Summer is for Revision, Phone Calls to Catch Up with Writer Friends, and Twitter’s #PoetParty Returns

Sylvia with roses and pink typewriter

Summer Is For Revision

I’ve read that many writers are stressing about not writing as much right now as they think they should (what with still being mostly constrained from fun distractions, like offices, travel, parties, etc. but still in the middle of a poorly controlled pandemic) but for me, summer is a natural time for revision. I don’t write as many poems in the summer, typically (and it also tends to be my worst season for health – unfortunately, this July has proved no exception – I caught a superbug during my root canal AND just got tested for coronavirus as well, because why have just one thing?)

And the long days without many places open for submissions make me anxious to feel like I’m doing something productive (that pernicious word) with my writing. I’ve been keeping in touch with some writer friends across the country by phone (I hate Zoom, FYI) and bringing back the Twitter #PoetParty for a quarantine special this Sunday, the 19th, at 6 PM Pacific. Hopefully, I can help others not feel so discouraged and isolated. (Hey, besides the pandemic, the news had been really rough lately. To ignore everything wrong right now, you’d have to be asleep all the time.) More on that later.

Pink flower-lover vignette with pink typewriter

So besides photographing my cat and flowers with my typewriter, I’ve been spending  hours looking at the drafty drafts of poems I’ve written since January, looking harder at my two book manuscripts in terms of organization and order. It’s been four years since my last book, and I’m getting a little anxious about getting another book into the world, but I do want them to be the best books possible.

I’ve had a couple of writers take a look at my newest manuscript for feedback (which I recommend if you’re feeling stuck and unable to “see” the manuscript anymore), and I was surprised by a couple of things, including that I’d been writing accidental sonnets. Anyway, I also don’t recommend futzing with two books at a time if you can help it. I think the older manuscript is pretty polished, it’s the newer one that still needs some reshaping, but keeping track of both in the same spreadsheet is eye-crossing. I got an encouraging note from a great publisher, but had to really work to track down which manuscript they were responding to! Not good, Jeannine.

Purple phlox and first Swallowtail butterfly of the season

Phone Calls to Catch Up with Writer Friends

So, I try to avoid Zoom – like many neurodivergent people (if you read this blog, you know I have MS), Zoom really messes with my neurons, giving me headaches and leaving me physically wiped out, like I finished a boxing match. So I’ve been using the old-fashioned telephone – that’s right, audience, who I can hear collectively gasping, not text, or Slack – to keep up with far-flung friends.

I think sometimes that if writers talked together more, the writing world would seem less intimidating to navigate, more friendly. I was telling one friend in Virginia that if I could get ten of my female writing friends from all over together at a table to just talk about writing and publishing for an hour or two, it would be better than any book you could could buy. I am lucky to have a lot of great friends, but many of them live far away, and even the ones that live close, I don’t get to see physically very often (especially since the quarantine). So the phone has been a wonderful way to stay connected, check in on folks, and hopefully not just encourage others but simply close the distance between. Blogging is another way to check in on people, but often we aren’t as vulnerable or honest on social media outlets, so phone calls all the way get my vote.

First sunflower

The Twitter #PoetParty is Back, 2020 Style!

So you might remember I used to help moderate something called the #poetparty, which was just a bunch of poets getting together, talking writing, rejection, calls for submission, and sharing good news. I had to stop for a while because I was getting overwhelmed with life stuff, but I think it’s time to bring it back, this time with a positive focus on living as a writer during coronavirus. I also feel like Twitter, versus Facebook, should be the social media I use more, as well as Instagram, where I share pictures and rarely get in a flame war about wearing masks (unlike, say, Facebook). Twitter can be full of hackers and trolls, sure, but it can be a great place to hear literary news and meet new writers who may become real life friends one day.

So, the next Twitter party is July 19th, 6 PM Pacific. Bring questions, complains, good news, calls for submissions. Bring your book recommendations. It lasts for just about an hour and is always a fun time.

