If asked a year ago if I’d traveled much, I would have said, “Not really.”

The biggest city I had been to at the time was Philadelphia, followed by Indianapolis, and Austin, TX. I know this because I just looked up the statistics on largest U.S. city by population. Of those cities, Austin is probably my favorite, on weirdness alone. Technically, I have also been to San Antonio, which is more populated than Austin, but I only just drove through it from the airport to a wedding at a gorgeous ranch at least an hour’s drive away, so it left little impression other than “Holy frak, that is a lot of chain stores!”

As one who is from the Cincinnati, Ohio area, and thus utterly landlocked, I often feel a great deal of wanderlust for other locales, especially places near oceans. In the last year, I haven’t slaked that thirst yet, to be near water I shouldn’t drink (haha, see what I did there, poorly constructed joke and all). However, I have traveled across an ocean and, for the first time, visited a foreign country. I still find it rather unbelievable that I got to do so, that I found a way to make it happen. I learned a lot from the entire experience, and I feel like it was a great lesson in how one’s hard work can produce awesome results. If I want to go to more amazing places, I am going to have to work really hard to get there.

In the past 6 months, I have been to London, England. I have been to Cardiff, Wales. I have been to Chicago (for the AWP conference). And I have been to Washington, D.C. (for the Reason Rally).

Later this year, I will definitely return to Atlanta, GA for Dragon*con. I also plan to drive up to Columbus, Ohio for Origins, and to Indianapolis, IN for GenCon (and to visit my oldest brother). (Note that GenCon’s website was all frakked up at the time I wrote this, so I felt this was the next best informative link, complete with website link once they have fixed it.)

A friend is trying to convince me to go to TAM, but dropping funds on that seems out of the question right now. Airfare alone is insane, and once factoring in the hotel and the cost of the convention, there’s no way I can justify the expense. And anyway, I really need to focus on my thesis this summer anyway. Bonus, that I won’t feel too sad about missing it because Bunbury Music Festival is happening in Cincinnati on the same weekend.

There are a couple of things about these travel plans that I find disappointing. One: conventions tend to be insular little bubbles, so it can be frustrating to step away from that and actually enjoy the cities (read: WANDERING!). Two: none of my current plans are going to help cure that oceanic wanderlust.

Annoyance #2 I will have to sort out next year, because my travel budgeting truly isn’t going to work out any other way this year. Annoyance #1, on the other hand, is somewhat solvable, with a cost.

In Chicago, at the AWP conference, there were tons of panels that were vaguely interesting on paper. But as it goes, I would attend a panel and find that it was rather missing something, and that the agenda of the panelists was quite dissimilar from my expectations as an audience member. Also, there is this smugness about published authors that make me want to punch them in the face. Perhaps it is tied into the evil little complex that holds me back from success, like how not submitting your work is easy, because you face no rejection? Something along those lines anyway.

Some of my favorite parts of the convention was getting away from it, exploring the city, riding the El, wandering in the strikingly bitter cold of late February, and struggling to open doors against the legendary winds of Chicago. Possibly because my travel-mates were awesome, I am not sure, but I felt like we balanced out convention with city exploration rather well. While we didn’t get a chance to go to any museums while we were there (other than the Art Institute, where we discovered they no longer offer the free night that was mentioned in our outdated tour book). Instead, we got a glimpse at the city, enough to want to return, to get to explore the museums we missed.

Anyway, clearly my thoughts about where I have been and where I am going are conflicted, confusing, and out of order. Appropriate enough for the future, as it is unwritten, but I suppose I should at least try to make more sense of it if I plan to write about it here. I should make a more detailed post of the Chicago shenanigans anyway. Until I finish my final paper for this semester, though, I shouldn’t be writing any more blogs. They are as jumbled up as the current state of my graphic novel final draft.

I have been quite busy over the past few months. In late December, I traveled to London with a group of students from my university (NKU), and a couple of other schools (MTSU and Belmont). The CCSA study abroad program offered a class from NKU on fantasy (Gaiman, JK Rowling, Pratchett, etc). I was going to take that class since I knew the two professors who taught it, but then something else in the brochure caught my eye: Doctor Who. Doctor Who? Doctor WHO!?

