Annette Gendler

My Name on a Poster

2013-06-18T06:30:00.000-05:00

I'm at the Kenyon Writers Workshop right now, indulging in a week focused on writing and fulfilling my obligations as a fellow. Among those obligations was giving a reading along with the other eight fellows Sunday night. I knew exactly which piece I was going to read, an excerpt from my memoir manuscript that was recently accepted by the Wall Street Journal for their Mansion section. With 800 words it took up less than the eight minutes each one of us was allotted. I am always nervous about reading my work in front of an auditorium full of people. No matter how much I practice reading the piece, when I step up to the podium, my heart is racing, my fingers shake, and my voice sounds unsteady to me, even if it doesn't to the audience.

Still, I made it through, and many people complimented me on the piece afterwards, and even approached me the next day to say something they appreciated about it. After all that nervous exertion, those accolades made me feel uplifted.

But before the reading, as I was walking the main "drag" of the Kenyon College Campus to my apartment accommodations, I passed by this poster, copies of which were affixed to the columns of the bookstore porch, and I spotted my name. I thought to myself, "Yes, aha, that's me. My name is on a poster. I'm reading tonight." In a way it was as if I were looking in a mirror: Yes, I am a writer, and I am here as a fellow, and I am reading. And that was oddly reassuring even before I had delivered.

The Waves and the Wind - a Video

2013-06-17T15:07:00.000-05:00

Today is video day at the Blogathon, and with that in mind I shot my first video using my Smartphone (a simple step but also a big one...) last week, when I had a chance, once again, to walk Loyola Beach on the North side of Chicago. That beach is one of those places that makes me supremely happy every time I spend time there; I've featured it in many photo essays here, in winter, in fall and in summer. We are lucky if we have such a place, aren't we? A place that makes us happy?

As I sat in the cool sand (it was a beautiful day last Monday but not exactly a warm one), I thought, how about capturing the surf, the whipping of the wind, and the wide open horizon, just exactly as I heard it and experienced it in a little video? So here you go. If it sounds gusty and noisy, and you hear more wind than waves, well, that's the way it was that day.

A Giraffe and a Donkey

2013-06-16T08:19:00.000-05:00

For Father's Day I want to share two of my most treasured possessions: a giraffe and a donkey that my dad made out of wire - a simple present for his parents when he was a student and had very little money. As an engineering student he did have plenty of malleable wire though, and I love how he fashioned these two sprightly animals by bending two different colored wires into shape. The donkey and the giraffe are more than 50 years old now and not any worse for the wear. Once in a while they need a little straightening to stay upright, but they faithfully graced the shelf in my grandmother's living room, and now they grace mine.

Sun in the Window

2013-06-15T06:30:00.000-05:00

We've had some grey and some ferocious weather here lately in Chicago, but the sun can be in your window even if it isn't shining outside; case in point at the Café on Main in Ottawa, Illinois. With this photo I'm sending some sunshine your way!

Create: Chainmaille Bracelets

2013-06-14T06:30:00.000-05:00

The other day I picked up my son from his summer internship at Blue Buddha, one of the largest distributors of chainmaille supplies, which happens to be here in Chicago. Have you heard of chainmaille? I hadn't, until my son got into it, making his own wire jump rings to recreate those weaves with which the metal knitted shirts were made that knights used to wear as armor. These days chainmaille is mainly practiced as a specific way of making jewelry.

As I watched him sawing metal coils last fall, I wondered whether he might be more of an artist than the budding engineer we always thought he was, and since metal working capabilities are rather limited in our house, I searched for metal working classes. Next thing I knew, he and I were taking a chainmaille class together at the Lillstreet Art Center. The two bracelets in the photo are my work from that class. Since I made silver wire jewelry as a teenager, making jewelry wasn't ailen to me, and creating something tangible and as pretty as a brass bracelet turned out to be a wonderful antidote to my otherwise more cerebral work of writing. Plus a new creative pursuit fit in with my motto of "Create" for this year.

