The Big Questions of Book 3, Cleveland Witches Saga

1) What was Grandmother’s original plan?

2) What was/is Joy’s plan?

3) What does the Court think about what’s happening?

4) Details on how the spell/heirs really work…

5) Is Gregory’s sister a witch?

6) What is Bear’s backstory?

7) Is Snake working at the hospital?

8) What is the magical purpose of the murders?

9) Who do the skeleton spiders belong to?

10) How do we find out why the Court really convened?

11) What’s going on with our love-lust-love triangle?

12) How do we kill our Big Bad?

13) How do we introduce ‘Thus Unnamed EMT’?

14) What’s going on with the rag-tag coven?

15) Do we want Loretta at Court this book?

A little ditty…

I had to try my hand at writing a creepy little song so the witches in my current WIP could cast a creepy little spell… I have no song writing experience, so… It was… interesting.

“Oh four little witches went out to play, on a fateful summer’s day.
At the edge of the woods where the blackthorn grow, was an old man singing adagio.
‘Oh, little witches so wild and free, what would you like to be, to be?’
‘A mouse!’ said the first, ‘So I can hide in a house!’ for he had no home of his own.
‘A bear!’ said the second, ‘So I’d have not a care! King of the whole of the wood!’
‘A fox!’ said the third, ‘Now isn’t that good? For they are so pretty and sly!'
But the last little witch said, ‘Oh, no. Oh, no. I would be no other than I!’ ”

“As the old man sang his mournful tune, the little witches couldn’t help but croon
‘Oh to be a mouse, in a great big house!’
‘Oh to be a bear, with great, shaggy hair!’
‘Oh to be a fox, and ignore all the clocks!’
‘Oh to be a witch, and not fall for tricks!’
As the old man played his magic flute, the blackthorn grew its magic fruit.
The little witches danced and sang as the sloe grew thick and ripe,
When the berries were bursting and the thorns closed them in, the old man cried,
‘We will feast tonight!’ ”

“They baked those berries into cakes and pies, though one little witch thought this unwise.
When the feast was steaming and the moon was gleaming the animals ate it all.
But with each bite of berry - oh, they should have been wary - they grew rather hairy indeed!
When the last crumb was eaten, the fox ate the mouse for he was a louse!
And the bear ate the fox, for that’s quite orthodox!
And the man shot the bear, for that’s only fair!
A feast it was indeed!”

“As they ate that old bear, roasted ruddy with gin,
The old man and the last little witch sang a song,
Oh, four little witches went out to play, on a fateful summer's day!
Oh, three little witches, and one wily crone, went out in the woods all alone!
They sang and they danced and they ate magic berries!
They should have known better than to play with the fairies!
Oh, only one little witch came back, came back!
To grab her friend another snack!”

D0DaDra - The Movie

I recorded myself at some point every day I was working to write an entire novel draft in twelve days. DoDaDra = “Dozen Day Draft”. It was a challenge I set for myself in July. You can watch the whole YouTube video series about the project here.

Full movie (aka. super sped up video content from what I recorded every day of the actual writing process) below. I just thought it was interesting… What it physically looks like when I write a novel. What AI can’t do. It can’t do this. Be a weird little human, putting all that weird little human shit into the piece. I think that’s so sad. That’s part of the beauty of writing, to me. One human reaching out across time and space to connect with a bunch of other humans. Anyway. Ta DA.

Writerly Review: Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries

I’m trying really hard this year to focus more on the craft of writing in a serious and systematic way. If you knew me, you’d know this is very, very out of character for me when it comes to my artistic pursuits. Strangely, ‘Serious and Systematic’ could be my nickname in my day job; I am extremely detail oriented and obsessed with staying on schedule with my projects. But when I get home it’s like - poof! - my brain needs a total break. When it comes to my writing it’s all instinct and following my subconscious and I have never tried to impose any real structure. I call my drafting method ‘The Chaos Method’. I’ve thus far tried to learn how book structure works just by reading a lot of them and internalizing. So, like, when I decided to start writing murder mysteries a few years ago, I just read a whole bunch of murder mysteries and got an unarticulated sense for their beats. Nothing serious or systematic about it.

