Write Naked

I didn't mean it like that

2012-01-16T13:14:00.000-05:00

Someone called me a “Jew bag” recently. It was not in the context of two people, of the same tribe, ribbing one another in that way that people of the same tribe can and do…Not to mention this is not an anti-Semitic slur I’m familiar with (and I think of myself as pretty informed of anti-Semitic slurs. I always think it’s good to know these things). I also am not one to use anti-Semitic slurs to be funny—even in an ironic way.

This came out of the blue and really didn’t fit the context of the situation: A bunch of friends who hadn’t seen each other in awhile getting together…and we were not discussing anything about race or religion.

The comment came after I received my drink order from the waiter and saw that it was wrong, asking the waiter to change it:

“You Jew bag.”

When I asked the person why they called me a “Jew bag” they said it was because I complained…ha, ha, ha.

I’m not going to play the painful and embarrassing scene out beyond that. I will tell you that the upshot of the incident is that the person later said, “I didn’t mean it like that…” My response: I hugged the person and moved on.

Obviously I really haven’t.

I can’t help but replay those words I didn’t mean it like that.

So how did s/he mean it?

***

Disclaimer: I am not mad at this individual. What I am is scared…not of the individual…but of what will happen after you read this. As I share it with the world, I’m pretty confident there will be some kind of negative response mixed in with empathy. But the negative will stay with me far longer.

But, I’m more afraid of is what happens if I don’t share this with you. If I am silent, I don’t have the opportunity to tell you why this remark was hurtful and wrong...

***

Someone said to me that what happened was a “teachable moment”, that it was my duty to inform the person that what they said was wrong, and I should tell them why it was wrong, why it wasn’t funny to me.

That, of course, made me feel responsible for the remark.

When I said to the individual that s/he had crossed the line, s/he said, Why? What do you mean? You talk about being Jewish all the time…implying that since I make self deprecating (note: ironic) comments about myself, the remark was okay.

Was it?

***

In the moment that s/he said those words “Jew bag”, I felt unsafe, and as I responded to it in the moment, as I gathered the courage not to pretend it away, or laugh it off as I have in the past, as I actually defended myself, I found that the people around me (who heard it) were speechless (some hadn’t heard the remark), or if they did come to my defense, I didn’t hear it. The feeling of confusion and hurt cut deeper and deeper until we all left, and it was over.

I’m left with two questions haunting me:

Why was it wrong for me to defend myself?

Why do I still feel so responsible for the remark?

***

Defining myself as a Jew seems to be tinged with apologizing and making self deprecating remarks…I do this to some how diffuse the bomb that might go off if I don’t…Almost an anticipated counter-attack. Why do I feel the need to block a potential attack? I don’t have an answer to that. It’s funny when you make fun of your own tribe, because it is ironic. But when someone else does, it just feels threatening.

When I relayed the story to a friend and fellow tribeswoman of mine, she suggested that maybe this person feels close enough to me to think that s/he can make these remarks, as if s/he were an honorary member of the tribe…For me, no matter how I look at the incident, no matter how much I try to understand the other side, the remark hurt and caused something inside of me to wonder…

Writing Anxiety

2012-01-14T13:34:00.002-05:00

~~Writer’s Block~~

I can’t think cohesive thoughts.

The idea of trying to write what I want to or about what I want to seems overwhelming:

· A blog entry about this.

· The whole "Jew bag" incident.

· A teenage whisperer/ a writing instructor/writing coach/magazine editor/tutor? Worrying that maybe these are too many hats to market properly, yet wanting and needing all these hats on—at the same time—because I'm a Gemini.

· Mother guilt over my Chels’ b-day party has to be canceled due to not enough kids able to come... also I work on her actual b-day...and general guilt about ALL I am….and cannot be as a mom...

· My need to get back to yoga and how to make that fit in daily.

· How much I NEED to teach my Women's Writing Workshop...and am considering running it, even if the current enrollment remains at one.

Maybe I will stop here.

If I post this, you will all want to know about the “Jew Bag” incident. Some of you will already know about it. I’m not ready to talk about it. But it hasn’t gone away like I wanted it to, and there’s something in it that lingers. I'm afraid of what I will discover if I write about it. Which, of course, means I should.

If I share this as a blog, it would be to demonstrate how to get back into writing when you have stopped for a while. You have to just start writing freely and see what comes out and be okay with it. Know that whatever the content is, it doesn't matter. It's writing, and that, in and of itself, is reassuring.

It's not that I have stopped writing entirely, but I haven’t done any creative work since I sent my revised novel off to my agent on Dec 22. I’ve been editing for the magazine and putting together some marketing materials for various projects, but nothing creative... until January 6^th at the residency where I scribbled in my notebook a page of a new adult novel about a group of writers in a residency program. : )

And now this…I feel so free and perfect and good while I write the words. Watching the thoughts in my head slide out, down into my arms, curl up into my hands, and leap out of my fingers.

That has to be enough for now.

NAMASTE

Based on an assignment called "You Know What I Hate"

2011-10-22T13:33:00.000-04:00

This is an intentionally raw, unedited piece of writing. Sometimes you gotta just vent.

You know what I hate….I hate when I fail…You know what I hate? I hate when I‘m misunderstood…You know what I hate? I hate when I think that I really am right about something in that in-your-gut way…But actually I am DEAD wrong. You know what I hate? I hate wasting time. I hate disappointing people that I respect. I hate not hitting the ball out of the park. I hate, hate, hate when there is only one way to do something. I hate when someone tells me that I’m bad or wrong or stupid for not believing what they believe or the way they believe. I hate when someone judges before they have looked at the entire situation. I hate when people resist the change they want to be. I hate when someone refuses to self reflect or refuses to try because they don’t think they can do it “right”. I hate waiting to hear if something is a "yes" or "no" because I always think that if it’s going to be a yes, then it will be immediate–like if someone asks you to marry them and there’s any kind of hesitation before the "yes", you know it really should have been a "no". I hate rules…arbitrary, one-dimensional, no-exception-no-matter-what rules…I hate when someone doesn’t trust the professional to do the job…

I hate using the word hate because it’s too definite and while I am decisive, there’s nothing in me that is definite or all one way except to say that I am always hardworking and that is a definite.

REALITY BITES

2011-09-18T11:37:00.005-04:00

Will I Ever Stop Avoiding My Reality?

Preface

The following items have caused me to write this blog entry:

1. The Guest House

A poem that a student brought to my attention yesterday. It describes the human as a house where feelings are guests that come and go, but no matter good or bad, we must “welcome and entertain” them. In fact, Rumi suggests that we:

“Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.”

