Roomy Nations

I think this next chapter of my life is going to be a picture book.
the words will be in the back of the book on a page called Acknowledgments. and Index.


also, damn you, insecurities. that is all.

A is for Alive

I hope you can imagine the places where, if I were to read my writing, my eyebrows would raise, my eyes would tear, my jaw would set, my lips would smile, my fists would clench, my chin would lift, my head would hang, my eyes would widen.

I hope you can imagine what my words, were they to live, would look like.

All I ever wanted to be was a starving artist.

I wish I had recorded Barbara Donnelly Lane's presentation to our class today. She's a freelance/children's author who spoke to my Literary Magazine class about why she writes, the persistence a writer's life requires, and the importance of knowing why such persistence is worth it.

Though she described in detail the hardships writers face, she fueled my yearning to share my words with other people. As she described the discouragement attached to multiple publishing rejections, I couldn't help but know that I will stomach whatever it takes. She said, "You have to want to write badly enough that the process seems worth it. You have to have an outer shell that rejection bounces off of because if you don't, you'll stop trying. I used to save all of my rejection letters. Don't do that. Burn them.

"You have to know why you want to write, and you have to practice your craft. I have no respect for writers who don't practice their craft. And I have no respect for writers who can't tell me what they read last. Writers need to read.

"You need to know how you're going to eat. Writing for self-publication alone will not put food on the table. Think about your education and get a degree that sets you apart."

She shared this quote with us as one that stood out to her as irrevocably true for writers:

"Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent." - Calvin Coolidge

I want to clarify that I do not ever plan to answer the question "What do you do?" with "I'm a writer." I envision "writer" as a title saved for other people to use about the writers they respect. The title is overused. Too many use the title as their key to a literary pedestal. To cultural importance. To unmistakable talent.

In my opinion, which I will too gladly share with you for the rest of my life, no one should label themselves as having any of those.

Class of 2010, prepare yourselves. The next twenty-five years may fly by as swiftly as the past twelve did. And when you ask me at our 25th High School Reunion, "What are you doing these days?" you'll wonder if I ever removed the "rising" from "rising college freshman." I will answer, "I want to be a writer."

Rewound Up

"The conclusion I've made is that you don't talk about things that eat you alive. Some people cannot comprehend and are not willing to in any way. It's hard when you put something aside and keep busy every second so you don't have to think about things, so your mind will slow down. But some nights one thing sets you off and there it is, everything. But they don't understand how you can wake up and literally have no idea what was devastated." --http://suzywire.tumblr.com/page/2

Missing

How could divine inspiration leave me so empty?

You knowing my heart means You know how much it yearns for answers. And how many beats it's been skipping lately.

Everything is shaking.

Red Light, Green Light

I feel sometimes as though if no one hands me a pen, if no ink falls from the sky with which to empty the spirit worth of words that throbs from within my mind, I would explode. I would scream. That the tears--a spirit's translation--would turn to fire before leaving my eyes. It would radiate from my pores, steam masking the vibrations my wailing created. And this is how I knew what my life would mean.

Is my purpose in mid-revival? I feel like my soul is growling. The halls they press and might as well be prisons, the weight of leaving too much grapefruit juice in the fridge, the guilt of allowing the melon to overripen, and I cannot speak of it. Polypragmus and his heartbreak and my broken cuticles and forgetting deodorant, what kind of person am I? I'm a monkey and I'm furious, and I bleed blue and see stars. And no one can tell me when to stop, and if they did I would shriek, I would press my lips together and blink too quickly and ignore too many people. I fill notebooks with scribble but I know it, and I want to dance but cannot move. I feel shaky, I cannot hide, I thought to myself, "You could not be so good to me." My red pen died today and I tried to remember its length of service, then I threw it to the ground and retrieved this blue one. Blue like sky and the water and some birds and grande hot lid labels, which I tell apart from the tall lids because grande is blue and the sky is blue and the sky is grande. And as my right thumb cramps and my writing callous grows, I can feel my lungs breathing and my heart slowing and my mouth corners upturning. My English teacher told me he was sure I could relate to Virginia Woolf, who drowned herself because she had too much to say and no way to say it. She felt trapped in her own mind. And I looked past the suicide and immediately thought, "thank you for knowing that I've never related to anything more in my entire life."

You're the one that I want---ooh, ooh, ooh

and I really feel like it's going to work.

I prefer the days when I want to say, "screw you, realists!" to the days when I am the realist.

there are signs everywhere. The one at the top of my list is that though we're both going places, neither of us is going anywhere.

and for now, I will steep in that optimistic certainty.

screw you, realists!

:)