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Aug. 20th, 2006 09:28 amIt's been an interesting week thus far. One of the pals of my (very) misspent youth found my website and got back in touch after 20 years. It's been kind of fun starting to get to know her again, given our history. At least it's nice to talk to someone who knows I didn't make up all those twisted gothicky tales about the bad (and some good) old days. :-)
Other than that, I've been letting go of an ongoing project. 11 years ago, I started writing because my partner suggested that I try writing a book about my experience running an independent/feminist/lefty bookstore. I was part of a feminist/queer collective that ran a bookstore called 'The Women's Eye' in St. Louis, then I opened my own store, Grassroots Books, in Iowa City after I finished with grad school. With the help of many friends (thank you once again, evilroygato! :-), I managed to keep the place afloat for a couple of years while working fulltime. I also had walking pnuemonia for about six months, but be that as it may, it was an interesting time.
Fast forward a year or two to 1995, during my brief sojourn in law school. Beloved girlfriend recognized that a Catherine without projects is a Catherine underfoot and suggested that I write a book about feminist bookstores. We headed out on a cross country roadtrip, now known as the Depressed Bookstore Owners Tour, and visited as many little feminist/lefty/queer stores as we could. I got started on research and developing questionnaires and such. I had loved selling books and I hate seeing independent bookstore fold so the bookstore book was kind of a sacred mission at the time.
Then I started writing fiction and it started selling. I quit law school. I wrote for newspapers, worked a zillion day jobs and kept writing fiction. I kept working on the bookstore book, gathering info, combing through archives and using all of that social scientist training I'd spent years acquiring.
Then we moved to Minneapolis and my fiction sold better and I got less idealistic, despite (or because of) spending 3 years as part of an anarchist bookstore collective. It turned out that I needed to completely believe in the book to make it happen and Tink just wasn't flying. Long and short is that I haven't touched it in 3 years. Fast forward to last month when a nice Canadian sociology/women's studies prof realizes that I'm sitting on a treasure trove of info and asks me to share. So now I'm in the progess of organizing years and years worth of research materials to ship off North. It's kind of like ending a relationship that you knew was over but weren't quite ready to call off yet. But I think this woman will actually finish a book on the subject and at least I'm getting to use some of the research for an article for the 'Encyclopedia of Women in Science Fiction and Fantasy'. Still a little hard though...
Other than that, I've been letting go of an ongoing project. 11 years ago, I started writing because my partner suggested that I try writing a book about my experience running an independent/feminist/lefty bookstore. I was part of a feminist/queer collective that ran a bookstore called 'The Women's Eye' in St. Louis, then I opened my own store, Grassroots Books, in Iowa City after I finished with grad school. With the help of many friends (thank you once again, evilroygato! :-), I managed to keep the place afloat for a couple of years while working fulltime. I also had walking pnuemonia for about six months, but be that as it may, it was an interesting time.
Fast forward a year or two to 1995, during my brief sojourn in law school. Beloved girlfriend recognized that a Catherine without projects is a Catherine underfoot and suggested that I write a book about feminist bookstores. We headed out on a cross country roadtrip, now known as the Depressed Bookstore Owners Tour, and visited as many little feminist/lefty/queer stores as we could. I got started on research and developing questionnaires and such. I had loved selling books and I hate seeing independent bookstore fold so the bookstore book was kind of a sacred mission at the time.
Then I started writing fiction and it started selling. I quit law school. I wrote for newspapers, worked a zillion day jobs and kept writing fiction. I kept working on the bookstore book, gathering info, combing through archives and using all of that social scientist training I'd spent years acquiring.
Then we moved to Minneapolis and my fiction sold better and I got less idealistic, despite (or because of) spending 3 years as part of an anarchist bookstore collective. It turned out that I needed to completely believe in the book to make it happen and Tink just wasn't flying. Long and short is that I haven't touched it in 3 years. Fast forward to last month when a nice Canadian sociology/women's studies prof realizes that I'm sitting on a treasure trove of info and asks me to share. So now I'm in the progess of organizing years and years worth of research materials to ship off North. It's kind of like ending a relationship that you knew was over but weren't quite ready to call off yet. But I think this woman will actually finish a book on the subject and at least I'm getting to use some of the research for an article for the 'Encyclopedia of Women in Science Fiction and Fantasy'. Still a little hard though...