This is the weekend of the Kingsley/Kate Tufts judging.  The judges are Linda Gregerson, Carl Phillips, David Barber, Ted Genoways and yours truly.  One learns a great deal from being on a judging panel.  I can’t really describe it.  But it’s both tiring and invigorating at the same time.

There is a poetry media game that some people play very successfully.  They know all the right people, they have all the right publicity and when you walk by these people in the evening just as twilight comes in, the first thing you notice is that they glow in the dark.  Literally, certain poets have this phosphorescence.   This comes from having done all the right things.

Examples of poets who glow in the dark:  Matthea Harvey, both of the Dickman twins,  Dana Goodyear, Matthew Zapruder and while we’re on the subject of Zapruder, most of the authors published by Wave.  You see, there is a poetry machine.  To be part of that machine means that you will be written up in the poetry media, that you will get lots of well paid speaking engagements and of course, choice teaching jobs.  What this will enable you to do is have plenty of time to write something really epic which involves Greek gods.  You can also walk around lording it over all of lesser mortals.  Actually, I don’t think any of the writers above do much lording, but the point is that they can.  They’re blessed.

We started Red Hen Press to publish poets that were not part of the poetry machine.  Poets that hadn’t played the game.  Poets who were invisible.  Poets who were not going to be famous unless we worked hard together to get their book out there.  Poets who weren’t doing all the right things.  Poets who were not part of the huge machine, people who didn’t study with Jorie Graham or Robert Pinsky.  Poets who write well but are outside the system.

The problem is that eventually you need to have the publishing company succeed and that means books that sell and that’s where the old machine comes back.

Pretty soon and before you know it, you don’t have any red hens laying fresh brown organic eggs.  You are instead eating white eggs that you got at Costco.  They look very nice and you can buy them in 18 packs. They keep those white eggs in cold storage forever.  It’s inevitable if you want to have big commercial omelets.

Okay, maybe that’s not a good analogy.  But I’m just saying that neither poetry or publishing is what I thought it would be.

What I like about poetry is the part where you just sit quietly and read and think and write.  What I like about gardening and cooking is just playing with it and thinking and dreaming.   What I like about running is just running, not trying to win races, just running.  Poetry, running and lovemaking should not be competitive sports –at least for me.

Important quotes from Matrix Reloaded

Trinity: You always told me to stay off the freeway.
Morpheus: Yes, that’s true.
Trinity: You said it was suicide.
Morpheus: Then let us hope that I was wrong.

I think about this when I drive LA freeways.  But now, mostly, I think of sleep.

What does it mean to play the poetry game?  Some people play the game, the media poetry game so everyone important in poetry knows who they are.  If you don’t,  you are left out in the cold.  I can’t think of this.  Let’s think of something more cheerful.  I’m tired.

I’ll tell you a story.  I was in a boat once sailing across a lake and it capsized.  I never thought I was going to die.  The other people on the boat frantically called for help and put on their life jackets.  They wore their orange life jackets and people came by and scooped them up and took them off to get popcorn and hot chocolate.  I swam two miles across the lake and when I landed on the beach I slept on the pine needles.  I smelled like pine when I woke.  There were pinwheels in the trees.

Tonight after the restaurant everyone left and caught a cab.  I found my car and drove home.  Not deliberate.

Sleeping now.

Eddie: So tell me about your boyfriend before us.

Maggie:  We’ve been over this a thousand times, I’m not going to tell you about that.  You’ll get mad and jealous.

Eddie: No, I won’t.  Just tell me, I’m asking you.

Maggie: Well you have to promise.

Eddie: I promise. As long as he didn’t have a twelve inch dick.

Maggie: Well he didn’t have that for sure. He was fun at first.  But he was bossy in bed.

Eddie:  Bossy?  How?

Maggie:  Well, he used to say, Come on, Maggie put your back into it. This was while we’re listening to Patti Smith and Jimmy Buffet.

Eddie:  What’d he mean by that?

