Right on!

The title of this post is a phrase that makes me giggle.

“Right on!” is such an awesome, late 70s kind of expression, right?  One that conjures Adidas running shorts (too short, green or blue, white piping) and tube socks and shaggy hair and roller skates and the smell of cigarette smoke and a tree-shaped car air freshener hanging from the rearview and hot vinyl car upholstery.  Bellbottoms, Dr. Scholl’s, Tootsie pops. Banana seat bikes with tassles on the handles.

Also: There’s this place near us, a park with a pond and beach and playground, where we used to take the girls when they were little, called Wright’s Pond. At the entrance, there are  big white letters on the ground spelling out “Wright’s Pond.” But sometimes, in the fall, people (teenagers in bellbottoms, smoking and eating Tootsie Pops, I like to think) move the fallen leaves and wood chips on the ground so they over the W, S, P and D.  So you get “Right on.” In letters on the ground, serious and heartfelt — that guy in Adidas shorts curling his upper lip and nodding in approval — leveled at every passing car on its way home from Boston. It makes me very happy.

So, that’s reason number one that I titled my first post of 2019 thusly. The second, more important reason, is that “right” is a homophone  for “write.”

Write on!

Friends, I won’t lie to you. It is taking way longer than I (or my agent) anticipated or hoped it would to find a publisher for my novel.  And it sucks — the near misses, the yeses that turn into no’s, etc.  There are lots of balls still in the air, irons in the fire, stones left to upturn, etc. But gawd, it’s HARD to be patient, to keep faith, keep confidence.  The submission process is hell. But one must keep writing, keep doing, keep NOT OBSESSING over what’s going to happen. Right? (Right, is the correct answer. Or “Right on” if you prefer.)

So, feeing the need to give myself a jolt of motivation, I did something I haven’t done in….gosh, since grad school! (15 years ago! Eek!) I signed up for a writing class. I’m taking a six-week short story class with Grub Street Writers, where I’ve taught in the past, and which is, in many ways, the hub of my writing community.

I’m so freaking psyched. I haven’t even written a short story in years. Rather, I’ve attempted, but never finished, because I always had a book brewing and to write anything else besides a brief essay or blog post felt like cheating on it. (It meant nothing, novel! I swear!) But right now,  I am really looking forward to a little new writing inspiration. I’ve got some other little writing projects cooking as well. (Rubs hands, makes a conniving little face, chuckles maniacally.)

I’ve also been going back and looking at some of the short stories I wrote waaaaay back when I was doing my MFA, out in the heartland. God, I was an insecure mess back then, like so many of my classmates, convinced that I couldn’t write worth shit. And yet, when I go back and look at things, while they’re a little bit, well, young and self-conscious and limited in scope, they’re really not that bad. Some are actually pretty damned good.

In fact, reading them is not unlike seeing myself on video at thirteen, as I recently did—I was convinced at the time I was an ugly, dorky wreck, but actually…meh, not so bad.

Hindsight is a funny thing, isn’t it? The older I get (hikes up britches, spits some chewin’ tobacky into the can) the more I realize that right now is awful damned good. I’m awful damned good.  Or at least better than I think. You probably are too.

Let’s hold that thought in 2019.  (And now you light up a Menthol or take a swig of your Tab and say…..)