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Writing Wednesday: Today’s the Day

2 Nov

What are you doing today?

It’s so easy to have a mentality of just trying to get through the day.  Or just trying to make it through the week to get to the weekend.  Isn’t that part of why we celebrate “Hump Day”?

Writing Wednesday is fun alliteration, but having a post on writing mid-week is also motivational.  It’s a reminder to get writing!  We’re midweek, so don’t let the rest of the week go by without writing, if that’s your goal.  Today’s as good a day as any to write.

Can you squeeze a few moments of writing into your Wednesday?  It doesn’t have to be a lot of time.  Maybe you can write on your lunch break.  Maybe you can write on your commute, if you take the bus or the train.  Maybe you can write while you’re waiting for the water to boil on the stove.  You might not accomplish a ton of writing in that time, but it may spark something in you that makes you more adamant about carving out more time soon to finish what you started writing.

And for those of you who aren’t writers, you can also use that same amount of time to sketch something you want to later paint, look at a map to determine where you want to next travel, make a phone call to make plans with that new friend you’ve been meaning to get to know, or send out that application.

Today could be the day that brings you a little closer to achieving your dreams.  Or, it could be just another ordinary day.

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Happy Birthday, Teddy Roosevelt!

27 Oct

Happy birthday, Teddy Roosevelt!

On October 27, 1858, Theodore Roosevelt was born right here in New York City.  I had the opportunity to visit his birth home a few years ago and write the introduction to his classic book Hunting the Grisly and Other Stories, published by the Barnes & Noble Library of Essential Reading.

I am opposed to hunting for sport, and in my introduction I highlight the fact that although Roosevelt was a hunter he was also a conservationist who set up fifty-one wildlife refuges.

Roosevelt’s Hunting the Grisly is available for purchase in both paperback and ebook format.

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Writing Wednesday: The Frugalista™ Writer Natalie P. McNeal

19 Oct

One of my summer reads was Natalie P. McNeal’s The Frugalista Files: How One Woman Got Out of Debt Without Giving up the Fabulous Life.  Now, I don’t struggle with debt, but as I just plunked down a too-big-to-say sum of money on next semester’s tuition, I can say this book touches on a sensitive issue we can all relate to: finances.

When the economy took its nosedive, Natalie had been working for years at a newspaper.  That means that not only was she facing the possibility of losing her job, but even if she remained employed at the print publication she could only wonder how long that would last in this age of digital media.

Oh, how her story hit home!  I too was working in print media (in my case, books) when the economy tanked.  And just like Natalie, I had been at my cozy, security-blanket position for years.

What I liked about Natalie’s book, therefore, wasn’t so much the get-out-of-debt plot, but the story of reexamining and refocusing one’s career in the midst of a bad economy.  By telling her own story, Natalie offered some savvy wisdom for writers:::

  • Make yourself relevant to today’s new-media world.
  • Learn video editing, even if you’re a writer, so you can add video to your blog.
  • Make friends with the online community.
  • Socialize!  Go places, meet people.  Connect IRL.
  • Build your own career, instead of just accepting the job you’re given.  (Example: Natalie asked to start a blog for the newspaper, and that blog led to her book!)
  • Connect to larger media outlets.  (Natalie blogged for The Miami Herald.)
  • Make media appearances.  (Natalie served as an expert on frugalasta™ living for larger media outlets.)
  • Write a blog to build your platform for a full-length book.

The Frugalista Files, a money memoir, is a super-quick read.  It’s not so much a how-to book as it is an encouraging and inspiring memoir.

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Lit Life: Catcher in the Rye

7 Oct

 

I went to undergrad in Los Angeles County and currently live in New York City, where we have an active alumnae book club to keep in touch with one another.  The New York branch of the Scripps alumnae book club has been selecting books on the theme of New York.  For August 2011, we decided on none other than J. D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye.

Oh, remember that teenage angst?!  The desire to be a grownup even though all adults seemed like “phonies.”  The distaste for classes.  The devastating crushes!  Holden Caufield, it gets better; I promise.

