if you are easily upset, do not read this

Please do not read if you are easily upset by hurt animals--the only reasons I am posting are to vent and to see if anyone out there has some ideas of what to do. Yesterday, I was home, cleaning the living room, when I looked out of my picture window (I live in a rural area of Felton and we get lots of wild critters--wild turkeys, bobcats, owls, and deer are the most common things). I saw a deer in the backyard, looking up at me, but something seemed wrong with it--I thought it was eating a big stick or something, and then I saw that the poor thing had an arrow stuck right through its face! I was so utterly horrified--I've NEVER seen a living animal with an injury that awful. It kept looking at me, and then it started grazing, as if nothing was wrong with it! I called Mr. Strega at work, and he suggested that I call Animal Services (he reassured me that if the deer was moving around and grazing, it was probably more okay than not okay). An Animal Services officer came out (miraculously, the deer stayed in the backyard, eating some green tomatoes that had broken off my vines and rolled out there). He said the deer looked okay and that perhaps there could be a way to tranqulize it and pull the arrow out. He suggested I call Fish and Game, which I did (left a message)--he said that they tranquilize animals such as mountain lions to transport them out of the area, but maybe because the deer seems "fixable," they might be willing to do this (ie tranqulize it and clip the arrow, then pull it out).

I still don't know what to do, if anything--as of today, the deer has not come back. It still disgusts me that anyone would just shoot a deer like that and leave it--most responsible hunters would track it and dispatch it humanely, not leave it to wander around in the woods like that. The other disturbing thing is that somebody in this area is shooting off arrows--it's rural, but not that rural!

outta town

I'm going to be out of town during the latter part of this week, and won't be in a place to update my blog. I'll probably use the Business Center where I'm going, but probably just to update the paper I'm presenting and quickly check my email. So, till next time.....

cautionary tales

I spent a huge amount of time yesterday researching some old news stories that constituted my mother's greatest fears about what could happen to children and young women. Mr. Strega was astounded at what I was told as a child--his mother never told him cautionary tales like the ones I was told, over and over. I think part of it was the large amount of infant and child mortality in my family, some of it in my mother's experience, which haunted her to a certain degree (and my grandmother, too). My friend Maude, in her mid-eighties, once brought a poem to our writing group called "Attrition," which described the death of some of her childhood friends, from scarlet fever, accidents, etc. Apparently the newspapers were also not as "discreet" (if you can call it that) about photographing some of these accidents, too, back in the 1920s and 30s--she saw some pretty shocking things as a child.

Two of my mother's obsessions (she had OCD problems, so she did obsess a lot about several things) were the Black Dahlia murder (which happened when she was a young teenager living in Los Angeles) and the Kathy Fiscus well accident (which happened when she was seventeen)--last night I wrote about watching a similar story on television as a child, about a little girl who fell down a well someplace in the South--this was long before the Jessica McClure accident; my mother, grandmother, and I were glued to the set that day, and, after the little girl was saved, my mother told me about Kathy Fiscus. She was a three-year-old who lived in San Marino who was playing with friends and fell down an abandoned well; she didn't survive. My mother described it as being "buried alive"--a metaphor, I think, for her own life in some way. This story was among the cautionary tales I was told as a kid--things like "rip tides will drag you out to sea and there's no escaping them," "if you go to bed with your hair wet, you'll get pneumonia ," etc. I was terrified and fascinated at the same time by her stories--and, last night, used the Kathy Fiscus story as the bridge between my first and second chapters (yes, probably I should have finished this chapter long ago, but I had no idea how to "bridge" it to the second one--I've been writing this book in all directions).

Well, off to get some semblance of writing done. Okay, now I'm back (four hours later). Spent some time on the last thing I wrote and on more revision, and on planning my next agent query (have not heard from "The Hours" person and so will be planning to send off again when I get back from a conference I'm attending at the end of the week in Idaho). I figure that the other thing I can do with querying is "piggyback" them a little. I wish some entity with Uber-Knowledge of Agent Querying would descend from the sky and tell me all that I ought and should be doing--but no dice; everything I do is gleaned from the Internet and books, and the experience and cautionary tales of friends and others. Most of the things I do are gleaned from those sources anyway! :)

