Last night, I dreamed
that you were tossing back highballs
from a martini glass,
and when I pointed this out,
you slapped me,
and said everyone was doing it.
Author: Chris Tullbane
Author of The Murder of Crows and The Many Travails of John Smith.
303 Days to the Apocalypse – A Traditional Publishing Rejection Timeline
Hello everyone, and welcome to (the last day of) April! I had plans (big plans!) to share a post today about character and finding your voice, but those plans were scuttled by the arrival of a long-awaited email from the agent I’d been talking with about See These Bones.
Long story short: she decided not to offer representation.
Instead of spending this post weeping into my (non-existent) beard, I wanted to share a timeline of the experience, from initial contact to ultimate rejection.
Poetry: The End of Sheep
When I struggle to fall asleep,
I’ll count white hairs instead of sheep,
as there are more of them each day.
(How many more? I cannot say,
for when my counting climbs past ten…
March Madness
As 2019 seems to be the year of epiphanies, here’s my latest: moving is a pain in the ass and unconducive to productivity.
One very mad month later, we’ve fully moved in to our new house, if you ignore the small piles of boxes in certain rooms and the multiple-item-checklist of found issues that we’re still waiting for our builder to address. Despite the craziness of vendors/trades constantly dropping by unannounced, I feel incredibly fortunate to be in this beautiful new house.
The next step? Actually furnishing it. 😛
Poetry: What the Eyes Do Not See
What I see
is given form
by light,
refracting,
reflecting,
translating mass
into shape
and colors
and faces,
but in the darkness…
2019 Goals Check-in – February
I don’t want to blow anybody’s minds this early in the year, but I recently had an epiphany: February is a short month. Like… 1-3 days shorter, depending on the year and the month you’re comparing it to.
Crazy, right?
This particular February has felt even shorter, at least partly because I’ll be moving next week. In lieu of a stand-alone article, and given how quickly March is bearing down on us, I thought this would be a good time to check in on my 2019 writing goals.
Poetry: Words
My words begin to die
the moment I set them free,
tumbling from chapped lips like
broken acrobats;
the carpet is thick with their
skeletal remains…
2019 Writing Goals
If you spend any time on social media, you’ve probably seen the widely-circulated study that says most new year’s resolutions are abandoned by January 12th. Luckily, I’ve devised an ingenious solution to the problem… don’t even start your resolutions until mid-January!
Whew. That was easier than I thought it would be. Now we can all get on with the business of making ourselves better people! Ice cream and cake for everyone!
A Goodbye Letter to 2018
Dear 2018,
You’ve been a year.
I didn’t include an adjective, because I’m hardpressed to pick just one. So let’s settle for the obvious instead. Like your predecessor, the much-derided and ranted-about 2017, you’ve successfully persisted for almost exactly 365 days. Sometimes it felt longer. Other times–like the entire holiday season–it felt shorter. But I’ve done the requisite calculations, consulted a multitude of experts in the field, and offered up pastry sacrifices to the Oracle at Delphi, and I can conclude, with a fair bit of certainty, that you were, in fact, a year.
And that, as they say, is that.
Now, if you are looking for adjectives, I can do that too. Just be warned that it’s a bit of a mixed bag.
2018 Review: My Top 5 Posts
2018 is almost over, and 2019 is waiting out there somewhere in the weeds, flush with unknown potential and (presumably) bad intentions. Before the new year arrives, I thought it would be fun and topical to look back on the year that was.
Next week, I’ll cover the three 2018 accomplishments I’m most proud of, and the week after that will detail three challenges I’ve struggled with all year. But this week, we’re going with something a little simpler; cold, hard, analytical data.
That’s right… in a blatant case of Instagram-copying, I’m sharing this site’s five most viewed posts in 2018.