Ramblings: Submission rejections and random musings

I didn't wake up in the best of moods this morning. There really shouldn't be a reason for me to be in a bad mood today, I slept over 7 hours, the weather is gorgeous and summery and I really don't have anything to be stressed out about. I just have this terrible habit of checking my email as soon as I wake up and I got a rejection email from some publication I had sent a short story to. Not my first and won't be my last either, but it's just disheartening. It's disheartening that they don't give you any real feedback either, so you don't know if they didn't want your story because they thought it sucked, or just because they didn't think it would fit in with their publication. I suppose it's the eternal dilemma of being a writer, you have to get a thousand rejections before you get one letter accepting your work. It's not like I want to become a world famous author, be published everywhere and earn millions from what I do (although in some type of dream world that would be nice). I just want to be able to know that I'm not doing all this for nothing.
Then comes the other question of where and when I should submit content... I find specific places online and just submit work, but I have no idea really what they want. There are so many amazing writers out there, how can you find your own place among them, and get published regularly? What on earth should I be sending out? Should I just concentrate on my novel and finish that off, and stop focusing on short stories and articles? Should I just set up my own online web fiction site? What type of genre do I fall under? Am I just not really that talented at this?
Blah. It's all quite discouraging really. I can't give up though, writing makes me happy, and if I don't fit in somewhere, I am sure there will be other places where my style does fit in. I have so much content that is piled up on my desk, going back to my early teens. Stories, poems, songs, random pages of words, catharsis, imagination, reality, chapters that should go towards a novel, real life, fake life etc etc etc.

On a more positive note, I sent the 123 pages that I have written towards my novel over to my brother and he sent me some very constructive and mainly positive feedback which is exactly what I need. Have a I ever mentioned before how scared I am of other people (especially those I know) reading what I write? That's why I write on here, because it's a way of getting over that fear. And it's also one place where I feel that I can sometimes be really self-centered and ramble on about my thoughts, feelings and whatever happens to be going on in my head. Once I am done and have posted whatever I needed to post I feel better about everything. I don't feel like bothering my friends and family with a lot of stuff, so why not just post it on the internet so I can bother the world with it? Genius.

The other day I started writing a story from the eyes of one of my friends. It was going to be really sarcastic and funny but ended up being quite sad and truthful. I felt strange after I had finished it, like I was actually telling a story that wasn't mine to tell, and that I was using someone else's life as fodder for my own writing. Is that unfair? Or is that just life, as some of my other friends told me when I asked them if it was mean of me to do that? I probably need to stop thinking about it so much and just get on with it. I have a great idea for a novella about a few experiences another one of my friends has had, and she wants me to do it. I'm writing about my own experiences and life in my novel, so it's quite refreshing to write about someone else. Once I also get this novel done I think I am just going to let it sit for a while and work on another idea for a book that I had a few months ago. I just need to get this one out and done, as I have been wanting to do this for so many years now...

Ahhhhh... OK. I'm going to stop procrastinating as usual and go outside, smoke a cigarette, get my thoughts together and start looking for other places to submit my work. No point in complaining about it anymore than I already have today.

xoxo

Inspiration (and the inevitable lack thereof)

Yesterday morning I forced myself out of bed. I forced myself to sit at the table in front of my laptop and I forced myself to find something to write about. I looked through the ever growing list of subjects I want to research and write about. Nothing. I opened up the last chapter that I tried to write, days ago, and stared at it. Nothing. I opened one of my old journals that I have sitting on my table, randomly came across the review of the time I saw Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds perform in Lyon in 2001, put on the DVD of that very same performance, decided to post the old review on my blog and there you go, I felt like I could conquer the world again. Literally two minutes later I received a text out of nowhere from one of my aunts (who also happens to be my godmother and the one who introduced me to Nick Cave) in England with some words to “cheer me up on a day like this”. Another few feathers added to those wings I could feel growing once again. I posted the Nick Cave blog post, and then received a text message from the person I consider to be my best friend here in NYC; just at the exact same moment I was going to send him a message. Another happiness-inducing moment and it wasn’t even Noon…

