Miscellany

1. We made it to California. Despite all the things that went sideways with the move, it was actually a fairly easy one.

After five years in exile, it feels really good to be home. The landscape is right in a way that New England and Florida never were. Something about the juxtaposition of ocean and mountains makes my blood sing. I’m still not sold on Vallejo, but I’m willing to give it some time.

2. The California bar exam is in a month. My rational mind knows that I will in all likelihood pass. The rest of me is terrified that I won’t, especially given that a) I had 3 months to do nothing but study for New York and this time I’ve got 7 weeks of maybe 3 hours a day and b) I have no guarantee of a job past October and CA employers pretty much all require that you be admitted here.

I’m also quietly furious, because the simple truth – and it’s something the bar examiners know – is that the bar exam has zero relationship to what a practicing layer does on a day to day basis. It’s mostly an expensive hazing ritual designed to keep minorities and poor people from becoming lawyers. And the bar examiners seem to like it that way.

3. I’ve been thinking about opening up the archives – posts from 2005-2007 and 2007-2010. If I did that I would put at least some of them under password protection. There are things twenty-something year old me said, before starting law school, that I’d rather not have on the open web. Would people be interested in that?

4. I’m doing yoga teacher training starting in September. This will either be one of the best things I’ve ever done, or one of the worst. Or possibly both. Stay tuned.

“Gold Dust”

Spring coming, and with it the flood tides and the ebb tides and all manner of change.  This is my time of year, the time when the trees become a riot of blossoms and the flowers start to emerge from the earth and everything – everything – seems possible.

1.  I don’t believe in God or Fate, but I do think that the universe has a way of putting what we need in our path when we need it.   Continue reading ““Gold Dust””

“Snowflake”

1.  I have fallen completely, utterly in love with the new Kate Bush album, 50 Words for Snow.  Late to the ball on this one, I know, but I thought it was a Christmas album, and I refuse to even go near those.  However, after finding the album on Spotify I thought I’d give it a listen (especially since none of the titles of the tracks seemed Christmasy).  It blew my mind.  I finished most of the last 100 pages of Persephone with it playing in the background.

2.  Somewhere around the third draft of Persephone, I realized that I needed to rethink the whole plot thing.  By which I meant that in order to do the rewrite I had to sit down and plot out the whole novel, and then go back through what I’d written and refit it into the plot.   Figuring out what happened in the damn book was probably responsible for about 1 year of the rewrite.  (The other three I blame on law school.)  This last draft only took 8 months, and would have been even shorter if I’d started making myself wake up early and write every day back in August.

3.  I’ve had a new novel in my head for a month or so now, waiting patiently for me to plot it out.  Which, quite frankly, I’ve been dreading.  Part of what I love so much about writing is finding out what happens next.  I’ve always been afraid that if I stopped to plot it out, the magic would disappear, that I wouldn’t want to write a story if I already knew the ending.

I couldn’t have been farther from the truth.  Over the past few days, I’ve plotted the basic outline of the new novel.  I still need to sketch in the scenes, but I know where it starts, I know the crisis points and the resolutions, and I know how it ends.  And now that the skeleton is there, I’m even more excited to write it.  It’s oddly reminiscent of the moment I discovered the absolute freedom of poetic forms.

4.  I baked cupcakes earlier this week, and send a batch to Kat Howard.  Judging from her response, I think she liked them!  Recipe (which I created my very own self) after the break.

@KatWithSword  You guys. You guys! @thegirlhaswings SENT ME CUPCAKES. KEY LIME CUPCAKES. THAT SHE BAKED HERSELF. I am the Happiest of Kats.

Key Lime Cupcakes for Kat

Continue reading ““Snowflake””