Maggie:  I never was quite sure. I remember him saying that and one morning we’re at it and his kid comes in with the wheat colored hair and the kid calls out, ‘Daddy,’ and we pop our heads out from under the covers, and the kid’s not dumb; he’s watching us, and Jimmy Buffet there says, ‘Hey son, me and Maggie are wrestling, but you can’t wrestle with us, you have to go back to bed and we’ll be out in a little while for breakfast.’ The kid disappears, closes the door.

He says, ‘Maggie, put your back into it,’ but no woman wants to be given orders in the bedroom.  And he liked to tie me up by my arms with his belts to the bed posts and once he got drunk and left me there all night.  He went to take a piss in the yard and he got arrested for indecent exposure, the neighbors called the cops and I was stuck, tied up.

Eddie:  How come you couldn’t get untied?

Maggie:  I tried!  You make me sound incompetent.

Eddie:  He sounds like a lot of fun.

Maggie: He always liked to pee on the grass.  Whenever we were going anyplace he would stop the car and pee on the grass.  He’d stop off the freeway, parks. He stopped to piss off both theGolden Gatebridge and the Verrazano-Narrows both I’m glad to say in the middle of the night.  I’m amazed he didn’t get arrested.

Eddie:  You were in love with this guy?

Maggie:  You dated MissIdahowith no redeeming features except her boobs.

Eddie:  Ask any man if that even compares.  That is dating a woman for two amazing reasons. And you date an idiot who bosses you in bed, has bad taste in music and pees out of cars? I’m sorry Maggie, I’m way ahead here. I’m miles ahead.  If we are inventors.  I just invented the computer and you are working on glass.

Maggie:  I am so glad I told you this story.

Eddie:  So you left this guy before I came along.  How’d you tear yourself away?  I mean he sounds too good to be true.  I don’t know if I could have done it.

Maggie:  I pushed him over a bridge while he was peeing.

Eddie:  Really?

Maggie:  I forgot to bail him out of jail one time.

Eddie:  Get real.

Maggie:  Okay, I tried the usual.  Pulling away, going away for the weekend, he didn’t want to break up.  He liked me.

Eddie:  He felt sorry for you.

Maggie:  I’m sexy.  I’m likeable.

Eddie:  He was trying to save me.

Maggie:  I developed a strategy.  A plan to get rid of him. I won’t bore you with the details.   I was out of town.  We had girls show up with lots of alcohol.  His kid was with the ex.  Party out of control.  Peeing on the lawn.  He had sex with several girls.  Police called. Arrest.  Girls tied up.  Pictures in the paper.

What choice did I have?  His family could hardly blame me.  So that was that.  When you came along, I was relieved you had the decency to not be that kind of man. At least you haven’t told me to put my back into it, so I haven’t had to bring in any hookers.

Eddie:  I’ll keep it in mind if I want to avoid hookers.  Might be fun though.  Do I have to pee on the lawn?

Maggie:  Never know till you try.  So do I get to hear about your ex-lovers?

Eddie:  Well, I dated this one itchy librarian.

Maggie:  Yeah right.

Eddie:  I think she had allergies; she was always scratching herself.  Like a little cat.

Maggie:  I know when you’re kidding, you know. What about Charlie?

Eddie:  I broke up with Charlie when I met you.  She was fromLibya.  She had a great British accent; her dad worked in foreign service or something.

Maggie:  I like that.  Or something. That’s what I’m going to say about my days as a topless dancer.  I was into ballet or something.

Eddie:  She used to make the oddest foods. Since we didn’t date long, I had to eat them.

Maggie:  Oh so now that you’ve been with me so long if I give you oysters and coconut you don’t have to eat it?

Eddie:  I’m not saying that, I’m just saying when you’ve been with someone for a long time you can be a little more honest.  She put honey on turkey burgers.  She ate wasabi with a lot of things you wouldn’t normally think of, like green beans, and okay rice is normal I guess, but just rice and wasabi?  She said wasabi was good for weight loss.

Maggie:  I’ve actually read that.

There is enough misinformation about me floating around and I certainly don’t want anyone starting to think I pay all my bills on time.