I grabbed my camera and made my way down to Chinatown, to see if I could capture some of the Chinese New Year festivities. I have been shooting mainly black and whites these past few months and wanted to get some colour on camera, some happiness, despite the gloomy weather and impending rain outside. For once I was out of bed before 10am AND I had one full day with absolutely no obligations in front of me. I felt inspired again. I took some pictures of some gorgeous dragons and happy children and so much confetti and glitter and people, but I knew the photos were not really that good, and for once, it didn’t really matter that much. It felt good to be amidst people celebrating, even though I was alone it was fun to be part of some kind of shared feeling of happiness. I walked along Mulberry St and saw a restaurant with hearts made from lights in the windows and snapped a shot with my phone. I love seeing hearts and the word “love” in random places and have a collection of hearts and words in my phone and on my hard drive. The Italian man on the corner of the restaurant tried to entice me to jump out of the rain and drink a cappuccino inside, I hesitated, but thanked him and moved on (the look of disdain that the other man in his long, not so elegant, fur coat standing next to him gave me helped me make my decision). I walked on towards the Lower East Side, as I craved comfort and food, and both can only be found at Zucco’s, the French Diner by my work. Words were forming in my head and I felt excited to sit down to coffee, soup, some banter in French and some writing, before heading off back home to what I consider to be my safe haven, my cozy space where I can sing and dance to random songs without anyone knowing and cut out beautiful pictures, inspirational words and articles from papers and magazines, read for hours in the bath tub and drink as much tea and coffee as I want.

Of course, nothing ever runs smoothly, as I walked into a mini minefield of puns and sous-entendus, all based on something that I had said to a friend who had then said it in her words right back to one of the people in question. No big deal, except for my words were funny, but said in an American way are more embarrassing than funny. Cue blushing, denial, much laughter from others on my behalf, and then coffee, soup, French banter and more coffee, before I decided I must make a move out of the warmth and the comfort of one home (France), back into the outside world. During lunch/embarrassment/banter I was also texting with above aunt back and forth about life and love in general, about inspiration and the lack of it in the most recent weeks, and she reinforced the belief that I had done the right thing by quitting the job that made me so unhappy to do what I really wanted to do in life. She also said that I had real talent – something I really want to believe every day but never can. Coming from her it meant a huge deal, because she would never say anything without meaning it. Trust me, I know. A few more steps up on that ladder that I had been climbing up so diligently before Christmas and had fallen off of sometime during the last two weeks. A little bit more weight off those shoulders. I could even feel the pain in that muscle I pulled last week dissipate slightly. Or maybe that was just wishful thinking.

I decided to walk over the Williamsburg Bridge, even though it had started to rain. The Williamsburg Bridge is the one place I go to to think, to cry, to ponder, to breathe, and it never ever fails me. If you walk over it you will always find some word of wisdom or inspiration etched onto the ground, the railings or the immense structures of steel that hold the bridge up. Last year, when I finished running my 5K for the women in the Congo I walked over the bridge, and I looked up and about 20 large black butterflies flew over my head, towards the water, and it made me feel so happy to see something so rare in the city. This time there were no butterflies, and the city was shrouded by clouds, and the rain kept coming down harder, but instead of being annoying and saddening it was the opposite. It felt good to walk, to think, to listen to music and to look ahead, as opposed to backwards. It was while walking over the bridge that I got the idea to write this piece. In any case, I got the title. That’s usually how these things start, I think of a title and the rest follows suite. The only problem is that if I don’t write the title down I tend to forget it…

I took the J train at Marcy and while waiting for the train I received a call from above best friend in NYC, yet again perfect timing. Sometimes there are things that only certain people understand, and once said out loud to someone who gets it they become less of a burden and you can let them go. Sometimes I have to fight the overbearing cloud of depression so hard that I give up the fight, but as soon as I admit that I have given up out loud I regain the will to fight it. I learnt a lot about myself in the past 5 years, and some things are best left behind, as they really are only stumbling blocks along the way. I just need someone else who knows me nearly as well as I know myself to confirm it so I can move away from it all, or at least have enough strength to walk past it when it rears its annoyingly stubborn head. I literally nearly skipped home to the song playing on the playlist that I had randomly selected in the morning, and made it home elated and soaked.

