Where Does The Time Go

Summer is more than half over and my writing life took a sharp turn south to non existent. At least here. It’s not like I’m not writing, but I haven’t pulled out my laptop to type but for some poetry a couple weeks ago. My journal is almost full after another year and a half. (my journals always take a year and a half to fill) and I have been writing this and that. Noting about life other than random observations. I feel like life is so heavy that I can’t write about life. Notes to become poems, or thoughts, but rarely anything deep.

Can we do over 2020? Not like actually all the crap that has gone on, but can’t we just chalk this up to a no go year? That being said, I feel like I have gotten places in my writing I might not have gone before. Nathan and I were texting the other day and he commented that one of my poems wasn’t my usual norm. Ha ha, he hasn’t seen my notebooks. But he is right. I sometimes spew off this super long poem with no stopping and no breaks and no punctuation and it’s like I just let a balloon spew out its air, whizzing around the room. Like I couldn’t contain it and I had to just throw it all out in a rush.

I bottle up my thoughts, opinions and emotions a lot, but when I let them out, usually it’s in a rush, a dumptruck of thoughts poured out on the ground. No organization to them. Sometimes cluttered and rarely making sense. Sometimes poems get like that. I can’t contain the box they are in. Personally, I’m rather fond of those kinds. At least of my own. I usually make the point I want without censoring myself. I’m rather proud of some of those poems.

Now what do I do with them. Again, Nathan asked if I was going to get any in print. I want to, but where? It’s all I can do to write the poems. I don’t have the oomph to hunt for journals to submit. Does anyone want to be an assistant and do the research for me? Pretty please? Darlings, I’d pay you in endless gratitude and the option to have me bake you a goody if you happened to be in northern CA and stopped in at the restaurant.

And that ^  is why I can’t get writing done. Work. I am swamped at all points. My day is so busy from the minute I walk in till I leave. I have a boss on my station in the morning who doesn’t believe he needs to do the prep and leaves most if not all of it for me to do, along with, yes, I am still full force making all the desserts. And I have had an entree added to my station that is adding in time. I fire ribeye steaks in my oven and I have gotten pretty decent at it. But for an already taxed station to adding that in. Well, let’s just say my life is one constant busy.

Even on my days off I’m thinking work. Or pestered by work. I want a weekend where I don’t have to think about work. It would be different if I was the chef in charge. But since I’m not, nor am I being paid to be, I want to not think about work.

And now dishes and lunch are calling me. Forget writing again.

Kate

 

In A World Of Food Life And Tasting Meals

New Year’s Eve brought me to another banquet, though this was more of a very nice tasting menu. I have done several party type meals with this restaurant, and all usually involved yelling, crying, and broken glass. From someone, though I was usually the one crying. Yeah, so when I knew this was coming up, I was excited albeit, a bit aprehensive. I don’t do well under mad pressure. Meaning mad as in crazy and mad as in pissed off.

This was the farthest thing from that. This was amazing. This was exciting. This was a step towards a brighter future and opportunities that I have only had a glimmer of seeing with online postings from chefs. This was new. Apropos since it was leading into the new year.

The menu was in my opinion, ambitious. I can’t say what Coffeeman thought, though he did say something in regards to New Year’s meals and whatnot.

I was in charge of the desserts. Ta da! Of course I was, though due to a very busy week I was never able to actually make the triple flavored mousses that filled the cannoli shells. I was semi bummed about that, but since my cranberry sauce was used for the appetizer, I can’t complain. Chef could easily make it his way. But he has kept it with my recipe. Thank you. I am honored. It’s pretty cool to say that your lemon bars and cranberry sauce are that; yours. (on a side note, right before calling in sick, I made bourbon caramel sauce and a beer cheese sauce that were perfect in my opinion. Ok, I couldn’t taste them, but everyone else said they tasted good…. I think I am starting to get the hang of this cooking thing where I don’t jump at my shadow and I just make)

The New Year’s Bash went off as a hit, which included a round of applause from a very nice group of people. Several Instagram worthy shots and a closer connection with some of my coworkers. I went home on a high that lasted all that night until the next day when gosh darn it, I felt a virus hit at the tail end of getting rid of another one. Thank goodness it came on a slow week.

Below are some lovely shots of some of the items we served for the meal. And head over to my Instagram account if you want to keep updated on other food related items, or dachshund love.  Kate’s IG  https://www.instagram.com/katielynbranson/

Endive, blue Cheese…

Little soldiers lined up

Lobster, Carrot Caviar….

The ‘red’ is my cranberry sauce

nummies in my tummies

I love sea bass

Oh the entre…..

lemon sorbet

Jackson Pollock ain’t got nothing on this painted canvas

Bites. So sweet!