Anniversaries, Rose Moon Eclipses, New Moons and New Life, and Reading Report on Women, Magic, and Menopause

Glenn and I with roses, Woodinville (avoiding people, but not flowers)

Celebrating a 26th Anniversary

Glenn and I, in a pandemic year, celebrated a quiet but still pretty happy 26th anniversary. We walked around, looking for quiet spaces with flowers but no people. Which can be challenging! Most of my old haunts are full of dangerous vectors – I’m sorry, I mean, humans – now that it’s summertime and the wineries are re-opening. I even dressed up in a real dress and put on lipstick and everything! I haven’t been feeling great since the root canal over two weeks ago, but it was nice to get out into nature and sunshine and try to focus on something happy. 26 years! I was 21 when I got married, which I would tell other people is way too young to get married, and Glenn was 23. We would never have pictured ourselves where we are now, although I always pictured myself as a writer. If I have been lucky in one thing in life, it was been in my partner. He’s pretty great, and I still think so.

Rose Moon eclipse, with trees

Rose Moon Eclipse, New Moons and New Life

Eclipses always seem to mean something to me, and this year, I’ve been searching the sky for signs more than usual. The moon rose dark as blood – biblical looking, isn’t it? It makes one think about plagues…It really was beautiful but spooky to stand underneath it. Couldn’t help thinking of the song “Bad Moon Rising.”

The new moon brought with it a bunch of new life – baby fledgling Northern flickers, fuzzy black ducklings. I caught a few pictures of a mother flicker feeding her big baby. And some barn swallows who were much tamer this year than previous years. Watching baby anythings helps remind one of hope, and new life, and the opposite of plagues, anyway.

So I hope these few pictures cheer you up a little.

 

In a rose-print in Woodinville

Reading Report and Women, Magic, Menopause

While under the weather for a day or two this week with a stomach bug, I finally sat down and read the whole novel from Lesley Wheeler, Unbecoming, about an out-of-sorts academic woman who loses a best friend, suspects her replacement of being a malevolent faerie, and suspects herself of starting to wield strange powers,while dealing with a fractious dean and truculent teens. It had hints of faerie and kitsune mythology, and also talked about how women gain magic powers with age. It really was a page-turner! I recommend it. It was also a good read while I weathered – besides the stomach bug – a couple of regular rejections, a couple of finalist notices for my book manuscript (and one “close but no”), well, what still felt like a lot of no from the universe. I also think about using magic to protect us from coronavirus. Protection spells often involve the moon. Did you know there was a patron saint of pandemics, St. Corona? Look it up! Of course, with a science degree, it’s harder to hold onto the idea of magic spells, protection, prayers. But I hope.

Red valentine flower with wagon wheel (crocosnia)

At 47, I’m only a few years away from fifty now, the magical age of menopause or invisibility, when we move from lost girl in the forest to wicked witch. Wouldn’t it be nice if I could acquire magic powers though? Anyone want to grant me three wishes? I would even take one!

4th of July Musings, Down Days, Facebook Breaks, and How to Cope

Northern Flicker among Flowers

Fourth of July Musings

We had the first sunny day in a while for the fourth, ironically, since all celebrations, parades, and fireworks are cancelled. Glenn and I took a solitary walk by the Sammamish river, taking note of the flowers in bloom. There were way more “home” fireworks than usual, though, which my cats didn’t enjoy, and they lasted a couple of days, starting at 3 PM today.