Which, great. Maybe that will be enough. But I also think it might be the case that there’s something to be said for studying our craft as seriously as we study that upon which our livelihoods depend. I am serious about my writing. I very seriously want it to go somewhere, even to be that upon which my livelihood depends someday. So I’ve committed to reading craft books this year. I’ve also committed to trying to read novels with more of a deliberate eye to their craft.

So this series of reviews won’t be looking at books from a reader’s perspective, but from a writer’s perspective. Trying to parse out what makes the books work, what didn’t work as well (for me, obviously), and how the prose hits me. Trying to take apart the structure and figure out what makes everything ‘tick’, so to speak.

First up? Emily Wilde’s Encyclopedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett.

Firstly, firstly: I loved it. The prose was gorgeous. Literally the first thing I wrote in my notebook was: “immediately gorgeous, lush writing”. So you know I was smitten from page one. I think the plotting was really solid, the pacing was pretty much perfect, and the writing itself would have been just as fit for a literary as a commercial novel. I think Fawcett is one of those rare ‘Both’ writers. (Generally, I think writers tend to be Plot Writers, or Prose Writers, in that they are really strong in one area or the other. Both Writers are rare. And fabulous.)

We start out with a very gradual beginning that I thought really countered the current advice that writers need to dive into action right away. I’m on board with the idea that your inciting incident really should be in the first few chapters, but a) the inciting incident doesn’t have to be flashy, and b) there’s value to a little buildup, or a glimpse into the MC’s regular life before we yank them out of their day-to-day existence. This book was a great example.

Chapter one is our MC arriving at the destination where she’s to be completing her fieldwork for her encyclopaedia. We get an entire chapter, really two, to hear about the village she’ll be staying in for the next few months, to meet the villagers, to get a few ominous hints about why the faeries here are maybe more dangerous than any faeries MC has studied before…

Technically, I’d argue you could view coming to the island village itself is the inciting incident, since it is outside MC’s norm to an extent - it is made very clear to us in a myriad of ways that she’s a fish out of water in this town, someone used to being tucked away in her office, uncomfortable socializing, useless at starting a fire or otherwise taking care of herself without some modern amenities - but even if you want to argue that the inciting incident doesn’t come until the first faerie is on the page, or until MC pisses off the head village woman, or until LI arrives… It’s good, in my opinion, to spend a few moments getting to know the MC, just getting a sense for their voice and the interiority of the novel, and getting a general overview of worldbuilding. There’s value in that.

(Though I wonder if the current assertion that writers need to grab readers and shake ’em like chew toys in chapter one originates in a cultural shift wherein our attention spans are ever shorter and a writer perhaps had more time in the past to establish their world and characters but now if nothing metaphorically explodes by page three you’re doomed to loose your audience? Something to ponder.)

Interiority was a real strength of this novel, though at times the MC’s voice worked against the author to some extent. This was a masterclass in how to play with what the MC knows vs. what the readers know, and to build tension with the differences therein. So, for example, the MC would observe that LI was sad, but not understand the reason, or misattribute it, but thanks to precisely what she observed, we, the readers, would understand that the LI was pining for her. That kind of interiority is one of my favorite aspects of novels, as a medium. That insight into what our characters are thinking and why they do things you just can’t get to the same extent in, say, movies, for instance.

The main challenge the MC’s internal musings brought to the narrative, in my opinion, is that she was so detached - arguably, she was a somewhat unreliable narrator because she wanted very much to believe herself more detached than I think she actually was, and therefore lied to herself at times about her supposed dispassion - that sometimes her insistence on distance and objectivity made it difficult for Fawcett to convey enough tension in some of the action sequences. Particularly towards the end there was a rescue scene that put our MC in mortal danger, but while I understood that to be the case, I didn’t feel it as a reader because the MC wasn’t really feeling it. I don’t think there was really any way around it - it was a consequence of staying true to the voice of the MC - but I do think it pulled me somewhat away from the emotional impact of the scene, just as the MC was distancing herself.

Other things I thought this novel did very, very well:

• Chekhov’s gun, Chekhov’s gun, Chekhov’s gun. Woven throughout the narrative were a large number of theses little details that would come back into the narrative at significant moments. Who the changeling turned out to be. Needing the head woman’s help after pissing her off for not accepting her hospitality. The lost button magic. There were a few instances where the first mention of the oddity only preceded the interesting way the information would later be used in the story by a couple of chapters, and I would have liked a bit more distance between the two, but overall… mwah. Well done.