Two minutes later I felt at a loss. If you look at the dining table in my living room it looks like there are twenty things going on at the same time. Two laptops, notepads, papers full of writing (going back to 1995), pens, pencils, candles, photos, note boards, piles of clippings from magazines and papers, lists and lists of songs and places and art shows and movies and shows and places to visit and books to read and and and… Too much. Overwhelmed. I am trying to accomplish so many things and I can’t even get to one right now. So I grabbed my book (which happens to be so good I nearly missed my subway stop earlier) and ran the bath. Nothing like a bubble bath to calm the nerves and the brain and the feeling of being overwhelmed when one does not need to. But it was all going downward spiral-style… After the bath I had dinner and just crashed on the couch watching Law & Order (SVU latest season on Netflix), but I couldn’t even concentrate. Tried to distract myself by looking at Instagram and Facebook but became mildly irritated by the not so irrational thoughts of how my so-called female best friend here can never be bothered to like or comment on anything that I ever post or write about, except when she is involved in it. I hate being irritated by that, especially when I know full well it’s just silly to get upset by something that is never going to change. In any case, you see the pattern of the day… Up, up slowly, and down, down just as slowly. I tried looking at the photos I had taken in the morning, no real interest, so back to the couch, yet again eating too much, mindlessly, because I sure as hell didn’t need that cookie or three after the pasta dish I had just eaten.

And then, all of a sudden I remembered the title that had popped into my mind. I switched the TV off and put the playlist that had followed me throughout the day, and here I am, 40 minutes and 1,600 words later. I can’t remember when I exactly put this playlist together, but it contains some of my most inspirational songs, as well as some of my favourite songs (and yes, most of the time those two adjectives do go hand in hand, all songs from before I was born and all songs that I feel have always been around me somehow). I don’t want to be one of those people who require constant encouragement, to be honest I can usually muster enough self-encouragement together to achieve something alone, but sometimes, when my self-esteem is even more in the crapper than it usually is, it’s helpful to receive words from the outside, words that inspire me to go on and finally get something that I really want to finish done. And now I am going to go to bed with the book I referred to earlier and will write about it once I have finished it. Because once again I have been inspired to get something done today. I’ve lost count how many times that happened today.

I hope no one read all the way through this hoping for some huge revelation on how to be constantly inspired for the rest of time, and/or on how to succeed at life. I can’t help you with that, sorry. Trying hard not to fail at my own right now, and sometimes you just need to write about it to make it all seem ok.

Here is the playlist I mention several times above

Oblivion?

It was too hard to get out of bed today. I knew that the moment I stepped out from under the covers I was going to have to deal with life again, and I just wished, for one bloody day, that I didn’t have to deal with it. Just one day, world, just one day of peace and quiet and silence. A day away from life, where I can disappear for a time, be it into some oblivious sleep, some faraway country or just some dream world I concocted when I was a child.

I first learned what the word “oblivion” meant during my first week at Lycee Stendhal back in the 90’s. My English teacher, Mr Finn, had the words “oblivion” and its antonym (it could have been “consciousness” but I really can’t remember anymore) stuck up on one of his pinboards that were hanging on the wall. It attracted my attention, and when I finally had enough courage to ask him what it meant, I decided that it had to be used in my first book. I think I may have told Mr Finn that, and I hope that somewhere, somehow, he will see this and remember too, although he unfortunately isn’t here with us anymore. In any case, oblivion is one of my favourite words, and for a manic-depressive, also the word that will always be the best explanation of what we want to fall into during those times when we fall down, down, down.

What is oblivion to you? To me it is just somewhere where none of all this that we have to live with and deal with every day exists, and where we don’t have to remember or listen to anything or anyone, and when we come back from it, well, we won’t even remember that it existed anyway. Kind of like the characters in an episode of Lost. You don’t remember the island or anything that happened on it once you are away from it. But once you are there you are away. Maybe I just have a rosy vision of what oblivion really means, maybe it means just gone away for good, unaware of anything, in a catatonic state? I prefer my view. Oblivion is a soft, down-filled bed that I can sink into, like a fluffy white cloud on a sunny day in spring.