Honestly, I don’t like the idea of paying my bills online for the following reasons:

1. What if I don’t have enough $ in my acct which let’s face it, I usually don’t.
2. What if I want to support the Occupy movement by closing my BofA account? –Would the Occupy movement know or care?  Probably not.  Would Bank of America care?  Definitely not.  They wouldn’t even notice.  I am one of millions for them, I am a mini thread on a pixel in their universe.
3. I like envelopes and stamps
4. I like pretending to be in control.
5. Most of all, I want to know when $ is being taken from me.

However, whenever I can, I like $ to be automatically put into my account.  Whenever there is a check coming my way, I try to have it fall swiftly as rain into my empty account so that I can soak up the moisture.

I also do not use credit cards.  Okay, that’s a lie.  I have an Amex for emergencies,  but I don’t use it.  I have one other credit card I use once a year or so—the Victoria Secret card.  Every girl’s friend.

I signed on for both Gilt and Groupon thinking that something would come up that I just had to have.  Some restaurant I had to try.  Something pampering or spa service. Shoes.  The perfect dress.  So far, many months later.  Nothing.  I lack the proper interest in shopping.  I was at Ross today for quite a while helping my son pick clothes for a job interview.  While I waited I found a shirt.  For my husband.  And three dollars worth of dish cloths.

I’m not really all that frugal or virtuous.  I simply lack the shopping gene.  Plus, I look simply rotten in almost everything I try on.  I am a size ten.  Clothes that look good are sizes 2-6.  Six is the top you can still really say you look good in.  But I am working out like a maniac this year so all that is sure to change.  Maybe I’ll change it all up.  Shopping won’t seem like a nasty chore, but more like walking or drinking wine or anything else you look forward to.  Doubtful.

But back to the online paying of bills.  I wouldn’t think it would work for me unless I had a much bigger income.  I do pay my bills like many people on payday.  I pay almost exactly the same amount every month and then have whatever left for the month—never enough.

As soon as I have some real money in my account, then I’m going green, the money for the electric bill, gas bill, cell phone etc will just sift out of my account like dust off a butterfly’s wings.  I’ll keep floating on, knowing there’s more where that came from.  This would also free up the part of my brain that is always sweating blood on whether we’ll make it to think about other things—stories, nests, feathers.

 Ever since five year old Zachary told me that, I’ve been giving it some serious thought.  People do it all the time, and Zachary has a real point when he says it’s just not necessary.

I’ve blogged about this before but I keep thinking about it.

You see someone walking down the street in pink pumps, a boa and skin tight leopard clothes?  Hey, you’re not wearing it.  So don’t yuck on their yum.   You see some guy with aTexashat and a gal 30 years younger than him with acreage front and back hanging on his arm?  Hey, that’s his style.  Doesn’t have to be yours.

What’s normal?  It’s whatever you do.  Remember, a nymphomaniac is someone who has more sex than you.

So here is my definition of normal.  In case you want to know if you are normal.  Here is my list.  I do all this stuff and to me, I’m normal.

1. Have chickens.  I’ve had chickens all my life.
2. Have enough books that you would need a 15 foot truck to move them.
3. No television.  I’ve never had one.  You don’t need one.
4. No radio.  Not necessary.
5. Do something creative every day.
6. Tell yourself in the mirror every day, You rock!
7. Have long hair, there’s no reason to cut it off.  When your aunt tells you that you would get a job if you cut your hair, don’t sweat jobs.
8. Drive the same car until the wheels fall off but at least 300,000 miles.  If you have a car that wouldn’t last that long, it’s the wrong car.
9. Have a hammock if at all possible.  I never use mine but I like the hammock idea.  The dream of being in a hammock.
10. Always keep theatre as part of your life.   Theatre is important.
11. Read books.  Read poetry.
12. Keep listening to music that you don’t understand, it keeps you young and awake.
13. Don’t worry too much about money.  Just live a sustainable lifestyle.
14. Don’t stay at people’s house if they make you anxious.
15. Have a few good friends and try to keep them.
16. Don’t panic.  When things seem really bad, they might get better.
17. Do not be afraid of other people even really mean people.  Feel sorry for them.  They want you to feel afraid because that makes them feel more powerful. They are miserable sons of bitches and that’s why they are mean.
18. Spend a lot of time walking and running.  That’s what gives you time to think.
19. Keep a journal.  Figure out what you want to change about your life.
20. Have a lot of sex.
21. Have a sport that you love and keep at it.
22. Always have some dreams that you might never achieve but that depend on you, not someone giving you money.
23. Raise your own vegetables.
24. Travel to a Third World Country at some point in your life.
25. Swim in ocean, pools, rivers, streams and waterfalls.

