Dissociation of the Real World

It's Nearly the End of August... Here's Some Updates

2011-08-24T16:56:00.000-04:00

Hello, darlings. I'm alive. I'm writing. I've also destroyed my blog at http://alanaicapria.com. What I mean by that is this: I don't like writing about myself. I don't want to do it. So I've changed everything so that only new creative pieces are posted. It's Alanacentric without being Alanacentric. Personal matters are veiled to the point that they are barely recognizable. Sometimes, I don't even realize that they're there. Which is better for everyone. I never liked keeping traditional diaries anyway. They just always got me into trouble. So go to the website and read to you heart's content. I'm there. And adding new material every Monday and Thursday.

It's Me!

2011-06-03T15:26:00.000-04:00

Hi, everyone! Yes, I'm still alive. Shocking, I know. If you've been missing me, I'm still over at http://alanaicapria.com. If you feel lazy and don't want to go to a new website, here's a brief recap of some stuff: I've been writing. I've been publishing. I'm still planning my stupid wedding. I have discovered the Kindle in conjunction with the NEO. I love them both and thus, am more productive. But all this sounds more interesting on my actual website. So go there. Visit me. You'll be happy, I'll be happy, this whole world will be happy. And that's just happy.

NaPoWriMo

2011-04-03T20:04:00.001-04:00

I had a change of heart today. All writing updates will be posted on the homepage of my website. So go to http://alanaicapria.com and enjoy the daily poems this month.

April Writing Challenges

2011-04-01T19:23:00.000-04:00

Hello, boys and girls. Just a quick note to remind you that my April writing challenge contributions are being posted at http://alanaicapria.com/blog/2011-2/04-2011/ and that other pieces can be found on the main page. So go read and enjoy.

Where I Am in the World

2011-03-16T20:28:00.000-04:00

Hello, darlings. If you've been looking for me, I'm still blogging almost daily at http://alanaicapria.com. Just go to the "blog" heading to go to the month you desire to read. Also, there are chapbooks galore and several links to other publications. So read to your heart's content and subscribe to the website so that you can get update notices.

January 2010... another year and I'm still blogging elsewhere

2011-01-13T17:06:00.000-05:00

Hello, darlings. Happy New Year, if I haven't said it to you already. The January blog is updated daily at http://alanaicapria.com/blog/2011-2/01-2011/ so click the link and enter my strange little writing world. Also, only two more days and the mid-month chapbook will up so don't forget to check that out.

December Updates

2010-12-20T23:28:00.000-05:00

Hello, friends. Happy holidays and have a Happy New Year. There are some interesting things going on at http://alanaicapria.com. If you haven't been looking at the daily December blog, here's the link http://alanaicapria.com/blog/december-2010/. Also, there are a number of new chapbooks up on the main page so check those out.

November Updates

2010-11-29T11:29:00.000-05:00

Hello, hello. The NaNoWriMo novel's three parts has been published on http://alanaicapria.com and the November Poetry Challenge prompts are all at http://alanaicapria.com/blog/november-2010/. The NaNoWriMo books are The Blue Cells, The Pink Cells, and The Yellow Cells. Tomorrow brings the last poetry prompt of the month.

November Poem-a-Day Chapbook Update

2010-11-17T19:52:00.000-05:00

If you haven't been reading them, the November Poem-a-day poems are up at http://alanaicapria.com/blog/november-2010/. Also, I've reached my NaNoWriMo word count of 50,000 words. The novel isn't done yet but hopefully, I'll have it done before next Monday. So go to the website and check that out. There is also a new chapbook at http://alanaicapria.com.So check that out.

November Poem-a-Day Challenge 2010

2010-11-06T18:51:00.001-04:00

This month is the November PAD challenge as well as National Novel Writing Month. I'm blogging my contributions daily at http://alanaicapria.com/blog/november-2010/. So check it out and enjoy.

I'm Retiring (But Not Really): AKA: Blogging Elsewhere, namely at http://alanaicapria.com

2010-10-21T16:15:00.000-04:00

I have been trying to sign onto my account for about a week. Each time I do, the operation times out. It's sad. And I'm frustrated. So from now until whenever, I will just be blogging at http://alanaicapria.com. There is a page heading of Blog and you can just select the month from there. It's just easier for me. So go there and enjoy. I'll miss you all here. But there are new and better things at the other website. Plus, you never have to worry about going between sites for the chapbooks.

So with that, goodbye, adieu, adios, etc. I'll see you all at http://alanaicapria.com.

Are You Ready for November?

2010-10-12T09:38:00.000-04:00

We're nearly halfway through October which means one thing: Writing Competitions! Oh yes my friends. As soon as midnight hits, signifying the start of November 1st, it will be time to stop procrastinating and get pen to paper. Obviously, synonymous with November, is National Novel Writing Month. If you haven't tried it out before, the goal of the month is to write a 50,000+ novel by November 30th. That's easy. Averaging about 1,700 words a day is a cake walk. Trust me. If you haven't signed up yet, go to http://nanowrimo.org to get ready.

The second competition of the month is the Writer's Digest Poetic Asides' November Chapbook Challenge. Every day of the month, there is a prompt posted and you have to write a poem based on it. The whole challenge is to finish the month having written thirty poems. Or if you're like me, you can just write a chapbook of poems based on a prompt every day. Yes, I'm talking about writing 30 chapbooks in a month.

So that's where we are. In a matter of less than two and a half weeks, we will be wracking our brains and churning through various sources of inspiration to see what delicious little stories we can put together. I'm excited. It'll be fun. Although honestly, I have no idea what my novel is going to be about. I don't have a title thought of or an idea. I have to start trolling my favorite websites to see what little goodies I can pull out of them.You should do that, too. Look at whatever creative resources you have. If worse comes to worse, read a book by your favorite author. That might spark something. And keep a list of any ideas you have. That way you'll have them all at your disposal when it really matters.

Have Submission Log, Will Be Organized

2010-10-11T10:48:00.000-04:00

Lately, I have been lazy. With organizing my submissions, I mean. At the start of the summer, I had a lovely list of pending publications, those that had been accepted and the unfortunate bunch that had been stamped with rejection. Then I filled up the papers I was using and that was the end of that. So I thought I would just organize the submissions in my work email. I had a folder for pending submissions, acceptances, and rejections. But that is a faulty system because the sent emails don't display a heading with the recipient. Yesterday, I buckled down and made a submission log. It's just a normal three-ring binder with three dividers in it. I didn't have regular dividers on me and didn't have time to go to the store so I used card stock. I divided the binder into three sections for all appropriate subjects. Now I'm thinking that I should add a fourth section dedicated to deadlines of pieces. You could obviously use a regular notebook or a computer log. I might do the computer log later on. But at least with the binder, when you run out of room, you can just add more paper. Then you have a running log of everything that is writing related. Organization is actually a very nice thing. It makes sense. It's also helpful because then when you aren't sure if you're about to send out the same submission you sent elsewhere, you have a note that will remind you. Good stuff.

If I'm in a Religious Setting, that Doesn't Mean You Should Shock Me

2010-10-07T11:15:00.000-04:00

Apparently, no one in the church thought to warn me that this month is Respect for Life month. Which means a bunch of post-menopausal women proclaiming that a woman's greatest role in life is that of mother. I call bullshit on that one. As a woman, my greatest role is that of writer. Anyway, needless to say, after listening to all these self-righteous old ladies going on and on about how through divine intervention and a series of cards upon which are written one of 600 names, numbers of women would choose to not go through their abortions. Once again, bullshit.

I have a number of problems with this: 1.) Out of the hundreds of thousands of names in the world, what is the probability that one of those 600 chosen names would be applicable to an unborn fetus; 2.) What if the woman can't afford the child? Will the church help pay for it?; 3.) What if all those children are placed into the social services system? That's a lot of kids needed to be placed into homes; 4.) Why does Respect for Life only apply to fetuses? What about the soldiers fighting over seas, the sick, the poverty-stricken? Same-sex couples trying to get married even though the church says they're sinful? What about people in general? Respect for Life should mean that the church encourages its members to respect everyone in this world no matter how they look, what their sexual orientation is, what their religious beliefs are, etc. That's Respect for Life. Not this stupid anti-abortion movement. I can't even bring myself to say Pro-Life anymore because it's such a misdirected phrase. Pro-Life should mean just that. Pro-Everyone. No matter what.

I wrote a lot of stuff about that. I just don't get why an entire religion is up in arms about hypothetical fetuses. Granted, I don't think that people should be going around having abortions just for fun but if the woman in question has a good reason to not go through with her pregnancy, who's to tell her she's wrong? Not to get all into the history of Catholicism, but considering all the people who have died in the name of the church since it became a religion, how can Catholics even justify their right to judge anyone else?

The only thing I know is this: when writing about something that I'm passionate about (pro-choice movement, animal rights, etc), I have a hard time attacking the theme because there is so much I want to say at once. It's a problem.

Savior Beeman now Live at Mighty Mercury

2010-10-04T23:15:00.000-04:00

Hello, hello. Savior Beeman is now live at mightymercury.com. The poems were inspired by

Unbearable Lightness by Tomáš Gabzdil Libertiny. It's a beautiful installation and you should check that out. Here's the link http://www.designboom.com/cms/images/andrea08/bees01.jpg. Anyway, for my piece, the link is http://mightymercury.com/home/443-savior-beeman-an-e-chapbook.html. So check that stuff out and enjoy.

October 1st chapbook posted- Lilith's Vulvodynia

2010-10-01T12:40:00.002-04:00

There's a new chapbook up at http://alanaicapria.com/2010/10/01/liliths-vulvodynia/. Check it out. It's good stuff. And Rabbit, Rabbit. Enjoy the new month.

Writing, Exhaustion, and Other Thoughts

2010-09-21T08:24:00.000-04:00

It's cold this morning. All I have to do is look out the window and know its cold. I don't know. Maybe it's a New Jersey thing. We are in tuned to the weather. Lucky us. It's the low 60s. Good stuff. I've just started the next batch of projects. I took a few days off of the submission process just because I was lacking in time. Plus, I think I've found the form I really want to focus on writing so I need to get a few more of those longer pieces done before I have enough excess materials to send out. Of course, I've also been playing around with fonts. I've been thinking that I want to add a visual graphic to my chapbooks but want to make certain that the file sizes remain small. So now I finally have a use for dingbats and webdings. Thank god. I found some really cool fonts with anatomical pictures and intricate flowers that I can use as borders. It's just the touch I've been wanting.

My next two weekends are incredibly busy. I'm talking about a montage of football games, birthday parties, anniversary dinners (4 years for the hubby and me!), and perhaps some hiking here and there. We shall see. The weather is crisp but it's perfect hiking weather. I don't want to miss out. Plus, my favorite part about fall is the leaves changing colors and thus, hiking is the perfect way to get that. Oh yes.

Oh, check out this link. It's about these two guys who are protesting a church that is actually opposed to funerals for homosexuals who have died of AIDS. The guys have turned church bulletins from the hateful pieces they were intended to be into more transcendental pieces about tolerance. I like it. That's what poetry should be used for. Not trying to destroy people. I don't like the idea of people actually complaining about men and women having proper burials because of their sexual orientation. That's so stupid. Then I think about the book Orange is Not the Only Fruit. That was a good book. If you haven't read it, you should. It talks a lot about how religion tries to change the way people are. If anything, true religion should embrace all sorts of people and strive to love them regardless. But I forgot... we live in an imperfect world and so many people are judgmental pricks. Sigh. http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2010/09/17/129934773/blog-mashup-turns-messages-of-hate-into-poetry-preaching-tolerance-and-love

In other news, we're a little less than a month and a half away from National Novel Writing Month and the Poetic Asides November Chapbook Challenge. If this is the first time you've heard of these challenges, then tsk tsk. This is some good stuff. In November, you can either choose to write a 50,000 word novel before midnight on November 30th or you can write one poem a day every day of the month. As for myself, I'm an over-achiever and do both. Why? Because it's fun. I'm deciding if the stuff I post will be put here or on my website. I might do both but just link to the website because it's simpler. I'm not sure. I do not know. I think I'm going to change the challenge around and instead of doing a poem a day, I do a chapbook on the subject a day. That'll require more commitment but I think I can do it. I have no idea what my novel is going to be about. I'm thinking that instead of working on a novel, I might write two novellas that are companion pieces but can survive in the world without one another. I'm not sure yet. But now is the time to start compiling information and inspiration so you can get down to the writing nitty gritty. I'm excited. I love writing challenges.

So I guess that that's it for now. I have so much to do and so little time. Have a productive Tuesday.

Write or Die?

2010-09-17T08:20:00.000-04:00

Well, aside from being my slogan in life, "Write or Die" is the name of a pretty awesome writing program that forces you to write. I'm not joking. There are a bunch of different modes so you can have the program be gentle with you or you can have it kick your ass. You tell the program how many words you want to write or how long you want to write for and then a timer starts. You type for that period. If you stop, the nicest thing that happens is little reminders pop up. If you want a stricter hand, then noises start playing and lights flash (I never keep the sound on but the lights are pretty annoying). In the most evil mode, if you stop writing, the program starts to delete what you just wrote. So to keep your words, you have to keep typing. It's pretty good at forcing your creativity out. I used the program in ten minute intervals. The first time, I got 850 words. The second time, I went up to 950 words. And the final time, I went back down and got 915 words. But that's not bad. I got almost three thousand words in a half hour. It was actually 2,715 words. Give or take about twenty. But that's not bad. Not at all. The website even mentions that if you're doing National Novel Writing Month in November (http://nanowrimo.org) using the timer settings will be a great day to get your word count. Don't forget that NaNoWriMo suggests writing about 1,700 words a day to reach the 50,000 word total at the end of the month so Write or Die could really be helpful. I'm actually kind of impressed by it. It's a simple program but quite effective. I think I might use it very often now. Oh and if you want, there is also a desktop version that is going for available on the website for about $10. So you don't even have to go to the website. I think I will buy it very soon. Mostly because I can see that being a program I would use very often. Now I can make sure that all my pieces are the same amount of words or that I spend the same amount of time on each one. So that's that. Go to http://writeordie.drwicked.com/.

On a side note, I got distracted for a second because some kid was running up the block shouting for someone to wait up. I hate yelling. It makes me want to keep the windows closed but then I don't get the benefit of the fall air (which I happen to be allergic to). I've been sneezing since yesterday.

Mid-September Chapbook Published

2010-09-15T11:26:00.000-04:00

Hello friends.

It's that time of the month. No, not that time. Chapbook time. The new piece is called Vanquish, the Turquoise Obsidian and it is Alice in Wonderland pieces. Good stuff. They are visual poems. The book called for it. I simpled listened and did what was asked. So go read them. It's good for your head. http://alanaicapria.com/2010/09/15/vanquish-the-turquoise-obsidian/

Where I am in the World Today...

2010-09-14T09:50:00.000-04:00

Today, I am all over the Inter-Webz. So exciting. I am the featured piece at Fertile Source with a series of prose poems. You can find all that good stuff at http://fertilesource.com/?p=774. Plus.... I've also been interviewed about the piece which is pretty awesome. This is my first interview ever. I feel legit. Look at me, I'm a real writer now (homage to Pinocchio... I always hated the movie and wanted him to get termites. Yeah). Where else am I? Well, right here. And at http://alanaicapria.com. Of course.

A Piece for National Suicide Prevention Week

2010-09-09T15:55:00.000-04:00

Sad that such important things are only given a short amount of time in the limelight. But whatever. So this week is National Suicide Prevention Week. I've published a piece in honor of it, although I will admit that the piece was written awhile ago. March of this year. Oh well. http://alanaicapria.com/2010/09/09/in-the-dark-we-are-scrambling-bilingual-piece-for-national-suicide-prevention-week-2010/. The piece is bilingual, as in, I wrote it originally in English and then did a second translated piece. It just felt right.

