#I also completely failed to stay focused and veered off into other subjects

[heyclickadee]

So, I wanted to clarify something here, because going through the notes made me realize that this really didn’t come across the way I meant. This wasn’t really intended as a criticism of the show (though you can take it as one), except in a sort of schrodinger’s criticism way, where it’s merely an observation if Tech is still planned to come back but can also double as criticism in the negative sense it if does turn out to have been planned as a death (I’m not yet convinced of this). I am simply pointing out that it isn’t written as a death as evidence he is intended to be alive.

The thing is, I think it’s the story they are still telling. I think a reunion is still on the table. I don’t think what we got was a return that was planned and abandoned—I’m actually not even fully convinced that CX-Tech was planned and abandoned—but rather a return and reunion that’s been set up and just hasn’t happened yet. Because the set up continues into and through the final episode, and there’s nothing in the epilogue that precludes it from happening in the 15 to 17 year gap.

(Further clarification under the cut. I’m sorry, this got really long because I got sucked into over-explaining my point of view to a kind of ridiculous degree. Short version is that I think the reason it isn’t written as a death at any point and that the reason Tech hasn’t come back yet is because there’s more story to tell. I will yap about this for days. Be warned of yapping.)

For one example of what I mean by set up, in this case a kind of structural set up, take, say, Crosshair’s and Tech’s relationship. It’s the relationship that’s left the most explicitly in bad terms at the end of “Kamino Lost.” Hunter and Wrecker both offer Crosshair olive branches in one way or another, Omega lays, “You’re still they’re brother Crosshair. You’re my brother, too,” on the table; and Echo doesn’t say anything but he is standing next to Wrecker and staring expectantly at Crosshair with his big sad eyes hoping Crosshair will come with them. Crosshair doesn’t take any of them up on it, but, “Consider us even,” (a statement directed at Hunter even if he’s responding to Omega thanking him for saving AZ) buries a lot of the animosity. The relationships aren’t healed, but there is a kind of uneasy truce.

Tech, on the other hand, just gets on the ship. He doesn’t stay past when Crosshair rejects Wrecker’s offer to come with them. Potentially because he’s even more upset than he’s letting on.

Meaning that the last exchange Crosshair and Tech have that isn’t Tech spouting exposition is this:

Crosshair: Why are you defending me?

Tech: I am not. Understanding you does not mean that I agree with you.

From there, on Tech’s side, Tech lets on that he’s still struggling with the entire Crosshair situation via the conversation with Omega in “The Crossing” and the conversation or conversations Phee references in “Juggernaut.” He’s the one who pushes the team into rescuing Crosshair the second he learns Cross did something to get on the empire’s bad side and landed in the clutches of a mad scientist who got kicked out of the Republic Science Corp for cruel and unnecessary experiments. And of course it’s largely because he loves Crosshair like he loves the rest of the family and, sure, he’ll respect Crosshair’s agency (to make stupid decisions) but he’s not about to leave Crosshair to die. But I also think there’s potential for it to be partly driven by the fact that he knows they left things off on bad terms, and he wants a chance to fix things if Crosshair is open to it. Then, of course, he falls without getting that chance or even a line to close out his relationship with Crosshair.

On Crosshair’s side, we have Crosshair making the choice to stay with the Empire at the end of season one. This leads him to Barton IV, which leads him to Tantiss, which leads throwing away the only chance he could have had to escape Tantiss on his own to warn the others about Hemlock, only for it to be the thing that leads directly to Tech falling because that message is the only reason Tech knew he needed rescuing in the first place. (I think this is why Crosshair doesn’t bring it up in the argument with Hunter, from a Watsonian perspective, anyway. He doesn’t exactly have a limit in arguments; this is a man who told a child he’d both kill and die for that he’d leave her for dead if he had the chance hoping it would be enough to get her to leave him. The only reason he wouldn’t use Tech’s sacrifice to get at Hunter is because he blames himself too much to have the heart for it.)

