Every day, I write poetry, at least a thousand words in my current WIP novel, and a smattering of loose scenes, dialogues, plots, notes, and lines for as-yet-unrealized projects. In fact, I had a great idea for a meet cute a few months ago, but no story to go with it. Yesterday, out of the blue, I thought, “Obviously, the first third of the book will be epistolary.” And from there, the story unfolded as though it had been there the whole time.

Two things I’ve learned so far: first, I am very inefficient at writing sex scenes. Mostly because I’ll write a sentence and then cry, “ah, my characters, they’re so happy, they love each other, I’ll make sure they enjoy each other!” When the scene is written, all I can remember is how much I struggled to write it, though when I reread it, I don’t see any signs of my difficulties. In fact, it might look, maybe, easy? Did I wrestle for a week with a scene that now flows so well nobody will ever know how I bit my nails and looked for something to clean to distract me from writing it?

I stood in a white kitchen in a bright house with a vast, green backyard abutting a forest. The slant of sun said summer. Colorful stained-glass-style pieces of glasswork hung in front of the window, and my then-twenty-ish self reached out to touch one shaped like a corkscrew. On the counter was a pencil, inscribed with nonsense: “sentences-entences.” I asked the woman at the table what it meant, and turned to look at her.

I love to read. And before this pandemic, I read a lot. Like, 200 books a year. This year, though, I’m averaging less than a book a week, which is…unheard of. Anyway, back in 2010 I joined BooksRead, and it was an amazing way for me to organize what I’ve read and want to read, and connect with friends and see what they’re reading, and recommend things, and review things, and, well, I just went a little crazy doing all the things. I checked it more than I check my email. I had several thousand books on my shelves, and I read something like 1400 books over 10 years. I published a couple books of my own and got an author profile. More recently, I started reviewing ARCs. This was great and I loved it!

In classic me fashion, I’ve been mad about it for an entire year, while also feeling begrudgingly grateful that I didn’t lose my job during a goddamn pandemic. I was able to work from home (I gave my boss no choice, I simply said “I’m working from home, I have it all set up already, didn’t need your input, email me pictures of anything important and mail me everything that isn’t time sensitive ok byeeeee!” and never returned to the office again [which ended up being my smartest decision yet, since everyone in that household got Covid just before Halloween and would definitely have infected me YAYY]), and we were able to get most of our usual purchases delivered, so the few times I actually left the house in my car was to go to the vet’s because, well, cats.

Obviously I didn’t list everything that has gone wrong in the past few months. Some of it would be overshare, and some of it I forgot because, well, read through the list and you’ll understand. Like, a few weeks ago, I cut myself on the hundred-year-old metal band around the bottom of a piano leg and had to get a tetanus shot. That’s right, I braved a public space to get a dang tetanus shot, and it was very scary and I was very brave to get it done. I also skipped telling you about all the major household catastrophes, but I’m about to change that because we had another one happen yesterday.

Toilet paper is back! For now. In the meantime, we got two different bidet attachments, and we have plenty of cloths and rags and socks and we know how to do laundry so really the tp situation was never as dire in this household as it was in others. My number one concern was always human food, which must be specified because the next concern in importance was cat food, both of which we have now, in abundance, thanks in large part to our weekly farmshare. I have pickled and frozen so many vegetables, y’all.

I always get sick on cruises. On any trip, really. Honestly, I get sick if I go to the theater or an arena or a convention too, so, obviously something is wrong with me. After contracting some kind of terrible respiratory thing after last year’s JCC, I bought a face mask in preparation for this year. I was the only person wearing a mask at CVG on the way to Florida, and I was only one of three or four people wearing a mask on the way home. Every seat in the Delta waiting area in Fort Lauderdale was taken, and even the Skylounge was at capacity. There was no way to enforce social distancing; we were basically on top of one another.

I feel like I’ve been in a fog since 2009. It’s been hard to learn things, hard to remember things, even everyday items I use regularly. Half the nouns I try to say short-circuit my brain and leave my mouth as “that thing.” Maybe it’s because I left school and stopped learning in a structured setting. Maybe it’s because I moved to the middle of nowhere, and if I want to go anywhere worthwhile, I have to get in my car and drive there, and I hate driving.