Pastry chef and one of her bestest gals

Anyways, Coffeeman has no clue how much I actually wanted to cry because it was so amazing. The last banquet/dinner I had to do involved 60 cakes in 3 hours with no prep and a boss that I am possitive to this day, wanted to break me. He didn’t. He didn’t win. I succeeded and goshdarnnit! I will keep succeeding. Like all things in life, you have to fight for what you want, even when sometimes you don’t know what it is you want. You just keep fighting. And good things will happen.  Well, this is a very good thing.

Two posts in one day. Wow, well, being sick leads to ideas. I have been writing some fiction but I have lost a little zing of that since the last fiasco, which is a bit depressing. I have too much inspiration in my daily life and I want to write about it, but now I sit there wondering where or when I should share it. Le sigh. Such is life.

But this might all be the cold/flu talking and being tired and loss of perspective. Let me just go back to hela good banquet.

Kate

Personal Hells

This post is coming after a thing happened with a writing thing with a work thing, with a too personal thing, with well, being a writer just isn’t always an excuse. It kind of all relates to my personality, a lot of which people don’t always get. Heck, even I am still figuring myself out daily.

The first part of my job with my restaurant was hell. A personal hell. Oh sure, there were good moments, and the opportunity was something amazing, but chef #1 and Lucifer were personal hells. They each had their moments that left me crying most of my time after or prior to work. It was because of #1 that I quit one month in and was hesitant to come back, but I liked the job. Lucifer, while a charmer in his own way, became another personal hell.  I doubt myself a lot. Even now with the support of come amazing people, I spend my time doubting myself and selling myself short and worrying that I am disappointing people and always ready to wince and take the blame. In the words of Topenga, or maybe it was Shawn, on Boy Meets World directed at Cory… I want people to like me. It is a fault. It is why I am not always assertive. It gets me into trouble.  And I doubt myself a lot. Even now.

The first six months of my job did not encourage me to have confidence, so when the new boss came on, I think I became this slightly over exuberant puppy. I am a people pleaser. So  I tend to come off as reeaaaalllly exuberant about certain things. I don’t always think about consequences and I would say, what you see is what you get, a lot of the time. Crushed easily, excited easily, a bit neurotic, oh very, very blonde… (“what are you smoking?” ‘Nothing, Chef, I’m blonde. That pretty much answers it.”) <—- true conversation. If I think of something at 3am, I will text you even if you are asleep because, I am awake, why aren’t you? I know I will forget it by morning. I forget other people have lives that do not include my weirdass sleeping schedule.

People think I’m flirting when I’m being nice. I am uber nice. I am the “Oh Kate will do that,” person. (Even when I don’t want to obligation fills me with grief if I don’t do it.) Guys have thought I was flirting with them when I was just being nice. Trust me, I’m not. I do the stupid hair twirl thing when I’m flirting, which I don’t flirt, because I don’t know how to flirt as I never understood what the hell it was supposed to be like. (That’s another long ramble not for here)

It makes life rather frustrating at times. And currently, I can cry at the drop of a hat. You would laugh if you heard me say I love my job and am relatively happy but then say I can cry that easily.  While I love my job, I have not necessarily dealt super well with my role in my job. I stress about coworkers, I stress about coworkers lives, how it’s affecting my life, whether or not things are getting done at work, to my standards, to Chef’s standards, worrying, micro managing, and just all around stressing. It’s made me tired and prone to crying. Just ask three people tonight that I was talking to, oh, pardon, four; and I couldn’t keep the tears in check.

Part of that comes off of removing my piece of flash fiction from earlier. It was just taken the wrong way, for which I am crushed that I might have jeopardized anything within the weird, close, family structure of a restaurant. As Sassy Girl said tonight, kitchen life is stressful. We find our outlets, be it alcohol, crying, snarling, writing, hanging out with friends. It’s a stressful life, and I am not always sure what outlet to use. Writing is an outlet that I like to use, but also like to share, but also forget how public it can be. I haven’t written a lot lately because I have been so busy and my little flash piece was this utter excitement that I had written something fun for a change instead of Night Shift Notes on what was or wasn’t done in the kitchen (goddammit!) I forget that it isn’t always a private thing to ‘share’ your writing. So I hadn’t thought when I pushed the publish button.

I might take a step back from writing so much about kitchen life for a while. I’m not sure. I am trying to figure out the best outlet at the end of the night when the adrenaline is still high. I haven’t figured it out. I don’t know what to do. I want to bounce around walls, and drink coffee, and drink a glass of something buzzworthy and write and sing and do who knows what. I am having a hard time finding the outlet. Hey, anyone with restaurant experience want to give me some ideas of outlets. (Exercise is not one I want to do, so don’t suggest it.)

Anyways. Exuberant puppy me probably needs to tone it down. Writer me needs to tone it down. And hopefully life will continue on without any speedbumps. Today was a detour. Now let’s get back to the main road.

