The toddlers at the child care center I work at giving me many reminds of very old life lessons.Here is one, I call, the Parable of Snack Time. “Snack time!” … Continue reading The Parable of Snack Time
Category: Nonfiction
My First Easter in Edmonds
I set my GPS to Marina Beach. It’s about 10 minutes away from my studio apartment. I didn’t know what to expect when I got out of my car and started following signs to the park.
The first thing I saw was boats. Boats, boats, and more boats.
All set in the emerald waters of the harbor, waiting for their captains to set sail.
Being from the CA Bay Area, boats weren’t that new or exciting. It wasn’t until I crossed the bridge over to the Marina that I was blow away by the view.
Blue grey skies with light steaming down between the gaps in the clouds, sea salt catching in the breeze, sea fowl chattering to themselves.
The feeling that swelled in me was an epiphany mixed with awe.
And the disappointment of not having my notebook with me on this Easter Sunday.
So, like a true Millennial, I decided to blog about this experience.
Today, I feel like I have finally come home to the Pacific Northwest.
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Life after the MFA (5 months after graduation)
It has been 4 months since I graduated from San Francisco State University. The student life for me has ended but the student within me lives on in what is commonly known as the “real world.” The “real world” classrooms are not as comfortable to me as the ones I lived in for 8 years of my college/university life. But, I believe that this is a good thing. I’ve craved a challenge that I could tackle and the biggest challenge I am facing right now is one I have been hiding from within the comfort of the classroom:
The Balancing Act.
What is the Balancing Act? Well, we learn about it early on in school, when we first encounter time management. I’ve always applied time management to academics, eating, sleeping, hygiene, family and friends. It was very linear and set. The key word there was SET. Little changed once the semester started and the books were bought. Nowadays, everything and anything can change with very little if any warning.
Workplace schedules change daily, health care changes, meetings change, settings change. In the past 4 months, I’ve been to San Diego, Germany, East Bay, North Bay, South Bay and if there was a West Bay I would probably been there too but I’m up against the Ocean where I live. The constant uncertainty can be exhausting and very time consuming.
Thankfully, I believe I am starting to get the hang of it (knock on wood). I understand now what my professors at State were trying to warn me and my fellow writers. Once outside the MFA, writing feels like a luxury that one cannot afford.
Yet, as a writer I cannot afford to stop writing.
I must then return to a sense of balance; the balance between self-care, work, and writing.
Self-care is everything that one has to do to stay functional in the world. Doctors visits, health insurance, rent payments, phone payments, car payments, cleaning your room, buying new clothes, washing clothes, washing dishes, buying groceries, cooking food, talking with loved ones, taking your medications on time, watching a funny show, reading, playing videogames, etc.
Work is what you do to pay the bills. From the time you leave the house to go to work until the time you step out of your work office that time spent working. Applying for work is also work, as all us underemployed or unemployed graduates know.
Writing is what I am doing now while listening to Netflix play in the background. Writing is also reading. So reading books on writing or science or math or dragons, etc go into this category. Notice that reading is also a part of self-care. Reading for your writing life and for your life is a good practice, in my book. It lets you have room for really High literature and really low literature. The kale and the cheeseburger books, respectively.
I hope to get better at the Balancing Act. I’m in the process of learning through trial by error. With any luck, I can reach my center of balance and feel the flow of my writing increase in the next month.
Thanks for reading!
Peace, love, and pancakes!
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Finals Week…some musings
Yep, it’s that time of the year! When everything becomes due…so many due dates.
But that doesn’t mean the writing has to stop. Writers should be able to write under the harshest conditions! If we didn’t, then there would be no stories from far off places or chaotic news from war torn countries. Be it bullets flying past you or a research paper due in a week, a writer must be able to write.
I’m, by no means, perfect. There are days I don’t write because other things seem to call for my attention louder than the voice that says “where’s that new poem.” Somehow, either by sheer luck or perseverance or both, I was able to meet my year goal of 52 poems. In fact, I went past the mark and wrote 53 poems. These range from unpolished first drafts and published pieces. The most recent published piece appears in the SFSU’s literary magazine, Transfer #104. I wrote it back in June and it was the 25th poem drafted this year. I edited it about 5 times total. There’s something amazing about having drafted 53 poems in a year. I never thought I could write so much in a year. Some I may never revise and others I feel still hold a spark of that special something that made me sit down and write the first time around.
I began the journey of a year in poetry to prove to myself that I am serious about writing, that poetry is not some hobby but an integral part of myself. I had feared that if I ever was out of a classroom setting, I may never write regularly. The strange thing that happened this year was that I wrote less regularly after August than I did during the semester off. Moreover, the poems I wrote during that time off were some of my proudest moments. I don’t know what that means for my practice, but I do know that I need not fear my craft deteriorating after I live my program at State. Poetry can’t get rid of me and I can’t get rid of it.
As for prose, I have begun a long journey discovery through my struggles with this current novel draft. By the end of November, I had 10, 282 words, less than 40,000 shy of 50,000 words. Yet, I haven’t stopped writing it. The main character, Bastion, won’t stop nagging me to finish his story. Currently he is stuck in a men’s restroom with 2 High Elves, a wood elf, a half-giant, and a humanoid lightning bird…oh and Bastion’s a dragon and doesn’t know it yet because he is a mentally ill wuss.
Truth be told, I’m not very confident in prose writing unless its nonfiction (not about me, per se, but about a subject or a research article, etc), so this is a big challenge I’ve undertaken.
