How I Lost a Toe in ‘Nam

Posted on September 23, 2011 by Annie Neugebauer

Originally posted on January 19, 2011 at 3:58 PM

And by ‘Nam, I mean nom. Buttons is viscous. No, not really (well, she is, but that’s not really how I lost a toe). But I DID lose a toe! Let me take you back to the tunnels of the Vietcong in 1967. I mean the Bryan-College Station, Texas “Cross-Town Show-Down” of 2002.

The stakes were high (I have no idea if the stakes were really high). Whichever of these two high school football teams won this game would be the champions of the world (I doubt that’s true). It was a particularly cold, bitter night in late November (it could easily have been October or early December), and the Bengal Belle drill team was prepped to dance their hearts out. (What? That part was true.)

Back in the sweaty days of July, some high-ranking official on the dance team had succumbed to a version of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or maybe a case of the Mondays. Either way, I’m sure a surf-themed dance routine seemed like a great idea at the time. Hey, it was hot then, right? And beachy? And, well, everyone loves the Beach Boys, don’t they? (I think so.) Somehow in that humid, stagnant, sweltering summer’s day, one or more officers choreographing that year’s routines overlooked the fact that we would be doing this routine in late fall. They put together a field-routine with surfboard props, complete with a kiddie swimming pool and adorable, bright-colored sarongs for the dancers to wear.

Sarongs.

I wish I had accurate data on how cold it was that night, but the Vietcong infiltrated our systems and destroyed all of our records. But it was cold. Really, really cold. Cold enough so that sitting in the bleachers before half-time, we were allowed to wear our full warm-ups plus letter jackets and even maroon and white blankets if we had them. Parents snuck by and brought lucky girls hot chocolate from the concession stand. I shivered in my sequined cowgirl hat and white dance boots (Not really – we weren’t wearing those at this game. But we usually did).

Then it was time to strip down to our skimpy summer-esque costumes and give the crowd a show. Or at least the part that hadn’t gotten up during half-time to get a hotdog. Our costumes? Essentially, a black lycra long-sleeve leotard, black lyrcra tights, and a cotton sarong about the length of a mini-skirt. To simplify: spandex. And lots of makeup. And no shoes.

No shoes!

Now, as cold as it was that night, the ground was colder, and my feet were naked. I’ve always had poor circulation. My feet almost instantly went numb – before we even got out on the field. So we marched out there in our silly costumes, two girls to one wooden surfboard prop, got into position, and waited for our music. And waited. And waited.

Something was wrong with the tape. We ended up standing out there on that frozen field, barefooted, for about ten minutes. Ten minutes! That’s a really long time to be holding a single position, period. Add a couple thousand eyes watching you (I have no idea how many people were actually in the stands), and it’s a really long time. Be nearly naked in the biggest cold-front the town has ever seen (a blatant lie), and it’s downright deadly.

Finally, the music came on (“If everybody had an ocean / Across the U.S.A.…” and the Bengal Belles strutted their stuff as we were always wont to do. The audience applauded extra loud for our overcoming the ten-minute wait of awkwardness, and we retreated to the stands to put back on our warm-ups. But alas, my friends, by then it was too late.

My toe had died.

And try as I might to resuscitate it, it was no use. The “pointer” toe on my left foot had turned as white as a ghost, and there was no warming him back up. To this very day, if I get even slightly chilled, Twinkle is the first toe to die. My husband (a First Responder, I might add) says Twinkle got superficial frostbite that night. Poor little guy. He was a good toe. RIP, (van) Twinkle. To this day, I still twitch when “Surfin’ USA” comes on the radio (nah, not really).

And that’s how I lost my twinkle-toe on the battle—er, dance field. And I didn’t even win any medals.

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What I Do All Day

Posted on September 23, 2011 by Annie Neugebauer

Originally posted on January 16, 2011 at 6:10 PM

I’ll tell you my very least favorite part of being a writer. It’s not rejections. It’s not waiting for rejections. It’s not the work. It isn’t even being called “a housewife.” It’s submissions.

I. Hate. Submissions.

I work the equivalent of a full-time job most weeks, in being a writer. I write for 3-4 hours a day (unless it’s a really good, fast day) 7 days a week. That’s about 25 hours a week. And then I spend about 2 hours on submissions each day. That’s 14 hours a week. That doesn’t even take into account editing and formatting and blogging and record-keeping. Throw in my 3 hours of critique groups each week, and hell, I’m working over-time.