Crosshair never deals with or confronts this, he never even approached it, until the very last episode of the series where the show makes it explicit that a big part of his problem is that he feels responsible for what happened to Tech and to clone force 99 as a squad. “Clone Force 99 died with Tech,” is the preamble to Crosshair calling for Plan 99 and declaring that he deserves death and worse—and the only pushback he gets is Wrecker telling him that they all know—that Tech knew—things are dangerous, so they’re not letting him do this alone. Crosshair never gets over his guilt over Tech, and he never takes the statement that he deserves to die over it back. And when you’ve got a character who has spent the bulk of the show implicitly suicidal suddenly declare himself explicitly suicidal right before he tries to get himself killed six or seven times, you really need him to bring him to a point where he explicitly wants to live in order for him to feel fully cooked (unless it’s not time for that yet and you have more plans).

That’s where we leave that relationship. Completely unresolved, with unfinished business in both sides.

And that’s not even getting into how CX-Tech—still a possibility in my book, since CX-2 is never revealed on screen as not Tech, and since they killed the man two other times before he popped up fine five minutes later, meaning I’ve got my doubts as to whether he’s actually dead—actually could push this unfinished, unresolved relationship further, how it works really well if he’s the shadow of Crosshair’s guilt—not Cross’s dark side—that Crosshair hasn’t overcome yet. That could be its own post. Bht just focusing on what we know for sure, that Tech and Crosshair left things off in bad terms and never got to deal with that—

The thing is, you can have a story where a relationship is cut off with no closure and left with unfinished business. You can! But if you do, you have to explore that. You still have to have a resolution. In this case, if we wanted to leave no room for Tech to return, that would look like Crosshair explicitly coming to terms with the fact that he’s not going to get the chance to fix things with Tech, and perhaps being dragged kicking and screaming to the knowledge that Tech thought the sacrifice was worth it for his sake and that Tech wouldn’t want him to be miserable.

That isn’t hard to do, and there was time to do it if they scrapped a return plan halfway through writing the third season. I’d want an entire half season arc about it, but all it would take is one direct conversation between, say, Omega and Crosshair, where Omega is finally coming to terms with the idea that she is never getting her big brother back (something she never does—you can actually make the argument she thinks he’s alive up through the end of the series) and trying to get Crosshair to see that Tech falling wasn’t his fault and that Tech wouldn’t blame him.

Omega: Tech thought saving you was worth the risk. I did, too.

Crosshair: What if you were both wrong?

Omega: I wasn’t. And Tech seldom was.

There. Three lines, and depending on how you play Crosshair’s reaction, you wrap up Crosshair’s guilt about Tech, his relationship with Tech, his reconciliation with the batch as a whole (because now he’s reconciled with the one who’s missing), and (if you get his response right) his reconciliation with himself. Clarify Omega’s stance on Tech’s status. Replace the meditation b-plot in the Fennec episode with Crosshair dealing with this.

Or, put it in “Point of No Return,” in the scene where Omega makes the decision to sacrifice herself. Have her invoke Tech as a reason why why she’s going to go sacrifice herself to save Pabu, like Tech sacrificed himself to save them, and frame Crosshair stepping aside and allowing her to do so as him coming to terms with Tech’s sacrifice, that part of it was to save him, and that he’s going to pay it forward by making sure that Omega’s sacrifice works and that she is going to get a chance to come back from it. Then, in “Juggernaut,” retroactively and posthumously put closure in Tech’s mouth by expanding on Phee’s interactions with Crosshair and have her make it 100% clear to Crosshair that Tech would have never blamed him and had no remaining animosity towards him.

Or, hell, if you were planning on bringing the man back all the way up to the finale and then had to scrap it then, have the closure for the relationship between Crosshair and Tech come in that episode. Have there be a real rebuttal to Crosshair’s, “I destroyed our family so now I’m going to get myself killed over it,” moment. Have it come from Hunter, with Wrecker backing him up. Or visa versa. Have someone rebuff Crosshair and say (the more cleanly written equivalent of), “Clone Force 99 isn’t dead, and it’s more than just a squad. We’re a family. What do you think Tech sacrificed himself for? We’re going in together, and we’re coming out together, too.” Have a moment where Crosshair has the chance to kill himself for the sake of the others and then finds another way to help that doesn’t involve dying explicitly because throwing his life away would also be dishonoring what Tech gave and everything the rest of his family has worked towards so far.

It’s stuff that kind of writes itself if you are suddenly writing from the perspective that Tech is dead and you’ve abandoned a plan to bring him back, or if you never had one and always thought about him being dead. There are lots of options for giving that relationship closure that don’t require bringing Tech back!