Think about it like this.  You have a child.  You are taking your child to a free daycare center.  The daycare center is run by a small group of parents who also have children of their own.  Unfortunately they cannot have their own kids at the daycare, so they are currently looking for a daycare for their children.

Why did they set up this daycare in the first place?  Well, they believe in children.  And that’s good for you because you want your children to be in a safe happy place.

You want to have the daycare people love your little pumpkin and take good care of him/her.  You want the children to be loved and fed, sung to and carried forth into their young childhood like the angels you believe them to be.

Here’s how most people start with their indie publisher/editor, “How much do you like my book?  How hard are you going to work on my book?  What else can you do for my book?”

I’m not suggesting that you have to be friends with the people running the press any more than you have to be friends with whoever runs your kids’ daycare.   But I am suggesting that you think about this.  Why is this writer spending any of their time producing, publishing and promoting your book when they could be working on their own?  Probably because they love books as do you.  But pretend for a moment if you can that it isn’t all about you, that you are not the center of the literary world.

Most writers when they contact a press are very eager to know what that press can do for them.  They start making requests, issuing orders and camping out.

We writers collectively want books to survive.  To do that, writers need to work with their publishers.  And that means first of all taking into account that the publisher is a person, very often a writer, with his /her own life.  Respecting and acknowledging that can only help you as a writer.  You’re part of the world of writing, not the most important part, just a part.

What I would do?  I would want to know the following:

1. If I am lucky enough to be published by your publishing company, what would you like me to do to make the book successful?
2. Is there anything else I can do to help?
3. How are you?  And mean it.  For a moment at least, mean it.

Come up with one thing you can do for your publisher every year.  Seriously.  Do something for the publisher that isn’t about you.

The writers I am most excited about working with work to promote their own book, fill out their questionnaire, are easy to work with on editing and don’t seem to think that I work for them or that anyone at the press works for them either.  A writer is working for their own book.  It’s my job to write my book and to run a press.  That’s what I’m doing every day, building a press that rocks the world.

My students don’t like rainy Mondays, but really, should they complain about rain when we get so little of it in the So Cal?

I like the feeling after rain, the wet air and the clean shine look of the sky and air.  Of course, it doesn’t last long.

I think on days like this about how I would love my life if I could do anything I wanted.  I would still write and edit definitely and probably still teach some.  Things I would do more if I had the time:  Yoga, dance, cook, garden, write, walk, run, swim, read and definitely and absolutely—sleep.

This morning it took me two hours to drive to work in the rain, so that is the bad side of rain and driving.

My chicken, the one with PTSD after seeing her fellow hens mutilated by raccoons, (the raccoons ate the heads and left the bodies and feathers scattered,) that hen is now living with our one rabbit, Snowy 42.  Snowy 42 because our kids’ friend Wendy Vanessa Gomez used to name all our white animals Snowy 7, Snowy 8 and there was a small white parakeet named Snowy 4 ½.  That parakeet needed therapy too.  Who calls a parakeet by a fraction?  It’s enough to drive you to drink.  And drink that parakeet did.  Snowy 4 ½ was in the water bowl day after day.

