• Sleeping Wide Awake

    Seventeen

    Here’s my writing journey – and it applies to all forms I’ve written in: short stories, screenplays, and novels. But I’ll use novels as the model. I’ll write a novel, revise, submit. Rejection. I’ll submit again. Rejection. And again. Rejection. I’ll revise again and again and again. Submit. Rejection. Submit elsewhere. Rejection. Submit all around. I might get a nibble here, a request for the whole manuscript, or a glowing personalized rejection, but a rejection all the same. Rejection. Then, after getting over the initial frustration and wanting to quit writing, I’ll start a new book, and vow that this one will be different. This book will be THE ONE.…

  • Sleeping Wide Awake

    Fifteen

    Work holds a monthly event, an open mic night for creatives. I fill in for BEST FRIEND (who used to emcee) to the best of my ability – work was her business, she was the boss, and the host of all functions. As an event, participants feel the warmth of the occasion – not just the physical warmth of the work studio, but also the emotional and spiritual warmth that was so much the foundation of what BEST FRIEND (and her husband) built for their business. But there’s this irreconcilable reality that exists: what was (when she was emcee) and what is (not so much me as emcee, but the…