It’s been a while since I updated you on my projects in progress, so I thought I’d change that.
I started posting semi-regular updates on my creative work a few years back both to keep people updated and keep myself accountable. If I posted that I was working on something, it felt more serious and I’d be more inclined keep working on it so I wouldn’t have to answer to my blog readers and admit that I’d been slacking off—or worse, that I’d given up.
There are a few reasons for my lack of updates—the main one being that I haven’t been working on a novel since finishing my last one well over a year ago, and not having that as a primary focus has felt…distracting. Without a bigger project to work on my energy’s been bouncing around in a lot of different directions, so that even though I’ve been spending more time on creative work than ever, it’s been hard to assemble any kind of narrative around what I’ve been doing.
There’s also another, less legitimate reason that I should be honest about. Because I haven’t had many major successes over the past few months, I’ve felt embarrassed to update my progress on projects that haven’t been yielding results (or that haven’t yielded results yet). This is, frankly, me hiding from the truth and trying to create an inflated image of how things have been going this year. Not only is that unproductive, it’s also dishonest.
So in the interest of being honest, here’s a look at what I’ve been working on for the past four or so months…
I Wrote and Submitted a For-Serious Academic Article!
Back in grad school I got an article published in a peer-reviewed literary journal—it was a paper on James Welch’s novel Fools Crow about how Welch weaves a Native American linguistic style into the language of the novel. I originally wrote the paper for a class, and the professor liked it so much that he suggested I submit it—which is how I got it published in the Journal of Western American Literature. (The article’s behind a pay wall, so using Interlibrary Loan from your local library is the best way to check it out for free.)
That was five years ago, and for a while now I’ve been wanting to flex my literary muscles and tackle another academic topic. After the dust settled on my COVID-19 stay-at-home routine, I decided this spring was the perfect time.
The article covers two novels that have had huge influences on me, Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 and his second, less famous novel Something Happened, and examines how Heller treats women (and specifically instances of sexual assault) in both, sometimes effectively, and sometimes…problematically. I wrote my undergraduate thesis on Heller’s work, and diving back into the hardcore academic research about it was a lot of fun, as was revisiting the novels themselves (which I try to reread every few years if I have the time).
This ended up being a MASSIVE project involving dozens of hours of internet research and tracking down sources, one of which required weeks of waiting on a scanned PDF of a ’90s women’s fashion magazine from Interlibrary Loan. (I still have access to the library at the University of Nebraska, and they were a BIG help in tracking some of this stuff down.) The Internet Archive’s open library was also a big help, since I otherwise wouldn’t have been able to access a lot of these books while abroad. (There have, however, been a lot of copyright problems with the Internet Archive library, and while it was a BIG help to have access to it in Japan, I do think that overall it does more harm than good by taking revenue away from authors.)
Anyway, I finished up the paper about three weeks ago and submitted it to a literary journal—no simultaneous submissions allowed for literary papers ;-) I should hear back in a few months after it gets peer-reviewed, so of course, I’ll keep you posted…
I’m Still Querying my Novel!
MFA Thesis Novel has been done for about a year and a half—I started by sending it to literary agents last year in hope of a major book deal, and then after a discouraging lack of responses I moved on to small presses that I thought would be a better fit. After a few months my small press search yielded a publishing contract…that was then cancelled due to COVID-19 and sent me spiraling into a nasty case of the blues.
Since then I’ve gotten back on the query horse…but have sadly been letting other things get in the way, so I haven’t been sending out as many queries as I’d like. During March and April I sent out 12 queries total, but in May I sent out 0 and in June I only sent out 2. This was partly because I ran out of promising places to send the novel and had to research more…which takes up a lot of time…
I haven’t given up hope yet and still have 13 open queries that are being considered. Unfortunately, a lot of this is just a waiting game, though once again I’m hoping for some good news soon…
I’ve Been Writing More Short Pieces! (sort of)
One of my goals for this year was to write more short pieces, both as a way to get more publishing credits and knock out some of the fiction and nonfiction ideas I’ve had kicking around. A lot of this stuff has made it on to the page (score!), though sometimes with less than promising results (boooooooo….).
Recently, though, I’ve found myself without many ideas and I’ve been trying to come up with more—or develop actual ideas out of the random jottings in my notebook. It irks me to think that since finishing the Heller paper I haven’t had much in the way of real writing projects going (especially fiction), so I’m trying to change that.
I’ve Been Sending Out More Short Pieces for Publication!
…but not getting many accepted :-(
Submitting is hard, usually thankless work that involves researching publications that might be a good fit for something you’ve already written (or publications with open calls for something you could write), sending your piece off, waiting a bunch of weeks or months until you’ve forgotten about it, then finding a generic rejection in your spam mail folder thanking you for submitting and welcoming you to try again.
It’s discouraging work, and if you’ve been through it yourself I totally recommend writer and friend of BIAHADJ Andrew Marshall’s piece on dealing with literary rejection and why you should NEVER check your email first thing after waking up ;-)
The one publication I have gotten this year is a book review in an online mag called Shrapnel, run by a former JET. Shrapnel specializes in promoting Canadian literature, and my review is for Paul Bae’s hilarious book of teaching anecdotes You Suck Sir. It was definitely a fun review to write (Bae’s book is for-serious funny) and you can read (or listen to!) my review of it here.
I’ve Got Another Blog Interview Almost Ready!
In the past year I’ve been devoting more time to my Interviews with Cool people series with the goal of doing one every two months, and I’ve got a new one finished and just waiting on some final touch-ups. This was a big one for sure, and we recorded a lot of good material during our chat, so I’m counting down the days until I can share it!
I’m Still Studying Japanese!
Yeah, I’m still at it, slowly working my way through a mid-level grammar workbook and a kanji list in hopes of taking the Japanese Language Placement Test next December. While my reading has DEFINITELY gotten better, two months of staying at home for COVID-19 put a serious dent in my speaking ability so that I now find myself pausing awkwardly when assembling even the simplest of sentences. Not exactly the best thing for conversing with coworkers.
Also, my listening’s still shit. Better get on that one too…
Here’s What I’m NOT Working on Right Now!
- A new novel. I’ve got a novel that I REALLY want to start, but I still don’t feel quite ready, both due to lack of time, and because I’m not exactly sure how to structure the story and want to get a better handle on it before starting chapter one. I miss having a bigger novel project to work on and I’m realizing how much having a novel going focuses my creative work in general. So, I’m going to have to figure this one out…
- Toyama’s Random-Ass Magazine (TRAM). Last year I stepped up to edit the TRAM, a cool indie zine put together by the Toyama branch of AJET (an association connecting members of the JET Programme). We run travel articles, pieces about Japanese culture, fiction and art, and whatever else we can…or at least we did before a forced hiatus that I’ve been trying VERY hard to resolve. (Hoping for an update on this soon…)
- Another Erochikan Zine. I have a BUNCH of ideas for my Erochikan zine series and REALLY want to do another one, but I’m also reluctant to put one together if I don’t have an outlet for distributing it. Going to think about this for awhile…
…and that’s all. Hope you enjoyed this glimpse into what I’m working on, and stay in touch for more updates! (For ARE following me on the old Facebook, aren’t you???)