editor (who flirts with everybody, who always thinks I’m up to something naughty or deep when the explanation is always quite dorky, and with whom I had a massive obsession years ago, but now I roll my eyes at him, both in front of him and behind his back): W, why do you go stomping [...]
Saturday afternoon, waiting for eye exam. Salesperson runs through contact-lens options for me, while doc, also standing behind counter, stares at me, now and then interjecting silly joke. I ignore him completely. Am not in any mood to be polite with a flirt. Something is wrong with right eye.
There’s confusion regarding my file. I’ve been [...]
Not quite news, but news-ish for me: have written a story, and am going to send it out to journals. Wrote this piece for a reading last weekend, which went surprisingly well considering humidity everybody sweated through. Truth be told, may have been because of everybody’s discomfort that I felt so much at ease that [...]
Have agreed to proofread a new novel by the writer I’d vowed to forever avoid, ever since I’d proofread one of his myriad novels in a series years ago.
I need the money.
Maybe I’m wrong to have disliked his other novel so much. Maybe I’m just not his audience, not when review after review of the [...]
Am alarmed to be feeling so down. In some ways it makes sense—financial issues are closing in (am meeting with my new accountant on Wednesday), I want to sell my apartment but have to make minor renovations first, my stories are coming along but not being written fast enough, work at the office has piled [...]
Thursday
Had dinner with one of the writers from the Sunday writing group. We stayed till closing time. She is so lovely and positive. I’m a little in love, and I told her so.
*
The accountant asked me: “Do you travel?”
“No.”
“Never?”
I was embarrassed. “I’m visiting my brother in L.A. next month.”
“Let’s say instead that you’re going to a writers’ gathering in May—and while you’re there, hey why not see your brother?”
A writer’s accountant, this. My first.
I showed him one receipt. It was a donation (this my first too) to [...]
A dear friend from college has two children.
Another close friend from college is trying to have a baby.
My best friend from high school just had twins.
Yesterday, the young assistant said to me, “Don’t you want children? You’d make a great mother.” She said this in all sincerity.
But I’m more comfortable with the word aunt.
My biological [...]
An editor was in my office. I gently chastised him for passing on my friend’s manuscript. He felt remorse, and admitted that he couldn’t yet bear to part with the book (it’s sitting in his office at home) even though he and his boss decided in the end that we weren’t the right house for [...]
Editorial assistant is steaming mad. Three of us, women, are in the hallway listening to her. Two men pass by at different points and say, “I smell a revolution brewing.” The first man looks like he wants to lead us; the second looks scared.
*
Editorial assistant starts crying through her rant. Her boss is impossible. Her [...]
Early Sunday morning, I sat in an east-side Cosí café trying to get a handle on a fragment of a story I was preparing for my writing group. Something clicked around 2:00 p.m., when the foundation at the beginning started to gel. Then I reread the rest of the fragment to see what there was [...]
Last night:
JF: w, please have a sip of my wine.
me: Girl, I’m Asian. It’s like, two sips and I’m done!
*
“You look like you frequent bars,” says the editor.
“Not above Twenty-third Street,” I say.
“Don’t you ever venture above Twenty-third?”
“No.”
“Me either.”
“Why do you need to go to a bar above Twenty-third Street?”
“The author insists. It’s like he [...]
A kind Richard Gere morphed into a gentle Val Kilmer. Richard/Val kissed me. What a kisser. We both had dry lips. We were both shy. I started to say to Val, “You’re like Batman,” but then let the statement trail off. Then my sister burst into the room. She had some bad news: The trees [...]
Story needs to be finished for writing group by Sunday, but it’s coming along too slowly. There are many stories within this story. How to make these narratives fit into a single story, and not have them spin out of control into their own separate stories? To focus, I’ve returned to the section that had [...]
I never know where to set my stories—I’m always debating between New York and Taipei—but one thing I’ve decided on lately is to be confident in writing Chinese and Chinese American characters. I don’t know how to explain it on paper, however, because for me it’s more a feeling than any cultural signifier.
I’m Chinese.
Sometimes that [...]
A loud solitude occurs at one o'clock in the morning.
E-mail me: loudsolitude (at) gmail (dot) com.
Surprise me: Amazon wish list.