If you or someone you know are/is thinking about suicide, there are a number of sources you can go to. Try http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/ or the hotline number 1-800-273-TALK. If someone is mentioning suicidal thoughts to you, listen to them and get help. A few minutes of your time might help save someone's life. Suicide prevention is an important cause and if we all take the time to look at all self-harm threats as potentially life-threatening, we can make a difference.

Rejuvenation.. and Such

2010-09-07T11:04:00.000-04:00

I don't know what it is. The fall air, maybe. The fact that school started today. Or maybe it's just starting the day early. Whatever the case, I feel good. I feel better than I have in quite awhile. The last two days, I have finished chapbooks without a problem. I've also been submitting work again. I submitted two things the other day and four more today. That's not bad. Not bad at all. I feel better than I have in the last couple of months. And even better than that, stories have been coming to me. I had two dreams last night that will end up in a few pieces. And there was a dream from the other night that I have to use still. Plus, when I was showering yesterday, a story came to me and I had to scream for the hubby to bring me my journal. I'm sure that was quite a sight. Me trying to write in the shower while trying to avoid getting water on the paper. Good times. I wrote the entire piece like that. Granted, it was a short piece but I haven't been that inspired in awhile. I hope everyone else feels awake and is ready to get down to business. I wish you a wonderful autumn of writing and submissions. And if that's not your style, then I hope the fall foliage is amazing where you are.

On the Subject of Muses

2010-09-02T11:01:00.000-04:00

I've mentioned here before that I have been having some trouble with my writing. The words aren't flowing as easily as they used to. I struggle for ideas. I still write because writing is just one of those things you have to get through but too often, I hate what I write and mark it with a big old X on the file name. That is my system. Things I like have their title and the type of book. For example: "Novel- (Title)" or "Chapbook- (Title)." Things I hate look like this: Novel- X(title)X. All the X's sit clustered together and I glare at them in a very mean way. Because I hate them a little.

I told some friends that I think my muse is dead. She either offed herself or died from heatstroke. Either one is bad. Because now I am left without inspiration. And I mourn this loss. Seriously. You have no idea. Yesterday, I spent the sunny hours moping around, trying to keep from curling up into fetal position. Maybe I'm depressed and that's keeping me from writing. I don't know. I forced myself to finish some things but the energy wasn't there. I might have to start over from scratch until I get the feeling right.

But then, I read the news. More accurately, I got bored and looked at what search terms brought readers to my other website. One of them was "Little Red Drowning Hood." I liked it. I wanted it for a book. So I looked for it and found some newspapers talking about it. Apparently, she was this bitch who had some newborn puppies and filmed herself tossing them into a river. I imagine that you can figure out what happened to said newborn puppies in a river. Yeah. Apparently, she became my muse. I hated her. I wanted to kick her. So I pillaged her psyche. I transformed her. I ruined her. I left her to die. And it felt great.

Is it bad when your muse is on her way to becoming a serial killer? What does that do to the writer? Well, as someone with firsthand experience, I can tell you. You write. You write a lot. You finish an entire ten piece chapbook in less than an hour and pass out reveling in what you created. Oh yes, everyone, last night, I fell asleep from writing. And it felt so good.

That is what a good muse does to me. And then, when I'm done with the psycho muse, I can throw her away. I can drown her. I can leave her in a box until she starves. Or I can give her to someone else who can use her. There's an odd assortment of things. And I like them all. I feel recharged. Hopefully, this will last for awhile. Searching for a muse is hard work. No one legitimate answers help wanted ads anymore. Only the nuts. But it's cool. I'm patient.

September 1st Chapbook Posted

2010-09-01T12:14:00.000-04:00

Hello friends. Rabbit, rabbit. It is officially the new month. Yay! It's September. Back to school and all that. I'm excited. It also means that today, you get a brand-new chapbook. This offering is called "Factories in Our Backyards." You can find it at http://alanaicapria.com/2010/09/01/factories-in-our-backyards/. So check it out. Maybe it'll bring you some good luck this month.

"Hansel in the Shadows"

2010-08-29T20:21:00.000-04:00

Hellooooooo. I hope everyone had a lovely weekend. I know I did. Very relaxing. And I got a lot done. So good times. I have a new chapbook up at Mighty Mercury so feel free to check that bad boy out. It's called "Hansel in the Shadows" and it consists of mutilated Hansel and Gretel stories. Those are some of my favorites. Good times. So read it at http://mightymercury.com/home/437-hansel-in-the-shadows-an-e-chapbook.html

Recurring Characters

2010-08-22T23:44:00.000-04:00

I am on a Lilith kick. As in: Lilith, first woman on earth and eventual (demon) goddess. I like her as a character. She's sort of crazy. I like the feminist angle. She keeps appearing in my pieces. I have about five pending projects that all feature her in some way. I work like that very often. For example, take my Little Red Riding Hood stories. I loved those. I find a character I like and I just keep abusing him/her until neither of us can take it anymore. Then I leave the character alone and find a new one. I'm sort of like that person who just can't settle. I find a great thing but have to see what else is out there. We writers are the cheaters of the art world. We are always abandoning the things we have loved and then moving on. And that's okay.

Here's a brief mention of some of the characters I have visited again and again: Lilith, Eve, Bluebeard, Little Red Riding Hood, the Wolf, Hansel and Gretel, wax women.

Aside from characters that keep popping up, I also find recurring themes/words. My words lately have involved: glass, factories, anatomy, and moons.

Before that, my favorite thematic words were: wax, ax, wolf, candle.

You get the picture. I use all of those things until I get sick of them. And then, I finish the project and move on. Because that's how I roll. Because as terrible as it is, that is how writers just have to be. We work with a certain theme until we can't think of anything else and then we grab hold of the next thing wading near us. Like crocodiles. We sort of suck. Or at least, I do.

So that's where I am right now. I have been feeling sort of stuck lately but hopefully, this weekend will be the refresher I need. I crave seeing different things in order to ignite the gasoline within me. We're all like that. In the meantime, I'm still keeping a notepad with me at all times, just in case I have to get the words out. Compulsion and everything. Writing is like an OCD. And I like having it.

Graduation Weekend

2010-08-16T11:53:00.000-04:00

Well, friends, I have been adorned. Yes, I can now proudly wear my medieval-tradition MFA stole. I am legit. It has been a good weekend. Saturday night was the ceremony. My mentor said some wonderful things about me and I had some friends vote me as the "most excited graduate" of the night. It's an accomplishment. I'd like to thank my family for all their contributions. On Sunday, I had a party. It was a good time. The hubby got me a new necklace and flash drive, my new journal set, and Godiva. I love chocolate. My mom got me a new laptop. It was bitter-sweet to see it. I kind of miss my Dell Mini but it is two years old and I guess the time has come to replace it. At the very least, I have it as a backup laptop in case I just want to do some typing in the car. And my cousin got me a really pretty journal that has decorated pages. It was awesome. Plus, my grandfather made black beans in my honor and that is a big deal. You have no idea how much I love black beans. It's a Cuban thing. Anyway, so that's that. I am now an official writer. With the combination of my stole and all my publications so far, I'm feeling pretty good.

On that note, I have a few writing links to share. First up, I have a new chapbook up at Mighty Mercury called "The Wolf's Menstruation." The link is http://mightymercury.com/home/434-the-wolfs-menstruation-an-e-chapbook.html. Second order of business is the mid-month chapbook up at alanaicapria.com. The piece is called "Rage of the Tides." So go to http://alanaicapria.com/2010/08/16/rage-of-the-tides/ in order to read that. And that's it. I have a ton of work to get through. Some new projects to start, a main one to finish. I'm still getting used to the laptop but my back really likes it. It's a little bigger than my last laptop so I can sit more comfortably when I'm typing because I can see better. And isn't that all that matters?

So get your writing on, send some stuff out, and I will see you all soon.

Some Updates.

2010-08-11T12:13:00.000-04:00

Hello, friends. I'm sorry for having been away for awhile. I've been sending out chapbook manuscripts and various literary magazine submissions. I haven't sent out nearly as many as I've wanted but I'm getting back into it. This week has been very busy so far. A lot of writing and a lot to do. I officially graduate on Saturday, which is awesome. I can't wait to get my diploma. Then Sunday, I get my graduation party which is even more exciting. Plus, the husband is buying me a new flashdrive and a new Moleskine set which is great. I've also been debating controversial topics with some old friends. The topic at hand was abortion. It is very important when dealing with such a heated subject that you do not insult the other individual on a more personal level. And thus, I was able to keep from doing that. Sadly, she did not play by the rules but I did not waiver regardless. Little does she know, I will very happily be using that material for a fun little chapbook. That will be done some time today. I have some new chapbooks to finish.

Also, I'm trying out a new poetry experiment. This time, I use the poetry form as it is but write it out like prose. Then I use three verses. So for example, if I were to write a poem in the lanturne form, it would traditionally look like:

ccc

dddd

Each letter represents a word. Or a syllable. I like using words better. It's easier. Plus I'm non-traditional. So using that form, I'm writing a prose piece like this:

a. bb. ccc. dddd. e.

Only, because I'm adding more verses, it looks more like this:

a. bb. ccc. dddd. e. f. gg. hhh. iiii. j. k. ll. mmm. nnnn. o

Tada. So that's my new experiment. I did one of a tanka and one of the lanturne. Today, I think I'll do the diamante. It helps to use the word count feature just to make sure you aren't missing a word. You just triple or quadruple (if you want to use more than three verses) the original word count. So since a lanturne is 11 words/syllables, I would have to make sure that a piece would equal 33 words. Or 44. Or 55. You get the picture. It's pretty fun. So try it out.

"False Bridges" Published

2010-08-08T10:53:00.000-04:00

Happy Sunday! My piece "False Bridges" has been published by (This is) Disingenuous Twaddle. I am very excited. The piece is presented as a ten-part... piece but it's actually a chapbook. Each part is a different page. So I will describe it as a chapbook because that's what I originally wrote it as. Creative license. Today, I might go in search of this awesome church I saw last weekend. The hubby and I found it accidentally and I fell in love with the rose window in the front. Sadly, I didn't get any pictures of it but that could potentially change in the matter of a few hours. We shall see.

Anyway... here's the link to the piece http://disingenuoustwaddle.blogspot.com/2010/08/issue-seven-alana-i-capria.html. Enjoy.

Dwindling Inspiration and Newfound Outlets

2010-08-03T11:25:00.000-04:00

As I've mentioned here before, my creativity hasn't been all there. Which sucks. I'm still writing a number of things but none of it is anything I'm really pleased with. Basically, I'm writing because I have to write. If I don't write, I feel worse. I'd rather write shit than write nothing. Basically, I find that lately, when I'm at the computer, I can't focus on the task at hand. Maybe I'm finding the computer to be too technical. There are no cross outs I can see. I make a mistake, I delete it and the text looks perfect. Sometimes I need the uneven scrawl across a page, the blots of ink, just general messes on the sheet. That helps me focus. Last night, I turned my laptop off and sat by myself for a few minutes with my journal. I started two new pieces and felt good. Very good. So good, I thought I can definitely do that more often.

I've been having some good times with journals this weekend. My awesome little brother recently came back from vacation in California and brought me back a new journal. It was unlined and inspired by the Italian Renaissance. He said, "I got you unlined because I know you said that the lines stunt your creativity." Yeah, that's my little brother. He knows me too well. Later that weekend, the husband and I went to the bookstore and he bought me a little gift. I was going to get a bridal magazine (since I am still planning the wedding) but thought about what would serve me the best. In the end, I picked out a set of two Moleskine journals. They're the perfect size. Like a poetry volume size. Chapbook size. My favorite. The set featured complimentary colors. There was a blue set featuring a navy journal and a sky blue journal, a green set that had a lime green and an olive green, and then a pink set that had carnation pink and then magenta. For some reason, even though the husband preferred the green set when I asked him, I got the pink. I don't even really like pink all that much but it called to me. I will definitely be getting more in the upcoming months (and years).

Which makes me think of the lines my brother and I were talking about. I don't like certain lines. Wide-ruled paper makes me angry. I can't focus. It just seems... sloppy. If lines are going to be that big, there is no point in lines in the first place. Might as well just have blank paper. I hate it. I like a nice college-rule. Thin, tightly packed lines that are really lines. Oh yeah. That makes me feel good. That's why I love Moleskine. I also like the generic Moleskines that Borders has. Those are just as good and half the price. Don't think for one minute that I'm such an elitist. I'm like that girl who loves Prada but can't justify spending that much on a bag and simply gets the knock-off. Except, you know, I don't like Prada. I don't really like bags in general. But that's besides the point. All that matters are my journals. It's like the slogan: have notebook, will travel. The worst trips I ever took were the ones where I decided not to bring a journal with me. When I went to Montana, I brought my pocket pc but a few hours into the trip, I was wishing I had a notebook. I'll go on day trips and think, I don't need a notebook, and then I do.

I think journals definitely allow for more focus to be put on a work. There aren't distractions like there are on a computer. No internet. No little games. For the record, I have no games on my laptop. I took them all off to make sure I wouldn't play them when I'm writing. How's that for dedication?

This evening, the hubby and I might go walk around the park. Rest assured that I'm going to be bringing my new journals along, because they're light and fit in my bag just perfectly. Who knows when I'll get a story idea? For the rest of the day, I'll be switching between recording my journal entries on my laptop and creating new stuff. I swear, a few minutes with a journal and I feel so rejuvenated. You should try. That is, if you haven't already discovered such freedom and newness.

April 1st Chapbook Up

2010-08-01T11:02:00.000-04:00

Rabbit, rabbit, friends. That's right, it's already the first of another month. August to be exact. The summer will be over soon. I'm pleased.

Anyway, as I'm sure you know, that means it is time for a new chapbook. Let me announce, Graffitied Hallways. They are modernized tankas. In this case, instead of using sentences, I used the syllable scheme for word count. So the poem goes: 5 words, 7 words, 5 words, 7 words, 7 words. And done.

So check it out. http://alanaicapria.com/2010/08/01/graffitied-hallways/

Here is a short sample:

You dreamed the methadone clinic.
There was a hobby horse nurse inside.
She stayed behind the chains.
Glass was locked and she broke down.
She kept wiping at chalk saliva smears.

For Your Entertainment (My Morning)

2010-07-29T08:50:00.000-04:00

I woke up at 6:40 am. I got to my mom's by eight. I thought I was in for an awkwardly silent morning while waiting for the house to wake up but alas, I arrived just in time to let the gas meter guy in. Awesome for me. Because apparently, said gas meter guy took a liking to my wrecked nerves. And lingered in the side door trying to talk to me. The conversation consisted of him telling me that he: a.) thought I had grown up nicely, b.) believed me to have a wonderful smile, and c.) was very interested. Whoo hoo for him. Because I: a.) couldn't give a shit, b.) wanted him to leave, and c.) had stuff to do that was wholly unrelated to gas meter guy. Then, gas meter guy proceeded to happily stare at my chest, which I realized later (in a delayed reaction) was due to the fact that my sweater had shifted and thus, was no longer covering the top of my dress, which is slightly low-cut. Yeah. So he continues to try to flatter me, while I smile and laugh nervously. Then this conversation happens:

Gas meter guy: Are you trying to get rid of me?

Me: Oh, no, not at all. It's just that I have work to get back to.

Gas meter guy: Oh, really? Do you need help with any of it?

Me: No, no. I'm a writer and it's a pretty solitary job so yeah, I don't need any help.

Gas meter guy: Oh, you're a writer? That's pretty cool.

Yes, yes it is cool, gas meter guy. It is the coolest job ever. And it's even better because said job allows me to use it as an excuse to avoid further social interactions. Which means that as long as I'm a writer, you will never, ever be able to bother me again. Thank you, my lovely occupation/profession/art/craft/etc. You have saved my life.

Also, there was this:

Gas meter guy: so... (mumble mumble) single (mumble)

Me: I'm engaged.

Gas meter guy: Are you?

Me: Yep.

Gas meter guy: What does an engagement even mean?

