MetaWriting

Got e-mails from a bunch of my old friends at the DFW Writers’ Workshop today and yesterday–DFWWW Prez Steve Manning decided to pass on my website link to the group at large, including the photos I have posted of my weight loss journey since gastric bypass .  It was very sweet of him, and provided a much-needed boost to my ego, as I’ve looked like warmed-over death for the last three weeks.  Pain is not exactly a rejuvenator. 

But, it’s mostly done, the gall-bladder-ectomistostomy*, or whatever-you-call-it, was successful, and the medicos evicted the evil-doer on Wednesday, April 4, 2007.  Then I got to deal with three days of horrendous pain in my shoulders and diaphragm from the insufflation, where they pump you full of air so they have visibility while they’re working in the laparascopic incisions.  The ubiquitous ”them” who apparently make these decisions have decided that the following pain is from the carbon dioxide pressure on your diaphragm, which is then “referred” up to your shoulders.  It’s this sick, horrible feeling of pressure and pain wandering  throughout your upper chest that had me in tears, even on the Percocet.

Now all that’s left is the usual muscle soreness and pain from being cut open (admittedly small cuts, don’t want to over-dramatize) (too late! sorry…), which in the scheme of things doesn’t feel that awful.  Down to three pills a day instead of ten or twelve, so my brains are almost completely functional.  Well, they’re as functional as they’ve ever been, anyway.

Anyway - the lovely folks from DFW Writers’ Workshop made me feel so good about myself visually from the compliments regarding the photographs.  They also made me feel good on the writerly side, as one of the e-mails was from Del Cain asking for five seven-word poems** and my selection of five of my other poems for potential publication in an anthology of the poetry of  the Workshop over the last few years.  That was to be my next project, had I stayed, but now Del and Ginnie Bivona are taking it on.  Hope I didn’t rat you out, Del, or announce it in advance, when you hadn’t planned to say anything yet.  Anyway, I’m flattered and pleased that they didn’t just take current members, that they remembered that I was there.

So, it was an interesting Easter.  Back to work tomorrow, certainly not full-time, but back anyway.  I will be wearing sweats, something I expressly asked folks not to do, but that’s OK.  Won’t make it if I wear my khakis.  I’ll be back in ‘em soon enough.

Notes: 

*It’s a cholecystectomy, I know… it’s called writing for effect!

**Seven-word poems were (and are) a workshop tool for inspiration and perspiration on the part of the poets.  Everyone puts a word in the hat, and seven are chosen for the next poetry workshop.  You may participate or not, but it gives something concrete to work with.  People also bring their other works, as well, but the seven-word poetry has provided some enormous boosts to making me put things together that drew me out of my ordinarily self-focused style.  Great hint for any poetry workshop.

Due for gall bladder surgery in three days, and am euphemistically “managing my pain” in the meantime. In other words, I’m blissed out on Percocet about twelve hours a day. The pain begins a few hours after I eat for the first time, and ends about four to six hours after my last meal of the day. If I’m lucky. If I want to sleep at night at all, I eat my last meal of the day around three o’clock.

The good part is that I’ve lost nearly ten pounds since this hit two weeks ago today.  The bad part?  Well, hell, it’s pretty much all bad.  Can’t write most of the time–the window is vanishingly small when my mind works at all.  I guess the upside is that I’ll be able to write about how the drug addict feels when I need to do so for a character, but my nervousness about getting addicted diminishes what little joy I take in that possibility.

But, it will soon be over.  I will have put my life on hold for three solid weeks by the time this is over.  Were my boss not an understanding soul, I probably wouldn’t have a job to go back to at the end of it.  I think they’re just enjoying the financial break that not paying my salary is giving their bottom line.  And, in the end, it will be good for them to miss me.  I guess.  I’m easy about it either way–I already budgeted our finances for the rest of the year for me not getting a paycheck at all.  That way, if I do get a paycheck, it will be gravy - money to put in savings (ha!) or just play around with…not always a good idea in a town with a casino!

