Red Fox Room

This is the bar where our writing group El Cajon Boulevard met for the first time around 1998.

Red Fox Room

The New Yorker

Got the nerve to submit Loose to The New Yorker. I don't know why I didn't before. It's not like there's anything to lose. I'm glad I waited, though, because, as usual, I made several small revisions I think are very important.

Oh. I remembered why I didn't submit to them before. A story about kayaking is not really their style. They're The New Yorker.

Writing Platform

Jeremy has come up with my Desolation Ghosts writing platform. He will write Desolation Ghosts in Space and we'll review each other's work. He'll give me the cover blurb, "Meh, it's not terrible" and I'll give him the blurb, "Moments of funniness." He will also use the blurb, "My mom says it's brilliant."

Agent Search Over! Ish

I did it! Between 3/8/21 and now, I queried all 161 agents on my list, 121 of them in a big push I made starting at the end of September this year. It took longer than writing the book and feels like almost as much of an accomplishment. The book doesn't feel like a waste though. I was getting rejections to old queries as I was sending new ones out (I've gotten 50 actual rejections so far and 7 presumed). I couldn't imagine Jack Kerouac doing this weird chore, so I looked up how he got an agent. Apparently he "shambled" in to see Sterling Lord in person and made an impression (but it took 4 years to get a publisher - ouch!). Wonder how many agents he tried. Not to compare myself to a genius like Kerouac. I'd rather make 161 queries than try to sell my book in person! 5 agents are currently closed to queries so I may need to come back to them (Ernie Chiara at Fuse, I'm watching for you), but maybe I'm done. It's short story time. I did not query the agent who said she was a "literal bookworm". And, of course, the very last agent asked for something special and different: a curriculum vitae. I didn't even know what that was. So I spent a couple hours making a resume of my writing (and proofreading) education and experience. Then I forgot to proofread it. It had one error, which I just caught, too late. Gosh, I hope my book is better than the 5 published newspaper articles, 1 published short story, 2 unpublished screenplays, 10 unpublished short stories, 37 poems, and 2 songs I've apparently written. Never added them all up before! A lot of creative types do a lot more and are dead long before, but I'll take it.

Trudging through agent search

New job starts Jan. 3. I'm only through the "L's" in my list of potential agents, but I've queried 113 agents total.

The sequel novel where Kate jumps out of the frying pan of surviving suicidality into the fire of the mental health system - which leads to jail - wants to be written, but I know better than to disappear into creative land when I'm starting a new job. That book will have to wait until the right time.

Miller

 Scored at Easton's and got someone's Miller collection.

Rejection

The problem with streamlining your system so you can get more queries out to potential book agents is you get a lot more rejections! As soon as I see or hear the word "unfortunately" these days, I tip my hat, bow, and say, "Thank you. Good night!" Well, one time I said, "I'm going to hire a cheap lawyer!" but that was because we'd watched that episode of the Three Stooges the night before. It wasn't as funny in real life as it was in the Stooges.

Spec Sitcom Script

I can't believe there hasn't been a sitcom about living on a U.S. military base (in Europe/Germany). We just watched The Office, and it's clear I need to write something similar to that but completely different. SO many hilarious situations and great settings and so many veterans and military families who could relate. Wish I could spend six months at a cabin with certain military buddies as a comedy writing team ala Dick Van Dyke and bang the thing out.

Rat scream

This is the wake of a mouse running for its life from a cat sometime between Christmas Eve night and Christmas morning (yes, the very cat who then settled on a pillow next to my head and purred me awake). Not only is this the actual ironic scene, but in a bonus stroke of pinache, at the end, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. At least they left him where he fell, not on my pillow.

The Big Push

A job is looking promising. I'm trying to query all of the appropriate agencies from QueryManager before I go back to work. Organizing it took awhile, but it's going efficiently now. I queried 20 agents in the past week. Between March 8, 2021 and October 27, 2022, I queried 46 agents, and it was a trudge. 

Edits are done until an editor or agent tells me otherwise, so this will be my last big effort on Desolation Ghosts until I get an agent or nothing happens for a long time and I come back to it someday and reconsider self-publishing. 

I do plan to submit my short story Loose to One Story and Tin House when they open for submissions in January, so maybe that will get something going. It's a side story that elaborates on a couple ghosts mentioned in DG, but it wasn't appropriate for the book, and it stands on its own.

