Submit Or DIE!

Posted on October 6, 2015 by DMW

I’m a writer, which means that I write. It’s not a job or a profession, not a career choice or a hobby, not a get-quick-rich-scheme that many non-writers seem to think writing is (because with few exceptions, writers are POOR) – it’s more like a calling. It’s a piece of who I am and a need that is more natural and insistent than eating or sleeping. But until this year, despite pressure and encouragement to submit, I haven’t submitted anything – ever.

Then this year I decided, “I’m going to submit dammit.” I mean I want to be published; I want to be able to support myself solely on my writing. And if this is ever going to be a reality (forget that it’s already a big if) I actually have to submit my work to places. And that means I also have to get ready for some serious rejection.

I think a lot of writers don’t submit because of some fear of rejection. Not me. I mean I don’t like rejection anymore than the next person, but I don’t even get to that place in my head… I’ve already decided not to submit way before I can guess what someone’s reactions will be to my writing. My problem is – I think too much. And I am incredibly harsh – my harshest critic. I can find fault in anything I write. I feel like it just shows what a fraud I am. I’m not a writer, I’m a non-writer and I’ve just fooled myself into thinking that I can write.

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Are We Really Doing This Again?

Posted on October 1, 2015 by DMW

Remember back in 2013 when a bunch of Republicans (excuse me, Tea Partiers parading around as orderly Republicans) threw a tantrum that shut down our government for sixteen days because they refused to pass legislation that did not include measures to take apart and/or delay the Affordable Healthcare Act? There were no debates about how much money should go to education and how much to the military… it really was just a big show, spearheaded by GOP presidential-candidate Ted Cruz (TX). Now two years later, it looks like it is happening all over again. And… it just… blows my mind.

This time the tantrum is the hardcore right trying to defund Planned Parenthood, a nonprofit that serves both men and women, primarily those who are uninsured or low-income. The Babies (yep, it’s the nicest thing I am able to call them) are all aflutter because of abortion (cause you know Planned Parenthood does those too, though many are acting like that is all the organization performs). There are a bunch of bogus videos out there accusing the nonprofit of selling aborted fetal tissue. But the thing about that is the video has already been proven as a fake. The video featured actors hired by an anti-abortion organization (The Center for Medical Progress). Everything down to the “purchasers” was made up, fabricated – I don’t understand the confusion on this.

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Another Year Older – Now I Know I’m 31

Posted on September 30, 2015 by DMW

It used to be that I never felt older after a birthday. I mean aging, life, is this continuing journey and it can sneak up on you – it’s not like it happens overnight, it just might seem that way because you’re finally taking notice.

I’m not sure it was so “sudden” for me. I have noticed a few things for a few years now. To be completely honest, I know that the things I have noticed have more to do with an illness than age, but I’m going to blame it on age, because that allows me to be “normal” instead of talking about this freak thing I had/have. (When I was 25 I died from a freak heart infection. Then a few months later I was diagnosed with a super-rare – not just rare 😛 – autoimmune disease that caused my kidneys to fail. Now I’m in “remission” and I don’t need dialysis or anything, but still my body came back from the whole thing “very different”.)

So, in no particular order, here are the ways I know I am 31 and not 18.

  1. You need sleep. Seriously, eight hours is essential. Anything less than five means you are going to crash hard the next day, and in the interim be especially spacy/crazy/cranky and any combination thereof. I do not care that your best friend in college was the all-nighter. I do not care that you usually pulled two of them in a row. And yes, I remember your record-breaking all-weeker, but even you admitted that by day six you were a zombie, and it just wasn’t a good idea. So get some sleep!
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A Memory Under Fire

Posted on September 24, 2015 by DMW

Last week my little sister asked me to take a look at an essay she wrote for a scholarship. I love my sister, and out of all of my siblings (I have three brothers and her) she is the most like me. She sent me her scholarship application materials, which made me proud (ranked #12 out of more than 600 students! And she is on the student council, pom squad and in a lot of other extracurriculars, both at school and in the community). A lot of this I already knew (though not necessarily her exact class ranking) and I thought she was a shoe-in for any scholarship she was applying for. Then I opened her essay, and the trouble began…

I’m not going to talk about the essay, from an essay standpoint though. I’m going to talk about it from the standpoint that I couldn’t bring myself to read it anymore. From the standpoint that it put me in a terrible mood, and the thought on repeat in my head was, “WTF.”

My sister wrote about my Aunt Linda, someone I have memorialized and talked about on this blog in the past (here and here). I was really close to my Aunt Linda, even though she died when I was thirteen. We had a few of the same medical problems, but whether it was luck, modern medicine or something else – I came out much more unscathed than she did. She had cognitive and behavioral limitations, or as most of my family called her, “retarded.” (I hate that word with such a passion, probably because when people say that word they were talking about people just like my Aunt Linda. And she was really something else – pretty amazing, but most people never took the time to get to know her.)

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LOST Writing FOUND – A Fricking Treasure Trove!

Posted on September 23, 2015 by DMW

I first started working on my memoir, which is about rebirth in every sense (yes I am claiming the physical too, because I actually flipping died) in December 2012. It wasn’t that me working on this book was a surprise, it was about being ready. Because it was in 2009 that I died, and all of 2009 and 2010 I spent fighting to just stay on this physical plane. And after a miracle – or maybe a dozen depending on who you ask and what you consider miraculous – I was still standing. And this led to a whole mental, emotional and spiritual overhaul and transformation…

But writing it is hard. Until December 2012, I couldn’t. I would sit, and after just a few minutes I would start to cry. Because going back… you have to relive it. In my case I had to relive death, not just the actual act of dying, but the “living death” that was my reality for over a year. And then I had to accept that I was given this gift, something I did not earn, could not earn, while others lost the battle with a foe one cannot fight. It’s a lot to fucking process.

And then the book started to happen, and I spent at least six hours writing (just writing) every day for more than two months. Most of my book was complete… and then the unthinkable happened.

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