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The Need to Write
Ever since I returned to school to become a writer, I have spent August prepping essays to submit for publication. I read drafts filed away when summer began. I clean up whatever messiness I find. I research what journals might enjoy those essays. Then, when those publications open, I am ready to go. But not this August. This August, I submitted not a single essay. After weeks spent stress baking instead of writing, come August 1st, my annual ritual gave me the drive to return to my desk. I gathered three essays I put aside months earlier and tried tidying them up. They seemed fine, maybe even good, but they…
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Revision and Life Changes
There have been a lot of changes over the last few months, seemingly for the better. I graduated with my PhD in English, and I moved out of Missouri. Both of these changes have been very invigorating. Mizzou was a terrible school (which I’ll get into in a few essays soon), and it was really grinding me down much more than I thought at the time. When your environment is toxic, your writing can’t go well. I moved to Atlanta, Georgia and started work with CDC as a Health Communications Specialist. I miss the act of teaching but not how I was treated as a teacher by the school/department. One…
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Break Time
Well, on April 17th, I defended my dissertation, which is the book I’m currently working on: As Many Roast Bones As You Need. I passed! Since I turned in the book to my committee members at the very end of February, I’ve kept my distance from it. I’ve draft a few essays and I’m 5 pages into a 19-page comic. I’ve also been revising my book proposal. I hope to have it perfect in June to renew my agent querying. Of course, things have been hectic with the pandemic and the usual issues of separating oneself from, well, not nice people. In some ways, I feel like I’ve done nothing.…
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Back to Normal
On Friday, I submitted my dissertation, As Many Roast Bones As You Need, which is the memoir-in-essays I have been working on now for about eight years. Now I wait for my committee to see if it, and the critical introduction (an examination on the influence The Diary of Anne Frank has had on memoir), is good enough to earn my PhD. I thought I would be more nervous than I am. Maybe that will come. I also separated myself from a bad, very one-sided relationship at the same time. Still, it’s sad to have to say goodbye to that person. So a lot has changed in a relatively short…
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Two Steps Forward, One Step Back
It’s been seven years since I started writing my first book, And I Will Give You As Many Roast Bones As You Need. Although it has only been about two years since I chose that title. The book has changed a lot over the years. It used to be 250 pages long. The last full draft was 335 pages. Half a dozen chapters were dropped. Some of that information was cannibalized in other essays. The end of one essay became a separate essay altogether. Chapter 17 recently became Chapter 3. Chapter 1 became Chapter 8. A new opening chapter was written. A few chapters were originally written as separate essays that…