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magazine reading reflection

Sifting Through Literary Magazines

(Photo taken February 7, 2007)

This week I’ve found myself extremely intrigued by literary magazines. I ventured out to The Booksmith on Haight to pick up a copy of The First Line since I anticipate submitting stories to them. While I was there, I began looking at other magazines and discovered a few more that I hadn’t known about.

To be honest, I didn’t think much of literary magazines until recently. I was more interested in consumer magazines and didn’t find interest in reading others’ stories. I suppose you can say I was engulfed in my own writing and felt like I couldn’t be bothered to read short stories, and that my time would be better spent reading novels…

But of course that mindset has changed. There’s an abundance of literature to be read out there, and, after looking through several magazines I’ve purchased, I realize that hey, reading others’ short stories is enlightening. We’re all in the same boat and it’s nice to see the different styles strewn throughout the different journals. That’s what makes art art: we may have same or similar dreams, but we all go about the experience in different ways through our different writing styles.

Categories
Slice of Life

Spending the First Day of Summer at the Beach–

What a perfect way to start summer off, right? It is such an All-American thing to do but I can’t remember the last time (if ever) I’d gone to the beach at the start of summer. I went down to Santa Cruz yesterday and enjoyed the warm, sunny weather–I heard my mind exclaiming, “This is how I like my summers!”

Living in San Francisco for three years now, I’ve forgotten about the warmth and sunshine that summer entails–you’d think that growing up on the East Coast (where all four seasons are very noticeable) would prevent me from forgetting about summertime. Well, the fog rolling in over the city and the cooler winds blowing through quickly wiped away my memory of hot summers spent outside, riding my bicycle around the front yard of my old house. These days, I only own one pair of shorts and one tank top for those very very rare summery days in SF…or, for when I am able to venture out of the city to warmer places.
Santa Cruz’s Beach Boardwalk is very commercialized yet still has that old-timey spirit to it. I’d been here last year on a field trip with the school and it was an overcast day then. We also unknowingly were able to take advantage of the “1907 Nights” happening on Mondays and Tuesdays after 5pm where all rides are $1/person and some refreshments/retail are also $1 or less. What a steal! We rode many rides after 5pm and fully enjoyed ourselves. We also spent some time on the beach, where the boys ran around like they were ten, chasing and wrassling with one another and disturbing our fellow beach-mates (but it was still amusing).
I found myself sitting behind my camera more than actually running around with the rest of them, but it gave me a sense of pure happiness to capture all the scenes through my lens. In the past year, I’ve lost a lot of passion for photography, so I’m trying to slowly gain back the practice of taking pictures wherever I go. It gives everyday life more sparkle and meaning to have it frozen in time by a photo.
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A brief blogging note: I’ll be posting more regularly now on Tuesdays and Fridays. Be on the look-out for my next post this Friday. Enjoy the rest of your week, wherever you are!
Categories
#amwriting

Week in Review: Steady Fiverr Gigs & Organizing Goals

This past week went by very very slowly. I’m wondering if it’s because I took the time to really enjoy each moment and not worry so much about the present.

I joined Fiverr a couple weeks ago after hearing about it from my sister-in-law. It’s an interesting concept: people do anything for $5 (well, net $4 since Fiverr takes $1 per sale). Some users on the site offer very usable skills and services, but most offer just frivolous services such as writing something on their forehead for $5. I wouldn’t pay the money for that unless I was really bored, had a lot of money to spare, and found that at all amusing.
Anyway, I’ve posted gigs on there, mostly writing-related. At first, nobody was biting (I’m offering skills that many others are also offering after all), but this week I’ve seen a steady stream of orders. It’s good to exercise my writing muscles in other ways.
Last night, before I went to bed, I organized my goals for the summer (in terms of writing). There are a couple of literary magazines I’d like to submit to, and one writing contest I was notified about via Facebook. Now, I have to go back and look through all my short stories (ones written from 2008-2009) and see which ones have potential of being polished in a timely manner.
This week was the first real week for me to have some semblance of a “regular” schedule since things are slowly getting back to normal around me. I don’t have as much of a structured week though, so my days off are whenever I feel like it for the time being. Of course, I’ll need to figure out a better outline of a schedule as time passes; it’s hard to really enjoy time when I feel like I’m on-call the whole time.
In other news, I just now went through my labels/tags for this blog. Gee whiz, I have a tendency to be too broad yet too specific at the same time. I guess it’d help if I had more of a focus for this blog. I only say this now because I’m taking a class on blogging via Gotham Writers’ Workshop. Even though I’ve been blogging for many years now (probably about ten!), I figured it was time for me to learn to refine my blogging skills. In general, all my Internet skills have just been trial-and-error over the years, but I feel more confident if I have some sort of foundation. I have more blog ideas incubating in my mind since I’ve started the class, but those ideas will have to wait until I improve my current blogs (this one and Cinnamon Juice…oh, it’s so quiet over there!).
Categories
fruit funny inspiration observation

Singular Peach.

Yesterday, I received a fresh peach and accidentally left it in the car overnight.

This morning, while I was eating loquats for breakfast, I suddenly remembered that the peach was still in the car. I thought about the possibility of the peach over-ripening in the heat of the day. I quickly got dressed and walked outside into the fog.
My upstairs neighbor was outside smoking with the front door slightly cracked open. My acupuncturist went to his office on the corner of our block to pick up his morning paper; we both had epiphanies as we realized the fact that we’re next-door neighbors.
I walked on to the car and rescued the peach. It had a small cut on it but it still felt fresh and ready-to-eat luckily. I continued on back home holding the peach like a treasure. It’s now safe at home.
Somehow I felt inspired after that mission.
Categories
#amreading #amwriting challenge Work in Progress

The Writer’s Life.

In the past three weeks, I’ve immersed myself into the world of writing again. It’s been refreshing and energizing being able to focus on what I want to be doing with this time on my hands.

Yesterday, I participated in the New York Writers’ Coalition‘s Write-A-Thon, where participants had to write 3,000 words in order to win the challenge. I only heard about the event the day before, but I decided that it would be something fun to do on a Saturday afternoon. 3,000 words is a small feat after all compared to NaNoWriMo‘s 50,000 words. My story went for a strange turn though as I typed along on my Neo Alphasmart; it was mainly a jumble of thoughts I had in my mind.
I finally got around to reading Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird this past month, and now I understand why other writers say it’s an essential book on writing. Lamott’s humor was nice to read since a lot of times self-help/how-to books can be a little dry. However, she sprinkles all her advice amidst her humor, which makes the book easy to follow somehow.
I’ve been collecting information for writing contests and submitting to literary magazines; the summer at least looks eventful in the writing aspect of my life. There are other things going on throughout the summer, but I will get through it all in one piece. Time continues to mystify me, but I can’t stop and ponder that thought too long; just keep moving on, enjoying the moment.