Thirteen Ways on Looking at A Returned Story. 

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Indira Ganesan, Moon on Ptown, 2017

 

1. Make kombucha for the first time.  It will become an obsession , which you need because of this return.

2. Buy rose petals from a spice shop,  just in case you need them one day. The return is now colored pink.

3. Add rose petals to the  kombucha, which returns your attention with fizz.

4. Get a pedicure with bright nail polish.  It is another gift to yourself, a return to counter defeat.

5. Do not compare yourself  to other people because your story was returned; you can still pun.

6.  Do not wonder if it was returned because you are fat.

7. Remember that Ben and Jerry’s Phish Food ice cream has less cholesterol than Talenti cookie crumble, if the return makes you seek solace in a fleeting thing.

8. Remind yourself  how often other writers get stories returned, even if they are no one you know, and thousands of stories get published every year, only not yours.

9. Try not to wear black all the time, though it is slimming.  You don’t live in NY, and you are not published.

10. Do not decide  your story was returned because you do not live in NY, and by NY  you mean the city, and possibly Brooklyn.

11. Yes, though your story was returned, it is too late to apply to law school.

12.  Think about Wallace Stevens in the face of your returned story, and his notion of the yes that follows the no.

13. Go ahead, and do the next thing.  Your story  was sadly, dispiritingly, forlornly, most likely reluctantly, returned, and everyone will cope.

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A Sunday Secret Garden Tour

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Larkspur 2017

Thistle

Little yellow flower

Geum, lavender

TableRose

Blue walk

Sunday, in the gardens, with mom. A slow meander through half of the featured gardens.  Defeated by the sun, we retired to the museum for cucumber sandwiches and lemonade.  Inside, the galleries were full of flower paintings and sketches, entrances.

 

IMAGE/TEXT

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Indira Ganesan, Nasturium Interior, 2017

There are many ways to jolt a a creative stasis.  Last week, I took a photography class taught by photographer and writer, Joanne Dugan .  In an imitimate class of six students, we took photographs for assignment and wrote corresponding text.  Such a simple preocess, yet the effects were startling.  My fellow students photographed and told stories about children, street signs, the erosion of the Herring Cove parking lot, inanimate oddities around town, and the Ptown 4th of July, a celebration emphasizing individual freedom, and rights for all people.

I photographed flowers, close-up.

Indira Ganesan, Georgia O’Keefe Painted Petunias, 2017

Indira Ganesan, Sun in Glory, 2017

 

 

 

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Authors for Grenfell Tower: An Online Auction Raising money for the British Red Cross to go to residents affected by the Grenfell Tower fire

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From Andrew Wille, the Book Doctor:

Here is Andrew’s blog post:
http://wille.org/blog/2017/06/22/editorial-critique-for-authorsforgrenfell/

Or you can retweet this:
https://twitter.com/andrewwille/status/877828938797547520

For the Grenfall Fire: Author Auction

Source: A signed book by Indira Ganesan

Casting

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In the morning at the ocean, several men were casting lines.  I wondered what they would  catch as the waves broke in ferocious froth, and the fog lowered.  A fish that would not snap their gear, unlike a shark or tuna. 

 It doesn’t feel like the eve of summer solstice, more like March.  The roses are late, and sweeet pea still timid.  Underneath, things are rooting, moving around, like the invisible fish these men seek.