2. “The realistic odds are that you’ll earn more working a regular job in an office than you will trying to invent fictional worlds and then invent new ways of selling them. There’s only one good reason to do that kind of thing: because it makes you sane and whole and happy.” -Cory Doctorow

A small tidbit from an article that my friend/mentor Tanya Whiton posted on Facebook. It discusses the author’s experiences with the harsh reality of book promotion (both as a mainstream affair and DIY).

Part A

On why these items linger with me

I came across the link from Tanya this morning whiling working on SUCKER (my indie lit mag I started in May) and my own work (a WIP that needs revision and is the 4th in my failed-to-be-launched-by the mainstream YA series).

I think you might know where I’m about to go with all this…

I’ll start with the article: First of all, I’ve read stuff like this before. Hell, I have lived (my Maddie books) and do live (SUCKER) this. And second–I try not to read these articles because they hurt my head. I mean I already know this. Why beat that dead horse again? After all, it won’t make it come alive.

Which actually leads to The Guest House: I avoid inviting and entertaining those feelings around my reality with my writing. Yeah, sure I’ve talked about it in my blog ad nauseam. I’ve advised other writers and clients about the reality of promoting their DIY books. But I never have allowed myself to bring this Truth into my heart, into my core.

Part B

On The Pain of Reality

To avoid inviting these feelings in, I create an imaginary world where all my efforts with my Maddie books and SUCKER pays off. An agent says "yes" to my work, we fall in writer-agent love, and she sweeps me off my feet to a lunch in NYC, where we sign my contract. Then six months later there’s an auction between two huge houses and voila! I have not just a book deal but a five book, book deal! (the four Maddies and my short story collection). This imaginary world looms large in my head on long bike rides to Starbucks, or as I fall asleep at night and want to avoid the voices in my head obsessing about my work, my children, and my husband. These images of my agent and me at lunch in the city hovers over my shoulder when my inbox is filled with rejections or sort of rejections (you know, “I love your voice but it just doesn’t come together for me, blah,blahblah).

Pain of rejection, of no, no, no, of work-myself-so-hard-at-my-writing-that-my-elbows-develop tendonitis, do every thing you’re supposed to (see my list here)...Oh I feel it all right, but the minute depression, anxiety, fear, and disappointment walk in, the burning in my heart starts, so I try to shut the door–

Part C

On The Pain of Avoidance

But the feelings–man!–they put their fingers on the door jam. So when I slam it, it f-ing hurts–because I’m slamming the door on myself. This results in to-the-bone bruising that lingers for a long time. And since I continue to try to shut the door over and over, I rebruise and eventually break those fingers.

Part D

On Using My Imaginings Wisely

To face these feelings, I’ve created another fantasy:

I stand in a dark room, my hand wraps around a doorknob. When I turn it, the hinges creak, and I peer out into a hallway where I see Depression, Anxiety, and Fear. I step out and gesture with my hand, “Come in.”

Epilogue

“There’s only one good reason to do that kind of thing: because it makes you sane and whole and happy.”- Cory Doctorow

Writing is my light. It makes me happy. My focus needs to shift to that, but all the while entertaining and offering a cup of tea to my feelings. Because “each has been sent/ as a guide from beyond”. Depression, Anxiety, Disappointment might just have something to say to me, and the only way I’ll ever hear it, is if I sit down and share that cup of tea.

Part 6, The Dream Ends

2011-07-31T04:42:00.001-04:00

Don't forget part 1, part 2, part 3 , part 4, or part 5.

Day 9
COMMENCEMENT

From Meg: Have a regular date with your desk. Doggedness separates a successful writer from an unsuccessful one.

From class speaker Jina Simmons

This is not how the story ends…This is the part where anything can happen... We are not the same people we were when we started.
We are each others tribe.
And we have, despite some reluctance, let each other in.
Delicious challenge.
This is not where the story ends; it is where it begins.

Alum next to me…Cindy, Erin, Joe, Mike, Kerry, Donna

"Benevolent bullying", Cornelius Eady about Meg getting him to be the speaker today.

The commencement speaker is the cork between the event and the party.
You have not made a bad decision. Just a weird one.
Exotic ambitions
Who do you think you are…this program answers that.
Either changes your mind or realized you were writ right all the time.
Nothing will stop it.
You will cheer on your friend’s success…
Time and luck won’t bend
You will miss this place.
You will live your life. Opportunities will come and go. You will write. You will want time and sometimes more than money.
Make the words dance make the reader laugh then hurt.
Hold on to this moment and put it in your pocket and rub it like a lucky charm.

We (alum) sit knowing all Cornelius Eady says is true.

***

A week later, I sit typing this last section, trying to find the perfect way to end my blogging of the residency as the first GA for Solstice. But all I can think of is John Gardner's fictive dream concept: That the writer's job is to create and sustain a dream state for the reader so that they will read all the way to the end, and then wake up to reality. That's what this residency felt like for me. The fictive dream state. Then, the end. Wake up and reality, when I first came home, "by comparison, seems cold, tedious, and dead.” -John Gardner's On Becoming a Novelist.

Living The Dream, Part 5

2011-07-30T04:42:00.005-04:00

Don't forget part 1, part 2, part 3 , or part 4.

Disclaimer to Part 5
-I've left out a whole lot of what happened during residency, more dinners with the faculty, meetings with first semester students about their work and the program, lunches with some of our guests lectures and readers, and the many private conversations I had with students and faculty. These were precious times for me. It's valuable to list these items for you, dear reader, in case you want to apply for the GA or learn more about the going-ons of the program. But to divulge the inner-workings and conversations that occurred would be to sacrifice the sacred...

So I bring you the highlights:

DAY 4

GRADUATE LECTURE: WOW, THAT DESCRIPTION MAKES ME FEEL BAD
Laura Jones

The visual info provides thematic hints.
If a character walks by a baby deer versus road kill…different tone
B/c it’s there (passive imagery). You feel something, not plot.
Images can go beyond (literal interpretation).
Style versus content. Images can make for a pretty reading.
Using style of image to convey information.

EXERCISE: Take this bare-bones statement and make it visual.
"I road a horse to my friends house." (The Fall of the House of Usher).

MY EXAMPLE:
I rode past the general store and waved hello to Mary the shopkeeper. She stopped and wiped her hands on her apron and grinned. "I’ve got some candy you can take to Marybeth’s." I slowed Nelly down and hopped off. I ran to Mary. “Hold tight a minute. I’ll get it.” I pulled on my shirt to get some cool air. When she returned, she handed me a bag. I peeked inside and saw the shiny candy red coating on the apples. Then I said goodbye and hopped back on the horse to hurry to Marybeth’s.