Merriam-Webster defines oblivion as being one of the following: “the fact or condition of forgetting or having forgotten; especially : the condition of being oblivious” or “the condition or state of being forgotten or unknown”. I still prefer my definition, it’s just more… Poetic maybe? In any case, this week I just want a day of what see as oblivion, and although I know that it won’t happen, it doesn’t hurt to dream.

Bar story #1

Ah well I am going to be self-indulgent again and write about a funny/annoying story that just happened to me at work. Just because I haven't been able to tell anyone about it yet.

I tend not to judge people on how they are dressed, or by what they do work-wise, or their music taste (although that's a hard one). Anyway, I had literally just opened the bar when a guy rushed in. Dressed in a suit, probably around 25, harmless enough. He asked me for his Amex card that he had left here at the weekend, so I got it for him. He sighed and said "I need to talk to someone, I have been overcharged, there is no way I spent this much!". His tab was $40, so I said, no problem, let me take your name and number and I will have one of the owners call you back to discuss. At which he sneered and said "I need to talk to someone NOW. This is NOT acceptable, there is NO WAY I spent this much money.".

Um OK dude. You got wasted, left your card at the bar and now you are contesting a $40 tab?! That's not even including a tip. Douchebag.
Not only that, he actually looked down on me, sneered and talked to me like I was a complete idiot. Well, you know what... Just because you are wearing a suit and probably earning a lot more than me, I don't envy you. You are a pompous, stupid twat.
So I just smiled, put my poshest British accent on and said "I will have one of the owners look into this when they are here. Have a good night."
He sneered and stomped out. Go next time maybe pay cash, that way you will be able to keep track of how much money you spend on booze. If you leave your card at the bar you should be happy that we kept it and didn't just destroy it. Pffff!!!

Seriously.

How to be selfish

A few days ago someone very close to me told me to start being more selfish. The problem is, I don’t know where to start. How does one become selfish? How does one actually define a selfish person and how does one differentiate a selfish person from an unselfish person?

Oxford Dictionary: selfish: /ˈselfiSH/ (of a person, action, or motive) lacking consideration for others ; concerned chiefly with one’s own personal profit or pleasure.

There you go. So a selfish person is someone who acts based on his or her own agenda, without any real consideration for others. Don’t we all do that at some point in time? Do what WE want to do without really thinking about how it may affect others? I mean, I did that a few months ago. Walked out of the job that I had been doing for over 6 years without really considering how it could affect the people I worked with, the company as a whole, and then also the people who may depend on me to financially pay my share (roommate for example). Pure act of selfishness, no? One that I did because my own mental and physical health demanded it, something I did because I wanted to. To be brutally honest, it did me the world of good. I finally felt happy and free again, after years of feeling that I was doing what was right in the eyes of everyone else, but that felt completely wrong to me.

So maybe I am on the right path? I don’t know, when I was going through the above I felt terrible. Terribly guilty about the way I had done it and about not being able to explain myself properly. I was very conflicted, on one side I felt so happy to be away from what I felt had become a prison, on the other I felt awful. I DID actually think for a long time how it would affect everyone around me and decided that it was better off for everyone that I did it, in the long run. It wasn’t a rash decision, but something that I could no longer hide from. But I did choose myself over everyone else. Woohoo, an act of selfishness!

So what next? I think my main problem is that I tend to let everyone take too much of me, so much that I feel exhausted. I try so hard to remember everything, and do pretty well at it, until I forget the most important thing and then upset someone because I didn’t remember. I know I get upset when people forget important things in my life, but that’s mainly my own fault as I never talk about them. But I feel terrible when I forget important things in YOUR life. Like just today I didn’t contact one of my closest friends to wish her good luck on the purchase of her new home. I hadn’t forgotten it was today, and I was going to call her later, and have been a little wrapped up in some personal things I don’t feel like talking about. But my friend was upset because I hadn’t been in touch to just wish her good luck, and she was right to be. I now feel terrible, and will feel terrible about it for days. But at the same time, I ask myself, if I actually never gave a shit about anything, no one would be disappointed because they wouldn’t expect me to remember anyway. So where do you draw the line? When do you stop trying to make everyone happy and start just concentrating on your own happiness? What if your happiness depends on other people being happy around you? I suppose that’s the real definition of being unselfish. Or maybe just unselfish is a synonym for being appreciated but walked over whenever necessary? Or maybe, just maybe, I am analyzing this all a little too much and I should stop feeling bad about things and get on with my life.