As a life-long fan of the show, thanks to a mother who has been a fan since the show’s premiere in 1963, I couldn’t resist the urge to sign up for the Doctor Who course. I knew nothing about the professor until I googled his name. Turns out, he’s one of the core Joss Whedon scholars in the country. That cinched it, clearly this was going to be the class for me. And it was.

There was a chance the class might not happen, given that so few people had signed up for it, but in total, professor included, there were nine of us. Our class blog. I am the one in the purple hoodie. Together, we traveled by train across the UK from London to Cardiff, to stomp around in the icky rain and visit a few places where the show is filmed. Also in our journey was a trip to Stonehenge, where we couldn’t get close enough to check out the Pandorica. We visited the British Library, the British Museum, Tate and Tate Modern, The Science Museum, The Natural History Museum, The Doctor Who Experience, and much, much more. It was the opportunity of a lifetime, and I am grateful that I was able to do it. I cannot believe how incredibly lucky I am. My mother, I think, would insist that I’m not lucky, that my hard work brought me there. If this is true, and I am definitely one to at least listen to my mother, then the message is clear. Work hard, and awesome things happen. Keep working hard so more awesome things will happen.

Like this website. It was a lot of work to keep telling the story of Scurvytown every week. That work is made even harder when I let it bother me that I get no feedback, or very little notice of the hard work that I put into it. But you know, letting this sit in the background for awhile made me realize something. Who cares? I don’t need encouragement to keep going. I should keep going just because I want to. And it’s taken me awhile, but I am back in the place where I want to write this story again.

So, I want to say that I have not been siting around writing nothing for the past few months. This is quite true. In November, I started a new series (which started out as what were supposed to be stand alone short stories) that I hope to revise in the prose class I am taking in the fall. My ultimate goal for those stories is to get them published in chapbook form. Since they are all linked by a central theme, I think this is a very likely possibility.

Also, I was able to showcase my Emily Dickinson podcast from last semester at NKU’s Celebration, which was fantastic. After that, I was in charge of our grad program’s colloquium, which thankfully had very few issues. I have also been taking a graphic novel class, in which I am currently writing a script that can best be summed up as Carnivale meets Firefly. I am hoping to churn out at least 50 pages total for this, to get me halfway to the Script Frenzy finish line, though we only have to turn in 30 pages for the class.

In a few weeks, the semester will be over, and I will have the entire summer to dedicate to my little projects. I have made a few spreadsheets to help set a schedule for myself. And through all this, I have my 40-hours a week job, that while the role itself isn’t the most ideal, the company and just about everything else are perfect for me while I am still a student.

I have written this post as a reminder of how much I have accomplished in the past few months, despite my feelings to the contrary. A lot has happened, but I know I can do better. I can produce more and better works, I can write more, do more, be more. But I also need to balance it all out in a fun way. This is why I chose to expand my Emily Dickinson podcast for my thesis project. It involves a lot of research into the subject herself, but I just found out from my committee chair that there are some relevant fictional works I have to familiarize myself with as well. I was both annoyed by that revelation, and delighted by it. He’s right, of course, I need to know about other works of fiction that are similar to my own endeavors, so that I can distance my work from them enough for it to stand out. I have a long, fun, crazy summer ahead of me, of research, reading, planning, and writing. This is what it has come to. This is what has become of me. Honestly, I love that this is my life now. I am excited to see where this path will lead me.

I wrote a short story for one of my classes. Posting it here because my mom wanted to read it. After re-reading it a couple of times, I decided that the basic concept seems to be that Emily Dickinson is kidnapped by English Batman and taken to the future.

Anyway, here goes, also, it’s got quite a few errors, I just haven’t put in the time to do revisions yet. Will do that after it gets workshopped.

A Clockwork Dickinson

Part One: Stop the Clock Ticking

The rapping on the door began softly, as if to gently rouse the careful sleeper on the other side. However, the attempt at arousal was itself mistaken, for the woman in the room was not asleep, and had not been since the sun broke free of the horizon.

The young lady had watched the light break, curiously, as if she had never before seen such a wonder. It was not the simple act of daybreak that filled her with wonder, but the thoughts she’d never had before whose presence cast such shadows in the fresh light. She thought, “How easily the sun makes it seem, to overcome one’s own gravity.”