Except they don’t take any of those options. Instead they:

1. Refuse to show us the moment when Crosshair learned about what happened to Tech. This allows them to sidestep one of many opportunities for reinforcing Tech’s death as a real thing that happened. And if he got the news from Omega, it also hides her feelings on what happened, meaning you can hide whether she thinks he’s alive or dead, and allows them to sidestep confirmation on Tech dying as told through our target audience POV character. There’s a reason to avoid this moment if you’re writing the character as alive but not bringing him back before the end of the series.

2. Remind us late in the last season that Tech was still struggling with Crosshair’s choices (“Tech told me all about your…sparkling personality.”) without doing anything to imply he got past that struggle.

3. Let Crosshair confront his guilt and despair over every other situation (Mayday, Barton IV, Howser, Hunter, Wrecker, Echo, and especially Omega), while refusing to let him engage with losing the brother who supposedly died on a mission to save him and letting that pain bubble under the surface until the very last episode where he declares that he’s going to go get himself killed over it. Crosshair never overcomes this. He’s never at peace with himself. He comes to understand that his family—Hunter and Omega in particular, in a moment that’s a beautiful reversal of the scene where he saves Omega at the end of “Kamino Lost”—trusts him with their lives and beyond, that Hunter trusts him with Omega’s life, which is a huge deal and fully reconciles his relationship with them…but he never reconciles with himself. Not even his sunshine baby sister Omega can help him do that. For all the progress he’s made, his self-estimation is still where he was at the end of “Confined.” He still thinks he deserves to suffer and die because he’s left thinking that the most selfless thing he ever did—sending that message from Tantiss knowing he’d be recaptured and tortured—was not enough to fix the one mistake that snowballed into Eriadu and Tech. We leave him there without processing any of that or bringing closure to his relationship with Tech. Every opportunity to do any of that was avoided. Fastidiously.

Meaning that the only way to actually resolve that relationship, the route into which the writing has kind of locked itself, is bringing Tech back and resolving it that way.

Now, I’m using the Crosshair and Tech relationship as an example, but there are so many examples in the series that are just like this. Avoiding closure, avoiding reactions that would reinforce the idea that Tech is gone, avoiding answers, avoiding resolution of plot points and character arcs to which Tech is connected, and consistently so. A clear death is the easiest thing in the world to confirm in show, there are a lot of lines and conventions that you kind of have to work to avoid if you’re coming at it from the perspective of writing a dead guy, and given that the season is stalling almost to its breaking point in the last half there was ample opportunity to fit them in. TBB avoids all of them.

When I say that it isn’t written as a death, I don’t mean that I think it’s a clumsily written non-death. I mean that it consistently, deliberately, through the end of the show, avoids categorization as a death. Dodging closure, resolution, even open discussion that could lead to clarification means space is left for Tech to come back. More than that, the sheer amount of setup, foreshadowing, and resolution that needs Tech to be present, since they didn’t resolve in his absence, requires him to show up alive in a future chapter in order for the story to work. Not as something they might come back to, but as something that needs to be revisited and almost has to be baked in in order for it to have been written like that in the first place. It’s like a slower, perhaps more intense version of Ahsoka’s “death” at the end of season two of Rebels and the handling of its aftermath. That’s the pattern it and all the handling of it afterwards fits.

So, again, not a return that was never planned, or was planned and scrapped, but a return that continued to be set up and just seems to have not happened yet. Whether it’s because it was always planned to be a story split across more than one show, or whether there was originally a one show plan that got split into two during production of this one (or maybe a hybrid version of these two ideas), I really think the reason we didn’t get a Tech return (or a clone rebellion, for that matter) is because it has a place in the next chapter of the story where it’s going to be allowed to breathe without being truncated or overshadowing the stuff around it.

Now, whether I’m even close to the right track remains to be seen, and if I am? Whether splitting this particular fakeout, if fakeout it is, across two shows was a good move is a whole other question (my personal opinion is that it has the potential to be incredible from a writing perspective and that I will probably have very few issues with it from that view if it turns out I’m right, but oh dear lord someone tell the Lucasfilm marketing team that the lack of disclosure makes for idiotic audience management). But that is my working theory and the framework from which I’m writing a lot of my posts.

But it’s also a slightly different angle than the framework the fandom is generally using, which means I forget how things are generally going to be read.

