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.

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.

Good to be reminded that I'm not alone. And deep down, I still think I have what it takes to do this--both the raw talent and the ability to learn and improve. It just feels like wheel-spinning now, and I'm having to grit my teeth to say the nice things whenever someone on one of my lists finals in a contest, gets a request for a full, or actually gets The Call. It's not that I don't want them to succeed--I just wonder what I'm doing wrong that it hasn't happened to me yet. And I know full well the answer may be nothing--luck is a big part of it, and I have to have the patience to keep rolling the dice.

Forget the 100 words, this topic just won't conform. But then, we all have different ideas of home. Here's another picture that lives only in my head.

Coronation

No one sits in that chair anymore. Or the one across from it either. For years, we sat across from each other at home. The two youngest, the two most alike, yet not. He sat where he did because he was left-handed. I sat where I did because mother was left-handed. We squabbled endlessly over dinners at that table. We defended each other fiercely against outsiders, and our oldest brother.

His chair has been empty since 1986. It was empty before that, when he moved out and then got married, started his own family. Empty forever, after. I moved out, too. And the two chairs sat empty across from each other; one a ghost, one only missing in action—gone away with the four winds, coming back with the tides.

Now, my chair is empty, too; I’ve moved over. I’ve assumed the mantle. It does not rest easily on my shoulders; I’m not left-handed.

For my dad, a lot of the "new self" was about names, at least in the family stories. He was a junior, so he needed a nickname. When he was little, he was Butch. When he was a little older, he tried to become Jazz, but it didn't quite work out. Heh.