Me: (thinking: well, it means that the hubby would probably rip you to shreds if he were here but he's not so fuck) It means that it's pretty much set in stone.

Gas meter guy: Oh.

There was a lot of creepy smiling going on. After telling the hubby the story, he was not pleased at all. Which is to be expected. Because I was not pleased either. Oy vey. A person can only be undressed with someone's eyes for so long. I probably should have kicked him and slammed the door shut. But alas, I'm too nice. One day though... one day. I'll punch the first person who stares for too long at my chest. They are not on display. I mean, they are, but that's not really my fault. They're there. But that doesn't give people any excuse to be so lewd. I mean, really.

And this is all before my interview. Can you say: Alana is royally fucked?

"Red Bits" Now Published

2010-07-28T14:29:00.000-04:00

Well, I needed some semblance of good news and I got it. My chapbook, "Red Bits," is now available at MightyMercury.com. This is the direct link http://www.mightymercury.com/home/429-red-bits-an-e-chapbook.html. The chapbook is ten pieces of the Little Red Riding Hood story told in first person. Good stuff. At least now I know that my inbox is partially alive. Blegh. So... go read it. Because Red Riding Hood stories are always fun.

Interview Preparation (And the Psychological Ramifications it is Having On Me)

2010-07-28T12:34:00.000-04:00

Oh boy. Oh god. So... I'm going through my chapbooks right now, trying to figure out which ones are representative of my writing abilities. And the more I read through them, the more I think, oh my god, no one is going to hire me. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that I can't think of any horror writers who have taught college. Feel free to correct me on that. I don't know. Maybe my writing is too dark. I know it has concerned plenty of people who know me. And if they know me, and thus are also aware that I am 1.) a vegetarian, 2.) a supporter of women's rights, 3.) an animal rights' activist, 4.) all for religious freedom, 5.) in fact, a raging liberal as long as people aren't promoting hatred (because obviously, hatred is a bad thing), then what is a stranger going to think about me? Especially when it's a stranger trying to decide if she wants to have me as part of the college faculty? My self-esteem is starting to get the better of me. And now, as I'm going through my chapbooks, I'm not sure how many I should even bring. Should I bring two? A few more? A dozen? Obviously, a dozen is a bit much. But three? A few that showcase different things I've been trying? Right now, I have three printed. One is the "Zygote Tankas" which was just published by Silkworms Ink. So at least then, I can prove that people do read my stuff and publish it, which is a good thing. And then, I have "Baba Yaga in a Temperate Zone" to show that I have been doing linguistic experiments, and finally, I have "In His Dark Forest" to showcase the typical stuff I do. But should I add more straight fiction? More poetry? The job I'm going for is teaching a composition class. I'm relatively certain I would have my students work on more creative things as well as straight essays. Essays are dull. And they can only learn so much from them. They need to be able to have poetry and fiction to understand writing as a more generalized study. Exposure and all that. I think I'm starting to drive myself crazy. Three chapbooks are fine. More than fine. I can't wait to get through tomorrow and be able to breathe easily again. Seriously. This has made my insomnia act up again. Us writers and all our hangups. Burden of the craft. Curse of the creative.

July Melancholy

2010-07-27T13:56:00.000-04:00

My email has been quiet lately. The last two weeks, I have gotten at the most, three emails. Thus, I am down. June was a considerably more successful month than July. Granted, I have to take into consideration that it is the middle of summer and people are probably going on vacation and just doing things that aren't work related. Lucky bastards. Still, I feel like a need a boost of self-esteem. It's amazing what a couple of rejections can do to your psyche. Even after having so many pieces published last month, I still feel completely blah. Plus, I have a ton of anthology submissions I'm supposed to do that I haven't even started. I sent two out from a list of about a dozen. Yeah, it's been one of those weeks. Things have been a little stressful. I've been panicking over my job interview on Thursday. I'm excited about it but very nervous. A part of me really wants the job because it would be great to teach people about writing. On the other hand, there's the commute, which just isn't on my list of things to do. Granted, it would only be a few times a week which I can handle but still. I'm thinking that if I can find an ideal public transit way to get to the job, that would be ideal. I don't mind public transportation. I don't really like driving to begin with. Plus, then I can get work done on the commute. My uncle does that. It's a smart idea. He's been doing that for as long as I can remember and hey, if it's been working for him, I might as well give it a shot. I don't know.

Anyway, my main goals this month have been focusing on submitting to paid markets. I've also been trying to submit mainly to chapbook publishers and anthologies. Just because if I sit there going through five thousand different literary magazines, I'll go crazy. I'm trying to give myself a submission shortlist, something that will allow me to focus my submissions a bit more and allow more time to create.

I'd like to go into hermit mode. Just wander into the middle of the forest, find myself a nice little home, and just write. No distractions. Nothing from the outside world. Just me and my words. Simplicity at its best. I would enjoy that. It would never happen though. I'm a 21st century type of person. I like my electronics. I need to have the internet and running water. I went to Montana years ago and had to urinate in an outhouse while we were touring Yellowstone. It was a terrible experience. Then, we went horseback riding and my bladder almost exploded. So I had to go pee in the woods. Never again. Not even if I'm on the verge of dying. I want a safe bathroom with a locked door and a fresh roll of toilet paper. Creature comforts and such. And a long extension cord so I can use my laptop without interruption. Actually, that would work. Get me some working plumbing and an electrical line and I am golden. I won't come out of that forest for the rest of my life.

Yeah... I'm rambling. I've been stressed this past month. Things have gotten the better of me. I'm emotionally tired and need something to jump start my creativity. I'd like to go on a vacation and just sit. Me, an endless horizon, and my journal/laptop. No responsibilities for a few days. Although I'd miss the rabbits. Then again, they can come, too. I'd let them forage in a garden. It would be nice. We could all use some fresh air.

My ideal office would be something that is on the second or third floor of a house, with tons of windows, and a view of some body of water/skyline. That way, when I was writing, I would just throw all the windows open and revel in the breeze. I'd probably have a small fan in there, just in case it got hot. And there would be some of my favorite books. And a stack of journals. And tons of pens. Roller balls, not ball point. I like the ink to flow more. That would be nice. And I would have a comfortable chair in the corner so if I don't feel like sitting at the desk, I can just curl up and relax. Maybe take a nap. It would be the best if it were raining. Unadulterated rain sounds. Good stuff.

Well, that's that. I've rambled enough. I have projects to finish and start. I use that order purposely. I have to finish what's on my list before I start anything new. Or not. It all depends. I need to go bury my head in some sand. Hibernate for a few weeks.

"Zygote Tankas" Now Available

2010-07-24T10:01:00.000-04:00

Eeeeeeeee! Silkworms Ink has published my chapbook "Zygote Tankas." I'm so excited. I really like this chapbook and I'm glad that they liked it enough to bring it into the world. So thank you, Silkworms Ink. You all rock.

A brief note on the form of the prose tanka. A poetry tanka consists of a syllable scheme of 5-7-5-7-7. What I did was use those numbers as the amount of lines that were in the paragraphs. So each piece has five paragraphs with 5 sentences, then 7, 5, 7, 7. It's all very orderly.

Anyways... so check that out at http://www.silkwormsink.com/chapbook_21.html. The best part is that the chapbook is part of the "sex " issue which I look at and say, "well, of course." Because I'm not afraid to admit that sex is a main topic in a vast amount of my writing. Sex is important. You can't talk about gender issues without bringing up sex. Nor can you really address life itself. But yes. So that's that.

Check "Zygote Tankas." They're ten strange little stories with zygotes running around. Who doesn't think that that's all sorts of fun? Zygotes are cute. And they can get into some trouble.

Hello... Here Are Some Updates

2010-07-22T14:19:00.000-04:00

Some orders of business:

1. I got called for my first job interview as an English professor. So that's next week. Whee! My mater will be coming with me since the college is an hour away and I don't feel like driving alone. What else are mothers for?

2. I have been submitting and writing, writing and submitting. I've been looking at anthologies lately because I feel comfortable having a directed theme. Also, I have been sending out chapbook manuscripts and such. Kind of hard to be a published writer if you're not sending stuff out to be published. June was a more positive month because it was full of acceptances. I'm not having the same luck in July, which is a bit defeating. But oh well. Art is subjective and you just have to hang in there.

3. There was an oil spill in China. Oil is taking over the oceans. I don't like it. Not one bit. Alternative energy sources, people. Come on already.

4. Completely unrelated to anything... I just read an article about some girl with curly hair who used that Brazilian Blowout treatment to conquer the waves. I'm slightly annoyed. It's people like that who give those with follicular curls a bad name. I, for one, love my curls and will not be destroying my hair just to be like all the other straight-haired sheep out there. Annoying.

5. *Tentative* museum trip this weekend with the hubby. Nothing like some culture to make you feel good. That and I need to find some inspiration. It would be nice.

6. Most importantly, I have a chapbook coming out tomorrow. And no, it's not at my own website. Yes, someone else is publishing one of my books. Come back in the morning for the link and other important information. In the meantime, you can always read some of the chapbooks posted at http://alanaicapria.com. Just because it feels good.

Have a happy Thursday!

Two New Chapbooks Up

2010-07-18T11:16:00.000-04:00

There are new chapbooks up at http://alanaicapria.com. The first is called "Baba Yaga in a Temperate Zone" and the second is "Open Letter to the Japanese Government."

"Baba Yaga" is the first of a linguistic experiment that I have mentioned here before. I am trying to merge English and Spanish (into a sort of written Spanglish) that enhances both languages and makes a more linguistically transcendental prose. In short, I want two different languages to mesh together and become permanently attached. And that is what I have done. So check that out.

"Open Letter" was inspired by TV's Whale Wars. The whole show is about an anti-whaling campaign in the Southern Ocean. There are Japanese fishermen down there, killing whales. The whole thing is, they say that they're killing the whales for scientific research. I call bullshit to that since I'm certain that most scientists don't find the need to kill animals that have been studied for decades. That's like going into the wild, grabbing some endangered tigers, killing them for "study," and then selling the bodies. It just doesn't happen. There's a word for what they're doing: POACHING. So the chapbook is a series of ten tankas that I wrote after watching the episode. They have to do with the actual act of killing whales and also, the aggresive behavior shown on the show (the ship pretty much smashed into a small boat when the crew was sitting topside. Then the people sprayed them with water cannons and almost knocked them into the water). There's a lot of death happening down there. Also, there have been fishing lines set up so that any animal that swims into it gets trapped and dies. We're talking sharks and dolphins and whales and all sorts of fish. I saw it and started crying. It was tragic to see. And thus, I wrote some poems about it. So click the link and read away.

Staying Healthy When All You Do is Sit

2010-07-12T09:33:00.000-04:00

It's no secret that the writer's life is somewhat... immobile. We don't really move away from the chair. Our fingers move. Sometimes we stretch. The most exercise we get is when we stand up to procrastinate a little. Oh well, it's exercise. But it's hard to be a good writer if you're not healthy. That means having a good diet and exercising. It keeps the mind and body strong. Unfortunately, it's hard to keep weight off.

I know this first hand. When I graduated high school eight years ago, I was 125 pounds. I stand at 5'6". It's a pretty good weight. Then I started college and gained my freshman fifteen. Then I lost it. Then I started dating the husband and that was when I gained the newlywed I'm-not-mentioning-how-much-I-gained. I won't do it. It's more than a freshman fifteen. Granted, I have height on my side so I don't look fat. But I know that I'm heavier than I want to be. And sitting most of the day to write isn't really helping me drop the pounds.

I have been working out extra hard these last two months. The pounds started to come off. I started to change my diet. I thought in terms of serving size and thought I was counting my calories in an appropriate manner. Let me say right now that when it comes to common sense, mine's limited. I'm smart. But book smart. When it comes to street smarts, I turn to my more worldly compatriots for explanation. So the thing was, even though I was exercising, I wasn't actually limiting my calories. Why? Because somehow, I managed to convince myself that when I was measuring out a cup of something, I was supposed to use the measuring cup. The liquid measuring cup. Not the solid matter measuring cup. And so I was giving myself more than I should have been. When I finally realized it the other day (yes, it took me that long), I realized that what I thought were perfect serving sizes were actually unrealistic. For example, a serving size for cereal is 2/3 of a cup. Measure that out. It's really not that much to keep you going. But if I buy rice cakes, I can have either two giant ones or sixteen small ones for the same calories as the cereal. Plus, I end up being more full.

I've already dropped three pounds from yesterday. Yeah. Apparently, limiting those calories really does make a difference. I feel better already. Which means that the creative juices are flowing a bit better than they were at the beginning of last week. I feel more inspired. I feel lighter. I feel ready to write again. And sometimes, it's not such a bad thing to take a break from sitting and go move around. Go for a walk. Just bring some paper with you so you can write down any thoughts you might have on your journey. That's what I'm doing today. My mom and I are going on a walk. And rest assured that my journal is already safely tucked into my bag. Because I'm devoted like that. And ready to lose the rest of this stupid weight.

Prose Versus Verse

2010-07-08T09:13:00.000-04:00

Is everyone enjoying the heat wave? There is no worst feeling than leaving the house every morning and immediately feeling the humidity and heat. I will take a good old Autumn day over everything. That brisk air just wakes you up. Oh well. Such is the life of living in the upper East Coast. Moving on.

This morning, I was thinking about genre again. I've already attacked the idea of fiction and poetry and the fact that it's hard to classify the two because their definitions begin to merge over time. I'm an expert on the subject. After all, my MFA dissertation was on the idea of a hybrid genre (or transgenre, as I named it).

Sometimes, I think I'm writing fiction but when I say I'm a fiction writer, it just doesn't feel completely true. So then I say I'm a poet but that seems even more like a lie. As I was walking around in a daze this morning, it dawned on me (and no, i wasn't trying to be clever with the parallels between morning and dawn. It just happened) that I shouldn't have to worry about that. Fiction and poetry apply more to content. What I'm interested in, is prose.

There is a definite distinction between prose and verse. Prose is sentence-structure, long wrapping lines on a page. Verse is the inevitable white space between words, lines, thoughts, etc. I do not write verse. I write prose. And that is all I write. Whether or not that prose happens to be fiction prose or poetry prose remains to be seen. But I don't think it matters. I just want to be able to have some sort of all-inclusive word that describes my writing when someone asks so I don't have to go crazy deciding if I should say I am a fiction writer or a poet. All I have to do is look at them and say, "Me? I write prose." They'll take it for what it is and I'll be in the clear. In fact, I'll be running away and making sure no one is following behind to ask more questions that might drive me crazy.

The reason I'm thinking of this is because when I send pieces out, I have to decide if my pieces are fiction or poetry. And because they have a lot to do with my idea of a transgenre (flash fiction, prose poetry, verse novels), I have trouble deciding. So I look at what's being published in both genres and figure out how to fit my writing in there. What I wish was that there was either a prose category or a verse category. No more hard thinking would be required about genre designation. I could simply say, "oh yes, this piece is prose. Moving on." And that would be that.

Maybe one day, I'll be given that gift. In the meantime, well, a girl can dream.

3 Pieces from "Ding Dong the Stepkid's Gone" Now Published

2010-07-07T10:18:00.000-04:00

As the title of this post said, 3 pieces from Ding Dong the Stepkid's Gone have been published by Clutching at Straws. Don't be so shocked by the title. They're Hansel and Gretel stories. Even as a kid, when Hansel and Gretel went to the witch's house, I wanted them to get eaten. Or at least Hansel. I don't know why I didn't/still don't like him. I think I always imagined him being this engorged little monster with such a fat face that his features just sink into his flesh. Kind of like a humanoid blob. Or something. I don't know. Just read the pieces. They're fun. I promise. Here's the link. http://clutchingatstraws.wordpress.com/2010/07/06/3-pieces-from-ding-dong-the-stepkids-gone/

"Wolves" from the Fairy Tale Ghazals

2010-07-06T12:22:00.000-04:00

Turns out I had another piece published today as well. "Wolves" from the Fairy Tale Ghazals. It was one of my favorite chapbooks to work on. So go check that out. I am quite pleased. http://amphibi.us/all/wolves/

I also hope that everyone is staying cool and writing. If you want to conserve energy, think about writing with pen and paper. Sometimes, there's something so liberating about a throwback to the first literary generations and going about craft more traditionally. Good times. I, sadly, will not be doing any of that and am spending my day with my laptop. But that's still saving energy because laptops need less power than a regular desktop. Laptops save the environment. Or something.

