Tag: Writing Life

I Wrote. Did You Die? (Writing Life Updates)

~ M. Ashley ~ Leave a comment

I’m going to sit down to write, and no one is going to die.

That’s how I’ve been getting myself to the page this week. I drag myself to myself to my big puffy chair, settle in… settle in some more, take a sip of water, a sip of coffee… another sip of coffee, hover my fingers over the keys, another sip of water and I say, “I am going to sit down and write, and no one is going to die.”

Because the truth is, when you’re facing that page, and the anxiety is on you, it really feels like someone is about to die. At least it does for me.

I have been reading a lot of writerly inspirational books lately, mainly Natalie Goldberg. I’ve read four of hers in the last two months, which I know is overkill because just last night, as I was finishing The Great Spring, I found myself coming up panting to the finish line thinking, “If this chick talks about her solar beer can adobe one more time…”

Funny thing that. She waxes on endlessly about the beauty and magic of New Mexico. When my mom and best friend rescued me from Oklahoma and brought me back from California, we drove through New Mexico and it was nothing but scrubby desert as far as the eye could see. It looked exactly like the drive from San Bernardino, CA to Las Vegas, which is three hours of sheer brown blah, only in the case of New Mexico, there was a sign before you entered declaring it the “Land of Enchantment.” As we drove through, my best friend said, “I don’t know guys. I’m not feeling really enchanted right now.” 

I said, “Me either. No enchantment back here.” 

“Enchanted yet?” she asked my mom. 

“Nope, no enchantment here either.” Maybe Natalie Goldberg took it all to put into her books.

But other than that, I have gotten a ton out of them. I started sitting zazen because I felt like if that could give her this juicy way of looking at life and the discipline to sit down and write every day even when somebody out there’s life clearly hangs in the balance every single time, maybe that’s something I need to try. And I did. And it has been life altering in the best way.

I couldn’t tell you why exactly. Mainly I sit there in the zazen posture trying to keep my eyes down and unfocused and my back is screaming because posture is hard for someone so used to slouching and my monkey mind is going ape shit and I think the whole time clearly I’m about to die, but then it’s over and life is… different. I’ve been getting to the page, for one thing, consistently. Not in huge bursts here and there—days long marathons followed by months long stretches of sheer nothingness like that New Mexico drive, but every day, twenty minutes at least, no matter what. Returning and returning no matter how much my insides scream that someone’s life is on the line, probably mine, or that it’s going to be terrible, which it is sometimes, or I don’t have the energy and 20 minutes of focus seems like 20 Everests stacked on top of each other. I’ve been getting to the page anyway. That change is dramatic.

It has also somehow stoked my courage about submitting my work. I am over here sitting on 13 years of truly solid poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, and I have been doing next to nothing with it. I submitted a bit in 2015 and was the editor of a small, doomed literary journal that year for about ten minutes—I even got a couple of publications, but after that? Zilch. Just accumulating work, me here in my comfy chair, file folders growing fatter all the time. 

But since I started sitting zazen, I have been getting what I call these white puffy clouds of insight. They just drift gently by, they don’t push, they don’t insist, they just drift in, whisper “what if…” then drift back out again. At the beginning of this week, one such little puffy white cloud drifted in and said, “Why don’t you submit that funny poem you wrote about the IRS in the zendo to Rattle Poets Respond?’ And you know what? Weirdly, and completely uncharacteristically of me, I did it. I just got right over myself and did it.

I got rejected, which stings no lie, but it broke the seal and now, seven days later, I have submitted two poetry packets to four different places, two nonfiction pieces, and one flash fiction piece. Some of the places to which I’ve submitted are contests in which I probably only have a tiny snowball’s chance, but hey… you can’t win if you don’t play. I haven’t been playing for a very, very long time. It feels good to be back in the game.