• A complex MC, though I think she’d argue she isn’t at all complex - just a scholar devoted to her studies. I thought the author did a really good job giving the MC a lot of really likable qualities while the MC herself insisted on brutal honesty regarding her sometimes less altruistic motives for seemingly altruistic actions. (Though, of course, we readers realized early on that she might well deny her own altruism, even if it was solely motivating her actions. For science!, our MC would cry. Though really it was just her rescuing cats all over the damn place.) Fawcett also gave MC a dog, which was a nice way to humanize her. It’s hard to dislike a woman who loves her dog.

• The love story. It’s only just beginning, as this is only the first book in a series, but the pacing was perfect. LI shows up off page first - MC muses on him and receives a letter from him and then - ah! - he arrives in person, and of course he is a dramatic contrast to MC but his wildly disparate personality suits MC perfectly as it allows her to sit comfortably in her preferred silence in a corner while he holds court with all and sundry, gleefully making friends wherever he goes. Then a bit of tension - is he here to really help MC, or to steal her research? And what about… you know… that other thing we learn about him midway through the narrative? And… are his feelings genuine, or is he just constitutionally incapable of resisting the urge to flirt with every female within a thirty mile radius? But then hints his feelings are genuine. Oh. And quite the surprise to the MC, hints her feelings for him are genuine. (She did not see that coming. That’s inconvenient, huh? To care about this ridiculous flibbertigibbit!) Then they rescue each other, and rescue each other, and help each other, and help each other, and, oh, they could be good for one another, couldn’t they? A proposal, a kiss, will they end up together? Aaaaaaand, scene.

There were a few things that worked less well for me. I thought one of the MC’s decisions that led to the climax of the book was super shortsighted. I could see where the author had set up that she might do such a thing. Maybe. But I still couldn't really get on board with our incredibly intelligent MC doing something so, well, stupid. (The twist regarding HOW she did it literally had me going, “Holy shit! Holy shit!” in my living room though. So points for that.) I thought the reason MC needed rescuing at the end felt like a plot device. It was a little clunky for me, though I understand the necessity for structural purposes. And then, lastly, the climax wasn’t quite climactic enough for me. I thought the final battle needed to be more difficult. I wrote in my notes “not enough wow! for me”. That said, probably plenty of wow! for others. That’s such a very individual thing.

Overall, this was a really well paced book with absolutely gorgeous prose and deft use of interiority with a somewhat obtuse, but lovable, scholar for an MC.

Four and a half bum wiggles.

Weird Wednesday Love Poem

Does it need more salt?

“Does it need more salt?”

“How the hell should I know?”

“Because you’re the one with the

fucking book!”

Andy acknowledges

the 

entirely

reasonable

nature

of that statement

with a purse of her 

pretty, pink lips.

“No,” she settles on,

flipping through a few pages.

“I think we have enough salt.”

The sound of the pot boiling is loud

in the silence.

Until Andy says,

“We might have fucked up

on the broth though.”

“What?”

We 

cannot

get this

wrong.

“What do you mean, 

‘We might have fucked up

on the broth?’ ”

“Was supposed to be the blood

of a virgin.”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah. Someone who didn’t

do that.”

“This isn’t funny!”

If we 

get this

wrong

She might come back.

We don’t have time to start over,

so we just have to hope a broth

made with the blood of 

“an almost-virgin” 

Andy relays, after checking 

with our donor…

We have to hope

that’s good enough.

We have to hope

I am good enough.

At this at least,

if none of the rest of it.

Like,

Loving her.

Like,

Leaving her.

Like,

Decapitating

her 

resurrected

corpse.

We pour the potion

on the fresh-dug grave

and wait.

Weird Wednesday Love Poem

The World’s Worst Fugitive

I do not have a shovel.

The warden here is 

as wily

as she is wicked.

I do not even have a spoon,

because we never eat soup.

I suspect we never eat soup

because

it would require spoons.

I dig with a fork.

As you can imagine,

it takes some time

to dig a tunnel

with a fork.

Five years,

to be precise.

I dig with a fork

for five years.

Four tiny tines

to freedom.

A tunnel

under my bed,

under the fence.

The stars beyond the prison wall

are brighter.

The air is fragrant

as it kisses my cheek.

But, no.

Oh, no.

Those are lips

against my cheek.

I know those lips

against my cheek.