Did send Pig out to an agent over e-mail, which took a lot of nerve, it really did.  Wrote a prologue for it, changed the name to Old Flames Burning.  Haven’t heard a word back from the agent yet.  Need to start lining up other possibilities–just can’t wrap my mind around it while I’m “managing my pain.”  If I sound disgusted with it all, then I’m writing something well enough to be understood anyway.  I’ve got cabin fever.  And a terrorist gall bladder that tries to bend my gut into a pretzel for about twelve hours a day.  Tired of it.

Wow, it’s been a long time since I’ve written anything here–nearly five months.  In that time, I’ve gotten rejected nearly a dozen times.  Once for Pig, and received rejections from ten publishers for my gastric bypass book.  All form letters… and every one of them tough to read.  But it was necessary.

Now that I’ve been hired as the fitness director for the Nautilus Fitness Center in Alton, it’s time to get back to work on the book.  I’ve gotten tacit agreement from the owners of the center to begin a gastric bypass information group at the center in the spring.  The book could be a key piece of that… if I can get moving on it again.  Got the schedule worked out so that I’m off on Tuesday afternoons, so there’s a start.

Reworking my entire life in the last 16 months hasn’t been easy, and it hasn’t been cheap, either financially or emotionally.  But I’m really beginning to like this person I’ve become.  I want to keep the good from the old me and discard what wasn’t working…lots of work yet to be done.

Just past 5 a.m., been up since 3:30 writing in my journal, figured I’d switch to this more public forum.  Typing isn’t exactly fun right now.  Found out in the last few days why I’m a writer and not a construction worker–and my hands have paid the price.  Been stripping wallpaper for two days–my hands look and feel like I got in a barfight.  Cuts all over them from where I slipped with the broadknife, for one thing.  Think monster papercut.  My knuckles are brick red, and every joint is painful from exerting all the pressure to scrape the evilness off the walls.

The smell of the old paste brings back some unlovely childhood memories.  My father was a painter/paperhanger, and I grew up in construction zones.  I had to call my brother yesterday to ask him how to put texture on a wall, and he took me to task because I should have been listening when we were kids going to work all summer with our dad.  I told him, and meant it, that I had resisted learning anything about the business with my entire heart and soul and will.  Not sure he understood it, since he ended up following in our father’s footsteps, but he gave me the information I needed–in so many words, his answer was “Don’t.”  Evidently texture is one of those things that an amateur can screw up so badly that a professional can’t fix it.

Doing all this work in order to sell the house–got lots more to do.  The aforementioned walls have to be patched, sanded, and painted, along with many other things.  Trying to put together a moving sale at the same time, and get the majority of it done before the house goes on the market.  Not looking forward to leaving this house–we’ve lived here for more than four years, and love so many things about it.  But putting this much money into a mortgage and a monster electric bill for a four-bedroom house when there are only the two of us, and with no one to leave it to, makes no sense.  Time to go back to apartment rental.  We can save anywhere from $600 to $1000 a month, according to where we move.  And, when there’s only one assured income, that sounds pretty good.  It also sounds good that we won’t have to pay taxes or interest, and if something happens to the insufferable water heater, someone else comes to fix the damn thing!

Oh, and writing?  This is the best excuse so far that I’ve found to not write.  However, before I dived into this exercise, I sent Pig off to another agent.  After a turndown from a New York agent, I decided to start it making the rounds of Texas reps, starting with Mike Farris.  I pitched it to him a couple years ago, when the book was still in its nascency, and he said he wanted to see it.  We’ll see what happens from there. 

Found my routine: Up at 6, read the paper, write in my journal, clean house until 9, exercise, shower, sit down at the computer at 10 a.m.  And, I’ve made it into all the parts of that routine exactly one day.  Yesterday. 