#3 from Carbon Monoxide in the Madam's Belfry Has Been Published

2010-07-06T09:16:00.000-04:00

Yes. So #3 from Carbon Monoxide in the Madam's Belfry has been published by Trapeze Magazine. Good times. Check it out. It's a very short story, less than 140 characters, which makes it as long as your average Twitter status. http://trapezemag.wordpress.com/2010/07/06/july-6-alana-i-capria/

Have Yourself a Writerly Holiday Weekend

2010-07-02T09:39:00.000-04:00

Well my friends, it is Fourth of July weekend. Yay for capitalist holidays disguised as nationalist holidays. And fireworks. I love fireworks. I will be writing this weekend, as usual, although I can't necessarily guarantee that it will be done in the house. In fact, I'm pretty certain that only a fraction will be done within four walls, a roof, and a ceiling. The hubby and I might go hiking again which will be nice and I'll be bringing my journal along to keep me company in the car and perhaps, on the trail. This is not new for me. A few years ago, I went hiking at Bushkill Falls with my family and brought along a backpack stuffed with pens and a looseleaf binder filled with unlined paper. I did sketches of some of the falls. Yes, I used to dabble in visual arts. At times, I still do. I like art. All aspects of it. So maybe I'll do something similar during the hike. You never know. Some other stuff might happen this weekend but there aren't really any definite plans just yet. All I know is, my favorite motto will be in effect: Have Notebook, Will Travel. The worst mistake of my life was when I went to Montana a few years back and brought only my pocket PC. Not very helpful when the battery is running low, you're in the middle of Yellowstone, and you have some writing you want to do desperately. I will never make that mistake again. I have been traveling with notebooks for years. One of my favorite memories is from when I was about nine or ten. I was going to Florida with my grandparents and my aunt, uncle, and cousins were meeting us down there. My grandparents had a pharmacy and I always took little notepads whenever I was there. So I met them at the store with my suitcase and my grandparents let me pick out some notebooks. I chose a yellow, pink, and blue notebook. All side-spiral bound. I loved them. Then we flew on down to Florida. One day at breakfast with my whole family, my cousin spilled chocolate milk all over my notebooks. The only one that was salvaged was the yellow one. I felt so traumatized. To this day, if she has chocolate milk, I hide my notebooks. Years later, I spent the weekend in Pennsylvania with my family and traveled the full three days with a number of notebooks stuffed in my bag. We went to a garden and I wrote down the name and description of every flower I saw. Now when the hubby and I go to museums, I bring my notebook along to write about the pieces I see. The best advice I ever got was from one of my undergrad writing teachers: she said that no matter what, always make sure you have paper and a pen with you because you never know what you're going to see or hear that will interest you. Write down a word or an image or a slogan. Anything. And it's so true. Because there are ideas out there just begging to be used. And if you don't write it down, you forget and then they can't be used and everyone is sad. And who likes sadness when it's a holiday? So bring your notebook with you and everyone will be happen. Well, maybe.

Piece from "Carbon Monoxide" Now Published

2010-07-01T12:10:00.000-04:00

Hi ho, friends! Nothing like a published piece to start your month off right. One of my short stories from "Carbon Monoxide in the Madam's Belfry" has been published by Trapeze Magazine. So check it out. http://trapezemag.wordpress.com/2010/07/01/july-1-alana-i-capria/

OpenOffice Add-Ons!

2010-07-01T11:18:00.001-04:00

I think I have mentioned before that I turned away from having a Windows OS PC in favor of going Linux. I love Linux. Like, you have no idea. I can edit pdfs and pictures and everything. And today, I found the best article about a bunch of new add-ons for OpenOffice (which is the default Linux word processor and a program that I install and recommend for every computer in my life. My mom's computer, my brother's, my sister's, the hubby's, various cousins', etc). The add-on I just installed is for the style of the font. My biggest complaint with word processors was that you're stuck with about sixty or so font colors. There is no variation. And I need different shades in my life. I can only use so much magenta. But this add-on allows you to have all the colors in between. There's even a function that will allow an entire font color scheme to move across your writing. So no more coloring each letter individually. Oh no, this program does it automatically. And it looks awesome. The flow is perfect. And I like the color schemes. Very pretty. I am so excited. It has a number of other things it can do but that was my first experiment. So far, I'm in love. Here's the link if you guys are interested: http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/reviews/7066/1/. It will change the way you word process. Maybe.

***ADDENDUM***
The add-on also works on the PC version of Open Office. So you can just add that and get to work. I'm also including an example of how you can use a rainbow for background text and then change the color of some of the letters to make an image.

The image is of a man and the background says "Can you see the man?" It was a first attempt.

July 2010 Chapbook Posted

2010-07-01T09:34:00.000-04:00

Hello, all. This month's chapbook is now posted at http://alanaicapria.com. It is called, "Later, When the Girl Realized She Did Not Love the Beast." The cover image depicts some lion fish. Why lion fish? I don't know. I guess because the image of the Beast I have in my head is the one from Disney's Beauty and the Beast and he sort of resembled a lion. But I didn't want to put such an obvious image so I used a lion fish. Because I was being clever. Or not. Cleverness is open to interpretation. Anyway, the direct link is http://alanaicapria.com/2010/07/01/later-when-the-girl-realized-she-did-not-love-the-beast/. The pieces are pretty short but I don't mind them. So enjoy.

Writing in the Park (Or Anywhere You Feel Like)

2010-06-29T14:38:00.001-04:00

Today, since I had to leave the house anyway to go let my mom's dogs out, I decided to be spontaneous. I went to the county park. I used to go to the park all the time when I was back home. I went running and strolling and sometimes, when I suffered terrible writer's block, I found myself a little bench and scribbled away. It was nice. And so I went back to it. It wasn't too bad. I got a lot more work done than I thought. And it was nice to just sit there listening to the river and the traffic on 21. I'm weird. I like the sound of traffic. Especially at night. Personal preference. So in short, I got out of the house and tried to recharge my batteries. I still don't feel 100%. I need something I can't even put my finger on just yet. I think I'm getting closer to figuring it out but still, it's eluding me. What a pain in the ass.

In other strange news that happens to be park-related, I saw some strange rodent like animals running through the bushes and heading towards the water. I think they might be mutants. If you are not familiar with the Passaic River, there are three-eyed fish. And maybe cannibal mermaids. And I swear that this is true: dead bodies. Yes, back in the day, it was the perfect disposal for all your unwanted dead bodies. Oh the stories I remember from childhood. And my mom told me some of them so you know they have to be true.

So that's that. Good stuff. Got out of the house, got some fresh air. I sort of longed for my laptop but I guess my journal was just as good. Writers can't get picky. It's just doesn't set a good precedent.

Mood and Writing

2010-06-27T20:25:00.000-04:00

I have been feeling... down. Sort of sad. I don't really know why. Anyway, the problem is that I can't really write as much as I want to when I'm feeling like this. Sitting down to focus doesn't really happen. That's the big thing with writing. It has so much to do with mood. There are certain emotions that make it almost impossible to focus on the writing task. Some people can only write when they're happy. Others have to feel like they're in love. Some do their best work when they're angry. I can't really write when I'm depressed. I want to. I feel compelled to. But when I sit and face the writing task, I can't focus my energy on it. That's where the whole professionalism comes into play. Writing is like any other job. You might not want to do it when you're feeling sick, but you have no choice. The job calls, whether you want to have a part of it or not. Writing is just like everything else. Eventually, the emotion stops driving it and the necessity kicks in. You just have to sit there and force it. Of course, it's not necesarily bad to take a few personal days in between and just recharge your batteries.

My Writing Scares Me

2010-06-24T14:52:00.000-04:00

Did I ever mention that from time to time, my writing scares me? Not the writing itself, but what the pieces are about. I am a total wimp. I love horror stories but I will close my eyes during horror movies (although I still watch them willingly). I don't like zombies. Strangely, I did find The Exorcist funny. Explain that one. The book was good. Still, it made me keep looking over my shoulders. That's what happens when I write about things I'm afraid of. If I write a zombie story, I type while panicked. If it's a ghost story, I jump at every noise. I'm on the verge of having one of those moments right now. I'm working on a piece about DP (demonic possession, not double penetration. Perverts). Yeah, demon stories scare the shit out of me. Paranormal Activity? I almost died. I would not walk around for close to a month without every light on. I would not leave the bed after midnight. I would sleep with the blanket wrapped around me. I was in constant fetal position. So now I'm getting ready to write a piece about a subject that makes me feel uncomfortable. Maybe I should blame the Catholic upbringing. Even better, maybe I should blame the Hispanic Catholic upbringing. We're a superstitious peoples. I am honestly waiting until the husband gets home so I can start working on it. So that way I have company while I'm scared. I guess that's sort of ideal anyway. If the writer is scared when writing the piece, one would hope that fear is passed onto the reader. I already know what I want to have happen. I have an idea for the opening image. I know exactly how I want the story to be set up. It's going to be a long story for me because since this is being submitted for possible inclusion with an anthology, the story has to have some actual characters. I have a page of notes sitting there. Quotes. Manuscript info. Later, I will have to do some actual research but not until the husband is home. Until then, I am killing time by working on some other pieces. True story: when I was young, my mom had fabric and metal scapulars attached to my bed board. They were literally there until I moved out. Now I have no freaking clue where they went. I think they're stuffed into a box or something. Stupid me. But yeah. So you can sort of grasp the paranoia. Let me just go on the record by saying that I'm really not religious. But I am horribly, horrible superstitious. I am not ashamed of that.

"Cassandra" is Now Up at MightyMercury.com

2010-06-23T13:58:00.000-04:00

Yes, yes. Go to mightymercury.com and read my story "Cassandra in 10 parts." It's actually a chapbook but whatever. The direct link is http://www.mightymercury.com/home/416-cassandra-in-10-parts.html. I'm a big fan of the more tragic Greek myths, especially ones concerning Medea, Cassandra, and other women. They had some pretty shit destinies. So check out "Cassandra in 10 parts."

In other news, I have spent all morning making copies for my final thesis. School is turning me into a tree murderer. It hurts. I swear, when I'm a professor, I will not require paper copies. If they're necessary, they won't be more than five pages. And single-spaced. I hate double-spaced. Personal preference. Seriously.

Oil Spill Poems Published

2010-06-22T08:01:00.000-04:00

The website poetsforlivingwaters.com is doing great things by merging poetry with cultural awareness about the oil spill. As soon as I found out about the movement, I wanted to a part of it. And now I am. This is a project that has meant a lot to me. Trust me. I have written over three dozen or so poems about the oil spill and hated each one. Finally, I wrote the ones that I submitted. And the poems are up now. And they don't seem bad at all. I am pleased. The direct link to the work is http://poetsgulfcoast.wordpress.com/2010/06/22/three-poems-by-alana-i-capria/. Also read the other writers on the site. There are some amazing works that will definitely make you start thinking.

On the Aesthetics of Text

2010-06-21T10:03:00.000-04:00

When I was a young Alana, I claimed I didn't enjoy reading poetry. I would only read fiction. Granted, I didn't complain about poetry when I had to read it but it wasn't something I would choose. Then as I advanced in my education and became exposed to different styles of writing, I fell in love with prose poetry. As I've mentioned before, my MFA thesis was on the differences of prose poetry and flash fiction and how I have determined that they are essentially the same things (as determined by a variety of factors my paper goes into depth about). The thing is, content-wise, there was no difference between the verse poems I said I hated and the prose poems I said I loved. And the same thing started to happen with short stories and novels that had a number of paragraphs per page. I couldn't stand the sight of it. And that was when I realized that my issue wasn't with the content or the genre, it was with the amount of white space. I wanted to read blocks of text, with the words just coming at me until they stopped. I didn't want pause after pause after pause. I wanted an uncensored stream. Hence why I liked prose poetry and flash fiction so much. Because there were rarely line breaks. When there were, they weren't numerous and so I was able to tolerate them. I brought that love-hate relationship into my writing. I didn't want to worry about white space. Even now that I'm doing my own version of prose poetry (where syllable count instead stands for word count per verse/paragraph), I can't stand the spaces. So now I'm thinking about my prose poetry in terms of total sentences. For example, let's look at a haiku. The typical bastardized English version says that the poem should be written as 5-7-5. That means there should be five syllables in the first line, seven in the second, and five in the third. What I would do with that is look at it as sentences. The first paragraph would have five sentences, the second would have seven, and the third would have five. But what if I want to avoid doing three paragraphs? What if I only want one? Well, I just look at the sum of the sentences. Simple math. 5+7+5 equals what? 17. Yay. We're all geniuses. So that means if I were to write a block piece inspired by haiku, it would contain seventeen sentences. Easy. So that's what I'm thinking about doing now. It could be an interesting experiment.

Soooo... How Many Submissions are Enough?

2010-06-17T10:05:00.000-04:00

My intention lately has been to spend hours looking at different publishers and send a number of things out in one shot. But that eats up a lot of time that I don't really want to be wasting. Then I thought about it and decided that if I can at least send one or two pieces out a day, then that is more than enough. Think about it. If you that amount out a day for an entire week, by the end of the week, you have from seven to fourteen pieces floating around and maybe getting adopted. It's better than having none. Or even just a single piece. And then if you look at the month, that's a lot of submissions. At least 28. Maybe even 56. Yearly? That's ranging from 365/366. Double that and you're looking at 730 or 732. That's a lot of pieces. So I'm going to go out on a limb and say that those numbers are pretty good. So submit at least one a day. You'll rack up your submission numbers and you'll be able to spend a bit more time on the creative process, which, if you're like me, is your favorite part of the whole thing.

Thoughts on My Career

2010-06-16T09:26:00.000-04:00

Last night, I got another acceptance for three poems. I don't want to discuss the publication yet but I'm very excited to be a part of it. So yay. And this morning, as I thought about getting that acceptance, I started to dwell on my career.

I always wanted to be a writer. I started writing novels when I was in the first grade, although I never got past the second chapter. I wrote my first complete novel in fifth grade and three more before the end of seventh. My longest novels were written during the summer of my sophomore year of high school. I used to love writing novels. Then my attention span shortened. And it turned out that I wasn't so much of a novelist as a short story writer. The point is, I wanted to write. Even when I spent my elementary school years convinced I would be a marine biologist, I knew I would be writing on the side. It was just something I had to do. Then I changed my career path to focus entirely on writing (it helped that my father helpfully brought up the fact that more than anything, I hate swimming. I can swim but I hate it. I don't like going into water. Because then, when you come out, the sand starts sticking and it's just gross).

I wanted to be a well-known writer by the time I was twenty-one. And so I wrote. A lot. And my family encouraged me. But no one ever actually sat me down and said, hey if you want to be a known writer, you have to submit your stuff. In the back of my head, I knew I had to do that but my submissions were maybe one piece sent out every year or two. I didn't have the patience for it. Now at the age of 25, my career is starting to move in the right direction. It might be because my writing has gotten strong enough that I feel secure in what I'm doing. It could be because I finally embraced the truth of writing and started submitting my work more frequently. I would still rather be writing then sending things out but I'll just languish in my own little literary circle and that would be very lonely and not fun. So I'm trying to put myself out there. I'm trying to be the professional I know I am. Because when I look at other writers my age and feel jealous, I have to remember that they were the ones submitting and I wasn't. So any sense of failure I feel right now is all on me. If I don't submit, I won't get published, and I will just remain this anonymous entity. And I want people to read my work and take something away from it. So I have to embrace the more work-related aspects of my career and just take the time to do it.

