Category: Life

This Too Shall Pass… I hope

Last week, I got involved in a conversation on Twitter about the challenges of writing while attending school. It was past midnight, so I let out a lot of feelings I normally try to keep tucked away. Now, in the light of day, I’m trying to crystalize what we were talking about into something coherent and at least a little bit constructive on the challenges of writing while you’re a student and, because this is how those challenges have manifested for me, overcoming cosmic writer’s block.

 

To be completely honest, all through college and the few years after college before I started law school, my friends considered me something of a writing wonder. I write a lot, and I write fast. And in college, I always found time to write. But at the same time, I was steeped in creativity. My friends were the same people in my writing group. We would set aside hours for quiet writing time. We were so involved with each other’s stories that we talked about them all the time, formulating theories, helping each other work out plot holes, and so on. And when we weren’t writing or talking about our projects, we were disecting books we were reading and shows and movies we were watching. It was a really great experience, and if you have a group like that in college, then I totally agree with anyone who says that college is the best time to get writing done. But I’ve also heard a lot of college students say that it’s hard to get writing done in college because of all the other things you have to balance, and while I didn’t really get it as an undergraduate, I’m definitely getting it now.

 

Since I left college and I’ve lost that constant, in-person writing support group, writing has become a struggle for me. I kept going through my first year of law school, partly because it was the only thing that was keeping me sane. But it wasn’t easy the way writing used to be easy. Just the other day, I saw a Facebook post from last year where I was saying that I was going to do Camp NaNoWriMo in April because I was tired of a paragraph feeling like a victory. And in my second year of law school, it’s only gotten worse. I was told my second year of law school would be easier than the first, but this has turned out to be a big fat lie, at least for me. The only real difference is that I chose all the things that are making me busy. Still, I managed to get some short stories written in the fall, and even about a third of a new novel during NaNoWriMo in November, at least before the work really hit, and I had to write a two hundred page paper and edit it four times with a partner in a month, and I stopped writing. And anything I’ve written since has been like pulling teeth and doesn’t even feel like a victory when it’s on the page.

 

I’m calling this cosmic writer’s block. It’s not like writer’s block as you would traditionally think of it. I’m not stuck on a specific story or a specific scene. I’ve tried switching projects, and now I just have about fifteen unfinished projects floating around, which of course just makes me feel worse about the whole thing. I’ve tried all the things the internet recommends for combatting writer’s block—taking walks, taking showers, just powering through because writer’s block isn’t real, and—but nothing helped. I remembered the distinction Anne Lamott drew in her book Bird by Bird, the distinction between blocked and empty. But even her suggestion to do things that normally inspire you, like reading books or watching movies or TV shows that inspire you to write really hasn’t made  much of a dent. I’m just exhausted, and the idea of writing right now feels more exhausting, and when I can’t write, I’m even more discouraged and exhausted. So even though I’m fully aware that I’m spiraling, I can’t stop it. I just have no desire to write, and since for so long writing has been the only thing I really want to do, this is really scary to me.

 

I don’t have any answers to this, except that maybe I just need a week-long nap. But that’s part of the point of this post. I’m not here to tell some story about how perseverance makes everything okay, because I can’t say that right now, and if you’re feeling anything like me, you don’t want to hear that. I’m talking about writing, but I could be talking about any number of things in my life in the past few months, and any time I try to talk to someone about how I’m feeling, they come up with some baloney about how your twenties suck and “this too shall pass.” If I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard those words in the past few months, I could probably pay back a big chunk of my student loans, which would be a lot more useful than that advice. Maybe it will pass. I really hope it does pass. But right now I’m in the middle of it, and it feels like it won’t ever get better, and just saying “this too shall pass” is the least helpful thing anyone can say.

 

So I don’t want to hear that this will get better. I don’t want you to present me with all the examples of other writers who have overcome this kind of block or received hundreds of rejections or who have struggled with writing as a student. What I want is to know that I’m not the only one struggling with these feelings. What I want is to have a productive conversation about these feelings and how we, the young writers and students, can deal with them. Because as far as I can tell, these conversations aren’t happening. To write about rejection and confidence issues and writer’s block and the unique challenges faced by writers who are also students, to some extent we need to talk about failure. Nobody wants to talk about their own failures. And nobody wants to come across as whiny or bitter or incapable. If you’re trying to be a professional writer, it’s not the image you want to present to the interwebs. Even I struggled with whether I wanted to write this post, but I can’t be the only one struggling with this. And if I’m not alone, then maybe writing a post about these challenges will help someone else, even if it just lets them know that others are out there dealing with the same things.

 

So here I am. I am trying to write while attending law school. At this moment, I am struggling with writer’s block on a level i have never experienced before. I’ve published a few short stories, yes, but I’ve received way more rejections, and right now my predominant feeling is that I am somehow a failure and I will never be a successful writer.

 

I hope that someday soon I will be able to write a blog post about how I’ve gotten past all this. But right now, I’m in the middle of it, and sometimes I feel like I’m not going to get past it. If there’s a magic bullet to kickstart my creative brain, I’d love to hear about it. But while I don’t have a magic bullet of my own, I do have some inkling of the roots of the problem.

 

First, I need to work on setting reasonable goals for myself. I had this crazy idea that I would write an entire novel during NaNoWriMo last November and then spend the rest of the school year editing it to perfection, all while keeping up with all my classes and clinics. This was a ridiculous goal, but it was still what I wanted to accomplish this year. And when I failed, I couldn’t pick myself up and press on.

 

As a student, you’re juggling a lot of things: classes, including homework, projects, and exams; extracurricular activities; summer internship and post-graduation job searches; having a social life; and any hobbies you want to keep up. You also have to eat and sleep. Throw consistently writing into that mix, and it’s a little mind-boggling that one person can handle so much. If goals and deadlines motivate you to accomplish things, that’s great. Set goals. But don’t set crazy goals. And when things get out of hand and you don’t accomplish your goals, you can’t beat yourself up over it.

 

Obviously, I really need to work on this. It usually works for me to set goals for myself, but when I fail to accomplish them, I beat myself up and just make the situation worse. I have realized this is a problem, and I’m working on solving it. I considered doing Camp NaNoWriMo again this month and setting a small goal for myself that I felt would be a challenge but would still be something I could accomplish. But I also recognized that I have two fifteen-page papers due this month, as well as a final play to write and perform for my french class and a final exam. I also need to get everything in order for my summer internships. And in the place where I am now, even setting myself a small writing goal would be setting myself up for failure, which wouldn’t help the situation at all.

 

This goes for goals for publication too. The publication market is so subjective, and so much of it is outside your control, that beating yourself up over success or lack-there-of is just counterproductive. The most you can do to pursue a goal of getting published is to keep writing and keep submitting. Yes, rejections suck, but remember why you are writing. For me, I’m writing for myself, because I have a story inside me that needs to be told. Beyond that, I have a close group of friends who want to know what happens next. I hope  that someone, at some time, thinks that others need to read my stories too, but if an editor thinks that’s not the case, I’m not going to let that stop me from writing, because first and foremost I’m writing for me. I’m writing because it makes me happy.

 

Finding what inspires you also helps. Generally reading inspires me to write, and in case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been reading a lot in the past few months. But this year I’ve been reading books that I haven’t read before. A couple weeks ago, I picked up The Hunger Games books and started rereading them. And for the first time in a long time, I felt like I might want to sit down and write. I first read The Hunger Games back in college, and it was a big inspiration for my memory-wiping academy novel, which I’m now editing and expanding into a series. So maybe, if you’re stuck, don’t just do things that typically inspire you. If you can pinpoint it, specifically target what drove you to write this story in the first place and revisit it. It might also help to reread what you’ve written so far and remind yourself that it isn’t complete garbage and there’s a reason you’re writing this story in the first place. Basically, find what will inspire you now, which may  not be what usually inspires you, and tap into it.

