Grant Writing Anxiety

So, grant writing.  It always seems tougher than it should be, doesn't it?  This month I'm working on writing a grant and as always it's catching me up short with its complexity.  It's not so much the requirements or length--those are fairly easy.  It's just the idea and challenge of explaining "clearly and concisely" the work I do, and why it matters to me.

Those are good questions, of course, and I love that grants are based on work samples and on our artistic statements, but it's such an odd process (for me anyway) to write like this.  How do I explain why my writing matters to me in 250 words?  How do I sum up my artistic style in even fewer?  I feel like there are a hundred different answers to those questions.  It depends on what project I'm thinking about, on whether we're talking about past, present, or future work--what my mood is that day, even.  And of course at the back of all of this, is the question--what do they want to hear?  What will make them say yes, let's give this girl some cash?

Ok, that sounds like complaining.  I don't mean it to be.  I like the challenge of it, but it's also brought me up short a little bit.  What's the right answer?  I know that's the good kid in me panicking at an upcoming test, and I'm trying to banish her to the back forty.  I know of course that there's no right answer.  But there are smart answers, and clever ones, and engaging ones, and poetic ones, and also bland, trite, alarming, and frankly boring ones.  Perhaps that's at the heart of this anxiety--it's another judgement on me and my work.  

Back when I dreamed of being a writer (oh, the carefree college years) I assumed that having a book come out would be pure bliss.  And of course it's wonderful in so many ways.  But as soon as it's in the first person's hands, then the stress of wondering do they like it?  did I get it right? happens.  A few times at readings people have come up to me and said, so, I read your book.  And left it at that.  That's always kind of a weird moment for me.  And? I want to ask.  But I usually don't.  Instead, I say thank you, letting the polite good girl back into the game.  Inside I'm dying to ask--tell me!  Was it any good??  

And that's the real question behind all this grant writing, this summing up, explaining, elucidating.  Is my work any good?  Is it worth me continuing?  I will keep writing, regardless of the answer, but it would be so lovely to hear yes.  Yes, we loved it.

Starting Selling

Now that the fabulous gloss of excitement is wearing off, I need to start with the tougher work of trying to sell this book.  I know it's a necessary part of this whole thing, but it's the toughest part for me.  I really hate asking anyone to buy my book, and I have a year or so ahead of me of trying to do just that, in various forms.  

I've started with Facebook, which seems like an excellent tool right now.  I have a couple of hundred friends on there, so if everyone bought a book, I'd be in great shape.  I'm using Twitter, and shamelessly, this blog too. (Want to buy my book?  Click here.)  

The writing conference I went to in Oregon last summer talked a lot about a writer's "platform" and how big publishing houses are asking writers to indicate they have a big and possibility-laden platform before they will consider publishing their work.  It's kind of an interesting concept, actually.  There's so many ways to reach readers now than there were even 5 years ago when I published my last book.

One idea being kicked around on Facebook by my writer friends is "virtual book tours."  This is a pretty cool idea.  As a writer, I'd try to let other writers or anyone with a good following, to let me "visit" their blog.  I'd do a guest post, respond to any comments, and then of course use that as a way to sell my book.  I actually really like this idea (maybe it's the introvert in me)--I think it would be interesting to get to know others' blogs well enough to write a post in them, and get to know their readers a little bit too.  

I'd love to do an actual book tour, too.  Corey and I were talking about it last night, and trying to figure out how to swing it.  I am thinking about trying for a grant, so we'll see.  We'd love to hop on the ferry in the fall and go to Haines, Ketchikan, Sitka, and maybe even Skagway or Gustavus.  We love the ferry, and I love the idea of reading in small bookstores, and getting to know some of the writer folks in those towns too.

The lovely news is that I've gotten a few invitations to read in town already.  The Alaska Wildlife Alliance has asked me to do a reading in March (not sure if we'll have books in hand by then, so we're working on that); the Juneau Public Library, and Egan Library have all expressed interest too.  So that's been really nice, and helpful.  And Sara at the UAS bookstore has been wonderful--she's so supportive.  

Maybe the coolest moment so far, though, was putting my cover up on Facebook and having so many great comments flood in.  I've never felt so supported as a writer before--it was kind of amazing.  It makes me think maybe all of this won't be so bad after all.  I just need to put it out there, try not to be too embarrassed, and see what happens.

The Cover!

Wow.  I woke up early this morning and found the image for my book cover in my email box.  This is going to be one of my all-time favorite days, I think.  Just seeing it makes it feel so real!

