I'm a flooring estimator. This means that I look at plans and pick out whatever pages are necessary and print them. I highlight important info., jot down notes, take off the plans, and create a spreadsheet and proposal. I guess you could call the spreadsheet the “draft,” in a way, and the proposal the published piece. I estimate my days and how long it takes me to get things done; I estimate how much time I'll waste by leaving the house ten minutes later than usual in the morning, or heading home at 5 p.m. Versus 3 p.m. As it stands, any time after 3 is a nightmare to get into Lowell.

I spend my days worrying away at my inability to squeeze in time as I'd like it; to wake up late, and write first thing, when I'm fresh, versus getting home in the afternoon and word-vomitting all over a piece of paper. I estimate when I will next be able to visit my parents, my sisters, my brother; and how long I can spend with my boyfriend, and there is always this tension I feel building up in me, because by the end of the week, all I want to do is spend my time buried in a notebook somewhere, eavesdropping and scrawling out dialogue, or describing the angle of the buildings in downtown Lowell, or interviewing some people about what they do for work, and what they'd rather be doing.

I've learned over the last year that estimating can't be quantified in quite the way that my cheatsheet shows; it doesn't really take our union guys a day to install 120 SY of carpet every time; it depends on the type of carpet, and the size of the rooms, and their shape, and also how far the place is. Every hour is based on a note somewhere else. Nothing is straight forward.

With all my dreams of writing and editing and teaching full-time, I can only glimpse the possibilities, including the very real possibility of failure, which is why I continue to estimate flooring, at least for now, until the time is right to counter-balance my time in new directions, on stories and editing, when I think that I can get the hours just right.

When you first walk into a place like Circlet—publishing press of the science fiction and fantastic erotica—you might expect to stumble into an orgy of half-naked men and women engaging in all kinds of socially unacceptable actions: think whips, chains, and maybe even a stock, just for some humiliation fun. You get the idea. Sex in all its frivolity, a place of sexual freedom.

As for the actual place? Sorry, but the scene isn't quite like that. We take our shoes off at the door. Cecilia—founder and editor of Circlet Press—reminds us not to let the cats out, and offers us tea. She and her partner Corwin make dinner for us, those attending Circlet's Editorial Retreat, here at Cecilia's beautiful home in Cambridge. I stare at the books in her bookcases enviously, and I dream about finding the time to read them all, to be interested in them all: the bible, and the Koran, dozens of sexy anthologies, science fiction that I've mostly only heard of--Stranger in a Strange Land, and Last Call. Upstairs there are books about baseball and Harry Potter fanfiction, and erotic Harry Potter fanfiction. It's drool-worthy. I want to be the writer that Cecilia is, with my own flair—she writes erotica and romance, science fiction and fantasy, baseball and fanfiction.

I write memoir and personal essays, features and flash fiction, and a hodgepodge of short stories and several novels-forever-in-progress.

The editors and writers mingle. Bethany and Jules, Avery and Bliss. We discuss our favorite books and cats and how much we despise the real world. We hardly ever talk about sex, except in humor; sometimes it seems to be rotting in the bottom of my things to do these days, and for Circlet editors, who are generally working full-time jobs, and sometimes writing their own stories on top of editing anthologies...I'm sure getting to the delicious can seem like a lot of work some days.

The weekend is spent in lecture and exercise: We listen to writers talk about studying the anthropology of people in order to get a better sense of place; we listen to discussions about problematic Tolkien issues; and as this is a place safe for introverts, I wander away during one discussion to climb the stairs and pass out for a wonderfully relaxing hour and a half midday nap. On Sunday we discuss anthology topics, and my favorites are as follows:

• Historical
• Femdom/Male Sub
• Rural Fantasy
• Cowboys
• Gods/Goddesses
• Nautical
• Sidekicks
  
  

There is a lot of discussion over the weekend about biology and sometimes space, and marketing. Bliss rants to me about the impossibility of finding work adjuncting. My new nonfiction-writing friend shares sips of Mead with me. She is Canadian and is on the hunt for weed, which no one else at the retreat seems to have or care about searching for.

It is a wonderfully relaxing weekend, one that makes me feel more rested than I've felt in a year. My boyfriend came to the Friday night dinner, and Sunday afternoon lunch and wasn't scared away. Sometimes I feel like maybe we ought to be a little more outlandish at Circlet—do things that might freak people out, if only to fulfill their assumptions (desires). But you can read all about that in one of our anthologies--Like a Circlet Editor, if you really want to.
​
I'm just going to keep on squeezing in time for writing and with luck one of these days I'll be the one hosting some editor and writer retreats—for writers of erotica, science fiction, memoir, and maybe even some YA authors if they're interested. The space for writing is something we each create.