So, obviously, I have submissions today. It helps that I will apparently have a few extra hours during the day to use at my discretion so I should just get the emails out of the way and then buckle down to focus on my favorite sort of work.

New Website

2010-06-15T18:00:00.000-04:00

After much struggle, I have finally gotten a new domain name for my chapbook blog. So now you can find me at http://alanaicapria.com. I feel so professional. It's awesome. So go check that out and enjoy. It'll be fun. I promise.

Since When is My Body Your Business? (Answer: It's Really Not)

2010-06-15T09:28:00.000-04:00

The stepkid came home yesterday with a story. It seems that the crossing guard by our house asked if I was pregnant. No, stepkid answered. Are you serious, the crossing guard asked. Please know that she had already asked me this question a few months back and I've been the same weight for the entire school year (well, I've been working on dropping a few pounds but it's a slow process. I don't lose the weight as easily as I used to. Stupid 25 year old body). Granted, my abdomen is a little pudgy but that's a genetic thing. My mom and I both have a pouch. That's where the weight goes. The rest of me stays slim. Besides the fact that I'm not fat. I'm 5'6" and carry my weight well. I hate when strangers ask if I'm pregnant. It's none of their business. I've decided from this point on, my response will be simple:

Stranger: Are you pregnant?

Me: No. Nor do I ever want to be. Because children are all evil and I don't want to waste my life taking care of some spawn child that will never respect anything I do for them. That and I'm too selfish to have children. My time is valuable. Plus, I don't want my vagina getting stretched out of shape. And I'm not a fan of shitting in front of the medical community while a room full of scrub-clad doctors and nurses stare at my genitals waiting for the kid to finally stick its head out. Oh, and I don't do well having my sleep interrupted by screaming infants. Yeah, I'll pass on all that. Thanks so much for asking.

Stranger: (Speechless. Jaws wide open.) Uuuuuuuuuuhhhhh....

Yeah. That's what I want to do. And yes, those are my true reasons. I have no desire to have children. I have never wanted kids. Ever. Granted, from time to time, I have pondered the idea and each time, I have come to the same conclusion: kids are cute when they're teeny tiny but then they start screaming and demanding things, thus leading to my hating them for the rest of their lives. And really, who wants that? Because I would hate my own offspring. I hate the rabbits at times and they don't even speak. But they annoy me. Because they sneak out of their designated play spaces and I have to waste time chasing them. I am not going to spend my time doing that with a kid who will yell back and be all, you can't tell me what to do! Because I can tell you what to do, you little shit. And if you don't shut up, I will beat the ever loving crap out of you and feel no remorse. None.

The point is simple: I will hate anything that comes between me and my writing, whether it is born of my own flesh or not. My writing is my perfect child. It does what I want. When it disappoints me, I can trash it or just shove it into a secret file and never think about it again.

So no, Mrs. Crossing Guard, you giant fat ass. I'm not pregnant. And I will never be. Because if having children means that I will have a body containing over 100 gallons of liquid blubber, I want nothing to do with it. You can keep that shit to yourself. You orange jacketed fatty.

Total side note: the guy who lives upstairs is drilling something. I'm not sure what but the sound annoys me. It's been going on for at least ten minutes. Although now that I think about it, there is a distinct possibility that the sound could actually be a vacuum cleaner. That would probably make sense. Or a leaf blower. I could probably just glance out the door but I don't feel compelled to move in that direction. I'm having a lazy morning.

Also, Father's Day is Sunday. I have to start the chapbooks for the hubby and for my paternal unit. Yes, my father gets a chapbook as well. Although it's questionable if he'll read it. He gets my books but never opens the cover. He's afraid of ruining the binding. Yeah.... mint condition books are cute in theory but honestly, I'd rather read what's inside than just stare at a glossy cover. Although a good cover is always nice. My plans for the chapbooks are simple. My grandmother gave me several things if ivory and cream resume paper so it's a very thin vellum like paper that I'm going to use over the cardstock covers. I'll sew the pages together with the sewing machine. Luckily, I don't need to add the same embellishments that I did for my mom's mater day chapbook since my dad is all, I'm a man. Yeah, dad, we get it. You're also obsessed with buffalo. It's a personal choice.

I might just write him a bunch of poems about buffalo. He'd probably like that. Plus, if he doesn't read the book anyway because he's afraid of messing up the stitching, it's not like he could really give an opinion.

The hubby's chapbook will look the same cosmetically. Usually, the poems are just odes to him and our relationship but I get bored. He enjoys cars though. And video games. Maybe I'll do a series of poems based around a car. I could totally pull that off. He would love it. We'll see how ambitious I am. And if I can actually remember all the cars he likes. I'm not a car person. Not in the slightest.

So that's that. I spent all day on thesis edits and I'm pretty much done so I get to enjoy today and all its unadulterated writing glory. I am giddy with anticipation.

***DISCLAIMER***
Parents: I'm glad you are pleased with your life choices. Enjoy it. Don't preach to me that I would benefit from your same decisions. I wouldn't.

Any one who is overweight: I have no problem with you in the slightest unless you keep asking me if I'm pregnant in the hopes that I gain weight. But as long as you don't, we can be great friends.

Thesis Victory is Mine!

2010-06-14T14:07:00.000-04:00

Well, sort of. I have page numbers to work through. But that's simple. I'm so happy to be done. You have no idea. I did edits. I fixed citations. I adjusted formats. I made sure sentences were to the point. Anything that confused me on the first read through got deleted. I have been working on edits for the last four hours. I haven't created anything more than an author's introduction to my short story collection. The freaking thing was so long. 106 pages. Yeah, that's long for me. Please remember that my chosen page count is between 12 and 16 pages. Anything longer makes me itch. But I'm done. I feel so happy. I want to cry a little. Sadly, my entire day is pretty much shot. Tomorrow, I have to get information from the program director about proper thesis format. So that will be my new project. But at least I got through the big things. They said that it would be easy and not to get too crazy over it. Well, I did the best I could. I read it many times over. I made sure things were clear. This is the last time I will ever do this again. Whew. I'm so tired. I would very much like to nap but I have to get my afternoon run in. It's important to stay healthy as a writer since sitting is so much a part of the job. So exercise should always be included in your daily schedule. That's just a fun tip for you.

6 Pieces from "Asylum Fairy Tales" published

2010-06-14T09:54:00.000-04:00

I say six pieces from the chapbook but that is actually the entire chapbook. My brain fart this morning was obviously pretty bad because I didn't remember that the pieces were due out today until I was in the shower. I do my best thinking when I'm unable to get at pen and paper or electrical devices. Anyway, yeah. So those pieces are out. I like them very much. They were inspired by the show "Ghost Adventures" on the Travel Channel. See, the show spends the first twenty or so minutes talking about the history of the places being investigated. The histories are wonderfully dark and disturbing. That's exactly how I enjoy my history lessons. So I sat and pondered the history of the place (I Googled the episode that had "manbaby" in it and am pretty sure the episode in question was Wolfe Manor) and came up with a chapbook's worth of pieces. I'm just good like that. So check "Asylum Fairy Tales" out. The link is http://www.weirdyear.com/2010/06/61410.html.

This Morning...

2010-06-14T08:14:00.000-04:00

I am drained. Physically. Emotionally. And I really have no good reason as to why. I did stay up late last night, which wasn't such a great idea. Bad me. It's been a busy weekend. I went to Long Island last night to visit my family and typed up a chapbook on my cell phone. So I got work done. Now it's Monday morning and I know I have a full week ahead of me. Plus, Father's Day is Sunday which means that the hubby and I have a short weekend together (he'll be getting his son early). I need to recuperate. The week's goal is to make sure all the edits for my thesis are done. Since I was already told that the degree is mine, these are the last little things to make sure my thesis materials are perfect. Luckily, the only thing I really have to worry about is the essay. The book itself is fine. It just needs an author's introduction. Still, that's time I could be spending on other things. I feel stinted in terms of creativity as well. I feel like nothing is boiling. It could just be because I haven't gone through my creativity files and used the material there. It could be because I need to take a small break from writing (like that would ever happen). Mostly, I think I just need a vacation. Two days off a week just isn't cutting it any more. I need a week to just sit and veg with the hubby and just breathe. It would be nice. Everyone needs a break now and then. Even artists. Especially artists.

It's Called Dedication, People!

2010-06-12T10:41:00.000-04:00

Our friends' wedding was yesterday. It was nice. They looked so happy together so congratulations to them. In between celebrating, I was able to fit in some writing time. Cell phones are a wonderful creation. I have my email addressed programmed into mine so I can just send whatever I write over and just download it once I get home. I finished the last nine pieces for a chapbook I was working on while sitting at the table. Good times. I had originally wanted to bring a notebook but my bag was too small to fit the journal I had. Plus, then I would have had to type everything up which is a pain. Might as well copy and paste. So that's that. It's a lazy morning for the hubby and me. We are due for our run soon but are procrastinating in the meantime. I have a love-hate relationship with running. It's my favorite form of exercise (well, that and dance. And maybe tae kwon do, but I haven't done martial arts since I was an undergrad). Plus, it always brings back fond memories of my cross-country days. And that's a nice thing. The plan for the day is to get some writing done, go to church because my grandma wants me to, and then I'm celebrating my MFA with my family. I might also do a little wedding planning because last night as we were driving home, the hubby decided that he might prefer to not get married in the church and just have the ceremony at the same place we have the reception. So I have to start researching some places if it turns out that our original place doesn't have a ceremony site. We never asked because we were having a church wedding. We can be stupid asses sometimes. Oh well. Now that I've rambled about six thousand different things... enjoy your Saturday. I'll be enjoying mine.

Post-Panel Thoughts

2010-06-10T11:08:00.000-04:00

My panel experience was really positive. Everyone had good things to say. They spoke about my creativity, how I was doing such different stuff. But of course, I'm not perfect (although I'd like to be...). They also said that sometimes, my "pieces" (even they agreed that many of them can barely be called "stories") had such ambiguous endings that they barely seemed like endings at all. I needed to work on writing more concrete last sentences for later in my writing career. I thought about this and decided that they're right. They also said that I have certain patterns I rely on in my pieces. And that's true, too. I get into a rhythm that I tend to stay in no matter what. They said I need to give myself permission to explore what else can happen. My mentor has been telling me that for ages. I've been trying. I should mention that my thesis pieces are older works and that my writing has gotten better since (or so I think). I'm not bitter at all about these critiques. Learning how to embrace comments is an important part of writing. Acknowledging the truth behind good comments is how you get better. Nothing the panel said was any surprise to me. They were things I knew but needed someone else to tell me, anyway. And now that those are all out in the air, I need to really think about them. I have to try new ideas. I have to experiment more than I have been. I don't want people to read my work and then say at the end of it, wow, that was really just a shtick. I don't want it to be. So I have to work on expanding my stylistic repertoire. It's for my own good. In other news, the hubby and I have a wedding tomorrow so I'll be spending the day getting ready (no, it's not our wedding... although I wish it were. I just want stupid holy matrimony ceremonies to be over with... completely unintentional rhymes there... my bad). I would like to blog but I doubt I will. In fact, I doubt that I'll be doing a lot of writing. I might smuggle my notebook in my bag though. Considering that most of our friends there know I'm a writer, they won't be at all surprised if they see me hunkered down in a corner scribbling some lines. But we'll see. Hopefully, I'll be spending the night dancing. A writer's got to take a break now and again.

I Got My MFA!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2010-06-09T15:35:00.000-04:00

It's official. I am no longer an MFA candidate. I have an MFA. I am a master of writing. I feel giddy. This is great. The phone conference went well. Everyone was so nice. I just have a few edits to make and then that's that. Typical final touch stuff. It was described as making my stuff as good as it can get. I feel relieved. A part of me can breathe a little better. This is me breathing.... breeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaath.

Panel is Today

2010-06-09T09:05:00.000-04:00

I am nervous. Nervous is an understatement. Petrified is a better description. But not literally. That wouldn't be helpful in the slightest. But I am so scared. I'm nervous about panel to begin with and the prospect of a phone call does nothing to calm me. But it's happening. The hours are moving quickly. Before I know it, 2:30 will be here and I will be calling into the phone conference. I only hope that the questions are minimal, if there are any at all. I hope that I am able to collect my nerves long enough that while I am speaking to the panel, I sound coherent. When I'm nervous, I start stumbling over my words. I forget things. My mind goes blank. Please, do not let that happen here. I just have to keep telling myself that I can do this. I've already done the hardest part of the degree and that was the presentation. I nailed that. I have gone over all my manuscripts about a dozen times. Near the end, I couldn't think of anything else to fix. If I saw those stories again, I was going to break something. I just hope that everyone likes them. My mentor said everything was pretty good. And my second reader is my craft and form mentor so my essay should be fine. And I never had a problem with annotations. So let's hope that I am able to proudly say that I am the first person to graduate from my program without having to do any revisions. That would be nice. My ultimate goal right now is to keep from going crazy. I am cold. I should be writing until it is time to find out about the degree. I can do this. I am brave enough to do this. Not a problem. Not a problem at all. I will post later sharing the results of panel so we can (hopefully) all celebrate together. Party at my blog!

One Day Until Panel

2010-06-08T08:41:00.000-04:00

Yes, that's right. I am officially a day away from learning my MFA fate. That degree will be mine. I will own that piece of paper. As you can probably tell, I am nervous as hell. It's a phone conference. I would rather go in to the actual conference and stand in front of everyone than have to talk on the phone. I hate phones. I avoid phones whenever possible. Ask anyone and be prepared to be told that I am a master get-out-of-talking-on-the-phone manipulator. I will not do it. I just won't. I have gotten into half hour arguments with my sister because I refused to make a phone call. I don't like it. It's a phobia that has been with me since childhood. It could have to do with the fact that when I was twelve or thirteen (an impressionable age), I called the local pizzeria and the guy on the phone started flirting with me. It freaked me out. Since then, I don't like phones. I also resist going to the deli counter. So that's a little bit about me. I should really write some chapbooks about the deli counter from hell to put my fears into perspective.

Anyway, so tomorrow, I will be able to report back with what I was told by the panel judges. Hopefully, my mentor will be like, Alana is so awesome and you have to let her graduate. And then everyone else will be like, we agree, Alana is that awesome. And then together, they will all turn to me and say, Capria, the degree is yours. Go forth and write.

Or some abbreviated version of that. I'll be fine with just a "Congrats, you graduated. See you at the graduation ceremony." Yeah, that'll work just fine. So nervous. I can't wait to get it over with. Oh, I really don't want to make that phone call. Deep breaths.

5 Pieces from "In This Dark Place" published

2010-06-07T15:22:00.000-04:00

I have 5 pieces from "In This Dark Place" published at Seahorse Rodeo Folk Review. So go check those out. The link is http://issuu.com/jackbluff/docs/june_2010_issue/1?mode=a_p.

"The Chronicles of Lilith and Eve"-November 2009 PAD posted

2010-06-07T10:41:00.000-04:00

I never posted the chapbook from the November 2009 poem challenge. There were assorted reasons as to why I didn't but I finally figured, fuck it. So it's posted at http://alanaicapria.wordpress.com. The chapbook is called "The Chronicles of Lilith and Eve"and is a single chapbook of the entire month's pieces. I also have a shorter version of it called "Women in Eden" but that's not available for your pretty eyes just yet. You'll just have to be patient and wait.

Also, I have decided that all the creative writing stuff will be posted directly at my wordpress blog. So from now on, all April and November challenges will be found there. I might still post some pieces here but who knows? Stuff having to do with current events and writing craft will still be posted here regularly. This decision allows for a division between selves. It's helpful.

So that's that. Things are changing. It's good for everyone.

3 Pieces from Hysterectomies in Wonderland published

2010-06-06T12:50:00.001-04:00

I have a new publication up. My second post with MightyMercury.com is now posted so check that out. It's three pieces from my chapbook "Hysterectomies in Wonderland." The direct link to the piece is http://mightymercury.com/home/411-3-pieces-from-qhysterectomies-in-wonderlandq.html.