The rapping on the door grew louder, the frustrated fist pounding while she pondered the laws of science upon her own cursed humanity.

“Emily,” Austin called softly, more gently than suggested by the insistent knocking on her bedroom door.

She hesitated, cutting off her sunlit reverie mid-thought, where she left an apple dangling from a string above dear Isaac Newton’s head. She would cut the fruit free later, and continue this experiment in thought.

“I’m rather indisposed,” she called out lightly to the door, as if brother were made of wood. Carrying on the simplest conversations with him was akin to conversing with a lively Oak.

The knocking ceased. The lack of sound felt deeply more persistent. Emily strode from the window to the door and opened it.

“You’re up to your games again,” Austin accused, his voice vaulting to a higher pitch with the last few syllables.

“Am I having fun?” Emily asked.

Austin glared across the threshold at his sister. “You were missed at breakfast,” he said, his left eye giving a twitch.

“Was I missed at tea?” Emily asked, smoothing her hands on her wrinkled dressing gown.

Austin stared at her then, his cold blue eyes pained beneath their sparkling pools. He opened his mouth to speak, but closed it again, his eyes darkening against the swallowed grievance, unaired.

“I heard the strangest thing last night,” Emily began. “There was a curious ticking. In my sleep I could feel it beneath my pillow, and in my dream, I awoke, followed the noise through door after door to the street. There were more doors in this house than ever before, than ever I could recall. I was so startled to find myself out in the street, in my bedclothes, hid behind a tree. A hand reached out to greet mine, as though to kiss it, upon first meeting. Instead, into my hand was passed a single Daisy, withered as though it had been picked many hours prior. In the next instant, I was utterly transformed and then transfixed upon a carriage dark as midnight. In the very second it was assumed the carriage had arrived at our destination, I awoke to the sun pulling itself free of the horizon. Always, throughout my slumber, there was this curious ticking.”

Austin listened to her story, as he listened to all her stories, his mood never revealed by his chiseled features. She could not bear to look in his eyes, for fear her words had poisoned the well deeper, and pained his thoughts beyond that of her own.

“Could you still hear the ticking when you awoke?” Austin asked at last.

“No,” she lied.

“Then you are safe in your room, and you are my Emily.”

“So it hasn’t happened,” she said, unable to hide her disappointment.

“No, my dear, you are still with us.” He took her hand, and pressed it softly. “You mustn’t fear the Daisies. They’ve not come for you, yet.”

Emily laughed, let it rattle her bones deep throughout herself, the way she rarely did, but always did when Austin spoke her language. No one else seemed to understand. How lucky, she thought, to have a brother who understood her, but then maybe he understood her because she was his. If she had the opportunity to make the choice, she preferred to think of their deep connection as more special than that.

“Shall we have a cup of tea, and sit quietly in the garden?” Austin suggested.

Emily frowned, but then nodded slowly. “Yes, that sounds lovely,” she replied. Leaning away from the window, she declared, “I shall adorn myself with proper attire.”

“That would be best. What might the roses think?” Austin smiled at her. He closed the door behind him as he left to inquire about preparations for tea.

Emily felt a calm settle her feet to the floor. Tea. Garden. These words filled her with mirth and memories that had not been on her mind for some time. She liked the way they sounded much better. As she dressed for tea, the dreaded ticking resounded in her ears, as in her dreams. It was more like it was behind her ear, so she scratched away at the imaginary itch as she made herself presentable for a garden tea.

#

Though it was still summer, the garden had let a chill fall over it, and of this Emily did not approve. She sipped her tea silently, closing her eyes so that the birdsong seemed to overwhelm the ticking that had not departed.

Every so often, her brother would sigh, and she’d let her eyes pop open. Each occasion, he’d turn away as if he would looking at something else, worrying about someone else. The silence seemed to have gotten the best of Austin, as he said, “I’ve been meaning to ask if you’d like to go to the new gallery.”

“You should take Susan,” she replied, a bit too swiftly.

“Emily, forgive me, but I am asking my sister if she would like to go.” He repeated, ignoring her pointed comment.