Those weren’t stars,

but the searchlight,

reflecting in her eyes.

That wasn’t a breeze

but her breath,

her whisper

her words.

“Don’t leave me.”

So I don’t.

Weird Wednesday Love Poem

Oh, how they scream so sweet.

My dog loves squirrels.

I love my dog.

Do I therefore sanction

the ‘Slaughtering of the Squirrels’?

It is his sacred holiday.

his raison d'être.

his joy.

What it is to love a creature

who loves cruelty.

He doesn’t just kill them.

He tortures them.

He plays.

He listens to them scream

and he shudders in pleasure.

Oh, oh, how pretty.

how sweet.

He licks his lips.

He sinks his teeth into their flesh.

The wet crunch of a spine snapping.

I offer him other joys

but he wants no other.

How can I love you,

when you love only death

and pretty dying?

I cannot scream

so sweet.

Weird Wednesday Love Poem

Here’s yet a spot.

I have apologized 109 times.

If I thought it would help,

I would apologize

109 times again.

But I don’t think this is a matter of,

“I’m sorry.”

Except that,

I am a sorry sight.

Will you forgive me if I suffer enough?

Will you forgive me if I tell you,

every time I close my eyes

I see you?

I cannot sleep,

for dreams of you

keep my tired eyes open.

You are a permanent spot

marring my field of vision,

right there in the center,

so I can only see the world

from the very corners of my eyes.

I can never look at it directly.

Out damned spot.

Out, damn you!

Please, damn you.

My queen has left me

quivering with regret, and 

stained with longing.

I cannot say ‘amen’.

My New Characters Won’t Stop Having Really F***ing Random Conversations…

“Don’t worry, Pig is our friend.”

“Is she?”

“Of course.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“Well, what makes you think she isn’t?”

“Well, what makes you think she is?” Lore insists. “A talking pig shows up and you just assume she’s here to help? Couldn’t she just as easily be a nefarious pig?”

“A nefarious pig!” Sage scoffs. “Don’t be silly. Who’s ever heard of a nefarious talking pig.”

***

‘The big wigs all think I’m useless, but I’m also symbolic, so I think they’d be pretty pissed if anything dire happened to me. I’m the baby of my… paramilitary organization.’ Lore’s expression must be blank because she tries to clarify. ‘I’m only 105 years old.’

Lore opens and closes her mouth a few times before she manages to echo, incredulous, ‘You’re 105 years old?’

Sage grins. ‘I know. It’s shocking, isn’t it?’

Lore nods. ‘It really is.’

‘Easy mistake to make,’ Sage assures her. ‘I act very mature for my age.’

‘You look damn good for 105.’

‘Do I?’

Lore licks her lips before she answers. ‘Yeah.’

***

“Mouse!”

“Excuse you,” Sage mutters indignantly. “It is not a mouse, it is a vole. And observe, please, that it is red. It is a red vole. A Red Tree Vole, if you’d like to be precise. Truly, the lack of education is astounding.”

“Excuse me,” Loretta mocks, “a vole. There’s a vole in your pocket. What in the hell is a vole doing in your pocket? While you work in food service no less.”

“Red’s not bothering anything. He’s taking a nap. What do you have against Red taking a nap in my pocket while I work?”

“You named your red tree vole ‘Red’,” Loretta drawls.

“What, you think it should be something fancier? Burgundy, Merlot, Vermillion?” Sage scoffs. “He likes Red. We’re not fancy folks around here, okay?”

“You sell $5 lattes!”

Sage purses her lips, but admits, “Fair point. We’re a little fancy.” She seems to think about it for another moment before amending, “We’re professionally fancy. We’re personally simple.”

“Thank God we’ve cleared that up.”

“Agreed. Precision is important.”

Weird Wednesday Love Poem No. 9

August 16, 2023 prompt - ‘geometry’ 

I had no interest in geometry

until I had the opportunity to study

the complex shapes of your form

the golden ratio of your features

the undulating waves of 

concave to convex

the places in you that were hollow

and those thrusting forward to claim space

decare yourself

trumpet your coming

warn me away.

I ignored the warnings.

I whispered into the hollow places.

I filled them with words of admiration.

How beautiful, I would coo, how lovely this shape 

and how lovely this other!

I filled you all up 

until you were a perfect sphere

and had no need of further sweet words

and none of your pieces reached for me

or warned me

before you rolled down the street

like a stone

scared

so scared

I might stain you green

with the growth of moss.

