Steve Lambert : My (Small Press) Writing Day: Rev Her Up and Listen to Her Purr

Cramped. That’s the word that comes to mind when I look at this picture. Not just the space, either. My writing days are cramped. My writing life is cramped. Shunted. That’s another good one. Shunted rhymes with stunted. It’s there, my writing time, but it’s not as healthy as it should be.

And, look. I’m not complaining. This isn’t self-pity. I’m happy for what I have, as meager as it sometimes may seem. But when I think about my writing day, that’s the way it goes. We do not use words here like abundant, ample or plenty. If you’re like me, you write what you can when you can and sometimes it isn’t much and sometimes it’s nothing at all. But the thing, for me, is that I’m almost always thinking about it. I may not have ample time, but that shunted and cramped corner of a room where I spend as much time as I can is just the point of the spear. It’s just the tip of the iceberg. It’s just the business end of things. The rest, where most of the work gets done, goes unseen and is carried around in the bucket of my mind.

Wow, that took a turn. Got a little weird….But that’s the writing life, ain’t it? 

Truth told, that sliver of a room doesn’t even see enough action. I write on the move—on the fly—a lot. I like to think of William Carlos Williams, writing fragments and ideas on little scraps of paper (in his case, prescription pad) and shoving them in his pockets as me moved from house call to house call.

That little fragment of a room, where the books are, is a wish more than anything—a fantasy. A myth. “Here,” I point, “is where a writer works.” Well, it is. But it isn’t. Perhaps, in an ideal world—one where I can writer and only write—it is. And maybe it will be, someday. But for now it is a kind of relic.

Take my brother-in-law. He has a ’67 Chevelle poised and waiting in his garage. The thing is fully restored and beautiful and ready to go, man. He almost never drives it—but its there, and sometimes he goes out there and cranks the thing and revs it up, listens to it purr. Rarely, but often enough, he opens up the garage and takes her down the road. Might be for a spin around the block. Might be around town. On those rare occasions he, I’m sure, is very happy it’s there in the garage waiting. If it wasn’t, this drive around town or down the street would not be possible. And I’m sure he thinks, while he’s smiling and waving like he’s in a parade, I need to do this more often.

That’s me. That little cramped corner of a room is my ’67 Chevelle. When I’m not there, I wish I was, and I’m always thinking about being there. Sometimes I just I have a few minutes to go in there and rev her up and listen to her purr, and I guess—for now—that’s good enough.

Steve Lambert was born in Louisiana and grew up in Florida. His writing has appeared in The Pinch, Broad River Review, Longleaf Review, Emrys Journal, Bull Fiction, Into the Void, Cowboy Jamboree, Cortland Review, and many other places. He won third place in Glimmer Train’s Very Short Fiction contest. In 2018 he won Emrys Journal’s Nancy Dew Taylor Poetry Prize. He is the recipient of four Pushcart Prize nominations and was a Rash Award in Fiction finalist. He is the author of the poetry collection Heat Seekers (2017), the forthcoming chapbook In Eynsham (2020) and the forthcoming fiction collection The Patron Saint of Birds (2020). He lives in Northeast Florida, with his wife and daughter, where he teaches at the University of North Florida. 

Robin Sinclair's Writing Day

Talking about my writing space and a typical day is somewhat difficult, mostly because I don't live and work in one place.

In 2018, my partner and I got drunk on great wine and started doing some “budget math” in our living room. It turned out that we could live exclusively on the road for less money than it cost us to live in our apartment in Brooklyn. The only reason we'd moved there was for their job, and they were quitting because it was slowly sucking any semblance of joy from behind their eyes.

We gave up an apartment that took every penny and favor to secure, gave our furniture to our neighbors, and left. Other than my first date with my partner and the “no thanks” to a drug run that ended badly back in '03, giving up that apartment was probably the best decision I've ever made.

My first book, Letters To My Lover From Behind Asylum Walls was published in October of that year by Cosmographia Books (cheap plug alert!), so I scheduled as many readings as possible throughout our travels to promote the book. We're fortunate in that we're both people who don't need much to live and be comfortable, and I have the privilege of a job that I can do from anywhere. We also don't mind shady, fuck-palace hotels near airports and we're very good campers, which is important for a tight budget.

