What Doesn't Kill You

Depressed. #selfies #depression #tired #purple #pillows #bed #glasses

"Depressed. #selfies #depression #tired #purple #pillows #bed #glasses"

I've had some problems with depression lately, so I thought I would write a post reminding myself of the positive things that have happened thus far this year.

I guestblogged for Kottke.org. Like I said before, this was an awesome time. Why doesn't the New York Times ask me to guest blog for them? This is one of life's many mysteries. It would be great if a high profile blog picked me up. I'm a great blogger. My friend says when you want something, the universe's answer is either: Yes, Yes But Not Right Now, Or No I Have Something Better In Mind. Or whatever. You get the idea. Universe, I await your call.

I published THE TUMOR. Fuck, this guy is like my baby! I love him so much: his cover, his pages, his content. His tone is so marvelously morally bankrupt. I read something earlier today about someone who kept being a nasty resistant asshole until the end of his days, but I can't remember who it is anymore. Excitingly, my next to be self-published short story is underway. It involves a robot. It is already a masterpiece of the genre. Trust me on this.

I auditioned for and got in an improv group that actually performs in a real theater and everything. I heard there were going to be auditions for this improv group downtown, and I went just to challenge myself. I'd only done one three-day intensive improv class at The Second City in Chicago. Experienced, I am not. A few days later I got a call from one of the people who runs it. She left a message, asking me to call her back. I was like, damn, can't she just leave a message telling me they don't want me? Now I have to call her back and get rejected live? Instead, she said I was in. What the hell! There have been a lot of rehearsals, and god knows I need them. Sometimes, I get confused by all the rules, and I spend way too much time thinking how I have to do everything right or I'm a failure, and I forget to have fun and play and whatever. Last Friday, I had to sing for the first time, and while I am a terrible singer, for some reason, it was a great time. I also rapped. Go figure.

I ate at Next. This was a living the dream moment. Such a peculiar, special thing. I want to do more things like this. I want to eat at Alinea one day. I think this is very much a thing that is art that happens to use food. I have a kind of emotional reaction to it. Probably because eating is so primal. My defenses fall away when I stuff duck in my mouth, I guess.

I got a short story published in PANK Magazine. This was a piece of fiction that I submitted a long time ago that got accepted a while ago, but the print copy arrived in the mail last week. It had a $20 bill stuck in it. (That's why self-publishing your fiction is the way to go, IMO. In contrast, I've made almost $600 off THE TUMOR thus far. I'm pretty sure 600 is more than 20.) For the last several years, as is the case with most of us, I'm used to seeing my work online. It was cool to see my words in print. BRESLIN was printed at the top of my story pages. Ink is real.

I got accepted to THREAD at Yale. The only reason I applied to this journalism program at Yale was because I saw a listing for it on Romenesko. I wasn't sure they would accept me, but I thought there was a decent chance they would. I was thrilled when they did. No, it certainly isn't the same as going to Yale, but who fucking cares! I am super excited about going to this. Journalism, journalism, journalism. I hope to meet some cool writers, and tromp around acting like a journalist, and meet some super cool mentors at the top of their game. Yay for Yale.

Getting over that whole thing, maybe. One thing I noticed that I wasn't expecting was that writing, packaging, and publishing THE TUMOR caused something in me to shift. I think maybe it helped me release some of my anxiety surrounding having breast cancer several years ago. Mostly, I avoid reading stories about cancer because they just make me anxious, But after I published THE TUMOR, I started reading more stories about cancer. News articles, essays, what have you. Recently, I went to Aruba, and I picked up a copy of Esquire for the plane, and I read "The Friend" by Matt Teague. It's pretty much one of the most terrifying things you will ever read. In cancer stories, it's always like oooh the battle and then fast forward over the dying part and then dead the end. Teague pulls back the curtain on the dying part, and my god it is just ... I still haven't gotten over reading it. It haunts me. But it makes me want to be a better writer, too: pull back more curtains, be less afraid, show the world what others haven't seen so they can't unsee it. I noticed that when I wrote "Blood Sacrifice" a few weeks ago that it was a story more about recovery than about illness. So congratulations to myself.

