Diana L. Conces :: Susan Rooke

Archive for Diana L. Conces

We’ve Got to Stop Meeting Like This

August 31, 2017

Posted by Susan Rooke

Before I begin, I’d like to tell all of you about two blog posts from my friends Diana Conces and Carie Juettner. They’ve each written a thoughtful essay in the wake of the calamitous Hurricane Harvey. Diana’s “The Strangeness of Safety” is a poignant memorial to the South Texas Gulf Coast the way it used to be before Harvey transformed it—perhaps forever—into something unrecognizable. Carie’s post, “Be the Rubber Band,” is a meditation on the search for meaning in the mundane, and for peace while the world around us spins into chaos. These women are gifted poets and writers. Diana was my guest blogger September 2016 with her post “Inside the Brown Bag.” Their words written in the wake of the storm moved me, and I want to share them with you. Here are the links:

Diana Conces “The Strangeness of Safety”

Carie Juettner “Be the Rubber Band”

And now I have an announcement, Dear Readers. This will be my last weekly post for the next few months. (And by the way: To everyone who didn’t receive the Thursday afternoon email last week, I apologize. No idea why some of those blog notifications went out late or not at all. The Ether moves in mysterious ways.) But I promise it’s for a good reason. Monday, September 4th, I’m observing Labor Day by resuming work on the second book in The Space Between series. And I can’t tell you how much it thrills me to say that. (It also scares the pants off of me a little.)

The first book, The Space Between: The Prophecy of Faeries, will be released on September 12th. That seems like a small miracle, considering what it took to get to this point. Before I embarked on this adventure, I had no idea how much work goes into prepping a manuscript for publication. Turns out it was a lot, but it was doable. There were the edits:

• by me
• by the developmental editor
• me again
• by the first copy editor
• me again
• by the final copy editor
• me again
• a last, close scrutiny by the final copy editor
• and me . . . AGAIN

It was all meant to craft the book into its best possible self, and to catch any remaining typos/errors. But even then it wasn’t done. After that came the proofing: of the print copy, the e-copy, and then the re-proofing of both when The Daughter threw a monkey wrench into the final 10 pages (see August 17th’s post, “The Space Between: NOW It’s Done“).

I estimate that in the past sixteen months alone I’ve reread that book at least six times. And that doesn’t count all the times I reread it while doing prior revisions in the previous 10.75 years. (Yes, I’m keeping track. Can’t help it.)

But, as I say, it was doable. Then it came time to promote the book. And this is the part that took me by horrified surprise. Start a Facebook page? Open a Twitter account? But I did that already! What do you mean, that’s not enough? I’m making great promotional strides here!

Oh, how naïve I was. There’s much more to promotion than that. So much that I can’t even hold it all in my head at once. (Probably because I’ve got at least fourteen versions of The Space Between in there.) I tried to keep it all straight, but it was like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall. At that point I just kind of threw up my hands and said, “I can’t do this!” Danielle Hartman Acee, wearer of many hats at The Authors’ Assistant, saved my bacon. Again. Thank you, Danielle, for your amazing promotional skills!

And now we arrive at the end of August, and this, my 70th blog post. Summer is creeping along towards fall. It seems like an auspicious time to shift my focus back to writing fiction. Next Monday I’ll return to writing The Realm Below: The Rise of Tanipestis. (That’s the working title. It’s been tweaked a couple of times. This one feels like it should stick, though.) I’m 87,000 words in already, which I call a good start. I’m excited to share little bits and pieces of it with you in the coming months.

Pretty soon my characters will begin speaking to me in dreams again. They’ll give me news of themselves, they’ll judge me, they’ll praise my intuitions, they’ll condemn my inevitable shortcomings. There will be some I’ve never heard from before, and I look forward to cultivating relationships with them.

So, to allow them the freedom they require to set up housekeeping in my subconscious again, I have a proposal for you. I’ve enjoyed our assignations these past 70 weeks very much. Let’s please continue them. With one small change. Could we meet every other week instead?

I’ll be here if you will . . .

Blog, Featured Post, Publishing, Reading, The Realm Below, The Space Between, Writing

Of Time. And Devices Smarter Than I Am.

October 6, 2016

Posted by Susan Rooke

8 Comments

“I am the Golux,” said the Golux, proudly, “the only Golux in the world, and not a mere Device.”

