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impatience joy mixed metaphors travel

Minor Miracles

I don’t expect whatever spiritual energy there is (call it god or the force, or gumby, I’m not really sure and I’m unattached to the particulars) to act or intervene in my favor in practical ways. But my faith has been tested (perhaps strengthened) recently, with a series of minor, but delightful surprises. I’m feeling, […]

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identity impatience medicine The Imaginary

Happy Potato Chip

Two weeks ago, I was waiting for the trolley on the way to work when I saw a man walking on the tracks, holding a soiled roll of toilet paper. He had clearly thoughtfully placed a crap in the full privacy of the tracks. He was coming back, muttering to himself, and as soon as […]

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health identity impatience joy love memoir mission statement mixed metaphors nature The Imaginary

Humbled by My Humanity

Now that my time is parsed, sectioned, subdivided, and carefully annotated to account for every one of my multiple (and seemingly endless) obligations–I have to confront the obvious, which I love to pretend doesn’t apply to me: I’m human. If I can reconcile myself with what might seem like an obvious proposition, then, what does […]

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identity impatience joy mission statement

Lightness

Someone once said to me that it takes about 10 years of therapy to realize what a total stranger can figure out about you in about three minutes (which sometimes makes me want to go bounding about asking strangers what they see.) I take myself too seriously. I love to laugh, but I think my […]

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health impatience joy love mixed metaphors travel

Spiral Staircase and Puppies

When I was in my twenties, someone said to me that I would never truly be done examining any issue in my life, that it may lie dormant for a part of my journey but that it would reappear in other guises at different times, and take me off guard. The metaphor at hand was […]

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health identity impatience

Varieties of Discomfort

My American grandma frequently says something to the effect of: “if you don’t have your health, you don’t have anything,” which is paired with my grandfather’s trademark comment, “life is hard.” I didn’t find either of these particularly compelling or comforting when I was younger, and as I get older I confront the truth and […]

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feedback impatience revision The Imaginary writing writing process

Undiscouraged

Now that I’m more diligent about sending pieces out, I’m getting volumes of rejections–several a week in fact. Most don’t say much, but a few say things like, “We enjoyed reading and discussing your work; in fact, it made it to the final tier of the editorial process. Although we are going to have to pass […]

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health impatience medicine mixed metaphors

Stabbed in the Back by My Back

Even Achilles had a problem heel. My dilemma is my lower back. My back is a cruel and whimsical component of my anatomy. It makes a mockery of my plans. This week’s plan was to go swimming in a pool. Instead, find me beached on my bed, lying down because sitting isn’t working out right […]

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feedback impatience mission statement writing writing process

How to Get Published

After years of hemming and hawing, of feeling inadequate, ambivalent, worried, anxious and excited about the notion of being published, I finally this year, in my 40s, have gotten my act together enough to submit some of my long-lingering work for publication. Since the beginning of the year, I have submitted three stories, and I […]

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feedback impatience joy mixed metaphors revision The Imaginary writing writing process

New Editing Eyes, Old Writing Sins

here’s a quick list of my writing sins (likely incomplete): I say all cool things I think of twice, or more. My narrative pacing requires tuning–I either rush or linger too long My plots (do they exist?) I underwrite certain key points, or bury them I leave awkward phrasing lying around I like ideas and […]

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impatience joy mixed metaphors revision travel writing writing process

A Good Week for Editing

After working for ten years on a piece that was almost, but never quite, satisfactorily finished–I decided, inspired by the Matisse show “Paires et Series” I saw in Paris, that if I couldn’t get my story to behave as I had written it originally, and rewritten it countless times, perhaps it was time for a […]