The thing with Tech, “Plan 99,” and its aftermath that I keep coming back to is that it isn’t written as a death. Not that’s it’s a badly written death, not that it’s a death I think shouldn’t have happened, but that it isn’t written as a death at all.

[kae-karo]

[1] hi!! so idk if you've seen dan speaking at the mental health panel or not, but there was one part that hit me really hard and id love to know your thoughts on it! basically he was saying that often content creators, and people in general, are struggling with their mental health the most when it seems like they're thriving (uploading constantly, getting good grades, etc) but everyone thinks they're fine. which is literally my life rn but i can't take a break from overworking myself bc i need

[2] to get into college. do you have any advice abt how to provide for my future while still taking care of myself? also, i just want to thank you for running such a healthy and positive blog bc it has helped me thru some difficult times, and you seem like such a thoughtful and caring person!

hi dear! oh no :( I'm so sorry, that's such a hard position to be in - I havent been in school for a few years, and not in high school since 2012 yikes lmao, so I'm sure things have changed a bit but hopefully I can still give some advice that helps?

I'd say first and foremost, talk to a trusted adult you know in person about how you're feeling - whether that be a parent, older sibling, favorite teacher, advisor, etc. they may have advice more specific to your situation that might take into account details I dont know. and while this is my first piece of advice, it can also be the hardest? sometimes facing our demons and being honest about them with others who have only seen our "good side" can feel impossible, but it can be a crucial step to help build a support system that you can go to when you feel you're struggling

the next thing I'd say is, on a small scale, start taking time for yourself. I know that's like. the hardest thing to do when you have like 6hr of homework a night, minimum, plus clubs or sports or other activities that take time, but literally even sneaking five minutes between some bits of homework to do something that's calming and centering for you can make a difference - if you can grab five minutes to go sit in a space you feel comfortable, away from your work, to breathe and think about something other than your work, that can be helpful

the next one is sorta like. tangential, but take care of your body as well - you're still a growing and developing human, so this is ESPECIALLY important, but drinking lots of water (and not too many sugary drinks/chemical drinks) and eating veggies and getting enough protein can literally make such a big difference in your brains ability to function at it's best. the other important thing here is sleep - every body is different, so keep in mind what your body does best on and (when you can) aim for that. between hydration, good nutrition, and sufficient sleep, you're laying a foundation that can help your brain be more successful throughout the day

I wish, ultimately, i had a perfect answer for the fucked up school system (esp in America which is what I'm most familiar with), but it honestly sets you up to fail. what (unintentionally) worked well for me was having a blow-off class or two - classes that were easy for me (like sign language, or French 1 after I'd already taken Spanish for several years) and could help boost my GPA without stressing me out as much. if you can find those classes- and definitely look for the ones that are easy for YOU, don't just ask around for the easiest classes - that can be a really nice break in your day and help relieve you of some after-school stress

here's another "honesty is the best policy" situation - if you find yourself struggling to understand a concept, or homework is taking you so much longer than some of your peers (or the teacher says theres only an hour of hw a night and you end up spending far longer on it) talk to the teacher! tell them you're struggling, and ask if you can get some help understanding a topic. be specific about what you dont understand (dont just go "I dont get it") and explain your thought process - this can help teachers understand where you're veering off the path and what you might be missing. and, more importantly, if you're coming in for help, they're more likely to be lenient with you because they know you're trying (yes I'm aware that was more a "school help in general" bit of advice but in case that's something you're struggling with)

now heres....maybe some controversial advice. take calculated risks. example: if a teacher has a policy where they drop your lowest homework grade in a class and you're doing alright in that class, but you have a day where you're saddled with WAY too much work for another class where you're struggling, it's okay to say "okay, today I need to go to sleep by 10pm, I can either finish this difficult homework or complete homework for the class that will drop a grade", sometimes it makes more sense to skip that one homework and get a zero to spend time dedicated to the class you're struggling in and get rest. in a similar vein, there is also a limit to studying - there is a point where you physically cannot absorb more knowledge. it is so much better for your brain - both from a focus and memory standpoint - to get a little extra sleep than to stay up late studying well past the point where you will retain knowledge.