Weird Wednesday Love Poem No. 8

08/02/2023 prompt - ‘I don’t want to know’

(next week’s prompt is geometry)

I don’t want to know 

what life is like

without you.

I don’t want to know 

who left lipstick

on your neck.

So, please,

stop whispering her name

in your sleep.

I don’t want to know.

Weird Wednesday Love Poem No. 7

Text of poem without formatting:

We broke up

thirty-three days,

eight hours, and

twenty-six minutes

ago.

I have vomited

nineteen times

since then.

If I just keep drinking

this particular whiskey 

you liked so much - 

you know,

the one they age

in barrels on boats,

the one you used to tell stories about,

laughing,

so beautiful

when your head was thrown back

and your hair was brushing

against my thighs,

and you would make up

all these fantastic

tales of the sea,

how far 

this sip

this sip

this sip

had traveled

and how one day

we would travel to all those places too - 

that one.

This whiskey

with the ship on the outside of the bottle

and the way you loved me

drowned at the bottom.

I figure

if I just keep drinking it

and vomiting

at this rate,

I should probably

be emptied

of every last drop of you

by December.

Just in time

for the winter winds

to bluster me

back out to sea.

Things my mother taught me by dying young.

My mother would have been sixty-nine years old today. If she hadn’t died more than twenty years ago. This day every year, and the anniversary of her death, always makes me a little melancholy and a lot thoughtful, no matter how many years have passed. So here are a few completely unfiltered thoughts I had today:

1. There’s a home video from one of my birthday parties when I’m a small child - I’m five or six maybe. My father follows my mother into the kitchen at some point and she complains about being on film, especially when my father mentions that she’s thirty-[whatever]. She sarcastically says, “Thank you, Dear. Because we wouldn’t want anyone to think I’m twenty-[whatever].” My dad jokes that they’ll watch this video when she’s in her sixties and marvel at how good she looks in her thirties. And it’s true, friends. She’s beautiful. She always was. So maybe that’s the first ‘lesson’ I take with me from my mother dying when I was young, or at least the first one I contemplated at some length today: You are beautiful. Right now. And you might not get a chance to look back and admire your own beauty later. So admire it now.

2. I think most situations in life can be looked at through the ‘good news/bad news’ lens we often use in my family. Not all situations - some situations are just plain shit - but most situations you can find some aspect to be grateful for, or ways you’ve been lucky as much as you’ve been unlucky. Almost every day I’ll be on the phone with one of my family members and someone will ask, “Do you want to play ‘good news/bad news’?’ Today my little good news/bad news was that my dog cost me $### in vet bills today. That’s pretty bad news. But I have $### that, while I can’t really ‘afford’ to spend it on his many, many issues, I have it. I won’t have to cut down meals or worry about a car payment or anything. It’s dwindling my savings at an alarming rate, but that’s kinda what savings are for. Good news. The good news/bad news of my mom dying when I was young is: Bad news, I lost my mom when I was thirteen. Good news, she was a fucking amazing mom for thirteen years. How insanely lucky was I to have a wonderful, loving, funny, smart, powerful mom for thirteen years? That’s thirteen more years than some people get. Though, admittedly, more bad news: She went to work one day and never came home.

3. I don’t want to belabor this post, so maybe I’ll end here, but on the note of ‘she went to work one day and never came home’ I’ll pass along that absolute truism, that lesson we all learn when we lose a loved one: Tell your people you love them. I was a big ol’ pustule of hormonal rage at thirteen (as many of us are) and I was constantly whiny and snotty and belittling and I regret bitterly that the last two years I had with my mother I was probably an ass 75% of the time. But, but, but… and it’s a big ‘but’… The last words I ever spoke to my mother were ‘I love you’. Very last thing I ever said to her. I hugged her that morning before the bus came and I remember her commenting on how she wished my arms fit around her expanding waist a little better, but I told her she was just the right size for hugging. And I remember she was wearing a black slip dress that was supposed to be anti-wrinkle because she was traveling that day. And I remember walking down the front walk backward, facing her, telling her, last thing before I turned away to walk to the bus stop, “I love you.” I know that’s a lesson that’s been shared a billion-bazillion times, but it’s so, so true. Thank goodness, for all my asshattery, the last words I spoke to her were true and if you gave me a thousand chances to rewrite the very last three words I could say to that woman, I don’t think I could come up with anything better. I really, really loved her. And I told her so. Tell your people you love them. All. the. freaking. time.