Oh, and I got on Instagram. Or, more importantly, I started posting boob selfies on Instagram. Recently, I had a friend diagnosed with breast cancer, and she sent me a photo of her boobs, and I sent her a photo of my boobs. Tit pics are the new dick pics. You can see in that Instagram beach boob selfie that the one on your right is a bit smaller. That's the one that had the cancer. I had a lumpectomy. The tumor was on the inner curve of the boob. The lady surgeon cut around the areola and opened it like a door and pulled the tumor out through the opening. I hope they waterboarded my tumor after they removed it, I told my friend. I suppose that's not nice. It was just doing what malignant things do. Eating people. Go eat someone else, Mr. Tumor. I got boob selfies to take, you shitty prick.

In any case, I don't know why I'm depressed. Genetic programming, maybe. I shouldn't be.

Thanks for reading.

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TGIF

Mental health break. #sea #ocean #beach #naples #florida #prozac #nature

"Mental health break. #sea #ocean #beach #naples #florida #prozac #nature"

Follow me on Instagram here.

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I'm Writing a TV Show

I'm writing a spec pilot for a cable TV show. It's about a family that works in a vice industry. It features a dead father, a prodigal son, and Los Angeles. I'll post updates here on my progress. So far, I'm enjoying the process.

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How Much I Got Paid: #9

Title: "Blood Sacrifice"

Publication: The Billfold

Date: May 4, 2015

Word count: 1,246

Payment: $30

Notes: I haven't done a "How Much I Got Paid" in a while. I was surprised to see that I'd done eight of them, and that the last one I did was in August of 2014. In any case, I've got some catching up to do. Today's installment in this series -- in which I consider a piece of freelance work I did and how much I got paid to do it -- we're taking a look at a personal essay I wrote that ran this week on The Billfold, "Blood Sacrifice." In April, I had the amazing opportunity to eat at Next. Suffice to say, dinner there runs you $350. As with my previous Grant Achatz-borne experience (see: "The Best Drink I Ever Had") at Aviary, I found the entire event to be transformative, moving, and awesome. So, when I got home, I decided I'd write about it. I pitched the story idea I had to a dozen places, including The New York Times, Aeon, Matter, The Atlantic, Chicago Magazine, Esquire, The New Yorker, Harper's Bazaar, The Hairpin, Vogue, The Awl, and The Billfold. Because most editors are worthless fucking shitbags who are too busy jacking off or reapplying lipstick to do their jobs, most didn't even respond to pass, and the lone interested party was The Billfold. Luckily, I like The Billfold. And not only do I like The Billfold, I read it. (As a sidenote, I have this weird affection for the fact that the link to their next pages reads "There's more to read, if you want!" Endearing.) In any case, I heard back from Mike Dang, who edits the site. He's a nice guy. "Definitely interested in this and would love to work with you," Dang replied. Great! "We’d be able to pay $30 for the essay." Ooh, that smarts. That is some horrendous pay. Of course, I wasn't expecting much, but that was just painful. Anyway! Whatever. They wanted the piece, and I wanted to write it. I think it took about two or three hours to do it. I like the way it came out. The part about Ouroboros is my favorite part.

Conclusion: You are what you eat. (You are not what you are paid.)

[How Much I Got Paid]

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Pank You Very Much

A new piece of fiction by me in the latest issue of Pank Magazine.

"A new piece of fiction by me in the latest issue of Pank Magazine."

The latest issue of PANK Magazine is available for purchase, and I've got a new short story in it: "Dash 2." You can buy PANK 11 online here.

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My Bloody Sacrifice

I've got a new personal essay up, this one on The Billfold: "Blood Sacrifice."

I fantasized that if I went, on the night that I was there, by some strange coincidence, Achatz would be there. Achatz, I knew, had had cancer, too, and, in my daydream, Achatz would come by the table, and I would motion to him, and he would bend down low, and I would tell him, in a murmuring voice, that I had had cancer, and I knew that he had had cancer, too. He would smile knowingly at me, and I would smile knowingly at him, and then he would disappear into the kitchen, and he would emerge with a plate of something that looked like a tumor splattered across porcelain, and I would eat it, and whatever it was made of (rhubarb? venison? something else entirely?), it would be delicious, and I would have eaten the tumor that had tried to eat me, metaphorically, of course, and the cycle of life would close upon itself, completing itself, like Ouroboros with his tail in his mouth rolling down a street like a wheel.