Today, all the nitnoid momentary dramas that seem to swarm all over my life re-swarmed me.  Had to go to the library to get something signed for the workshop.  To the tire store to get the tires rotated.  To the post office to mail my manuscript out to an agent (finally, SOMEthing involved with writing).  My knee hurts, so I don’t want to exercise.  If I don’t exercise, I don’t deserve to sit down and write.  Or something like that.  I’m exhausting myself with my own excuses, and I find myself whiny, self-destructive, and maddening.  All the stuff that irritates me about other people.

Grrf.

Was trying to remember what worked and what didn’t during that glorious 90 days when I got the majority of “Pig” written.  And the key wasn’t what happened during the time I was writing.  It was what happened before I started.  I wouldn’t let myself read.  I know that sounds stupid, especially when I read four or five books a week.  But that’s exactly it.  If I don’t let myself read, then the only way to get to read something is to write something.  Worked, too.

Mixed in with that is boredom.  Sick of myself, sick of cleaning house, sick of being the good little wife… I think I’m making my husband nervous, I’ve been so solicitous lately.  Bringing him dinner, washing AND putting away his clothes.  My usual policy is more like benign neglect, much like the administration under which my houseplants survive or don’t.  It’s worked pretty well for 26 years of marriage, which may be why my occasional bursts of excessive domesticity seem to unnerve him. 

I’ll get there–I know I will.  And then I’ll bemoan the fact that I can’t seem to get my head far enough out of the book to accomplish anything around the house.  Never satisfied… never, never, never.

Haven’t been able to get to my laptop much during these last nine days of traveling, but because I appear to have the wake-up-early gene that my husband is lacking, I’ve had plenty of time over coffee to write in longhand.  On paper.  The old-fashioned way… and the way that, if I remember right, was very successful when I was putting together my novel.  Boy, do you get some funny looks at Denny’s or the Waffle House when you sit and scribble for an hour or sometimes two…

Haven’t been able to get into a real routine, as our schedule’s been so haywire, but when I was writing “This Little Pig,” I would write ten to fifteen pages in longhand on one day, get up the next morning and process them into the computer, with minor edits along the way, which would get my brains kickstarted for the next longhand session.  Put together 55,000 words in about 30 days that way, so it obviously works for me. 

So, I got a chapter of “Finally the Weight is Over” written, just haven’t processed it yet.  So what am doing on here?  Time to get back to the book!

Talked to Bedford Minuteman Press about a job yesterday, and left it that I would come in with an answer on Monday on whether or not I was interested, and Bill would come up with what he could pay me as an independent contractor. 

As I told Bill, I needed to talk to my husband, about our future before I could make a commitment.  So, Rick and I talked for a couple of hours during breaks from the Mav’s playoff game.  I’ve learned, over the years, to work around team and TV timeouts during sporting events… .  So, after much discussion, punctuated by some really depressing play by the Mavericks, the gist from my husband was, “Do what you choose, but I’d love to see you pursue your dream of becoming a published writer.”

Have I said how much I love that man?  While I didn’t need permission, per se, knowing that he’s completely in my corner as I commit to the writing game is incredibly important.  He’s the reason I was able to do more than just go back to school, I was able to graduate in three and a half years, summa cum laude.  His amazing support is the reason I’ve been able to excel at every successful venture I’ve ever undertaken, including my gastric bypass.

The next couple of years are going to be SO much fun… !

That loud sighing sound you’re hearing is me, over here in my little corner of the world, taking a deep breath for the first time in ages… ahhhhhhhh.  The black circles under my eyes are disappearing, I’m starting to relax.  Not completely–I’m still keeping a close eye on our finances, but as long as we don’t do anything stupid, we’ll be just fine.  And, if the good Lord’s willing, and I get this proposal out the door in good order and get a bite, then we’ll do even better.  But I’ve got time.  Time to relax and finally live my life.  Sure, I’d like to have more money–but at what cost? 

Oh, and the itch?  Prickly heat, from having my bathing suit on too long… Been living in the darn thing, with all this 100-degree weather going on.  This too, shall pass in its own time.