Third Proof

 So far have only made two corrections!

Short story submissions

Submitted Loose to the Sun and Moss. magazines today. Submitted it to The Atlantic the next day. Made revisions for two weeks afterwards. I don't believe Kerouac didn't revise. No way.

Book Chart

I wanted to make a map of my literary make-up like this cow chart here, but I couldn't find a chart in the shape of a human. Maybe I'll try to Frankenstein one. Or maybe I should get a job (I'm trying!) and finish my homework. Apparently my biggest chunk is detective. Chelsea Cain, Lidia Yuknavitch, that's you (and Chuck Palahniuk) in the Portland Transgressives slice. I haven't heard a name for your gang yet, so, there you are until I hear otherwise.

Second Proof

Printed five copies. Turned out okay. Still found about 20 typos and such to change in it and a couple tedious spots. Also discovered I talked about Sedro-Woolley without mentioning the chainsaw-carved statues on the downtown sidewalks! Major oversight. Fixed that! One copy for proofreading, one to keep, one each for two awesome rangers who influenced it, and one for Henry Rollins who's mentioned as an influence but probably will not be at all excited to receive it. I think I might be on his bad fan list (stalkers) if he has one. But I don't know. Who doesn't like to hear they've helped people?

Proof of third revision

Finished a 6-month revision of Desolation Ghosts and just queried another 5 agents. It's a tough sell since people looking for social justice work generally want non-fiction and since social justice and nature are a strange combo. I'll keep trudging away at it though. I'm printing a proof for a "final" proofread through Barnes & Noble printing. Here's the cover. It's kind of ugly. I'm no artist, but I love having Hozomeen on the cover.

Query #45

I found an agent I was excited about because of her mission statement (books that matter) and because she's done a lot with Philip Roth's work (whose novel The Human Stain is the most like mine in terms of whistleblower fiction). It wasn't clear until I'd already invested some time in the query that she only accepts non-fiction. I guess I was tired, but I got aggressive and sent her a query anyhow. Haven't heard back. :D I've queried 45 agents now and need to keep going. It feels like I'm running out of agencies I feel confident are solid. I know I need to submit some short stories to magazines, too. That would help my credibility to agents.

Part of my query letter to Wendy Strothman:

I’m writing to you because this book, which reflects dire current affairs, matters. It will change how people think about those struggling with mental health issues by revealing yet another little-known form of discrimination they either endure or succumb to. It will educate people about the toll of being a park ranger and about dangers in nature, and it will make them curious to follow, in the next book, a memorable character out of the frying pan of surviving suicidality into the fire of our failing mental health system, which often leads to jail for people in crisis.

I’m writing to you because you’re singing my song and I’m singing yours but in different, complementary keys. Philip Roth, Upton Sinclair, George Orwell, and many others wrote significant and provocative works of non-fiction as fiction because it was more effective to make their points. Would you say no to them without peeking at their work? What use is a memoir aborted by libel laws unless you dress it in fictional skin?

Photo I traced for cover of new book proof

I love this picture of Desolation Lookout (and Hozomeen!) from the air this summer during all the fires. (credit: Jim Henterly, "Edge of the Void")

X Marks the Spot

As far as I know, Alexander is still missing. Kept my eyes open while hiking Thunder Knob today but didn't see anything out of the ordinary except for the giant X made out of 2 tree trunks that I think fell during the lightning storm when he went missing. The X marks a little pond, bridge and hill not far from the summit where I think, for various reasons, he may turn up, if he ever does. I deduced where I thought another missing person might have gone, and it turned out to be correct. It's coming up on two years. I didn't know him. I just helped look for him.

Mosley

I love it when I buy a used book and it turns out to be signed (presumably by the author)!

Reservations

There was a homicide at the national park I used to work at last week, and I worry about the impact on the rangers I used to work with who responded to it. I based the book I wrote on that park (writing rule #1: write what you know) and used elements of it to illustrate a problematic social issue around how we handle people with mental health issues (Michael Connelly's "Everyone counts or no one counts" maxim summarizes it nicely). Even though it's fabricated, it has rangers as characters, one of whom represents the problematic side. How do you ever criticize people who do that work for a living? I know people in law enforcement aren't perfect any more than anyone else, and I know there are good and bad apples, as they say, but it's truly heroic work. For every mistake or imperfection, there is so much generosity and sacrifice. The stress and toll of the work is immense. I wonder if some jobs earn the right to be left alone about how the work gets done. Not in cases of racism or abuse, obviously. We clearly have a systemic problem that needs to be addressed and reformed. But in cases like the one I wrote about where the right or wrong of how a situation is handled is less clear and the people making the decisions are truly doing what they think is right, maybe "thank you" is the only appropriate response.