Speaking of creating, the other day I read an excellent blog post by David DuChemin (a photographer from whose books I have learned a lot) on Being More Creative. One of the steps he listed to be more creative was, "Do something that increases your inputs in an area seemingly unrelated to photography.” Well, in my case it would be "writing," not photography, since writing is my primary form of creative expression. Photography is, however, another way I like to be creative, and I figure I'm doing both my writing and my photography a grand favor by learning chainmaille, because chainmaille is an entirely different creative process from writing or photography.

Chainmaille works your hands; it's very fiddly (the lower bracelet, which I prefer, is a Japanese weave that uses tiny rings that are hard to work with), and it's an exercise in spatial sequencing. I really have to concentrate on how I hold my pliers, and how I slip the rings into each other. In a way it feels like knitting. You've got to concentrate on the pattern, and you're creating something tangible and beautiful to wear.

Like knitting, chainmaille is also highly addictive. Once you've figured out how to do a weave that you like, you want to do more and more projects with that weave. Sure enough, as I was waiting for my son to wrap up (as an intern he creates samples or tests new weave designs to make sure the instructions work), I paged through a few instruction books and soon my head was swimming again with all kinds of designs I could make. Of course, I already have a necklace kit waiting on my desk, but that won't keep me from planning another one...

Two Friends Go to Starved Rock

2013-06-13T06:23:00.000-05:00

LaSalle Canyon Wall, photo taken by my friend Barbara Schlund

Starved Rock is one of my favorite places to hike, and when my friend Barbara was visiting, we stopped by there on a little trip we took. It had rained a lot the days before, so the hiking paths were frightfully muddy, but we weren't deterred and decided to at least try to make it to LaSalle Canyon because, we figured, given the rains, the waterfall must be busy. Most times I have been there, it's been just a trickle.

We weren't disappointed! I don't think I've ever seen the LaSalle Canyon waterfall that busy. We could hear it thundering from quite some distance.

Although I think this kind of shot is a bit kitschy, I'm proud of it because it confirms that my photographic skills have advanced. A year ago I would not have been able to capture the flow of the water.

Similarly, capturing the falling drops of water is not something I could have done previously.

Starved Rock wasn't only a wet place that day, it was also a lush green place.

Here I am on the way out of the canyon, wielding that camera. One benefit of hiking with a friend who also likes to take pictures is that I actually get a few of myself.

Two muddy boots! Rest stop on a bench by the Illinois River before our final climb up the many, many steps to the top of the canyon ridge where our car was parked.

How a Master Commenter Does It

2013-06-12T06:30:00.000-05:00

Today is guest blogger day at the Blogathon, and I am happy to be hosting William Kendall. Regular readers will recognize him as this blog's most steadfast commenter. His dedication to leave comments has astounded me, particularly since I know that he reads many more blogs than mine, so I decided to ask him whether he'd be willing to share how he does it. Thankfully and perhaps not surprisingly, he was responsive and happy to oblige. Thank you for sharing, William!

How did you get into blogging?

William: First of all thank you, Annette, for letting me play on your blog today. I promise not to be like a bull in a china shop. Maybe a bear, or a moose.

When I first got into blogging, it was a learning experience. I had to find my niche and hone that. Somehow it was never going to be a cooking blog, since I have a tendency to burn water, unless readers were looking for a recipe for Scorched Chicken Parmigiana. My blog, Speak Of The Devil, ended up becoming a reflection of myself: an off-kilter world of nutty humor, utter nonsense, sarcastic commentary, cats, dogs, and a cranky Mountie. For some reason I’m still trying to figure out, my sense of humour spoke to a lot of people, and in time, I was getting a lot of comments back.

You also follow a lot of blogs, don’t you?