I submitted so much that I had to get back into my ancient, dusty Duotrope account and get myself organized. What a wonderful tool (not a commercial for Duotrope). I can’t tell you the satisfaction of looking at that big long list of submitted work, simmering away, and knowing that I am now actually living the life of a professional writer. I’m not just futzing with the keys and dreaming about it. I’m doing it. Day in, day out, one finished piece at a time, one submission at a time, over and over as long as it takes. 

But still sometimes it takes a gargantuan effort to drag my ass to my writing chair. I have literally hidden under the blankets from it a couple of times this week. My innards told me yesterday that Goldberg was becoming too soft, so I listened to a little of Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art, which you must read if you haven’t, and that blasted me out from under the covers if for no other reason than I really wanted him to stop yelling at me.

Yes, drill sergeant! I will once again unto the breach! The enemy Resistance is at my back, my front, and both sides, but I will unto that breach while the breaching is good and continue to make this literary life come alive! 

Until next week, I wish you all happy… and relatively fearless… writing.

-M. Ashley

Poets Reading Poetry to Poets (poetry)

~ M. Ashley ~ Leave a comment

A good juicy scoop of mind-
Stuff quivering on the spoon
Slid slithery onto the tongue
Like licking silk.

Read it to me again, Baby
Orgasm or empty bladder
Either way
A relief.

Something
So
Good

Ego eviscerated on the
Golden linoleum wet with
Meaty gore. That’s all me
Down there. Down here

I go again.
Let’s go again.

-M. Ashley

I am starting a poetry reading podcast and would love to feature your work. If you’d like me to read your poem on the show, please send submissions to MichelleReadsPoems@gmail.com

Together I think we can build something great.

Uber Gangster Heaven

~ M. Ashley ~ Leave a comment

In an Uber, coming home from an appointment an hour away, stuck in traffic, the driver spent the first half of the ride telling us how important unions are and how he went around stumping for the union all the time when he worked at the Albertson’s warehouse, and then in the second half of the ride, he told us how he wants to get a collage of American gangsters tattooed on his leg (he had tats all over, including his face). He wanted everyone from Al Capone to El Chapo (not an American gangster, but I kept that to myself), to all these relatively current drug lords I’ve never heard of, and then somehow we ended up with him telling me how crack is made (or so he’s heard) and how much Percs and Fentanyl cost on the street (or so he’s heard). When we got to the destination, I told him that that ride was the most fun I’ve ever had in an Uber by far, which is a fact! I told him he was fantastic and gave him a big fat tip. My male friend, more conservative than I, was not thrilled, but I was in Michelle heaven!

I love people so much.

My only regret is that I forget to tell him he needed to add Jimmy Hoffa to his tattoo. Dang it!

-M. Ashley

Authentic African Musical Tiger Says

~ M. Ashley ~ Leave a comment

In a moment a pain, crying and praying, my god brought me this. The radio playing mysterious drums and me… I had to look. Authentic African music surely… with a tiger on the cover. A tiger.

Hard to pain cry and SMH cry laughing at the same time.

And if that weren’t enough: That look in the authentic African music tiger’s eye: “You… Hey you… Hey you there lady, crying. You! Authentic African musical tiger says, RELAX!!!”

And buddy, you’d better fucking relax.

-M. Ashley

Missing Frank Bidart (poem)

~ M. Ashley ~ Leave a comment

Oh my poet-y friend… how I have missed thee.
I have missed myself defacing your books with
Purple ink notes like, “Love it!” and “Scary.”

Remember that time I humiliated myself on a
Plane pompously overblowing poetry to a
Stranger who turned out to be a PhD in poetry

My nose in your book
My ass on my shoulders
Me talking out of it

But then you were there for me
For that—for my ass face too
And my starry eyes for you.

