"Something very meaningful and definitely not the Fall Out Boy lyrics I wanted to put here." - Fancy Header
j.r. dawson
  • Home
  • About
    • Press Kit
    • Editing and Contact Information
    • Recent News
  • STORIES
    • Blog
    • Eligibility 2021

Day 294: Back from ICFA

3/21/2016

0 Comments

 
Picture
So I got most of my feelings out on this subject over at The MFA Years, so please go over to that awesome site and read about my exploits (www.themfayears.com).

I learned a lot this weekend. I saw how much growing I need to do. I saw how much work will go into this. I am grateful to have this opportunity.

Now it's back to the grindstone, pushing forward and working double-hard to get things done. I have another month before the next conference, and I have three months to graduation. I still need to turn in my thesis, although it sounds like it's good to go on that front. I need to finish my new short stories. I need to send out the short story that's finished. I need to, I need to, I need to.
0 Comments

Day 289: Leaving tomorrow for ICFA

3/16/2016

0 Comments

 
Picture
Iiiiii'm saaailing awaaaay ...

... to ICFA. I was just in Orlando for my honeymoon, and now I'm turning right back around to present on a panel entitled:

The Wonder Piece in Alternate History:
Using Fantastical and Scientific Elements to Highlight the Past, Present and Future

Also on this panel are the wonderful R.M. Romero, Theodora Goss, and MW Bychowski. So yeah, I'm a little more than excited.

I am also terrified.

I'm pretty sure MW and RM are done with me. I keep messaging them with stupid questions. "What is everyone wearing there?" "Okay, but like are we talking jeans or slacks or do I really have to wear a skirt?" "Have you run into Holly Black yet?" "Okay but like the weather ... more like 78 or 79 degrees?"

And then I started asking Google stupid questions. "ICFA how to dress." And what comes up but Theodora Goss wearing a beautiful dress that looks nothing like the jeans and Darth Vader tee I just packed. Another girl blogs that she made her own damn dress for the event. I'm like ... making clothes? The hell is this?

I'm going to just pack some slacks and nice blouses. If I feel really feminine, I may just pull out the pantyhose and pencil skirt.

Which brought me to my next point of contention.

Trying on the slacks. A month ago, I lauded myself on squishing into my skinny slacks. They were really big on me back when I was a stick in college. But today? I couldn't even button the cursed things.

So if you see me at the conference, I'm the manatee in the skirt.

But please do see me at the conference. We got at 8:30 AM on Friday. It'll be a lot of fun. I promise.
0 Comments

Day 286: Spring is here. Time is nearly up.

3/13/2016

0 Comments

 
My year is almost up.

We're rounding the corner. And the question becomes: did I do a good job?

I know I got a lot done. I know I have made a lot of strides. Lots of exciting things happened, and I'm leaving for ICFA to present on a panel in a few days.

But there were the mornings I slept in. The days I didn't write on the blog. Is it okay when a writer takes a day off?

Last night, Alex and I celebrated an important anniversary. We went downtown to a fancy hotel and we had the view in this picture. It's the First National. And if you don't look at your surroundings, if you don't recognize that your high school is up the street and the hotel you stayed at for a piano contest in the fifth grade is right next door ... it can feel like a new city.

In the morning, the tower disappeared into the fog and looked like it was a portal to somewhere else.

It's been a year. It's about to be a year since I quit my job. It's going to be a year of writing instead of working full-time.

Next year will bring new things, new challenges, new excitement, new portals. Next year, I will continue to ask, "am I doing enough?"

I hope that this time next year, I'm proud of what I've accomplished.
Picture
0 Comments

Day 282: On my impending ten-year high school reunion.

3/9/2016

0 Comments

 
Picture
I graduated in 2006.

On the last day of school, I took my camera wherever I went, snapping pictures of everything and anything I could see. This here was a mural hanging in my AP Lit class, sixth period, right after lunch and right before choir. Or was it right after choir, which was right after lunch? I don't remember. More important things have filled my brain-thing since I needed to know my senior year schedule.

What is not pictured are all of the people in the classroom, or my own self behind the camera. I was dressed weird on the last day of school, because I had an exit interview for my internship at the theater down the street directly after school. So I was dressed up, and by dressed up, I mean what constituted dressed up for me at the age of eighteen.

During ninth period, or I think it was ninth period, we were asked by our Creative Writing teacher to write where we would be in 2016, when our ten-year reunion would take place. What grand things would we have done in ten years? What horrific feats of dastardly adventure and dismay would we have fulfilled?