—from The 13 Clocks, by James Thurber

For some time now, my car Casper has been determined to prove he’s smarter than I am. I wouldn’t be troubled much by this, except that he derives great satisfaction from being deliberately alarming. In the past I’ve touched on his many methods to distress me. His favorites include:

• Just as I pull out of my driveway to leave for an engagement, he whines that his tire pressure is low—in all four tires. He’s lying.
• In a level restaurant parking lot, he complains that he’s on a steep grade, and begs me to secure him against rolling. He’s lying again.
• He harangues me to pull over on the toll road because his hood is unlatched, and both of us are barreling at 80 mph toward doom. Pants-on-fire lie.
• In January he butts in to say that the road surface is 37 degrees Fahrenheit, and by gosh, I’d better watch my step. Okay, that time he was telling the truth, but I jumped when his warning chime went off, and I know he enjoyed that.

Casper and I have lived together nearly 3 years, and he’s well-acquainted with my anxieties. In fact, he’s had my number from the start. The first day I brought him home, he slyly set off his “low tire” warning chime and watched for my reaction. I panicked—he was lying, of course—and he’s been needling me ever since.

Now he’s moved on to more subtle manipulation.

A couple of mornings ago I had an 11:30 appointment in the city. Because most destinations there are an hour or more away, I planned to leave the house by 10 a.m. to make the appointment with a bit of breathing room to spare, just in case. (“Just in case.” The anxious person has, for each occasion, a minimum of three scenarios that “Just in case” can cover.)

I noted the wall clock on my way out the front door. 10 a.m. precisely. I walked from the farmhouse to the driveway, slid behind Casper’s wheel and fired him up. His dashboard clock read 11 a.m. Panic and anxiety (mine) ensued.

How did I lose an hour walking 20 yards to the car?

Casper always knows what time it is. He’s a pretty smart car. He resets his clock when Daylight Savings Time begins and when it ends. He knows if I drive into a different time zone. None of those things had happened. It was October 4th, a month before the end of Daylight Savings Time. And my driveway, to the best of my knowledge, is in the same time zone as my house.

If I weren’t so annoyed with Casper’s tactics, I could probably learn a useful lesson from this. Don’t I have enough anxieties already? Should I permit time to tyrannize me this way? Is being an hour off—earlier or later—a reason to overreact? It’s not as if I was headed to a Harry Potter midnight release party.

Time is a construct many claim to be artificial—if it even exists at all. I can’t bring myself to go quite that far. I’m happy to subscribe to the illusion of time for some things. For instance, I watch the clock when baking. Leaving bread in the oven 30 minutes too long won’t lead to a loaf that looks like this:

And I’m thrilled when the calendar flips to October; it’s my favorite month of the year. I rush out to buy pumpkins and gourds to celebrate autumn:

One of my all-time favorite books—since childhood—is James Thurber’s The 13 Clocks. I still love the story of the evil Duke of Coffin Castle; his niece, the beautiful princess Saralinda; her suitor, Prince Zorn of Zorna; and the Golux, an enigmatic little man who wears an “indescribable” hat. The Duke is said to have murdered time, “slain it with his sword, and wiped his bloody blade upon its beard and left it lying there [. . .].” The Duke is a man after my own heart; I’d slay time too, if I could. I’d like not to have the constant pressure to rush everywhere, not to fret that I’m keeping someone waiting, to quit striving to be not just prompt, but early. I’d like not to feel that time is never on the same side I am. Pretty sure that ship has sailed, though. (Ships sailing: something else I’d have to be on time for.) It’s a lifelong issue. Casper knows me well.

An anxious person is always quick to fear, to assume the worst. But even I didn’t really believe I’d passed through a time slip on my way from the house to the driveway. So after freaking out a little, I asked my phone what time it was. My phone reassured me that Casper didn’t know what he was talking about, and that it was indeed 10 a.m., just as I’d thought. I had plenty of time to make my appointment.

“Quit worrying,” my phone said. “The car’s just misinformed.”

“That’s a relief,” I sighed, backing out of the driveway.