4. Okay, I lied. One more lesson that I actually think about from time to time throughout each year as it passes: Time does not heal all wounds. I think people came up with that saying, and keep saying it, because it’s supposed to be comforting. Or that story they tell about Abraham Lincoln giving a speech relaying some old king asking his advisors to give him a sentence that would be true and appropriate to speak in any circumstance and the phrase was: ‘And this, too, shall pass away.’ I think that’s bullshit. I am broken from my mother’s death in ways that will never heal (or at least they haven’t healed yet). My grief will never pass away. It is with me, ever present, on the edges of every waking moment, trailing along behind me, hiding in my shadow. But I do think, for me at least, I’ve learned to work around the broken bits of me, and I’ve grown fond of my grief in a way. They are the reminders that my mother was here, and that I loved her. The reality of my mother, for however long I got to have her in my life, is precious to me. I don’t ever want her to fade and the truth is you can't separate who I am as a human being from that formative loss. The uncomfortable truth is I’m probably a kinder person that I might have otherwise been. I’m broken, but I think I have more compassion for people this way. I’m quiet and sad and my emotions are all twisted up and hidden in a hundred boxes in my mind where even I can’t find them half the time, but I was selfish and egotistical before. I was also thirteen before, and to have had my mother guiding me all these years, maybe I would have been a better person, I suppose. I can’t really know. But I know that every scar and every jagged piece inside me from her death is 100% worth it to me to have had her and I wouldn’t trade them away now for anything except having her back. Eventually the pain of losing her became less intense than the joy of having her in the first place. I guess that’s what I’m saying. Or, I don’t know. Something profound.

This post is longer than I intended, but it was nice to get a few thoughts out. I wish my mom could have watched that home video today and we could have all commented on how good she looked when she was thirty-[whatever]. I wish I could know what she would have thought of who I’ve become and how I’ve turned out so far. I wish I could have baked her a half-edible cake today and watched her try to be diplomatic in eating it. I wish I could have seen what her face would look like, wreathed in wrinkles and the light of sixty-nine little flames.

I guess the good news/bad news of today is that her presence, and her absence, are still teaching me things even all these years later. They’re not lessons I’ve enjoyed much, but it feels like such a mother kind of thing, you know? To still be learning from her. To still love her, and miss her, is just all the more evidence of how incredibly lucky I was to have her.

Weird Wednesday Love Poem No. 6

Prompt this week was ‘Hell is oneself’. Next prompt? Vomit. That one should be fun, right?

Poem.

(I like posting the poems as an image to maintain formatting, but for screenreader, same poem text below.)

Weird Wednesday Love Poem No. 6

They say, or, rather, one guy said, 

once,

‘Hell is oneself.’

But I don’t think that’s precisely it.

I think hell is a very distinct lack of you, Love.

It’s not about

nothing to escape from, and nothing to escape to.

It’s not about being lost in a mirror maze, and realizing

everyone else you see is only a projection.

You can look, but there is nothing to touch.

Obviously, that bothers me.

I feel that distance, 

that inability to touch soul to soul, because there are bones in the way.

There is the impossibility and fallibility of language.

I can never know if what they say

and what I hear

are the same thing at all.

But if that is the consequence of flesh and feeling…

Fine.

I don’t care.

Not really.

But you, Love.

I want to hear everything you say.

I want to clasp you so close our hearts shudder in a single cage.

I want to tangle legs and fingers  and strands of hair.

I want part of myself to be you, Love,

for I have carried you so long, sunk into my sinew.

In which case, it sounds heavenly to be oneself, 

to know you are here, even when you’re not,

to sit in a mirror maze together and know the rest of the world can’t hurt us,

for they are merely projections.

Weird Wednesday Love Poem No. 5

prompt - ‘a cup of really bad coffee’

She’s never said a word,

but I know she must think my coffee is terrible,

because when she makes the coffee,

she drinks half the pot.

(And it’s a big pot.)

When I make the coffee

she sips at a cup

and smiles at me over the rim

and kisses me goodbye when she leaves

and when I go to wash the dishes later

even that cup’s not empty.