“I’d sooner we talk about the weather,” she said, yawning. She sat her teacup down on the saucer in front of her.

“I’d sooner not speak at all,” he returned, his voice buttered with anger, as he took a bite of a tea biscuit.

“Oh, I wish you wouldn’t,” Emily replied, making a face.

“Only snakes stick out their tongues,” he muttered.

“Only snakes belong in gardens,” Emily retorted.

Austin stared at her, his eyes boring into her like she was an apple, and he was the worm. “Always there with a quick line,” he said, shaking his head and standing.

“Oh, you’re furious!” she said, laughing.

“I’m off to the pantry for more biscuits,” he replied, as he stuffed the last one in his mouth.

“If you think that’s for the best,” she replied, ducking his glare. As he withdrew into the house, she turned to see where his gaze might have hit, if it cast itself straight through her.

There was something across the garden that she certainly had not noticed before, not merely on this particular early summer’s afternoon, but ever before. There seemed to be a large figure moving back and forth along the far row of flowers. Emily stood up, and he seemed to shrink in her estimation, much the way physics condescended to defy itself within the constraints of her dreams. She pinched her cheek to make certain she was quite awake.

“Austin!” she called, alarmed.

The figure shot up tall, and at last her eyes could grasp a full view of him. He had a finger pressed to his lips, as if to suggest he required a kiss. He wore a tall black hat, and seemed too statuesque himself to necessitate the extra height. His coat was unlike any she had ever seen, also black, but shiny, and seemed to drape behind him like a cape. It was curious to her that he would be wearing wintry garb in the middle of July. As he motioned her to come closer, she found, such as in a dream, she was unable to move her legs. She closed her eyes and breathed in deeply, hoping the strange man would have disappeared when she re-opened them.

At that moment, Austin returned to the garden, a fresh plate of biscuits in his hand.

“What captivates the lady’s attention so?” he asked.

“There’s someone there, at the edge of the garden,” she hissed, pointing, opening one eye to peek out at the row of hedges where the man had stood.

“I don’t see a single soul in this garden other than my dear sister, who would do well to sit and finish her tea before it forgets it was ever hot.”

Emily sat down and sipped at her hot tea, like an obedient sister, but she could not keep her eyes off the now empty patch of garden. She had a queer thought that man-flowers grew there and that once mature, they would break free of the ground and stalk the earth. She wanted to say the words, but she let them catch in the back of her mind, whereas she’d normally let them catch in her throat in a self-contained chuckle.

“I see if I want your attention this afternoon, I’ll have to sit in line with your gaze,” Austin said, moving his chair across the table from her.

Along with the tea biscuits, Austin had brought with him a newspaper. As she slowly sipped her tea, he read quietly. He had only been back for a few minutes when the strange man reappeared once again. Emily remained calm, wondering perhaps if he rendered himself incorporeal when anyone other than her laid eyes upon him. She stifled a giggle as the man seemed to be getting shorter as he walked along the hedge row, as if he were descending a set of stairs on the other side of the garden. Austin looked up at her, and taking in her bemused expression, stared at her for a moment, as if trying to gauge her thoughts.

“I was just thinking,” she lied, “about how odd it would seem to be in two places at once. How could you keep them straight? One of them might never seem real.”

“These are the kinds of thoughts we spoke of yesterday, my sweet sister.”

“I am sorry that my thoughts trouble you. Imagine how they disorient me!”

“Shall I call the doctor again?” Austin asked, folding his paper.

“Please don’t,” Emily said, rubbing her temples. “I’ll be fine.”

“Is there a pain coming on?” he asked.

“The only pain I see in this garden is my brother,” she replied.

He stood up. “I shall call the doctor, I think. You might not always know what is best, particularly in relation to your own well-being.”

Emily started to protest, but as she had already done so once without deterring her stubborn sibling, she held her tongue. In all the talk of calling the chemist, she had forgotten the man at the end of the garden. As soon as Austin had retreated into the house, she scurried to the end of the garden, her feet bare and now dirty.

“Thought you’d never get a moment alone,” the man said, as he leaned against the house.

He was wearing thick-framed spectacles, which were again unlike any she’d seen. He had an accent, like he was visiting from England.