I’m telling you all this not to complain (okay, a little to complain), but mostly to let you know. When people find out I’m a writer (which is not, I reiterate, the same as being a “stay at home wife”;), they often ask me, “So what do you do all day?” They don’t mean to be rude; they’re genuinely curious. I can understand that. So I’m explaining.

About half of my available working hours are dedicated solely to writing. The other half go to necessary, boring, mind-numbing crap. Hey, it’s true.

At this exact moment in time, here’s how my completed, unpublished works break down:

• 2 novel manuscripts- 2 sent out to a total of 14 agents queried, 1 partial in review
• 2 poetry manuscripts- 1 sent out to 1 poetry contest
• 2 short stories- 2 sent out to 2 publishers
• 8 flash/micro fiction pieces- 6 sent out to a total of 7 publishers
• 289 individual poems- 11 sent out to 4 publishers

As you can see, that’s over 300 works finished and always waiting to be sent and re-sent for publication/representation. That’s not even including all of my WIPs (2 more novels, 1 more book of poetry, and near-constant short fiction and poems). It’s easy to imagine how once I started becoming more prolific than my submissions it became almost impossible to catch up. But it makes no sense to me to stop writing to have time to submit. Writing is the whole point. Publication is desirable, but time-consuming.

 

The worst part of it all? That it never ends. If I got each of these accepted at the first place I submitted to, I’d be golden. But that’s not the way it works. I get rejections in the mail/email, and as if that wasn’t bad enough on its own, it means I have to send that same piece back out again. It takes at least an hour, usually more, for me to narrow down, research, and choose the perfect venue to send a poem or story. Agents are even harder. So when I get a “no” back, it means that piece goes back on my list. Not so fun.

If I were really, really rich, I would hire someone to handle all of my submissions. That’d be baller. Anyone interested in working for cookies?

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Professional vs. Personal (i.e.: why I’m painfully shy)

Posted on September 23, 2011 by Annie Neugebauer

Originally posted on January 12, 2011 at 1:57 PM

I was watching an episode of What Not to Wear recently, and the woman they were making over said something along the lines of, “I feel like I have plenty of professional confidence. It’s just personal confidence that I need to work on.” It was like a little light came on over my head.

I’m a shy person, in real life. I’m introverted, quiet, and hesitant to start conversations with people I don’t know. I’m not so sure that has a direct correlation with personal confidence, although it seems like it should, because in general I would say that I’m a fairly confident person.

And it’s only in certain ways that I’m shy. Ask me to give a speech on a topic I’m confident in, perform with a dance team in front of hundreds of people, or go do a job interview, and I’m golden. But drop me in a room with two or more people I don’t know and ask me to *gasps* socialize? I’m done. Out. Call me a cab (as if there are cabs around here).

It’s excruciatingly painful for me to try to act normal as I talk to a near-stranger while my heart is beating faster than a squirrel’s. I try to be cool, though. You know, keep it low-key, act calm, smile, maybe even crack a joke if one comes to me. But the problem with that is that I’m not actually low-key, certainly not calm, and have no idea what to say as soon as the person I’m talking to decides to stop asking questions. At which point, I fall into silence out of sheer awkwardness. At which point I seem aloof and unconcerned with the person trying to talk to me. At which point I seem like a bitch.

Which sucks, because I’m not a bitch. I mean, I can act like a bitch occasionally when I want to, sure. But in general, I like to think I’m a relatively nice, un-bitchy person. High school’s over, people.

What I’ve realized, now that I heard that random person on TV say it, is that for me, the difference is the setting. Or more specifically, the set-up. I’m confident when I’m giving a speech, leading a group of people, or, oh, I don’t know… writing a blog, because I’ve been given – directly or not – the permission and authority to act on behalf of something more than “me.” I have a role, so to speak. Not necessarily a false one (it’s still me, I’m not acting), but I have a purpose to rely on. When I’m in real life with real people and they want to get to know the real me, I’m all on my own.

What to do with this, I don’t know. Becoming more outgoing (or less panicked when approached, at least) is an ongoing effort for me. I doubt that my revelation will help me overcome that so much as it has illuminated it. But hey, it’s good to know, right? And in spite of my shyness, I really do love people, so please don’t be afraid to approach me (slowly, and with no loud noises).

