’re batting like .300 which isn’t so bad after all.

woof woof

waiting for october

a s h

tags

Note²: But you at least manage to give yourself a massive boner when the right title finally nails you in the face after it’s spent TWO YEARS with a REALLY REALLY SHITTY ONE.

Note³: And you realize that, truthfully, you haven’t even given this submission shit one one-hundredth of the chance you have to in order to ~make it~ in the industry. And that statistically you’re batting like .300 which isn’t so bad after all.