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I'm on Instagram

Got my bikini. #thanksforlosingmyluggage #united #bikinis #beach #aruba #selfies

"Got my bikini. #thanksforlosingmyluggage #united #bikinis #beach #aruba #selfies"

I got an iPhone 6 Plus, which I love, and I'm on Instagram. Follow me here. I love taking photographs, but my big Canon was a PITA to drag around and was getting old. I had trouble with my old iPhone, though, because my hands tend to shake, and my photos were often blurry. I wasn't sure whether to get the iPhone 6 or the Plus, but I went for the latter and am so glad that I did. Taking photos on it is fantastic. The images are great, and the weight makes it easier for me to take a sharp picture. Since my old Canon was dying anyway, my hope is to have my iPhone 6 Plus be my main camera. We'll see how it goes. For some reason, it took me forever to get on Instagram. Probably mostly because of the problem I had with taking iPhone pics, and I never really got the point. Now I get it. I also love, like everybody else, that Instagram is like Photoshop for your life. It makes everything look better. Thanks, Instagram!

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Research: Learn It

Hi Susannah,

My name is [redacted] and I’m a senior at the University of [redacted] at [redacted]. I’m majoring in [redacted] and [redacted]. This summer, I’ll be an intern for Forbes--working under [redacted]. (I sent an e-mail to your Forbes account but wasn't sure which account you might check more often.)

For my final paper in [redacted] and the [redacted] class, I’m looking at Forbes’ business model, specifically the way the company allows advertisers to publish their own content directly to the website.

I’ve always enjoyed your contributions to Forbes and follow your work on Vice and other publications. I’m interested in your perspective as a Forbes contributor, but I also think your thoughts would add some great color to the topic, since the vice beat is so interesting and unusual.

Please let me know when you’re available to speak this week. I can conduct the interview on the phone, or by e-mail if you’re too busy to chat. I’m pretty much free Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday--any time of the day or evening.

I look forward to hearing from you!

[Redacted]

[Redacted]'s an asshole, I don't write for Forbes anymore, and I've never written for Vice. So no.

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Rejection, Reconsidered

I get rejected, a lot. These days, actually, you're more likely to get ignored than rejected. Silence is the new no thanks, the muted good luck placing your work elsewhere, the digital version of please keep us in mind in the future. In any case, this week I received a rejection that was, well, different. To wit (in part, it read): "[Redacted] raised worries about the variety of emotional reactions (and toxic feedback) that it might generate from readers." So, the internet lynch mob is working, I guess. Apparently, editors are shuddering from the chilling effects of invisible morons clambering around social media to create a shit storm about whatever something or other that's offended them lately. Too bad. Life is more exciting when you offend a little, when you knock someone hard enough in the jaw that their head turns and they're forced to see things spinning newly.

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How to Make a Cool Book Cover

Very cool: Gumroad CEO Sahil Lavingia singled out THE TUMOR's awesome cover designed by Peteski as an example of great Gumroad product covers on a new Gumroad blog post: "Judging Books (and More) by Their Covers." 

Who: Sahil:
What: The Tumor: A Short Story by Susannah Breslin
Why: It’s a professional cover, but it’s nothing so crazy that you couldn’t wrangle something of that quality with a bunch of free/online tools. And I like how “A Short Story” sits in the center of the target.

Thanks, Sahil and Travis!

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Write Like This

You want to write like a real journalist? Write like this. That's what I'm thinking. I loved reading this. It's like watching a writer swing from sentence to sentence, hanging by his word choices.