Kate

You Have Permission To Not Write

Sometimes the words just don’t come. Sometimes they are there, but locked up tight and you just can’t get them out. And being a writer, well I’m going to tell you, you will feel guilty that you are not writing. I’ve felt it. Other writers have felt it.

Currently, I have a writing colleague who is feeling it. She told me the other day that she just hasn’t written. She can’t push it out and she just stares at the notebook, unopened. Hopefully that’s what she said. I thought it was. She was feeling guilty that she has so much to say, but just can’t get it out.

Well, I’m here to tell you, you have my permission to not write. You do not have to feel guilty one bit that you are not writing, because even as you don’t put words to paper, words are still forming in your head.  You still write without writing, by every single experience you have.  Ever little twist and turn of your day to day life is a constant moment for you to ‘write’. You write when you walk out the door and see something interesting. It may not be much, but the weather could spur on some thought. For me, it was hearing the words Orpheus and Eurydice and the letters they sent back and forth via Hermes. It’s from a series of sonnets by Rainier Maria Rilke.

Sometimes my writing well feels dried up. Like I just cannot get another thing out. I feel washed up. A hack…. Oh we writers are so dramatic sometimes. We go three days without writing and the world has ended. Lord, if I only could feel that way about laundry, or dishes.  More often than not, the days I’m dried up come after I’ve pushed myself to the limits and pounded out a 97 line, 16 stanza poem….. that was today. I know tomorrow I won’t be able to write. I’ll be too exhausted. But come two days from now, I’ll be wandering around with my journal or notebook feeling guilty that I haven’t penned anything profound.  Because I was just hacking it the other day. I mean, 97 lines for a poem is no small feat. But I will have forgotten it in lieu of my lack of more.

We writers are a greedy lot.  It’s never enough. We could write till we are blue in the face, our fingers falling off and it still would never be enough. You would think that my two to three poems a week would suffice my desires. But oh no, I feel it’s never enough.

So writer, dear, who vented to me. Don’t worry about it.  In fact, take a break. Drink some tea and watch the spring birds and flowers. Enjoy the sunshine and spring that we are having. The words will come. Probably at the most inopportune moment, such as when you are in the shower or washing dishes…. In fact, I highly recommend doing something where your hands are wet or dirty. Because then, trust me, the words will come, because it is at that moment you won’t be able to grasp a pen, the words do fly.

Kate

Writers Need Thinking Space

Recently, it’s come to my attention, most writers don’t spend as much of their time writing as they do thinking. Though I already know this about myself, I have only just given it some thought. Although it is crucial that the keys on a typewriter are being pounded out, thinking is important. I was watching a marvelous documentary, California Typewriter; if you love typewriters you need to watch it. In the film, writer David McCullough is showcased as one who uses a typewriter. He was talking about how he goes out to his writing shed, and many times people could walk by the window and wonder what he’s working on, considering he sits there thinking. Not typing, Not writing. Thinking. But to a writer, thinking is writing.

I read an essay by Naeem Murr about his poet wife, Averill Curdy.  For those interested in a poet romantically, read this article.—> My Poet.  How as a poet, she spends a lot of time reading or not writing. Staring out a window thinking. Spending a morning madly scribbling ten ‘hopeful’ lines of poetry. I can completely relate. I am a fairly prolific writer, or so my friends and writer colleagues tell me. This last week I wrote 4 good poems, though I swear it was five. Even Lucifer was impressed at the amount since he says he gets out about a quarter of that. It might have actually been a quarter of a poem, but I can’t remember. This is actually unusual for me. One poem a week is grand; two extraordinary. Most of my time I’m dabbling in random lines. A journal entry. Reading. While I don’t have as much time to read, nor the patience, there is almost always a book in my hand. Be it poetry or, hopefully, some fiction. I spend most of my time working out things in my head. Days later I’ll come back to paper and jot it down. I could easily sit out in the sun with a scrap of paper, just in case, and think for ages.

This is why writers need their own writing space. Where they can’t be judged for not pounding out the words. Where, if they spend an hour shooting a rubber band at the ceiling and catching it, no one will say a thing. (I’ve never done it for an hour, but I have done it.)

This last Thursday, I spent the entire day working on a 43 line poem. The whole day to not even fill up an entire page. I’d work on it for a bit, get stuck, go wash the dishes, work again, fix lunch, back and forth. There was a lot of time not writing. A lot of time staring at the page, or pages of ideas, flipping things around until they worked. At one point I asked the family to give me a synonym for a word. The thought was expressed that the reason writer’s needed their own space was so they didn’t have to ask such questions of non-writers. They can go out to their own space and be far away from the ordinary person. I could take the mocking the other day because the thought of my own writing place over a projected garage, sounds ideal.