now....again, I havent been applying to colleges in ages so my advice might be a bit stale, but colleges tend to look for good grades but also challenging classes, or improvement over time in classes, etc etc. they want to know you're working hard, and that you have diverse interests. college apps are a bit like resumes honestly, except you cant lie about your GPA. but like. you can fluff everything else. literally EVERYTHING becomes fair game with college apps. you can talk about fanfic or a fandom you're in if you phrase it the right way, like there are barely rules lmao. and you can make yourself sound very appealing

so my advice would be basically this: work hard, but learn your personal limits. figure out how much sleep a night makes you feel awake and focused the next day (again, it varies!) and aim for that as much as you can. try to eat nutritiously when you can, and drink lots of water. dedicate time to your homework and studying, but be sure to take regular breaks and ACTUALLY shift your brain away from your work during those breaks. and it's also good to dedicate time to life activities - like I said, colleges want to know you're a diverse person. spend time in clubs you like or playing sports if that's your thing, or do things unconnected to school. and remember, you can fluff that all up on a college app! but also remember - you have to live with you for the rest of your life, and there are so so many paths to a good job or a college education if that's what you decide you want, be sure to prioritize your health as much as you can. the education system tricks you into this never ending cycle of "if I just push through ___________ I'll get to ___________!" and taking that through your life can be really challenging and exhausting. I need to acknowledge that some of this is easy for me to say - I was a good test taker in high school, I went to college, and I bullshitted my way through (that's a whole other story lmao) but like. I need to acknowledge that, by some privilege and luck, I do have a college education. so when i say this next thing, please take it with a grain of salt, but there is more to life than chasing what society tells us to chase - there is family, there are friends, relationships, hobbies and interests and love and dreams and spending hours playing video games and SLEEP and getting sunburned cause you spent too long out under the sun photosynthesizing and collecting pens or shiny rocks and ANIMALS there is so so so much in life and I hate with such a burning passion that, for the first 22 years of our lives, we are told the ONLY thing in life is getting through college, getting a degree. again, I need to acknowledge that I say that with a background of privilege, and that education can help people get out of bad situations, etc, but there are many paths to education and they dont all require you to put life on hold to get there

let me tell u a story real quick, cause my education looks (from the outside) "easy" (turns out I had depression and eating disorders of all kinds yeehaw !!!!). my sister did NOT have an easy time in school - my parents could afford it, so she had a tutor for some of her challenging subjects, but she also dealt with anxiety and depression the entire time. she didnt get into the college she wanted to, but got put in a sort of program where, if she got good enough grades in some community college courses, she could get into the school. so she worked her ass off, dove even deeper into her mental health issues, but eventually did get in. and then she had challenging classes and didnt have a great support system, and she ended up failing out of many of her classes, to the point where she got put on academic probation. so she took a year off, got a job at a daycare, and I have literally never seen her happier or more well-adjusted. shes going back to school now, for early childhood education, and working part time at the daycare while she takes a light course load at school

another story for you - my aunt graduated high school and went straight into the workforce. she came from a dirt-poor family and couldn't afford it. she bounced around a bit, but eventually found company that she worked well with. they paid for her to go to school, and she finally got a degree many years after what we would consider "traditional". she had a few other jobs, but shes been at her current company now going on 20 years, has been through several promotions, and works directly with a c-suite employee. she is also the only woman in her office, a very traditional trucking company where she works with engineers on a daily basis

there are many paths to education, if that's where you want to go, and it's okay if it ends up looking different from the traditional path were told to follow. do what you can to avoid sacrificing your mental health for an education - if its what you want, you will get there. and remember to ask for help along the way!! I hope that helps a little, dear

[limejuicer1862]

Wombwell Rainbow Interviews

I am honoured and privileged that the following writers local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me. I gave the writers two options: an emailed list of questions or a more fluid interview via messenger.

The usual ground is covered about motivation, daily routines and work ethic, but some surprises too. Some of these poets you may know, others may be new to you. I hope you enjoy the experience as much as I do.