And I love the cover.  The production manager at Salmon is really terrific.  We worked together for several months on this back in the fall, and it was really tough to find the right image.  I still was a little worried about it until I saw it today, and realized it's exactly right.  I posted it on Facebook and a friend asked if it was a mountain range or a whale's tale (it's a boat).  That comment made me like it more than ever--that it could encompass all of those things, and be a little bit enigmatic is wonderful.

Seeing this book today really feels like I imagined it would feel, all those years ago, when I decided to try and write.  The writing, editing, working with friends, and publishing experience has been so wonderful and rich; I'm so grateful.  I've been so lucky to have so many writing friends help with this, and such a good publishing house to work with (Siobhan didn't give me a hard time at all about changing that sestina).  I'm one lucky, lucky girl.

In the Midst of Copy Edits, A Minor Miracle

This week, in the midst of the semester starting, I'm doing final galley proofs for Liveaboard.  It's been crazy, of course.  I love galley proofs though...seeing the layout of the book for the first time is such a thrill.  And the production manager at Salmon did a beautiful job with mine.

But we ran into one small snag--a few lines in one of my sestinas were too long to fit on the page.  We could always wrap them, of course, which is what Siobhan did, but I just couldn't stomach it for a sestina.  Perhaps more than any other poem, those end words matter, so wrapping just wrecks it.  On the first round of galley edits I revised each of the lines that wrapped, and then sent it back.  For 2 of the 3, that worked.  But the final line was just too long.

So this week I sat down again, and tried to mess with it.  I soon realized I was going to have to completely rewrite the line--it wasn't going to work any other way.  So I did...and on the 3rd or 4th version suddenly a metaphor for the entire poem emerged--one that I think had been there all along, but that I hadn't seen before.  In looking at it, I realized one of the 6 end lines had to be changed.  This is a pretty major change for a sestina, not to mention one in the 3rd and final stage of galley proofs...but I started working, and realized that the new word fit beautifully.  It actually worked! 

In a fit of ecstatic joy I zipped the poem off to my good friend and writer buddy Robyn Holloway, who looked it over, and told me one stanza still needed work.  And she was right, of course.  In order to make the whole metaphor work, I had to completely rewrite that stanza.  And as I did so, I realized I had to rewrite the ones before and after....  As any of you writers know, revising a sestina (well, any poem in form) is so painful.  But cool, too.  I worked on the poem for two days, and like it so much better.  I'm not sure if it's perfect, or even better, but I like it better and that's making me happy.  I'm pretty nervous about sending it off to Siobhan, though, as a 2-day-old poem.  Most of the poems in the book have gone through months of revision, been seen by at least 3 other writers I trust, been copy edited, etc.  Can I possibly trust myself enough to give her such a spanking new poem?  I guess I will.  

The real gift to me, though, was watching this happen.  I've worked on this particular poem for about 7 years now, and it's always felt not quite right.  And now it feels exactly right.  I hope I'm not wrong...I hope others find it exactly right too.

Spinning Belief

-       for Terry Tempest Williams

In the mussel-shelled beach of night

I dream I am a heron, with her fine, sharp

beak—look how she stalks and spears faith,

swallows it, rises past the spinning phalaropes

into the purple shine of night, the river lost

below her, tidewater rising, spinning

like cream in my coffee, as I spin

through my morning, feathered by last night’s

dreams of this perfect bird body, never lost

in the high grasses of belief, always etched sharply

against the river. But I’m not that bird.  I’m a phalarope

stuck in a spinning, frenetic search for faith.

This morning, sitting on the river, ancient stories of faith

in my hand, on my tongue, I watch the silk spinning

of one bird and what I see is this phalarope’s

wake, morning light on the waves she creates, the night’s

dark doubts spinning away as she turns, sharpens,

becomes belly focused—everything else lost

to the task of consuming the river, all desires lost

except belly desire—this bird knows faith.

She fills her long wings with fish, sharp

bones melting into her own fine skin, as she spins

her body, turning, turning until the empty night

rolls into memory under the feet of this phalarope.

I might find, if I could touch a phalarope,

that the complicated leaves of belief would lose

hold and helix away into the consuming night,

until all that remains is hollow bones, and the faith

that fish will rise if I ask, if I simply turn, begin to spin

a prayer with my arms, my feet, my belly sharp

with hunger and need. I can feel a sharpened

desire rising, as I remember the phalarope

who lives in my bones, who just by spinning

through river water, finds the longing, once lost,

to feed this feathered heart. I remember the feel of faith,

that fullness in my belly, in the deepness of night.

