AWP and moving forward

Had a great time at AWP this weekend. I wasn't there very long, just Friday to Saturday, but did much in that small amount of time.

Friday evening I met up with my fellow panel members Roberta Borger, Jolene Perry, Selene Castrovilla, and Katherine Ayres. What a group of wonderful, talented women. I felt small in comparison to their accomplishments. Roberta is an MFA student in Pennsylvania, and the one who put the panel together. I should also thank my friend Gae Polisner, who opted out of the panel and suggested me as her replacement.

After dinner, Selene and I spent some time together talking (we have quite a bit in common, we noted if we didn't live on opposite shores, we would probably be friends) then hit up the AWP Dance Party. We didn't dance, just watched as most the party goers were about 20 years younger than us.

The next morning I registered and hit the bookfair, checking out the books, reviews, and journals, then I noticed 3rd Place Books was there in the back. I went to check out their books and who was in their booth? Local author Lish McBride. We hadn't met in person, just by Twitter mostly, in fact when I ran into her, I hadn't looked at her name tag right away, and we were sitting there talking about writing and whatnot (she'd recognized my name from my AWP badge). When she told me her third books was coming out soon I asked her what she'd written and her books were sitting right there so she showed me. I wanted to do a palm-to-forehead so bad...DOH! I explained to her, via Twitter, the following day that it took me awhile to put 2x2 together because, well, I'm an idiot. Ugh.

Scurried on to my panel, which was a success. Good questions asked, time flew. Then I was bound for home.

Time to move forward...in so many ways. One of the problems I've been having, it culminates tomorrow. Another problem, I think it's coming to a head and I'm not sure how it's going to resolve. I'll have to wait and see. Either way, I'm ready to Creative Chaos Media. It's time to do a publicity blast on Dissected. finish the rebranding of my website, edit Girl in Motion and get it prepared to publish this fall (time is going so fast), and finish my latest novel, A Tattered Life.
do whatever I need to do to put it behind me. And it's really time to push my new business with the self publishing services. I've been working on the website again,

I realized I haven't finished a novel in over a year. I think Dissected was the last one I actually finished writing. I mean, I've edited novels, but I haven't written a new one in a really long time, so it's so important to complete A Tattered Life then move onto the next one.

Moving forward.

Never let the bureaucracy get you down

The last couple of weeks I have found myself dealing with one of our local bureaucracies. I suppose, outside government, I've never really thought all that much about policy and practice, red tape, and bureaucrats, getting the run around and discrimination because, well, I haven't had to. It's never really applied to me.

Now it has.

I'm not going to get into the specifics of my problem, only that it has had a great effect on me (and not only me, but we'll just talk about me today). It's been frustrating to the point that it's driven me to tears. It's affected my focus, therefore the work at my day job, my writing, also its been physically draining so I've been fatigued and my body aches. It's made me take time out of my day to try to solve this problem that should have never occurred in the first place. It feels like my soul has been sucked right out of me.

Some of my questions have been skirted around rather than answered. They act like they are trying to help, but it feels more like they are just pretending in order to appease me.

When this first happened I searched their policies and found nothing that warranted their actions.   I called them on it, quoting their own policies as well as Washington State legal code and demanded that they fix what they'd done. I was told they would find the policy and show it to me, but their hands were tied because  it was the call of the higher ups, but they would confer with them and get back to me.

When my answer came back, I was told that, well, it's not actually policy, but more of a "practice." To me this means there is nothing in writing to allow/excuse what they've done. They also said they would still try to work with me though and that a "support team" of "very important people" who are "very busy" doing "other things" are going to make the time to have a meeting to try to solve my problem (yes that's basically the way it was told to me like I'm supposed to be thankful).

The problem is they still aren't seeing the big picture I've been trying to point out to them. 1) this should never have happened in the first place. 2) they should have a set policy for this type of thing because according to them it happens more than you'd think. 3) their "practice" in dealing with this situation is uninformed, ridiculous and I would think discriminatory and illegal.

Even if their "support team" comes up with a solution, I'm told "these things take time." My resolution is already coming up next week, so putting all these talking heads together seems to be futile, and like I said, just a way to appease me.

I've decided to make it my mission to force these people to install a policy so this doesn't happen again. I don't want anyone else to have to go through this.