“Are you English?” she asked.

“What gave me away?” he asked.

“I am not certain what the obsession is that people have,” she began, “With not answering questions! Or with thinking that a question is sufficient answer to any query.”

“But you got your answer either way,” the strange man replied.

“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” Emily replied.

“Then try something else. Try being fearless. Understand?”

“Not even a little bit,” she admitted.

The man pulled a watch out of his pocket. “Would you like to stop the ticking of the infernal clock?” he asked.

Her eyes grew wide, and even as they did, she deigned to prevent it, for she did not wish for the man to take the temperature of her reaction. Seeing his recognition at her response, she nodded in agreement.

“Of course you do, dear,” he said.

“Do you trust me?”

“I don’t think I trust myself,” she replied.

“Oh dear, and how you complain about answering a question with a question. But might we speed things up a bit? There is always a deadline. You’ve only to decide, do you truly wish to stop the ticking of the clock?”

“Yes,” Emily said forcefully, the decision made in a word formed before she could think it.

“Then close your eyes and count to ten.”

Emily complied, opened her eyes, and let the world smack her in the face. She breathed in several shallow breaths, choking on the thickness of the oxygen. This was not her garden. This was a world she’d only once dreamt of, with dozens of faces moving past her each second, the street teeming with strangely dressed denizens of a world beyond her wildest imaginations.

“Where are we?” she asked, once she had caught her breath.

“London, and we’re just about home, as soon as that clock chimes 5 times.”

At that moment, the clock of which he spoke began its countdown. Emily watched the seemingly faceless faces of the crowd rushing past, and she wondered where they might be going.

The clock finished its countdown.

“Welcome to 2012, dear. I can’t wait to show you off around town. The others will be so terribly jealous.”

“Then their clothes aren’t strange at all. Ours are,” she said, taking his proclamation better than he had imagined.

“I thought for certain you would faint when you heard where I’d brought you.”

“I’ve always felt a sense of being trapped in an era that didn’t know how to handle me. I’ve always been told that I’m adaptable. It was never a compliment. Is it here?”

“It is.”

“Then I’m happy.”

The man stared at her for a moment. As his blue eyes pierced into her flesh, tore into her organs and took stock of her innards, she felt a twinge she’d only noticed a time or two before.

“Then, shall we?” he asked, extending his arm.

“With no question of whether it’s proper?” she asked.

“You’re already catching on.”

When I read something that is “out there,” meaning released into the world and generating income for the writer, and it’s something that sucks outright, it’s incredibly frustrating. This is the arrogance/ego of the writer, I know. Apparently this is expected of writers. If arrogance is in any way self-confidence, and if either can be mistaken (or interchanged for the other), then I suppose I have some semblance of either. (After re-reading this paragraph, I see that it is clearly some of that bad writing I needed to get out of my system.)

My response to unfortunate writing has always been the sarcastic jerk approach. I enjoy going purposefully writing my own very wrong/horrible narratives/poems/etc. as satire. This possibly falls into the “amusing only to me” category.

It’s funny how seeing something that feels written wrong to me acts as a trigger/ prompt for my own work. Even if what I am writing is crap, sometimes you have to let the bad out in order to get to the good stuff, to unlock the worthy content.

I haven’t posted on here in over a month! Bad writer, bad! But I did make the wonderful end-of-semester switch from being annoyed with the summer prose workshop to being so glad that I had the sense to sign up for it in the first place.

I sincerely learned so much from that experience. Since then, I’ve been reading like a fiend, trying to absorb as many books as possible before the fall semester begins. I also completely switched my fall course-load. I had initially signed up for an autumn from hell: a composition theories course and The History of Rhetoric. Both are necessary for the Rhet/comp certificate which was my initial goal when I signed onto the MAE program at NKU.

Between the massive growing up as a writer that the prose workshop initiated, and my volunteer work at First West Women’s Writing Conference, I decided that passion has to trump practicality. I think every major career/educational mistake I’ve made has been a result of an attempt to be more realistic. But to hell with that. Dream big or GTFO.