I begin to spin, see fish rise in this phalarope ritual, this faithful

search for solid bodies, rising in the sharp wake of my night,

and I eat, and I eat, the belief I once thought was lost.

Zazen Poetry & Zen Haiku

Two weeks ago in workshop we started reading The Poetry of Zen (edited by the excellent Sam Hamill).  In his intro he talks about the practice of zazen, and that got me thinking about poetry as being an act of meditation--both as we write, and as we read.

In class we talked about the three concepts of zazen:  body + mind + breath.  And suddenly it seemed so clear how that translates to poetry--those three concepts are so important in poetry too.  Body = image, mind = statement, and breath = rhythm.  It was really cool to make that discovery and then start explicating zen poems to see how the poems respond to those elements.  After our discussion, I asked my students to write zen poems for the following week, and they did an amazing job--some of them really blew us away.

This week we focused on haiku, and on the structural elements of haiku.  One that I really got excited about was using the structure of "comparison" where two images come together "to complete each other" (in the words of Jane Reinhold, Haiku-master and scholar).  I love the idea of neither image being complete, but in coming together, forming a whole.  We talked about "association" haiku too--that two seeminly different things come together because everything is part of the whole.  This seems like a very Zen concept too.  I talked my students through this structure (and 7 other ones) in class. To prepare, I tried to write in each structure.  Here is my haiku using "association":

Breastfeeding in Winter

snow rushing down

milk rising up

release

It's been really nice to return to haiku, and to think about poetry in this pure, simple form.  One poem we studied had only one multi-syllable word in it.  All had gorgeous rhythm, mostly iambic.  And most of them had no adjectives, no embellishment.  It was good for all of us, as we get into the final crazy weeks of the semester, to do a little zazen breathing, and meditate on these poems.  

Persona Poems

This week in my advanced workshop we're reading Luci Tapahonso and talking about persona poems.  I've written a few before, and a few Eve poems for the Liveaboard book, but it was interesting this week to really dig in and think about what they can do.

Tapahonso has a persona poem in which she inhabits an entire group of people--it's very moving, very sad.  I've never seen a plural first person persona poem before.  It made me think about how tough it is to speak for an entire group of people.

We also talked a lot about how first person gives us so many "rights" that 3rd person doesn't.  If I'm writing in 3rd person, I can't "pretend" to know the details of someone's story, but if I write in 1st person, I can. It's such an odd thing--because of course it's all invented. But somehow writing in the first person gives us permission to inhabit someone and to invent details.

I've been working on a poem about Mary giving birth to Jesus and it's written in the 3rd person.  After this week's class I'm wondering if it should be a persona poem.  Would 1st person give me more authority?  More permission?  Would it make it more "believable" and intimate?  Things to think about, I guess.

Risking Offending

So I wrote a surprising poem this week.  It's a poem about a really personal, physical thing and it definitely risks offending a number of people (my mom is probably first on that list).  And this of course has made me return to that age-old workshop question:  how do we handle this?

A few weeks ago when Peggy Shumaker was in my class a student asked her this.  She answered it well, like many other writers have, which is that each of us individually has to decide how to handle it.  For her, the risk was worth it.  She told the class her memoir had in fact offended a family member, but she wasn't sorry she had written it the way she had.  And of course we are all grateful she did--it's such an honest portrayal of family life.

Generally, I've tried to avoid this in my work.  There are stories I'm not yet ready to tell.  But reading Tender Hooks  gave me this big push this week.  Fennelly's so brutally honest in her poems.  I don't want to write like her, but somehow I stepped through that door a little bit.  And I have to confess, I love the poem.  I may not like it in a month, but I'm in love now (don't you love that initial crush we get on our new poems?).  One thing that surprised me was how much it affected me.  It's been rare that one of my own poems has changed the way I see the world--often I feel like I'm just trying to explain how I already feel.  (This has made me stop and think about what I'm actually doing with poems, since I do believe they should change us as we write.  But that's another topic.)  I feel really invigorated this week by this poem, and by the whole process of writing.  And surprisingly empowered.

I'm not yet feeling too nervous or apologetic about it.  The poem is about breastfeeding and talks a lot about the shape of my body, and the way we view women's bodies.  I do believe honesty is important in these poems--as a mother I've gained incredible strength from reading Fennelly's poems, and from talking honestly to my mom friends.  So I have to believe if I can make this poem work, it'll be worth it to other moms.  Now I just have to think about whether or not I'm ready to risk offending my own mom.