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rambles and half-essays

Tag: publishing

  • i had an awful month

    KM Brunner

    I am not going to give a rundown of my month; you don’t deserve the frustration and I’m not interested in baring my personal life for folks to read. I’m no one’s friend here, and it wasn’t particularly interesting anyway. It was just…hard.

    Because I’m chronically ill, I forget what it’s like to experience violence from something outside my body. My day-to-day life is a minefield of managing a disorder that, when triggered, provides me with heaps of trauma that I then have to wade through. I spend months – sometimes years – working through my fear while still living in the body that is responsible for that trauma (and threatening to inflict more).

    It is not a fun place, my body – my brain, specifically. But there’s nothing for it except for suicide and I’d like to at least enjoy my thirties. Forties, too, if I get those years.

    Vigilance and violence are part of my life. They are part of my mornings, afternoons, evenings. They are part of my writing practice. I think about them when I cry, because the action is not entirely controllable. I think about them when I laugh.

    But this month was difficult because of an external force and it felt like a privilege to experience that. It was a perverse feeling and made me feel bad, like I was invalidating other people’s terrifying experiences with abuse, and yet I found it comforting in some ways. It gave me something to fear that didn’t come from me.

    I could lock the door. Separate myself from her. God, what a luxury that was.

    The month is over and the danger is gone. My apartment feels like my own again. I’m back with just me and my brain. I am glad for it because weathering that danger was exhausting, but there was something to knowing she couldn’t hurt me when I was staying with a friend, across town, that was soothing.

    Chronic illness is such a strange thing. The filter through which I see the world makes it difficult to relate to other people, and my relationship with fear and pain is very warped. I am a great listener and like to help folks with their problems, but I often find myself holding back when talking to friends, because their problems are so, so bearable to me. I’d love to have their problems, and only those problems.

    I’m going to stop with this self-pity and move on to my little recommendations section.

    Music: Delirium Division, Little Pink Houses. It’s a rock song. I just really love it. It’s been on repeat for me.

    Stuff:

    1. Comic: Vinyl by Image Comics. It’s about a serial killer with Alzheimer’s who is emotionally attached to his FBI agent. He saves him from a murderous cult. It’s very, very cool.
    2. Been wearing my half-rimless glasses. I like them but they make me look like a librarian. I’ve decided I don’t care.
    3. I’m going up to Marblehead on Saturday to drive around. It’s where part of my novel is set.

  • change, distraction, and worry

    KM Brunner

    I have a problem. It’s not a big problem, but it is one that’s taking up a lot of space in my brain:

    I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be writing.

    I worry, probably several times a day, that there’s something missing from the novel I’m working on. I think, unhelpfully, that I should be pursuing one of my other projects. I think maybe, just maybe, I should be writing nonfiction. I used to write nonfiction. I was rather good at it.

    It wasn’t nearly as fulfilling as fiction, but it was something I felt comfortable with.

    Then I step back and think: that was the problem with nonfiction in the first place. I wasn’t challenging myself.

    And so I go back to the book and the short stories but then, there, I have the same problem:

    I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be writing.

    It’s a fun thing, to have lots of ideas. It’s an enviable position, but I need to focus – and if I’m going to use the ideas, I need to whittle. I am trying to concentrate on the novel, but I want to submit a story once a month, so I always have a short piece I’m working on alongside the book. Sometimes that piece is fun. Sometimes I think it might be better than the novel.

    How can I know that, though? I can’t! I absolutely can’t. I’m a few chapters into a first draft and those are notoriously bad! Regardless, I’m hitting a pretty significant rough patch. Things are working, mostly, but I’m concerned about a few characters, I worry I’ve made the story too big, that the plot is too niche to be relatable – and worst of all, sometimes I think it might be boring.

    Is this what impostor syndrome is? I’m not worried about being a writer – I feel paralyzed because I am one.

    It’s enough to make me want to scream but I can’t give up writing. I know I’ll work through it. I’ll show up, every day, at my stupid little keyboard. Writing is an awful, sometimes parasitic, thing. It compels. It’s worse than music, and that’s saying something.

    Anyway.

    Here are some things I’ve liked over last month:

    • Song: Good Luck, Babe! – Chappell Roan. She’s blowing up, and she deserves it. Vocal chops like nobody’s business and actual musical, catchy, pop. They use real instruments and the mixing isn’t all flat like most pop these days. It’s just…good music.
    • I don’t drink, but when I’m craving a beer, I reach for an Athletic. I’m into the Hazy IPA lately.
    • I got a noir piece published. It’s called Apartment 11A.
    • I found my writing workshop group on Meetup. I’d recommend it!
    • St. John’s Seminary, the seminary attached to Boston College, is full of nice people and very, very interesting classes. I’m going to take Moral Theology next semester. I never thought I’d be taking a course with Catholic undertones but here I am. I’m just interested.

  • submitting and rejection

    KM Brunner

    I got my first rejection in years – not because I’m particularly good, but because I haven’t submitted in a long time. And forgot how it felt. I care again.

    Why do I care again? I can do music live in front of hundreds of people and not give a shit, but I God forbid I get a rejection for a couple pieces of flash fiction. It was the nicest rejection email of all time, honestly, but it’s got my feathers ruffled.

    It’s extremely hard to ruffle my feathers. That’s probably why I’m writing about it. I’m also writing about it because I’m starting to understand that it’s pretty brave not only to submit pieces, but to write about failures. Lots of authors write about their rejections, and because I always likened it to playing a bad set, I’d (ungenerously) think, “Just try again. Not a big deal.”

    But it’s not like a set, is it? The writing remains. You’ve still got the product, even after the rejection hits your inbox. It makes the piece feel like a limp, dead thing. Roadkill in the palm.

    You ever scrape up roadkill?

    And those pieces – I knew they weren’t great. I don’t know if even I would publish them, if I were an editor. Maybe I’ll put them up here once I can’t feel the sting. Where else are they gonna go?

    This would be much more painful if I submitted something I love.

    I know I’ll climb out of this funk by midday, go eat some noodles, and do my work, but for a moment I need to sit with my coffee and brood. So that’s what I’ll do, I guess.

    There’s nothing to be gained by continuing to indulge in self pity, so I’ll give you a list of other things to read, watch, listen to, and know about.

    • I’m relearning how to play the piano. I was bad before, I’m worse now, but I got out my keyboard and it’s been fun. I almost purchased a new one because I’m great at jumping the gun. This is that keyboard. Instead I’m going to stick with my 61-key midi controller to make sure I actually want to play the piano. Sometimes my ADHD will spark a manic drive to learn/do something, and then it’ll snuff it just as suddenly.

      Four years ago, these producers all flipped the same sample and it was a very cool thing. There are a bunch of videos like this but this one is my favorite. ABSRDST is very charming and is a great reminder that innovation can and will be born out of necessity. Also, I love to watch people lean into themselves and refuse rules. Diveo seems like the sweetest young man.

      – Comic – Once and Future by BOOM! Studios – a great characterization of a senior female character. I LOVE this series. It’s just so fun. No intense undertones or much to overthink, which is nice for me right now.