3 Pieces from "Judges of the Underworld" published at Danse Macabre

2010-06-04T09:28:00.000-04:00

So apparently my buckling down and sending stuff out is really working. I submitted 3 pieces from "Judges of the Underworld" on... Wednesday? I think. Let's say two days ago. I doubt it was more than that. And Danse Macabre has already published it. Out of three magazines, two have already responded with acceptances. I'm really liking this. By my count, since I started submitting at the beginning of the month, I have had a total of 36 separate pieces claimed. It's pretty exciting. Eeee. It doesn't change the fact that the submission process still annoys me but at least it's working out. Anyways... here's the link http://dansemacabre.art.officelive.com/Cinefiction.aspx. My pieces are the first ones which is always fun. Then again, it could just be because of the alphabet. I always enjoyed having a last name that was so close to the beginning of alphabetical listings. It gave me a bit of a complex in elementary school. And high school. And college. And probably even now. I was about to say that I'm not normal and then I turned to look at the small rabbit. She's not normal. Weird little thing. Yet, I enjoy her company.

Anyway, that was a bit of a tangent. So yes, go check out my pieces. They're fun. And probably a bit perverse in some way. But who cares?

On the subject of submissions and stuff, I've been thinking about productivity. I used to feel like I had accomplished something great if I finished a single chapbook a day (please note that my chapbooks have a total of 10 pieces each... they are very short booklets. Only in rare cases are they any longer). Then I started to write shorter pieces and started to finish two chapbooks a day. Then I got to three. Now I'm doing longer pieces and finding that my idea well is running dry. So output has been significantly slower. And I can't help but think I'm not producing as much as I should be able to. I don't consider submitting works part of my productivity. I could write three poems and submit fifteen works and I would feel like I did nothing. Which is strange. Because it's something. Or, if I'm doing research, I don't consider that part of my work, even though it is. I don't know. It's a conundrum. Anyone have any ideas about it? What do you consider being productive?

Just... Some Stuff

2010-06-03T09:20:00.001-04:00

I feel like a lame ass for admitting that I'm tired today. Yesterday, I spent hours submitting stuff. It cemented my hatred for the submission process. I also revamped my resume. Fun stuff. On a happy note, I did get an acceptance for two pieces. So that was nice. Oh, and I got another email from school saying that panel was going to be scheduled for next Wednesday as a phone conference. So I might actually be graduating. I'm excited. Yay for good news.

My idea of using syllable structure in poems to make sentence structure in prose is coming along nicely. I worked on some etherees yesterday (syllables go in order from 1-10 and so the stories I wrote had a first sentence in the first paragraph, and on and on until I reached ten sentences in the tenth paragraph). The stories ended up being longer so I ended the chapbook early. No point in beating my brain up when it's tired. I've decided that for pieces that aren't clear stories, I'll use a shorter form. I also wrote a series of prose diamantes in remembrance of the oil spill.A few of them got submitted so we shall see how that goes.

This is just one of those days when I feel really drained. I don't really want to do anything. I want to sit and just veg out. But alas, I do not get to rest. I have writing to do. There are five projects I haven't started yet just sitting in one of my files and I need to get through them. I hate having pending projects. Then again, I hate not having pending projects. I'my very back and forth today. I need an environment change. Just for a day. Get out of the house. The worst part is that this was supposed to be a short week because of the holiday but I feel like it's been dragging on forever. Right now, my mom would tell me, "Alana, get out of the house and go on a walk." It is a tempting idea. The only thing stopping me is that my allergies are pretty bad today. I've been sneezing since I woke up. So going back out there with all the allergens that have it out for me is not on my list of things to do. Oh well. Maybe I'll do some yoga. Or just sit and read. That would be nice.

Oh and I forgot. I've been revamping alanaicapria.wordpress.com. In the sidebar are two links of chapbooks listed on the site and other publications. So now all that stuff is easily accessible and clicking around should a lot easier. That is all. Enjoy your day.

June 2010 Chapbook Posted

2010-06-01T09:36:00.000-04:00

Okay friends. This month's chapbook is posted at http://alanaicapria.wordpress.com/2010/06/01/in-his-dark-forest/. So check it out at http://alanaicapria.wordpress.com.

Here's an excerpt:

This split-hearted lion looks for his little red hood girl. She keeps a rusted hook inside of her basket. The better to jab you with, my dear, she laughs while shanking the grandmother’s mutton thigh. This version of grandma is complete with three eyes lining her forehead. When she speaks, she shits simultaneously. This is why Little Red must put her down. Such incontinence of the defecation sort will only lead to dirty mouths and buttocks.

Prose, Poetry, and Other Mergings

2010-06-01T09:34:00.000-04:00

So I spent the weekend writing. I had enough long car rides to provide me with plenty pen and paper time. I finished one journal and started another. I'm using an unlinked Moleskine this time. I love Moleskine. I just wish the brand wasn't so expensive. Anyways... so I wrote. A lot. Tons of poems. I wrote tankas and shadormas and lanternes and diamantes and Fibonacci poems. My intent was to write short stories in poem form. I guess it sort of worked but I'm still a little, eh, about it. So yesterday, on my way to my mom's, I had a brainstorm. Why not use the poem forms as sentence structure. So instead of counting syllables or words, I use the patterns for how many sentences go in a paragraph. For example, a diamante's normal form for syllables is 1-2-3-4-3-2-1. So I would write a short story using that only instead of counting syllables, the first paragraph has only one sentence, the next paragraph has two, the third one has three. On and on. Until the entire short story has numbers corresponding to the traditional poem form. So I tried one out and I liked the effect. So that's what I'm going to be doing from now on. Or at least until I get tired of counting sentences. Which could be tomorrow or three months from now. Who knows?

A list of things I need to accomplish this summer: take another trip to the Museum of Modern Art, go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art with the hubby, and go back down the shore for a leisurely stroll and giant slices of pizza. Those are the three big things. We loved MOMA. I can't wait to go back. There are tons of awesome exhibits coming up. Oh and most importantly, I need to graduate. I'm going crazy waiting for panel to be scheduled. I want to be done with school already so I can focus on more important things.

Sometimes Prose Needs a Break

2010-05-28T09:15:00.000-04:00

I will not pretend that I am a poet. Not even for a second. Because I am not. Or at least, I am not consciously a poet. Yes, some of my pieces can be labeled as either poetry or fiction, depending on where they're being submitted to, but I rarely think to myself, "oh this is totally a poem." Just doesn't happen. The thing I do love about poetry though is the forms. I think that they're awesome. Short stories rarely get told in shapes. Until now! Hahahaha.

Sorry, I had a moment. Anyway, I have been working on some fiction pieces using poetic forms. So I am writing short stories as diamantes and lanturnes. It's actually pretty fun. The stories are told in proper sentence format but just arranged around the page so that they form pretty shapes. I guess I'm tired of seeing sentences stretch across the computer screen in the same pattern, story after story. I got bored and needed something to awaken my creativity. Everyone is entitled to that. Like how sometimes, when the mood strikes me, I will turn away from the computer and just write with pen and paper. Because if that's what awakens my creative energy, then I'm going to do what is required.

That is something that all writers should think of. Just because you have a typical working pattern doesn't mean you can't change it up if you want to. If you usually write in the morning but feel compelled to start writing at night for a few days, then do it. If you used to write while cooking but now want to write while showering, then hop to it (just try to avoid getting any electrical objects wet so you don't die... and maybe use waterproof paper). If you want to spend a few days speaking pieces into a tape recorder and then just type them while playing the recordings back, by all means. Whatever makes you feel creative and helps you breathe a little easier.

And then there is always the most simple trick. If you aren't feeling creative for whatever reason, do something else. Go for a walk. Take a brief trip. But maybe bring a notebook in your pocket so you can scribble down everything that enters your head. For example, tomorrow, the hubby and I will be beach-bound. Aquariums and ice cream. I will have a journal in my bag. Because there are car rides to sit through and I can write in between the excitement. That and carrying a notebook with me has never steered me wrong. The worst is when you need a notebook and don't have one. But if you don't really need one but have one anyway, at least you're prepared for everything.

So that's the sentiment I will leave you with this week. Don't forget that on Tuesday, there will be a new chapbook posted up at alanaicapria.wordpress.com. Since it's the first of June and all.

Ideas and Such

2010-05-27T09:28:00.000-04:00

I have finished all the projects in my folder. I normally have about three or four at a time. I finish them all within a day or two, and then start three or four more. Sometimes I am terrified that I'm going to run out of ideas. But then I think, ideas can be recycled. I can write seven thousand chapbooks about Little Red Riding Hood as long as there is something else to say about it. As long as that's there, who says I can only dedicate one work to the subject?

Of course, because I keep rushing through projects, I have to keep a constant stream of information coming in. I look at television shows as a sort of inspiration. One of the hubby and my favorite shows on the Travel Channel begins each episode with a history of the place being investigated. I like that informational aspect. I always take notes in the middle of watching but I recently found out that the Travel Channel website actually posts the historical information so that it is easily available to the curious. Which means, to me. The show I am referring to is "Ghost Adventures" which replaces our previous love of "Ghost Hunters." Oh, "Ghost Hunters." How I used to love you guys. Until you seemed so sad during your investigations. I need excitement in my life. Something different. You guys just aren't providing me with that. So I had to let you go.

Anyway, I have been looking at a lot of science websites. As I have mentioned before, one of my favorite websites is curiousexpeditions.org and their sister site atlasobscura.com. Lots of info there. But I've pretty much read through all of it and need to find more. So now I've been reading morbidanatomy.blogspot.comm and streetanatomy.com. I've also discovered the website http://bioephemera.com/ which is pretty cool. The websites they all link to are numerous. I would have an entire post of websites.Not that that's a bad thing. But then I would be preventing everyone from stumbling upon these wonders. And searching is half the fun.

So check those out. In other news, two more days until waffle sundaes. I have been dieting all week in anticipation. I can't wait.

Emotional? Who, Me?

2010-05-25T08:54:00.000-04:00

I have been feeling down these last few days. It could be hormones or it could just be that something is in the air. I got another rejection yesterday but that got followed up by an acceptance so I wasn't feeling too badly about that. The hubby and I watched the Lost finale. I don't even like Lost. He used to watch it before we started dating but then he stopped. Technically,that isn't my fault. I would have watched with him if he had wanted. I watched all four stupid seasons of Heroes. Ugh, now that is a bad show. Anyway, so we watched the season finale and I spent the last half hour sobbing. I don't even know why. The show made me feel so sad. We also watched La Bamba the other day and I cried at the end as well. Hormones. I swear. So after crying yesterday, I needed something to occupy my time. I started sewing and when I began failing at the project I had envisioned, I started to cry even harder.

And that, I realize, is my biggest problem. I don't do failure. Maybe it's because I spent so many years being told by my grandfather that I'm #1 or by random other family members saying they think of me as being on a pedestal. I am terrified of failure because I don't want to disappoint anyone. So after getting completely frustrated with my project, I gave up and am now going to retire my sewing machine for awhile. The hubby said, "Hon, you're a writer, not a seamstress" and I guess he's right. Just like how my dad said years ago, "Alana, you're a writer. Not a marine biologist." And he was right there, too. Because I don't enjoy swimming in the slightest. I don't go into pools. I barely go into the ocean. I will, but I rarely like it.

So when I have a vision for a short story in my head and I try to translate my vision onto paper and the two versions just aren't matching up, I get frustrated and start hating the piece in general. That happened last night. I had great hopes for a piece I was working on but the poems just weren't coming together. So I finished it where it was, marked it with two Xs around the file name and put it away.

In retrospect, when at my most depressed, I should have not started sewing because I am more prone to making mistakes and thus, making myself much angrier. I should have started to write something but alas, I did not and now I have all this fabric and nothing to do with it. I think I might take a picture of the different patterns and use them for a chapbook cover. And the hubby was right. Just because I'm a creative person doesn't mean I'm going to be great at every type of art. I can't write music. And my sewing skills are not at a seamstress's level. And that's okay. I should embrace what I'm good at. Because I'm not perfect. And I never was.

Jumping on the Facebook Bandwagon... But Not Really

2010-05-24T09:19:00.000-04:00

Everyone keeps complaining about the Facebook privacy policy. Too be honest, I'm not that bothered and that isn't even the reason behind today's post. What I am concerned about are the groups popping up on Facebook. The ones I used to see were funny: join this group about random cartoon from your childhood; Cheese lovers united; cacti are fun to touch; I would rather not eat offal. Groups like that. Stuff you wouldn't be embarrassed by.

But now, I see all these groups called "Woman, shut up and bring me a sandwich." Or the group that horrified me today (both in terms of content and grammar): "As long as their dick gets hard, she'll get on it" (so they have a single penis? Are they some sort of a colony of single-cell creatures joined together to create the illusion of one autonomous body). And I realize, there are so many groups on Facebook that are perpetuating hatred. Right now, I'm panicking over these groups that are so obviously opposed to women and femininity. I'm sure there are some groups that are all about emasculation and telling men to rear the kids while we work, but I'm not going to join those because I don't believe in it. I'm all for equality. If I don't want men to say rude things about me, I'm not going to say it about them. It isn't fair.

So what am I trying to get at? Facebook groups used to be there for comedic purposes or as a form of cultural awareness. Now, all these hate-mongers are showing up and people are clicking that convenient "like" button to showcase their support. From what I understand about the creation of groups, anyone anywhere can create a group without a problem. I assume that Facebook doesn't really monitor (or care) about the group's content but when children are liking groups that are calling all women sluts and telling them that it is okay to perpetuate a stereotype in a community environment, then I think something should be done. There are a lot of groups but there has to be some form of quality control. There should be a job position created to make sure that groups promoting some form of hatred or oppression of a group be taken down from the website. I don't know, maybe I'm the only one who cares.

But for the record, I'm not getting anyone a damn sandwich unless I'm already in the kitchen making myself one.

Publication News--- #1-3 of "Purple Insanity Suns"

2010-05-22T00:10:00.000-04:00

Whee! What an awesome start to the weekend. Poems #1-3 from "Purple Insanity Suns" are now published at Thirteen Myna Birds. Very cool. It's an awesome issue with some pretty dark pieces by a number of great writers. So check it out and enjoy.

A Tumbling Fall Back to Earth

2010-05-21T09:11:00.000-04:00

Sometimes, when I hit my writing stride, I forget I'm human and flawed. This month, I have had a total of six acceptance emails claiming 26 separate poems. That's a pretty good number. And I guess I got it in my head that I was sort of untouchable. Everything I write is golden. You get the picture. Well, that isn't the case. And it hit me hard. Last night, I got my first rejection letter of the year. And I was sad. The hubby said, "you're not perfect. You aren't going to get published everywhere. Not everyone is going to like your stuff. Besides, you've gotten about a hundred acceptances this month. You're going to complain about one rejection?" And he's right. Which is why I'm marrying him.

The thing is, as writers, we want to believe that everyone wants our stuff. We want to believe that our writing fits everywhere. And it just doesn't happen. Either we submit a poem to the wrong publication or the editor just doesn't care for the writing style or topic. There's a million reasons. After I got my rejection, I went back to the publication's website and examined it. And I started to think, well, maybe it just wasn't a match. The name of the magazine sounded scary but the website looked too calm, too bright. Chances are, they aren't really into the bizarro kind of stuff I write. That and since there were no online archives, I never got a sense of what they publish. So those mistakes are on me. Then I went and looked at the pieces I submitted. They were more poem-oriented. In verse and everything. And they weren't bad. I sort of liked them. But it's okay that the editors didn't. I understand.

I guess, the moral of the story had to do with being more modest. I'm a bit of a narcissist at times and so it's hard for me to be humble when in my head, I think to myself, oh yes I am that good. But I'm not always, if I am at all. So that's that. Time to move on and send other stuff out. I still have nine pending submissions which is a pretty good amount. As writers, we have to remember that getting acceptances isn't really a safety blanket. Yeah, it feels nice but we're still as susceptible to failure as anyone else. So that's that.