have been a bit grumpy, dear readers

I feel the need to apologize to anyone who comes across this blog--I haven't been sleeping well since my friend Harvey died, and still have to do all the usual life-things, including going to my dance classes and be a mom to the kids and a partner to Mr. Strega. Thus, if my tone seems a bit more grumpy than usual (often I will start moaning about the literary world and why it is so tardy about paying me homage), I do apologize. I realize this process (writing and publishing) is going to take whatever time it takes. I don't even write for recognition, really--I have volumes of journals, for example, that I hope never see any form of publication. The only real interesting thing about my journals is that I write most of my journal entries these days with a dip pen (made of glass--it's really rather a neat pen) and various colors of bottled ink, in my office at home. It's sort of a private weirdness, and maybe a little affected, but there's something nice about it (I mostly write like this in my office)--plus, bottled ink has gorgeous color. Here's my VERY FAVORITE website for pens, ink, etc.--I have bought nothing from them yet, but I have an idea where I'm going to spend some money eventually--http://www.pendemonium.com. Pendemonium even has invisible ink!

Anway, out of fear that I'm going to "lazy" my entire life away if I'm not careful, I made myself to write today--just took a chapter of the book that needs revising, took my falling-apart notebook (and not notebook computer, either--this is a real spiral notebook), and went to the Santa Cruz Borders to work. I realize that Borders is considered the Evil Empire in Santa Cruz, but it's fairly quiet and sells large, cheap cups of coffee (the other two places I like to write are Coffee Cat in Scotts Valley and The White Raven in Felton).
So, I did start working on another chapter. Also--HURRAH--after over two years, I started a poem last night for Harvey. I guess the sad part about is that Harvey was so reassuring to me that my poetry would come back, that it was just "waiting in my unconscious" and would come out at the right time. I wish the "right time" hadn't been the death of a person who was my friend and was so unfailingly loving and kind to me--but his loss brought me a gift.

It's now freezing in my house, the fire is out, and I am going to go to bed and get warm!

getting back to business

I'm about to descend into the office and work on the book--I figure that a bad chapter is better than no chapter. I'm even turning the ringers on the phones off for an hour. Really going to give the first part a once-over again and try to figure out how to extend it, and work on my chapter outline (the thing most agents seem to want to see, at first, is a proposal, chapter outline, and the first 100 pages).

I'm tossing around the idea of going back to State next semester to teach--there is a possiblity of a class I could do, and God knows, we need the money around here. Frankly, it's nice to have access to an office and a computer that is not at home--I used to get the bulk of my writing done in the office I shared with five other people, even when my officemates were talking. It's that old story of parents trying to work creatively--it can be really hard even when the kids get older (and sometimes more so when they get older--when they were little, I wrote in the living room of my house and they could play and do stuff around me, and they were mostly in school for the same hours when they got older, so I had a lot of uninterrupted time to work). Plus, Mr. Strega is still getting used to my work habits--he's astounded by the fact that, when I get into the book, five or six hours will pass before I emerge again from the office (I bring a thermos of decaf in there and just work, work, work).

I have not yet heard from the next agent (again, not naming names until after an agency rejection, but this person was the one who sold "The Hours." I chose her because "The Hours" is a bit quirkily written; plus, she sold "Three Junes," which I haven't read, but which has a cool author story behind it). I have learned a lot in my quest for an agent--I have ten folks to send to right now, and have done a huge amount of research on seeking an agent. The primary caveat I discovered is that you should NEVER pay an agency any sort of an upfront fee, either to read your book, send it to publishers, etc. That is the primary red flag of the multiple scammers that are out there--and there are sooooo many. Money should flow to the writer, not out of the writer's pocket. Most of the "fee agencies" will take any book, no matter how unpublishable, and take your money (some of them charge things like a $250 upfront, nonrefundable fee, will take your manuscript, claim they are sending it around to publishers, and nothing at all ever happens--or the writer keeps shelling out more and more money, to "book doctors" and things like that, thus losing both cash, precious time they could be spending getting it to reputable agents, etc). I think some of the reason people get sucked into scam agencies is because they simply don't know the red flags for a scam, or they simpy want to get published--very understandable if you're a writer who works hard and wants very much to get ahead. I've heard of reputable authors taking a long time to find a decent agent. I keep reassuring myself that if I work hard, it will happen.