-M. Ashley

My Eternal Creative Space

~ M. Ashley ~ Leave a comment

I am working with an art therapy book geared toward body acceptance and the first art prompt was to depict our ideal creative space. I think the idea was to draw what houseplants and implements and draperies we would like in our art room, but this is what I came out with instead. It may not be a still life style depiction of what my ideal creativity space would look like–I would never be able to realistically draw a grand piano, an ancient viola, stacks and stacks of sheet music, an art table big enough to lie down on, cement floor to make messes easier to be messy, a photo studio, a recording studio, a big sink, every brush and paint and crayon and color and implement known to man, redwood tall shelves of books, red velvet chairs, open atlases mapping out all the adventures I’ve had and am yet to have, and above it all, the ceiling painted with the zodiac so I have a mapped out sky and eternally turning fate overhead always–I may not be able to realistically draw any of that, but what I did come up with accurately represents what would be going on in that space in the ether, among all that glorious stuff while the art was happening. There would be the spirit of Mercury, planet and god, and a Valentine from him charged electric positive and negative. There would be wild hair–my hair–probably red and black paint in my wild white hair. There would be me looking through my glasses, their dark frame the slightly warped symbol for infinity. My poodle, blue in this drawing for tranquility, would be there nosing my hands across the page in smarter directions than I would have ever thought of on my own. The numbers 12 and 21 would likely pop up everywhere, mysteriously as they do in every corner of my life already. The technological universe is coded on 0 and 1. My little universe is 1 and 2. There is eternity everywhere! The ouroboros, the dense spiral in Mercury’s head, the glasses… And yellow sunny swirls all over and underneath because this is Apollon and the Muses’ space as much as, if not more than mine. And finally, a treble clef because, in this space, everything sings.

-M. Ashley

Self-Portrait: 2022 Is Also All About My Hair

~ M. Ashley ~ Leave a comment

“There is a lot of breakage.” Don’t we all feel that way?

I balked when she said it and immediately went to defend myself. It must be the scrunchie I had near permanently in my mop since the beginning of the pandemic. It’s because I hadn’t had it cut since then. It’s because the hair is in terrible condition because of pandemic neglect and not, dear gods, because it’s falling out. It’s just broken not heading for the hills. It’s just broken, not endangered. It’s just broken—more, healthy, unbroken hair is just behind it.

I got it cut in December 2021 and I feel like a human again. The broken hairs are still broken, but the unbroken ones are no longer frayed like D-grade straw, looking like a witch’s hair. Gods, was I ever embarrassed when I walked my straw haired witch’s self into the Great Clips and asked them to whack the mess off. The stylist was understanding, matter of fact as the hay hit the floor, and gave me a marvelous new start, jawline length, relief from all the burden of the last two years that had fallen well past my shoulders and almost all the way down to my waist.

So the broken ones are still broken, but they’re also still growing and now don’t have so far to go to catch up to their unbroken sisters. The mop isn’t so long that I have to keep it up in a scrunchie anymore. I don’t have to be bound all the time. No more mass breakage is imminent. 2022 is going to be a good year.

How much further can I carry this hairy pandemic metaphor? Let’s see:

The thing about the short curly hair is that there is no second chance. There is no second day hair so, if you’re going somewhere, if anyone else is meant to see you, you must must must take care of it day by day. It’s a hassle when we’ve all gotten so used to not caring much about ourselves as we huddle and hide away. But also a sign of health, this hassle, and anything, even if it’s vanity, that forces you to bathe and primp and proper yourself, is a good thing and a godsend in a time when it’s far too easy just to let go.

With the short curly do that gives no second chances, I wake up from tossing nights looking like Einstein. That’s why I was able to come up with such completely original, genius, and insightful observations about the pandemic vis-a-vis my hair.

Original, I tell you. Original.

I wish you all the best and healthiest in 2022. My goal is to be here more and make more super genius and purely original observations with both my words and my art, photographic and otherwise. My goal is to read more of your work as well. My hope is we will inspire each other. My hope is we will inspire each other enough so as to give each other the tingles. My hope is we will inspire each other enough that, tingling together, it makes our collective hair, broken and unbreakable, stand on end.

