Time Enough At Last

I have been working on a piece for a storytelling showcase. I’m on my upteenth round of edits. Even when I think, hey this is good, I’m done, I’m not. The coach’s response email of, “here is the feedback” and “more arc” is a humbling, learning process for me.

I’ll admit, finding the “arc” has never been my strong suit. Dialogue is something I’m good at along with character development. I’m adept at finding comedy in tragedy and unresolved, non-cliffhanger endings with someone frying up a pork chop for dinner.

Those are my go tos. But arc, not so much.

These last few weeks, I’ve had to do much growing, both personally and professionally. I’m learning to put my ego aside and just do me. It’s a fine line walk between confidence and arrogance and to be a writer you have to be confident in your voice and know it matters. You have to be passionate and tenacious, and seek opportunity. It’s called “putting your work out there.”

But maybe, what’s also important is growing and improving even when you’re good. That’s how you get to be great.

People often ask me, how do you do it? You have a more than full-time career as a deputy public defender. I usually respond by saying, “I use my early mornings, weekends, vacations and I don’t have kids.” (Not having kids was not by choice.)

But the truth is, and I’m wearing my heart on my sleeve here friends, I don’t have a choice. I must write. It sustains me and calms the anxiety in my brain, but I am also just listening to the whispers of my father in my head saying my name. Perhaps, it’s the only way for me to bring him back to life.

Or maybe, I have to capture my family, my friends and my life or it won’t mean anything. I know in my head that my life means a lot, I know this, I do, but I need to see it on the page and in the world at large.

There’s that old Twilight Zone episode (the title of this piece) where a man, played by Burgess Meredith, loves to read more than anything and hides at work and home and escapes into his books. I know this feeling well. The H bomb drops and in a post Apocalyptic world, the man is despondent and all alone. He is about to kill himself until he finds a library and he is overjoyed. The man has enough books for a lifetime. Then the rub. He shatters his glasses. The man cries out,

“That's not fair at all. There was time now. There was all the time I needed… It's not fair!"

That’s exactly how I feel most days about writing. I fall into it and could do it forever and I don’t want to run out of time or lose my way (or my glasses). If I wait until I have all the time I need, it might be too late. We are all just blind people looking for a purpose I suppose and this is mine.

Now, it’s “time” to go work on my “arc”.

Showtime

I woke up at 3 am to the sound of Chewbacca whining. My shih tzu is spoiled and anxious and after 10 years together, he knows I’ll get up. I did.

We padded downstairs and I checked Facebook and an announcement for one of my favorite bands popped up. Sleaford Mods were playing at my favorite venue, Pappy and Harriet’s in Joshua Tree. The venue is amazing. It’s in Pioneertown and the feel is more small county fair than rock venue. Plus, they have an amazing restaurant with killer barbecue.

And the band. Punk meets rap meets electronic with social commentary. The lead singer Jason’s voice reminds me of the first time I heard John Lyndon sing. It was love. It is love. I know all their lyrics and sometimes they’re not easy to figure out. That guy is a master at puns. Almost better than James Joyce. Almost (there is Finnegan’s Wake ya know).

I adore the band to sum it up my friends. Like my espresso in the morning adore. They’re butter on toast for me (margarine for you vegans).

So don’t judge me, but I screamed! Then I literally jumped up and down, like a teenager. Unlike my teen years, where money was always the issue, I bought my tickets and even disregarded that it’s on a Tuesday. Mentally, I said fuck it. This is my band.

Tossing and turning back in bed, I couldn’t even go back to sleep. That’s how excited I was. I started thinking about all the shows I’ve seen, since that first Loretta Lynn show in elementary school that my dad took me to.

In high school, me and my besties went to shows as often as our pizza restaurant paychecks would allow. Yes, I saw The Smiths live on stage and Siouxsie and many others. Music is memory for me. It is life. It is happiness.

It is where I lose myself then find myself all over again. So here’s to finding myself again, one show at a time.

The seer

I have had the flu all week. It’s been wicked and my chest has been wracked with coughs. So when I fell asleep at 7 pm tonight, I was not surprised.

What was surprising was that I had the most lovely dream. I was half awake and half asleep and dreamt of my book release party. Because I was in that super special place of half-awareness, I could influence my dream. I imagined the party at a crowded venue, the reading, the restaurant after and all of my family and friends there supporting my book come true.

Imagination is everything with dreams. More than two decades ago, as a junior college student, one who had no car, no money and no prospects, I used to doze off in class lecture thinking about walking a podium in a cap and gown with all of my family cheering loudly.

No longer would I be the high school dropout, the waitress, or the loser. I would make it.

Mere years later, I walked across not one stage but two. First at UCR with an English Literature degree, and then in a red and gold cardinal gown at USC Law. From high school dropout to corporate lawyer at the largest firm in Texas, that usually doesn’t happen. But for me it did.

When the corporate law gig didn’t fit, I put a sign over my corporate litigation desk that said “IWBAPD”, short for, I will be a public defender. Within 6 months, I had a job in Riverside, and there I would stay to this day.

So while some may say I’m a dreamer, I say I’m a seer. I see it and eventually, it comes true. This time with the book party, here’s hoping it is sooner rather than later because I was sad to open my eyes tonight and look at the ceiling with blinking eyes.

I thought to myself and maybe even whispered, “Oh how I wish that was real. Oh how I wish.”

Directions

It is 2:30 am and I am wide awake. Frodo woke me up an hour ago. He kept whining to go downstairs. I tried to ignore it, but finally padded down the stairs with him to go outside. He looked confused as he looked at his water bowl. I said, “Drink Frodo... now go outside.” The wind was howling as I opened the door.