Over time I found myself following more and more blogs. At last check, there are well over a hundred in my list to follow, and a handful that I otherwise click into from other pages. Not all of those are active blogs (seriously, if you haven’t posted in a year, how are we to know you didn’t get crushed by a rampaging Zombie Plot Bunny?). Still, each day more blogs get added onto the total, and it’s easy to fall behind. I actually am behind in my blog reading, but that’s not always a bad thing (though if someone’s doing a giveaway for a day or two and you miss it, you’re out of luck). It gives you a sense of how others are responding, and allows you to check if there are any spammers making their way past the filters and let the blogger know.

How much time do you think you spend visiting and commenting on other blogs?

I probably spend an hour or so visiting blogs, depending on the day. Even with falling behind, I find that if I can manage to read a given number of blogs in a day, I’m keeping ahead of the pack. I do comment back to the bloggers on my list, and to those who comment on my page. It helps to actually say something meaningful, to let your personality come through. Even though a “good blog” comment might suffice, I think saying something specific about the post is better as opposed to just putting in a “You are invited to follow my blog” comment. That’s a guarantee for me to not follow a blog.

I comment back, typically in my own twisted way, and it’s enough generally to get other bloggers to have a look back at my page. Over time, that builds interest from others in your page, even without realizing you’re doing it. And it helps if you’re having fun while blogging. People will pick up on that, and they’ll come back for more. And every once in awhile you can throw them for a loop with a serious blog. They never see it coming.

How do you find time in your day for all this blog writing, reading and commenting?

I'm in the world of academia, which oddly enough allows for a good deal of flexibility, in terms of working around your class schedule, and a ready access to computers for working. Not to mention an Olympic sized pool, which makes for good exercise.

Fog on Lake Shore Drive

2013-06-11T06:30:00.000-05:00

Fog is rare in Chicago, but yesterday evening it rolled in thick off Lake Michigan as I was driving up and down Lake Shore Drive in the evening to pick up my son. On our way back, I handed him my Smartphone to shoot some photos of the spectacle. Here, the highrises of the Gold Coast right along Lake Shore Drive are shrouded in grey.

Visibility of a few car lengths at the Chicago Street intersection.

Here we are about to drive up the bridge across the Chicago River - if you didn't know the Navy Pier exit was coming up, there was no way of knowing until you were on top of it.

Ohio Street in the fog, as seen from Lake Shore Drive.

Only a few blocks in from the lake, the air was clear and the evening still light, which provided for grand vistas like this one down the canyons of skyscapers.

Looking west into the Streeterville neighborhood from Lake Shore Drive

My son's favorite shot - looking down the Chicago River

with the Trump Tower's top in the clouds

We are about to be swallowed by the fog on the southern part of the Drive.

Why I Won't Subscribe to Red Magazine

2013-06-10T06:30:00.000-05:00

There it is! The white curve of Red's R in a deeply red square in the upper
shelf at Barnes & Noble, right next to the magazine named "culture."

Tomorrow I hope to indulge again in one of my favorite rituals: looking for the cover of Red Magazine in the rack at Barnes & Noble. More than once, my husband has asked why I don't subscribe to it since I read it regularly. But I won't do that! Why? Because there is something to that thrill of looking for it, hoping it will be there, and the disappointment when it isn't. Since it is a British publication, it arrives in the U.S. with some delay, and one can never be sure when it will be there.

I am re-enacting a ritual of my years growing up in Germany. I've always been a magazine freak, and following a trip to the U.S. when I was 15, I fell in love with Glamour magazine (Just as I fell in love with Red on a trip to London in '07.). Every month, I would stop by the International Press Magazine stand at the main train station in Munich, looking for Glamour. It was the same deal with Glamour as it is now with Red: Sometimes it was there, often it was not. But when it was, carrying it to the cash register and paying the extra high price in foreign currency was an extra thrill. Like a found treasure. And then, settling into the commuter train seat, or nowadays my couch, to read that issue, was/is a treat.