 

Remember that there’s time. Along with setting reasonable goals for yourself and not beating yourself up if you have to change those goals, remember that there’s time. Yes, it would be fantastic to write, edit, and publish a novel before you’re twenty, or twenty-five, or whatever age you pick. But you’re in school for a reason, and even if you’re studying creative writing, that reason is to learn, not to write the next Harry Potter. Also, all your experiences in school and beyond school will inspire your writing and contribute to the stories you tell. I really, really wanted to get my novel published before I graduated college, but now I’m glad I didn’t, because my experiences being on my own, separated from my family and friends, and adulting for the first time in Italy right after college really informed my characters’ struggles and decisions, and ultimately made that story stronger. So don’t freak out. There’s time.

 

And because there’s time, it’s okay to take a break to recharge. School is exhausting, and it is also constant. You are surrounded twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, with school. In a lot of ways, I feel like law school has taken away everything I love to do, one by one: reading books in Braille, playing the clarinet, drawing, and now writing, mostly because I’m just too busy and too exhausted to keep it up. I’ve clung to writing, saying oan more than one occasion that it’s the only thing keeping me sane. But now I can’t even muster that up. So if you’re just burnt out, which I’m feeling like is a large part of my writer’s block right now, it’s okay to take a break, let the creative part of your brain reboot, and get back to it when you feel ready.

 

I’m only just starting to feel the itch in my subconscious calling me back to my writing projects. Over the past few days, I’ve been thinking about my stories more than I have in a while. I haven’t really gotten to the actual writing part. So I could be completely wrong about these strategies for how to write while being a student or how to overcome writer’s block. I’m still in the middle of all of this,  and I’m hoping that it will get better and I can tell you for sure that these things worked for me. I hope that these strategies work for you, too, if you’re having a hard time, and I hope it helps to know that you’re not alone in your feelings. And I would love to hear others’ opinions on how to overcome this cosmic writing block and how to successfully manage being a student and writing.

Reading Through 2017

2017 is drawing to a close, and what a year it’s been. Personally, I survived my first year of law school, worked for the summer at the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights, and started my second year of law school. I am now halfway through law school. After exploring and discarding several possible career paths, I have decided to go into space law—as in outer space. I also published two short stories this year. “Seven Signs Your Roommate is a Vampire: With Additional Advice On Surviving Orientation If It’s More Complicated” was published in issue #68 of Andromeda Spaceways, and “Polaris in the Dark” was published in the 2018 Young Explorer’s Adventure Guide anthology. Finally, my Seeing Eye dog, Mopsy, had to retire in May. She just became too anxious to keep guiding me safely. It was heartbreaking for me to retire Mopsy, and it’s still heartbreaking, even though she is now a healthy, happy pet with my parents. I returned to the Seeing Eye in July and was match with my second Seeing Eye dog, Neutron, and we’ve been flying around Cambridge ever since.

 

I also read a lot. I set a goal to read 50 books this year. I read 77. I did a fair amount of rereading of old favorites, especially around exam times. Favorite books are like literary comfort food.  Of the new books I read, most were fine, but they were just fine. A few were downright terrible. And some were truly exemplary. Here are my favorites:

 

Heartless by Marissa Meyer: I expected a lot from this book after Marissa Meyer’s Lunar Chronicles series. This book did not live up to my very high expectations, but I really did enjoy it. It’s the story of the Queen of Hearts and how she became The Queen of Hearts. The writing was great, and the world was a lot of fun, and the ending was hearbreaking and beautiful.

 

In a Glass Grimmly and The Grimm Conclusion by Adam Gidwitz: I read the first book in this series, A Tale Dark and Grimm, in summer 2016, but didn’t get to the second or third books before the end of the year. So I finished the series this year. It was great. While the first book retold all the stories of Hansel and Gretel, the second book told new stories about Jack and Jill (the ones who go up the hill and fall down). Except Jack is also the same Jack from Jack and the Beanstock, so there are giants involved. The third book is a mash’?eaup of Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, The Juniper Tree, and The Boy Who Left Home To Find Fear (which is a great title), plus a truly amazing metafictional arc. The narrator’s voice and snark reminds me a bit of Lemony Snicket in A Series of Unfortunate Events, which made it super fun even with all the blood and guts. Seriously I was laughing out loud throughout this whole book. So if you like retold fairy stales, snark, and can tolerate a fair amount of blood and guts, you’re sure to enjoy these books.

 

Dangerous by Shannon Hale: Space camp goes wrong and teenagers get superpowers from alien techildrenlogy and then have to save the world from an alien invasion, all with a dash of evil megalomaniacs, conniving scientists, and teenage romance. The Goodreads reviews on this book were split between those who hated it with a fiery passion and those who loved it to pieces. I’ve always liked Shannon Hale’s books, so I gave it a try. I really enjoyed it, and I would say that it is a decently good book. It was fun, fast, and action-packed. There was a little too much romance for me, and the middle of the book got kind of weird. Also the protagonist is a half-Latina girl with a disability, and though some aspects of the representation of her disability were upsetting to me, by the end of the book most of my issues resolved. On the whole, I had a lot of fun with this book. There was space and science and space and geekiness and space and fun gadgets (seriously I want Maisie’s impact boots) and did I mention space? What I particularly liked about this book was that while the stakes were high with the whole save-the-world plot, there were also very high, very personal stakes that kept the story grounded. So if you like whacky science fiction adventure with space and aliens and superpowers and romance, this book might be for you.

 

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng: I read this book for book club, and there was a lot to enjoy about it. The emotions were so raw and realistic, and I enjoyed the multiple perspectives on the same moments. It sort of reminded me of the World War II Italy novella I wrote for my senior honors thesis at Kenyon (the one that is still languishing in a drawer but I’ve been thinking about it). There was virtually no overlap in the subject matter between this book and my WWII Italy project; it just had a similar feel to me. Lydia, the favorite daughter of the mixed-race Lee family, is dead. I’m not spoiling anything; that’s how the book starts. The story is about how the different members of the family cope with her death and try to understand what happened to her. We also get Lydia’s point of view throughout the book. I do have to say I could only read this book in small bites because either the emotions were just too much or because I got kind of frustrated with the characters. There were definitely times when it felt like one of those sitcom episodes where if the characters would just sit down and talk about what happened, all the problems would get resolved and no one would be dead. We decided in our book club discussion that Everything I Never Told You was a very apt title, because no one was telling anybody anything. But by the end of the book, I was in tears. Also, sentence to sentence, word to word, the writing is beautiful, and I can be a sucker for that (as long as the rest of the book is good too).

 

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell: This book was beautiful. It’s a new adult book, about a girl going off to college with her twin sister, but her sister wants to put some space between them, her creative writing professor is crushingly disappointed that she’s writing fanfiction, and basically she has to figure out life and friends and writing her own stories. This book hit me like a punch in the gut. A fabulous, fabulous punch in the gut. But there were definitely moments when it was too real. I can totally relate to so much of it. I don’t have a twin sister, and I never actually wrote fanfiction before college (and I’ve only started, and haven’t finished, a fanfic since I went to college). But I definitely had serious social anxiety around eating in the dining hall when I first went to college and I always felt kind of out of place in the creative writing program because I generally prefer to write young adult speculative fiction rather than literary fiction, and I felt like some professors could have an unfortunate attitude towards genre fiction in the creative writing program. Also, the ideas of growing up and Harry Potter ending and everything in this book were really relatable. Basically this book is beautiful and everyone should read it.