I chose to share a writing day from my travels that seemed an appropriate example of how things tend to go, both in the outside world and in my head.

Robin's Writing Day - Missouri.

11pm: My partner and I arrive in Missouri to stay with a friend. We hug a lot, and I'm a little bleary-eyed. I'd done ten hours of highway, which isn't the longest day, but certainly enough to fry your senses. It will be nice to stay in one place long enough to see a couple doctors and to build up new podcasts to listen to.

1am: We cuddle on the sofa and drink terrible, terrible wine. I actually notice my shoulders and neck relaxing as we curl up under a blanket and watch some so-bad-it's-good show on Netflix. We take turns pretending we didn't fall asleep. We occasionally look at each other and smile.

6am: Wake up. Everyone else is asleep. Fucking time-zones. I have the key to the backdoor of my friend's apartment. Grab my black notebook and a few pens and creep out the back. She lives on the third floor and has a little balcony. There's frost on the ground and I can see my breath, and this is the exact kind of situation that calls for smoking. Don't smoke. You're a quitter, remember?

6:15am: Walking down quiet streets. The air is a bit bitter, but I like it. I stop and sit on the curb in front of a blue house and jot a few lines down. Lines about an old friend. I write about her, and to her, often. She's become my Virgil. A dog starts barking. I miss my dog, and start writing about the day she died.

7am: The coffee shop boy doesn't like how I look and makes his feelings known. The bigots have gotten bold since 45 took office. Don't worry, I'll kill this kid in a story. Little prick.

7:30am: A neighbor is smoking on the second floor balcony, and now I also have hot coffee to add to this equation. The only thing better than smoking on a balcony on a crisp morning is smoking on a balcony on a crisp morning while drinking a piping hot cup of coffee. There's Amaretto inside for the coffee. Just keep moving and don't ask to bum a cigarette.

Inside, everyone's still sleeping until the back door is closed just a little too hard – oops.

9am: A few more lines written amid the chaos and bustling about the apartment. I switch to reading, but my head is stuck in the poem I'm working on. Someone is asking me about yoga or something but I'm not really there.

It is one of those days where my I'm not completely gone, but not completely present. If I work at it, I can manage days like that. Sleep, water, and practice are important factors, but I was up all night. My loved ones are patient with me. My partner is kind enough to fill me in on what I miss. They keep tabs on the day, and on me. They make sure I drink water and eat real food and don't get too lost, if it is at all possible. This is a maybe day.

10am: My friend runs a shop in town and I sit with her and write while she works. I've switched over to my laptop, so I put on headphones (yes, I still have headphones and not earbuds, shut up) and turn on a playlist. 

·        Ani Difranco

·        Skunk Anansie

·        The Birthday Massacre

·        Sigur Ros

·        The Smiths

·        Iggy Pop

·        The Cure

·        Cibo Matto

·        Peter Gabriel

·        Jack Off Jill

·        T Rex

·        B52s

·        Molotov Jukebox

·        World/Inferno Friendship Society 

·        Talking Heads

·        Strap On Halo

·        Cypress Hill

·        The Cramps

·        Prince

·        Alanis Morrisette

I pick up on a story that's been stuck in limbo for about six months. I have a breakthrough and am able to finally make some true progress. God, it feels good. It was my own fault. I was in the way. Once I shut up about my own ideas as to where it should go and just let the words happen, they happened like an avalanche.

12pm: Everyone is hungry. I order food and try to socialize. I fail. Again, my loved ones are patient with me. The store starts to fill up with people and I head to the basement. The basement looks like it could be part of the boiler room in one of the A Nightmare on Elm Street films. It is musty and probably filled with all sorts of things you shouldn't breathe. I quote Freddy lines to myself to hear how they sound bouncing off of the basement walls, and laugh as I get myself set up to write.

12:45pm: The circus upstairs has died down and I sit with my friend and my partner for lunch. We talk about books and which city has the best drag shows.

1:30pm: The bar next-door is open and mostly empty.