But back to Snowy 42 who is living with Red Hen 8.  They are intimate.  Now you’d think that any quacking or clucking would throw you off your game when you went for intimacy, you’d think if you had really long ears you wouldn’t like the clucking.  She does cluck into the long bunny ears and then they get cozy.  Behind the bamboo hutch, the bunny slut gets her move on.  It’s a bit disturbing so thank god we have no small children around.  I don’t even like to have the puppy see this sort of thing, but her eyesight is quite poor so she may be missing all the action.

Never think that interspecies sexuality is a myth.  It’s a reality in my backyard.  Gay animals and birds abound.  We had a couple doves, Bruce and Bruce who were deeply in love.  German and Japanese zoos report homosexual penguins.  There are many questions we could ask like why are the Germans and Japanese so interested in whether their penguins are queer or not?  And are there LGBT awareness classes for the young penguins coming up or are they just left to their own devices?

Bats will masturbate.  Fruit bats have a higher rate of homosexuality than other bats.  I knew that!

Sadly penguins even in a committed relationship will trade food for pebbles for their nests and chimpanzees will trade food for sex.  Most American female prostitutes won’t do it for pebbles or food, but want small green pieces of paper with pictures of old men.

Well, that’s enough to show you that my chicken and rabbit aren’t that abnormal.  They fit right into the wild animal kingdom.

Well, I’m not saying it’s ever easy.  But there are definitely times in one’s life when it is easier.  The easiest times to write are when you’re in grad school or at writing retreat.  The reason is that you are accountable to someone when you’re in grad school so it feels like a job and when you’re at a writing retreat, well, there’s nothing else to do so you might as well get to it.  Besides you’d feel like an idiot if you came back from Yaddo and said, “Well, what I did for three weeks at Yaddo is sleep and watch birds.”  I’ve never been to any of those retreats, but I hear good things.

So there you are in an MFA program, or at a writing retreat, writing your brains out.  Your dreams pouring out onto paper.  But then you come home.  To whatever your life is.

Now in an ideal world, as a writer, one of these things is true for you:

1. You are already famous enough as a writer that you do not need to worry about money.   The money is just flowing in from your previous New York Times Best selling books, hopefully detective stories, mysteries, or huge commercial books in which women are tortured in strange cold Scandinavian countries.
2. Your parents are giving you enough money that work is a four letter word you simply don’t have to deal with.
3. You have a patron. Herman Scherchen and Rilke both had the same patron.  Scherchen had five wives to whom he eventually owed alimony and there were several other women too.  Rilke suffered because his mother named him Maria and dressed him as a girl until his father sent him to military school.  Rilke had problems his whole life with his health and depression and that’s why getting a real job was out of the question.

But what about if none of these things is true for you.  What if you need to, god forbid, work for a living.  Well, it would be nice if you were a poet.  As Billy Collins says, the great thing about being a poet is your biggest problem is what to do with the other 23 hours of the day.  Yes, the fact is, if you are a poet, you could be a damned good poet and still have a job.  T.S. Eliot did it, Wallace Stevens did it.  Some of the best poets of the 20^th century had to report to real jobs.

But if you write prose, that’s another matter.  For most writers, that requires time.  Prose requires some kind of time/space and focused attention.  For most prose writers, nothing is going to happen unless you’ve got 10-20 hours a week to focus on the writing.  And with nothing making you write, this is not easy.

The most difficult thing about writing is getting yourself in the chair, turning off your email, phone, Facebook etc.

So how does anyone do it?

1. Get a teaching job at a college or university which means that you’ll have extra time and be expected to publish.  Of course, the catch is that you won’t be able to get one of those cushy teaching jobs unless you have a book out.  Catch 22.
2. Kill yourself writing in all your spare time for a few years get a book out and then hopefully get a teaching job.
3. Have no social life, no internet life and no TV.  When you are not working, you write.  You write for an hour morning or evening and you write on weekends.  Who needs a family?  You’re a writer.

The point is that there is no easy solution.  But, if you are going to write, you’re going to have to develop the discipline.

What I do:  I make a writing schedule at the beginning of every week which gives me 10-15 hours of writing time.  Sometimes I don’t get all of it, but most weeks I get 5-10 and gradually, slowly, I get something written.  Not enough but something.