So, my process of looking for an agent may take awhile--I'm at peace with that. I also remember what my fiction professor Chris said, that if an agent doesn't communicate with you, doesn't do jack for you in six months to a year, etc.--then "divorce" your agent and go find another one. He had a really rough experience with an agent who, though reputable, kept him stringing along for two years, doing absolutely nothing. I had another friend whose agent, though also legitimate, kept him stringing along for many more years than that. He finally switched agents and got a book published very quickly after that. I guess it's worthwhile to remember some of the horror stories from my friends--such as: don't believe a Great Writer who tells you they're going to recommend you to their agent unless they follow through (the Great Writer who did this in one of my classes also boasted about being drunk a lot--nice man, but a red, red flag as to his ability to follow up). Not like all the wisdom of the universe or of writing just flows forth from me--but I do remember horror stories pretty well!

grief and sleep

Having a very, very hard time sleeping since Harvey died. I've begun to feel like my body is getting back into the disciplines of dance and yoga, but sleep doesn't come easily to me. Being gentle with the self is good. Still haunted by the passage from Finnegan's Wake that was read at Harvey's memorial (a recording of James Joyce reading this), of washerwomen gossiping, washing clothes on the banks of the river, as they both slowly metamorphose into a stone and an elm:

Night now! Tell me, tell me, tell me, tell me, elm. Night night. Telmetale of stem or stone. Beside the rivering waters of, hitherandthithering waters of. Night!

I think I will miss Harvey's voice most of all, his voice, which was so gentle and soft it would put me to sleep in class (definitely not because of the material). I believe these things don't just fall into a void when someone dies--my own faith, my own background, tells me these live on in a consciousness and mystery we do not know yet, bound to the body as we are. But the loss is so deep--I can't imagine what his widow goes through, his children. He was married to his wife for 42 years! Who have I even known for 42 years, except for my own parents, my siblings? But the grief is because of love--a type of deep, alive grief that can only come from having cared for someone deeply. I'm so glad for having seen Harvey on August 2nd--the very last time I would ever see him. He gave me a big Harvey-hug and a smooch on the cheek! And so I take his love with me into the rest of my life.

more Harvey

My friend Harvey's memorial service was yesterday--it was a service full of tears, laughter, jokes, and wonderful memories. It was held in Spartan Memorial Chapel. Near the end, a string quartet played (Harvey's daughter Chandra said that Harvey had given an endowment to the string quartet so that they could continue to go into elementary schools and teach kids about classical music). The quartet played a Beethoven selection in front of the chapel's main window, made of wavy glass, and as they played, you could see someone walking down the long path that the chapel faces--he had on white pants and a blue sweater (similar to things Harvey wore, and was about the same height as Harvey). The man just walked quiety off into the distance--at that point, I was able to start crying, finally--I have been so sad and numb--and yet, this person has left a wonderful legacy in my life and the lives of others. Sometimes the death of a loved one is like a jump-start, a reminder of the important things in life and an invective to get priorities straightened out. I believe that there is an existence after death and that a person's love lives on and on. Still, the loss of the person's physical presence is so hard--and yet, in the end, there is only love, and that survives everything.

goodbye to my friend Harvey

My friend and brilliant professor Harvey died yesterday morning at 1:45. I am deeply sad and will miss him so deeply.
He had been doing better last week, but began to experience further complications and died at Stanford Hospital after a night of
tremendous struggle. I am deeply filled with admiration for how much he tried to live and stay in the world--I could always sense how much he loved life and how much he did not want to leave.

I could not sleep last night for a long time; I am still very numb about it all. When I did, I had a dream about being in his house with his wife--she was grieving, but okay, and was cooking a meal. I went into the living room and saw that all my bellydance jewelry was all over the floor, as well as a carton of talcum powder that I remembered from my childhood. There was a beautiful little toddler girl int he room--she looked to be about a year old-- with blonde hair; she was trying to pick up the jewelry and also coins from a padded white stepstool, so I picked up the jewelry, took the coins out of her hands (telling her these weren't good for her), and led her over the couch, where she started to walk around and inspect the couch and the coffee table. Suddenly I saw Harvey, looking much younger and very well, sitting on the back of the couch with his feet on the couch seat. We both commented on how cute the little girl was, and Harvey wondered why his wife wasn't talking to him. Suddenly I sensed that Harvey didn't know he was dead. So I asked him if he knew what was going on, and he said, looking a little confused, "No, I don't." I asked him to look me in the eyes, which he wouldn't do for a minute, and when he finally did (his eyes were very green in the dream), I said, "You died, Harvey." He looked shocked and said, "Oh, dear! When did that happen?" I told him that it was at 1:45 yesterday morning and that he'd had a heart attack. He looked off to the side and said, "But I've always been able to survive those things in the past!" I told him I was sorry and he said it was okay and thanked me for telling him. Then he sighed very softly and vanished. I woke up a little shaken, to say the least.

Anyway, his memorial service is this week and I am very sad, but relieved that his considerable sufferings on this earth are over. Still, I will miss Harvey for the rest of my life.