While I like being around people, and I need it, I also need far away. Or like on Saturdays, a place where other writers gather and are quiet. There is something about being with writers that is calming, even when chatting. It always goes back to quite and writing.

This is ideal…

Lucifer mentioned recently that he loves to go fishing and for the most part, I could do without that pastime. However, I’m going to have to see if he’ll let me tag along once the weather is conducive. He can fish and I can write. Or read. Or, gasp, that glorious feeling of being in nature with the sun, sky, water, and trees around, and think. Now that sounds divine. Granted, when I get with Lucifer, I don’t shut up much, unless he shuts me up. (He’s actually good at it) But I’d like to have some space and peace and quiet. No distractions. . . .Okay, that’s actually conditional as nature distracts me constantly. As well as Lucifer, but it’s the kind of distractions that all us writers need. The power to think. And some distractions are better than others.

…. and this is a bit of an exaggeration, but still….

Non-writers, (there should be a word like ‘muggles’ for non-writers) will never understand the not writing to write ratio. I can’t even fully explain it, but without it, I know I would never write very good things. It’s just one of those factors you can’t explain. This was something I tried to explain to my Chef when I said I needed more time to write. Working over 40 hours a week does not leave time to write, and by write, I mean thinking as well! That was before my crash, but still. Even my family doesn’t quite get it. It’s okay. So long as I have space, and the time to get away here and there, it works for the most part. I could use my butler, Sven, but since he’s constantly not working, well, I guess I’ll have to tackle house work on my own.

Now I need to get my writing place! And it needs to be comfy! Preferably one with a table for my typewriter (and the other one I want to get), my laptop, windows, and lots of bookshelves. A couple nice chairs and a love seat or couch… I’m really dreaming here. Oh, and a good sound system. So I can blast the jazz. Picture it. A hot summer night, windows open and the light is on in the garret as the sounds of trumpets float out of the open windows…. Don’t forget the crickets and the sweet smell of hot summer sun baked pine trees.

Kate

Rejection Affection

Photo by ål nik on Unsplash

If there is one thing that is truly unique in the world of writing, it’s what happens when you get a rejection letter. The rejection letter itself, that simple piece of paper with a couple paragraphs (or email, as the case may be with most rejections coming in an email form letter) is actually something quite spectacular. It’s a sense of belonging. A sense of accomplishment. Why rejection is a compliment is funny to nonwriters, but to us, it’s like a trophy.

For me, my rejection letter came 3 months and 11 days after I submitted my poetry manuscript to Milkweed Editions. It arrived on a Friday morning, 6 days after I had ‘quit’ my job and I was still reeling from that feeling. I took my news of my rejection to my writing group, and to the chorus of “Congratulations” my writing friends reminded me that a rejection is a good thing.

Yes, it’s truly strange to be congratulated on ‘failing’, so to speak, but what nonwriters don’t understand is that it is a badge of honor to have that letter. It means someone has read your work. It means you were brave enough to send something out. It means you are trying.

This is my second….. nope wait I forgot the short story……… this is my 5th rejection letter. But for an actual manuscript. My poetry manuscript wasn’t quite what Milkweed Editions was looking for, but that’s okay. It’s my first real manuscript. My first rejection letter came from a query letter. This is an actual manuscript!

But it doesn’t mean I’m lost. In fact, just yesterday, but an amazing twist of fate, someone on Twitter, contacted me and asked me to submit some of my work to their journal. Oh. My. Gosh. Someone actually wanted me to send them my work. Now that is an honor. I mean, sure, I have my lovely ladies reading my work, but sometimes you wonder how biased it is. No offense Dona, Mel, Sera, Maddie(Piper) et al. but I do think you are biased.  I mean, you know me. But to have an unknown editor want you to submit. Whew! Mr. Streeby, I am truly honored. (and my ego has been supremely boosted)

Ah yes, rejections will keep coming in, but it’s a good thing. I have my very first rejection letter somewhere in one of my writing files. It’s an actual print letter. And one day I will frame it a la Richard Castle in the episode The Old Haunt……. I think that’s right. It’s an honor, and now I can edit the said manuscript and fix it for another publishing house because inevitably, I have found serious flaws and grammatical mistakes the minute I sent the darn thing off. Ah, perpetual editing comes when you can edit your own work. Mels, said it best the other day, but I forgot how she phrased it. It was good.

And I have new things to add. Infatuations with an Eskimo, working in a kitchen, which I have ‘quit’, but am more on a  temporary leave of absence due to stress causing major health problems to creep back in. So I do have ideas for writing about kitchen life. Sorry Chef dear, but I can’t not write about a crazy kitchen!

So, if you have had a rejection letter, first of,  “Good for you!” I’m proud of you, whoever you are. It’s an honor because someone read your work. Keep up the good work. We are all rooting for you in our own way. It’s nice to have friends and family root for me.

Kate