3:30pm: I'm getting a lot done at the bar, but I sort of miss everyone. I have so few people I truly love, and two of them are in the adjacent building. It isn't quite guilt, but it is certainly a paradox. I want to be alone but also not without them. I need to not have the noise of interpersonal expectations right now, but two voices I love the sound of are on the other side of a double brick wall. God damn it – pay the tab.

3:45: I've had enough to drink and had enough time to write that I sort of feel functional. I'm either brave enough to try to bullshit my way through how I'm supposed to act around other people, or maybe just tipsy enough not to care about screwing it up.

Or maybe, stupid, you should trust that they love you and aren't judging you for who you are and how your mind operates. Nah – definitely one of the other ones.

5pm: Update my website and post on social media about a reading that just fell into my lap. Update my spreadsheet to keep track of the rejections that came in through Submittable this week. Ignore a call from my boss. I'm grateful for the opportunities working online grants, but I hate the actual gig, and the day I find myself giving up writing time for work is the day I swallow a bottle of pills. Send to voicemail.

6pm: I can't get anything done because I'm dwelling on shitty work thoughts and how absurd it is that I participate in an evil, throwaway fucking commerce culture so that I can afford doctor visits and food. I'm a hypocrite because I take a check from an e-commerce industry that perpetuates things I hate. But I'm mainly a poet, so there's not exactly rent-paying money in my writing future, and I'm not going back to living in a fucking crack house. I didn't break this wold, I try to convince myself. I'm just trying to survive it. I'm in the thick bog of self-hatred.

My partner notices where I'm at and hugs me tight. We all go back to the bar together and have a few drinks. My friend puts her head on my shoulder and says, “Luff youuuu.”

7:30pm: Eating leftovers at the apartment. The neighbor is outside smoking again. We can hear them talking. My friend, who is also a quitter, looks at the back door like a widow. She feels it, too, but we stay inside. “Come on, you guys are doing so good!” My partner nudges us in the right direction.

I think of a few lines that I try to remember. I know it is not the right thing to do, but I want to get up from the table mid-conversation to go write them down. I'm going to lose them, or only be able to come up with watered-down versions when I try to remember later.

9pm: Watered-down versions jotted into the black notebook. Maybe I will be able to fix it with a fresh head on my shoulders. We head to a queer-friendly bar. I'm feeling a bit better, and the night becomes fun again. I flirt badly and dance even worse. Just believe me – it is a train-wreck.

Some time between 9pm and 12am: Bad drag but very sweet Queens. Friend starts drinking sugary drinks and stops ordering water (classic mistake). Hilarious sex in bathroom. Someone is mad at someone but I don't think it is about me or the sex. Quiet tension. Discussion about healthcare as a right. Ah, that's what someone's upset about.

I'm desperately trying to note it all in my mind so I can write it all down later. I can't take out the notebook mid-conversation or mid-sex and take notes, right? Come on, bitch – remember. Burn it in.

After 12am: It is quiet in the back of the Lyft, but not because anyone is upset anymore. No one wants the night to be over, but the booze has kicked in pretty hard and we're struggling to stay engaged. Someone pitched movies and wine on the couch again and it was an easy sell.

Around 1am: My partner and our friend are asleep under the covers on the sofa. I don't blame them – this movie is awful. Someone got paid to write this piece of shit, meanwhile I spend hours looking for places that don't charge for submissions just so I can get someone to even consider my weird books. I must be terrible, but I'll keep doing it anyway. It brings me happiness. Like the two drooling weirdos on the sofa. I kiss each of their heads, and I'm not even pretending or acting like I think I'm supposed to, I just want to do it. It feels like a real thing and a happy thing.

I sit at the kitchen table with a glass of whiskey and much larger glass of water. I work on the poem I've been hung up on, and make notes about the day. There's some meaning or truth in it somewhere, something I can learn as I write it out and read it back. I'll find it.

Robin Sinclair is a queer, genderqueer writer of mixed heritage and mixed emotions, currently on the road, reading from their debut book of poetry, Letters To My Lover From Behind Asylum Walls.