A Green Light at my Desk

2013-06-09T07:00:00.000-05:00

Today is going to be a desk day with lots of personal admin to catch up on, so I thought I'd share this photo of a bright spring morning at my desk. I took it in March when the light was hitting the crystal in the window just so, creating this eerie green light. I'm glad I grabbed the camera then, because it looks even more formidable in a photograph, and a few minutes later the Earth had rotated a bit more and the green light was gone.

Jacket Friends

2013-06-08T07:00:00.000-05:00

When I was taking Susannah Conway's Unraveling class earlier this year, one assignment was to photograph our favorite things. I felt I'd be remiss if I didn't include these two jackets with my favorite things because they provide me with almost daily comfort. Unlike my other favorite things, they are not inherited; instead I bought both at Target for less than $20.

Both are machine washable (very important because practical) and hip length (since I'm tall I don't like short jackets). The black one is the older one, and it is perfect: stylish and warm but not too warm. It's come along on all my trips because I have this rule of always taking a jacket along, just in case, and this one goes with everything. My brother-in-law once asked me if that jacket is all I wear - my sister's house in Germany is cooler than what I'm used to, so guess what, I've worn that black sweater every time I'm visiting!

I would not have predicted that the brown sweater jacket would become such a favorite, especially since it's a hoodie, and I usually don't like hoods. But lately I always feel cold around my neck, and this one, thanks to the hood, keeps my neck warm. It's more lightweight than the black one, and in the winter I wear it to bed every day as an extra layer and have it slung around my shoulders on days when I mope about the house.

So these are my sweater jacket friends. I'm sure other people have clothes friends too, right?

On Operating a Typewriter

2013-06-07T06:30:00.000-05:00

It is scary how some everyday things of my youth have become obsolete, and thus almost unknown to younger generations like my kids. Some of these things have, however, become cool. Case in point: the typewriter.

My brother-in-law gave this one to my son, who promptly set it up and started using it. I have to say, it was strange and oddly comforting to hear the sound of a typewriter's chatter again. Soon, however, my son reached an impasse: How do you get to the next line? Mom to the rescue: You give that lever in the back a shove. Next problem: How do you get capital letters? Ah! You press that Shift key down really hard, and (extra trick) to type in ALL CAPS, there's another key you have to press and then the whole carriage remains elevated.

Soon, he was merrily typing along, and I was secretly proud that for once I could show him how a gadget works.

25th Wedding Anniversary!

2013-06-06T06:57:00.003-05:00

6/6/88 - we thought that was a cool date; still is, because both of us can remember it. We're not ones to make a big to-do about our wedding anniversaries but we are proud of this one, and we would have loved to celebrate.

Ironically we have created such busy lives for ourselves that, no matter how we've tried to rejigger this day, there isn't even time for a celebratory lunch. And that does make me sad. But alas, that is the way life is. I simply have too much work at work, and in the evening there's graduation at our son's school which he and I have to attend, and our daughter has another end-of-school-year celebration, so there won't be a family dinner outing either. We would have loved to do a short cruise with the kids, but summer school starts right after school ends, so that won't happen either. I think we have to come up with a cruise later in the summer, even if not all the kids can come along - our summer is challenging this year schedule-wise - but somehow, this achievement of 25 years of happy marriage has to be celebrated! Suggestions welcome...

Art on the Wall

2013-06-05T08:52:00.000-05:00

I've never quite understood decoraters' advice to cover bare walls by hunting for art at flea markets, poster shops or online art stores, but perhaps I am just lucky: All the art on our walls comes from family and friends, and there aren't enough walls in our rather large apartment to hang all of it. Once in a great while I buy a piece of art that strikes me at the 57th Street Art Fair.

Our newest addition is from my friend Barbara - one panel from a series of originally three paintings called "Der Sommer schiesst quer" (roughly meaning "Summer upends things"). My husband, however, calls it "lollipops," and he's the one who gets to decide since it hangs opposite the door to his office, and he will see it the most. I immediately knew where it would go - a spot in the kitchen where previously a photograph by my brother had hung. Now I have to find a new home for that photograph, but I already have a spot in mind...

