"Burn it down, till the embers smoke on the ground."
Sunny, bright, windy, bleak. The four words that best describe this day in Providence. I'd add raw, but then I'd have five words, not four. It's 45˚F, and our low tonight is supposed to go to 27˚F, and yes, I do miss the climate I had to leave behind when I left the South.
When the fuck did my blog wind up on GoodReads? I hate GoodReads.
Yesterday, I wrote 1,256 words on Fay Grimmer. I'll likely finish Chapter Six this evening, and begin Chapter Seven - the last chapter - tomorrow. I am now, at most, a week from finishing the novel. Also, yesterday, with less than nine thousand words left, I finally figured out how it ends. Tiddley-pom.
This is of no especial interest to anyone. Well, perhaps only to a very few.
Last night, Spooky and I saw Rodrigo Cortés' Red Lights (2012). Ignore the fucking critics and the fucking reviews; last night, it was an unexpectedly superb find. I'd not even heard of the film, which stars Sigourney Weaver, Cillian Murphy, and Robert De Niro. It is certainly one of the least appreciated films of the year, and I very much encourage you to seek it out.
Please have a look at the current eBay auctions. A copy of The Dry Salvages has been added (OUT OF PRINT SINCE 2004!). Thanks.
1) Inspired by kylecassidy, I have made a resolution to begin losing weight. Over the past, well, almost nine months now, I've been suffering from some of the worst depression (and company) of my life. It has led to inactivity and overeating. And I've gained about thirteen pounds, and I am now the heaviest I've been since 1987. Thirteen pounds might not soond like much to some people, but given my lack of activity, my meds, my being not in, shall we say, especially spectacular health, I need to lose it. No, I needed never to have gained it. And it angers me, that it's because of the depression. Which is depressing...and this thing can go round and round. And circles lead nowhere. Beginning today, no more junk food, no more overeating, very little refined sugar, NO HFCS (though, we cut most of that long ago), very little in the way of processed foods, no snacking, and so forth. I'm getting a gym membership. No matter how fucked up my head is just now, those thirteen (and maybe a total of fifteen) pounds are going away. By the end of January. I'm actually very good at losing weight. It's finding the resolve to care, to try, that's hard.
2) I have come to the lowest point in my opinion of my work since...I don't know. There was a bad patch in 2007, but I'm not sure it's ever been this low. I love nothing that I am working on. And I am working on a lot*. After The Drowning Girl: A Memoir, everything else seems like silly fluff. I thought, last year, that I needed a "break" from the "serious" writing. But I see now that I was horribly wrong. That it was a mistake. That there is nothing else I see any point in writing, if I am to write. And that's all I can do. I have no other professional options. And now I've let myself slide into a place from which it's going to be hard to break free. But I have to, if my writing is to continue to have any worth. To me. I'm not only talking about money. But much of what's gone wrong has arisen from a fear of poverty, from a loathing of poverty, and from taking on much more work than I can possibly handle. Now I'm blowing deadlines, and literally forgetting what I'm supposed to be working on. Sounds bizarre, but it's true. I don't precisely know how to escape this mess. Likely, it will cost me income I can't afford to lose. Likely, it will cost me opportunity. I just don't know. But here is the fact of it: I will never be a bestselling author. After twenty years, it's time for me to accept that. I am, at my best, a very good writer, and I will not sacrifice that.
Both of these things, I wanted to say them publicly. I can't say why. I suppose I've also been seduced buy our relatively new mass exhibitionist/voyeur society. The social confession. The abandonment of privacy. Then again, I've been doing that in blog form for over eleven years now.
Two Steps Backwards,
Aunt Beast
* I will exclude The Ape's Wife and Other Stories, which I hope to be a fine collection. However, most of the stories were written a while ago, as far back as 2007, and therefore aren't actually relevant to my current dilemma.
When the fuck did my blog wind up on GoodReads? I hate GoodReads.
Yesterday, I wrote 1,256 words on Fay Grimmer. I'll likely finish Chapter Six this evening, and begin Chapter Seven - the last chapter - tomorrow. I am now, at most, a week from finishing the novel. Also, yesterday, with less than nine thousand words left, I finally figured out how it ends. Tiddley-pom.
This is of no especial interest to anyone. Well, perhaps only to a very few.
Last night, Spooky and I saw Rodrigo Cortés' Red Lights (2012). Ignore the fucking critics and the fucking reviews; last night, it was an unexpectedly superb find. I'd not even heard of the film, which stars Sigourney Weaver, Cillian Murphy, and Robert De Niro. It is certainly one of the least appreciated films of the year, and I very much encourage you to seek it out.
Please have a look at the current eBay auctions. A copy of The Dry Salvages has been added (OUT OF PRINT SINCE 2004!). Thanks.
1) Inspired by kylecassidy, I have made a resolution to begin losing weight. Over the past, well, almost nine months now, I've been suffering from some of the worst depression (and company) of my life. It has led to inactivity and overeating. And I've gained about thirteen pounds, and I am now the heaviest I've been since 1987. Thirteen pounds might not soond like much to some people, but given my lack of activity, my meds, my being not in, shall we say, especially spectacular health, I need to lose it. No, I needed never to have gained it. And it angers me, that it's because of the depression. Which is depressing...and this thing can go round and round. And circles lead nowhere. Beginning today, no more junk food, no more overeating, very little refined sugar, NO HFCS (though, we cut most of that long ago), very little in the way of processed foods, no snacking, and so forth. I'm getting a gym membership. No matter how fucked up my head is just now, those thirteen (and maybe a total of fifteen) pounds are going away. By the end of January. I'm actually very good at losing weight. It's finding the resolve to care, to try, that's hard.
2) I have come to the lowest point in my opinion of my work since...I don't know. There was a bad patch in 2007, but I'm not sure it's ever been this low. I love nothing that I am working on. And I am working on a lot*. After The Drowning Girl: A Memoir, everything else seems like silly fluff. I thought, last year, that I needed a "break" from the "serious" writing. But I see now that I was horribly wrong. That it was a mistake. That there is nothing else I see any point in writing, if I am to write. And that's all I can do. I have no other professional options. And now I've let myself slide into a place from which it's going to be hard to break free. But I have to, if my writing is to continue to have any worth. To me. I'm not only talking about money. But much of what's gone wrong has arisen from a fear of poverty, from a loathing of poverty, and from taking on much more work than I can possibly handle. Now I'm blowing deadlines, and literally forgetting what I'm supposed to be working on. Sounds bizarre, but it's true. I don't precisely know how to escape this mess. Likely, it will cost me income I can't afford to lose. Likely, it will cost me opportunity. I just don't know. But here is the fact of it: I will never be a bestselling author. After twenty years, it's time for me to accept that. I am, at my best, a very good writer, and I will not sacrifice that.
Both of these things, I wanted to say them publicly. I can't say why. I suppose I've also been seduced buy our relatively new mass exhibitionist/voyeur society. The social confession. The abandonment of privacy. Then again, I've been doing that in blog form for over eleven years now.
Two Steps Backwards,
Aunt Beast
* I will exclude The Ape's Wife and Other Stories, which I hope to be a fine collection. However, most of the stories were written a while ago, as far back as 2007, and therefore aren't actually relevant to my current dilemma.