 

Flying Lessons & Other Stories edited by Ellen Oh: This is a middle grade short story collection produced by We Need Diverse Books, all about the impact that reading and learning has on kids. Each story featured a character from an underrepresented group in fiction. I really enjoyed all the stories—though some were a little younger than I like to read. They were fun and adorable and the message about reading and diversity is so important. I definitely recommend.

 

Miss Perregrine’s Peculiar Children series by Ransom Riggs: This whole series was a wild ride, but if you’re willing to go with it, it’s a blast. When his grandfather is killed by a monster only Jacob can see, he goes on a journey to learn about his grandfather’s past and winds up travelling through time (sort of) and battling the monsters and their masters alongside his grandfather’s childhood friends (who happen to still be children). This is the best description I can give. But it makes sense in the books I swear. This has to be one of the most bizzarre series I’ve read in a while, but it was a ton of fun and once I got into it I couldn’t put it down.

 

Anne of Green Gables, Anne of Avonlea, and Anne of the Island by L. M. Montgomery: I read Anne of Green Gables years ago when I was growing up. I have it in Braille—it’s six volumes. This summer, I reread Anne of Green Gables in preparation for watching the new Netflix show, which is quite good by the way. I really enjoyed reading about Anne’s adventures, and it all took on so much more meaning now that I’m older. And then I discovered that Anne’s adventures didn’t end with Anne of Green Gables, so I kept reading. By this point, I have actually read the first six books in the series, but in my opinion the series goes downhill after the third book. Anne of Green Gables, Anne of Avonlea, and Anne of the Island are definitely worth reading, though, whatever age you are.

 

Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue: This was another book club book. We read Behold the Dreamers  over the summer in conjunction with Lucky Boy, which I’ll talk about next. Behold the Dreamers tells the story of two families affected by the financial crisis in 2007, a family of Cameroonian immigrants struggling to get a foothold in New York and the family of the Wall Street executive they work for. The whole book is from the point of view of the immigrants, which I really love. We see the struggles of these two very different families, and even though their struggles are different, they are their struggles. This is a sad but realistic perspective on the American dream.

 

Lucky Boy by Shanthi Sekaran: This is another story about immigrants. We read Lucky Boy for book club over the summer with Behold the Dreamers. The two books actually pair really well tgr.d and I recommend reading them together. Lucky Boy also  tells the stories of two families, a young woman who immigrates to America illegally from Mexico, becomes pregnant along the way, gives birth in America, and struggles to raise her son, and a second-generation Indian couple desperate to have a child. The immigrant is detained and her child is placed in foster care with the couple, who fall in love with him and take steps to adopt him. This is an  intense look at the immigration and foster care systems in California, as well as a heartbreaking contemplation of parenthood, because there is no good ending to this story.

 

Hiroshima by John Hersey: I don’t normally read nonfiction. I do enough of that for class. But when I was at the Seeing Eye training with Neutron this summer, there was a library of hardcopy Braille books, and anyone who knows me knows that when possible, I prefer to read in hardcopy Braille. There’s nothing quite like holding an actual book in your hands. Hiroshima was one of the books in this library, and since anyone who knows me also knows I have a minor World War II obsession, one thing led to another and I read the book. I’m the first to admit that my WWII obsession is more to do with the war in Europe than the war in the Pacific, and honestly I didn’t know much about what happened at Hiroshima and Nagasaki except that an atomic bomb was dropped. I found the book Hiroshima, which chronicled the events in the city from the points of view of several people who lived through the bomb, to be rich in detail. Gruesome detail to be sure, but I think it is important to know these details, and I was glad I was able to read this book.

 

Flame in the Mist by Renee Ahdieh: I enjoyed this book a lot more than I thought I would, and this was a pleasant surprise. It takes place in a fantasy world mirroring ancient Japan. The daughter of an honored samurai is on her way to marry the prince when her convoy is attacked. Assassins have been hired to kill her. There were times when the writing was a bit telly for me, and I was underwhelmed by the romantic subplot, but the book gripped me from start to finish. The characters were really intricate, and the plot was fast-paced and full of secrets and complications. I’m really looking forward to the sequel next year.

 

The Book of Ember trilogy by Jeanne DuPrau: There are technically four books in this series, but the third is a prequel and is neither necessary to underst  the books nor worth bothering with, in my opinion. The main trilogy, The City of Ember, The People of Sparks, and the Diamond of Darkhold detail the adventures of two children from Ember, an isolated city in a world of complete darkness. The generator that powers Ember is failing, and when the kids find a half-destroyed set of instructions, they go in search of a way to leave the city. These are fun and action-packed science fiction books, with a lot of adventure and some really interesting world-building. I’ve been trying to read more science ficong books this year, and these were a great start.

 

Shades of Magic series by V.E. Schwab: I can’t believe it took me so long to discover these books. Acsually, I can because my to read list is over 500 books long. The best that can be said about my delayed discovery is that I didn’t have to wait for the conclusion. These books were just remarkable. There are four worlds, each with a city named London, each with different amounts of magic. Only a few people can travel between the worlds, but a dark magic is threatening all the worlds. I’m doing a poor job of describing these books, but they’re really fabulous. I was gripped from start to finish, and the books have stayed with me since. I would love to go back and reread them at some point, now that I’ve finished them.

 

Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate: This is another book club book. Half the people in book club really didn’t like this book, but I did. There are two storylines in this book: in 1939, five children are kidnapped from their family’s shantyboat on the Mississippi and taken to a brutal orphanage as part of an elaborate adoption scheme where poor children were sold to rich families from the 1920s through the 1950s; in the present day, a young lawyer comes home to care for her ill father and discovers her family’s secret connection to the past child trafficking scandal. In my opinion, the present-day story is bad, and the book would be stronger without it. But the story in the past is really gripping, and I was fascinated to learn about this episode in our own history which I had never heard of before. I would certainly recommend this book, though with the reservation that the present storyline is kind of a waste of slace.

 

Every Soul A Star by Wendy Mass: Three kids meet at a camp ground and witness a total solar eclipse. Each of the kids grows and learns and changes because of the other kids. This is a really sweet, heartwarming book which is also full of space nerdiness, so all in all, perfect.

 

Counting by 7s by Holly Goldberg Sloan: This was another heartwarming middle grade book. When her parents are killed in a car accident, a twelve-year-old genius is taken in by a friend, and her journey dealing with her grief and aclimating to life with her surogate family changes her and all the people around her.

 

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon: This book was slow to start but picked up and had me in tears by the end. When Christopher’s neighbor’s dog is killed, he sets out to solve the mystery and ends up uncovering many more secrets about his family along the way. I think this book ,s a thoughtful representation of someone with autism, though of course it should not be taken as indicative of the experiences of everyone on the spectrum. I was particularly impressed with the amount of agency Christopher had, and I loved his voice and character and was routing for him the whole way. A very good read.

 

The 2018 Young Explorer’s Adventure Guide edited by Sean Weaver and Corie Weaver: This is a collection of science fiction short stories for kids, all featuring diverse characters—girls, kids of different races, and kids with disabilities. Yes, my story “Polaris in the Dark” is in this anthology, but it’s really a great collection of stories. Aliens, robots, space, science, and kids having adventures fill all the pages. I read this whole book in one sitting, because I was having so much fun. Each story was like its own little gem, and I recommend this book to everyone, whatever age you are.

 

The Fairy-Tale Detectives by Michael Buckley: When the sisters Grimm are sent to live with the grandmother they’d believed to be dead, they discover that they are descended from the Brothers Grimm and it is their destiny to solve crimes in the community of fairytale creatures. They’ve just begun their training when their grandmother is kidnapped by a giant. This was a really fun and exciting book, and I can’t wait to get into the rest of the series.