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Snow

Posted on September 23, 2011 by Annie Neugebauer

Originally posted on January 10, 2011 at 10:48 AM

It’s snowing! I’m up inordinately early so the plumber can do his thing, so I came into my office with Buttons to work for a few hours that I would usually be sleeping. But I gotta tell you, snow is a pretty big deal to a Texan. Even Buttons is enchanted.

The bulk of it came yesterday morning, while I was asleep, and when I woke up there was a pristine, fluffy blanket covering everything. That was kind of fun, like waking up to a brand new world, but this is cooler. It’s like seeing where magic comes from. How are all of these tiny, slow-moving little flakes floating around going to accumulate to such a solid coat of white? Cool.

The best part of winter is over (Christmas), and nothing new happens until Valentine’s Day, which hardly even counts as a holiday – peoples’ birthdays *ahem* notwithstanding – but this snow gives me some sense of encouragement that the rest of winter will be okay. Cold, but okay. Pretty, for a while, at least.

For those of you who don’t have snow, I’m sorry. Make believe? For those of you who do: enjoy your snow day.

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The Hard Part

Posted on September 23, 2011 by Annie Neugebauer

Originally posted on January 6, 2011 at 3:31 PM

There are a lot of difficult things about being a beginning writer. Some of them are obvious and much talked about: finding the willpower to make yourself sit down and work, getting rejections, learning your craft, networking, landing an agent, etc. But for me personally, there are two things in particular that make what I do hard, and in a way, they both involve waiting. 1) Not having my writing read by people (at least not wide-spread), and 2) battling hope and disappointment.

I write because I love writing. I’m good at it, dedicated to it, and passionate about it. For me, there is something innately fulfilling about creating (and truly, I don’t know how anyone in the business survives without feeling that way; it’s too hard to be an “eh, okay” job). So to reiterate, I do not write for the sole purpose of being published. But I do desperately, whole-heartedly want to be read. Really, truly read by lots of people that I don’t even know. It’s different than sharing with my select few loved ones; it’s different than getting feedback at the critique groups. It’s the fulfillment of all this work. It’s the pieces’ destiny: to be read.

I don’t know quite how to explain that. There are plenty of people out there who write solely for themselves, and that’s fine. But that’s not what I want. I live for that spark of acknowledgement when someone gets exactly the humor I put down, or looks tense when they read an action scene, or tells me they cried, or laughs out loud. It’s like little broken pieces of myself come flying back to me and fit themselves in to make me more whole, more complete. There’s something achingly sad about working for years now to never have that. To put all of my effort and heart into these novels and stories and poems and not be able to share them. It breaks my heart a little bit.

And yes, I know I could post things on my website or on various websites just to have them read, but that’s not how I roll. It’s delayed gratification, I guess. I want the good stuff. I want someone to hold my physical book(s) in their hands and feel the cover as they read my words. I’m not willing to sacrifice that opportunity for a little feedback now. I’ll hold out. Which brings me back to the original point: the hardest part of this career choice, for me, is waiting.

It’s the same issue, in a way, as waiting for a yes or no once I’ve submitted something. Even though this technically falls under the same category of “waiting,” it isn’t the time that makes it hard. It’s the hope. Hope breaks my heart every time.

It’s oddly reminiscent, for me, of the hope and disappointment cycle of having an alcoholic dad. Every time he would try to sober up or go to a rehab clinic, I couldn’t help but hope. I couldn’t help it. No amount of cynicism or past lessons or logic could reason my emotions out of wishing with all of my heart that he would get better – that it would work this time. I loved my dad, and until the day he died, all I wanted was for him to be happy again, sober. And I don’t know what the cause-effect relationship of those experiences is with the submission-rejection relationship of my writing experiences, but I know it feels a lot alike. That knowledge that I shouldn’t get my hopes up – and that inability not to.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not in constant anguish to the degree I was with my dad. I’m jaded enough now (after at least 50 rejections for all my various projects, not even counting individual poems in annual contests, etc.) that I don’t get my hopes up for faceless agent queries. I don’t care about most individual poems, either, since I have so many to fall back on. But sometimes, when I fall in love with a particular agent or think a magazine is a perfect fit for a certain story or there’s a big poetry contest with my name on it… well, then I’m suddenly not so jaded.

And try as I might to busy myself during the waiting time or remind myself that my odds are 1 out of 10,000, I still can’t wait to hear yes or no. It’s just awful, because it’s almost always a no. How do you defend against that? The answer, I think, is that you can’t. Whether it’s praying for the chance of your dad getting better or waiting for the results of a national poetry contest, you just have to let yourself hope.

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