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Life Gets in the Way

It figures that, now that I finally have the writing jones again, which manifests itself through constant thinking about the book and its various problems (and deeply irritating bouts of insomnia, made worse by the fact that B has a cold and has been snoring like a bear all week), that I have a shitload of work to do of the paying variety and am so broke from the tornado repairs, etc. that I can't afford to turn anything down.  The online writing course is over, which theoretically means I should have time to get back to the book and the stories I had to put off for the last three months, but instead I'm rewriting the accounting department writing website (work I requested when the U cut back my hours this semester), grading 10 eight-page taxation papers, and line-editing a 182-page YA horror novel.  I'm not complaining, exactly, because I need the chump change and I'm grateful to have this kind of work instead of manning the drive-thru at McDonalds, which I've done in the past when things got bad.  But still, all this work had to happen at the exact same moment that the book idea is starting to turn into something I can work with.

All last year I couldn't write a word, not a word.  Not before the tornado hit.  Not when I had set aside time to get the second book off the ground.  Now I'm feeling like Virginia goddamn Woolf again, and I have to do everything else first.

Figures.

Welcome Paula

Please join me in welcoming novelist Paula Morris to the blogosphere, which will never be the same again.  For the better, of course.

Overheard in Iowa: During "Guitar Hero"

Me, when Brando make a flourish of using his "star power" on his new nerdalicious Guitar Hero game to make the crowd go wild: "You are too dorky to live."

Brando (after a looong, drawn-out pause, in which crickets are heard chirping in the background): "Well, why don't I get you some black paint for that kettle?"

Me: "Why don't I get you a stopwatch to time your comebacks?"

Eventful

We got back last night from Boston, where the PEN/Hemingway awards event was held at the JFK library.  It was a fascinating experience.  After working on Icebergs so long in the dark, and imbuing it with all my fears and expectations as my first published book, it was strange and exhilarating to see it honored.  I'd say I felt like someone else wrote it, but I'm still too close to the exhaustion and panic that accompanied its writing for that to be true.

It was also a busy weekend, and with my parents in town too we didn't have much of a chance to see the city, and no time at all to visit with any of the friends who live in the area.  I had to miss seeing Jane of Jane's Calamity and the twins.  A couple of good friends did make it to the ceremony on Sunday, however, including Jennifer Haigh and Bret Anthony Johnston.  It was great to have a couple of friendly faces in an audience of 400-some people, because I was shaking so hard as I stood on stage I was afraid everyone could see.  Thank God I didn't have to read or make a speech.  That was left to Ben Fountain, this year's winner, who read a bit from Brief Encounters with Che Guevara.  I was impressed by the thoughtfulness and humor of the piece he read and am looking forward to reading the whole book. 

The night before the awards, we had a chance to meet two of this year's judges, Sue Miller and Elizabeth Berg, who were gracious and funny, and we had a terrific dinner with them in the Beacon Hill area.   Most importantly, we made a fabulous new friend in the other finalist for this year, Yvette Christianse, who was as lovely and personable as anyone I've ever met, the kind of woman you feel immediately that you will know for the rest of your life.  I strongly urge you all to run out and buy her lyrical and powerful first novel, Unconfessed, the story of a slave woman in South Africa in the nineteenth century.  Go.  Go right now and get it.