 

The Children of the Red King books 1-5 by Jenny Nimmo: I just finished the fifth book of this series today. There are three more books, but unfortunately I won’t be able to read the next three books in the next three hours. The first book, Midnight for Charlie Bone, was another book that i own in hardcopy Braille, reread this year, and discovered there was more to the series. I have really enjoyed these books so far. They’re not perfect, certainly, but they’re a lot of fun. Charlie is one of the Children of the Red King, endowed with the ability to travel into photographs and paintings and speak to the people in the past. Because of his power, he is forced to attend Bloor’s Academy, where he discovers all sorts of sinister plots and works to make things right with his friends. I’m looking forward to diving into the rest of this series in the new year.

 

And that’s it. 2018 is just around the corner, filled with new books to read, new stories to write, and of course more law school. I’m going to try to read a hundred books next year. I need to make a dent in that to-read list, after all. I also want to get back into blogging more regularly. Neutron is nudging me with his paw because he hasn’t had a chance to say hello yet. And I want to finish the ten or so writing projects I started in 2017.

 

Happy New Year!

And the New Dog Is…

Just kidding. I don’t know. I will be meeting my new superdog partner tomorrow morning. But I wanted to write about what I’ve done since I arrived at Seeing Eye yesterday before it gets overwhelmed by the excitement of the new doggy.

 

I arrived at lunchtime on Monday. I’d forgotten how good the food is here. Also one of the instructors in my class was my instructor when I was here seven years ago training with Mopsy. She isn’t my instructor this class, but it’s cool that she’s there.

 

After lunch, my instructor gave me a tour of the campus so that I could navigate independently. I remember bits of it, but they’ve renovated the building since I was here in 2010, and they’ve changed things just enough that I’m a bit confused.

 

After the tour of the campus, we went on a juno walk. A juno walk is when I hold the harness handle and the instructor holds the other end and measures my pace and pull on the harness. These are the most important factors in matching me with a guide dog. Of course there are other factors. There are different lengths of harness handles, but no one’s going to give me a Great Dane or a Chihuahua. For this first juno walk, we went up and down the Seeing Eye driveway. We worked a lot on my pull on the harness handle. It’s different with a person rather than a dog, but apparently my arm position was wrong, so either I’ve forgotten how to hold the harness or I’ve been doing it wrong for who knows how long. To be fair to me, they’re teaching a different grip on the leash than what I learned and did with Mopsy, so that might have thrown me off. Still, I’m figuring it out.

 

After the juno walk, I had some time to unpack. Then it was dinner and a welcome meeting. After going over the schedule for Tuesday, they handed out our leashes. It’s funny because Mopsy’s leash has become super soft and either dark dark brown or black, I can’t tell. But the new leash they handed me is all stiff and rough and this light light brown.

 

We were up at 6:00 this morning. After breakfast we came to the downtown training center for a brief lecture on what class is going to be like, and then we took another juno walk, this time in a much busier area. I learned that actually I haven’t been doing anything wrong with Mopsy, but because Mopsy and I were so familiar with each other that I didn’t need to do a lot of the things that I’ll need to do with this new dog, like coming to full stops before turning. To work on my issue with keeping pressure on the harness handle, we did an exercise where I held the leash as if it was a harness handle. The instructor explained it out the difference between towing a car with a chain and towing a car with a tow-bar. If you tow the car with a chain, it could be flopping around in the back. I have to maintain pressure so that the dog can feel me. It’s just as important as me being able to feel the dog, because if the dog loses the pressure the dog isn’t sure I’m still with them and could become anxious. With just the leash, rather than the rigid harness handle, it was much easier to feel when I was losing pressure and correct for it. It was really effective in showing me just how important it was to maintain pressure, because if I lost the pressure I felt like I was floating in space with no direction.

 

We did another juno walk this afternoon, and it was really great for cementing the pressure thing. I still have to work on waiting for the dog to go when I say “forward” instead of leaping into action myself. This has resulted in me trying to both move and not move at the same time and doing what one instructor called “quite the charleston.”

 

With every hour that passes I become more and more excited. This afternoon, we had a terrifying demonstration of silent cars (they are really silent!), and the lecture on the history of the Seeing Eye while our instructors decided which dogs we’ll get tomorrow. By the time we sat down to dinner, they knew, but they won’t tell us anything. In a few minutes, we have a cheese and wine party, which will be our last chance to eat food with our hands without our dogs’ leashes dangling off our wrists. Then it’s off to bed to try and sleep despite the anticipation. Morning comes early here (once we get our dogs it will come even earlier).

 

Tomorrow morning, we’ll get up, have breakfast, and have a quick meeting while our dogs are being bathed. And then we’ll meet the dog. Despite my best efforts, my instructor has given me only a few hints. The dog will either be a male or a female, and it will have four legs, a tail, and soft ears. The suspense is killing me.

New Beginnings Are Not Endings

It’s been a while since I posted, but let’s just skip my whole shpeil where I apologize for that and swear to do better and post more often. Okay? Okay.

 

I’ve been thinking a lot about endings for the past few days. For one thing, after writing fifty thousand words on the first memory-wiping Academy novel in April and another twenty-five thousand so far in July (meeting my Camp NaNoWriMo goal both times), the ending is finally in sight. For another, Mopsy has retired and I am on my way to Seeing Eye as I write this, on my way to meet my new doggn. In fiction, my favorite kind of endings are the kind that feel like beginnings, like there’s another story waiting to be told if only you turn one more page, even if that next story only exists in my imagination. But this begs the question: are new beginnings always endings?

 

On Friday, I finished my internship at the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights in Boston. I learned a lot this summer. I have a much better understanding of how Cambridge and Boston are laid out. I can still use my cane without hurting myself, or anyone else. And, most important in my book, I can work a nine to five job and still write a lot. Then I spent this weekend not only packing up for Seeing Eye but also packing up all my school stuff to move to my brand new apartment as soon as I return from Seeing Eye with the new puppy.

 

There are a lot of things coming up that feel like new beginnings. A new school year—one or I plan to have more time to write and do social and extracurricular activities. A new apartment that is not a dorm and has a real kitchen where I can cook real food. A new Seeing Eye superdoggy. But it’s hard not to see new beginnings as endings. Right now, I’m trying to convince myself that’s not always the case.

 

School is more continuing than ending and starting again. And moving out of the dorms and into a new apartment is simply the next step.

 

But it’s hard to see that with Mopsy. I’m on the way to the airport as I write this, and I left Mopsy behind. Seven years ago, I graduated from high school and hopped on a plane to Seeing Eye. I didn’t know Mopsy yet, but two days later, our trainer placed her leash in my hand, and Mopsy has been by my side ever since. We have literally been attached by the harness for seven years. We went to college together. Then to Italy. Then we worked at the Disabilities Rights Center together. Then we started Harvard Law together. Mopsy was with me when I lost my eye and she was with me when I finished novels. Mopsy hasn’t been working for about six weeks now, but she’s still been with me all summer. And even though I’ve been trying to transition her so my parents are the ones who are feeding her and taking her for walks and everything, this morning when I picked up my suitcase, Mopsy still came running, tail wagging.

 

I tried to get Mopsy to work with me this summer, but after a few weeks, it was clear it just wasn’t going to work. And she’s been happy as a retired dog. I feel like she’s discovering her inner puppy. She comes running, wagging her whole butt, a toy in her mouth, grumbling happy and sometimes spinning right around a few times. She’s going for long walks with my parents in the woods, smelling everything along the way, which she couldn’t do while she was working. And after seven years of me trying and failing to get her to go swimming with me, Mopsy has decided she likes the water after all. But that doesn’t make it easier when she comes running as I walk out the door.