We, like probably a lot of people, watched Hamilton for the first time last night of Disney+ (even though Disney is the devil

™) and I was glad I kept some Kleenex on hand. I’d listened to the soundtrack but again, like a lot of people, couldn’t afford the tickets when the show came to Seattle, and it had more impact watching the faces of the performers. I particularly liked the “rewind” effect for the “Satisfied” song; I’d never seen that in musical theater before. Glenn and I couldn’t help doing some extra research on the characters during the movie, learning interesting tidbits (like Lafayette, who was a terrific hero in the American revolution, did not have the same luck in the French revolution, which he successfully led in the beginnings, including trying to abolish slavery and write a Declaration of Independence for France, and had to be rescued from jail after falling out of favor with radical factions. He ended up coming back to America later in life, and lived a long life.) Eliza Hamilton’s life was pretty inspiring outside of the musical, because of what she managed to accomplish despite having no voting rights (not many rights at all, actually), working for important causes, which made me think of the role of women in early America (basically, never getting credit for getting a lot done.) Anyway, the musical was much more fun and entertaining than my high school AP American history class, which I notoriously fell asleep in fairly often, and better than going to fireworks, which always give me asthma attacks, anyway. I posted a picture of a Northern Flicker in my flower planter as a better type of colorful display. What can I say? I’m not really a fireworks-and-the-4th kind of girl, in the best of times.

Violet roses in rain

Down Days, Facebook Breaks, and How to Cope

I’ve been down this last week, I confess, a combination of me still recovering from that root canal and MS stuff acting up, Glenn getting sick (which he almost never does) and the overwhelming glut of bad news. One of my remedies is to try staying completely off of Facebook (which still means I’m checking in five minutes a day, but definitely not the hour+ I used to spend) which kind of combines the idea of getting away from Facebook because they’ve been doing some not-good-stuff and also experimenting on the effect of Facebook on well-being.  Lately people have just been extra not-cool on social media, probably a combination of tension and frustration and constant stress and anxiety. I wondered if I had been posting mostly negative stuff, too, although I strive to post pictures of flowers and birds when I can, just to give people something nice to look at, at least. The social isolation might be getting to me, as well as not having a lot of the support mechanisms – like physical therapy, and in-person doctor appointments, seeing friends, going to bookstores and coffee shops or doing basic self-care – that I was really pretty used to. I’ve tried to spend some of the pent-up energy on writing, submitting and editing my two book manuscripts, but I haven’t been writing as much as I’d like to lately, and I’ve been sleeping more hours, with way more nightmares than usual.

So what are you doing to cope? Drinking your favorite grape soda, playing your favorite music in the morning, doing more or less work/physical activity/pet cuddling than usual? I totally recommend a Hamilton watch, if you haven’t seen it yet. Despite the the Kleenex, it was ultimately an uplifting watch, and it beats the hell out of Hallmark Christmas movies.

Reports from a Root Canal, Dickinson and Orlando, and an Uptick in Coronavirus Cases Across the US

Sylvia, roses from my garden, and the new Poets & Writers

Reports from a Root Canal

I had my root canal (sans novocaine) on Monday, and was not prepared for five-six days of being straight up knocked out by pain and fatigue, although last time, I ended up at the hospital with a bad reaction to the antibiotics I was given, so… I also have to quarantine for 14 days because while the endodontist takes precautions, they can’t promise I didn’t get exposed to coronavirus at their office. Cool. So, a tooth that wasn’t hurting me before, now hurts, and I’ve been exposed to a virus that could kill someone like me. Someone remind me not to ever to go to the dentist or endodontist every again.  I am not convinced dentistry isn’t straight up a scam. (This article from last year’s Atlantic confirms some of my feelings, too.) Dentistry is doubly hard on those of us with MS and immune problems, too. Dang. I’m hoping I’m not here posting about coronavirus symptoms next week…

Anyway, the above picture was taken from bed, where I was recuperating with Sylvia, some roses that are finally blooming in my garden, and the new issue of Poets & Writers with a very moving interview with Natasha Tretheway (whose mother was murdered when she was young). I had been a fan of Natasha Trethway’s work for a long time, but didn’t know this terrible tragedy in her past, which she is publishing about in a new memoir, Memorial Drive.  The night before my root canal, I had a ton of nervous energy, and put it into editing and reorganizing my book manuscript, which has been a finalist, but still hasn’t found a home. I haven’t recaptured that mental energy yet, but I hope to give an editing pass on my other book manuscript next week. I am taking C and Zinc in hopes of boosting my immune system in the meantime, and Glenn has been pureeing fresh cherries for me to eat.

