Category Archives: Writing

Usual Early Morning Stuff

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It is 5am. I fight with the alarm. I fight with the cat. It is hard to leave the bed soft, fresh sheet, downy blanket hugging me back to slumber. He won’t let me sleep in and the 10-minute snooze won’t either. My choice. I set the alarm. I keep feeding him.

I sit up. I strap on the robe and sandals. I set about the usual early morning stuff. The cats weave around my legs as I pee. There are two cats, but she is much quieter, so I don’t complain about her in the morning. The gurgling coffee pot calls to me from the kitchen. I set about feeding us. Continue reading →

Month in review: April 2018

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It’s May and this blog post is late. That’s indicative of the sort of month April turned out to be for my writing- either late or never. April was also National Poetry Month. All my writer friends produced massive amounts of poetry to celebrate. Me… not so much. Continue reading →

Month in review: March 2018

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March has been an exciting month for my writing. Back in January, I decided to start waking up at 5am to write from 5:30-6:30, six days a week. Yes, Saturday too. This is of course after the cats are fed and coffee is made, but before I get ready for work. No, it hasn’t always worked out great. Sometimes, I get up late and I only get a half hour in. Sometimes, I am so groggy or overwhelmed with a head full of life and longing that I simply journal to clear the cobwebs. Continue reading →

P.S. 2017

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Dear Friends,

In 2013, I lost most of my belongings to fire that incinerated my loft apartment. Included in that was the electronic versions of most of my writing. Remarkably, all of my hand-written drafts and two 3-ring binders with printed versions of different novels survived. They have some water and smoke damage but are still legible. Fire is funny that way, random in its violence.

That year profoundly changed my life and in 2014, I made the choice to start this blog: cmmounts.com. Although I continued to write, I only got seven blog posts written that year. I just couldn’t keep it up. I had put pressure on myself to only share my new and best writing. I wasn’t writing fast enough or with enough regularity. Cycling long distance is funny that way, consuming all your time.

By 2017, I finally got tired of not sharing my writing in any kind of real way. I started to participate in open mics around the Twin Cities. I finished and published my friend Todd Park’s memoir, my first effort as a book editor. I made the choice to post any of my original work that I thought was decent, whether written recently or not. And I tried out writing a travel log for the first time- which I guess for a nomad like me is better late than never.

I view my blog as a self-published catalog of my different styles of writing, a tool to hold myself accountable to my goals, and a way for my fans (what!) to enjoy my work. And what fans I have! For many blogs, my statistics are modest but in 2017, I posted 42 times and attracted 730 visitors who made 1,178 views. I gained 56 new followers and not all of them were my mom! Actually, I do not know most of you and that blows my mind! Thank you so much for reading my poems, stories, and other ramblings… I am humbled.

In 2018, I will continue to post my work to my blog. I will continue to read at open mics and look for new opportunities to share my work. And maybe most importantly, I am working on a draft for a fiction novel for the first time in ten years. I hope you will continue on this writing journey with me. The best is yet to come!

Happy New Year!

Christine

 

-Copyright C.M. Mounts, January 2018

What is yours?

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What is yours?

It is an hour before. With pen and paper, you sit as you always do wherever you are. A bartender stares at you when you order a beer and asks, “How cute are you?” You think, ‘No, you can’t have my number’ but say, “Thank you.” Writing and editing in a bar keeps men away. It’s easier to figure out what you’re after. It’s not them.

What is yours?

You look at your pens as if they belong to someone else, borrowed, unwanted so you picked them up. You look at your journal as being second hand, disregarded by its owner, so you picked it up. Where does this come from?

You bought each. You chose each. They are your tools of self-expression, of deliverance from a muddy mind and heart. This is your pen box. This is your ‘unlimited’ access to paper and ink. This is where the fire glows.

What is yours?

Your glasses. Your handwriting. The box of half used tissue. It is your tears that they wipe away, no one else. You are driving a meat wagon too that others seem to think they have some dominion over. They have no power over you, none that you don’t give them.

You have chosen the life of a worker. You pursue other activities once all your energy is spent. You can barely participate in anything else. You have no companion. You were not a good one.

What is yours?

This pain. This sorrow. Longing for a lifetime, for approval from someone wholly incapable of accepting themselves. Why are you surprised that they cannot accept you as you are? Why do you concern yourself with the behavior, the absence?

You carry so many heavy things. The wall of silence pressed down upon you for so long that it stole your words, your tongue, your expression. What are your rights of passage? Who celebrated with you? Who ensured that you knew that you mattered?

Now when people look at you and say, “Get over it,” they do not understand that the eruptions into the light are new. You have not dwelt upon this. You have been silent, silent, so silent. Your words are backed up, a packed colon of blackened pain. Your hopes feel unreachable.

What is yours?

 

-Copyright C.M. Mounts, November 2016

Stack of paper drafts with edits

To Edit a Book

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I am an accidental editor.

My friend Todd Park was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) in February 2013. An avid writer, he wrote entries in his blog from his diagnosis until 24-hours before his death, caused by treatment related side effects, on December 16, 2013. The blog survives as a harrowing and honest chronicle of his journey through his cancer treatment.

Early in 2014, something began to gnaw at me- What will happen to Todd’s blog? It needs to be a book but who will edit it? Who indeed. I contacted Todd’s brother John and asked permission to convert his blog into a memoir. John agreed. Continue reading →

Multi-colored V set against a green background

Artist Life

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Success comes from years of failure and practice and headache and despair. When you finally succeed at whatever it is, there is often a surprise as if you popped out of a magic hat that way. I feel the real danger for artists is to compare themselves to commercially successful artists, assuming they did it all on their own- Maverick with little more than grit and determination. While that is true, they did not start out successful and back then, back then they didn’t have staff. There was not a whole team of corporate paid handlers, marketers, cleanup crew. Yes, the artist has the raw talent but their team polishes them. So please, for the love of God, do not give up on your art because it is not perfect. You don’t have staff to help you. Not yet.

-Copyright C.M. Mounts, May 2017