 

It feels like an ending. It feels like one chapter of my life, the chapter with Mopsy, is ending, and a chapter with a new doggy is beginning. But I hate to think of it like this. Mopsy is a healthy, happy dog, and since she’s living with my parents, I’m going to get to see her all the time. I’ll need to exercise restraint this fall and not go home every weekend to see Mopsy, because she needs to cetime her relationship with my parents, and I need to bond with the new doggy. But in three weeks, I will be returning home with the new doggy, and Mopsy will be there waiting for me. This is the beginning of a new chapter, certainly, but it’s a new chapter in the same story, and thinking about it like this makes all the difference in the world for me.

 

I’m still a few chapters away from the end of my novel, but I already know how it’s going to go. Keeping this as spoiler-free as possible, here’s what happens: the main characters are sitting on the back of a wagon. They’re riding to safety, but they’re still looking back the way they came. Then, at the last minute, they hop off the wagon and turn to face their next challenge head on.

 

I’m planning on this book being the first in a four-book series, so the story will continue. And that’s how I have to think of this next chapter in my life too. I can’t deny that as sad as I am about leaving Mopsy at home, I’m excited to meet the new puppy and see what adventures we get up to.

 

It’s a tough schedule at Seeing Eye. We’re up at 5:30 AM and we’re going all day, as far as I remember. But I’m planning on posting regularly over the next three weeks to keep you all updated on how the training is going and most importantly, who my new partner in crime will be.

The Benefits of Reverse Zombification

This is my first post of 2017. Yes, I know, it’s April. Yes, I know, I haven’t posted since December. It’s been a long, hard semester. I’ve had weeks where I felt like I had to drag myself from one unending fifty page assignment to the next. It’s been a struggle to write fiction, let alone blog. And let’s be honest: you really don’t want to hear about my contracts class anyway.

 

But things are looking up. Boston finally seems to be considering springtime (or it was yesterday), my appellate brief is complete and I have my moot oral argument tonight, I have my final negotiation for my negotiations workshop on Saturday, and then there’s only two weeks of classes left. Two weeks where things are a little less crazy before we hit reading period and have to study nonstop for finals. I intend to use those two weeks wisely. Actually, now that I have a better sense of what law school finals are like and how to prepare for them, I’m going to use reading period wisely too. (We’ll see how this actually goes but I’m going to try.)

 

So since I never posted my goals for 2017—whatever those actually were—here’s my goal for the rest of 1L year and the summer: I don’t want to be a law student zombie anymore. I want to become a human being again. And here’s how I’m going to do it.

 

First, I’m tired of being a desk potato, so I want to get back in shape. I like feeling strong, and I miss moving. Added bonus: exercise isn’t just healthy. Whenever I actually get up in the morning and go to the gym, I feel great for the rest of the day. Yay endorphins!

 

Second, and along similar lines, I’m going to try to get myself onto a reasonable eating schedule. This means I need to stop eating dinner at 10:30 at night, even if the kitchen is busier earlier. I don’t think I need to explain why eating at a sane hour of the night is just overall better.

 

Third, I’m going to write more. Like really write, the way I was writing in college or in Italy, or as close to that as possible. I’m tired of feeling like a few paragraphs is a victory.

 

Fourth, I’m going to get back in touch with my inner extrovert and do fun things with friends. I feel like I live in my dorm room, and that just has to stop. The sun is shining. The grass is not quite green yet. We’re almost finished 1L. I have every reason to do social things.

 

I’ve already started on all of these goals. I’ve been exercising regularly and mostly eating around 8:00 at night, which is earlier but still not prime kitchen time. I’m also doing Camp NaNoWriMo this month, the full 50,000 words of it, to hopefully stretch my writing muscles and actually make some progress on revisions to my memory wiping academy novel. I’m participating in another twitter pitch slam this week for my middle grade fantasy novel, and I’m planning to take an online writing course this summer to give me some more structure. Finally, this past week I went to trivia and participated in a scavenger hunt, and had a blast at both. I have felt infinitely better this week than I have in a while, so I’m planning to keep it up. It’s something we were told over and over again during orientation, but apparently I didn’t really get it until now: self-care is really important.

 

It’s a good start, and I’m looking forward to keeping it up throughout the spring and summer. I’ll be working  in Boston this summer at the U.S. Department of education Office for Civil Rights, so this will be the perfect opportunity for me to actually get to know Boston better, and since I shouldn’t have homework outside work, I’ll be able to able to exercise and write and do fun social things and set a good routine for myself for the start of my 2L year.

And of course, all of this includes blogging more. It’s been a really hard school year, but I’m finally starting to feel like I have the hang of this and I can take the time to have a bit more fun and take care of myself.

 

So happy almost maybe spring!

How I Conquered the World in 2016 and Other Stories

I’m still having trouble believing it, but 2016 is drawing to a close, which means it’s time for my annual round-up of the year. And what a year it has been.

 

Twelve months ago, I was working at the New Hampshire Disabilities Rights Center. I’d only been home from Italy for a few months, and Mopsy and I were still working through our nerves about other drivers while walking around town. I’d just submitted my final law school appplication—and I’d already been admitted to several fine schools. Now, I have just completed my first grueling semester at Harvard Law School, and when we aren’t studying, which isn’t that often, Mopsy and I are cruising around Boston like pros.

 

The only goal I set for myself this year was to not be afraid. I think I was mostly successful, though it was hard to keep that in perspective when I first realized I was going to have to do a lot more cooking than I originally anticipated, or when I was exhausted from studying for seven days straight and terrified I was going to fail my civil procedure exam, or when I woke up from my recurring hospital nightmare this morning feeling like I couldn’t breathe. Or when the election happened.

 

But with my signature optimism, when I look back at all the things I did this year—so many of them brand new—I have to give myself credit.

 

Everything I did at the DRC was totally new to me, from attending hearings to investigating voter accessibility. After I finished my internship, I went on a road trip to visit all the law schools I was still considering. When we were in New York visiting Columbia and NYU, my mom and I also went on two tours of Alexander Hamilton’s New York—one of the financial district and one of Washington Heights, Hamilton Heights, and Morningside Heights. They were fascinating. Then my Italian host parents, Stefania and Bruno, came to America for three weeks, and we visited Washington D.C., Pennsylvania, New York City, Boston, and of course New Hampshire with them. my older brother got married. I went to the National Convention of the National Federation of the Blind for the first time, where I tried ballroom dancing, swing, and 1Touch self-defense. Then I spent the summer learning my way around Harvard, Cambridge, and Boston.

 

And then I started at Harvard Law School, where every single thing I’ve done has been new. I’d never read a legal opinion before. Now I feel like I read nothing but legal opinions. I learned how to do legal research and how to write in legalese. I learned how to think in a completely new way that I’m still not used to and I can’t describe. For the first time, I took final exams with no indication of my grasp of the material—an experience I’d never like to have again but unfortunately I will have to repeat five more times. And right now I’m in the middle of my first ever job search, complete with cover letters. So many cover letters.

 

But I haven’t done only law stuff. I joined a book club with some of my amazing sectionmates. So far, we’ve read Kindred by Octavia Butler and Cinder by Marissa Meyer (the last one was my recommendation if you hadn’t guessed). Right now we’re reading The Dinner by Herman Koch (well, I haven’t started it yet). I also tried out for the law school a cappella group—I didn’t get in, but it was fun to try—and I also applied to write for the law school parody—didn’t make that either but it was both the first script and the first parody I’ve ever written.