Content based imagery- objective description of what’s there
Tone based imagery- subjective experience of narrative voice

DAY 5
STUDENT READINGS

A few snippets from the crew.

Kassie Rubico
“A comma splices through my fragmented thoughts.” From her piece about teaching her first grammar class.
Gabe Cleveland
“I don’t know who’s in my bed!” What he whispered to his roommate across their bedroom when he waking up to a strange girl laying next to him.
Sally Stanton
“A scaredy cats fear is not a wall built in a day.” From her middle grade novel.
Sheree Renee Thomas
“Nothing on his mind but the heat…he don’t know the heat’s gonna bring him down.”
“Heart lookin’ like a crooked knife.”
Beth Richards
“Those things might make people think the wrong things and we don’t want that do we?” “No one was willing to correct me in detail.” From her piece about the first time she came out.
Beth Grosart
“No way I was buying sex items in the same place my mom bought chicken.”
“Even though I currently qualify as a thief, I had a hard time lying.”
Alexis Croteau
“Why is he taunting me? Doesn’t he know I’m about to die?”
Lauren Kelly
“I hate white cars. They make me want to kill my mother.”
Alison McLennan
“It is neither repelling nor inviting. It just gets you through the day.”
Jackie Brown (intro)
“The only thing these poems have in common is that they have people in them.”
"If that mocking bird don’t sing. It’s dead.”

DAY 6
GRADUATE LECTURE: CROWD AS CHARACTER
Jim Kennedy

Individuals (people on a highway)–in a major traffic jam–get out and talk–camaraderie, boundaries gone.

This morning’s Boston Globe
Porter Square yesterday, 447 passengers trapped

No cell phones
Helplessness
Then, camaraderie
Haircut appointments and meetings and job interviews

The T guy shepherded everyone.

Cinematic and fiction crowd characters

Cricket in Times Square- destructive, crowd character

Seven Chances- 1000 brides show up, crowd chasing, credible. Angry, wanted to destroy him.

Crowd influence

GRADUATE LECTURE: EASING ANXIETY ABOUT UNDERSTANDING POETRY
Teresa Sutton
Exercise: In A Dark Time Theodore Roethke
1.    Write three words to describe how you feel before you read the poem
2.    A few people to share
3.    Now teacher asks for volunteer to read the poem aloud
4.    Then ask, what do you notice about the poem?
5.    After you discuss it, then rate how you feel on a scale of 1-10, Light bulb!

If you get a whole class, it brings a lot to it. Teacher doesn’t need to say much during this.

DAY 7
Graduate Lecture: THE FICTIVE DREAM AND ITS IMPACT
Melissa Ford Lucken

Fictive dream, commercial versus literary.

What’s the difference?

Wants us to think about this.
Discussion in small groups.
Then she goes through what we have put on the board:

More accessible language
Entertainment versus art
Craft versus form

Commercial about making money, high concept pitch, conceptualized product, target audience within general, 3 sentence pitch: Dystopian YA, Paranormal romance, erotic, erotic romance, chick lit…

Literary

Themes
Motifs
Enveloping action
Exposition (not in commercial)
Read aloud

Commercial
Close 3rd person (author intrusion is a bad thing)
Branding, swag, promo, prepackaged and shaped.

DAY 8/9
HIGHLIGHTS

Lunch q & a with Iain Pollock

Iain considers audience, wants reader to be conscious of the racial perspective. Cites Robert Hayden.

Wants to push reader to have to do the research but not Google everything.

He says to us to think metaphorically when you are reading poetry. This happens faster in poetry than in fiction. Descriptive 'cause short.
That’s why reading out loud is so important.
The poem must resist the intelligence . Almost successfully.
People feel shut out by poetry. How do you feel? Iain asks his students this.

Tomorrow read Part 6...the dream ends.

Living the Dream, Part 4: Day 3

2011-07-29T04:42:00.007-04:00

Don't forget part 1 or part 2 or part 3.

Day 3

GRADUATE LECTURE: “Practice doesn’t make perfect: A Case For a Better Practice”
Seth Edwards

Define Process: What you do as a writer. The motions you go through. NOT your process by which you improve your specific piece.
“I don’t think I have anything truly unique to add to the conversation” (about process).
Analogy to improving golf game.
Instructed Gabe to come up and putt. Then showed him intense instruction on it…resulted in not getting it in.
“Drive” is for show.
“Putt” is a science.
Haphazard routine with no awareness. If you just stand up and putt around for ten years, you might improve…
Phase I: “Just do” or “Just putt” No method, no awareness, [I would say almost compulsive maybe.] Here’s where he learned that practice makes perfect doesn’t work. It’s absurd. Yet as a writer, this is what he was doing.
Phase II: Too much too soon. Coaching and instruction overload, resulted in tensing up. MFA program.
Phase 3: 3,6,9 method for golf. Put the ball at 3, 6, 9 feet..
The moment of discovery.
What am I doing while I putt? When I was putting during the process of practice became aware of how my body was being held and what time of day it was, what mood I was in. Discovered I was really tense.
“I became self aware of how I practiced–NOT the practice itself (not the game or drill itself).
Yet as a writer I wouldn’t do this…
“Writing is like…”
What are the implications? Make your practice better. Get intentional.
How do you writer? What do I do? I better get intentional.
Can I become a better writer?

Yes….Figure out how and then replicate. Good habits and bad habits.
No…because they won’t do the work.
Is talent enough? No.

Strategies to improve.

Francine Prose Read Like A Writer

Can you really know what you did after you did it?

Speculate. Avoid navel gazing though. Analysis. Anti-thesis of writing for most of us.
Mind/body. Art/Science
Chapter 2 of Burroway…added later in second edition.

Study your process: 1. Imitation of whoever’s writing you love. 2. Visualization
Exercise: Writing is like….Making lasagna…eventually you stop following the recipe and make it your own....Ballet…drill, dance, rehearse, perform.

