When I set out to learn about my mother's bridge club, the Jewish octogenarians behind the matching outfits and accessories, I never expected to fall in love with them. This is the story of the ladies, their game, their gen, and the ragged path that led me back to my mother.DAY 6!!!! Full disclosure: I had a shitty thirty at the keyboard. I couldn’t get out of park. I corrected a few typos and wrote two paragraphs that I immediately deleted. I started to wonder what I was doing, insecurity flooded in the form of dry mouth, self flagellation, and lunch planning. The beauty of this money-back guaranteed 30 day program is that we have tomorrow to sit down and see what the fuck.
Good day? Bad day? Spill.
Filed under: Uncategorized |
Betsy Lerner 
Interesting day. I’ve been on a one track, focused kind of run and that’s unusual for me. But today my world got rocked by an old newspaper article I found about the writer visiting a friend in an institution on Thanksgiving,written about 20 years ago. The woman he was visiting was referred to as a “multiple” and had 67 different personalities. The article in itself was interesting but what really lit my circuits up was a bunch of disjointed pages handwritten by the woman. This was something that just happened to be loose in the mail, no envelope, no clue as to who the letter and article was to or from. Or how long it had been in the mail stream. Was it just dropped in a mailbox or did it just get damaged in the mail? And why did it wind up with me? As you can see, I’m thinking about how to write about this. That is how my day has been.
Ooo, that’s pretty juicy, Mike.
Sounds like we had the same day Madame.
Good day. I wrote a strong page and improved another and feel on track for tomorrow. I think your post from yesterday really helped. That sense that none of the stars is aligning but I’m going to power through 30 minutes anyhow. Yesterday I thought my revision was doomed. Today not so much.
Just started to read The Bridge Ladies – at age 89 I am somewhere between the grandmother and the mother/daughter relationship! It hits like a cannonball and reminds me of how I have always wanted to be able to write about emotions.
I admire your insights.
Marita Eden
PS. Not on Twitter, FB or other media by choice
Finished my post for this week, started the next one. I had an idea I thought was strong. Having trouble implementing. I stopped and started for almost 30 minutes. Then I deleted what wasn’t working for me which was most of it. I’ll try again tomorrow if I’m feeling it or start something new…
549 words. i’ll take it.
rea
A crap day over here as well. I woke up FOUR HOURS before my alarm, called myself dreadful names, categorized and re-categorized all the ways in which I’m a hack, made coffee, drank said coffee, wrote shit, fell asleep on the couch and was late to work. Can’t wait to try again tomorrow.
I woke up to disappointing writing-related news via email, and that put me in a foul mood. Last thing I wanted to do was write. But …. I really appear to be committed to this exercise and I knew I’d feel better if I did it. So I set the fucking clock ticking and …. wrote 2.5 pages. A miracle.
I had a mediocre writing day. Barely got to 500 words, which was my goal. Today, while waiting for my coffee to become coffee, I realized I was doing it all wrong and have to reframe yesterday’s essay/chapter. But I think that’s actually a good thing. I’ll let you know tomorrow!
Starts, putters, stops. I’m a fidgety writer, slow and deliberate. But even out of the chair I’m thinking/writing. All in all, a good day
That was me – ooops
Decent day, There was a passage in the work that I really liked, it was clever — but it had to go. There was nothing in the piece that justified its appearance, in terms of where the story was coming from, and nothing that followed it, in terms of where the story was going. It was there as character development, but so clever and misplaced it was, it was as though it belonged to some other story — so out it went. The old “murder your darlings” lesson. Some passengers have to be tossed overboard, or they will sink your boat.
I had an argument with my mother, who showed up in the middle of my carefully orchestrated period of alone time and announced that she was going to chain herself to the fridge until I fixed her new phone.
Haha – your mother sounds funny, Averil.
I guess. She wasn’t joking, though. It was her response to my plea for boundaries.
“Here’s a chair. Don’t drink all my beer.”
Yikes. That is not funny.
I moved to be closer to my daughter and her family 6 months ago. This made me feel VERY GOOD about my own boundaries, and hers. So happy I”m not this mother (and a little worried that I might’ve been!).
Not such a hot day for the writing here today. Speaking of “chained,” like Averil’s mother I was more or less chained to a FB site ALL day yesterday waxing on about the next book – it was fun, but exhausting. Got a few ends to tie up this a.m. with it and then I’m back on it!
Crap – meant for yesterday. Not today. Today, there’s hope. Unless I don’t go on and get off this site! 🙄
Bad, bad day. Our little Mini-Dachshund with the personality of a Great Dane and sweet demeanor of a snuggler passed away. It was so sudden that it has swept us off our feet.
No words yesterday and maybe these few are all for today.
To everyone, give your pets an extra treat today and an a special hug. Take a few more minutes with your special buddies because ya just never know when those minutes will be gone. Heartbreak
is universal.
Sorry to hear about your canine friend passing away, Carolynn. I’ll give my extremely playful dog an extra Milk Bone and a belly rub today.
I’m so sorry!!
Just reading this gave me a boost! I’m human, apparently. Thank you for sharing your writer flaws. Yesterday was shitty. Self-medicated by watching TGBBS episodes I’ve seen a thousand times. Bread week! 😘
Half and half, but with coffee, it sweetened up my day. Deleted 1,604 words and made two chapters into one. One paragraph to knit them together.
Day 4 and 5 were internal writing only. They sucked.and I felt like an idiot. Day 6 I got on an hour zoom class and that gave the prompt: Family Dinner. Hugely helpful. Today, Day 7, I am methodically eating leftover Halloween candy starting with malted milk balls, moving to Kit Kats and then knocking back a couple of peanut butter cups.They are the mini size so I can eat more, right? I’m waiting for the sugar rush to kickstart my 30 minutes. Not a great strategy, I know.
I hate this. Thank god you are all here.
Ditto to “Thank god you are all here.” (!!!!)
Worked on a draft of a poem I put together in one of the writing groups I host and did a new draft of a poem in the Monday writing group. Good day!