Then, yes, it may want to be a bit longer. I know it was the first one I got to read, but that didn't mean you were leading off the book with it.

Hmmmm. May I reread, please?

Oh sure! Love to send.

Yes, please - because from what I remember of it, in terms of how it's structured, I think it can be expanded not only without stepping on ita's space, but in a way that's both fluff-free and relevant to the rest of the book.

Whoa, Deb. Those last two lines pack a huge punch.

I'm having issues.

Allyson, what about comparing what it's like to go from talking about Buffy, let's say (metaphors, writing, characterization -- *big* kind of vague stuff), to talking about who used the last of the tampons, or whatever?

Also, personal essays don't have to be up to AP standards. If a real person you want to write about loved chocolate and purple sweaters, you can make that Twizzlers and red skirts in your piece.

THERE WILL BE NO TWIZZLERS!!

Allyson -- why don't you see what you want to write, and I'll see if any of the bits of my life make me feel oogie.

ita, one of the things I wanted to look at in that one particular essay was how Allyson herself - her own presence in that one piece - felt against a few of the others. In her piece about Tim, for instance, she was so beautifully present, just so there, that it knit everything together. I'm wondering if a bit of that might not be what's needed for your piece.

What are Twizzlers? Are those those braided things that taste like stale sugary Pernod?

Deb, I think that's among my favorites of your drabbles, ever.

t nods sagely at all the advice to Allyson

Drabble for my dad:

He has lived in this house 25 years now, the longest he’s lived any place in his life. As a child, he was a Navy brat, 12 schools in 12 years, three in his junior year alone. Every time, new places, new friends, a new self. Now he’s settled into a house he bought to accommodate his wife’s parents, and it’s home. He loves his house, loves his neighborhood, loves his city. Of course, he’ll never be a local, since he’s not From There, but it’s his home now. He could retire there. He could die there. But not yet.

OK, I somehow hit post too soon, so I'll put my Writerly Angst of the Day in a separate post.

I feel like I'm treading water, not WRT the writing itself, but in the sense that I've lost the ability to imagine myself published. Oh, I still have all the wild fantasies about bidding wars and becoming so fabulously successful we can afford a house atop Queen Anne Hill, private school for Annabel, and all the European travel we want. But I'm having trouble picturing a day when the phone rings, and it'll be an editor from St. Martin's or NAL or Kensington or wherever saying, "We want to buy your book."

Of course, I really can't sell a book until I finish Anna's story and/or haul Lucy's out from the box under the bed and finish rewriting it. But that's not really the issue. I've just temporarily (I hope it's temporary!) lost the faith that I'll get beyond the point I am now. I can picture myself spending decades entering contests but never finaling, going to conferences and getting requests for partials (because apparently I'm so good in pitch sessions I should change my name to Randy Johnson or something--nice to know I'm doing SOMETHING right), but never converting those to requests for the full, and sending off slushpile query letters and partials that garner nothing but rejection letters.

I know this is natural. I think I felt this way at some point on all but one of my job searches--like I'd be sending out resumes forever but never getting an offer. But I hope I break out of limbo water-treading land sooner rather than later.

Jesse, I like that. "A new self" sums up a lot about the consonance between perpetual motion and the need to reinvent.

Susan, thanks; I was seriously thinking about making it a bit longer. But I'm not detached enough to look at it cleanly right now.

And I know the water-tread thing, and yes, it really is a part of publishing. I don't know a single writer who actually took steps to get published who doesn't feel like that at some point, and usually a lot more often than once.

But you know that.