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I’m Bogged and I Know It

It’s hard to live in a place where you know you’re failing. When I first started writing, all my writing teachers gushed over my work. Rare voice, they said. True gift, they opined. Literary journals I admired–like the Chicago Review—sent me notes saying, we’re not taking this piece but we know we’re going to be reading about you in the future....

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My Wednesdays

I never know what to do with Wednesdays. At 8:00, I go to church. The priest sometimes stops the liturgy to urge us to look overhead and watch the light show: dust motes floating in the sunbeams from the stained glass windows. Today, because it’s Fourth of July week, the guitarist during communion plays “This Land is Your Land.”...

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Dogs and the Dead

Dogs don’t visit the dead. Lord knows, I’ve tried to get them interested. When we lost Lucy, I yanked Atticus and Providence down to the river bank where I stood gazing at her grave. They mostly sniffed and peed. When only Providence remained, she telegraphed her boredom loud and clear, even when I told her she would be lying next...

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How Have Your Dreams Changed?

(Written today at Door of Hope Writing Group) When I was in junior high, I wanted to be a Viking. A Viking wife, actually, who stood on the deserted beach and threw logs on a blazing bonfire as I gazed out to sea, awaiting the return of the long-unseen ship. In high school, I dreamed of moving to Maine and living on the pounding coastline where...

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The Spinning Plates are Real

For those of you concerned about me after my Great Public Failure (I didn’t get an agent, to put this in perspective), here’s my current game plan: * send the Train Trip query to the paid-editor for tweaking: STATUS: DONE * send Model for Detective (When her model partner disappears, a Memphis fashion model uses her “clothes whisperer”...

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As It Is Written

I have failed, utterly and totally. Yet I feel irrationally exhilarated. The agent I’ve been trying to please with a rewrite for the last year and a half (!), just sent me a final rejection, door shut, not even opened a crack. Instead of feeling stomped on, I feel relief. This is so strange. As a result of the revision process she triggered,...

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