I hosted the book club at my apartment.  Well, I love to plan a good theme party!  Everyone was coming straight from work, but I made an extra effort to dress the part that day with a look that was prep-school chic — navy cardigan, red shirt, pleated skirt, and polished side part.
I served rye whiskey.  Get it?  Catcher-in-the-RYE whiskey?  I also put out colorful lollipops, reminiscent of the swirl of a carousel, like the one Phoebe rides in Central Park in the novel.  It was a pot luck and everyone brought such delicious foods!

So where do the ducks go in the winter?

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Writing Wednesday: One Step Closer to Tomorrow

5 Oct

I’m a dreamer.  Always planning for the future.  Today often gets shoved under the carpet as I dream of life a year from now.  But dreaming and doing are two very different things.  I can’t get to that future point if I don’t take steps today to get there.

Case in point: I want to publish a book.  I dream up covers and marketing ideas.  I wonder if I’ll be able to get over stage fright to do readings.  The problem is, I haven’t actually written the book yet.  How can I get to that future point of publication if I don’t spend time today writing?

What’s on your agenda for today?  Oh sure, you’ve got work and maybe a networking event function afterwards, but what are you doing today that will take you a step closer to where you want to be tomorrow?

The most productive and successful people in the world are those who are strategic.  Are you being strategic with your time?  Are you doing something every single day that will lead you to where you want to be in the future?

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Writing Wednesday: What Should I Read Next?

5 Oct

Every writer will tell you that writers should have a healthy reading habit.  The more you read, the better you write.

But what happens when you have no reading inspiration?

The website What Should I Read Next? solves your dilemma by suggesting books based on your favorite authors.

I tried it out and had mixed results.  I typed in “On the Road” and out came:

  • Martin A. Lee, Bruce Shlain – Acid Dreams: The Complete Social History of LSD: The CIA, the Sixties, and Beyond
  • William S Burroughs – Junkie (Traveller’s companion series-no.114, four Square books)
  • Allen Ginsberg, Williams/William Carlos – Howl (Pocket Poets S.)
  • Gregory Corso – Gasoline
  • Lucius Apuleius, Apuleius, Robert Graves – The Golden Ass: The Transformations of Lucius
  • William Burroughs – Naked Lunch: The Restored Text (Harper Perennial Modern Classics S.)
  • Gary Snyder – Turtle Island (A New Directions Book)
  • Paul Auster – Leviatan
  • Kesey Ken – One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest
  • Rick Moody – Purple America
  • Siegfried Sassoon – The Complete Memoirs of George Sherston (Faber Paper-Covered Editions)
  • Charles Yu, – How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe: A Novel
  • Tracy Barrett – Anna of Byzantium
  • Katsuhiro Otomo – Akira 2

So on and so forth.  Kind of a random list.  The related Beat Generation works make sense, and I can see how a few of the others speak toward a vision of America, but some of it seems just bizarre.

 

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Writing Wednesday: Brooklyn Book Festival 2011

28 Sep

New York’s largest free literary event took place on Sunday, September 18.  That’s right — the Brooklyn Book Festival!

My writer cohort and I had such a blast zig-zagging through the tents, ducking into readings, creeping close to authors, poring over books, and running into people we knew.  She introduced me to John Woo of the Magnetic Fields.  We ran into another friend from Little, Brown and Company, who instead of going the MFA route is doing his Masters in Publishing at NYU.  I saw Alisa Harris, whom I used to work with at Patrol, and who now has her own book out.

On the speaker side of things, I got to hear my writing mentors Phillip Lopate and Darcey Steinke.  I also got to hear Mary Karr, whom I had also heard speak at FFW.  Plus so many other great speakers.

 

 

I spied my writing colleague Susan E. Isaac‘s memoir on the Greenlight Bookstore table at Brooklyn Book Fest.

 

…as well as Greek American Tina Fey‘s memoir.

 

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Writing Wednesday: Story-Babies, or What I Learned about Balancing Work/Writing/Life from a Parenting Blog Post

21 Sep

Somehow, in the midst of a heat wave over the summer, I got a cold.  When I emailed my sister to complain, she lovingly sent me some kind words, saying:

Be gentle with yourself.

She related she’d read the phrase on Cup of Jo, a blog written by Joanna Goddard that my sister and I both enjoy reading.  I decided some blog reading might be a good distraction so I decided to peruse Cup of Jo, while sucking down a Coldbuster from Jamba Juice.  What I discovered was that it was Joanna Goddard’s mom, who told her, “Take gentle care of yourself.”  The advice was part of a series on juggling work/baby/life.