 

I’ve also started becoming politically engaged this year. I’m not going to go into the election too much here, because it really isn’t what I want this blog to be about, but I have written about my feelings on the election,and of course you’ve seen my posts on Braille literacy and the Foundation Fighting Blindness’s #HowEyeSeeIt campaign. I was chosen as a section representative for HLS’s law and government program, and I’ve applied to volunteer for a 2017 gubernatorial campaign.

 

All along, I’ve kept writing. At the beginning of this year, I started queryingagents about my novel. I paused when law school hit, but I’m going to send out a new batch of queries in January.

 

My story “Dissonance” was published in Abyss and Apex in April. If you haven’t read it yet, you can read it right here. And over the summer, I wrote and revised three more stories in the Phoenix Song universe—what i’m calling the world where “Dissonance” is set. I also wrote a poem set in the same world, my first poem since tenth grade. With a lot of luck, you might see those some day ever.

 

Once law school started, while I did write less, I did keep writing. I made sure to find time to write at least a couple times a week, not only because I love it, but also because I’ve found if I don’t write, I become first cranky, then miserable, then practically nauseous. When I feel like I’m drowning in law, my stories keep me sane. I finally got back to revising my memory-wiping academy novel, and I succeeded at my summer writing goal of getting the number of projects I’m working on down to two. And in the last couple months, I’ve been trying new things with my writing too. I wrote my first ever 250-word flash fiction story. I usually have the problem that every short story I write turns into a novel, so I was convinced I wasn’t going to be able to do it, and I was pretty darn shocked when I actually did. And right now I’m almost finished with the first draft of my first ever science fiction story. This story was actually inspired by whatever happened with my left eye back in January when my vision went all dark and shimmery for a day. Funnily enough, that was the same incident that inspired my first blog post of the year, about my decision to be brave.

 

Finally, I added some new sections to the blog this year too. Now, in addition to links to my published short stories, you can also read the stories behind the stories to find out what I was thinking when I wrote the stories and why I made the choices I did, as well as other fun facts and even some of my own illustrations. I’ve also been having a ton of fun writing the posts from Mopsy’s point of view, and I hope you’ve had fun reading them, because there’s more to come.

 

And after I don’t know how many New Years resolutions, I finally learned to use Twitter. The secret was  linking my Twitter and Facebook accounts so I only had to worry about one. I also entered a couple Twitter pitch slams for my novel, which not only got me in touch with some agents but also got me into the habit of checking Twitter and tweeting—twelve hours of tweeting and constantly refreshing does that sometimes.

 

I didn’t really conquer the world in 2016. In fact, especially in the last few months, between the pressures of law school, the election results, and the feeling that I just wasn’t writing as much as I wanted to or moving forward with my writing career as fast as I thought I would, I’ve often felt like the world was doing a good job of trampling me into the dust. But looking back on all I’ve done and all the new things I’ve tried, I’d say all and all, 2016 was a reasonable success. Now that I have a handle on how law school works, I feel like I can balance things a little better second semester. We’ll see how well that actually goes, but after a few more good nights of sleep, I’m ready to hit the ground running in the new year.

 

So bring it on, 2017.

How I See It

Recently the Foundation Fighting Blindness launched its #HowEyeSeeIt campaign to raise awareness about blindness caused by degenerative retinal diseases and to push for a cure. As part of the campaign, people are participating in a blindfold challenge, where they post two minute videos of themselves trying to do daily tasks while blindfolded. One of the suggested tasks is having a friend give you an unknown amount of cash and then you try to pay for a meal with that cash. Another is having a friend ask you to take care of their child for two minutes while blindfolded. These and other activities in people’s videos are offensive.

 

I’ve talked a bit on Facebook about my problems with the campaign, but I felt like I needed more space to explain myself more fully and thoughtfully. So here is how I see it.

 

First, let me be clear. I have no problem with medical research, and no problem with a search for a cure. Personally, I wouldn’t want a cure, but I don’t have a degenerative retinal disease. I’m not going to pretend I know what it’s like to slowly lose my vision. I have some vision, but I have been blind since birth. Three years ago, when the retina in my right eye detached and my eye had to be removed, I lost some vision, and yes, if someone offered me that vision back, I would take it. But I wouldn’t take more than what I had before, because I don’t know what perfect vision is like, so I don’t miss it, and I don’t want it. Also there’s all sorts of brain science that shows that getting your vision back doesn’t mean you’ll be able to see, but I won’t go into that because I only vaguely understand how it works. Suffice it to say that if I had a choice between perfect vision and a million dollars, I’d take the million dollars every time. But that’s me, and I’m not representative of every blind person, and I’m certainly not representative of someone who lost their sight over time due to a degenerative retinal disease. So if they can conduct medical research and find a cure, that’s great.

 

But I find the FFO’s campaign to be deeply problematic. Two-minute videos of people struggling to perform daily tasks while blindfolded does not promote awareness of blindness. Instead it promotes fear and ignorance. If I had to perform some daily task with earplugs in, you bet I would have a hard time doing it, and you bet I would be afraid. But if I was losing my hearing, of course it would be scary, but I would learn, just as so many people who are losing their sight learn to live just as independently as they did before they lost their vision. Two minutes blind can in no way represent years of practice and training. It just can’t. It reduces the blind person to someone who must be pitied, cured, and worst of all, feared. It is a backwards, old-fashioned way of seeing the blind (and I use the word “seeing” deliberately). It is the idea that when you see someone who is blind, or someone with any disability, you are afraid, because you are afraid that could happen to you. It is the same sort of ignorance and fear that I encountered, not everywhere, but so often, when I lived in Italy. These attitudes about blindness can be changed, but what FFO is saying is that it is impossible to be blind and live independently—going blind is the worst thing that could happen to you—and the only solution is a cure.

 

Which brings me to my second issue with the #HowEyeSeeIt campaign. As I said, I have no problem with research for a cure. But there are other options, options that are hampered by the notion that being blind is to be feared. Braille, assistive technology, white canes or guide dogs, independent living skills training, positive public awareness campaigns, these are the ways we combat blindness.

 

Not being able to see is not the end of the world. Trust me, I know. There are strategies for handling money without sight—everything from folding bills to smart phone apps. And a blind parent is just as capable of taking care of a child as a sighted parent. In the midst of efforts to prevent social services from taking children away from blind parents, many times before the parents can even bring their child home from the hospital, this is particularly egregious. It is a result of ignorance, and it is this ignorance and this fear of blindness that FFO is promoting.

 

By living independently, we open the public’s eyes to what we can do and how we can do it. By being open to talking to people and answering their questions, we educate the public, and we break down barriers. If we let the public see us as incapable, as #HowEyeSeeIt does, we only reinforce stereotypes.

 

I have said it before, but I think it bears repeating here: I will answer any question you have. I won’t get offended. I am happy to do it, because every question I answer is one more step towards a society that accepts diversity and does not view blindness as a “disability.”

 

This is how I see it. I am a daughter, a sister, a friend, a student. I write. I play the clarinet. I am a huge nerd. This is who I am. I am blind, yes. But blindness does not define me. Blindness does not stop me. And this is the message that needs to be shared.

Fox-Hunting, Nose-Punching, and Turning Laundry Blue: Three Weeks a 1L

I should be taking advantage of finishing my reading before midnight and getting some sleep, but since my weekend has been swallowed by my first memo, I wanted to squeeze in a quick post about my first three-ish weeks of law school.

I say three-ish because the first week was orientation, and the last two weeks have not been full weeks of classes. Thank you Labor Day.

So, three weeks ago I arrived at Harvard. Orientation was crazy, particularly because on top of all the programming, we had lots of reading to do for our introductory classes. Gone are the days when we go over the syllabus in the first class, people. I’d say I read about a hundred pages, maybe more, during orientation. And it didn’t get easier once orientation ended, because now we had more classes.