Well, in other news it is Friday and life is good. My favorite fabric store is having a sale tomorrow which rocks. 40% off all fabrics (except for cotton prints) which is great. I have black fabric to buy. Four pieces of 2 yards each to be exact. I have ideas. Lots of them. Enjoy the weekend.

When the Muse Strikes

2010-05-20T08:56:00.000-04:00

I need to start remembering to keep a notebook by my bed. I left it in the living room and was too lazy to go back and get it. So when I started to get flashes of lines for a new story, I had to scribble them on the back of an envelope. There is no telling the muse to come back at a later time. Either you listen or she beats you senselessly, leaving you with nothing but pain and bruises. Because that is how the muse rolls. She's a bit vindictive. But we like her for those same reasons.

I mention this because last night was the middle school concert. The hubby and I hate school concerts. No offense to the kids, but they suck. I understand the need to foster the arts in an educational environment but I don't get the part where they want to subject innocent adults to the noise. The chorus wasn't too terrible. Some kids weren't on the right key or pitch which annoyed me since I sort of moonlight as a singer. But the orchestra was just bad. Just shrieking violins and songs being played at a half-tempo that just sounded awkward. Sad stuff.

During this performance, I grew bored. The school made everyone show up almost an hour before the actual concert started so the hubby and I sat in a cramped auditorium for about fifty minutes. The chairs were uncomfortable and I left my notebook at home remembering the lack of arm space. He started playing a game on his phone and I looked on with jealousy. You see, I chose to keep my phone relatively bare bones. I have no games. But I have picture message and a 1000 characters at my disposal. So I wrote a 1000 character short story on my phone and texted it to myself. Because that is what a real writer does. It turned out to be an interesting story. Probably not one of my favorites but I rarely like anything I like. I have a new love for my phone. I like that at night, if I have no paper and pen, I can just text myself a few lines. Yes, the bright light hurts my half-asleep eyes but it's cool. I take the good with the bad.

But from now on, I'm resolving to keep some form of paper on my person at all times. I need to be able to create at a moment's notice. I'm a busy person. Not time-wise. But brain wise. My ideas are always going. It gets tiring but I embrace it for what it is.

In other news, I might be graduating. I got an email from school yesterday that said they will hopefully be getting me to thesis panel sometime next week. I rejoiced. Then I got another email that said it might not happen. So I sighed. But now I'm hoping it'll still happen. I will cross my fingers. I want to be done with school. I want to go in there, defend my work, answer any questions the panel has, and be told, "Capria, go forward into the world and write to your heart's content." Because you can damn well be certain that I will. I will write until my fingers fall off. Because I want to and I can.

Soybeans, Publications, and Comedy Shows

2010-05-19T10:18:00.000-04:00

I've become obsessed with edamame beans. It all started a few weeks ago when I went to a Japanese restaurant my sister insisted on. My mom got an edamame appetizer. I was apprehensive but it was delightful. So I went to Whole Foods and bought a few bags of already shelled beans. Awesomeness. They're so versatile. I can use them in soups. I made falafel from them (baked, not fried, although frying would have tasted better. Grrr). I also discovered that if you roast them in the oven, they taste nutty. so I made honey-roasted edamame from scratch. Best thing ever. It's all about trying something new.

With the edamame beans has come even more acceptance emails. I got word from two more magazines that want my stuff. Since I count all my pieces as separate works, I have estimated that for this month alone, I have had 26 pieces accepted. That's pretty good, especially considering that these are all acceptances from old pieces I didn't know what to do with. My writing file has reached 500+ chapbooks. I can't believe it. I write a lot but that just seems ridiculous. I guess the numbers were just in my favor. It feels good to be getting so much out there. My resume is happy. Hopefully, they will help secure me a professor-ship. I'll take an adjunct position. I'm not picky.

What else is new? The hubby and I actually had plans over the weekend. We went into New Brunswick to see Joel McHale (from The Soup) do a comedy show at the New Jersey State Theater. It was pretty funny. The opening act was Rory Albanese from The Daily Show. He was funny. With his help, we established that New Jersey is a state full of assholes. And we're all proud of this identity. Turns out he is a fellow Long Island-er. Rock on.

Before the show, Eddie and I stopped at R U Hungry to get some fat sandwiches. We're never in New Brunswick and so we figured, might as well. It was a good time. He got the Fat Beach which had cheesesteak, chicken fingers, fries, and mozzarella sandwiches. I got the Veggie India which was falafel, mozzarella sticks, fries, and marinara sauce. Seriously, it was great. I thought it was going to be really huge and oily but it was just right. It was pretty much the only thing I ate during the day and I still wasn't hungry after the show. I thought the entire sandwich was a strange stroke of brilliance. So thank you for that, creators of the R U Hungry sandwiches. It was a good time.

So that's that. We've got a few plans this weekend but nothing too great. For the most part, we plan on sitting back and relaxing.

This is Drama... in negative. Because I was bored. And could.

And here I am with the hubby on Sunday. I haven't put any pictures up in awhile. We were dressed up for a surprise birthday party for my aunt.

4 Pieces from "Black Hole Doctors"

2010-05-15T23:58:00.000-04:00

My first contribution to Mighty Mercury is now up. The post is called 4 Pieces from "Black Hole Doctors." The link is http://mightymercury.com/home/403-four-pieces-from-qblack-hole-doctorsq.html. So check it out and leave a comment if it moves you. Good stuff. And there's a picture of Mercury. The god, not the chemical.

Hello There, Mercury...

2010-05-15T12:57:00.000-04:00

I was invited to be a contributer with MightyMercury.com last night. As I type this, I also wonder why all the fonts on the computer have changed. Weird. Every website looks strange. Oh well. So that is that. You can find some of my stuff there (the first pieces I've submitted are from "Black Hole Doctors" so hopefully, those will be live soon) and I'll be letting you know where to find other stuff of mine in the coming days. In completely related/unrelated news, the website won me over just by a mythology reference. I do so love my ancient mythology. Anyway... so that's that. Time for a late brunch and then I have things to do on this fine Saturday afternoon. Enjoy your day. The sun is out and I think it's pretty warm.

May... I love ya!

2010-05-13T08:51:00.000-04:00

Back in the day, I didn't like the month of May. Unintentional rhyme there. But I didn't. I also hate the month of March. In fact, back in the wedding planning days, Eddie and I were going to get married in March and I sobbed. Then we changed it to May and I cried again. I am that emotional... and I'm okay with it.

Anyways... I have a new love for May. Mostly because ever since April Poetry Month ended, I've been motivated to send out some of my pieces. And I've already had a total of... seven pieces claimed by two lit mags. This morning I got an email from another magazine saying they wanted to publish two other pieces so my total is now up to nine pieces published by three magazines. Pretty exciting. And my submissions folder still has about 14 pending submissions. I should also mention that I have reached the 500+ chapbook mark for my writing folder which means that I have a lot of stuff to send out. Of course, the chapbooks published on my blog will remain published solely there unless someone steps forward and says they want to re-publish them but that's unlikely. Still, there are only about twenty something chapbooks at http://alanaicapria.wordpress.com.. I still have a lot of pieces at my disposal. I do have a few chapbooks that were written for the main purpose of relaxing my mind (my therapist told me that if I feel like I have extra energy in the middle of the night, do something to expend it... walking around town after midnight would probably be taken as a handwritten invitation to get attacked and I doubt the hubby would want to be woken up so that leaves me with a notebook and pen. And yes, writing helps that much) so I wouldn't use those. Or would I? Maybe if they weren't too personal.

So May is going well for me. All these publications are making me very happy. They give a necessary boost to my self-esteem.

In other news, the linguistic experiment is going pretty well. I wrote the first two chapbooks in a bilingual style and am finishing up a third. It is hard to do at times because I have to pause for assistance from my dictionary. Mostly because I just copy and paste the word so I don't have to deal with accent marks. I hate typing up accent marks. I sort of want a Spanish keyboard so I can just type the accents out without having to do any special character searches. I like the idea of a hybrid language though. It sorts of reminds me of the Tower of Babel... but after it was smote by an annoyed biblical deity (language lesson of the day... the past tense of smite is not smited as I was tempted to put... it is smote... although it doesn't have that same ring to it).

So that's what I've been up to. I need to send more stuff out. I've been lazy the last few weeks. My submissions come in spurts. I get bored easily. But I need to send stuff out. So that's what I'm going to continue doing.

Keep writing, my friends.

A Little Something on Language

2010-05-11T09:31:00.000-04:00

I have been thinking a lot about writing in other languages (being that I am half Cuban, my second language of choice is Spanish). From time to time, I do translation projects: writing a piece in English and then bringing it into Spanish. I like how different words sound in both. Sometimes I can't find the right word in Spanish and other times, the English words sound like they have been used five thousand times in a row. I get bored. So I've been considering merging the languages. A sort of Spanglish kind of thing in my pieces, where the words are thrown together so that they almost seem to be a cohesive linguistic unit. I don't know. I started a few pieces the other day and I kind of like the effect. I've done Spanish pieces before but nothing like this. I feel like I'm living a lie when I do a piece entirely in Spanish because that isn't my whole identity. And when I write solely in English, I feel like I'm denying my heritage. It's like an identity crisis. So that's what I'm going to start doing. Just writing these pieces as they come, with no real structure to the words' cultural origins. I think it will be liberating. At the very least, it will have an interesting effect. We'll see. Vamos a ver.

Writing Stats, Genres, and Other Writerly Stuff

2010-05-05T09:45:00.002-04:00

I'm still nursing my sprain which means that I have even more time to get sucked into the technological black hole we refer to as the internet. So... there has been a lot of talk about numbers. How many books are being self-published, how many books are coming out of traditional publishers, you get the idea. In April, I mentioned an article about how everyone is supposed to be a writer and my thoughts that the numbers were being misrepresented because even if there were 1 million titles published in the last few years, that didn't necessarily mean 1 million people wrote them. I was reminded of this because Writers Beware mentioned an article that said that over 764,000 books were self-published in 2009 but that the number included both self-publishers and micro-publishers. I didn't even think of this but the article says that those numbers include book reprints. And there are apparently hundreds of thousands of books being reprinted yearly. It makes you think. It makes sense. It's a far cry from the idea that there are over 1 million authors hanging out around the United States. Even more telling is an article I was reading about Jodi Picoult that said she had published about 17 books in 17 years. Which means that there are authors who are publishing at least one book a year on average. So once again, the numbers become even more skewed. Too many people are trying to turn writing away from what it really is. It just goes to show that you can't look at these numbers for what they are.

On another note, I have been going crazy with submissions over the last few weeks. My folder is in the double digits and I am waiting patiently to hear back from various magazines. But it made me think. Back in the day, when I was new at writing and didn't understand things (I would like to think I've gained some wisdom upon turning 25), I thought my work was unmarketable. Okay, granted, it is still a niche market but I honestly didn't think I could ever find any place that would want to publish my pieces. I was looking in the wrong places. I was looking at literary markets that had nothing to do with me. We're talking about magazines that want real characters in their stories and poetry in verse. Things I do not do. Markets that didn't really want the content I was offering. It was a misunderstanding on my part. Then I started to look at my work and ponder what I was doing. So now I'm looking at horror/fantasy markets that like bizzaro/absurd/surreal/irreal styles. That's where I fit in. Then I read an article in another magazine that really made me realize what I had been doing wrong.

Finally, I love Margaret Atwood. She is pure awesomeness. And she believes in writers' creative rights. If you've never read her work, get your butt to a bookstore. And if you have read her work, join me in bowing before her literary majesty.

So that's that. I have a number of other submissions to make and and even more things to write. Enjoy your Wednesday. It's a beautiful day today.

May Flowers... Or Not

2010-05-04T09:00:00.000-04:00

Is it just me or has the weather been getting warmer? Granted, there has been a lot of rain (and flooding in more Southern areas of the country) but all in all, May has been looking promising. The flowers are already blooming and that is always a good sign. As far as submissions go, I have been going crazy. Right now, my pending submissions folder has about 15 emails in it just from the last few days. My goal is to send out three or four submissions a day. Mathematical theory states that by increasing my odds, I will therefore be increasing my chances of publication. But you already knew that. I have a lot of time on my hands right now. I can't really move. I sprained my ankle yesterday. It was a freak accident. I was moving through the kitchen and next thing I knew, I was on the floor thinking, please don't let my ankle be broken. It was not. I was able to stand and hobble to the bed. It is still painful but I can walk. That ankle has always been weak. I got tackled during gym my freshman year of high school. We were playing flag football, which states that tackling is not allowed but apparently no one told that to the guys on the other team. I landed on my foot and it has remained destroyed since. Although it wasn't entirely football's fault. It was because I had a cross-country meet that day and decided to show my team spirit/competitiveness by running a 5K race on the sprain. I stretched the ligaments out. Not a good thing. So now my ankle collapses from time to time. This was just one of those time. But at least it will help me focus. So that's where I am. I am checking my emails incessantly, waiting to hear back from magazines. The anticipation kills me but I need these publishing credits. Oh the joys of being a writer.

"This Girl Wears an Apple Skin Fur" is Now Posted!

2010-05-02T11:26:00.002-04:00

The last chapbook from April (also being used as the May 1st chapbook) is now up at http://alanaicapria.wordpress.com. The title is "This Girl Wears an Apple Skin Fur." So go check that out.

Day 30- April PAD

2010-04-30T11:48:00.000-04:00

This is it. Day 30. No more poetry after this. Well, unless it strikes your fancy. I might challenge-wise. But whatever. So today's prompt is to write a poem about letting go. Let go of something, emotionally or physically. Let yourself go. Let the month go. Let a rock go. Just let go. You might like it. Goodbye, fair month of April. It was good knowing you. You were harsh at times, but still liberating. Chapbook posts will resume at my other website beginning May 1st (tomorrow) and continue at once-a-month intervals. And... my rabbit is sitting in a bowl of hay. Wow. Anyway... this is my final piece for the month.

Once a day, the girl sheds her skin and pounds her heels against it until the fruit breaks down into a thick liquid. The juice sloshes over her shoes and makes her toes sticky. I must let you go, she says and mashes the harder pieces of skin up into an applesauce. When the skin is properly juiced, the girl sits in the puddle and rubs the fluid over herself. She waits for bees and ants to come and carry her away to their hives and hills. They will make her a queen and as they bow in worship, she will lick them up and swallow, then rise from the structures, honey comb and aphids clinging tight for the apple flesh to grow upon.

"The Carnivorous Forest" Now Posted

2010-04-30T11:17:00.000-04:00

Good morning. I posted the Little Red Riding Hood poems last night. It is April poetry project #5. The chapbook is called "The Carnivorous Forest." I tried some different stuff with the pieces because I can and felt like it. So check that out at http://alanaicapria.wordpress.com.

Day 29- April PAD

2010-04-29T10:29:00.000-04:00

It's day 29. It's a little cold out but at least it's sunny. Last night, I watched "Terminator Salvation" with the hubby. I'm one of those people who dissects everything instead of just taking it for what it is. Blame my English degree. Three and a half years of anaylyzing literature (I graduated college early) will do that to a person. So we watched half of the movie and I began pondering the whole Terminator mythos. I get that the whole thing is that John Connor has to send his friend back in time to boink his mom so that he can be born. I get that. What I don't get is how John Connor existed in the first place to send his friend back to boink his mom so he could be born. I guess it's sort like a chicken and the egg question. Which came first? John Connor or his friend boinking his mom? Boink is the word of the day. Mostly because it's funny. Eventually, the hubby got tired of figuring it out, especially when I pointed out that in all likelihood, the conception and time travel thing would just be a vicious cycle. That and it problably destroys the space time continuum. Yes, that is how hard I think about such little things.

