Hey Darling Ones,

Do you remember way back in 2017 when all we had to rage about was this country’s slow descent into fascism? Back when we thought it was gonna be bad after the Fascist Turnip was elected but really we had no fucking clue?

I do!

At some point in that first year of Turnip’s reign The Black Sheep, my writing group, met. I don’t know the exact context of the conversation but I do know I was raging and whining about raging and struggling with writing because I was spending all my time raging. My so wise and brilliant friend Kelly said, “You have to turn your rage into art.”

This resonated with me right to my marrow. So much so that I made it my phone’s lock screen and every day for the last three or so years I see that phrase about 8274 times. Before that it was an adorable aqua & red thing with penguins and hearts that said “Be bold. Concentrate.”

Did I listen to her? Of course not. I never listen to anybody. Should I have? Yes, and not just because since then she’s won a Newbery and published more books. Kelly is smart and wise and generous and I should always listen to her. We all should.

To be fair to myself, I have turned a lot of rage into art the past ten months or so. I frequently act like writing for I Will Dare is a none thing, and I have to remind myself that it is. It is a thing I choose to create on a nearly daily basis. When it comes to this website and the craft behind it I keep going back to an excellent quote by Terese Marie Mailhot, “someone might call my work raw and disregard the craft of making something appear raw.”

The entire point of this long preamble is to say my #1 overarching goal for 2021 is to turn my rage into art. My plan to do this is to re-write The Beast because the fifth time is the charm, but mostly because the story won’t let me go and I had a bunch of good ideas on how to make it better.

The Beast, if you don’t know, is a Rock & Roll novel I wrote in 2013, and then revised for the next three years. There was a smattering of agent interest but no real takers and then I put it away for a long, long time. Instead of writing, I made a lot of blankets, read 100s of books, fell in (and out of) love, and survived the hellscape that was 2019-2020. And that’s saying a lot considering my dad nearly died all the time at the end of 2016 and beginning of 2017. Fuck man, my life has been a tragic mess since the Turnip was elected. He really did unleash some bad vibes on the world, didn’t he?

My revision of The Beast begins in earnest tomorrow because I do not like to make sudden moves and also I enjoy productive procrastination. Today I had to print it,* continue fixing the playlists, and read some of the various notes I left myself in many stupidly named text files.

All the procrastination is done, now I have to do the work. And the work is terrifying. I’m afraid I’m going to mess it up, this book nobody wants to publish. I’m afraid I’m gonna get lost in my own imagination and become untethered from earth because I spend so little time with actual people and so much time with imaginary people. I’m afraid I’ll finish it and nobody will want to read it. However, I will not let the fear stop me. I will be bold and concentrate. I will turn my rage and sorrow and loneliness and desire and longing into art.

My other goals intentions for the year, which I wrote down because I think that’s how you manifest shit are:

• Be better to myself physically, emotionally, and mentally.
• Have sex with a man. I had one in particular in mind when I made the list but I’m 98% sure I messed that up already by being too Jodi. I would like to point out that I did not apologize for it. Thankfully, he isn’t the only man on earth.
• Create something new and cool with my friend EM.
• Buy more plants so I can have a Sadness Garden in my bedroom. My heart is so horny**for a bedroom tree it’s almost ridiculous.
• Stop buying so much stuff, specifically adorable plastic garbage. Obviously this does not include plants and/or records because, who am I kidding?

That’s it. I try not to set too many intentions because Sister #2 says the more you make the more likely you are to fail and then lose all hope. She’s smart and probably the person I listen to the most (which is still not very much).

Being bold,
Jodi
 
*My revision process involves printing the entire manuscript (300 pages) and retyping it, revising as I go. For some reason having all the words already makes it harder for me to make cuts/changes.
 
**I’ve been thinking a lot about my love/hate relationship with the word horny. I’m kinda convinced it was a word made up by the screenwriters of Porky’s. And saying, “I’m horny” is the absolute unsexiest thing ever. However, saying your X is horny for Y cracks me up all the time. I blame the TV show “The Good Place.”

P.S. The picture in the header popped up in my timehop yesterday. It’s from the year where I copied my friend Elisa and wrote down all the good things that happened when they happened and tossed them in a mason jar to read on January 1st. I did not keep up that habit. I’m kinda doing it this year in my planner. We’ll see how it goes. It was so nice to see those words from Vodo, my friend and former writing teacher, especially because Vodo was hard on my writing when he was my teacher.

The post The COVID Diaries: Turn Your Rage Into Art appeared first on I Will Dare.

Bringing the disparate areas of your life together can be a little nerve wracking. When I invited Vodo my former Loft teacher and now friend to join Heather, Wolfdogg, and I on our journey to Milwaukee, I was worried.

Vodo is kind of awkward. I’m the reigning Queen of Awkward. Wolfdogg is a slightly taller & nerdier dude version of me. Awkward + Awkward + Awkward has all the potential to equal the worst thing to ever happen inside a minivan ever.

But then there was Heather. I was putting all my eggs in Heather’s basket. Heather is nothing but grace and charm and putting people at ease. She’s the best hostess ever. We could have invited the Queen of England to sit in the way back and we’d still have been okay, because Heather’s easy goingness makes everything smooth.

