Rebeca Schiller

Courtesy of Flickr and V. Evangelou

I’ve been lax with my self-imposed retreat in part because I got so busy with work. However, I think I’ve managed to carve out a nice schedule for myself that allows me to get everything done for the day and week.  Thanks to this schedule, it means that I can get back to work on the creative writing, and focus on writing a short story.

I did have an issue though with the book I was working with and I felt it was too elementary in some respects. What I really wanted was to have some exercises that would actually get me analyzing and writing.  The universe must have read my mind because last week, Anita Saran, from the Internet Writing Workshop, wrote to let

I’ve mentioned in passing my two writing gigs, but I thought I would dedicate a whole post to the both of them since the reality is that they take a good amount of my time.

If you’re wondering what is it exactly I do at HAND/EYE Magazine here’s your chance to learn how I spend my days. I am the online editor. So what the hell do I do apart from writing articles for the online version? Well, I edit stories from other freelance writers. I research topics and reach out to artists to potentially feature them. Sometimes I ask them to byline their own stories (and most of the time I have to finesse the language), other times I ask questions and ghost write it for them, but  the majority of the time I conduct an online interview with the artist then write the story. In addition,

I spent this past weekend in Manhattan. I stayed with my good friend, stained glass artist Joseph Cavalieri. Joseph was extremely generous to put me up in his place in the East Village, and I had a blast walking in my old neighborhood, going to a fantastic show in Dixon Place and eating.

The purpose of my visit was twofold: the first, to see my friend; the second, to do some visual recognizance of the old neighborhood. You see, I lived on the Lower East Side for almost three years and Julius takes place on East Broadway and Essex Street. So I had to remind myself where certain landmarks are situated, and I’m glad I did. For instance, one of the minor characters notes that he can see The Bialystok Home for the Aged from Corinne’s penthouse loft window on Essex. Uh-uh, not possible.