I feel like I’ve been spending every spare minute I have reading cases as fast as I can. My fingers hurt. I want to read fiction. I want to write more than a paragraph. I want to draw. Also sleep. The only time I pause reading is to take notes, but as the week goes on, those have become more and more eratic. I started out the week briefing every case. Everything was so nice and organized and detailed. By Wednesday, my briefs turned into mushy summaries that didn’t distinguish between the facts and the legal reasoning or the issues and the holding (the court’s decision). By this point, all I’m writing is “This case is about timber, a fence, some blue paint, and adverse possession.”

Over the weekend, I was able to take one day completely off, which was a wonderful, wonderful decision. It helped me reset and recharge and I was able to attack this week’s readings with gusto. And a plan.

I was going to stay two days ahead of the readings on the theory that I could be a bit more relaxed about it all. It was a good theory, but that was about it. I was so tired, and I fell behind my plan, and then I was stressed about not being on top of things. Also, because I did the reading two days before the class, and because I didn’t have time to review my notes because I was reading for the class two days ahead, I found myself struggling to remember what the cases for each class were about, even when I looked at my notes. Everything was just blurring together. So obviously I need to rethink my strategy.

Since I’ve been doing all this reading, have I learned anything?

I think yes. I feel like my understanding of what I’m reading is definitely improving in week 2, but it’s also a function of my note taking. So as my notes become less detailed, my understanding goes down the tubes a bit. I totally get what’s going on in torts and legislation and regulation. I thought I had a decent grasp on civil procedure (and then today’s class happened and I’m totally lost). I’m just sort of stumbling along in my property professor’s wake. And I haven’t been too concerned with first year legal research and writing, except to be alarmed by the Bluebook, until we were assigned our first memo today. Also, because there’s so much reading, if I don’t get something, I can’t go back to reread and try to figure it out. There just isn’t time. It’s gotten to the point when I don’t even recognize if I don’t understand something anymore, which is probably bad.

My notes also become snarkier the later it gets at night, and looking back I see they are riddled with random Princess Bride and Winny the Pooh references.

But I can definitely tell you that whoever said “A rose is a rose is a rose” is totally wrong (my latent English major is attempting to poke her head out and being beaten back). When applied to torts, a punch on the nose is not a punch on the nose is not a punch on the nose.

And that’s not to say that there’s no art in the stuff I’m reading. In Pierson v. Post, a seminal property case, the dissenting judge called the fox-thief Post a “saucy intruder.” Make of that what you will.

Okay, seriously, I’ve learned a lot. I’m not going to try to list everything I’ve learned because (1) I don’t think I can and (2) I don’t want to bore the pants off you. I’m living and breathing this stuff; I’m not about to regurgitate it onto my blog. But speaking of pants, I finally learned how to work the laundry machines, but not without mishap. In my defense, it was totally not intuitive.

I knew 1L year was going to be hard. I just don’t think I appreciated what hard meant. These last three weeks have been busy, stressfull, and exhausting. On top of the schoolwork, I’m doing a lot more cooking than I anticipated, because the law school dining hall has weird hours, and I’ve also had to stay on top of my budget in a way I didn’t even really have to do in Italy. I feel like I was not only flung into grad school but also into adulthood with a lot less warning than I would have liked. It’s been quite a transition, and I’m not out of the woods yet.

The good news is I’m not alone. Everyone I’ve talked to in my section is feeling the exact same way I am, and since 80 of us can’t be doing everything wrong, I’m guessing we’re probably doing at least something right. And everyone says it will get better. We’ll figure things out, make friends, start extracurriculars, and though it seems impossible to believe now, we’ll have fun.

That’s Jameyanne for you, ever the optimist. It is also quite possible that I drown in legal opinions and you never hear from me again. But I think I’ll go with option 1.

Summer Writing Roundup

I’ve been at Harvard for a week and a half, and by this point summer feels like a distant, golden memory. So maybe I’m a little late with this post, but I still wanted to quickly talk about the goals I set for myself this summer and whether I actually achieved them. (Cue awkward laughter.)

 

back in June, I set out a bunch of writing goals for the summer. I wanted to outline the hypothetical sequels for my small child magician novel. I wanted to have complete first drafts of all the short stories in the story cycle in my Phoenix Song universe I’m working on. I wanted to finish the fanfiction I was writing. And finally I wanted to get back to revising my memory wiping academy novel.

 

And… I accomplished none of that.

 

Okay, that’s not fair. I finished the outline for the second small child magician novel and started work on outlining the third. I revised three of the Phoenix Song Stories I’d already written and finished a rough draft of the fourth—which I’d been struggling with since December. I made a lot of progress on the fanfiction. And I got back to the memory wiping academy novel.

 

I also did a lot of other things this summer. I attended the NFB’s national convention, which was huge for me. I learned Unified English Braille (the updated Braille code which I hope to talk about in more detail in the future). ]. I got a new BrailleNote, which is more like a Braille tablet (also hope to post about that later). Then the new BrailleNote broke—apparently it had a defective motherboard—and had to go back in for repairs right before I started here at Harvard (luckily I got it back on the first day of classes). I learned the Harvard Law School campus and the T system, which was also huge, and there’s still more to learn. Finally, I had fun. I learned to play cribbage. I biked and kayaked and swam and went to the beach. I went to the midnight release party for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, my first HP midnight release party, and the party was the best part about that book (but the less said about that the better). I read a lot, and I wrote a lot.

 

Maybe I didn’t accomplish my writing goals as entirely as I’d intended, but the important thing I’m remembering is the goal behind the goals. I wanted to get myself to a place where I felt like I was at a different stage with each project so I could make progress on all of them without feeling like I was detracting from the others. I’ve now started my 1L year, and my writing time has been significantly cut down. In fact, my time for everything but reading and class has been significantly cut down. I’m hoping this will get better as I get used to what I’m reading for class, but in the meantime, it’s really nice to have projects at different stages so that, if I have a few minutes to squeeze in some writing (which has only happened once so far), I have choices about what kind of writing I’m doing and where in the process of the story I am. Right now, I have one project I’m outlining (the third small child magician novel), one project I’m in the first draft stage (the Phoenix Song stories), and one project I’m revising (the memory wiping academy novel). I feel like, with my crazy schedule and complete lack of free time, having the ability to choose what to write will actually work better for me, because it means I’ll be more productive rather than forcing it.

 

As I’ve already said, this summer was probably the last summer I will have entirely free. My goal, at its heart, was to make the most of it, and I definitely did that. So here’s to the summer, and here’s to a productive first year of law school to come.

More Important Than Fear, or How to Dance Like No One’s Watching

I am sitting on a plane returning to Boston from Orlando, Florida, where I have just spent the most incredible week at the national convention of the National Federation of the Blind. (Note: I wrote this Wednesday but didn’t get to post until today.) I went to the NFB convention because I was a scholarship finalist, but I went with low expectations—worse than low expectations—negative expectations. And now I’m struggling to find words to describe what a powerful and transformative experience it was for me.