I think the reason she hasn’t told me

she thinks my coffee is terrible

is because she knows 

I don’t think it’s terrible.

On the days I make the coffee,

I drink half the pot.

So I think,

she thinks

really bad coffee

is just part of being in a relationship.

I think

this espresso machine

is worth every penny I paid for it.

Especially when the chrome catches her gaze,

and there’s a twinkle in her eyes when she turns to me

and she laughs

and calls me, “Love”.

Weird Wednesday Love Poem No. 4

The prompt this week was ‘someone singing off key’. Next week will be ‘a cup of really bad coffee’. I feel like the poems are getting less humorous as I go through the weeks, but certainly still a bit strange.

Weird Wednesday Love Poem No. 3

The prompt this week was ‘spoon’. I’m actually pretty happy with this one. But then, I love both all things weird and also love poems. I have multiple books of love poetry scattered throughout my little library. (And one book of ‘erotic poems’! *gasp*) Next week’s prompt is ‘someone singing off key’…

Weird Wednesday Love Poem No. 2

Prompt this week was ‘I need a bicycle’.

Weird Wednesday Love Poem No. 1

Prompt: ‘grasshopper’

Rules: Write a weird love poem based on the prompt. Share on Wednesday. That’s pretty much it.

Must be weird.

Must be a poem.

Must be a love poem.

My doubts are traitors…

So on Monday I got my second-ever tattoo. It was, and is, kind of a glorious mistake. Can you read it? I bet you can guess which word the tattooist MISSPELLED, right? Thank goodness I glanced down at around that point and noticed the issue on the first pass, but you can still totally tell. I haven’t decided how upset I am about that or not. The tattoo is supposed to be a note I’ve scribbled to myself, a super important one, one that’s so important I got it, literally, permanently etched into my skin. So, permanent? I would prefer it be perfect. But, scribbled note? Maybe it’s just more authentic that it looks like I messed up a letter and had to go back and run over it again with my pen to get it right. Whatever. No one out and about in my daily life will be able to read it anyway. It’s written upside-down for everyone else. It’s not for them. It’s for me.

The really raw-to-the-bone truth is that I’ve been feeling very adrift, and alone, and scared lately and I’ve had some bad habits trying to creep back into my life. I needed a daily, visible reminder of, well, a few things really. I’m trying to work out how best to express it. Which is a bit funny because I’ve recently rededicated my entire life to writing… and thus expressing myself through words, choosing the right words, scrambling them up in sentences, ordering my thoughts and my paragraphs. It’s not a very auspicious beginning if I can’t even express why I need to write at all…

So let’s put this in order:

I have been feeling like my life is slipping past me, these past few years. I feel like I’m Dorian Grey except instead of a painting rotting away I can literally see my own face rotting every time I look in the mirror. There are new grey hairs. There are new lines on my forehead and at the corners of my eyes. My body is softer, weaker. I am marching inexorably towards my grave and there is nothing I can do to stop it. On one hand, that inevitability makes it easier. I don’t dread death on every morrow because there’s no point. If there was any way at all to escape it, I probably would dread it; every moment of every day I would be consumed with ever more intricate plans to escape. But there is no escape. So I accept that fate. It’s fine. What is not fine is the feeling that I am missing everything beautiful I should be seeing, and feeling, and doing along the path. That I am just marching with my eyes fixed forward and there are miracles happening alongside me every day and I live apart from them, unaware of them, denying them when I catch the slightest glimpse.

Some of these miracles are personal things apart from the main focus of this discussion. I’ve built my entire life so as to never be sunk by heartache. I have no essential relationships, no one I ‘can’t live without’ because I learned through a very traumatic experience in my youth that ‘without’ is always a possibility; any second the person you ‘can’t live without’ can be turned to dust, literally dust, or in my case ashes, and… you just have to keep on living anyway. You don’t get to ‘ can’t ’. So, anyway, I should really work on my ability to build interpersonal relationships. That would almost certainly improve my life. I’m going to have to work up to the bravery for a bit though. Perhaps with professional assistance.