Q & A with Jackie Woodson

“When I sit down to write, I avoid newspapers, cell phone, etc. I use a playlist and replay it over and over.” For the Tupac book she played Tupac and Eminem and Lauren Hill. House has to be really clean no distractions. Get into space and not getting interrupted. Be aware of limited time to write because kids come home. When I’m stuck, I read or listen to books. Her go-to books are Member of The Wedding, To Kill a Mockingbird, anything by Raymond Carver.
Listening to books versus reading. If it’s really well written, wants to read. If it’s factual information, wants to listen to retain.
Cathy asked how to you figure out the vessel for the story? Picture book, YA, Middle grade, poem? Jackie says that the age of the character dictates.
First line matters.
Poetry line-by-line, but with urgency.
She reads out loud. Not very concerned with language in Pecan Pie so didn’t read aloud.
She says she is a minimalist as a writer. Brush strokes of appearance of characters and setting. Desire for reader to meet her half way.
“I get to choose my illustrator, but I can’t talk to them.”
Pictures and words are independent
Translate internal thoughts of character to the stage for her play version of Locomotion. And keep the integrity of the story the same. 7 characters into 3.
Jackie “Plot happens. It’s the thing that will happen…If you get 2 people in the room, conflict will happen.” What do they want and how are they going to get it?
It’s all about HOW the story is told.
When writing characters that are not nice you have to have compassion for them and that allows you to find the broken place in them to make the reader have compassion.
“In the act of writing I do not try to look for the universal. Rather, I assume we are all connected. The gaze has to be bigger.”
Walk through the world with eyes wide, wide open.
She doesn’t outline or plan.
“If your story is trying to say something, say it.”
She doesn’t write the curse words besides "damn" or "hell". Instead she says they cursed a lot and let the reader decide which ones.
She doesn’t read a lot of craft books but mentioned Bird by Bird and John Gardner. Also The Hero’s Journey.
Says uses the fiction as her craft books.
Picture books are the hardest. Adult fiction can look back and YA no looking back.

Part 5....tomorrow......

Living The Dream, Part 3: Day 2

2011-07-28T04:42:00.002-04:00

Don't forget part 1 or part 2.

DAY 2

Damn birds woke me again.
Rain again.
By 9:13 I’m at Starbucks having my tea with foam
I don’t move until 11:45.

GRAD LECTURE: HOW TO BUILD AN ABSENT CHARACTER
Jina Simmons

The absent character is a siphon, a magnet, according to an author called Roosevelt.
Annette, in the back, says the absent character “Can’t defend themselves”.
“Ghost persona” Gina calls it. Person isn’t there but their presence is felt.
We care about the protagonist what we do with the absent character is to show how the protag. is affected by the absence.
What is it about not having this person in his or her life and how has the absence affected her?
The absent character was just not a void, questions, memories, stories Gina says this.
Multidimensional absent character
Stories exist about the absent character. Who tells these stories? Were they affected?
We meet him the way Barack does (referring to Barack Obama’s memoir).

GRAD LECTURE: LET'S GET IT STARTED, Jumping Into a Story
Angela Foster

First pages…If the first page isn’t good, I will shove it back on the shelf. I had to judge a contest and low and behold, she discovered her method was right, those that became finalists had good opening pages.
Writing first pages is like herding cats. You don’t know it’s successful till you’ve done it and someone tells you you’re successful, and you might not get it until you are done with the whole manuscript.
When in doubt or whenever possible, tell the whole story of the novel in the first page. – John Irving
Hook ‘em and hold ‘em- Will Weaver a Minn. writer
3 Key components
The hook, come quickly @ the first line.
Make the reader care. "I had a friend and we shared everything and then she died and we shared that too.” Memory of Trees
Create a sense of danger or curiosity. “Mother spooned the poisoned corn and beans into her mouth…” Mother is starving they all are and she wants to make sure these bits are not going to kill the children so she goes first. From Change Me into Zeus’ Daughter
The set up, setting, back-story, intro to characters, foreshadow
Engage the reader through set up. –Memory of Trees, sets the tone through a sense of place.
Conflict, yearning, emotion that drives the story, opening action

GRAD LECTURE: AN EXPLORATION OF DYSTOPIAN FICTION
Rick Carr

A movie running in back of him with a timer running. Image: “Anarchist hackers against WB/IMF”- a tight focus in on a smiley face with no nose.
Dystopian Fiction:
Looking back…how did we get here? The real world with the fictional world.
“Where fiction and nonfiction collide is what dystopian fiction is.” -Rick
Struggle with nature. Protagonist trying to engage with nature.
On the screen: A fist with the world. “Revolutionary”
An old man spray-painting the words “Fuck the Gods” in Bright Red.
Showing real images while discussing dystopian fiction.
Image: No Gods, No Masters, Against all authority

GRADUATE LECTURE: THE REMINISCENT NARRATOR IN LITERATURE
Carol Owens Campbell

"I’m really excited and thank you all for bein’ here and I really want to welcome y’all."
Bottles of water and bowls of fruit and candy.
"Did I thank y’all for coming?"
"I also want to say that I’m honored you’re here, Sterling."
"What am I going to do? Give everyone a puppy?"
So instead I just brought you a reminder of a puppy…a pic of son with his first puppy.
I don’t remember everything about this moment/day…however I can reminisce (with the pics).
Series of pics of Griffin, her son, with puppy growing, transformed him into a caregiver.
“I’ve never gone this long in a class without someone crying for his or her mommy.” Carol taught preschool.
How do children most like to learn? They like to play…Are you all ready to play?
Dual of clashing perspectives.
Reminiscent narrator- a passive commentator in a rocking chair, milquetoast, sedate–NO!
Let the dual begin.
The most revolutionary and rebellious storytelling voice is this narrator.
Reverie thinking back….Reveille- instead, a wake up calls.
Summer afternoon…To me they have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.

Exercise:

The first time I heard_________ by ________ I was with ________and we were at_______.

Then choose one part and expand in a paragraph.

My Example:
The first time I heard Wanted Dead or Alive I was with neighbors, and we were on the bus going home from school in fifth grade.

Neighbors on Casey Drive. Only in the summer there was a granddaughter named Jennifer, blond and nice and perfect. And her cousin Janelle opposite. I told Janelle how girls got their periods. Jennifer once came looking for me at the Maher’s while I was playing Barbies and I felt really stupid. I remember being at the grandparents house with her once and her Uncle who was the brother of her mother loved Laura Branagan and was getting ready that night to go her concert. I remember the four-post bed in the bedroom cherry wood But I can’t remember the family’s name.

This was a fav writing exercise of an editor at a conference from a workshop she went to in NY.

***

Highlights from later in the day...

Sacred dinner of which I will not speak of in this blog. Sterling Watson, Meg Kearney, Tanya Whiton, Laure-Anne Bosselaar, Kathleen Auger, Laban Carrick Hill. I bow to them.
Readings that evening: Jaime Manrique Took him 6-7 years to write and just got a publisher. Spanish and Chinese and next year English. Pastoral novels. “If I couldn’t support my wife writing novels, what would I do?” “What right did I have to ruin her life too?” Dennis Lehane. Mystic River was his fifth novel. Movie had his voice and vision. Sterling, his mentor, introduced him. “Thrilling uneasy anticipation." Shutter Island. "Dennis is tough acting… he writes tough guys and is one himself.” “I’m all choked up and emotional and I can’t feel cool.” D.H. after Sterling
note to self...Dennis inspires me to go the edge. Favorite lines: “If her face looked 17 then her brain looked 10.” AND “Can she cook? That’s important. Not if they’re good or bad but that they are willing to do it.”