Devil's Elbow

 

Yuknavitch

Look who I got to hear read from her new book tonight in Seattle! It was well worth the drive to hear her talk about it and other things like how instead of falling into despair, we just have to fight like others have before and accept that it's our turn. She is so articulate and lovely. Are you jelly? Everyone else, if you get the chance to catch Lidia Yuknavitch on her book tour, do it!

What Hemingway Read

Princeton University has posted Shakespeare and Company's lending library cards online. Here are the books Ernest Hemingway checked out when he was in Paris in the 20s and 30s.

Hemingway at Shakespeare and Company

Snyder

Look what I got in the mail today (11 days before it comes out in bookstores)! It's a really nice edition. https://www.loa.org/books/711-collected-poems

Ooh! It has an index of titles AND first lines, and it starts with a poem about a place in North Cascades National Park:

Mid-August at Sourdough Mountain Lookout

Down valley a smoke haze

Three days heat, after five days rain

Pitch glows on the fir-cones

Across rocks and meadows

Swarms of new flies.

I cannot remember things I once read

A few friends, but they are in cities.

Drinking cold snow-water from a tin cup

Looking down for miles

Through high still air.

Tolstoy

I just finished reading Anna Karenina, which I liked only slightly less than War and Peace, which I liked a lot. It only took me two months, which isn't bad for 800 dense pages. I liked the characters, especially the hunting dog, Laska, and I loved the luxurious outdoors descriptions of farming and hunting. I had to push myself to get through the drawing room/family stuff, especially when the narrative bogged down in wedding details, but it was worth it. His portrait of Anna, especially when she tries to charm Levin and when she loses her mind over the acceptance/rejection dance with Vronsky and dives under a moving train, was amazing.

There were two times I was struck with the knowledge that Tolstoy was writing from direct experience. I knew he'd witnessed someone killed by a train, and that the writing was exorcism, and I knew that this part was describing his own experience:

"And, happy in his family life, a healthy man, Levin was several times so close to suicide that he hid a rope lest he hang himself with it, and was afraid to go about with a rifle lest he shoot himself. But Levin did not shoot himself or hang himself and went on living."

I read later that both of those impressions were true. I felt like I was able to identify it because of my own experience writing. I felt familiar with Tolstoy's process, which sounds arrogant but is no less true. I recognized it because I'd done it.

At the very end of the book, after Anna's suicide, starting at Part 8, Chapter 8, Levin has a spiritual awakening, reflecting Tolstoy's own, and it's expressed so well! It's what I experienced by working the 12 steps. We came at it in different ways, but the grace and the outcome were the same. He even attributes the fact that the Holy Spirit or God or whatever took pity on him and restored him with an improved faith to having been taught as a child to "live for the soul, to remember God." That is my belief as well, that if my parents hadn't given me a foundation, I wouldn't have been able to find what Tolstoy describes so well in these passages.

"I'll be dead by November," said Henry Rollins last month during his spoken word. What did he mean?! If only I could remember the context. My husband says I should see Jack White perform tomorrow night (he's #2 on my bucket list of musicians to see after Robert Plant) because maybe he'll be "dead by November" and I'll regret it the rest of my life if I miss him. Dead by November. Or whenever. And then? Will it matter that I read Anna Karenina? That I saw Jack White? I have what Tolstoy describes - a spiritual life that creates meaning, but I still wonder what it's all for. 

Gary Snyder

I forgot to report that the new chapter and the revisions that were thwarted did make their way from my head to the computer. Still revising. Still querying agents.

Meanwhile, I got a postcard from Gary Snyder! How cool is that?! I sent him one of the proofs of the book I had printed last month. It's helpful to do an edit in that format. I think I'm getting close to finishing tinkering with it.

