Parisian Phoenix Publishing

This weekend, I needed to finish an essay I planned to submit to the fourth Behind Our Eyes literary anthology. The anthology features disabled writers from the writers group of the same name. As a member, I was welcomed to submit. I attended a meeting where the editors discussed what they were looking for, and one of them specifically asked for “more bird pieces.”

And I have bird stories. As many of you know, I have a Goffin’s cockatoo named Nala who does all sorts of strange bird things, from waking me up at 5 a.m. to expressing her jealousy of my now-deceased cat by dive-bombing him and pulling his tail.

For some reason, last Friday, I sat down and, in more or less one sitting, wrote 2600 words. That put the piece over the word limit, which was fine, because it was a jumbled, stream-of-consciousness mess. But still, I shared it with some friends and family.

And then the next day, I completely restructured it.

I had taken what started as a chronological piece about how I ended up with this parrot and morphed it into an essay about Nala’s anxiety and current maiming of herself by plucking her feathers so she cannot fly. Into that present-tense story about me working to relieve her stress, I interspersed flashbacks about how our lives got to this point.

Friday/Saturday word count: 2200+

After submitting that on Saturday, Molly Billinski emailed a call for pitches from Hippocampus Magazine, an online publication of creative non-fiction where Molly heads the writing columns. She had green-lighted an essay from me months ago and I never did it.

So, I decided to jot down some ideas. I didn’t intend to write the whole piece, but that’s what happened. And 1200 words later, I submitted a draft to Molly. And set up a coffee date.

Sunday, noon, word count: 3400+

In the afternoon, I did some research for another disability anthology. This one a paying market from author Tracee Garner. She wants to compile an anthology of disabled voices as an advocacy tool. I wanted to see what else was out there, and I ended up ordering several disability memoirs, a couple of writing craft books and The Glass Castle.

I thought I would write an essay using my life as a framework for the theme that people with disabilities are the best problem solvers. That’s not what happened. Tracee asked for specifically 1200 to 1500 words. On this strange first draft of something, I have 1400 words to revisit in a few days. The call doesn’t close until July 31.

Sunday evening word count total: about 5000 words

To see a photo of Nala when she hadn’t destroyed her feathers, scroll below.

Productivity sometimes happens in intense bursts like that, especially for me. But other people work best aiming for 200 words a day. Whatever works for you, well, do what works.