 

Here’s a little background for you. I was born blind. I have aniridia glaucoma, which means I don’t have irises (so my eyes can’t adjust to light and dark and I am extremely sensitive to bright light) and that I have higher than normal pressure in my eyes. I do have some residual vision in my left eye. I can see light and dark, shapes, and colors. I used to have similar vision in my right eye until three years ago, when the pressure skyrocketed, my retina detached, I lost the vision in that eye, and I was in so much pain it had to be removed. Now it’s like there’s a big black hole where my right eye used to be (at least in terms of what I see there). I would be lying if I said it was no big deal to me when I lost the vision in my right eye, but on the whole I’ve always been very comfortable with my blindness. I’ve talked about this before, but I want to reiterate it here. Because I was blind, I had a really hard time socially in middle and high school. Among other things, I could never tell where my friends were sitting in the cafeteria and would always end up eating lunch by myself. I thought, at the time, that this was fine with me, because I could use the time to read and write. It was only when I went to college and met friends who banged on the table and yelled for me to come sit with them across crowded rooms—without me having to ask—that I realized what I’d been missing. Just as it was no big deal to me that I’m a blind person, it was no big deal to my friends, and this was fabulous. I don’t think I ever made a conscious decision to do this, but I began distancing myself from my blindness, losing touch with my blind friends back in New England, throwing myself into any activity that someone even hinted might be difficult for me, and emphatically shooting down anyone who suggested I consider writing about my experiences as a blind person. Through social media, I saw many of my blind friends become enthusiastically involved with national organizations for the blind, such as the National Federation for the Blind or the American Council of the Blind, but I didn’t understand why they would want to do that. Personally, I never posted anything about my blindness myself except to make a joke or to tell funny stories about Mopsy. That wasn’t how I wanted the world to perceive me. And then, as you all know, I went to Italy, where almost everyone saw me as blind and nothing else. It was in Italy where I realized that I wanted to go to law school and become a disabilities rights lawyer. By advocating for my own independence, I showed everyone in Assisi that a blind person could be independent. I changed minds, and at the end of my year in Italy, people were coming out of the woodwork to tell me that they knew a blind person and they were going to tell them everything I’d done. I thought, if I made such a difference just by existing, what could I do if I tried to make a difference? It was also in Italy where I decided that I wanted to see more representations of people with disabilities in fiction, and that if I wanted to see that, why shouldn’t I be the one doing the representing? Who better is there? At the same time, I was, and still am, honestly, uncomfortable with the idea that I will be perceived as a lawyer whose interested in disability rights just because I’m blind or as a writer who includes characters with disabilities because I’m blind.

 

Last March, I applied for a National Federation of the Blind scholarship. I was hesitant to apply, because I’d heard that the NFB was radical, militant even, and most of all that they are against guide dogs. Since my experiences with Mopsy in Italy were the focus of my scholarship essay, I was sure they would reject me. But my parents encouraged me to apply anyway. Law school is expensive, guys, and as my parents put it, money is money. So I applied, and I won. And I spent this past week at the national convention. As I said, I came with negative expectations. I planned to take the money and run for the hills. I planned to spend the convention making snarky tweets about what happens when three thousand blind people swarm through a hotel lobby.

 

I did make some snarky tweets, because let’s be fair, with three thousand blind people, the jokes are rife for the picking. But I very quickly found that I did not want to stand aside and joke around, and I certainly did not want to run for the hills after convention. The people in the NFB are fighting for causes I am passionate about. They recognize that our society has made tremendous progress towards equality for the blind, but they also recognize that there is still so much to be done, and they are continuing to fight for that equality. Sure, there are definitely some things I don’t agree with, but on the whole, it just makes sense, and turns out most of the things I was told before I went to convention about the NFB were exaggerations or downright wrong. NFB is not against guide dogs. The first lady is a guide dog user. NFB does not believe in complete and total independence at all times. They believe it’s important to know how to be independent and to know that you can, as a blind person, navigate the world without assistance, but it really comes down to knowing what’s best for you in your daily life. They aren’t sue-happy. Rather, they are pursuing change through means that are often the only way to force large corporations to take action. And they are not fighting with Google over the self-driving car because they don’t want blind people to be relying on a machine. They want the self-driving car, which has been hailed all around as an innovation for people with disabilities, to have an interface that will be accessible to the blind, and they want to prevent and combat laws that are already being passed requiring a licensed driver to operate a self-driving car—effectively excluding the blind from an opportunity to expand their own independence. Finally, to me, the NFB didn’t seem radical or militant. They seemed energetic and committed to always moving forward without settling for what we have.

 

At convention, I met so many amazing, intelligent people. I was mentored every day by members of the scholarship committee—writers, editors, lawyers alike. I attended meetings where I learned about exemptions in the fair labor act that allow people with disabilities to be paid substantially less than the minimum wage and the battles blind parents must fight for the right to raise their children as well as what the NFB is doing about it. I learned more about my rights as a blind student, and I screamed myself hoarse for Braille literacy, the Accessible Instructional Material in Higher Education Act (Aim High), the Marakesh Treaty to stop the worldwide book famine for the blind, and accessible fitness equipment. I learned how to navigate an unfamiliar area, like the airport or our hotel (which someone described as larger than the city of Pisa, and I’ve been to Pisa and I believe it), by asking for directions but staying independent rather than just by taking a sighted person’s arm and following them without a clue where they’re taking me. (Like I already said, there’s definitely times for sighted guide, but it’s nice to know how to do things without it.) And I took a ballroom dancing class and learned the basic steps for waltz and swing. I’m normally super self-conscious about dancing, because I can’t see what everyone else is doing and I’m afraid I’m doing it wrong. But here, no one could see what anyone was doing, so not only was our teacher—who was also blind—able to effectively describe the steps, but it really was the perfect time to dance like no one was watching.

 

The only thing I didn’t do was sleep and eat.

 

I also took a 1touch class,. 1touch is a self-defense program designed for the blind. I loved it, and I’m really interested in taking a longer, more intense class and maybe becoming an instructor myself, because I think it’s really important for the blind to be able to defend themselves. We might not want to be called vulnerable members of society, but as long as mainstream culture, and particularly predators, see us as vulnerable, we sort of have to face it that we are. In the class I took, we learned some basic ways to move away from someone who has grabbed you. I also now know how to break someone’s arm. I learned that if someone is simply being aggressively helpful (“Let me seize your arm and drag you across this street you clearly shouldn’t be crossing yourself!”), it’s better to twist free, step back, and tell them you’re all right and that they should ask first next time. On the other hand, if someone grabs you with the intention of hurting you, you want to grab them back and not let go because then you know where they are at all times and you’re in control. But all that aside, our instructor said something that really struck me, not just when applied to self-defense, but when applied to my everyday life: “Bravery is when there’s something more important than being afraid.”

 

I spent nine months in Italy absolutely terrified that I was going to be killed by a maniac with a motor vehicle, and since then, I have been unwilling to even stick a toe outside my comfort zone. It’s safe in my comfort zone. But it’s also incredibly freeing and empowering to walk through an airport independently, without sighted assistance, to find your gate and the bathroom and the food court on your own, to know where you are in the world rather than just feeling like a package that’s being delivered to who-knows-where. It was definitely outside my comfort zone—actually almost everything I did this week was outside my comfort zone—but once I did it, I found that my comfort zone grew to accommodate my new skills.

 

During his keynote address at the banquet Tuesday night, NFB president Mark Riccobono actually said that fear can be a good thing. Fear is powerful, he said, because it tells us that what we are doing is valuable. With everything wonderful comes fear. And we must use our fear to discover and push past our own limits.

 

So as I crossed the stage Tuesday night and received my scholarship award, I made a decision. Not a decision to be brave, which I’ve done before. Not a decision to push away my fears. But a decision to embrace them, to make something new of them, to turn them into strength.

 

Maybe I’ve been brainwashed, but I have decided that I want to join the NFB. (And just for the record, I don’t think I’ve been brainwashed, because there are some philosophies and methodologies I definitely disagree with, and that’s all right.) I want to be a part of this dynamic, energetic, strong organization and join their drive and commitment towards true equality for the blind, not only in the United States, but in the world. I want to dance like no one’s watching and not care if they are.

 

But first, I really, really need to get some sleep.