Fri. Sept. 12, 2025: Craving Art

image courtesy of espeis via pixabay.com

Friday, September 12, 2025

Waning Moon

Pluto, Neptune, Saturn, Chiron, Uranus Retrograde

Partly sunny and pleasant

Yesterday’s Table of Silence Project was gorgeous. It had the largest number of dancers I’ve seen involved since I started watching (during the pandemic). At least sixty, maybe closer to a hundred. The ritual aspect is so powerful, and the audience’s respect and reverence appreciated. Usually, in an open, outdoor performance, there’s one jerk in the audience who tries to make it about themselves, especially during a ritual, but the audiences for this have been consistently respectful.

Nearly 800 people attended the livestream. Some of them were former dancers in the project. Others were first responders who’d been there and later worked the pile. The project matters to them.

I got a response from an editor regarding a question I had about a submission call. I’d completely forgotten about it. The answer put it in my wheelhouse, but it has a Sept. 30 deadline, so I better get cracking. That will be a priority once I get this anthology story out. I know when I first contacted the editor I had a solid idea for what I wanted to do – a comic noir. But I didn’t detail it in the question, and I didn’t make any notes. So I’m starting from scratch.

Guess we know what this morning’s 15-minute writing session focused on, huh? And possibly the ones for the rest of the weekend.

I puttered along, working on the anthology story due Monday, polishing, feeling better about it. As I prepared the document to send, I pulled up the submission guidelines again (as I usually do) to make sure I’ve hit all of them.

And discovered I’d written the story in the wrong genre.

THE WRONG GENRE.

The stories for this anthology are ekphrastic/inspired by specific public domain source material. I’d focused on the themes and atmosphere of the source material, creating a contemporary short story. It feels boastful to call it “literary fiction” but technically, that’s where it hit.

It’s supposed to be a crime story.

Once I got past feeling like a complete fool, I leaned back into craft. I teach a class called “One Story, Many Voices” where we write a base story as literary fiction, and then modify it into various genres to see what intersects where and how to layer in genre elements, and how the base story both evolves, and can serve as a solid foundation.

So I looked at this through the lens of keeping the themes and atmosphere, and layering in crime.

It’s a slow reveal, and it actually reveals two crimes, without overly explaining either of them. It leaves a little bit ambiguous, while also touching on gossip, cognitive decline, misogyny, and domestic violence, without being graphic. I had some references early on that now have even more layers of meaning, but the actual crimes aren’t revealed until fairly late in the story, with a twist near the end.

Hopefully, I’ve pulled it off with enough skill, so the editor likes it.

It’s the same editor as the story that was just accepted for the anthology coming out next year, the story set in a summer theatre on Cape Cod; but the style and the voice of this one is very different. And she invited me into the anthology, rather than doing an open call (which is how I found her for the last anthology), so I want to deliver something that works.

The literary fiction version was well under word count, and the new version is about eight hundred words more, but still well under word count, so we have some wiggle room.

I wonder if I struggled with this initially because somewhere in my subconscious I remembered the guidelines and knew I wasn’t following them.

I’m going to let it sit and then read it when I get back from the symposium tonight.

We had a small, but good group for #FreelanceFriends at noontime. I’m glad I showed up. They’d like me to host one of the chats, but I have to think about a topic. It would probably be in late October or early November.

All of this put me way behind what I wanted to do on the ghostwriting that afternoon. Most of the writing session was about tightening and clarifying, rather than moving forward, but that’s necessary in order to move forward.

Made chocolate mousse and heated up the rest of the crockpot chicken for dinner. My mom hadn’t been herself most of the day and got worse in the evening, so I ended up taking her to the ER.  I would have gone to Urgent Care, but the one near us closed at the end of August, and the one in Pittsfield would have closed for the night before we got there. So, ER it was.

The ER was full. They had to see us first in a triage room, then we waited in the general waiting room until a bed opened up in the ER itself. Her blood pressure was very high, which I’ve noticed ties in to her being more confused. While we were waiting, a fight broke out inside the treatment area (not the waiting area) and security had to go in and restrain someone. When we finally got into the ER proper, she was checked out, given some antibiotics, and we could go home. She started feeling better almost immediately, and was almost back to herself by the time we got home.

I asked if the hospital pharmacy planned to give COVID shots, since CVS was still refusing to give me one, in spite of the state’s mandate. The triage nurse didn’t know, but asked permission to let people up the chain of command know so they could let the state know to bitch slap CVS, and also possibly set up a booster clinic session at the hospital.

I have a feeling I won’t be able to plan/schedule my booster this year for a good time. I’ll have to catch it on the fly, and just power through, no matter how sick it makes me.

I was also glad to see that the staff is back to masking (we were, too, but we always do in indoor public situations, especially healthcare where there are, you know, sick people around).

Had trouble getting to sleep last night, but slept hard once I did. The 15-minute writing session was good this morning. I outlined the anthology story due at the end of the month. I usually don’t outline short stories, but I didn’t want to forget my direction again.

My mom is well enough so I don’t have to cancel out of the symposium. I will monitor her medications this morning before I go. Even with the whiteboard, I have to pay attention, because she sometimes gets confused.

Today, I am off to a symposium on the current exhibit at the Clark. The exhibit closes on Sunday, so this is my last chance to learn about it, and see any of the pieces one last time.

On my way back, I will do the pharmacy/grocery/library errands.

Hopefully, my parking spot will be free by the time I get back!

I’m supposed to go to an event tomorrow, but I don’t know if I have the energy, especially since Murder Maps tells me the location doesn’t exist and tries to send me 2 hours east (it’s supposed to be 20 minutes north). I know the location exists because I have the address and there are photos posted on social media, but Murder Maps insists it does not. I’m going to see if I can find a paper map of the area and find it.

A quiet weekend might be just the ticket, though, and maybe I will just stay home.