“Either that, or . . .” The phone snickered. “. . . he’s trying to gaslight you.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A big thank-you again to Diana Conces, who wrote last week’s moving blog post, “Inside the Brown Bag” (September 29). Anyone who hasn’t seen that one yet, I urge you to read Diana’s wonderful snapshot memory!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To comment: Go to the right sidebar and click on the title of the post you want to comment on. You’ll find the Comments box on that page.

To receive notice of the latest blog updates: Go to the right sidebar where it says “Subscribe to Blog Posts” and fill in the boxes.

Thank you for reading; thank you for signing up to follow!

Blog

Inside the Brown Bag

September 29, 2016

Posted by Susan Rooke

5 Comments

Readers, I’m excited and honored to be able to present this snapshot memory from award-winning poet and writer Diana L. Conces. Diana’s photo and bio appear at the end of her piece. Enjoy this post from my first guest blogger!

Inside the Brown Bag

In junior high, I would visit my father in the summers at his house outside Sinton, west of Corpus Christi. He was a welder, and often he would bring me with him to work. I would sit at the wooden desk in the office, reading books and playing on the Smith Corona typewriter. Every night after work, we would get on his red Kawasaki motorcycle and he would stop at the Brown Bag #2 for a few beers.

The Brown Bag was, as its name suggests, not a classy joint. Picture a portable building, square, nondescript, brown siding bleached in the Aransas Pass sun and abraded by the salty air, sitting on a slab of concrete carved out of the wheat fields beside State Highway 35. Add a few pickup trucks, old and equally weathered, pulled up beside the Kawasaki. Inside, you know it’s going to be dim—like the inside of a brown bag, in fact—bare bulbs over the bar. The bar is a simple wood square, inside the simple wood square of the building, inside the cracked concrete square of the parking lot, inside the carved out square of wheat farms, a matryoshka of squares, because squares, like brown bags, are fast and simple to make, for people who need a fast and simple place to drink. No windows, silly, because the kind of drinking you do at the Brown Bag is the private kind, and inner demons grow testy in daylight. I would perch on an out-of-the-way stool with this week’s set of Agatha Christie murder mysteries, courtesy of the Sinton Public Library, and Janie would pour me a Coke and pass Dad his first Budweiser.

He came to the Brown Bag for Janie. There were other bars, rowdier bars, loud places with jukeboxes and hard men with hard emotions my eleven-year-old brain wasn’t quite ready to label, places that made me wary and on edge. But mostly we went to the Brown Bag because Janie was there and he loved her, quietly and unrequited. I found a letter after he died, the sort of awkward letter you write when you’re thinking about someone, when you’re wearing their memory like a sweater, but you can’t say something so big, so the words come out like an elementary school pen pal letter, small talk and daily affairs, while the things unsaid seep out through the negative space. He must’ve known that the words were too small, because he never sent it. Janie was always kind to both of us, and she would bring me paperback romance novels to read sometimes and ask me questions. It was Janie who called, twenty years later, to tell me he was dying in the hospital of a cancer he didn’t know he had.

From my corner seat, I picked up bits of conversation, observations on love and loneliness, friendship and despair, and a peek at what it really means to be an alcoholic. I saw the lonely drunks sitting silent at the bar, looking for hope and finding only a bit of foam at the bottom of the glass. I have at times drank regularly and occasionally heavily, but there’s a line I never cross, a line that looks a little bit like Highway 35 outside Aransas Pass.

Diana L. Conces lives in Round Rock, Texas, with her mother, three children, and a pair of desperate housecats. Somehow, she occasionally finds time to write poetry and short stories. Her work has been published in numerous anthologies, including Black Fox Literary Magazine (Vol. 14); Best of Austin Poetry (2 volumes); Tic Toc, Petals in the Pan, Secrets and Dreams, and Shattered from Kind of a Hurricane Press; Texas Poetry Calendar (2 editions) and Bearing the Mask: Southwestern Persona Poems from Dos Gatos Press; Blue Hole; Animal Tales; and artlines2: Art Becomes Poetry. She has won numerous local contests and has had one of her poems appear on a Capitol Metro bus.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To comment: Go to the right sidebar and click on the title of the post you want to comment on. You’ll find the Comments box on that page.

To receive notice of the latest blog updates: Go to the right sidebar where it says “Subscribe to Blog Posts” and fill in the boxes.

Thank you for reading; thank you for signing up to follow!

Blog