Part 4 tomorrow...

Living The Dream, Part 2: Day 1

2011-07-27T04:42:00.002-04:00

In case you missed Part 1, click here.

Day 1

6:45 AM. Two angry birds scream at each other. This will be my alarm clock for the next nine mornings. On my run, it begins to rain and then thunderstorm. I turn up my headphones and sing “Born This Way” at the top of my lungs to prevent hearing thunder claps.

9-10 AM: Check in old friends Kassie, Beth, Jina. Facebook each check-in as I go.
10: Campus tour…I remember everything from the list T gave me except pointing out to new students the “safety room” in PDR. What’s a “safety room”?

1 10:30 AM: Orientation From Meg

“[We, as writers, sometimes think] Somehow someone’s success takes away from your own. The antidote is to fall in love with the work of someone else. By some magical process your own work improves and envy goes away.”
Students from 18 different states
“Keep an open mind. We all approach our work in different ways.”
“Positive criticism. Not tearing someone down. It’s all about making that poem the best it can be. “
“We are here because we are hopelessly intelligent…When you reach the point between intelligent response and kindness, choose kindness and intelligence will follow. “
“I hope that you all want to be seen…don’t expect to get discovered. Even if you meet agents and editors.”
Program highlights: Dennis Lehane, Jacki Woodson, Lee Hope…Student Readings.

GGrad lecture: Kate Schmidt- Allusion in poetry…The negatives…Getting a handle on allusions. What is an allusion? It takes the reader outside the text, forces the reader to leave the familiar, brings in material that has nothing to do with the poem. “The first task of poems that I want to publish is that they are open to the reader.” – anon. Allusions can make it hard for the reader–that’s the negative. Sometimes writers sneak in agenda. Sometimes things are better dealt with indirectly.

Grad lecture: Suzanne Deshchidn: Contemplative Writing. Julie Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. Walking to get the creative juices flowing. Induce creative capacity in the brain. Contemplative, trying to get out of the left-brain and into the right. The artist way “changed my life”. You have to translate out of poetry (to the fiction/prose writers). “Beat out with your feet the words and rhythms…”says Suzanne about using walking to help induce creativity. Making your bed…anything you do can be a contemplative act…be present to the moment…meditative mundane. Using rocking chairs, creative impulses. Anything rhythmic. No agenda. No time frame. “This isn’t for poetry only…”

T The rest of the afternoon to evening...

Later in the day, as I hustle from a grad lecture to the office, Meg takes my pic 'cause I look official with my Solstice t-shirt and clipboard. Then T and I meet about selling books…but it barely begins before we realize we are missing books…T goes to find said books, and I go around to double check rooms. Along the way, I see a lost student and scribble a note on my clipboard about said student. (Later I will have the chutzpah to retrieve lost students and deliver them to workshops). Then, finally, moments before the Welcome Reception, T and I meet about the book-selling…It all seems easy until I have to do it. (Grad assistant secret: T likes to come in here and touch all the books each morning). She tells me to think of this as a “lemonade stand”. It’s stressful at first, but when I see T at the end, she is so reassuring, I figure all is okay…Then, we have our first faculty readings: Favorite line from T’s reading: I was aware that I was enunciating wildly and using my stage voice.  Love what Joanne says about David in her intro: “David scripts the edginess of the tumultuous years.” David reads "Turning Japanese" from Rush Hour and I remember why I love David so much. Great line, “Cleaning my tonsils so hard I almost threw up.”  Susan introducing Sterling: “It’s my pleasure to introduce the writer I want to be when I grow up.” Great lines from his reading, “For Adam and Eve, the past was a ruined garden.” “There lips together in a rocking kiss…” “Separate from his will his skin recoiled.”

Stay tuned for Day 2 tomorrow...

Living The Dream, Part 1

2011-07-26T07:13:00.001-04:00

It’s been 7 days, 3 hours, and 33 minutes since I drove away from Pine Manor College, leaving behind possibly the 11 best days of my professional/writing life…

No longer a student, I had privy to certain things like faculty dinners outside on the back porch of the Ferry building, a stretchy bracelet that held the key to the office, and an extra long clipboard that held important and shall remain nameless documents. Additionally, I spent mornings (instead of in workshop), at Starbucks writing (typing out hand-written notes for this blog mainly) or in the office copying, collating, and assisting in the extinguishing of any “issues”. This “no longer a student” status suited me well. Meg and Tanya were amazing to work for–no micro-managing. They trusted me, and this gave me confidence. And as the days passed like the kind of dream you long to remain in, I slept fitfully in my new reality.

The last task I had as a graduate assistant occurred as I stood (awkwardly) in the Moncrief room watching the grads receive their instructions from Meg. Although I was technically “done” (save for a faculty photo), I saw out of the corner of my eye our commencement speaker holding a flash drive. I heard, above the din, “I just need to print this.” Many a last minute request (a bottle of water, an escort to the dining hall, copies for a class) had been made that week. Requests that I don’t know how Meg or Tanya could physically fulfill each and every time they were made. Early on, I realized part of my job as an assistant would be to make sure I was around for such last minute requests. How does one do that when one is running around campus doing a million other things (sitting in on every grad lecture, taking photos, composing this blog)? I don’t know. I just did it–so much (or so well, hopefully) so that Meg and Tanya, throughout the week, said to me You just seem to appear…right when we need you.

So I’m sure it didn’t really surprise Tanya when I “appeared” next to her and Cornelius. “Let me run up to the office and do that,” I said gently, plucking the flash drive from his hands.

It was surreal and awesome to run upstairs right before graduation and print what would be the most inspiring commencement speech I had ever heard. I will admit; I read it while I waited, savoring my last task as GA.

After my final assignment, when I stood next to the great Laure-Anne Bosselaar to take the faculty photo, it finally hit me that I had crossed over again:

No longer a student and now no longer a staff member.

After the photo and before commencement began, a slow creeping emerging began inside of my body, and as I threaded through the crowd of people to the bathroom, I identified the feeling.

I was waking up.

***

NOTES FROM THE RESIDENCY, JULY 2011

BEFORE DAY 1

First night before it all begins. Nerves are frayed (mine). Had dinner at a noisy, wood paneled restaurant while in a lovely foreshadow of the week to come, The Cure, plays. It’s the B sides, songs I haven’t heard since high school. We discuss important matters like why I carry a plastic bag of potatoes in my car.

