November again.

The sun was relentless today, perhaps mocking the biorhythms that adapted to daylight savings time, and thrust itself into the world like a too long denied lover.  It lights the morning now, silver rays stabbing through the trees and prodding me. There are things I am supposed to do today.

It is November again, and once again I am writing new words. I am taking a break from the relentless editing that haunts me year after year because I write these fifty thousand word novels and then have to do something with them.  I love the new words.  I don’t even mind the editing.  I just have to convince myself that this is what I do now.  I’ve been flirting with it for a long time, looking through the side of my eyes, slipping behind my desk or just opening documents on my computer and typing, always something that can be stopped or interrupted. And that is why I’ve never finished anything, because I never say, this is my job. This is my work. 

For the first time in the 12 years I’ve been doing this casually, I feel that it is okay to say it. I don’t have to say, “and I write” as a tag line to whatever else I am doing.  I don’t have to stand in front of a group and say, my name is Georgiana and I’m addicted to words.  It is socially acceptable, sort of, and mentally necessary. 

I’m going to get out of my way now and go see where my story takes me.

The frosting

Monday, January 3, 2011

The sunrise is so consistently beautiful at the beach that it is hard to find new words to describe it, like too much vacation, I just start to take it for granted. Today, the fire-y pink oozed over the horizon like melted frosting on a too-warm cake, and I remember, it is the last day of the holiday break, and time to throw out all the excess from the celebrations. Time to get back to work, but not quite yet, one more day of radiant warmth, of writing when I want, reading, napping and enjoying the lack of schedule.
And taking down the tree, washing clothes, organizing the week, organizing the work, organizing the travel schedule, and oh my god, look at my desk. When is the next day off?

jam and bread

Sunday, January 2, 2011

The sun rose quickly today, painting the horizon with a layer of strawberry foam, like what forms on the top of homemade jam, and layered like that, the deepest red next to the horizon, the lightest pink toward the sky. The sweetness didn't last long, as soon as the sun itself was over the horizon it was sharp and metallic, a knife cutting through the morning, silver white and intense, almost threatening. And I still feel soft and sleepy, so I guess that makes me the bread, because the heat of it is what made me get reluctantly out of bed. I'm going to have to remember to either close the blinds, or sleep facing the other way.

celebrate

Saturday, January 1, 2011

I watched the sun lift inch by inch above the sea this morning, and saw as the fog kissed the waves, rolling to shore wrapped in them, an infant swaddled, then gently released on the land as the waves unrolled. It would have felt spooky and mysterious, the way it did two nights ago when it was so dark I got claustrophobic under the open sky. But the sun was there to turn the cloud to glitter and the sensation of a joyous birth reflected off the sparks—it reminded me to celebrate all these perfect days of sensations.

Sunrises and such.

Happy New Year! I have decided to revive an old writing drill to kick start the new year and re connect with my most successful writing routine. For about 6 years at the beginning of the last decade, I made an effort to write every day from about 4:30 A.M. ending at sunrise every day, with a description of the sunrise and an attempt to tie that to something in my subconscious memory. Most of the people who read this blog have been part of this exercise. To keep the practice focused not on astrology but on writing, my "rule" is that I don't post the sunrise on the day I write it, giving myself a day to review and edit.

I wrote one this morning, and spent some time reviewing notes from 2002-2004 when I was contemplating a publishing project called Lake Shore Lit. The project died with my mother, my focus so distorted that I knew it couldn't be successful without concerted effort and concentration that I couldn't sustain. So I let it drop. Then epublishing hit and I see that had I taken on the project, the struggle would have been excessive.

Each time I get involved in something like that, I am reminded that it is the writing that matters, not the game of publication. But without publication, the writing is a silent scream, a masterpiece left in the closet.

It's time to be seen, and heard and read. Come along with me.

Farewell Geocities and Ode to the Corporate Wife.

It was ten years ago that I realized that "real" writers had websites, and I knew nothing about them. So I took a class, learned basic html, volunteered to edit for three different ezines, one of which I actually learned from, (and is still in existence) and decided to put my own writing site together. I was deep into writing sunrises then... I think there are 6 years of them in the files and I was committed to posting them. I never posted them the day I wrote them though. I wrote one day, then came back the next day and edited. Between times I'd write the journal entry or essay or story that the sunrise seemed to suggest, so the postings were always a day behind, a little cleaner and a little less random. At least in my mind.

The site was named the same as this blog, and lived on Geocities. Geocities, as a free site anyway, died this week. I pulled all the pages.. now I have two complete folders of web pages, one for my law site, one for the writing, that I really should take the time to upload. But i'm too busy playing around with twitter, facebook, plurk, and these new blogs to actually do something that I SHOULD be doing. I have finally requested the release of the domain name from Martindale for my legal site though, so ... progress?

Speaking of Loose Ends....A friend, in chatting innocently the other day, touched a nerve that I didn't realize was still raw. I hope I didn't let on how unsettled it made me when he referred to my Corporate Wife status. I was a little surprised he honed in on that... I seem to spend less time on that particular aspect of my life now than I ever have. I had also forgotten about the book I was going to write ten years ago, parodying the whole lifestyle. Can't decide if i just got lazy, busy, or swallowed the kool aid.

Determined to find out why that phrase unsettled me in the circumstance, particularly because I sprinkle it into my own conversations with some frequency, I did what any self respecting lazy over achiever does. I googled "corporate wife."

As I suspected, the literature on the topic is dated. The articles I found, mostly dealing with the uber rich breed, didn't reach past 2003, with the most in depth one done in 2000.

Hmm, I mused with myself... I wonder if my research from back then is still on my computer?

Hurray for Spotlight, and Mac :) Another seach of my hard drive and I found that "corporate wife" has been consistently in my subconscious, making its way into two nearly complete short stories, both of which I like (though one of which I clearly was having hormonal spikes as it turned the corner from emotional to erotic in ten pages or less!), one "novelette" and is a recurring theme for the women in my almost finished novel. When I planned the original book, I had NOT intended to include the usual crap... ."have your husband approve what you wear" (really?) but instead some of the more human aspects, which ...well... are funny. Or were to me, in my disrespectful attitude toward everything remotely discriminatory.

Has my attitude hurt my spouses career? Looking at where he is and where he came from, I am pretty sure the answer to that is no. I'm also pretty sure I'm well known among the industry as being outspoken (rude? nah. Sassy, maybe.) and more fun to sit by at a dinner than the usual pretty wife. And I'm lucky, in that we didn't either one ever set out on this road, and have written our own rules along the way. We get by with a healthy dose of "whatever works" tempered by "say yes whenever you can."

And I started thinking about the friend who jarred this memory, and about how he is doing a bit of the gig himself, and about my daughters, and think maybe I should update those files, send out those books, and write one more. I have research from ten years ago... how much fun this will be to go back to my chosen interview candidates and update.

If you think you have something to add... you know how to reach me.