July 9th; Post Fourth of July

Let's take care of business first:

Writing Salon / writingsalons.com
Fiction Class: July 23rd, Wednesday nights, 9 weeks, 7-9:30
Flash Fiction Seminar: August 2nd, Saturday, 10-4


I listened to Chiasmus Press's (ooh 3 s's, ooh 2 s's) podcast, and I have to say boring promo for their press. It took 15 minutes for them to start talking and they didn't really get into what the Press's books were about. They do have a book contest for new, avant garde, experimental, edgy stuff: undoing the novel. I don't think my work is out there enough for them, but when I go to FC2's innovative fiction workshop, I'll take a look at their authors--Chiasmus is linked to Lydia Yuknavitch and others, so they'll be there. My personal concern is that innovative might just really be a catch phrase lately (and this is not in connection to FC2's or Chiasmus Press books) for anything dealing with sex, drugs, rock-n-roll, or maybe something that doesn't have a story line. Or maybe I'm just the one who plays it safe all the time. So I'm tired of my own blog and feeling like I should voice an opinion about something once in a while. I don't have all the time in the world to listen to podcasts, though. At the same time, I have a hard time sitting down with mainstream literary novels these days. I think I'm somewhere in between.

Haven't been any place lately--drywalling our new shed in the back yard so I can have a writing studio. Hanging wash on the line, so I can utilize the power of the sun rather than the dryer. Two jobs I love, in a way. Dry walling is satisfying--putting the mud on the wall, scraping it even. It's the sanding part I hate--dusty and time-consuming. The part I hate about laundry is putting the clothes away. Isn't it weird that we have parts of jobs we like and parts we hate. I don't mind loading the dishwasher; I hate unloading. I don't mind painting my daughter's room; I like moving furniture around; I hate cleaning the room, though. I don't mind blogging; but I hate editing my own blogs. I don't mind editing other people's work, but I always hate it when I feel like a student/client isn't really going to revise. Well, hate's a strong word.

I was reading the Emerging Writer's Network blog and thinking about how I could make my blog more useful, interesting, perhaps valuable, and crap I couldn't come up with anything except being myself. Which makes me think of something else. When I moved out to California, I found out that Californians think the word "crap" is a dirty word. I never heard that before. We said it in school and no one ever corrected me, but out here, my students say, "Ms. Gennna, ooh you said crap." Well, maybe it's just because a teacher is using it. Well, that's silly.

I saw the fireworks in Pinole with my younger daughter--beautiful and oohful. Back in Iowa, if you crossed the state line into SD, you could buy fireworks, and I miss being a kid and watching my dad and uncles get that big box out of trunk of the car at dusk and setting them off at night at my Grandma and Grandpa Skinner's house. Now that's what Independence Day is really about!
Go to Disneyland and watch their fireworks display and see if you don't get all choked up, no matter how much propoganda and brainwashing you think is in a Disney movie.

Well, someone once told me I was a fence rider, and I think that's true. You can see a lot of things while sitting on a fence, but some things I'm not so fencey about. Injustice, poverty, cruelty, waste, racism. I mean it's the important things.