On the day I moved to Lowell, I had my boyfriend and four friends helping to get the couch and the bed and all my 30 or so boxes into the new place. A friendly neighbor came by and offered to lend a hand. I introduced myself, and he to me, and he helped bring a few things in—my little flat screen TV and DVD player, a couple of night stands, and he even helped maneuver the couch into my living room. His buddy came by and helped too. It was all very nice, and the move was easy with so much help.

On my way home every evening I pass by at least a dozen cop cars cruising the city streets at rush hour. I am in a town abused by crime, whose streets are caked in the spoils of people and animals alike, and whose houses are too close together in the little alley I live down.

The guys who helped us were black. All of my friends, and myself, were white. Later, my boyfriend, Nick, said to me, “Did you see the bracelet on that guy's ankle?” I had not, in fact, seen the bracelet.

“Hopefully he was just bored,” I said. The next day at work I told some coworkers about my move-in, and Mark said, “He was scoping the place out.” And Olivia said, “He was so good at getting the couch in because he's used to getting them out.” And we laughed a little, because although it was stereotypical and a little cruel, it might also have been true; I mean, why was he on house-arrest? Was it because of drugs or break-ins or rape? I like to hope he got a little rough in a bar and accidentally broke something; or else someone busted him for something he just didn't do. But these are my naive hopes, and my way of seeing the best in people.

The doughy lady across the street has at least two adorable little toddlers—a boy and a girl. Those kids both have shit-eating grins whenever I see them, so much so, in fact, that the first time I thought, Oh, they're so cute and friendly! And then I immediately thought, Oh shit, did they do something to my car? Is that why they're smiling so much?

There's an alarm in my house. At the lease signing, the landlord told me that I might want to get renter's insurance to cover my stuff, in case anything happens. “The most expensive thing I own is my laptop,” I told him. “I'm not too worried.” My hope is that the neighbors got to see the very little that I have, and now know that none of it is worth much. Although I want to disprove the concerns of middle-class coworkers about my new city, my defenses remain; My things are worth nothing to me. If I lose them, so be it. I refuse to live in fear.

​A friend sent me a Meme the other day with a list of cities to avoid when visiting Massachusetts. “Hey!” I said, “I've lived in three of those cities—Lawrence, Holyoke, and now Lowell. And I turned out just fine.”   

The Underground Bakery & Cafe is a delightfully eery place with black tablecloths and part of the original stone wall—massive stone blocks—showing against one wall. The Cafe is located at the back of an antique shop, through a heavy, thick door that can be locked from the antique store side. This was my first statement as my boyfriend and I walked from the store into the cafe, and the lady at the counter said, “Oh don't worry, there's a way out right there and there—there are at least three ways out of this room. If we ever get robbed, I'll know how to get out.”

Nancy Neenan is a friendly entrepreneur with silvering hair and electric-purple framed glasses. She runs the shop by herself, moving from the antique store to the cafe as needed; in one she sells American Dolls and painted ceramic plates and a 1920's toy train, and in the other she sells cakes, Whoopie pies, and coffee. She says that there is a labor shortage in the area, meaning that anyone who wants to work can pretty much choose their wage, whether it's $16, $20, or $30.00 an hour; especially when it comes to line cooks and chefs; so until business is booming, she'll be on her own.

The bakery has only been open since Memorial Day, and she wants to do reservation dinners someday, but she doesn't want to be “just another restaurant” in North Conway, New Hampshire so she started a bakery first and plans to expand later. She's trying to figure out how to get people into her shop who will buy more than just a cup of coffee and hang out for hours; this is one reason that she doesn't offer Wifi.

She's been thinking about shipping pastries to people who want to buy them. If she ships them far (like to California), dry ice will keep them good for a few days; but barring that, “If I froze the items first, and brought them to the post office before they closed, they could get (to Dover or Portsmouth) the next day.” We pondered the likelihood of a person purchasing baked goods online, and then paying for shipping as well.

“Wicked Cupcakes in Boston sells cupcakes for $6 apiece,” she says, “So I'm trying to think outside the box.” Nancy believes that some people will pay for convenience. She is thinking about city people; “Imagine you want to make some brownies...some people don't have a car, and can't get to the grocery store. You have to lug around the flour and sugar to make it.” So why not have them shipped directly home?

Her mint chocolate-chip cupcakes were delicious, and had part of an Andes Mint stuck in the top. I can imagine Nancy selling cakes and pies during the biggest holidays: Thanksgiving and Christmas and Easter. Maybe even from afar.

Nancy's favorite season is fall, because it offers the best weather and the best customers. Although she's very busy running both shops, Nancy has so many ideas and wants to do so many things, that she goes home at night with the intention of working on another angle of her shop, only to be so exhausted from working all day, that it's hard to focus; as it is for most of us.

My friend doesn't understand the concept behind the book Warm Bodies, written by Isaac Marion. "Oh. It's another Zombie book," She says, although she has not read it. But it isn't.