Robin's work has been published in various magazines and journals, including Gatewood Journal, Across the Margin, Shot Glass Journal, Black Heart Magazine, Red Bird Chapbooks, The Cerurove, Yes Poetry, and Pidgeonholes.

Find Robin at RobinSinclairBooks.com.

Neil Laurenson : Typical writing day

I would love to have a writing shed like Roald Dahl’s, or a writing hut like Dylan Thomas’. Even more than that, I would love to have a writing routine, as this would mean that writing is my job and I would be ‘a writer’. But I’m not. I’m a dreamer – I have three jobs, two children, a cat, and many, many dreams about writing. Sometimes I manage to do some writing, like this piece I’m writing now. But it’s taken me three cups of coffee and several deep house tracks to get to this stage, and this is very typical preparation for me. YouTube is a fantastic, distracting juke box. Without it, I wouldn’t have discovered gorgeous music by the likes of Ben Böhmer, Marc Brauner, and Nox Vahn & Marsh. If you type in ‘Houseum’ you will be taken to a wonderful library of sound and you will spend hours there, like I have done. I also spend far too much time reading YouTube comments. Very occasionally I will read a comment that is genuinely interesting.

I say I’m ‘a poet’ but I think I’ve written about five poems this year. The last poem I wrote wasn’t at my desk in my house: it was on the train from Worcester Foregate Street to Smethwick Galton Bridge. It was called ‘Last Christmas’ and it was for an anti-slam. I didn’t win the prize and I still don’t know if this was because my poem was dreadful or too good. That said, I’m unusually indifferent about the reaction that night, as I was just grateful to enjoy what would have been an otherwise grim train journey. My attention was taken away from the grey, wet, cold November morning, and instead I was marvelling at my ability to include references to Wham and Fleetwood Mac in a poem about a fart that caused a family breakdown on Christmas Day.

I have got into the habit of telling people that ‘I’m writing a book’, though I wish I had a habit of actually writing the book. For a few weeks, I achieved a level of discipline, whereby I set the alarm for 6am and wrote/procrastinated for about an hour before sorting breakfast out for the kids. Now I just try to grab an hour whenever I can. I started the book in August and I’ve averaged about 10,000 words a month, which is much slower than I would like, but it’s the biggest piece of writing I’ve done since I was 9 years old (I’m almost 38). I used to dismiss the idea that I could sustain the effort needed to write a book. I also like the fact that a poem can be written in a few seconds on a receipt or the back of a hand (preferably your own hand, as experience tells me). But now I can’t dismiss the idea that is constantly rattling around in my mind and which requires approximately 90,000 words to be added to a Word document so that one day I will be able to move on to something else. Possibly another book or another sequence of daft poems or a pop song or a horror sequel.

In the photo of ‘the study’, you can see two sets of headphones, a guitar, and a book about Pink Floyd. These items have not been artfully placed, believe it or not. Nor is the glass of red there to give the impression of decadence. I love writing but music is the supreme art form, and I drink a lot of wine. In another life, I’d be a Belgian DJ with a brilliant pseudonym composing ethereal masterpieces on a laptop in a bedroom. Oh, and whilst completely sober: wine and writing don’t mix. On that note, I’m going to make a fourth cup of coffee…

Neil Laurenson is a poet in Worcester, England. His debut book Exclamation Marx! was published by Silhouette Press. He occasionally shares his poems in sparsely populated venues in exchange for sporadic applause. He used to dress up as Tony Blair in the local high street almost every Saturday for five years, in protest not in tribute. He made a short horror film earlier this year called Teddy Scare, which also involved heavy use of a mask. He likes puns, masks, and large audiences.   www.neillaurenson.com  @NeilLaurenson

Maryam Gowralli : my (small press) writing day

The recipe for my typical writing day is usually not a writing day at all. My process is rather an essential and sporadic mix between intensive research through different venues, continual reading and inspiration. There are times when the inspiration is purely through my own hard brain-sweat. Then there are times where I’ve literally woken up to semiconscious lines in my head that I scramble to write down before their inevitable disintegration in waking moments. I now keep a pen and notepad by my nightstand. This pad more often than not ends up in my creative workspace during hours of concoction.