I knew that I was hard on myself, and I didn't want Future Me to disappoint. So I wrote a stupid Dr. Seuss poem about how I was going to have twenty-eight husbands at the age of twenty-eight, and how I would teach them all how to perform on twenty-eight trapezes and ... it went on for a while. It was a free-write.

But now 2016 is here. And while cleaning out my car today from the honeymoon, my mother asked me via phone, "Are you going to that ten-year reunion thing?"

My reaction was not a normal one that a normal person should have.

"Absolutely not," I said. "Becca's not going. I don't want to go without someone who I can talk to."

"Well how about such-n-such?"

"Don't like them."

"How about who-and-what?"

"Haven't spoken to them since 2007."

All of a sudden, my adult, mature, well-groomed twenty-eight-year-old self disintegrated into a puddle of eighteen-year-old me, and I started one of my world-famous high school vent/rants about the ills of society and how I hate everyone and how, when I was fifteen, some kid called me fat.

"But honestly," I said, "no matter who is there or isn't there, it comes down to me prancing around high school telling everyone that when I grew up, I would go to New York, Chicago, London, Paris, hell anywhere but Omaha. How the hell can I show my face if I'm still living in Omaha?"

As to which my mother responded: "But you have been to New York, Chicago, London, Paris ... you've been a lot of other places, too. And you've done a lot. You're in Omaha because it's your choice to be in Omaha."

I then said I needed both hands to clean the car, and we ended our conversation.

It's my choice.

Now we've all grown up since our last day of high school. A lot of classmates are married and have kids, mortgages, etc. Unfortunately some have passed. Others are living down the street and some others are living in Manhattan. We've changed in many ways. But at the core of who we are, I don't think we change.

I know I haven't changed, deep down. At least one thing hasn't faltered. My stubbornness.

When I was eighteen, I wanted to move to Chicago. So I did. When I was twenty-four, I wanted to get married. So eventually we did. I wanted to go to London, and so we did. I wanted to see Notre Dame, so we did. I wanted to get an MFA, so I did. Whenever I put my mind to something that I want, God help anyone who is in my way.

So why am I still in Omaha?

I don't know if I'm going to go to the reunion. I still have a few months to decide. But regardless, I'm going to use this year to feel good about what I have done instead of always looking at what I have not done.

And there's a million things I haven't done, so just you wait.

So eighteen-year-old me, listen up. In the next ten years, you're going to live alone in Chicago. You're going to get two majors in four years. You'll go to graduate school twice. You'll have your own place and meet a nice guy who marries you. You'll travel all over the world and see all the places you always wanted to see. You'll publish a book, and you'll meet cool authors you look up to. You'll make new friends who really care about your well-being, and you'll go ghost hunting in some of the most haunted places in the country (those two thoughts are in the same sentence but completely unrelated). You're going to come across scary parts, sad parts, parts where you have to say goodbye to people, but you'll be okay. 2016 is a sweet ride that includes a trip to Disney World and graduation from your MFA.

You're going to be fine. So lift your head up.


0 Comments

Day 279: Who I've Been, Who I Am

3/6/2016

0 Comments

 
During our honeymoon, we visited Alex's family in Alabama. Alex and I met in his last year of undergrad and my first year of graduate school, so I didn't know him growing up, unfortunately. But we went to Sam's Club, and he said quietly, "This is where I worked."

It was a few months where he was in this place that I'd never been. Mix this with stories from his family about little Alex and a DVD of Alex playing the Prince in his senior production of Cinderella, and I started thinking about the stranger that would become my husband.

Then when we arrived home, I started cleaning the apartment and found some of my old stuff from college. It was a whirlwind move back from Chicago, so a lot of my stuff --- favorite clothes, backpacks, memorabilia --- went missing and shoved into mysterious storage. So finding old bags from my time in the city was weird. 

It's been six years since I moved back to Omaha. I thought I wouldn't be here for more than a year. Now we're looking at houses.

The bag I found was riddled with buttons I'd collected from different kiosks around DePaul's campus, Hot Topic donation tokens, and AWP conferences. The biggest button, and my most prized possession, is the Watchmen smiley face that I can't find. There are Beatles buttons from when my childhood best friend and I were obsessed with the Beatles, but they were taken off the bag and shoved inside, because I was trying to forget the Beatles, and trying to forget him.

But I kept the "You are Loved" button in his native language.

Sigma Tau Delta, the Vincentian cross, the A.V. Club ... all of it is frozen in time.

I was twenty-three when I graduated. I was thirty pounds lighter. I wore jeans under peasant skirts and I was dating someone who wore blazers with leather elbows and jeans with loafers. He was a PhD candidate and I was a BFA graduate. I followed him to ironic coffee shops to ironically play board games. I watched Disney movies on Friday nights with my three roommates, and my other two friends lived above us with a way better view and a much better rent price.