We made our way downslope, to an abandoned mine. The tunnel entrance was twenty feet wide, maybe ten feet high. Ilasaca produced two hard hats and a miner’s lamp from a backpack, and we headed in. “I used to work in here,” he said. “There’s enough oxygen, from old shafts that go to the surface.” He gestured toward the depths of the mountain. As the tunnel narrowed, the air got musty and the darkness, within fifty yards of the entrance, was absolute. Ilasaca was careful to light my way. He showed me mineralized veins in the walls, glittering between rough slabs of black Ordovician slate. When the quijo angled upward, he said, so would the tunnel, and it did. This had all been dug with hand tools and dynamite, he said. “Maybe two metres a day.” Back then, the lamps had been carbide, he said, burning acetylene gas. These nice bright electric headlamps we had, with battery packs that attached to your belt, were relatively new. He stopped to listen to my breathing, which was getting ragged. The tunnel ceiling had been dropping, obliging me to crouch. My thighs were burning from the effort. I was O.K., I said, just altitude weary. More coca, Ilasaca said. I had bought coca leaves that morning, from an old woman on the street in La Rinconada. Everybody here chewed them, I was told, to stave off exhaustion and hunger. I stuffed a wad in my cheek. The leaves were stiff and bitter. Ilasaca also took a wad. The quartz vein in the tunnel wall turned downward, the tunnel followed it, and at a certain depth we found our progress halted by an icy-looking pond. Ilasaca studied the vein, tapping it with his fingertips. I wondered what he saw in its fissures and glints.

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What She Said

Time.

"Time."

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Two Days, One Night

"Two Days, One Night," French, is a movie about a woman with a problem. The problem has to do with her getting fired, and everyone else getting a bonus, and how she wants her job back but to get her job back she has to get everyone to give up their bonus. Suffice to say, this movie would not have been made in America. Marion Cotillard is the woman. She strides about purposefully in tight jeans and durable boots. She wears thin tank tops that reveal shoulders bent by the weight of the world. This isn't "La Vie en Rose" or "Rust and Bone." It's a simple story about one thing and the one woman who's going to make it happen. It is simultaneously the world's most boring movie and the world's most poignant movie. It says big things by showing little things. It's sad and heartwarming, and the ending isn't what you think it's going to be, but it's realistic.

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Clackamas Literary Review

I've got a new short story coming out in Clackamas Literary Review, which you can buy now on Amazon. You can read more about the issue here. My story is called "The Urologist."

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Sanibel Island

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THREAD at Yale

Image via @YaleThread

I'm super excited to share that I got accepted to THREAD at Yale.

"THREAD at Yale, which debuts this summer, June 7-10, 2015, is a gathering of professional journalists and storytellers that does not care whether you work in print, radio, podcasting, or some form we haven’t even thought of yet.

At this program, a small group of storytellers from print, radio, and other media will gather for three days and nights to learn from masters in the field. And from each other. It’s not a conference, and it’s not a workshop.

It’s both. Maybe it’s neither."

I'll be working on a new piece of longform journalism while I'm there.

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Neon

Enter the neon butthole. pic.twitter.com/htfwHoRaKZ

— Susannah Breslin (@susannahbreslin) April 17, 2015

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Remarketing

I changed the blurb describing THE TUMOR.

Here's the first incarnation:

"THE TUMOR is a deranged, surreal exploration of our dark places, malignancies that won't stay gone, and the lengths to which a man will go when he goes to war with a determined enemy."

Here's the new incarnation:

"THE TUMOR is a slipstream short story starring an anthropomorphic tumor, a killer husband, and an invisible woman. Based on the author's true life experience with cancer (she's fine now!), this terrifying tale will grab you by the balls and make you scream."

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The Tumor Sales

Here are the sales numbers for THE TUMOR to date:

Total copies sold: 89

Total revenue: $541.00

I use Gumroad and Pay What You Want pricing.

Buy THE TUMOR: "This is one of the weirdest, smartest, most disturbing things you will read this year."

The No Comfort Zone Program

A few weeks ago, I signed up for an improv class. Basically, the improv class has been pretty disappointing. I only have one prior improv class experience, which was at The Second City. This is not that. The only way I can think to describe this class is to say it feels like the inmates are running the asylum. This is not a good way to learn improv.

In any case, I heard that there were auditions for another improv group last Saturday. I was excited about going, but then I started the improv class that is the inmates running the asylum, and I wasn't sure I wanted to go to the audition. I guess it made me doubt my abilities. But I did some more reading about improv and decided to go.

I went to the audition. I auditioned with another person. There were four people judging us. I didn't think I did very well. I felt disappointed afterwards. Then I was annoyed for the next day.

On Monday, I found out that I got picked to be in the improv group. Which is really exciting. This is a different improv group than the inmates/asylum class one, and I'm excited about it.

I'm nervous about doing something I'm maybe not super great at in front of a group of people, but there are going to be a lot of rehearsals, and I figure doing something is better than doing nothing.

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