The day started a little rough. I was five minutes late (because I am an asshole), Vodo was ten minutes early (because apparently he is not), and within forty-five seconds of sitting in the back of the van Vodo was throwing stuff at me.

“What is this?” I asked.
“I don’t know it just came off,” he said.
“VODO YOU BROKE THE MINIVAN ALREADY?” I shouted.
“Nah,” Wolfdogg said. “That’s been broken.”
“You’re gonna get us kicked out before River Falls,” I snarled as we took off.

Because I was so nervous I kept up a pretty consistent run of stream-of-consciousness chatter, which for an introvert who rarely has to talk to people with her mouth is a lot of work. However, my fear of awkward silence far outweighs my fear of sounding like a babbling idiot. The more you know.

I told them how awful I was at dating and how hard it was to find someone suitable and how I was very popular with short men who wanted to be lifted up. This and Hobbits became a running joke of the weekend.

?Short man in fancy dress? I have no time for you,? Vodo said at one point dissing both my feelings toward the book and my views on most men who want to go out with me in one fell swoop.

And while I tried to tamp down my disdain for all things Hobbitty and StarWarsy and Doctor Who-y, the conversation that flowed from some of those topics was my favorite of the entire weekend, because it’s then that I got to see three people that I adore find something else in common.

There was a very long discussion about Doctor Who that I kind of tuned out of. It was nice.

And while the trip down to Milwaukee was all anxious energy and anticipation and jokes a minute, I kind of liked the trip back to Minnesota more.

Four weary music fans low on sleep and high on coffee. Comfortable with chatting and intermittent lapses into silence.

I spent a lot of time with my head against the window singing, because I am incapable of not singing in a car no matter who is in that car with me. Sorry Queen of England & anyone else who has to go on a road trip with me in the future, you’ve been warned. At one point Wolf even complimented me and Vodo on or harmonies when we dueted on Teenage Fanclub’s “The Concept.”

What was so great about this trip home was that the songs then spun out conversations about books or movies or other songs and musicians. There’s much to be said about being trapped in a car with three incredibly smart people who share the same pop culture sensibilities as you do, even if the left side of the car is being total assholes about your inability to listen to long instrumental intros to Death Cab for Cutie songs.

And even though I spent a lot of non-singing time threatening that left side of the car where Vodo & Wolf sat my favorite part of the whole trip was watching the two of them airdrum to whatever song was on the radio.

The post The Roadtrip appeared first on I Will Dare.

“Did you answer the phone?” Vodo asked after I, well, answered the phone.
“You called me!” I screeched.
“You aren’t supposed to answer.”
“But you called.”
“I called so I could get your number into my phone. Nobody answers. Don’t you know that?”
“Vodo,” I said. “I’m old. I answer the phone.”
“THIS IS SO AWKWARD!” He said in a tone that sounded kinda all-caps and exclaimy.
“I am going to hang up now and text you.”

I should probably just apologize to Wolfdogg & Heather right now for having to spend five hours in a minivan with Vodo and I. I’ve already threatened to live-tweet everything he says & to throw him out of the car before we hit River Falls.

The post Portents appeared first on I Will Dare.

“You know if you’re boring or not,” Vodo.

“The word panties was in there and I was like man, I’m so there,” The Sexist.

“Truth without time is the work of holy men,” Vodo.

“It’s not going to help us with the debt ceiling but it might help us make a little sense out of our lives,” Vodo on fiction.

“We were born dying. Yeah, that’s heavy. I’m busting it out here,” Vodo.

“What I say is right in this class,” Vodo.

“A lot of beginning writers almost always take too long to get going and end too soon in this formless word vomit into the abyss,” Vodo.

“How come you didn’t ask us to read Tim O’Brien?” The Sexist.
“Honestly? He owes me money,” Vodo.

“We’re just going deeper and deeper into the well, down into the page,” Vodo.

“That’s where perverts end up. They’re just lonely ghosts,” Vodo.

“Why do her nipples get painfully hard?” The Sexist.
“Because that’s what actually happens to wet, cold nipples,” Me.
“Really?” The Sexist.
“Yes,” Me.
“Dude, Google it,” Vodo.

“We’re actually workshopping a story that hasn’t even been written yet,” Vodo.

The post For Peabo: The best of Vodo, Summer 2011 appeared first on I Will Dare.

INT. DARK BAR — NIGHT

A group of eight people, five men, three women sit on plastic chairs in a secluded area of a divey kind of bar. They are seated around two formica tables that have been pushed together. One row of people sit with their backs to the windows of the bar. The windows look out over a not really busy street of a midwestern city.

There are five different conversations going on around the table. Each person seems to be engaged in talking with the person directly across from them.

The jukebox blares Cheap Trick’s “Surrender” so everyone at the table seems to be shouting.

VODO a sparse hipster-looking guy with geek glasses sits across from JODI an abundant nerdy-looking girl in an orange sweater.

Vodo gestures like he’s interpretive dancing with only his hands.

Vodo sits back, crosses his arms and smirks.

Vodo shakes his head.

Jodi gives Vodo the finger

THE END

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