grace grits and gardening

ramblings from an arkansas farm girl

Sweet Dreams Are Made of This

By 9 Comments

Alexander Hall, Baylor University
Alexander Hall, Baylor University, Waco, Texas
 
 
Saturday night. First weekend in
Waco. My room is tiny,
Every bit the size of my closet back home.
Evening spreads over the Brazos River, filtering
Through the Live Oak branches outside my
Dorm room. Above me stars   
Reflect and twinkle, the same Big Dipper over the same 
Earth. Yet everything feels different… The
Allure of laughter draws me into the common room, to a
Mahogany table covered in newspaper.
Situated in the center, a pile of panties? I’m not in
Arkansas anymore… more like the other side of the globe. A
Roomful of girls sit with heads down
Each busy at work.  Days of the week, black satin,
Multi-colored, every style panty imaginable spread
Across the table. They paint names and phone numbers
Down the sides and even on the crotch! My super
Excited roommate, a girl who   
Organizes her Izod shirts by color, squeals it’ll be
Fun! A 100 year old Baylor
Tradition—the first freshman panty raid of the semester.
Hurry! Grabbing my craziest red plaid Christmas bikinis,
I draw a heart and toss my name to the
Sidewalk below. 

Baylor University retro sailor bear
Sic ’em Bears!

 

talya
Grace Grits and Gardening
Farm. Food. Garden. Life.

This was written especially for FEARLESS FRIDAY PRACTICE –Think of a song you listened to over and over at a crossroads point in your life. Note to yourself the emotion you felt connected with this song. Do an acrostic off the title of this song. Write about a specific event in the period in your life the song’s associated with, but DON’T use the emotion or a synonym — rather, let the emotion be expressed by the specific telling of the event.


Somewhere in the acrostic, include the following words: newspaper, branch, mate, globe, plaid, Big Dipper.

P.S. If you are reading this post from your phone, the acrostic phrase may not line up correctly…Oh well.
Musical Pairing:

Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This), Eurythmics

 

Rejected. Again.

By 25 Comments

Over the last year, I’ve begun receiving rejections. Not that I had an oh-look-at-me-I-had-everything-I-ever-wanted kind of life, but more like I took-the-safe-path-by-not-putting-myself-out-there kind of life.

Well, I’m out there now.

Some rejections come in the form of complete pin-dropping silence and total non-responsiveness to my carefully crafted query letter.

Other publishers regret to inform me they will not be accepting my work for publication, but wish me much success in finding the right publisher.

I realize writing takes perseverance, and I have it.

I know I do.

I write because I can’t not write. I write even if no one ever publishes my work.

Yesterday I was rejected by Baylor Press, the press for my college alma mater.

It stung.

We have a long-standing relationship, a thirty-year relationship built on fond memories and late-night study sessions, culminating with a liberal arts degree I’m willing to pretend helped get me to this point. I hoped Baylor would be proud of her own enough to consider publication, maybe even claiming an inkling of credit.

But no.

In a response one step from blanket blogger spam, Baylor thanked me for my submission yet felt my farm novella wasn’t a good fit for its list… Baylor publishes history and cultural works—my book is about cotton farming—not  historical nor cultural enough…

I knew this submission was likely a stretch, as many college presses only publish ‘scholarly’ works (plus biblical for Baylor). My tale of 1970’s cotton farming includes a mixture of childhood shenanigans, Schlitz beer, spin-the-bottle and other real-life adventures likely frowned upon by such conservative folks. Even so,  I thought as an alumna I’d give Baylor first shot, dance with the one who brung you as the old Texas saying goes.
Que sera.
talya
And P.S. to Baylor—you can stop phoning every night and sending letters requesting money for scholarships and the massive football stadium fund. As a struggling writer, donations aren’t a good fit for me at this time. But I wish you much success in finding the right donors…

Sic ’em anyway.

Musical Pairing:

You Can’t Always Get What You Want, Rolling Stones

Whew! I feel better:) Back to writing…

Check out my friend’s blog post Facing Our Fears. We wrote about the same topic on the same day… 

Do you vision board?

By 19 Comments

Apparently we should each have a Vision Board. No, this is not the same as Pinterest, although possibly a bit related…
I had never heard of vision boarding until Bob Barnett explained it to me a few weeks ago. A visual representation of your dreams, goals, heart’s desires, you literally glue pictures, words, drawings, photos, anything and everything to a poster board. A reminder of where you want to be in the next year, five years, ten years, so on…

A bit old school, no?

The idea behind this is simple. If your board is created of images that fill you with passion, you will attract these things. Your dreams will become reality. That’s a bit deep, but I do believe envisioning something is the first step to realization.
My ninth grade Home Economics class made vision boards. We were soooo ahead of our time. I remember cutting pictures from Teen Magazine, gluing on faces of girls with hair ironed stick straight, Jontue perfume ads, adjectives I hoped would someday describe me, pictures of the type house I wanted to live in…
I bet my ninth grade vision board is still home in my bedroom closet deep inside the Batcave.
I don’t yet have a title for the book I am writing, but I have a header that prints on each page. Wishful thinking? Vision boarding?

Last year at the Baylor Bookstore, I snapped a picture of the shelf containing books written by Baylor graduates. I suppose it’s the closest thing I’ve done to vision boarding. I look at the picture often and think someday I shall have a book on that shelf…

Baylor press
Publications by Baylor Graduates:)
talya

Grace Grits and Gardening
Farm. Food. Garden. Life.

Musical Pairing:
Dream On, Aerosmith

Food. Farm. Garden. Life.

THANKS FOR READING!