By the end of the meal, my pre-residency anxiety manifests in a killer stomachache cured only by the tums Meg offers once we arrive back on campus at the office. We visit a soda machine I never knew about as a student. Perks of being on the other side...

The following morning, Thursday. I complete tasks I haven’t done since being a magazine intern in college. Collating and folder-making, schlepping supplies and books. I sweat. I work. It feels good.

The afternoon is spent checking classrooms. T carries an extra long clip board. I eye it enviously. After lunch-on-the-go in containers, T hands me the clip board so I can start the first official responsibility of the GA: Check in students. I hold the clipboard like a newborn. It’s the beginning of a slightly unhealthy bond to an inanimate object…

Later I have dinner with Colleen at Cheesecake…I have a moment where my missing of Kimberly and Kathleen (my buddies when I was a student) is so intense, I have to excuse myself to the bathroom and collect myself. What will it be like without them?

Later, I am a student briefly when I hang in the dorm with Rick, Jacqueline, Colleen, and Seth…The first of what will be MANY pilgrimages to the Met bar…I tell them all, I can’t drink. Gotta work in the a.m…Famous last words.

Stay tuned all this week as I post notes from each day of the residency.

Don't forget part 1, part 2, part 3 , part 4, or part 5.

Self Hating Wanna Be YA Authors

2011-06-23T15:45:00.001-04:00

YA seems to be provoking a lot of authors and book industry critics these days. Not too long ago the YA community was pissed off at the WSJ's editorial that slammed YA as being too dark, and today I saw this link to a slate.com article by two so-called YA authors commenting on their move from fiction and journalism to YA.

The tone of the article is glib and condescending, especially to those of us who have studied our craft for years (decades) and take our writing for teens SERIOUSLY. Most YA authors (the real ones), agonize over word choice and authentic character development just as much as those who write literary (adult) fiction. But writing for teens also means dealing with delicate issues such as sex or violence, in the most appropriate (to the story and audience) way.

It bothers me that these two writers were given an opportunity to reach out to this emerging genre, and possibly grow their own writing careers, but all they do is dump on it. They (literally) mock YA. They appear to be horrified by writing sex scenes: "When it's completed, the other one innocently asks to make a pass "for editing" and then reads it aloud in a mocking voice and turns the most embarrassing lines into an email signature." Possibly the most offensive comment they make is: "We are being paid good money to be literary predators and come for people's children." I don't even know what to say about that; it speaks for itself.

Other lines of note: "There's no shame in Y.A." and then "It's an opportunity to relive high school in a more perfect manner." What troubles me about these lines is it seems as if the decision to write for teens has been based on very superficial reasons, which really takes from the integrity of the genre.

I'm sure that these two authors did not intend to offend YA writers. Perhaps they were intentionally glib or thought their comments were funny.

But I didn't laugh, not once.

Press Release About SUCKER LITERARY MAGAZINE

2011-06-21T16:48:00.001-04:00

SOLSTICE MFA in CREATIVE WRITING PROGRAM GRADUATE
LAUNCHES LITERARY MAGAZINE FOR YOUNG ADULT WRITERS

For Release: IMMEDIATELY
Contact: Tanya Whiton, Assistant Director
whitontanya@pmc.edu

[Chestnut Hill, MA, June 2011] The Solstice Low-Residency MFA in Creative Writing Program of Pine Manor College is proud to announce that Solstice graduate Hannah Goodman has launched a new online literary journal, Sucker Literary Magazine, featuring fiction for young adult readers.
On graduating from the Solstice MFA Program, Ms. Goodman found that very few literary journals were publishing work by writers whose work is for teens, and she and her fellow graduates had written stories that were ready to send out into the world. A busy mother of two with her own business, Ms. Goodman nonetheless decided to take a big step toward addressing that problem by launching a journal of her own.

And so, Sucker Literary Magazine was created: a magazine where raw, undiscovered, talented writers for young adults have the opportunity to strut their stuff. As Ms. Goodman writes on the magazine’s site: http://suckerliterarymagazine.wordpress.com/: “Bring on your skateboarding vampires, angst ridden, nerd-boy who has never been kissed, or girl crushing on her best friend (be it girl or boy).”
Hannah Goodman is the author of the YA novel My Sister’s Wedding, which won first place award for The Writer’s Digest International Self-Publishing Contest, 2004, children’s book division. She published a follow-up, My Summer Vacation, in May 2006, which went on to win a bronze IPPY in 2007. Her third book, Fear of Falling, was released in the fall of 2009 and was praised by teachers and readers for tackling subjects like homophobia and coming out. She has published young adult short stories on Amazon’s Shorts, in an anthology entitled Bound Is The Bewitching Lilith, and in the journal Balancing The Tides. She has also written columns for The Jewish Voice & Herald.

ABOUT SOLSTICE & PINE MANOR COLLEGE
As an undergraduate institution consistently ranked among the most diverse in the country, Pine Manor College emphasizes an inclusive, community-building approach to liberal arts education. The Solstice MFA in Creative Writing reflects the College’s overall mission by creating a supportive, welcoming environment in which writers of all backgrounds are encouraged to take creative risks. We strive to instill in our students an appreciation for the value of community-building and community service, and see engagement with the literary arts not only as a means to personal fulfillment but also as an instrument for real cultural change.

Directions to Pine Manor College, complete bios of our authors, and more information about the Solstice MFA in Creative Writing Program can be found at www.pmc.edu/mfa.

R-E-J-E-C-T-I-O-N

2011-05-25T15:11:00.001-04:00

The final class for my recent workshop, Storytelling Basics, started with a warm up, featuring the following quotes:

It is impossible to sell animal stories in the U.S.A.  -from the rejection slip for George Orwell’s Animal Farm.

Do not confuse motion and progress. A rocking horse keeps moving but does not make any progress.
-Alfred A. Montapert 

The role of the writer is not to say what we can all say, but what we are unable to say.
-Anaïs Nin

I’m not gonna lie…these quotes were carefully selected by yours truly, and you will see why when you read my warm up piece.

--------------

Rejected.
I won’t even let myself go into the darkness of this–
yet, I need to.
Hubby said to just write about it…
L said celebrate the beauty that is you…
A host of other people will give me advice–
But that’s not what I seek.
I seek my Truth.
I seek the silence, save for click-clack of keys and tap, tap of fingers on keyboards.
I seek my thoughts and feelings, whatever they are.
Uncensored. Untreated. Unpolished.
I seek an ear to hear my words without judgment or insertion of self.

