At Work
Friends,
A year or so ago, my building underwent a complete facelift. They stripped off all the bricks top to bottom, applied some kind of magic sealant, and put them back on. It was 10 months of drilling and dust and closed windows and a low level clanking. Shortly after that ended, the city began to replace the water and gas mains in my neighborhood, tearing up the street block by block. Drilling and dust and a low level clanking. This month my elevator was taken out of service so it can be replaced. We’re on the top floor, which makes it all easier (we can go across the shared roof from the other side where there is a functional and very fancy new elevator and only have to go down a flight), but the elevator room is pretty much adjacent to my apartment. Once again I feel like I am living inside a dental drill.
But I’ve been thinking about work, specifically about the constant state of it, for a writer. How when your primary working tools are your mind there aren’t many breaks or quiet times; it's nearly impossible to turn off that low level clanking, though you do learn to make it background noise. And I think in the last letter I sent I said I was going to be working on my novel, and gosh, I really meant it, but I had to take a break from it because I had so much other work to do: teaching and reviews and consults and all the little things that are the life of a working writer, the work that can sometimes take you from your own work. But I enjoy those things, too, the adjacent work, and it can help me to think further about what I want my work to do when I am able to focus on my own projects.
One of the things I tell my students is that working as a writer isn’t just sitting in front of a keyboard and typing. It’s so often thinking work. It can be teaching or talking through a story with someone, or hell, even something in your life that you might work into story. We tend to be so obsessed with producing as a culture that we don’t see what it can mean to work. We want results, but it’s not an all or nothing proposition (does the fact that I’m writing this post election factor into my thinking? You bet. Progress isn’t instantaneous.).
One of my professors at Michigan, Peter Ho Davies, used to say that you don’t need to write every day but that you should visit your work in some way, even if it's just reading a paragraph or engaging in a small way. Some days you are tearing up the streets and everyone has to keep their windows closed, and some days you’re just putting up those really strange barriers around the trees on the block, and sometimes it rains so the work is paused, or you’re waiting for the paint to dry, or the water is scheduled to be turned off and you can't wash the dishes. Or maybe you are just annoyed that you have to walk across the roof and up the stairs and down the stairs again and again and you’re as confused as your old dog about it all. You want it to be over, even as you know something else will start up again soon after, and you'll have to get used to some other low level clanking, make it background noise, too. Yesterday I was able to get back to my novel after way too long and I was surprised by how easy it was to slip back into it, how my brain wasn't getting back to work as much as telling me I had been at work all along, somehow. Clank, clank.
Nice Things About Back Talk
-Bustle thinks my story collection and these others are as good as reading a novel. I agree.
-You, on Amazon or Goodreads. Have I made this plea before? Perhaps. I’ll make it again. Your ratings and reviews—and all they have to be are a line or two!—on those platforms help me. Algorithms. If you could take a minute to say that you liked the book and drop all the stars on it, I’d be ever so grateful. Yes, I still think you should buy your books from indies.
Reading, Thinking, Feeling
-This is entirely on brand (somehow my household is the recipient of 3 Zabars catalogs at once), but I really loved this essay on bialys and making choices. I am pretty sure I have some ancestors from Bialystock but I love bialys and am often paralyzed by small decisions, so. I am not however indecisive about how much I'd really love a bialy right now, or tomorrow morning, or this weekend, or anytime, really.
-These things are all over my house, roughly in this order: Googly eyes (I was the one who suggested the googly-eyed monsters as Halloween costumes, so I brought this upon myself). Witches of Benevento books (we have bought our copies at some of our favorite indies for kids in NYC, including Stories in Brooklyn and Books of Wonder in Manhattan, and the incomparable Strand). Tamarind seeds.
-My neighbor got a puppy and gave me her keys so I can go visit her. My neighbor thinks I am helping her out but I keep telling her it's a great act of kindness. Please feel free to send me dog photos at any time, in case that hasn't been clear, and to perform great acts of kindness for your neighbors, with or without puppies.
-I am in a serious reading rut. It’s distressing, not gonna lie. I’ve abandoned so many books in the past few months. I’m not going to list them, that’s just mean.
Where to Find Me
-I had to explain to my father what an advent calendar is. I hadn’t seen one myself till I got to college, and then I was mostly into the idea of daily chocolate, which I was sad to learn not all advent calendars contain. But I digress. I have a brand new story in this year's Short Story Advent Calendar, which is an excellent way to spend any 25 days even if you don't get chocolate. Orders are shipping now. I have mine, and it’s gorgeous, and I am going to be good (not for Santa) and wait to start reading along with everyone else. If you want to follow along on Twitter or Instagram, there is a #ssac2018 hashtag. Only a few names are released every year, the rest is a surprise, but a short story surprise. What could be more excellent?
-If you missed me live last month on Living Writers on WCBN, here it is online. I really really enjoyed talking to T. Plus, she gave me these incredible lemon drops, which I needed very much after all the talking I did during that Ann Arbor trip.
-My AWP Panel, on getting back to the writing desk after you’ve debuted, has a date and time. Saturday, March 30th, 1pm-2:30pm. See you in Portland?
That's all for now. The apartment walls just shook from the elevator work as I got ready to hit send on this.
Talk Soon,
Danielle