Frodo looked at me again. I pointed. He followed my finger and went outside.

We came back upstairs and I tried in vain to go back to sleep. My brain wouldn’t turn off. I am a bit frustrated with a work issue that I need to just let go. It really has no purpose other than to cause me annoyance. Do we suffer because we can’t let things go? Perhaps. Maybe I’ll just turn my annoyance into a fiction story or a character (that is always the risk you run with pissing off a writer).

I spent last night listening to a podcast on the controversy surrounding the book “American Dirt” on Latino USA on NPR. I think the dialogue is important. Yet, similar to my work issue, I am letting it go because I have to. My own book is what’s important to me right now you see.

Maybe that’s what is vexing me. 

Maybe my anxiety over my book is what is really in the back of my mind, my decade long labor of blood, sweat and tears. What if no one wants my book? What if no one wants me?

Hmmmm. 

You see, I just want my stories out there, and they are. But my book, a novella memoir, is a whole collection, rather than pieces. It is a portrait of me. It is me. I am multitudes or contain them as Whitman once said: Jenny, JEM, Jua and Juanita. I am all of those narrators and all of my names. 

I am my stories. 

In the end, maybe I just need to come from a place of gratitude, for how privileged I am that I’m a writer, and that I get to write at all. I need to have a mantra: if you write stories, they will eventually be read, by someone. 

For now, I’m following my own directions and just padding down a path. Where it leads, I don’t know, but I’m on it. 

Backwards

I was looking back through posts the other day and was amazed I’ve kept this blog going for a decade. It all started with a story about me and my embarrassing dance moves at a Christmas party. I did the sprinkler dance ok? Get over it.

I can see how far my writing has come. Like working a muscle, I’ve built it up. It’s flows easier now. But have I come along that far? Have I worked on my soul in the process of the writing? I haven’t really made much progress in the last decade on being nicer or on drinking less.

Don’t get me wrong, I know I’ve documented it all, I’ve been honest, pretty honest, about who I am.

There are cringeworthy blogs that I read now where I was so euphoric about the process of fertility treatments and IVF. So fucking hopeful. I feel like a fool in retrospect, and the barren and cynical bitch I’ve become thinks, you are a fucking idiot.

But at least I tried. Right? It's the same thing with this book, this writing journey and my performances. It’s not like I think I’m that talented. I do a reading and my knees chatter together like fake joke teeth, but I have something to say. I have a voice. And while my voice may not be the prettiest, or the smartest, or the most elevated, it’s mine.

Watching the show Fleabag recently, I thought, I love this. This girl is a real girl, a flawed girl and I will take reality over fake ass shit any day.

Running

Getting back to work has been hard, but oddly exhilarating. I have found more joy in my public defender incompetency work since I came back from a break.

My work routine seems comforting. My obsession with to do lists and efficiency have put me in good stead for the new year. I have a very big trial in February and I’m prepping it while breathing.

I also got involved with a creative project at work involving social media and that’s been super fun and rewarding.

Writing wise, my weekend and early morning and night gig, well that’s a crazy tale. I’ve been on a mission to finish my book which I did. There’s a draft and it’s good. Not perfect of course, but it never will be. What’s weird is that after leaving it for a month, I was able to finish my prologue in a weekend.

Here’s the rub. Being a writer is work. People do not have any idea unless they’ve tried to be a writer. And it’s not just the writing itself. It’s the writing and the submitting, and the conferences, and the readings and promotions.

Everything came to a head in January.

I had to book my trip for AWP, the huge writing conference in March of every year which I had been putting off. I finally got that done. Then, a good friend reminded and urged me to apply to the agent meetup which is due next week too. So that still needs to get done. And it will. Probably after I write this blog because I’m up at 2 am so what the hell!

Next, I am doing a group read in Venice on the 18th of the month so I had to help promote that. Then, there’s a book contest/prize that I want/need to submit my manuscript to so I’m also working on that which is due in a week.

Just when I thought I was on track, I found out I had not properly deferred my online part-time MFA program at UNO which was supposed to start this month. I had to reapply which I did last night. They let me transfer my letters of recommendation and essays so that helped. Maybe it was meant to be that I start my MFA this summer or fall because I’m running right now and barely keeping up. With my demanding job, the needy shih tzus, my husband and of course, my Netflix and music obsessions, well it’s a lot.

Life is short. I’m not beating myself up. I’m just moving forward.

I’m tired. Yet exhilarated. Life is moving and so is my writing. Working full-time as a lawyer for the most oppressed and writing on the side is a lot. But if anyone can do it, I know I can. Thank you for listening.

Hello new year! I’m your.....

It’s a new year, well almost.

This year, I hosted Christmas. It was so much work. But worth it. We cleaned the house from top to bottom and decorated. The table settings with homemade placemats crafted by myself with glue, stockings and glitter turned out perfect.

Add in my mammoth, slow cooked prime rib eye roast and a karaoke machine and you have a party. Other than a mean shih tzu (Frodo-who believes every Christmas needs a Grinch) who terrorized the partygoers, it was a blast. Oh and there’s a rumor someone hogged the karaoke machine but it’s lies, all lies.

That said, next year we’re going to Hawaii or Fiji.

Putting Christmas aside, New Year’s Eve is pretty much my favorite holiday (other than Halloween). It is a great excuse to get sparkly and tipsy. Too things I’m very good at.

Some people say New Year’s Eve is a letdown, but that’s just an excuse for people who don’t know how to plan. This year, per the usual, we will be at an 80’s party in Las fucking Vegas. I will be sipping on all you can drink drinks and listening to the new wave tunage of the best decade ever.

And yeah, I will be sparkly.