Chicago Evening Blue

2013-06-04T06:30:00.000-05:00

The blue hour is my favorite time of day in downtown Chicago - just before dusk sets in, when all the windows turn an iridescent blue. After a rainfall the air is even clearer, as in this picture, taken at the corner of State and Madison Streets.

One Benefit of Reading with a Kindle

2013-06-03T06:00:00.000-05:00

I've discovered one definite benefit to reading with a Kindle, thanks to my friend Barbara who lent me hers so I could read a bit of a book she felt I would like. I did like it (Meike Winnemuth's memoir Das Grosse Los about using the half million euros she won in a contest to spend 12 months living in 12 different cities around the world), but I also liked the fact that the Kindle forced me to immediately write down whatever phrases I would have otherwise underlined with the pencil I always have at the ready when I'm reading. I also couldn't dog ear a page like I usually would to mark a page I want to come back to. The problem with the underlining and the dog-earing is that typically, I never actually go back and copy down those phrases I found insightful, or the prose I loved. But with the Kindle, I did so immediately! This might be due to my ignorance of actually using all the capabilities of the device (I was happy I mastered paging back and forth...) but for now it is a great thing because I've got those phrases in my notebook.

My favorite quote from what I read so far in Winnemuth's Das Grosse Los (no English translation yet, sorry): "Do what you like, and while doing that, you will meet people you like" (my translation). That's something to ponder, isn't it?

A Lamp Facade

2013-06-02T07:00:00.000-05:00

Continuing yesterday's lamp theme - here's a facade in the former French Connection area of Shanghai that I thought was really cool. And above it, the ever hazy grey sky above Shanghai.

A Teacup Chandelier

2013-06-01T06:30:00.000-05:00

This quirky decoration caught my eye in the window of the Café on Main in Ottawa, Illinois, where my friend Barbara and I stopped for lunch on our way to hike Starved Rock. It's actually not a chandelier as there is no light involved, but it certainly looks like one, and it was hung up like one. For sure it is a clever way to store teacups.

Blogathon 2013

2013-05-31T18:45:00.001-05:00

After sitting on the fence until the last day to sign up, I have decided to join the Blogathon again this year, mainly because it is plain fun. The Blogathon is a community-based challenge, hosted by the formidable Michelle Rafter, to blog every day in June. It used to be May, and those of you who've been following my blog for a while will recognize this as my third year of participating.

Here's what to expect from this year's effort: A post every day, of course, but I plan to showcase more photos. I will have writing to share, too, but I have photos that I love that I'd like to share but that don't necessarily lend themselves to an entire photo essay. So this Blogathon is the perfect opportunity to do that. Stay tuned!

Biked the Drive!

2013-05-26T11:43:00.000-05:00

It looks like doing Bike the Drive is a family tradition now thanks to my daughter who convinced me to do it last year. This year it already was an "Of course we're doing it!" This time we were also savvy enough to take our own pictures as the event photographers never caught us last year. So here I am, biking Lake Shore Drive with my friend Barbara who's visiting from Germany and for whom Bike the Drive was an extra highlight of her visit with us.

Now I'm sitting on my couch with my laptop, and even after a shower my thighs feel pleasantly alive. Overall I feel like I've had a most productive day, and it's not even noon yet. But then again, I was on the Drive before 6:00 a.m.! Now, on to some overdue paperwork and editing, and maybe a nice nap later on.

Banner Update

2013-05-22T11:59:00.000-05:00

It's time to switch out that blog banner again! I've discovered I am pretty consistent about doing this every six months; my last update was December 7.