I don’t have a baby—at least not in the obvious sense.  Jack Kerouac once said:

“I’m going to marry my novels and have little short stories for children.”

I rather like that.  Although I don’t have flesh-and-bone babies, I am constantly giving birth to little stories.  I have my work-work (the 9-to-5 job that pays the bills) but I also have my “babies” (my creative writing projects).  Oh sure, if I don’t “feed” my book, I won’t be taken away by Child Protective Services, but I feel guilty when I don’t spend quality time with my story.  Like a parent, I feel like my life (sleep, socializing, etc.) often suffers as a consequence of my story-baby.

I turned to the Cup of Jo series on work/baby/life balance fully admitting that a book and a baby aren’t the same thing, but hoping to glean some useful tips.  Some of it gave me hope … and some of it made me bitter.

What I took away from the work-life balance series:::

  • Take care of emails in batches.  Ie, first thing in the morning and last thing at night.  That gives you more time than constantly checking your inbox.
  • Some things will inevitably slide.  Mothers who work full-time and don’t have nannies around 24/7, don’t look as put together as Katie Holmes and Angelina Jolie.  Writers who work full-time and go to grad school full-time and freelance may have bad hair days.
  • Some mothers can get nannies or hubbies to help out.  Writers are the only ones who can write their books.
  • Maybe instead of paying babysitters for a little free time, writers pay delivery men and cleaners for a little free time.
  • I’m not the only one holed up in my room.  Writers, freelancers, and moms work from home.  Maybe a trip to the playground is in order at lunchtime.
  • Compartmentalize.  Work hard and stay focused on the task at hand, instead of giving into distractions that lead to one job eating into the next.
  • Pamper yourself.  Moms almost never get time to themselves, and when they do they spoil themselves with pedicures.  Mental health days are okay to take.  Doing nice things for yourself is okay.  Writers, take note.
  • Create a schedule, tweak as necessary.  It helps mommies and writers to have a game plan for each day.
  • Make time for your husband, or in the writer’s case, a good book.  We write because we first loved books.  We need to always cherish the art of literature and never neglect it, lest we begin to lose our passion and vision.

I wonder if other writers feel like their books are all-consuming babies sometimes.

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First Sips of Alcohol

15 Sep

 

I’ve been working on a chapter in my memoir that involves a story about a family member’s first encounter with alcohol.  While researching drinking ages in various countries and drinking statistics in the U.S., I read that 1 out of 3 eighth graders drinks alcohol.

I don’t doubt that many middle-schoolers have tasted alcohol but 1 out of 3 sounds like a lot!  What do you think?  How old were you when you first started drinking?  How do you prevent your kids from drinking at a young age?

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Writing Wednesday: Twice a Week

7 Sep

 

One of the hardest things about writing isn’t the actual writing—it’s finding time to write.  Laura Vanderkam asks, “Can You Try Twice Per Week?” on her 168 Hours blog.

Vanderkam cautions against all-or-nothing thinking.  As in, I must write every single day or else I’ll give up.  I’ve heard time and time again, writers preach on the importance of writing every single day.  I always end up feeling defeated.  How can I work full-time, accomplish errands, and still find time to write every day?  Oh, and I rather like having some sort of social life, so how can I do all that and still have a life?  Vanderkam’s approach is refreshing.  She advises on making priorities out of the things we want to do but actually being reasonable about it.  She suggests that, given the 168 hours we have during the week, we can probably find two days during the work week to devote to that priority.

One way to find extra time, she says, is to wake up early.  Ugh.  Not what I wanted to hear.  I’m not a morning person.  But the truth is, by the time I’ve run from work to class to dinner, the last thing I want to do is write at the end of the night.  I haven’t tried waking up early to write, but I may give it a shot.

I first heard Vanderkam speak at MediaBistro’s book club and then went on to read her book, 168 Hours: You Have More Time than You Think.  I’d highly recommend it to … well, everyone.  I hear so many people say they don’t have time for writing or for spending time with their family or for whatever it is they want to do, and this book shows that we actually do have time for a lot of what we want to do – we just have to respect the time we’re given and get the most out of it.

Can you wake up early twice a week to work on your writing?

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