It's an idea book, sure: a zombie falls in love with a human. But it's about more than that. It's about a world already suffering, a world of chaos where zombies have neither thoughts nor memories, and humans cage themselves together and both sides kill.

It's about moving from a horrific state of non-feeling and apathy, into a world of living. On analysis, it's a story about a people who forced themselves into becoming beings of the undead by not caring about each other.


But that still isn't this story. This story is about hope. Is Zombie-world the end? Is a zombie really thoughtless and incapable of life or death? Is a corporate president just as thoughtless?

What makes Warm Bodies different from all the other zombie books that I have read (and shows that I have seen) is that it begins in darkness and moves into a place more than stale survival. (In the Forest of Hands and Teeth is a popular YA book turned trilogy documenting the devastating life of a main character as she and friends run from zombies trying to find a place untouched by the undead. It is a good story, but morbidly depressing.) Marion could have made this book funny, a joke about the idea of zombies like the Jane Austen zombie books seem to be, but he didn't. The writing is elegant, specific, complicated. The story contains love and contemplation, contemplation the thing that keeps us guessing, the love situation seemingly impossible between the living and the undead.

Although the background facts are there--few humans have survived, zombies are crawling everywhere, the world is an isolated island--one zombie at least, and maybe others, still thinks in words, and wonders what other zombies think about. He misses his old life, and wishes he could remember his name. The zombies have their own apathetic community (much like many of our cities) and are not necessarily mere mindless drones.

R--the main zombie--thinks that they feed on human brains for a reason, that becoming a zombie has made them emotionless and with no memories or words, but eating brains gives them some emotions and memories. They hunger for that which they cannot remember, that which they miss. Humanity. This is a story not about killing off everyone else so the chosen few may survive (think The Road and The Walking Dead), but about people coming together to help one another live. It's a story not about life after death, but instead, rising from apathy. 

If I overthink it too much, I can talk myself out of writing. Whenever I fall out of it, I forget the reasons I started writing in the first place, and I have to put to pen my reasons all over again, although they rarely change.
I write to share passion and kindness and tragedy. I write because it is my skill, my drive, the thing I am best at and most educated in and it makes me feel connected to something. My fingers on the keys directly express my feelings and thoughts to readers and to myself.

I came back to New England out of duty to my mother, who is recovering from illness, and secondarily to my young sisters and my father's new family. Before this, I was settled in a ranch-style house in Colorado, familiar with the bars and library and rec center and writers and dancers and my life was a list of things that I loved to do.

Everything was different when I moved here. No bars within walking distance. Blues dancing only two nights a week and fusion once a month, until I started my own dance night. I have a writer friend and a small writing workshop.

Plenty of libraries to choose from, but many are closed on Fridays. I have family close by--just a drive away. I am reminded by some of them of my uselessness in this life, throwing away my skills to waitress and pen words. Killing me with their good intentions.

I write to remind myself that I am not allowed to feel this way. I am not starving, yet. I now have a large three-bedroom apartment. I am close to my sisters. Index cards line the windowsills around my desk with reminders and rules: "Your writing is worth something. Keep doing it"; "Read lit mags you want to submit to"; and "write one blog post a month." Hopeful, demanding, and organized. As an adult, writing takes patience and deadlines.

​Writing reminds me of why I make certain choices. It helps me see what lies behind peoples' motivations and desires, and to understand why they hurt me or their own. I want to write about everything, and see everything, and be everything. In writing I can do that. I can study, learn, rehash, and create. I often feel like a destroyer, a woman scorned, Kali of chaos, or Morrigan of war. It's always been that way: Rather than seek out connection, I listen for discord, trying to find opposition wherever I can, so I can tramp it down and bend it into something I better like. Contrary, my former step mother calls it. Defiant, I say.

Last Friday, Kendra Levin (author of The Hero is You), asked the group of twenty or so people in audience, What is your writing mission? What are you writing for? After a few minutes of jotting in my journal, To change the world. To tell stories that matter, I came to the mission that rings most true for me: I want to tell little stories, to show the unseen, the unheard, and the unthought of.

Levin had opted to call her book signing a Writer's Workshop, and it really was that—but better. She told us to ask her questions we had about her book or writing style, or just to tell her what we've been working on. Levin is a life coach for writers, and her book is her trademark. I haven't read it yet, but I'll write all about it when I do.

It was an interesting hour, being in that room and surrounded by writers, because I heard so many stories and even got some marketing ideas, and it was the first time that I was surrounded by writers wanting to tell true stories.

