Following Through

Hello, blog posts my old friend, I've come to write on you again...

(bad Simon and Garfunkle reference)

Well. Now that we've gotten the annoying, terrible joke out of the way (they're like a train barreling off a cliff; once I see the opportunity for a joke, no matter how bad I recognize that it is, I have to follow through...the kinetic energy already in place is too much), let's get down to business.

First, administrative business. This used to be a blog where I reflected on my experiences in grad school, pursuing my M.A. in creative writing (more specifically poetry). I guess I should change my little "about" blurb on the side, because I am no longer in the Johns Hopkins M.A. program. I am now an alumni of the program! So this blog will no longer be comprised of reflections on the discoveries I make about myself and my craft in grad school. It will be about being a working poet, editor, and writer (and that's not even the stuff I get paid for! But I won't talk about my defense job on here. Mostly because I'd have to kill you if I did. Kidding! ....or am I?), cast off into the harsh world of literary journals and small presses (not to mention big presses), away from the nurturing--albeit uncompromising and willing to rap you gently on the knuckles with a ruler to get you going--hands of Johns Hopkins.

But I won't promise a lack, heretoforth, of run-on sentences like that one. Look, I went to school for poetry, not blogging. (Actually, that's a little bit of a lie. I did take a course where we covered sucessful blogging for about 1/3 of the semester)

So let's start the tale of my journey as a poet, and not just a student of poetry (though I will never cease to be that), with the major things that have happened, post-grad-school.

I got engaged. I got married. I've beat against the very powerful currents to publish some of my own poetry in journals (4 credits to my name, currently. It's an arduous process). I started a literary journal, Magic Lantern Review, with my husband. And not just any literary journal: it's a genre-bending fusion of poetry and cinema, publishing poems, digital films, and film analysis. As far as I can tell, there is nothing that deals with this concept in this way currently out there, so we've got ourselves a good niche.

Somehow we failed to take into account that we were both creative types, and had not a single "technical type" on the editorial team. That's OK though, because through my real-person job, I've become more and more of a technical person. This doesn't mean I had enough HTML and CSS know-how to effortlessly glom together Volume I, Issue 1 with nary a curse nor a whimper, but it does mean I had enough confidence in my technical abilities to be willing to sit in front of a computer screen tinkering and muttering under my breath every night for days on end trying to cajole, beg, bargain, and generally fraternize the HostGator code into playing nice. You see, it has its own internal CSS that's not supposed to override mine, as long as I upload all the proper files, including the CSS sheets, for the pages I built in iWeb. But it seemed as though it liked overriding it in random areas, at random times, for reasons I can't surmise except that "I must've touched something." I tried to alter things as little as possible, when possible, while actually in the HostGator system, but for some things (like video--it didn't like the video widgets that iWeb uses), I have to actually construct parts of the pages in HostGator. That's where it gets sticky.

But I mostly got it to bend to my will. As much as I think it's ever going to be willing to bend, at least. However, I might as well have done an HTML rain dance for all I really understand the connection between my actions and how it looks.

Look out for the first issue this weekend, hopefully! At www.magiclanternreview.com

The whole process has really demonstrated a few lessons I learned at Hopkins, though, and proves case-in-point that my education has really servd me well beyond graduation. Let's review.

Work ethic. My grad school days were not so much my grad school days as my grad school evenings and weekends. That's not to say I didn't have a social life in this time (since they say your life consists of work/school, social life, and sleep, and you can only ever have 2 of the 3 at a time. I notoriously sleep very little, so that was just fine with me; sleep is for the bored), but during the especially busy periods, I would go to work, come home, then either a) go to class, or b) work until I went to bed. I remember telling my co-workers this and their unanimous reaction was "ughhh!" But I didn't really mind so much (a little. Maybe a little) because it was all a labor of love. Now, I wouldn't want to do that every night, for the rest of my life, but Hopkins was a trial-by-fire of work ethic. And I find myself still exercising that skill of squeezing all I can out of any amount of free time I have, for something I care about. It's how I worked 40 hours a week, wrote poetry, started a journal, planned a wedding, wrote a beer blog, had a bangin' social life filled with wonderful people, nutured my relationship, stayed active and fit, and cooked dinner damn near every night. Not to sound like a complete horn-tooting ass here. But I feel like it's one of the little things in life I can be proud of.

You never stop being a student of poetry; the best writers are those who truly embrace and are willing to learn from the works of others. I cannot express to you the satisfaction I have gotten from helping to promote the amazing pieces of work that are going into the first issue of MLR. I feel like working with this wonderful group of people that are our first contributors and assembling their creations into something larger than the sum of its parts is one of my top moments of pride in this journey as a writer so far. To be a part of something like that, is a unique experience, and I highly recommend it for anyone who's ever considered it. It's another side to poetry that's definitely worthwhile to experience.

You can't break the mold in by holding your breath. That's a line from the Cee-lo song "Die Trying" and it was my mantra while writing my thesis. But it applies to anything and everything in life outside the thesis. Anyone who has ever done something great has started with the same, solitary action: choosing to do at all. Because you know what's the best way to ensure you never do anything great? Hesitating. Never deny yourself that chance to do because it seems like something a true professional or a true artist or a true working writer would do, but not you. Not an amateur. Because chances are, if you choose to do, you will do. You're not going to get anywhere by holding your breath.

Which now brings me to the big reveal. Which seems weird to reveal now, because it's been such a long process and I never said anything about it. Mostly because I didn't want to count my chickens before they hatched. So I guess I did hold my breath on this one, but not in my actions, only my words. Remember all the stuff I tooted my horn about doing all at once? I also had been doing one other thing: putting together a book.

It started with the experience of compiling and editing a thesis, which was supposed to be a cohesive compendium of work that all fit together thematically and flowed from one piece to another in a way that was logical and organic. It taught me a lot about writing a collection of poetry that is more than just a collection of poetry. It has to be a work of its own, like an album, that says something beyond the individual statements or sentiments of each little piece. It has to tell a story like you would move from scene to scene when spinning a yarn, where something in the last story reminded of you the one you're telling now, and something in that story brings you to what you say next. So I've been working on a book that does that. It's called Saying Kaddish Because of Pizza and Other Poems, the same title as my thesis, and I queried my first small press about it. Nothing will probably come of it, because nothing ever comes of a single submission or query, but I'm going to keep at it. Because you can't break the mold in by holding your breath on this shit.

To end on a quote from the dearly and recently departed Steve Jobs, one of the greatest do-ers, inventors-not-predictors of the future, and alchemists of technology and all other aspects of life: "Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything -- all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart. ... Stay hungry. Stay foolish."