It’s been both struggling and entertaining. It’s as if I am watching my daydreams take form in words.
Currently, the plan is to continue writing the first draft without editing until I reach what I believe to be the end. Then I’m setting it aside, for a month or so, and then going back with a red pen and a pot of strong coffee.
With any luck, Bastion will be my very first novel. Here’s to completed another huge project!
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14 Hills Issue 17.1
Two post in one day?!?! <insert le gasp!>
What I’ve been up to during the past few weeks has largely been centered around work, school, family and friends. Not necessarily in that order, but I degress.
This past semester, I have worked with and on 14 Hills: SFSU Literary Magazine. Currently as a member of the PR team it is my duty and my pleasure to announce the release of Issue 17.1
The party that will kick off the release is on next Thursday, December 16, 2010. 7pm at:
COFFEE BAR
1890 Bryant Street, San Francisco
(entrance at Mariposa and Florida)
For more on this, please see the links below:
http://fourteenhills.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=51989988844&v=info
Will Rose be there? Yes. Will there we dancing? Also yes. Will Rose come dressed as a anime character? No, but that is a good idea.
So come on down to have fun, see what we’ve accomplished, and to celebrate finishing off another new year with something spectacular.
-Rose
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Updates, Events and Upcoming News
First off, I apologize for the lack of updates. I, the semi-fearless leader of Dragon’s Lair, have had more then a little bit of life-changing experiences lately.
Where to begin, where to begin …?
Well, I suppose the best place to begin is with my grand escape back in May. Yep, I have official joined the ranks of other college educated Americans worldwide. With my BA in English from UC Berkeley under my belt, I dived head first into both graduate school and job applications. In truth, I had already applied for graduate school during my last year of college, but the waiting part, oh the waiting … the anticipation … how it is both thrilling and torturous … well that might as well be included in the application process (for logistical and sanity-related reasons). In a strange twist of fate, I’ve succeed in both endeavors: I now work a full-time job in SF while going to school for my MA part-time at SFSU.
Normally this leads to fan-fare, congratulatory hugs and kisses, and champagne flowing like water from the Russian River. However, this being my life, no such celebratory actions (beyond a close intimate dinner with friends and then with family) took place. Instead the past months have been a whirlwind of moving (found a temporary room in SF), job acclimation (Berkeley is nothing compared to a 40 hour work day), and graduate school work (the training wheels are off). Add my desire to keep my social life in tact (friends) and to do what is right by the ones I love the most (family), I have had little time to update as regularly as I should.
Does this mean the end of Dragon’s Lair? Will the dream end here just to be turned into yet another half-started day dream of an inspiring writer?
Please, if you have to ask that you don’t know this bibliophile/workaholic.
What it means is that for a while the postings will be infrequent at best, but they will happen. All I ask if for your patience.
New poetry, stories, photos and the like will be posted in the (hopefully) near future. Most postings will be about local artistic events, lectures, nonprofits, and such. Notification of these will depend on how soon I learn of them through the grapevine. If you have an event and wish for it to be announced here, please feel free to drop me a line at rtabooker@gmail.com.
Speaking of events, boy is San Francisco chock-full of them! With particular interest to Dragon’s Lair is APE 2010.
APE, the Alternative Press Expo, happens this Saturday and Sunday at the Concourse Exhibition Center. This is a great opportunity to connect with other visual artists, writers, independent publishers, and distributors. There is so much to learn and do during the 2 day event. More info can be found on the APE website: http://www.comic-con.org/ape/
Of course, I will be there but not as one of the tables (just another patron). But with any luck, Dragon’s Lair will be there next year.
In other news, October is half-way through which brings us closer to the all-encompassing month of November. Or as those who sacrifice sleep would know, NATIONAL NOVEL WRITING MONTH! **cue mandatory lightening bolts**
November is National Novel Writing Month, a month where, for some bizarre and unfathomable reason, writers everywhere, from all walks of life, attempt to write one first draft of a full-length novel in one month. It is grueling 4 weeks and 3 days of non-stop writing. I will not lie, last year was a total failure. I barely made it to 2, 000 words. But this year is the year!
Why you may ask? How will you, who now works 40 hours a week, has two night classes and commutes home every weekend have time to write a full-length novel in 30 days?
One word: Blogging.
Starting November 1st, I will post the unedited 1st draft as it is being written. Grammar mistakes, spelling errors and a shamble of a plot-line will cover the front pages of Dragon’s Lair for 30 days.
Why demonstrate a terrible first draft to the world?
Why not?
Dragon’s Lair is about art and nothing but art! However, something that most people don’t want to admit is that to create art, you have to get messy. Clay is found in the ground along with feces, death and decay, yet we still use it to create fine china. Proof in point, look at your dishes, and try to find one that is worth something but didn’t come from dirt. Try it. Go on. I’ll wait.
…
…
Giants are doing well this year.
…
…
Back?
Okay.
No one usually wants to see someone digging out the clay, because it is hard, dirty work (I say usually because of the show Dirty Jobs … for some reason when Mike Rowe is involved everyone wants to watch a man put male turkey semen into a female turkey… go figure).
So, to demonstrate the creative process, encourage younger writers to get off their facebook pages and create, and to foster a sense of community among other NaNoWriMO travelers, I will post my “shame.”
With any luck, some porcelain can be found under all the rubble.
To recap:
updates will happen more often, but still be sporadic
ATTEND APE!
And let the preparations for NaNoWriMo begin!
Peace, love and pancakes
-Rose
The Literary Dragon 