I think we are all selfish in some form or another, some are just more than others. I have just come to my own conclusion that I am not really that willing to change anymore, so, so be it. And if you have had the patience, or whatever you want to call it, to read through these 700+ words you can now listen to this beautiful song by my darling love Tim Buckley, because he (his music) makes me happy.

Anthropology of an American Girl - review & musings

I find it very, very difficult to categorise books. There are books I liked, there are books I loved. There are books I really didn’t enjoy but forced myself through anyway. There are books that I couldn’t get into, but went back to after months, even years, and loved. There are good books that I didn’t enjoy. There are books that are not considered “good” that I really loved. I read for several reasons, the main one being because I cannot remember a day in my life when I haven’t been reading one book. The other reasons are completely self-explanatory: I read to learn, to escape and to let my imagination run away from me. I am never bored, not just because I always have something to do or to see, but mainly because I always have a book to discover, to read, to finish. I live surrounded by books, as do/did my parents and my grandparents, my sister and my brother. I read fiction and non-fiction, classics and modern fiction. I love poetry, plays and prose. I love to read poetry out loud to my cat (she prefers French literature to English, but I think that is more because of her national pride and all that). Words inspire me, reading inspires me to write and vice versa.

I read many books that inspire me, I read many good to very good books, but there are only a few times a year that I read a book that hits me so deeply that it affects my entire being for the time I am reading it, as well as afterwards. I read a review of Hilary Thayer Hamann’s first novel Anthropology of an American Girl a while ago, and tried to bookmark it in my brain, but didn’t remember about it until I was browsing the new paperbacks at St Mark’s Bookshop a few weeks ago. Once I started it I went back to the Jade I was when I was 17 and 18. It’s as if I had a direct connection with the main character, Eveline Auerbach. I am probably not the only one who feels this way, but I am not kidding when I felt I was being literally pulled into the story and became Eveline. First love, second love, heartbreak, freedom, passion, thoughts… The last years of high school, growing up in a “bohemian” household, friends who know your fears and help you through them, fragility but so much strength. But then, halfway through the book Eveline and I became separated. We went our separate ways, she took a path I could not agree with, could not really understand, while I took another path, that of personal freedom from everything.

There is a very specific break in the story, between high school graduation and the beginning of college and it was at this point that Eveline and I became friends and I no longer saw her life through her eyes, as one, but by her side, through her narration.

To understand, you must read this novel. On the outside it appears to be another coming of age novel, girl becomes woman, loves and loses, to love again, but there is so much more to this than that. The prose is wonderfully well written, so much that instead of reading you feel that you are living the story. When Eveline was sad, I cried. When Eveline was depressed, I walked around in a haze. When Eveline walked away I threw the book on the ground in anger. What I am trying to say is that Hilary Thayer Hamann did a remarkable job of writing a novel that is right up there on my favourite novels that I will read over and over again and that will never cease to make me cry list. Right up there with Marge Piercy’s Gone To Soldiers, Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar, Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles to name a few. We go through Eveline’s late teens and early twenties, follow her from East Hampton to Manhattan, watch her grow, then wither, then grow again.

We all have an Eveline, a Harrison Rourke, a Jack, a Kate, a Rob and a Mark in our lives, whether we are male or female, they all exist. I know who they are in my life. At first I thought I could be Eveline, it appeared that I am not, but I still love her as a person. Person or character? Although the main character is female, the story is for everyone. Be prepared to be punched in the stomach and in the face, to bawl your eyes out and to want to run to the ocean and watch the waves. Just read this book – you won’t regret it.

(When I bought the book I thought I was giving myself a break and that this was going to be some fun, light reading. I was so wrong! I didn’t realize exactly how much it had affected me until I found myself crying at everything this week, even for my crying average it was over the top. For some reason this story just hit me right in the core).

“Everywhere there are angels.”