But the other BIG miracle I’m missing is following my intellectual passion. Putting my physical and emotional existence aside for a moment, my intellect is a huge component of my sense of self and my sense of well being and I’ve been suffocating it slowly, day by day, in a profession that doesn’t stretch me and grow me in the intellectual areas that excite me the most. I have a good job with really excellent coworkers in a profession that I feel contributes positively to the world and I have no complaints about any of it. I frequently include my professional life in my gratitude moments first thing in the morning. But, for all that, it is not my burning, tearing, edge-of-my-sanity passion. It’s just not. And my very first realization when I faced my mounting existential dread head-on was: I want to build my life, my whole life, majority of my waking hours of every day, around my insane, insatiable passion.

I haven’t, thus far. I have focused my efforts on building a life that meets mostly my physical necessities. In that sphere, I’ve done well. I quite enjoy my carefully hewn environment. I’m not living in a posh flat in London, so it could always be better, but I have a nice little house with a nice little yard. I can’t really afford ANY kind of food I like - I have a real penchant for black truffles, for instance, and expensive cheeses - but I can feed myself certainly enough to fill my stomach. I have a schedule that allows for sleep and even regular exercise. My physical self is as fine as she can be in her mid-thirties.

But I’ve neglected my emotions and my intellect. The emotions part I plan to work on with a mental health professional. The intellect… Well, that one’s just up to me. That one’s just a matter of whether or not I’m willing to crawl into the trenches and fight to the last breath, eat hardtack crawling with weevils for a few years, take a dozen bullets from agents who send back form rejections, to readers who give me bad reviews, to my critique circle never recognizing my inherent genius… It’s just a lot of feelings of rejection in the writing world. And it’s this crazy roller coaster because no matter how many times you tell yourself not to get your hopes up, you do. Every time you send out a query letter you think… maybe this time. Every time you enter a writing contest you think… maybe I’ll win. Every time you enter critique circle you think… this was a good one, and then no one likes it as much as you did. But that’s the only way to get where I want to go. There’s no way out but through.

So. My tattoo. To remind me every single day, to try.

The quote is a combination of two fragments. The first ‘Our doubts are traitors’ is from Shakespeare’s Measure For Measure, which, I’m not going to lie, I’ve never actually read. The full quote is usually given as: “Our doubts are traitors, And make us lose the good we oft might win, By fearing to attempt.” So quite simply that part is to remind me that one of the reasons none of my intellectual dreams have come true so far is because I’ve been too scared to try. I didn’t think my writing was good enough and, honestly, there’s always the fallback comfort of telling yourself your dreams didn’t come true because you didn’t try. It keeps alive the illusion that if you really did try, they might come true. Rather than facing the truly terrifying prospect of realizing, at the end of years of absolute commitment, that your dreams aren’t coming true not because you’re not trying, but because maybe you really aren’t good enough. But I’m ready to face that fear. I’m finally more scared of the possibility that my dreams could have come true if I tried, but I never did. I will hate myself if I go to my deathbed wondering IF I could have had the life I dreamed of, IF I’d only tried.

I don’t want to wonder. I’d rather know. Either way.

The second fragment ‘…we must find words or burn’ is from an Olga Broumas poem called “Artemis” and the full quote is: “like amnesiacs in a ward on fire, we must find words or burn”. That part is just referring to what particular ‘good’ I want to ‘win’. My dream is about finding words. And that was actually a big, long, scary internal debate for me too. I really had to sit down and decide, after fifteen years of no recognition and no money for it, do I really want to continue to devote three to four hours of every single day of my life to finding words. Am I that intrinsically motivated to do this? If I reach my deathbed and no one has ever recognized my writing, or ever paid me for it, will I still think that was time well spent? But the answer is still… yes. I thought the answer was ‘yes’ five years ago, and ten years ago, and it’s still ‘yes’. So this isn’t a goal I need to achieve in a certain time frame. It’s a goal I need to weave into my life and plan for it to be a part of me forever. (Which might mean that I try to find a way to weave it a bit more into my current professional life too. It’s possible. I’m working on that bit.)

So that’s the story behind my messy tattoo. I need it to remind me that even when I feel hopeless and I want to turn back to my unhealthy coping mechanisms, I need to cope by chasing the dream. The cure for what ails me is words. The cure for what ails me is being brave enough to keep trying, even when I don’t think I can do it, even when I get a hundred form rejections that very kindly say ‘oh, it’s just subjective’ but you know that really means… They don’t like you. They don’t like your work. They don’t think you’re any good. Maybe you aren’t any good. Maybe you will never be any good.

My doubts have betrayed me, and I am burning. Right now.

The way out of the ward, is to find words.