I see humans as inspired creatures. This process in particular humbles me as it allows me to understand that not everything really comes from myself. Sometimes, I see it as whispers from my ancestors. Perhaps there’s a level of madness to it… but it cauterizes my dissected body in some measure.

Despite my tendency for sporadicity, as a creative writer and poet with an inclination towards competence, I do believe it necessary to have structure and I tend to juggle between two main projects at a time. As of right now, I’m currently editing my poetry collection manuscript, Citizenship in Water and philosophizing two potential chapbooks. One titled, a conversation with mad tiger and another as of yet untitled. Reality tends to keep me tethered to other obligations such as work, social life and family. I’ve found the general goal of crafting one poem per week to be realistic. This allows each poem room to simmer in the ingredients of mutability. Consuming marinated words can be quite delightful.

As a multigenerational mixed-race person of Trinidadian-Indian/Indonesian heritage, my work is influenced by tracking and linking my lived experiences, shared tribal/spiritual/religious traditions, and familial stories to ethnographic discourse, political activism and topographical landscapes in the Caribbean, Asia and North America. It’s a rigorous exercise which includes research that spans: conversing with family, reading scientific and historical research, discerning photos and records, studying linguistics and regional literary practices, reading authors of those literary histories, and tracing the changing borders of nations and movement of bodies through different time periods.

Such deep dives are simultaneously exhilarating yet draining. And I find the more I go on, the more books and materials I find piled high on my desk. The newest addition being Harvey Neptune’s Caliban and the Yankees: Trinidad and the United States Occupation. Some research takes weeks at a time although I’m not quite sure if some of my inquiries ever really leave my workspace at all.

Lately, I’ve been looking at national archives of British voyage maps which chart Nourse Line ships sailing from the Indian Empire to the West Indies. These travels would consist of stopping by ports in Africa and would be around four months long. High cases of mortality rates and diseases like cholera, typhoid, dysentery and measles were quite common.

It’s unnerving. Thinking of my great-grandfather in such conditions…

In many ways my writing is as much for myself, as it is for my readers. As Dionne Brand once said, “To live at the Door of No Return is to live self-consciously. To be aware of your presence as a presence outside yourself. And to have ‘others’ constantly remark on your presence as outside of itself. If to think is to exist, then we exist doubly. An ordinary conversation is never an ordinary conversation.”

There seems to be a suggestion that with the active inclusion of diverse voices that literary magazines are suddenly devoid of meritocracy. I try to ignore such claims as I continue my line of research and writing. I know for a fact the amount of effort it takes to write the type of stories I want to write and that’s enough for me.  

When I do in fact start my writing, I find I am most productive in the early hours of the morning or really late hours of the night when there is no one to distract me. A cup of coffee in tow.

Sometimes the bustle of my autistic brother, Deen pulls me away from my work. Occasionally he’ll sit with me in the quiet. He’s non-vocal insofar as the only noises he can produce are vowel sounds such as aaaa, oooo, or his favorite eeee.

I often wonder what his voice would sound like if he could produce sentences. Or how he feels about having a sister who loves words so much. Perhaps it’s just me, but there’s a gentle glimmer in his eyes whenever I talk to him while I write. From time to time he’ll use sign language to signify a thank you after giving him a cup of coffee and that in itself reminds me that he too has his own voice, however small his sign vocabulary. Hello, thank you, more, and I love you. Such an interesting cache of words to comprehend.

Language it truly all around me. Alphanumeric, visual or otherwise.

Words blur together in my career as well, which includes technical writing and communications. I try to keep both sides (creative and technical) distinct from one another. I’ve been rather successful, though I know the fact remains impossible. One cannot simply be a writer and turn off that switch.

And so my inspiration for writing continues. You’d think that I’d be sick of it.

Maryam Gowralli holds a degree in English Literature with Distinction from the University of Calgary. She was an editor for The Quill Magazine and NōD Magazine, and is currently a blog content writer for Augur Magazine. Her poetry collection Citizenship in Water is forthcoming with That Painted Horse Press in 2021.