Rejected from this agent who said she loved my voice, who said she really adored this piece she read before, who asked me for more and more–probably hoping something would connect with her totally.
But only in the end, to pretty much say to me, “It’s not you. It’s me…”

I have tried to make an analogy to this: you know, dating and so forth…
But it’s simply putting a band aid on my true and honest, deep-down gut feelings and thoughts–
So.
I’m not hiding.

I want to say what I am “unable to say”–

But I can’t even find that because as I peer inside, all I see, all I hear is a bunch of euphemistic bullshit, a constant loop of well-meaning lovely phrases and words and sounds to make me “feel better”.

FUCK. Feeling. Better.

Except I don’t have the energy, and my left arm is killing me still from editing a manuscript over this weekend.

Left side hurts…doesn’t that control the right side of the body, the creative side?

***

Okay, you want to know the really deep-down-in-my-guts-truth about this Hurt from rejection?

Here it is:

I’m not insulted by this rejection or any of the rejection emails.
I am pissed.
I am frustrated.
I want a fucking chance in this bizarre world of publishing that has done nothing but tease me.

I just want ONE door to open, all the way.

That‘s it.

It really doesn’t matter what number rejection this is or even that I have been rejected. It’s more annoying and upsetting to have to go back, all the way back, to square one–continually.

It’s like the rocking horse.

You mistaken a positive response from an agent–a request for several pieces or a full request for a manuscript–you mistaken that for a step forward, for progress, but it’s not. In fact, it’s a rocking horse or hamster wheel–that‘s it–and you simply either get off, or you stay on, hoping that the horse will grow legs or the hamster wheel will (somehow) break out of the cage.

What do I do next? Do I get back on the rocking horse? Do I build legs? Do I set the hamster wheel free (open the cage, climb back onto the wheel, and then go?).

And what the hell does any of that translate to in terms of trying to get an agent?

***

But in the end, like Bonnie Rait says, I can’t make you love me if you don’t.

And yet today I wake up, sun shining, and like another (but bad) country song, the sun is shinin’ and I feel fine. Gonna climb back onto that horse and ride…

First, I Cleaned…

2011-04-24T16:20:00.000-04:00

*Mike took the kids to my in-laws for Easter yesterday, and they will return later tonight. It’s the first time in seven years I have been alone in my own house for more than a few hours.
**Disclaimer: I am not a poet.
***Disclaimer: due to wanting to publish this immediately, pardon any typos. This is a time- sensative post.

Poem # 1
What Happens When My Husband And Children Are Not At Home For 24 Hours

At first, elation…
I can sit in every chair and couch in my house
for as long as I want
without someone asking me
to get their sippy cup or favorite bear…
without someone screaming “she hit me”
or the other someone asking me
"hold you?"
But–
    I don't.

At second, fear:
Are they okay? Should I call?
But–
    I don't.

At third, guilt:
I’m a horrible mother…I should just drive down there now.
But–
    I don't.

At fourth, peace.
You need this. You really, really, need this.
And–
    I do.

Then,
I
cleaned the house,
took a bath,
went to Wal-Mart,
ate Chinese food in front of the TV,
and watched a show
featuring a bunch of wretched
so-called
housewives–
none of which clean, cook, or take care of their own children.
In fact,
they behaved more like teenage Mean Girls than housewives...
Perhaps the definition has changed.
Then
I watched a stupid teen movie
that could have been clever,
but
took a left turn into a musical number,
with a dancing mascot.

Then I tossed and turned,
as all three cats slept with me.
One settled in on the top of my head,
the other against my back,
and the third at my feet.
I had to shut the heat off,
The bed was too warm.

I woke at 10 am.
It’s been fifteen years
since that’s happened.

And then:

I cleaned…
I drank coffee uninterrupted…
I pet all three cats SEVERAL times…forgot how soft they are.
I did laundry…
I went for a bike ride…

I went to Starbucks
To just do nothing
And
I wrote
This poem.

Poem # 2 What I Think About When I have The Space & Time To Think Uninterrupted

Be who you are circulates in my brain. It's the mantra I teach my teenage students who struggle with fitting into the norm of high school, but it's really a mantra that I need when I struggle with the guilt of not being the perfect wife, mother, teacher, mentor, daughter, sister.

So here’s who I am: I burn the candle at both ends while deep breathing. I am not really a half way kind of gal. I don’t have a normal schedule. I pack more into a day than the daily recommendation. I don’t eat dinner at normal times nor do I get enough sleep. Sometimes I’m bitchy. Many times when my daughters say to me, "Mommy, sit down!"– I don't. Many times I ignore the signs of possible collapse. I also exercise every day, drop everything when my children enter the room to marvel in their amazingness, and breathe deeply and frequently even if that means closing my eyes here at Starbucks to pause and drink in the wonder of my life.

Before bed the mommy guilt pulsed throughout my body…But I didn’t fight it…I let the thoughts swim through my brain until they reached a waterfall and fell off a steep cliff in my mind.

First time I can recall that I was able to allow this guilt to ride its course like a virus and then submit to sleep, which didn’t fall over me until 2:30am.

Epilogue

“I didn’t have to think about who was hungry who needs something…it was great!” A direct quote from a new mother who has a seven week old…her third…about her recent return to work.

Part 3 of Post MFA Coma: The awakening...

2011-04-02T13:23:00.002-04:00

Be sure to read part 2 first.

March 14th

BE WHO YOU ARE

Recently I had coffee with the mother of a former student. She told me that her daughter was struggling at college; she doesn’t like to drink and party, yet she goes to these parties, drinks a soda and tries to get into the spirit of drunkenness. The mother said to her about all this: you have to be who you are.

Man is that not just in college or high school. Be who you are.

Like right now, I need to just be who I am, because the trick is when you fight it or try to conform to something that you really aren’t, awful anxiety and fear takes over. Even though it seems scarier to risk being yourself because your self might be different, untraditional, or quirky.; it’s harder to be who you aren’t.

What does that mean?

It means that I'm revising the final Maddie book, looking into super low cost ways to edit and publish it AND, still, at the SAME TIME, try to find an agent for my new work.

I'm a Gemini. Can't help it.

March 15

I used to think if I worked hard enough, I could achieve and do anything. But writing my collection, crafting a query, doing research on agents, focusing 24-7 for so many months only to have the result be rejections…The theory that hard work pays off is bunk. I know some say I’m impatient… But the facts speak the truth:
MY SISTER'S WEDDING, submitted by my former agent for four years, resulted in nothing, and before that time period, I submitted for four years– that’s eight years of waiting. BIG FAT BROKEN HEARTS, I submitted to almost 30-something agents and have been rejected by almost all of them. I’m actually running out of people to submit to. Patience has nothing to do with where I’m at. And where I’m at is no agent. But it’s not due to a lack of patience.