Torture doing the right thing

There is no way I could have written a novel and worked a regular job at the same time. I know because I'm working a regular job now and trying to finish up revisions, and it's an absolute nightmare. Three weekends ago, I spent time with someone I modeled a character after, and it inspired a chapter I need to write, but it was a Sunday, and I had to go to work Monday, so I scribbled mad notes on an envelope and went to work for a week waiting anxiously for the weekend so I could spit the story out. Thursday night, my sister tells me my mom is coming for a quick, unexpected visit. So I sacrifice the book to spend time with her. It's my mom, and she's old. I lose contact with the chapter, but I have the notes. This past weekend comes, and I put in some time, mostly organizing, but it's stuck. Then I wake up at 3:45 a.m. and it's all there, ready to pour. I get some out, but I have to stop. And go to work. Where I'll lose contact with the spray of inspiration within an hour or two. In fact, it's already slipping away. The temptation to call in sick is strong, but I can't do it because I'm a drunk. I can't lie and stay sober. Also, I don't want to soil the novel with dishonesty. So I'm letting it slip out of my hands again and trusting it will come back. And it hurts. That is all.

60,000

I'm taking a novel writing workshop on Saturday mornings for 6 weeks from my feature writing professor and newspaper colleague from 20 years ago, David Coddon. I knew when I started that I needed to move chapter 6 to chapter 1 but what I've learned so far in the workshop is that I needed to change which character is the actual protagonist. An editor friend confirmed that agents and readers would care more about the new protagonist than the old one. That has affected a lot of things, including the ending, which I needed to change anyway because I learned the ex-protagonist has another adventure coming up after she is rescued that I need to set up at the end of the book. I'm also doing a lot of work on pacing and making sure the stakes are clear and compelling, capturing how the characters change, and keeping the momentum moving forward. Great class. David's the best. I am also lucky there are other very talented writers in the class who have given me some great feedback and writing wisdom. So much work to do. 

The textbook is Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird about writing, the title of which David explained comes from someone in the book being overwhelmed at the idea of writing about a whole bunch of different types of birds. Someone told her to write them bird by bird. It's such a great description because that's exactly how I wrote (and am revising) this novel, and it was so different from previous writing. As it developed in my mind, I knew what scenes I needed to write, and I just wrote the one that was pounding loudest on the door and set the others aside until I could get to them. Then I'd pick another one up when I was done. It made writing seem less crazy and chaotic, and it was amazing to be able to trust that the material would be there when I got to it. The only part I really had to either capture or lose was the beginning, because if I hadn't gotten enough down on paper when it was ripe, I would have lost the whole thing, and I knew it. That's why I rented a hotel room for one night where I could focus without distractions to get it started.

Writing started January 31, 2021 at the Candlewood Suites in Burlington, WA:

Oh, and the book is now over 60,000 carefully-chosen words.

Bird

Here's the personal essay I sent to The Sun. As usual, I moved too fast and submitted it before letting it sit for a minute. After I sent it, I realized it's more of a summary or outline than an essay, so I was not surprised when they declined, but I probably won't flesh it out anymore. It captures what I wanted to capture.

BIRD

When Emily Blake interviewed for a receptionist position with the prosecutor’s office, she was surprised by the question, “If you could be any animal, what animal would you be?” Not recognizing it as a standard interview question to assess personality and strengths, she was unprepared to use it to her advantage and defaulted to the unflattering truth.

“I would be a bird,” she said, “Probably a crow.”

“Why?” demanded the prosecutor, as if Emily was on trial.

“Because they can fly.” The elaboration seemed obvious and unnecessary to her. “And they’re pretty. What animal would you be?”

“I’m asking the questions here!” thundered the prosecutor.

And that was the real end of the interview for both sides, beyond the perfunctory protocols.

Later, she interviewed for a 9-1-1 dispatch job, in which she was asked, “Which part of 9-1-1 dispatching do you dislike?”

“I don’t like our warrant system,” she said.

The police lieutenant interviewing her narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean you don’t like our warrant system?”

“You know, it preys on the poor. It’s designed to keep everyone in their places.”

The police lieutenant evidently and unsurprisingly did not share Emily’s social justice orientation, and an interview, once again, turned into more of an interrogation. When she left, Emily felt beat up. This time, however, she’d been prepared, having interviewed for the same position a year prior with a police sergeant who referred to the dispatchers as “whiners” for wanting mandatory overtime policies reformed. After hearing “they’re lucky to have jobs” as justification for inhumane working conditions, she knew she should avoid the agency, but she loved dispatching, and there were only so many opportunities that didn’t require moving.

