Note: If the end of this post cuts off in your email, you can click the title to view on your web browser, view in the Substack App or even listen to the audio.
Hello Friends,
Another year, another mammogram! I know it’s important. If you are not part of the subset of human beings who needs their mammos grammed, I’ll just note that the ‘flattened like a pancake’ trope isn’t entirely accurate. It’s more like being treated as pizza dough—pulled, flattened, squished, pushed, and kneaded into shapes never meant for a human being.
I’m taking the three days between houseguests and a road trip with my sisters to catch up on things and create a few posts early. I want to quickly point out that this past Friday’s post on libraries and banned books was overall very positive; if you didn’t see it (maybe because everything feels bad right now), have a look. Good news! 😁
Thanks also to those privately inquiring about my skin rash. The jury’s still out. I finished up Prednisone on Friday. For the first few days I took it, my skin reaction calmed down, and that was nice—but that was the sum total of its usefulness. On the other hand, it made me irritable, which wasn’t great. And now I’m in the same place I was before I took it. As we Catholic children were always told about everything we couldn’t understand: it’s a mystery. But boy, wouldn’t I love to have it solved! Another incomprehensible symptom that started for me in the 2020 pandemic was that I can smell something very strong, very weird—a thing that isn’t there and that no one else smells. It’s like nothing IRL, so it’s hard to describe. Sort of like an alcohol made of fermented, overripe bananas. I got a Hepa filter, did lots to make it go away. Nothing worked. Eventually, it came and went repeatedly. Right now, it’s back and vivid. I’m wondering if there’s a connection between it and the rash. My body is a wonder.
* Today’s my wedding anniversary. We were young, once upon a time!
* I had fun selling my books at the Book Market in Riverside last week. I loved meeting local authors. Whatever cash I received, I spent on their books. My idea of a perfect day!
* Keep Sweet was featured in Books + Scarves on Instagram . I love the match Genia made!
* I had an article in the So Cal News Group newspapers. It’s a very short version of something I wrote about here—moving from my first book launch on the day of my mother’s funeral to my wonderful launch this summer for Keep Sweet. The link to the online article is here, but I think it’s behind a paywall. Here’s a photo of one of the newspapers, thanks to my friend David Stone.
* I also have a little interview that I want to share because, right now, we’re all susceptible to thinking we are helpless against the tide. But I believe endurance is the most useful characteristic in all situations—the big picture stuff (fighting fascism, etc.) and the personal stuff like working on life goals. I am a turtle, but I persist.
CanvasRebel is a forum for interviews of creatives and entrepreneurs. Pretty much anyone can be interviewed there. So the point of this is not that there’s anything exclusive. It’s only that I was very thoughtful about my answers to fairly generic questions. I’m hoping they are useful for you—particularly if you are feeling like nothing you work on comes to fruition, it may be uplift. Here we go:
I may not be the example that people are looking for. But if anyone feels like they missed out and it’s too late to start, I am an example to them. I believe it’s never too late. If you feel called to a creative endeavor, try it out.
Hi Victoria, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I discussed in a previous interview with Bold Journey [the same company as CanvasRebel] that I had careers as both a high school English teacher and as a teacher-librarian, so I don’t want to reiterate the details here. Those careers have been the inspiration for about half of my writing. As a young adult, I participated in critique groups and took some creative writing classes, but I didn’t write seriously until I had established my life in other areas—as teacher, mother, caretaker, etc. So, in that sense, I may not be the example that people are looking for. But if anyone feels like they missed out and it’s too late to start, I am an example to them. I believe it’s never too late. If you feel called to a creative endeavor, try it out. If it doesn’t work, you’re no worse off than if you hadn’t tried it. Success just may be taking the journey.
Once I started to write more seriously, my stories and essays were published in literary journals. I had the chance to play with character point-of-view, setting, and themes. I could set the stakes for myself. I was very happy when a well-regarded journal accepted a story I’d written in the second person (‘you’ is the main character), present tense because it’s hard to make that work. The publication was a validation of trying unusual angles. I was also very happy when I was included in Best Short Stories from The Saturday Evening Post Great American Fiction Contest.
In 2021, a collection of my short fiction was published as Acts of Contrition. In 2023, I had an experimental chapbook (keep experimenting, friends!) published, The Mortality of Dogs and Humans, which discusses coming to terms with deep grief. I have a young adult novel, Keep Sweet [which was recently published by Inlandia Books]. It’s about a girl hoping to escape a polygamist cult (so, patriarchy). I’ve completed a novel about book bans/challenges, tentatively titled Promiscuous Reading. I’m hoping to find a publisher.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
This journey has taken longer than anyone could imagine as reasonable, but here it is. The reason for that is because I’ve always earned a living outside of writing. In that way, this creative journey is much different than that of an entrepreneur who combines their creative expression (say, developing recipes) with their living (running a restaurant).
The great majority of writers don’t make a living from their work, but it is essential to cultural conversations. They write because they’re compelled to. Some believe their ideas come from a muse. That is, they come from outside themselves. And if they don’t work on these ideas, then the ideas find an interpreter elsewhere. I feel this is true. I’ve had to let go of a lot of good ideas because I couldn’t bring them to fruition in a timely manner. I worked full time, while raising three sons, and during some of that, I also went to graduate school twice (MA, English: MLS—library science) while my husband was working full time and going to graduate school (PhD, counseling psychology). While it’s true that one must prioritize goals, there are long stretches in life when one works eighteen hours a day. And sleep, rather than creative output, becomes that final priority.