So here's what's new this time around:

The photo of me in the bright red wig is from a Purim (Jewish carnival) celebration at the office. Thanks to taking Susannah Conway's Unraveling class earlier this year, I discovered my funny side, or rather recognized it in myself. While my family contends that I don't have a great sense of humor because I don't get most jokes (and they are right about that, I don't), I can be rather silly. In fact, the jokes that I do get are the silly ones. For Purim I always dress up, even if it's just wearing a crazy wig. So this photo is here to remind me of my silly side, at least for a while.

This barn shot is a favorite vista on the way to our property in northwestern Indiana, and one time back in March I actually stopped the car and took some photographs. I love that this barn stands there on its own, slightly weathered, and beyond it you have the wide open expanse of the farm land.

This cityscape is a shot of Wabash Avenue in the Loop (=downtown Chicago), taken during the "blue hour," just before dusk settles in and the windows of downtown skyscrapers like the Trump Tower in the background turn blue. I love how this shot marries old and new with the ornate domed pavilions atop the Jewelers Building to the left of the sleek new Trump Tower.

These are the two landscapes of my life - the density of the city and the serenity of the countryside. Welcome to my world!

On Having a Friend Visit

2013-05-20T06:30:00.000-05:00

Scan of an old University of Chicago
postcard - to me it epitomizes
friendship

One of my very best and oldest friends (in the sense that we have been friends for decades) is arriving for an extended visit today, and I am beyond excited! Soon I am rushing off to the airport to pick her up.

As I have been anticipating her visit, straightening out the apartment, helping my husband clear his office which is also our guest room, getting work off my plate, and planning outings and a little side trip, I realized what a great privilege it is to have a friend visit. I mean really travel, in her case across an ocean, just to visit me and my family.

When I saw another friend recently at my former online writers' group conference, he thanked me again for having visited him and his wife two years prior. I was a bit puzzled by this. Wasn't I the one who had to thank him, because they had hosted me, showed me around, spoiled me? Of course, yes, but I am now realizing that it is also a great gift if a friend comes to visit, takes time out of his or her life, just to be with you, to see how you live, and what your life is like. It is a true act of friendship.

On that note, an interesting op-ed on friendship appeared in the Wall Street Journal this past weekend: Aristotle Wouldn't Friend you on Facebook. Basically, the author argues that the friendships of millennials like herself are less personal than those of her parents and grandparents: "Why visit a person, write a letter, deliver a card, or even pick up the phone when we can simply click a 'like' button?" She's bemoaning this, and I have to say I agree. I cringe at the fact that I had to find out about a good friend's mother dying via a cryptic Facebook post, and I consider myself fortunate to still have plenty of friendships that are personal. In which, for instance, a friend comes to visit.

A Salute to Joyce Brothers

2013-05-14T08:58:00.001-05:00

When I saw the news on my Chicago Tribune homepage last night that Joyce Brothers had died, my heart sank. I never met her, never had an exchange with her, and yet she helped me a great deal. She showed me the way, and she helped me sort out my head at a time when I was struggling. If I am ever asked what the five most important books of my life are, her book The Successful Woman would be on that list.

One day in 1990, when I had finished graduate school and was searching for my first job in the U.S., I was wandering about the Chicago Public Library's main building downtown, utterly stressed out and distraught about how I would manage to have a career and a family. And there, on one of the display shelves, I spotted the title The Successful Woman - How you can have a career, a husband and a family - and not feel guilty about it, published in 1988. It was just want I needed.

In The Successful Woman, Joyce Brothers shares how she and many other prominent women managed to be happily married, have a child, and a high-flying career. It presents many lessons learned, practical advice, psychological insights, trade offs and regrets - her main regret? That she felt having a career meant she could only have one child.

In my family, I was going to be the first woman to work full-time and have a family. My German grandmother was educated and worked as a teacher, but once she was married, she only worked during the war and post-war years when she had to. It hadn't been a choice. My American grandmother married young and was an excellent housewife. My mother was proud of the fact that she did not "have to work" once she was married, and she only embarked on reinventing herself as an opera singer once we children were about to leave the house. (She was thus a great role model when I reinvented myself as a writer in mid life.)