I knew how to time out the L train schedule without using any app. I knew how to run real fast through the alleyways when I shouldn't be in alleyways. I walked everywhere, I had three jobs, a great GPA, and I could cringe my way through a Venture Bros. marathon. My life was made of school work, Chicago, and the DePaul library.

And now I'm 28. My life is made of manuscripts, Disney World trips, teaching, and marriage. My roommates have slid away through the years, even my best friend. The guy in the blazer is somewhere in England now, far away from me, and he can stay there. Alex didn't even know me back then, and now we've been all over the world together. Now no one knows me better.

I wear jeans and adorable t-shirts and pj pants when I don't have to go out. I listen to Radical Face. My rent is awesome, my view still sucks. I know how to fix cars, get anywhere in town in twenty minutes, and I can cringe my way through a Chiefs game.

But some things don't change. Back when Alex was a kid, he still rolled his eyes, he still sang beautifully, and he still got nervous onstage even though he was hella talented. Me? I still write really sad stories, and I still  binge-watch comedy series.

Our character arcs shift who we are, but we are always the same people. Sometimes we have no idea how much we've changed until we see something that was frozen in time.

I can't wait to write this scene for my characters after they've grown up and they're looking back on everything they're going through now. I can't wait to look back in six more years and see how much I've changed. I hope I like what happens next.
Picture
0 Comments

Day 276: Back from Honeymoon

3/3/2016

0 Comments

 
Picture
Picture
Can I tell you how invigorating it is to shut off the phone and computer after months of constant work?

Can I tell you just how amazing hammocks are?

Both of these things are invigorating and amazing.

I thought a cruise was going to be super lame, but guys. Guys. Cruises aren't lame.

Go on a cruise.

Take time off from writing for a week and go on a cruise.

Or if you can't go on a cruise or don't want to go on a cruise, take time off from writing for two days and discover something new that you didn't think you'd like. Like gardening. Or yodeling. Or caterpillar hunting. I don't even know. Just go do something you never thought you'd do, and then come back and make yourself write again.

In order to write, we have to experience. In order to experience, we have to step away from our computer screens once in a while and do other things. Like swim in the freaking ocean. I swam in the ocean. I hate swimming. I hate swimsuits. I know little to nothing about the ocean. But now I can write about these things. Now I have more material to pull from.

Create a life so you have a life to pull from.
0 Comments

    What is this?

    Dawson is a writer. This is her blog. In it, you shall read about reading. And writing. And cheeseburgers. Sometimes there are tangents. Huzzah.

    Categories

    All
    Advice
    Angela Patten
    Animal Farm
    Animorphs
    Applegate
    Applying
    Art
    Bad Writing
    Bats
    Bella
    Best Writing Places
    Blue Line
    Bradbury
    Caffeine Dreams
    Chicago
    Classy
    Colorado
    Community
    Complicated Characters
    Concert
    Dad
    Day Job
    Dead Poets Society
    Death
    Depression
    Draft
    Dundee
    Elements Of Fiction
    Exposition
    Famous
    Father's Day
    Favorite Books
    Fox Hollow
    Frankenstein
    Frozen
    Gaiman
    Game Of Thrones
    Grant
    Grateful
    Harry Potter
    Hermione
    Heroines
    Home
    Hunger Games
    Introduction
    Iowa
    Ireland
    Katniss
    Kevin Barry
    Killing Characters
    Life Of Pi
    Lindsey Stirling
    Mardra Sikora
    Marketing
    Martin McDonagh
    Memoir
    MFA
    Motivation
    Music
    Ocean At The End Of The Lane
    Old Market
    Omaha
    Opera
    Panera
    Paradise Bakery
    Pen Names
    Personal Life
    Pikes Peak Writers Conference
    PitchWars
    Procrastination
    Radical Face
    Reading
    Residency
    Revision
    Robin Williams
    Scooter's
    Self-love
    Set Piece
    Setting
    Shelf Life
    Short Story
    Sick
    Starbucks
    Stonecoast
    The Lion King
    The MFA Years
    Thesis
    Twilight
    Twitter
    UNO Library
    Urban Abbey
    Village Inn
    Wedding
    Women
    Wordsworth
    World
    Writing
    Yann Martel
    #YesAllWomen
    Zen

    Archives

    May 2019
    July 2018
    November 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    July 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    March 2015
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
Photos used under Creative Commons from smoorenburg, Erik Daniel Drost, prasad.om, Feral78, spbpda, Môsieur J. [version 9.1], markus spiske, jcasabona