Jeanette Powers

is the founding editor of Stubborn Mule Press and a poet/painter with seven full length poetry books published, along with numerous gallery exhibitions and online journal publishing credits. They also are a founding member of FountainVerse: KC Small Press Poetry Fest, an annual festival celebrating the indie press poetry world and which has featured international and US based presses over three days each October. Powers has been awarded grants for the poetry fest, as well as for the POP POETRY: #12poetsin12months series which featured 36 KC based poets over three years in collaboration with Spartan Press. Their personal work focuses on feelings, avoiding the political and investigating the internal wonderscape of relationships, family and emotions in a way designed to reach beyond identity while staying fiercely personal. Their newest book, “Sparkler Princess vs Suicidal Phoenix” is available through their website at jeanettepowers.com and you can follow Jeanette at @novel_cliche .

https://stubbornmulepress.com/

https://jeanettepowers.com/

The Interview

1. When and why did you start writing poetry?

I started writing very young. I was reading before even kindergarten and have always been a library brat. It just always felt right to be creative. I think all children probably feel this way, or at least do until they get a device in their hand. I didn’t get a phone till I was 32. Why did I start writing? I figured out that in my imagination, I am completely free. There are no hold barred, no limitations. I thrive in environments like that, and have just never stopped writing.

2. Who introduced you to poetry?

Wow, what an amazing question. I guess maybe was my fourth grade teacher, I definitely wrote my first poem in 4th grade. It was about a pegasus that I rode into the moonlight. But I wasn’t taken with poetry until high school when I was reading books from my school library. And I mean I really went through libraries as a kid, but this was the first one where I found the poetry section. I remember finding ee cummings and Sylvia Plath, but the poet that really took my breath away and whose book I stole was James Dickey. I think of that book often still, and here it is again. When I moved to the city after graduating, my education in poetry began in earnest, going to open mics and meeting lots of people who were voracious readers like me. It was a beautiful space in my life to be filled in with the classics and with a lot of the great modern Masters. The last decade though has been much more dedicated to reading living, contemporary poets.

2.1. Why did James Dickey take your breath away?

I suppose he sort of reminded me of my grandfather; the poems make sense, they have a weight of history, they have a certain amount of existential angst without it becoming pained or mewling. There’s also a joy and just a raw humanity. It’s not necessarily the poet that I would pick off my shelf today, but he sure set wheels going in my head.

3. How aware are and were you of the dominating presence of older poets traditional and contemporary?

I guess in some ways I’m not that aware of it then or now. It’s just all about what is relatable or interesting in terms of what I read or collect. I certainly see how, in many ways, older poets have more access to doing poetry because putting books out and touring are both expensive endeavors. I think many of the younger or marginalized poets just don’t have the opportunity to be read and heard due to financial restrictions. Which is why I’m always such a huge fan of the no-fee submissions. Of course it’s difficult for everyone in every way, but I very much feel that if you are going to dedicate yourself to building a press that is inclusive, then not charging fees is essential.

4. What is your daily writing routine?

I have struggled with routines my whole life, always wanting and always being too much of a being made of chaos to make it work. However, what works best most of the time is for me to wake up in the morning and not think of anything else in the world except for my own art, whatever project I’m working on at the time. I can work anywhere from an hour to three or four if I get on a roll. Then I go do my make-money work, read, socialize, drink. Sometimes, though, a project really calls for something special in terms of a routine. For instance, I wrote a novella in 2018 which required me to start writing tipsy and then just get extremely drunk to write. I couldn’t get the rage of the main character any other way. It’s a strange and very intense book. I think of it like character acting. You have to inhabit the space of your novel. Of course, poetry is only inhabiting the space of me, so that is easier to access. And I also love writing alone at bars or coffeeshops. In fact, tomorrow I’m going to a city (three hours from my country home!) just to do that! ha!

5. Method writing! What motivates you to write?

Method writing. Yes. That’s cool. I’m motivated by feelings, the most. I love the idea of the common denominator between people, things that interrupt the binaries of the world, emotion and feeling is a huge one. I’m interested in excavating those deep feelings that mostly go just felt and not put into words. I’m not interested in writing lectures or proselytizing, I’m interested in the dirty, hypocritical, angelic, joyful paradox of self and believe that is what makes us human. I have a natural deep compassion, and what my therapist once described as a penchant for dissociative identity disorder. This makes it easy to write. Also, I’m not afraid of telling the truth of my own stories, in fact, I view my own life as a subject through which I can practice writing. I can see I’m veering between my poetry and my novels a lot here … in some ways they are interchangeable in terms of motivation. I want to recreate a feeling, sometimes the poem is the right vehicle, sometimes a painting, sometimes performance art, sometimes a novel. I do so love when the world of a novel is born in my head, it’s addicting. Of course, you better be addicted because they take so damn long and so much focus to write.