1. A tall, skinny man was there with his wife (who wore a long fur coat) and talked about a specific complex topic that he's been dying to write for the last 25 years, but he can't seem to pin down the focus. He comes to a dead end, then starts a different chapter, over and over again.
2. Kathleen, a woman, in her 50s or 60s and who was a little shorter than my average 5'5”, said that she's working on a business book with humorous nonfiction stories. Her issue is that she's a public speaker, and can't seem to make the stories sound as funny on paper as they do in real life. She was wearing silver sparkly tennis shoes with matching socks. We exchanged e-mails later, and that night she sent me a message telling me to get to work on my blog and write those human interest stories.
3. Susan, a dark-haired woman with a deep voice, discussed how she used to work in social services, and she wants to research and write about whether or not it made any difference in peoples' lives. Her main concern was in what medium to write the book—a book, a script or something else?
4. I asked how to get my nonfiction work out there and make money—because I can't write the kind of stories I want to write without making that my full, or even just part-time job. Here is what I got:
   1. The owner of the bookstore said that most of the nonfiction books that come into Jabberwocky came from blogs.
   2. Eryn, a marketer, suggested that I update my blog at least once or twice a week, and get on Twitter.

I was careful not to go on a binge and tell the room what, exactly, I want to write, which is pretty much everything. Shot girls. Sex. Poverty. Writers. Small businesses. Shifting weather patterns. Religion. Friends. Loneliness. Moving from small town to the city to get sleep. Estimating everything, including my job.

Instead of thinking of the overload of topics I've been dreaming about writing for years, I went home and opened my folder of half-written blog posts, and I began to finish them. I plan on posting a blog every week, and I signed up for Twitter. It's amazing what the excitement of a few people who share a love can really do for each other, and shows me that writing is not lost to the world.

It's Naomi's day off. She isn't working first, second, or third shift at the Brethren Nursing Home today, and she's excited to go swimming. All summer, it's what she talks about. When her sister Rhoda said they were putting in a pool back in June, Naomi was certain that she'd go swimming many times this summer, but now it's already late July and she still hasn't been. Rhoda's house is an hour away and on her days off, Naomi isn't terribly interested. She wants to rest. And on days she has off, the weather prediction is often poor—calling for overcast skies or hurricane-like rains. She wants to read through some of her favorite sections in her Bible, hang out with Blaze, and read the new romance books she's been meaning to get to. This rarely happens. But today she is prepared to go any distance for a pool.

Of course, inevitably, her mom will call, and today is no different: her mom calls, asking if Naomi can take her grandfather to his doctor's appointment, because her mom needs to go to her own appointment, because her eye is swelling up, and she can't see well enough to drive. I am staying with Naomi because I want to write an in-depth story about her, so I end up driving her grandfather to his appointments. Naomi takes her mother all over the place, from general practitioner for what they think is poison ivy, to a specialist when the doctor worries about shingles. So Naomi loses her day off and it becomes a family day, rather than a work day, yet no less draining.

When she comes home later, she will complain, as any single, childless woman with a big family would; just because she doesn't have kids of her own doesn't mean that she doesn't have plans. "And I feel bad,” she said, “because if I did have a family, I know I'd be busy, but it just isn't fair. What, do I have 'No Life' stamped to my forehead?"

​She falls into her easy chair and gets on her phone to text friends and scan Facebook, with her little dog Blaze in her lap like a child.

Massachusetts is like..

Little Girl: I'm going to build a clubhouse!
Random person #1: I don't know if you should...what if you can't do it? Or what if you get hurt?
Random person #2: And where are you going to find wood and nails and stuff?
Little Girl: I don't know but...I'm sure I'll figure it out!
Random child: Mommy says you're dum. She says not to be like you.
Random Child's Mom: It's wrong for you to influence my son like this. Now he's going to try it!
Little Girl: But I just want to build a clubhouse. Why can't I? *sniffling
Random person #3: Sure you can!
Little Girl: I can?
Random person #3: Sure! Just don't say we never told you so when you get Tetanus from a splinter and then die from it.
Little Girl: Well, I guess I'll just do like everyone else does and get fucked up. At least I can't fail at that, right?

Advice is one thing, an avalanche of pessimism is something altogether different. In my Search for Meaning back home in New England, I've struggled to understand why living out here has been so tough for the last year, and maybe even for the first 24 years of my life. And I think this might be it. Obviously not everyone in Massachusetts is like those responding to the little girl...it just seems to be the majority. And sometimes the little girls just ignore all these can't-do-it attitudes and do what they want. But it's remarkably difficult to get past at these attitudes at this point in my life.

Things I'm doing to try to get past it:
1. Keep dancing, because most of these people are open-minded and flexible and just brilliant.
2. Write whenever I can, because this is how I develop understanding.
3. Be nice to people whenever I can, and try my best to keep an open mentality, rather than invalidating others' ideas, or shutting them down.
4. Reading The Artist's Way again, which reminds us to focus on those who build us up, and to remember where we come from and where we can go. (At least that's what I get from it.)
5. Hiking and boxing whenever I can, because I go way stir-crazy when I don't keep active.