-M. Ashley

Photo: My submission for this week’s 52 Frames challenge, “Self-Portrait” I’m calling it “Gallows Humor.” Taken with an iPhone 10. Flash did not fire.

Autumn Walk Diaries: Smoke and Fire

~ M. Ashley ~ Leave a comment
Next-day smoke from the University Fire

The thing this morning was smoke.

We walk at around nine or ten and, at around nine or ten, the scene over Little Mountain towards Devore and the Cajon Pass was bleak.

We wish for gray skies here. We hope for it. We pray for it. Some of us may even bay at the moon and dance for it—thirsty, drought stricken, dead lawn denizens that we are. But that gray ain’t rain clouds, brother.

Little Mountain was on fire yesterday—not our bit of it, but the bit of it one neighborhood away, closer to the freeway where my great aunt and uncle lived for forty years, north of the 215 freeway, south of all those houses… all those houses. Everyone was evacuated. Water drop helicopters landed in the neighborhood park. City and county fire descended and ascended upon it from all possible angles. They put the fire down so fast, it barely made the local news and was but a mild ripple even amongst the busybody neighbors on Nextdoor.

Little Mountain is on fire a lot. Our people know how to fight that fire. Our people have always been victorious. Not a single house or business has ever been burned in that spot. We are very blessed. We are very lucky. We are willful that we go on living here, year after year, fire after fire… after fire after fire after fire.

So this morning, the thing was a sky over the mountain filled with orangey gray that smells like God’s barbecue and promises nothing but swimming pools, A/C filters, and formerly pink lungs full of ash.

Weirdly, though, a hopeful sight: smoke in the sky, no longer connected to the earth below—no longer a real threat, no longer a panic, no longer everyone’s nightmare. A little relief. More than a little gratitude all those houses were saved and we can go back from praying our neighbors make it, to praying one day we get friendlier clouds filled with rain.

-M.

Autumn Walk Diaries: The Mailman Knows Too Much

~ M. Ashley ~ Leave a comment

There wasn’t much afoot on our walk this morning–how very clever of me–and we pretty much had the neighborhood to ourselves, which is just the way I like it. I pretend Kismet likes it that way too, but I’m sure her mighty, sporty poodle heart would prefer some action.

Rounding the last turn from Sheridan onto Clemson, the mailman swung around to the box next to us as we passed the last house. We see the mailman every day, but usually he is across the street and we prefer it that way because yuck–human interaction and, yuck–having to be conscious for a few seconds of our walk just long enough to say “good morning. “

I’m feeling a bit like the troll who lives under the bridge today when really, in my own mighty sporty poodle heart, I love saying good morning to people on our walks and look forward to announcing to my family, upon my return, who all I had the polite exchange with. (With who all I had the polite exchange? “Who all” is the problem with that sentence I think.)

Kismet and I talked to our mailman once before. She barked at him and I had to reassure him it was just that she is afraid of cars. Nothing personal.

“It’s not the mailman thing then, huh?” He said and laughed.

“No,” I said. “I’m sure she’d love you if she knew you.” Then I felt weird, like I accidentally flirted. Another one of the 50,000 ways Michelle makes herself uncomfortable while the other party thinks nothing of it.

Before pulling off to the next mailbox, he said, “I dropped a package for you at your door.”

“Thank you,” I said and walked away, feeling oddly creepy that, although we met a street away from mine, the mailman my dog barked at and with whom I accidentally flirted knows who I am and to which house I belong.

Shouldn’t that be the most natural thing? I know where he belongs: in his truck, doing his route between 9 and 10 every day. Why shouldn’t he know where I belong: walking past his truck, going in and out of that one house, albino plus black and white poodle in the neighborhood between 9 and 10 every day?

Nothing even remotely creepy in it except my own creepy mind.

Cheers to the mailman then. I know we shall meet again.

I would say “Happy fall y’all” but I’m a Southern Californian which is the wrong kind of southern for that. So instead, have a like awesome autumn or whatever. There. That’s much better.

-M.

PS
Thanks for the package.