Pileated Woodpecker with red flowers

Dickinson and Orlando

So, besides trying to take bird pictures while I was briefly awake every day this week, I tried to distract myself from the pain (I can’t take most pain medications, sadly) with the Apple TV series Dickinson – Emily Dickinson’s imagined life as a rebellious young woman, with a trip-hop soundtrack and a music-video aesthetic, complete with giant bee hallucinations, and caught the film of Virginia Woolf’s speculative novel of time-travel and crossing gender boundaries, Orlando, starring Tilda Swinton, which was beautiful and playful and very well done. I enjoyed Dickinson (especially a guest appearance by John Mulaney as a notoriously unhelpful Thoreau – spoiler alert: I never liked Thoreau) and it drove me to go back to finally finish the slow-and-scholarly book After Emily, a discussion of how Emily’s work eventually got published, by whom, and how it became famous. I’ve been making my way through Woolf’s work in the last year, so watching Orlando fit right into to my reading agenda. Both shows make the point of how difficult it was in each time period to become a woman writer with respect and a following. The more things change…the more they stay the same?

 

roses and perched hummingbird

And in Depressing News…Rising Numbers of Coronavirus

And in depressing news, there’s been a big uptick in coronavirus cases across the US, with especially hard hit areas like California, Georgia, Texas, and Arizona. If we hoped warm weather would slow down coronavirus’ spread, we would be disappointed. The numbers show that increased restaurant spending correlates to higher rates of coronavirus, so states opening up too soon, people being impatient to get out and get back to normal and socialize, is leading to sad and deadly results. ICUs are overwhelmed, but people are still – still! – complaining about wearing asks in order to not kill the people around them. I wondered aloud what would have happened to America if we hadn’t shut down at all, but had a federal mandate to wear masks, and a (prepared, ahem) federal government that provided effective masks for free to everyone in America. Would we have had fewer than 150,000 deaths by now? My academic friends are nervous about schools re-opening in the fall, and this humor article by my friend Juliana Gray pretty much covers the logic there. Meanwhile, I need to be looking for more wishing fish and monkey feet.

So through bars, and restaurants, and birthday parties, coronavirus is spreading across America, taking advantage of the fact that Americans are bad at: washing their hands, social distancing, and wearing masks. John Stewart, on an appearance on Colbert’s night show, said that was exactly the same advice that we were given during the 1918 flu, too, and we are failing in exactly the same way. That flu killed upwards of 600,000 people the US in 1918. The more things change, the more they stay the same? I hope not.

Good news? Cute bird/pet pictures? Please feel free to post anything cheering, healing, immune-boosting in the comments.

Greetings from the Solstice in Seattle, Disappointed with Rising Covid Numbers and Re-openings, Feeling Discouraged with PoetryWorld

Glenn and I at a lavender farm in Snoqualmie Falls

Greetings from the Solstice in Seattle

To cheer me up pre-root canal (which I am terrified about because of the threat of cornavirus – dentist’s offices are supposedly pretty high risk – and because dental work seems to make my MS symptoms flare), we took our first day trip since the lockdown in February on the first pretty day in June, up to Ollalie State Park and the lavender farm in Snoqualmie.

We saw a giant herd of elk (our first time seeing them ever in the Northwest) on the way up in North Bend. The lavender was still a little early but still beautiful. Weeks Falls was quiet, as was one of my favorite hiking spots by the Snoqualmie River. Ollalie State Park is always pretty sparsely attended, but it has my highest recommendation.