I say this because I want people to understand that their own creative journeys will probably be meandering. That some ideas will move on, take another path, and someone else will bring them into the world. But there will be ideas that stay the course, and maybe those are the most important ones for your life. I’m looking for a home right now for a novel I’ve written that is centered on book banning/censorship in a public high school. It’s an idea I’ve had for years. The novel itself has gone through many iterations (yes, writing is rewriting). I believe it’s ready for readers. And I’m the best person to write this story because of my background as an English teacher and a high school librarian.
I’d like to take a minute and move a little sideways from the question to make some recommendations because I think people reading this interview may be looking for advice on their journey.
If you want to explore the idea that creative people get inspiration from a muse/outside of themselves, a good book to read is Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic. I reviewed it here. Another, more recent discussion of this is in Rick Rubin’s The Creative Act.
If the idea of an external force/stream of ideas just seems too wacky for you, a well-regarded book is Stephen King’s On Writing. (I wrote a very brief review here). King writes daily. However, while it took time for his work to land, once it did, he was able to make a living from his writing. He wasn’t a working mom, etc. So don’t beat yourself up if you can’t manage what he has. He’s pretty much a unicorn.
Someone who consistently and generously answers emerging writers’ questions is George Saunders. Many of these questions are about his journey—which is to say, his readers wonder what they can learn about their own journeys through him. While he, too, is something of a unicorn, a lot of his story and his advice lands. He often discusses how to mold ideas by pushing them into stranger and more extreme circumstances. His Substack is Story Club and while there is an optional paid element to it, he answers writers’ questions every other Thursday for free.
And, of course, if you want to be part of the literary community, you should be buying books and journals written and/or published by the people in your community. Get to know them through local gatherings, classes and groups. If you can’t afford as many books by indie and local authors as you’d like, recommend that your local library buy them. When they do, check those books out. Review those you enjoyed so that your voice is part of the conversation.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I’m both salty and kind. It’s a combination that works for me. So my work is reality-based and questions authority. Writing is a good creative space for me because all stories must have conflict. No one wants to read a story about Mary going to the store to buy milk unless she is accosted there by her ex-husband, who serves her court documents because he’s trying to take custody of the kids. In that way, I think writing is different from other creative arts.
For me, conflict naturally arises in a story when it questions why things are the way they are. Sometimes this requires a great deal of vulnerability. A recent example from my own life is an essay I had published on HuffPost. It’s about the damage of purity culture, but it exposed some of the stranger elements of my childhood and upbringing. It was the most vulnerable thing I’d ever written—and the most widely read with over a million views.
I’m not collaborative in the sense of directly working with someone. I’ve never co-written anything, and I think this is true of most authors. But I am collaborative in the sense that I am participating in a dialogue that speaks through time. My work responses to the work of others, perhaps something from long ago. Writing means being a part of a historical conversation. I always build on what I’ve experienced through others’ art and writing. I add their sense of the world to my own experience.
Through that dialogue, I came to understand the value of being a good literary citizen. Many people will tell you that a creative person has to have a hand reaching up to someone more successful and a hand reaching down to someone who is just starting. This is true. But I think there are also times when we need to stretch our arms to the side and clasp those who are level with us. Buy their work, support their work, talk up their work to friends and colleagues, post reviews.
I very often read the work of authors published by indie presses. Recently, I have been reviewing some of that (young adult) work on School Library Lady. I review the adult novels and memoirs I read elsewhere and plan to interview authors on my Substack, Be a Cactus. For five years, I edited an online literary journal (Inlandia) in order to help emerging authors find their way to publication. I now run a critique workshop through the Inlandia Institute. I periodically contribute to a newspaper column about the writing journey. I read and judge work for literary contests.
Believe me when I say I am proud of my essays, stories, and novels. I wouldn’t put them out into the world if I wasn’t. But I’m also proud of my work in literary citizenship. I love being a part of the writing community. Be a Cactus is my way of engaging that community, and I’m happy when people join me there (it’s free).
If we knew you growing up, how would we have described you?
I think I’ve put a lot of the details of being a kid out of my mind. I liked school because it rewarded someone like me. I could deliver answers. I often played alone or with one best friend, and I suppose that’s why I was always imagining scenarios to play out. I loved pretty rocks and was always on the lookout for anything to add to my collection. I still love visiting rock and mineral shops and wearing jewelry made from polished stones.
I’ve always enjoyed stories, but I didn’t have a library card until I was about nine years old. My parents didn’t ever take us to the library, and we had few books at home. My elementary school didn’t have a library, but rather a few giant bookcases that folded in half, like a suitcase. These would be opened on rare class visits. (If you’ve ever been to a Scholastic book fair, the book displays are in the same sort of cases.) I used my allowance to order cheap paperback/newsprint books from Scholastic, so I did get to read a bit for pleasure.
One day, I was being escorted home from a Girl Scout camping trip by the older sister of a friend. She stopped at the local library, which was just a mobile unit in the shopping center parking lot. The three of us selected books. When I got to the circulation counter, the librarian told me I needed a library card and gave me an application for my parents to sign. I haven’t stopped reading since!
Thanks for reading Be a Cactus! This post is public so feel free to share it.