Anyway, that brings me to today's prompt. As I said, it's day 29 which means that tomorrow is the last poem prompt. Sob. Today's prompt is to write a poem with the title "And Suddenly (blank). I finished the Little Red stories last night and went back to Sleeping Beauty. So I used some of the movie philosophy to inform a new interpretation of Sleeping Beauty. See, I had a point behind my minor digression. So enjoy.

Oh and if anyone can explain how John Connor came to exist in the future so that he could send his friend back to sire him, I will welcome any comments. Because it blows my mind. Metaphorically, of course.

And suddenly, Sleeping Beauty ceased to exist. It was a mistake on her part. She had witches time travel here and there, ending spells and casting others, while her parents sat stonily on their thrones and wondered about how fast a spinning wheel might actually go if not restrained by yarn. One witch killed another and one another woke Sleeping Beauty up before the right time and yet another witch boiled herself alive. In the end, Sleeping Beauty was dependent on her future self to send back a witch to make her fall asleep. It was the only way she could live long enough to meet her prince. Otherwise, she would simply wither and die before he reached her. Then she thought, he would never go reach her because no one would have told stories about a mythical princess sleeping in an ivy-locked tower. So she would be alone with the spinning wheel and no matter how many times she cut her hands upon the spindle, her eyes would stay open.

Day 28- April PAD

2010-04-28T09:58:00.000-04:00

This is it, guys. Two more poems left after today. It was a good month. We've come far. We've written many things we might not have written otherwise. So maybe we didn't finish everything. I got 60 pages into Script Frenzy and called it a day. But that's six projects that I'm happy to have completed. We learn and grow and this is starting to sound like a really lame television show. Moving on.

Today's prompt is to write about the end of the line. That's that. Finite. Draw the line somewhere. What is the final straw? Tell them what's what.

Little Red Tires of Everything

She could only eat so much of grandmother's meat just as she could only make so much love with the wolf. Eventually, her hood became too tight and she had to pause to pull the ties free. She could only get lost so many times before she memorized every pastoral path. There were only so many ways the wolf could trick her into walking an extra four miles while he sprinted the last few feet. Looking in the mirror only made her more disgusted with the color red. She saw it everywhere. In that bathtub and that grandmother's bed. In that iron bucket and splashed over the blade of that ax. With it all, Little Red yawned whenever she thought of another way to tell the wolf she hated him. She had already spent the better part of her youth in his bed and it was getting tedious to tell every woodsman and washerwoman that she wanted to slit his stomach open and fill it with rocks. For that matter, she was tired of rocks, how the emery board sides constantly filed her nails down even though she wanted to grow them into a claw-like point. She was tired of denying her intention to become a wolf. She knew she had the appetite. It was just a matter of unhinging her jaw and taking that first fateful btie.

Publication News!

2010-04-27T23:16:00.000-04:00

I went through a bunch of old files today. I have nearly 500 chapbooks that are completed and just sitting on my flashdrive. Did I ever mention that I write a lot? Well, I decided that I should do something with those pieces so I spent my afternoon going through some of them. I sent out submissions to five places and already got an acceptance. Weirdyear (www.weirdyear.com) will be publishing pieces from my chapbook "Asylum Fairy Tales" on June 14. I am thrilled. Totally stoked. I've been needing some good news. Hopefully I can get a few more acceptances. I have about thirteen more pieces that I pulled that I still need to send out. My resolution to submit more often was a good idea. Eeeee! Can you tell I'm excited? I love putting out my own pieces but there is something very special about an outside party saying they want to share one of my creations with the world. I can see why people want to be published by all the big publishers. There's a sense of validation that just feels good. Well, I don't really need to go as far as getting involved with the New York bigwigs. Getting in with all the awesome magazines out there is perfect for me. So I'll put up the link to the page when the time comes. Just thought I would share the good news.

Day 27- April PAD

2010-04-27T11:14:00.000-04:00

Today is Day 27. And it's Tuesday which means it's a twofer. Yay. Today's prompt is to write a hopeful poem and a hopeless poem. I did both because I was feeling zealous. And annoyed. But mostly zealous. Anyway...

The Hopeful Wolf

He knew which path Little Red would take through the woods. It would be the flowering road that would wind five times around grandmother's house before finally leading up the to the front door. He lopped along the the glassy path, breaking his heels and claws on the jagged stones. He was at grandmother's in less than five minutes while Little Red hadn't even gone more than three steps. He already played everything out in his head. He would gut grandmother with a sickle, then arrange the meaty cuts neatly in the cabinets. He might keep a few steaks in his hands to bait Little Red in. Then, the girl would eat until her distended stomach fell onto the table. She would be all his after that, little girl cutlet rubbed and dressed beneath her robe. The many wounds were worth it. Already, grandmother was coming to the front door in her bathtowel, not knowing that the wolf was holding his teeth out.

Hopeless Red

One day, the wolf would eat her. The mothers did not have to tell her otherwise. They arranged and rearranged her hood many times until she slapped their hands away. She was tired of being given the same knife and basket as a weapon and armor. What would such a small blade do against that wiry fur? The wolf's teeth were sharper than the dagger. All he had to do was cut through one of her veins and that would be it. She would be hauled off the pathway and dragged into the forest to be raped and murdered. Some animals might watch, their tails hanging low between their legs, pretending not to know what was happening. There would be no more grandmother. Maybe the washerwomen might throw stones to keep the wolf away but the damage would already be done. There would be a gaping cut over Little Red's left breast, one that exposed the beginnings of her heart. The wolf would smell the blood and meat. He would want to take one bite, then another. It was fate. Just like how she ate grandmother many times over without understanding what was kept in the deli wrapping. He would get her eventually, slit her hood in half with one long claw. She was the only meat he couldn't buy in the store and he was desperate to get her.

Family and the Writing Life

2010-04-27T10:52:00.000-04:00

In the last two years, I have stumbled across a bit of a problem involving my relationship with my family. It isn't that no one takes me seriously as a writer. It's that they don't seem to understand what it means. Every time there is some sort of crisis, I am the one who is called. In some respect, I don't mind. I'm good under pressure. While people around me are crumbling, I can usually keep a calm head until after everything is over. Then I cry. Because I'm allowed a release of emotion like that. But that's not my point. The thing is, I usually get a phone call early in the morning to drop everything I'm doing to go to my mom's house. I don't exactly live next door. It's a twenty-five minute drive. But no one feels badly about asking me to go because I'm a writer. They figure, as long as there's a piece of paper and a pen, I should be fine. But that's not the case. I know where I'm comfortable writing. I don't do well being in environments where I'm distracted. I can't focus on what I'm doing. And I see this more and more, with people asking if I can drop everything for them. Take care of this and bring this person over here. It wasn't as bad when I was working as a reporter. I was out of the house and it was a little harder to track me down. But after deciding to focus on fiction and poetry, it seems as though everyone simply thinks that I'm doing nothing. Okay, so I have moments when I procrastinate. And if the weather is really bad, I sometimes feel depressed and don't want to do anything. But I make myself write. I find some place in the house to curl up and write. If I can't write, I read. As a writer, it isn't exactly reading for pleasure. It's reading for research. I'm trying to learn how other people are writing. I'm trying to develop my own skills by understanding others. Everything I do is calculated and meant to make me a better artist. Plus, my family constantly talks about when I'll be a pressure. It's a little difficult being a writing professor. If I don't write and get published, I will have trouble finding a position. If I do get one, getting tenured will be a chore. So I'm writing for my future as well. My biggest problem is that I'm too nice. I have trouble saying no because I don't want people to look at me the wrong way. I'm afraid of being hated for who I actually am. I have no problem writing controversial things and putting them out there. I live for that. But for myself, it's so much harder. Hence how I got suckered into going to Pittsburgh with the grandparents last year. I love them but a six hour drive there and back was not my idea of fun. Granted, my brother was happy for the company but still. I have trouble separating myself from my family even though I haven't lived with them in nearly three years. I'm getting married and I still let my mom tell me what to do. Sometimes I think I should sit everyone down and explain them to just what I'm doing with my life. I want to tell them that my writing comes first. It comes before my family and it comes before my fiancé. It might even come before the rabbits but they are furry and adorable so it's a close call. I want to tell my family that in order for me to have a future, I have to write. I want to tell them that I don't want to settle on doing just anything. I am a writer, no matter what anyone might say or think. I'm not sitting around at home taking naps and socializing. I'm sitting with an open document and finishing a chapbook a day. Because that's what I do. I create. And maybe it's not physically demanding and maybe the pay really isn't that great but it's what I chose and it's what makes me happy. Now if my family could understand that, life would be absolutely golden.

Day 26- April PAD

2010-04-26T10:35:00.000-04:00

Today is day 26. The prompt is to write a poem having to do with more than five times. It's a cryptic little prompt. I didn't know what to write. So I did a poem that has five verses of five lines each. 5 to the 2nd power. The poem won't look right on the blog because of how the line breaks will change but rest assured that that was the form I was going for in the actual document. Enjoy.

Little Red and the Man She Thinks She Knows

Little Red thinks she knows the wolfy man. He is the type who will always be waiting behind grandmother's door, dressed in the old woman's antiquated cotton sheets, bathcap clamped tightly above his brow. He'll offer her meat, warm in the brown paper wrapping that Little Red will eat raw. Neither of them worry about Mad Cow Disease or Scrapie. There are no parasites on the cannibal diet. Simply ingest the ancestor and move on.

But then, Little Red questions her role in the forest. Was the wolf a man before or an animal? Was the man a wolf before or a man? She peeks under his bathrobe to see whether his penis is pale or red, whether it has a knot at the end or a mushroom tip. The girl can't help but wonder who is really sniffing around between her legs and gnawing at her fleshy tip.

Little Red does what any other girl would do. She hacks the wolf's internet life to see who he used to speak to. There are many women sitting around the inbox, several in lingerie, some wearing a black cape and others a purple coat but none wearing a red hood. In these messages, the wolf offers to help the women get lost on the way to grandfather's house. This is not the wolf Little Red knows. Pained, she readies a pot of stones.

But then, Little Red wonders again. Should she be so angry that the man was a wolf before? He was hungry. There was no Little Red in his life then. There was simply a wolf and a forest filled with little prancing girls shaking their sex organs in the wolf's direction. They could have stayed upwind but no. They sent their pheromes to him and the wolf howled after them. He wasn't the type to deny his appetite.

Little Red finally puts the stones away. All the messages written after the wolf found Little Red speak favorably about the red-hooded vixen. He tells all his former flames that he has found the one. Slowly, all the women are deleted, cast off into the dead trees to wait for a naked bear to rescue them. Still, Little Red sharpens her paring knife. She has a wolf to carve.

"Mermaids at Beachy Head" Now Posted

2010-04-25T21:49:00.000-04:00

"Mermaids at Beachy Head," April PAD Project #4 is now posted at http://alanaicapria.wordpress.com. So go check that out.

Day 25- April PAD

2010-04-25T13:58:00.000-04:00

It's a lazy Sunday. We only have five more days left in the challenge. Ah, memories. Today's prompt is to write a poem based on a song. Mention the name of the song and the artist. It's just fun that way. I finished the Little Mermaid poems last night and my copy of Matt Bell's "Wolf Parts" arrived that night so I'm back at writing Red Riding Hood stories. Good book. Awesome writer. I'm pleased with my purchase.

Anyways... my piece.

The Carnivore Forest

And what a monstrous sight he makes/mocking man's best friend/
and both the wolf and lion crave/ the same things in the end
-The Lion and the Wolf by Thrice

If it is not a wolf, it is some other thing with teeth. Every time Little Red tucks the knife away, she pulls it out again. Manes and bush tails threaten her. The wolf and lion lurk around the mother's and grandmother's houses, mauling every visitor approaching the front door. Grandmother unzips her head to reveal the lion beneath. Mother snaps dozens of stitches to let the wolf out. Both animals nurse Little Red. She doesn't like how bitter the milk is, how chlorinated. It spurts sporadically instead of flowing slowly. Little Red uses a blade of pumice stone to widen the lactating nozzle. She climbs up the chimney and falls into the surface. The trees have teeth. Their branches growl and squeak. Everything wants to eat the little girl, if not with heavy jaws, then with red genitalia. Little Red runs through the shadows and acidic dirt, knocking away the mouths and pelvises with her fists. She cuts many things with knives and fills the wounds with stones. Things sag around her. She vomits up quicksand. The carnivores sink into the semi-liquid earth. They throw their teeth to Little Red.

Day 24- April PAD

2010-04-24T15:49:00.000-04:00

It's day 24. We're less than a week from the end of the month. Today's prompt is to write about the evening. Enjoy the rest of the weekend.

This Moon Eats Mermaids

At night, the mermaids stayed away from the surface. The moon had an appetite for finned women and would scoop the mermaids out of the water. Death by celestial body was hard. There was a repetitious crunching of bones and the secretion of a liquefying acid that would reduce the flesh down to a thick chum. The moon would hold these pieces in its mouth for days, allowing digestion to progress naturally. Inside, the mermaids would suffer, broken down slowly, their brains and hearts not killed directly but allowed to linger on the slipping tongue. At low tide, the mermaids threw rocks into the sky. The stones left pockmarks across the moon's face. Pieces fell into the mermaids' mouths. They tasted like raw meat and spoiled tree roots, filled the swim bladders until the mermaids sank down to the abyss floor and lay covered in dark algae.

Day 23- April PAD

2010-04-23T13:12:00.000-04:00

I'm tired. I have spent the morning trying to call five thousand different health care affiliates to find the answer to a question. My efforts were fruitless. I have given up. The worst is when websites that should be working refuse to work. Grrr. Now, I am exhausted. Which is, appropriately, the prompt of the day. Yes, friends, we're at day 23 and it's time to write about exhaustion. Write about why you're tired or if supernatural beings ever get tired of just hanging out. Write about the theories behind exhaustion.

Exhaustion Destroys These Mermaids

They could not swim forever. Eventually, their fins drooped until the mermaids had to rest on a bed of fire coral. The stinging jelly scalded their scales and left raw marks along the gilled tails. When the princes fell from their ships and landed unconscious in the water, the mermaids could only keep them afloat for so long. What did it matter that water enabled buoyancy? A mermaid was not able to keep a man's head above the water for more than a few hours. Eventually, her swim bladder filled and the man's dead weight hurt her arms. The little one knew this. She put her gills into the prince's mouth so he could breathe while she sucked the air out of clams. They drifted together and waited to drown.

Day 22- April PAD

2010-04-22T14:30:00.000-04:00

Today is day 22 of April Poetry Month. Yay. I am currently looking out the window and worrying about whether or not it's about to rain when I'm supposed to leave to get the stepkid from school in about fifteen minutes. I think the driveway looks wet. And yes, that has a little something to do with the prompt today. Today is Earth Day! Yay. Let's celebrate nature. Today's prompt is actually to write about earth. The earth, mother earth, earth as dirt, earth as a planet. You get the picture. Since my new theme is Andersen's version of the Little Mermaid, I am writing about mermaids coming onto dry earth. Let me tell you, they don't like it. Oh fu....dge. It's raining. Moving on...

The Mermaids Pull Themselves onto Solid Earth

Sometimes the mermaids split their tails with a pearl knife. It was easier than giving up their voices to the witch, who used poison to force their tails into legs. The mermaids dragged themselves onto the shore. They had claws instead of nails. They dug and pulled until their bodies were free of the water. Their uteruses stilled. When they stood, their legs ached with blade wounds. Their heels bled onto the sand, leaving a trail behind them. A prince always found them. He wrapped their naked bodies in a canvas cloth and held them to his chest. He let them sleep beside him for thirteen long nights before disappearing on the fourteenth morning. The mermaids found the prince in a bridal chamber, tightening his tie and staring into the mirror while the virgin bride paraded around in her dress, excited at the prospect of loosened garters and an unlocked chastity belt. The mermaids watched the sex act from the window. Pain stabbed their legs. They choked on the wombs lodged in their throats. They pushed muffled screams into the woodwork as tiny needles worked their way out of the finned toes. The mermaids left their virginity and blood on the ground. They worked their way back into the water and embraced their seafoam ending.