6. What’s your work ethic?

I met a new doctor the other day and after a couple minutes, he looked at me and said “you are very self motivated, aren’t you.” That’s right, I said. I have a mantra, it goes like this: do the job completely with all of your conviction. do not lose focus on the job. do not stop until the job is done. do not stop until the job is right. do not cut a corner. measure twice, cut once. There are many verses to this mantra! I’ve been called the Energizer Bunny, Galadriel’s Light, Perpetual Motion Machine, Force of Nature on the regular, my work ethic is almost a sickness. In fact, being a workaholic is likely a coping mechanism. I’m just lucky I’ve learned to love to fail, that the perfectionist is mostly gone, that the auto-masochist in me retired, and now I mostly work in just a pure state of joy. Creation is the best playground I’ve ever found, you won’t catch me coming in from recess.

7. How do the writers you read when you were young influence you today?

Not much, actually. I’ve always been a forward thinking person, and I’m voracious for what’s new, who’s new, what’s next. I go back and reread very rarely (unless it’s Dune, Neruda, Rilke, Atwood or Szymborska … or the Tao which I read daily). That’s why the indie press circuit fits my character so well, because the writers there are “the little makers of a pre-spice blast” (lol for Dune fans), contemporary writers are on the cusp of the now, their voice is my voice, this experience. It’s intoxicating. Same with painters and music and movies, I want what’s happening this moment (except for Duchamp, who was the greatest artist of all time!). I guess if I really thought about who influences me, it isn’t really another writer at all, it’s the lady pregnant with her fourth kid trying to buy a new car, it’s a tadpole turning into a frog, it’s falling in love, it’s a factory worker in January Toledo who can’t afford to heat his house, it’s how my dog can take so much pain without complaining, it’s how adopted children are really, really wanted. The list goes on and on, other writers, though? Just friends along for the ride, and bless them

7.1. Why go back and reread these authors?

Each of those authors have something distinct that touches me, they each feel like family. I suppose that’s why they stick around. You can’t get rid of family. Neruda for love, Rilke for philosophy, Wislawa for courage, Atwood for bite and range, Dune for religion. And the Tao because it’s the closest to truth I’ve ever found and I’ve searched far and wide. I once even got degrees in physics and math in the pursuit, to no avail.

8. Whom of today’s writers do you admire the most and why?

My favorite working poet is Nadia Wolnisty, she has this capacity of turning a metaphor like no one and also just this clearly raging passion and her performances are stunning. Michelle Q. Smith, is my newest favorite, I ran across her book Ariel in Black and was blown away, she had this way of accessing older works and responding to them which is intoxicating. I also love the former poet laureate, Juan Felipe Herrara, his poems are so alive they are literally dancing off the page. George Wallace has that same power. Mike James and Daniel Crocker, both poets you’ve interviewed are spectacular for their honesty and imagination … and humor. I love humor.

9. What would you say to someone who asked you “How do you become a writer?”

I feel in some ways this is the same question as “how do you become a queer person?” … I just am. Bukowski once said “if it doesn’t come bursting forth, don’t do it.” I would add “find what comes bursting forth for you.” That’s the really difficult thing in the world, finding what you want. Do that, try everything, when it bursts forth, you’ll know that is what you should be doing.

10. Tell me about writing projects you are involved in at the moment.

Thanks so much for taking the time to interview me, Paul! It’s been fun chatting with you. I’m currently working on a screenplay called “Southern White Democrat” which tells the story of a white boy growing up in the Jim Crow south in a wealthy, politically connected family. It’s fascinating and dark. The research exposed so much of the deep trauma of American race relationships that I was unaware of, in fact, that many people are unaware of. It was intense and disappointing and I’m glad to have learned. It makes one want to learn everything, and proves “fake news” has been around a long time. I’m also writing poems as always, but no new plans to put out a book this year. I’ll be touring 2019 on my new and selected from Spartan Press, “Sparkle Princess vs. Suicidal Phoenix”. I’m writing a new novel, my sixth now, and what else … OH. Editing. I need to edit all those novels. It’s way more fun to write them than it is to edit them, ha!

Wombwell Rainbow Interviews: Jeanette Powers Wombwell Rainbow Interviews I am honoured and privileged that the following writers local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me.