Being out in nature did take my mind off all the pandemic and other stress. The solstice in Seattle came in with the first whisper of sunshine, hardly the feeling of the longest day of the year. Here are a couple of shots from the trip:

 

Immature Rufous perched on coral bells

Disappointed with Rising Covid Numbers and Re-openings

Here in King County, where I live, we just hit stage 2 of the re-opening, though Washington State’s numbers, like a lot of the rest of country’s, are turning worse, not better. Yesterday night there was a block party in my neighborhood, older people and children, lots of beer and laughter, nobody with masks on, and I wondered if these people were stupid or suicidal or just oblivious. Do they forget there is still a plague on, one that has no good treatment, that we are still a year away from a vaccine at least, that it can cause permanent organ damage if it doesn’t kill you? At the wineries, drunk people cheek to cheek, no masks, stumbling along through the paths. I know this exact thing is happening in a larger scale all throughout America right now.

I feel so disappointed in people. For one, their refusal to face scientific facts. For two, their inconsideration towards people like me – vulnerable to disease because of immune problems, just “it’s okay for you to die, it’s not going to happen to me.” Selfish at best. Murderous at worst. Their boredom and refusal to acknowledge facts will lead to death and then, even more death. It’s tremendously depressing how predictable it is. I knew America didn’t value poetry. I’ve learned that it also doesn’t value science. Or the lives of me or people like me. It doesn’t value anything that isn’t easy and make it feel good. I feel less and less like an American, and more like an alien here, like I don’t belong here. Tell me, are you feeling this too?

Me with the Snoqualmie River and trees in my happy place

Feeling Discouraged with PoetryWorld

Along with my disillusionment with America, I’ve been equally feeling discouraged with the PoetryWorld, which I knew from a young age (well, from the time of my MA in my early twenties) was flawed and full of people who might take advantage of other people, but it still surprises me when it happens. There have been a lot of shifts in power in the PoetryWorld, and maybe something good will come from that.

And what can I say? I’ve been writing and submitting since I was nineteen, taking a dozen years to work in tech, getting too sick to continue working in tech, and turning back to my dream of being a writer. I had hoped at this point I’d have more to show – that I’d have had a little more success by now. That I wouldn’t still be sending out my manuscripts (with endless checks, endless months of waiting) to publishers, still knocking at the doors of bigger presses, still fighting for…more nothing? What am I doing with my life?  I am a fighter, but sometimes even I get tired. And today is one of those days. We try to be good literary citizens, volunteering at literary magazines, serving on boards, donating and writing endless book reviews and…what is the result? Not that you do it for a reward, but…have I been naive, trying to do things the right way, trying to be kind, trying to be scrupulous? Anyway, I know from social media that others are giving up and turning away from poetry right now, which I think is a shame, because now is the time we need poetry. I know I do. I turn to reading poems that moved me back when I was nineteen. I read new books full of passion and intelligence, and they give me hope. Plus, I can’t stop writing poems. I have the start of a third poetry manuscript of my hands now. I just need a publisher to believe in one of them. Those of you who are also discouraged – just remember, the world is turbulent now, turning on its axis, eclipses and planets in retrograde, there are plagues and protests and whispers of war and ruin. We just have to make it through. That is our job now – to survive, to be around to rebuild a better world, and a better PoetryWorld.

Jeannine Hall Gailey

Jeannine Hall GaileyJeannine Hall Gailey served as the second Poet Laureate of Redmond, Washington and the author of Becoming the Villainess, She Returns to the Floating World, Unexplained Fevers, The Robot Scientist’s Daughter, and winner of the Moon City Press Book Prize and SFPA’s Elgin Award, Field Guide to the End of the World.  Her latest, Flare, Corona from BOA Editions, was a finalist for the Washington State Book Award. She’s also the author of PR for Poets, a Guidebook to Publicity and Marketing. Her work has been featured on NPR’s The Writer’s Almanac, Verse Daily and The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror. Her poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, Poetry, and JAMA.

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