At the time I happened upon Joyce Brothers' book, I was still fairly new to the U.S. All my friends were fellow graduate students; I didn't yet have older friends to advise me like I have now. So Joyce Brothers, in her practical way, became my role model. This book, with its many examples of successful dual-career marriages, became a road map.

One example of a lesson I picked up from her: marital trade offs. When you go on a trip by yourself (be it business or pleasure), and your husband minds the home front, then you owe him one. And vice versa. One of her other marital insights (I'm not sure if it's from this book or another): Marriage is the salt of daily life - if it's right, it makes everything so much better, but if it's not (i.e. too much or too little), it spoils it. Thankfully, it's been right for me. My husband and I are going to have our 25th wedding anniversary in June.

So thank you, Joyce Brothers. You showed me my life was possible when I doubted it the most.

A Little Album of Love

2013-05-13T06:30:00.000-05:00

with my parents at age one

As part of my "Create" motto for this year, I've been reading Julia Cameron's Walking in this World: The Practical Art of Creatively, and I have found her books on creativity most inspiring (more on that some other time). A passage I read this weekend inspired me to just do a simple creative project that had been sitting around for a long time: Finally putting the black and white paper photos I have of my first year of life into the little Italian-paper-bound album I had bought for them.

The passage read, "The creative journey is characterized not by a muzzy and hazy retreat from reality but by the continual sorting and reordering and structuring of reality into new forms and new relationships." (Julia Cameron, Walking in this World, Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin, 2002, p. 137)

What better way to "sort, reorder and structure reality" than to organize a photo album? Thankfully, this one was going to be small enough (it took me about two hours to complete) since my dad took mainly slides, and so the number of actual prints is limited to those he sent to his parents in Germany (my parents lived in New Jersey when I was born) or to later photos, such as the one above, that my grandfather took when we moved to Germany when I was a year old.

As I glued in the photos and, in particular, when I came across two poems on yellowed onion skin that my grandfather had written for me, I was struck by the realization how fortunate I have been to have always had so much love in my life, and that that love was expressed and preserved in such tangible ways that I can touch it again, so many years later, when both my father and grandfather have been dead many years. I also realized, as I tucked those poems into photo corners so they could be taken out again and fingered and read, that I was creating a little birthday present for myself. My birthday comes later this month, and this album is more than an ordered piece of reality, it's a neat little package of love.

So here's to little tangible creative projects!

Patience, A Writer Must Have

2013-05-06T06:00:00.000-05:00

Patience, the trees seem to say, we're not ready to be green yet.

My kids have been into Yoda lately, thus my inverted title, but I really feel that Yoda's wording is appropriate for this mantra a writer must tell herself over and over: "Patience, you must have."

Last Wednesday I finished an essay, or rather I got it to what I think is close to its final form. I read it out loud to myself, one of my editing rituals when a piece is in one of its later incarnations. I ran Word searches for my writing foibles - starting too many sentences with "And..." or overusing "a bit." I edited some more. And then I felt this eagerness to submit it wash over me, especially because my Outlook calendar was reminding me of several submission deadlines in early May. Oh, it was so tempting to say, "It's done, and I'm sending it out!"

But no, I reigned myself in. I know that every piece needs at least one final look over from another pair of eyes, usually my daughter's, who is an astute editor (She's been especially keen on picking out all my non-parallel constructions.) This particular piece had been hard to put together as it is an excerpt from my memoir manuscript that I'm trying to rewrite into a standalone piece, and for that to work, I really need someone else to look at it, even after the umpteenth revision. So I sent it off to my writers' group and am patiently (!) awaiting their feedback. Hopefully, hopefully, they will tell me it's good, it's done, and they will have only minor editing suggestions.

However, once I do submit this essay, more patience will be required as weeks, if not months, will go by before anybody responds, let alone wants to publish it. So, patience is definitely the name of the game as a writer.