When she interviewed for the public defender’s office, she recognized she’d been chasing jobs on the wrong side for a long time. All “sides” of the justice system are important and have their purposes, but when she hinted the warrant system had some problems and her interviewers rolled their eyes and responded, “Don’t even get us started,” she knew she’d found her home.

It was a long time coming. Emily had heard it’s hard to find work after you turn fifty, but it wasn’t until she'd applied for dozens of jobs for over a year without success that she started to get really scared. She knew ageism was probably real, but could a person really be unhireable 15-20 years before retirement age?

To be fair, Emily is twitchy, inarticulate, and anxious at a level just below passing out during interviews, and her holey resume, with seasonal park service jobs and recent short stints at local jobs that didn’t give breaks or where co-workers openly and aggressively complained about the incompetence of women in politics and the impropriety and usurpery of women in the military, makes her look - if she was an animal - like she’d be a bird, flighty and fickle.

She understands why employers would be reluctant to hire people her age. As you maneuver the workforce, you become less willing to put up with abuse, you learn not to waste your time trying to “change things from within,” and you develop basic standards for how you expect to be treated, which is a pain in the butt for employers who want to take advantage of you or are otherwise dysfunctional. On the other hand, if you’re lucky, you’ve learned that Tall Poppy Syndrome is not that you’re being picked on because you care more about doing things right than everyone else; it’s that you’re being an asshole. Loss of idealism is a valuable commodity.

Returning to work after a long, luxurious break from waking up to an alarm clock, Emily was afraid she wouldn’t be able to acclimate to a normal work routine again. Like a lot of Americans entertained by a decade of The Walking Dead, she harbored the delusion she would function better in a zombie apocalypse than modern society. Who wouldn’t rather occasionally split the skull of an undead monster than wake up day after day to spend your energy maintaining your part of a complex survival machine and forcing yourself to be nice and get along with other people instead of resolving differences with a baseball bat and surviving by scavenging off deserted homes and businesses?

Her primitive instincts slowly slough off and her civilized, workplace persona returns as she basks in the secure familiarities of working in an office. Every office has the same things, with slight variations.

Emily eases open a kitchen cabinet with gleeful anticipation. What unwanted mugs have been abandoned here? Oh yes, there are the seasonal mugs: Easter rabbits and Christmas trees, the strangely shaped mugs and the ones with random company logos, mugs decorated with fruits, gingham cats, and flowers, boring, plain ones in ugly colors, and the requisite one or two treasure mugs: Mickey Mouse and a hound dog in silhouette.

Emily worked in newspapers for years just after the dot.com crash of the late ‘90s where she witnessed the shrinking of staff, parties, benefits, equipment. Sometime in the mid-to-late aughts, as if to emphasize that the pampered 90s were over, management swept through the building removing all the wall-mounted first aid cabinets and even replacing the “fancy” pens with basic stick pens. Emily always wondered what they did with all the aspirin and band-aids.

But here, at the new job, to her delight, she finds a full-size first aid cabinet, fully stocked with all the first aid necessities - unexpired! - plus extras like foot powder and Pepto-Bismol. 

The supply closet seems extravagant after years of working for a poor branch of the federal government where everything was recycled multiple times. Anything you need is there, new in its package, and if you need something that isn’t there, just ask. Just ask! 

The real excitement comes during orientation, which itself feels like a surprise bonus since it’s been shrunk and even dropped in some workplaces. They mention ergonomics. Emily swears she hasn’t heard that word on the job in 20 years. You get what you get has been the assumed policy everywhere for a long time.

And then they give her Adobe Pro, and she almost cries. She thinks of the frustrating, time-consuming workarounds she’s come up with to accomplish tasks without it, and she knows her new employer has won her loyalty for as long as they want it. 

She murmurs, “Please, God, let this job be ‘the one.’”

It Takes A Village

Some great feedback came out of this Facebook post:

I've been sending Desolation Ghosts to agents without success for a while now. Big ask: if you started to read it and didn't finish, would you consider letting me know where it lost you and why? I am more interested in knowing how to make it better than in feeling like it's perfect, so I won't hold what you tell me against you. I have to send the first two to five chapters to the agents and I suspect that's where I'm losing people, so any help would be greatly appreciated if you are comfortable.