Sandra Gail Lambert

Thanks to the St. Augustine Project and Connie May Fowler

When I'm at a conference I'm just being there all prickly nervous one moment and heart-open engaged the next.  It's not until later, sometimes much later, that I know how it went. 

Here's a follow up from the Below Sea Level workshop.  Since that first week in June, I've rewritten (twice) the chapter that was critiqued there.  I like it. At the urging of Connie May, I made a time line for completing this novel - two months to write each chapter.  Today, a week short of two months, I'm done (Well, not done, done.  I'm never done, done.) with a brand new chapter.  

I think it's safe now for me make a few conclusions about the conference - productive, worth every penny, and meaningful in ways that continue to be revealed.     

This evening I printed out the final (for now) revision and then twirled around my house in celebration.  In the midst of all this, the ink not even dry on the pages, I heard a trampling up my ramp and then a knock at the door.  My poet friend and her house guests were, coincidentally, delivering fresh baked chocolate chip cookies (The type with ground oatmeal in them!), and we squealed together about my day's accomplishments. 

Alert.  Cliche to follow.  Close your eyes if you must. 

Life is Good.  (She says this while brushing cookie crumbs off the keyboard.)

Ta Dah!

 

It's July 23rd, a week before my self-imposed deadline, and I mostly, almost, maybe after one or two more go throughs, have a decent draft of this latest chapter.  I like it.  I printed off this latest version and with each slap of a page into the bin, my face scrunched up in little girl glee. 

Yeah, I know, it won't last.  But if I don't look at it until tomorrow, I'll have a great night. 

One Story

I've always thought of chapbooks as little treasures.  On trips I'll look in small bookstores or gift shops in State Parks to find an oral history or local field guide or a retelling of the regions fables and myths.  Chapbooks are just the right size in my hands and the right length for a before sleep or waiting at the doctor's office read. 

My latest treasure find is One Story.  Everything about it is perfect.  You subscribe for a reasonable price and every three weeks you receive a chapbook containing a jewel of a short story.  And then you can go on-line and read what the author has to say about the writing of it, and, if you want, blog with others about it all.  And, unlike many journals, there is a way decent percentage of woman writers included.   

My first two deliveries were just so good - Harriet Elliot by Robin Black and Wilderness by Jean Thompson.  I can't wait until I have a stack of them.   

  

Kay Ryan - Poet Laureate of the United States

And check out this interview in the New York Times.  An out lesbian as Poet Laureate of the United States - life is good.  So is the poetry.  My favorite is her "chickens flying" poem.   

Wild Iris Books supports writers

Sure, your local, independent bookstore provides reading and booksigning events, they give front shelf room to the work of homegrown authors, they hand sell your book to customers, and they are excited with you about any writing success, but my local feminist bookstore serves even more of my writing needs.

This past Saturday, after a week of near cloistering in my writing bed, I put on an orange bra and a red dress and went dancing at Wild Iris Book's monthly women's dance.  It was perfect for post-writing immersion - social and physical and filled with lesbians looking good.  It was so much fun that the next day I had to take extra Extra Strength Tylenol. 

Once again, thanks and appreciation to our bookstores. 

Mary Anna Evans - Findings

It was another Sunday author event at Goerings, one of Gainesville's independent bookstores, and I was there listening to Mary Anna Evans. 

Mary Anna Evans writes, mostly, Florida-placed mysteries, her heroine is an archaeologist so there's always a deep history component to the plot, and she never shies away from the modern tensions between the races, the sexes, and government agencies.  This is my sort of read. And she talked about how to do research, but not clobber your readers with it. ("Make every scene do more than one thing.") And she talked about her beginnings as a writer.  I was so happy every second I was there. 

We should thank, all the time, over and over, our local, independent bookstores for existing.  As an ex-bookstore woman, I know the best way to do this is to spend money in them. Yes, I bought two magazines and Mary Anna Evan's new book, Findings, while I was there.        

Silver River Story News

After a week of mostly staying home and wearing a variety of mumus (caftans, patio loungers, ugly house dresses -  whatever it is you call the garments that hardly touch your body anywhere.), I'm a stack of pages in on this chapter.  They might not be worth much, but they're there, telling some sort of story, a story that at this moment is boring to me, and it might be, but I know enough to know that I always think this at this point.  Anyway, it feels good to have racked up some words. 

I'm finishing a decent draft of this chapter by the end of the month.  Now, there's a nicely adamant statement of deadline.  We'll see what happens. 

 

  

   

Momentum and Salt Marsh Mallows

The toaster oven is still dirty.  I've been writing hard and, finally, maybe, I hate to say it out loud, this chapter has momentum.  Things are pulling together.  I think, "no, she wouldn't do that" and "this, this is what needs to happen right here."  The chapter is having its own authority.  And sometimes, just sometimes, I think I have this character's voice right. 

Whew, I was getting tired of feeling bad about myself. 

These are blooming in my yard.   

Two rejection weekend

Journal editors everywhere must have spent the weekend catching up on their backlog.  They work hard, each and every one of them, and I appreciate all their efforts.  So, thanks for the many wishes that I have luck placing the piece elsewhere. 

And, all weekend I've been procrastinating.  In the few hours that I was actually working, the writing was ineffectual.  I tried putting in a little hint of what was to come, realized my hint had the size and grace of a bulldozer, and then went and watched ET with a million commercials instead of redoing it.

And, now I'm whining.  If I still had periods, I'd think I was premenstrual.  Well, I'm going to post this and then I'll either get back to work or go clean the toaster oven.   

 

Atlantic Center for the Arts and Kelly Cherry

This October I'll be spending three weeks with a slew of other writers at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in New Smyrna Beach.  They feed us, they give us lodging in architecturally stunning buildings set among scrub oaks and palmettos at the edge of a bay, and they bring in writers like Kelly Cherry as master artists. 

A few years ago it came to me that I had to go learn about writing somewhere outside my comfort zone of friends and books.  The very first place I went to was the Atlantic Center for the Arts.  It made all the difference for me.  I finished my first book (as yet unpublished, but that's not the point), and I still have writer friends from those weeks we spent together. 

I am excited.