There is always something magical about a group of women getting together to teach one another new things and encourage each other’s work. First West was a beautiful success in that regard, so much so that in addition to volunteering next time, I plan on attending the workshops. I couldn’t really afford it this summer, what with my lack of work and dwindling resources, but thankfully all that is beginning to improve.

Explanation of First West. Basically, Kentucky was once called The First West, back in the days of the infancy of the United States. One of the creative writing professors at NKU, a delightful and exuberant poet, started the conference back at the university she was working for before joining the faculty at NKU (at least I think she was responsible for its creation). I feel incredibly lucky to be enrolled in her Teaching Creative Writing class in the fall.

Speaking of being excited about instructors, I ditched comp theories because it seemed overkill to be taking two courses related to teaching, concurrently, and I wanted to have some fun. I haven’t yet taken a literature course, and since we need a historical (pre-1900′s) course to graduate, it seemed like a good idea to sign up for the one that is being offered. The professor who is teaching that is our resident Moby Dick scholar, and I had the pleasure of hearing him speak for an hour about a trip he took to the Pacific Northwest, to learn more about whaling in the area, and to collaborate on a book with an artist friend of his. He is a masterful storyteller and I look forward to learning about Henry James and Emily Dickinson under his tutelage.

I already have some ideas about projects that I can do related to Emily Dickinson, and I think my NaNoWriMo attempt this year will revolve around her, and if not her directly, then someone based on her. The lit class will be so helpful in researching that time period and the language nuances of that century.

And Scurvytown, what of that? It’s been sitting in the shadows, lurking in the back of my mind. I keep getting ideas for new projects and then having to remind myself that novelty is a shiny distraction, and I have to write down the new project ideas, and remind myself that if I want to get all swept up in writerly epiphanies, I should try to re-direct them to existing projects. Learning to shut out distracting shiny things is clearly a major part of the writing process. Or at least, write them down and let them collect some dust while current projects are completed. Then they can attention whore in my brain all they want.

What Scurvytown needs is really a complete overhaul. What I have at the moment is a decent outline for what really happens. I need to consider which characters are best deserving of their own storylines, and stick to the new format that I created for the “episodes” because of the prose workshop feedback that I received.

Right now, I am journaling much more, maybe not every day, but at least every few days. And until the semester begins, I’ll have my nose stuck in a good book, trying to get lost and find my way out again, which incidentally, is my favorite part of navigation: a game of lost and found.

On Thursday night, I was updating wordpress and it broke my website. It’s happened before, but usually seems to right itself. This time was different. I waited, checked back a few hours later, and it was still broken. It seemed to be related only to one of my plug-ins, so I had to figure out how to login to the ftp thingy and delete the plug-in. Like magic, the website was back to normal, minus the offending plug-in. So it was a simple fix, but I was ridiculously proud of myself for figuring out the issue, addressing it, and righting the wrongs like a pro.

I have been increasingly disappointed in my workshop class. It feels like when it’s my turn to have my work looked at, everyone seems to say the exact same thing (general overview-wise, a few people offer super helpful original insights), and then pick to death some minor flaws or quirks. I think this is supposed to tell me that I am turning in really solid writing; however, I don’t want to know that. I signed up to the class to learn how to make my writing better, because it needs improvement and it always will, which is one of my favorite things about writing. It’s a fun learning experience, always. Well, not always fun, but always educational, somehow.

So I journaled out my gripes today, and ended up with 1 page of whining, 1 page telling myself to get over it, and 3 pages about the amazing dream I had last night. In the dream, my grad school friend Nicci (one of the super-helpful insightful people) and I were wandering around some art museum/ studio space. It seemed to be some kind of creative mecca for all artists: musicians, painters, writers, and many more. It was like it was our orientation or something, like we had fellowships to this amazingly creative space filled with other wonderful artists who were working on fascinating collaborations. It’s probably the most awesome dream I have ever had, at least lately- considering that my sleep schedule seems to have shifted itself into hours I do not approve of. Maybe I am meant to write some late-night scenes for some stories or something? I will go with that for now, I think.

Anyway, it’s nice that when things seem broken, there can be an easy fix, whether it’s a technical issue, or something that manages to sort itself out inside a dreamworld. And journaling, I have to remind myself, is such a powerful way to sort out the broken bits from what can be repaired/ improved.