Pen trouble, scribble scrunch,
A blank catastrophe.
Orphaned notions
Dribble to naught.
Not a block
Blocks are solid.
Chasm? Void? Abyss?
What do you want?
If I knew the right word
We wouldn’t be here.
We’d be writing.
-Jenel Alan
I’ve been hesitant to post about this – because I said this last year and then hit a giant roadblock, but…if I keep on track with my “last read through” goals, my novel Rell will be fully ebook formatted and ready to rock by the end of this week. I’ve tentatively set a publishing date of November 1.
The next step is to determine if I think I can get the hardcopy formatting done in time to have that available by then as well, but I’ve decided that either way, I’m at least going to make the ebook available by the end of the year.
I have no idea if anyone besides my wonderfully supportive family and friends will even be interested in this book. But I’ve had enough positive feedback over the years that I have some hope. Hope that it will find it’s own little audience, however small.
A haiku in honor of the first day of autumn:
Pumpkin leaves, crisp air,
Cozy, yes, but I will miss
Salt water summer.
-Jenel Alan
A couple of weeks ago when I was on vacation I read Katherine Center’s book The Bodyguard. I enjoy all of Center’s books, but her novel How to Walk Away is especially powerful, and definitely a more serious work than The Bodyguard. That being said I loved every minute of reading The Bodyguard – it was warm and fun and enjoyable and meant to be entertainment. It was also, in my opinion, very well written.
And I wish our society did a better job of honoring the talent it takes to produce that kind of book. Because good writing takes hard work and talent whether that book is a feel good rom com or a gritty hard-hitting critique of society. In fact, Center’s books fall into a category of writing where I want to slow down and take the book apart so I can figure out what she did, learn from it, and apply it to my own work. That’s the best compliment that I can give another writer – when I read a book and think, “How, exactly, did they do this?”
And yes, this kind of book may not change the very bedrock of society, but it transports the reader and brings them joy – and those are two very worthy goals, and big reasons behind why I myself want to read and to write.
We are each
A universe
Expanding and vast.
Comets dragging the dust
Of our pasts.
Black holes that eat
Our hearts to nothing.
Dazzling nebulas
Where we shine, glorious,
Against the dark.
This skin you see
Is just camouflage packaging.
We are, each one of us,
A universe.
-Jenel Alan
Stumbled across this quote by author Lisa See and it made me smile – “Read a thousand books, and your words will flow like a river.”
I read a lot of books. My Goodreads goal for this year is 200 books and even that feels like not enough. Books fuel me in so many ways, they give me glimpses into other lives and other places, they help me understand myself and the world. I’m constantly learning new and amazing things.
And if Lisa See is right, I should eventually be a pretty good writer – or at least a prolific one.
The breeze breathes life,
Flicker and sway
To my arboreal neighbors.
My gaze makes them art,
Wonder.
They tell me to chill,
Wonder.
Green is not enough. Tree is not enough.
My friends deserve a language whole
To explain one liberated leaf
Dancing gold and dark along the road.
-Jenel Alan
One challenge I seem to have in the last few years is consistent momentum. I’ll have a few days where I scribble like crazy in a notebook and set a bunch of goals, and then….
More and more I’m becoming convinced that the secret to doing anything, especially if you want to do it well, is to work on it regularly. Either every single day or at scheduled intervals. I think that’s why I can be so successful in my day job in academia, while I struggle with momentum in my creative pursuits. Even though I love and want to succeed at both.
So this year I’m going to try to be better about scheduling in some creative goal time. I’ve decided to try and write a poem everyday, and am going to block out time each week to focus on writing. We’ll see how it goes. Wish me luck!
Sticky mist.
Water hangs and hides
In a fern curl,
On a fence rail,
Around the muddy cuff where the trail went
Boggy,
Pools and crashes
In a tease through the trees
Of the end and
Beginning of the world.
-Jenel Alan
There’s so much metaphor and poetry in driftwood – something that fell or was torn down, gets tossed around in the sea, damaged and deformed, and then is dumped on an unexpected shore – and yet is absolutely beautiful.
Jenel Alan 