It’s the result, in part, of Gail Carriger’s Great Parasolverse Read-Along: rereading the Parasol Protectorate, Finishing School, and Custard Protocol books in chronological order, ending with the final CP book coming out next month. I’ve also decided to read all of Shakespeare’s plays this year—one a week—and that would bring me through September if I wasn’t in the habit of reading more than one a week. (I have about 10 left but have already concluded that Shakespeare is another “problematic male genius.”

Folks, it’s done. It may have been a redundant goal, to read 1000 books in 10 years. I might have read that many anyway. But here we are, a year and a month ahead of schedule, having read over one thousand books. I’ve spent so long on this project, slowly making my way, I was beginning tire. I’ll take a moment to enjoy a celebratory cake, but I’m already looking forward to my next goals. Onward!

In 2010, I decided that I didn’t read enough books. This was a foolishly incorrect observation based on not previously recording what I read in some sort of list, and—when I joined Goodreads—not reading the same volume of books as my peers. So, led by a desire to have physical evidence that I was well-read, and misled by a brief and laughable desire to make long-term goals, my number one priority became reading 1,000 books within 10 years. Starting with 2010, that would make my deadline for a thousand books

I could tell you the complete story of how it started and how it took so long, but the short version is that, sadly, writing and creating books is not my primary source of income. Yet. I have hope that it may, in the future, but until then, the bulk of my waking hours is devoted to what’s known as a “day job” (or, “How I Afford Things”).

A year, a month, and a day.

That’s how long I’ve been working on this project, as a tertiary-or-lower priority. Looking back, if I had just quit my job and poured all my effort into it, I might have been done in a month. But I took a few detours and remained open to additional work that would improve the book, and so, finally, here it is.

In other ways, it seems like their book-type-shape is the only similarity. I created every bit of my poetry myself, whereas in this Swedish book, someone else put in the effort to gather facts, figures, names, dates, and other bits of historical accuracy. Creative writing vs history. First language vs a mish-mash of terrible Swedish. A book that requires an open mind vs a book that requires an index (what have I gotten myself into?).

One reaction that took me too long to learn is stopping. Not so long ago, I would force myself to finish every book I started. I have to be honest: it didn't make me a better person. It would only make me miserable. Since then, I've applied this "stopping" to other storytelling media that fails me. Including (and here's where I lose people) The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, and Doctor Who; a dozen comic titles; and several podcasts. That's not to say I won't ever return to these stories. They simply failed to meet my standards over a period of time, and I moved on to other things that did meet my standards. 

They're not all gems. Some are limericks, haiku, other short forms that don't have names. I have a few I'm very proud of, and I have many that will never be read by anybody but me (until I die, at which point Hyperform has been charged with publishing everything, even the crap, because I'm dead, so what do I care?). Generally I see potential in one out of every seven or eight. 

Guys. My book is published. You can go online and order it and it will arrive in a package at your home in a few days, where you can hold it and flip through it as you sniff the freshly-inked cream-colored pages. Or, you can go online and order it and it will arrive on your Kindle immediately, and more cheaply. Personally, I try to only read poetry on actual paper I hold in my hands. Beyond the tactile component, I know (as a poet myself) that formatting is a nightmare, and e-books can't always remain true to the form the author intended. 

I can only guess that I was accepted into my writing program because I had at least some promise. I don't think my alma mater would have invited me in if I had zero talent. I mean, obviously they wanted money, but I'm sure reputation has weight too, and they probably wouldn't want anyone to read my terrible work and say "Can you believe they gave her a degree? Guess they'll give 'em to anyone that pays. Strip them of their accreditation!" 

I thought having a food blog would be fantastic. I’m at the point in my culinary experience that I can eyeball measurements, confidently substitute ingredients, and skim recipes before inventing my own methods. Hyperform (spouse) continues to be impressed by my one-handed, stir-fry/omelet flip (though as we discovered last weekend, this success doesn’t extend to vegan pancakes. Not enough binding ingredients to prevent it from falling apart and on the burner, pan handle, floor, my foot, the Monsters, etc. mid-air). But that blog sounds like a lot of work and really, I just adjust other people’s recipes, and it’s an affinity but not a passion. Pass.