MSD (the newest, unpublished Maddie novel) will never find a home because none of the other Maddie books did. BFBH (my collection of short stories)– I will wait it out for probably years; there’s no urgency.

March 16

When I really look at the trying to publish my books thing, I suddenly totally get it right now: no one is really spending any time thinking about whether or not I should self publish again.

March 17

I’m awake now.

Not that I have been asleep, but I think I was in a post MFA coma for the past few months.

Writing can be religious if I let it. It can be transformative.

I have redefined my expectations and what it means to be successful as a writer.

I can’t put it all into perfect words yet. But I know that it has to do with not shutting any mean or mode out in terms of sharing my work. Be it Blogging, self publishing, mainstream publishing–whatever. The expectation I have of myself as a writer is to share my most favorite and best work with as many people as possible. My other expectation is that I will have to be totally and fully responsible for that sharing. That I expect to not allow myself to let my manuscripts collect dust. That I will get them into book form–at least, for now, the Maddie books. That I will finish all the projects I have started before I’m….Okay, forty five. That’s the two Maddie books, which I have decided to combine into one big book. That’s also the brand new book I started and have 50 thou words for. That’s also the 80 pages of the adult novel that’s been sitting for almost ten years unfinished.

I know that no matter what happens with this publishing thing, I will write, continue to put myself out there and if I have to publish my stuff myself, so be it.

BE WHO YOU ARE

***

Current STATS: 18 out of 31 agents I've submitted my new collection to have rejected. Rest haven't heard back from. Submitted also to SOUCREBOOKS (a publisher).

Working on combining book 4 and 5 of the Maddie series and aiming for publication late next year or beginning of the following. Hoping on the 1 year anniversary of the first Maddie book to reissue them into one volume.

Part 2 of Post MFA Coma

2011-04-01T13:47:00.002-04:00

Be sure to read part one. Click here.

February 13
36 days since graduation
Somewhere alone

Creeping realization over the days since graduation…It’s something to the effect of…you’re not that special/important/great…Something I felt while reading Revolutionary Road recently and then when watching Never Say Never the Justin Beieber movie (Don’t laugh. Good flick).

I’m 35 and maybe it’s time to stop playing with the garage band, hoping that someone will notice my unbelievable talent and whisk me off to Hollywood. I mean why have I thought all these years that I was something special? That one day someone would get IT and get ME and realize that the work I do, my writing, is important and needs to be out there? See, with Chris Paolini and Justin Beiber…they had this unbelievable gift that simply needed the space to be seen, and once it was–forget it! (Paolini started out self published and Bieber was a YouTube success.) I had some victory with my first book I self published. But it DIDN’T take off. NOTHING happened. Doesn’t that say something? I tried another approach…Did it again with a tighter edit and better cover art…but…Nothing at all. Awards the second time. The third time, an even better edit, and still not even an award. Actually with each book I self published, the worse the sales were and less happened.

So tried school. Write the best thing you can…Focus only on writing and forget everything else. Then, surprise, mentor says this stuff is fabulous! Submit…Get three agents to say yes want to read more…But then they all say no.

That didn’t work.

Back all the way back to square one with NOTHING to show for it except three books no one reads. So what do I do? I still don’t give up. I continue to not only submit to agents but also to write another book despite the fact that inside myself I think things like, Really? Come on! What the fuck is happening here? Nothing you do produces what you want. I mean, I really did let go and listen to my mentor and write my very best without thinking about publishing and only when it was done did I put that hat on, and then I did everything I could and still am and it’s not doing shit.

But really what’s happened now is I’m only continuing and persevering because I am afraid of what happens if I stop…If I stop writing and submitting I seriously think that I won’t go back and not only that, I will fall very far into a pit of sadness because I write to live and I write to feel. I write to express. I write because it’s my cello, my violin, my long run outside, my special thing that’s mine and mine alone. I write to create with the tools that feel the best in my hands and against my fingers. And yet my writing has gotten worse since graduation and my ability to express myself clearly in writing has gotten worse.

It’s not like I didn’t have hope before. I did. I believed in my heart and soul in what my mentor said…that this is a marathon and not a sprint. That it’s a matter of when not if. That it’s like dating, you have to find a match.

February 15, 2011
Starbucks alone

So…over the last few days something has shifted, and I’m coming out the fog that the rejections two weeks ago put me in. Today, I ran into a former student of mine who is also a mom with kids and a former teacher. Long story short–she went ahead and got an agent for the book she had started in my class about four years ago. She and the agent have since parted ways because it wasn’t happening, and now she is pursuing self publishing…but mainly because, as she says, she wants the people she loves and cares about to read it. I guess seeing her kind of fueled the little engine inside of me. The engine inside is like, “Don’t keep me idle. I’m your power source of perseverance and tenacity and chutzpah.” The part of me that seven years ago said what this woman said to me today, and as we talked and I told her where I was with everything…I realized as the words were coming out that I once had a little flame of happiness inside that nothing really touched. In other words, the little flame or fire or whatever was what gave me the energy to self publish MSW–it didn’t seem to be affected by the so- called lack of success of the book getting picked up by the mainstream and even the subsequent books I self published. But I realized WHY…Because my original intention was simply to share my work with one or two or ten people and the rest that happened was a surprise and it caught me and I got caught up. I got caught up in the agents contacting me, the winning of the awards, the media attention, everything. So then I raised the bar and continued to raise it and when I didn’t meet it….I was crushed. That’s what sent me off to school. I was so heart broken and just wanted to heal by leaving the whole industry side of things and going back to writing.

And now…here I am…pretty fragile. I forayed back out there…and, of course, the rejections were like head trauma to me. The flicker of hope that those three agents brought to me…and then how fragile fire really is when a simple blow of rejection sweeps in and tamps it out.

I’ve been silent through the journey since November. I feel like it’s like trying to get pregnant and that’s why I haven’t blogged about it. What if I’m not successful in my attempts? Really all the anger I have been feeling since the rejections... underneath it are some major fears. My vulnerability and my unending faith in–I don’t know–maybe, myself….I’m afraid of how fragile those things are.

And then March came in like a lion....Stay tuned for tomorrow, Part 3.

POST-MFA COMA

2011-03-31T14:02:00.001-04:00

81 days since graduation from Solstice.

This blog is a retrospection of the last three months since I graduated from Solstice and earned my MFA. Part 2 will be posted tomorrow.

Up until just a few days ago, I was in a post-MFA coma, a dream-like fog where writing and creating were daily acts of drudgery, where the only writing I could bring myself to do was private journaling and banging out about 50,000 shitty words of a first draft of my BRAND NEW KICK ASS novel set back in the good old 1990’s.

Now, I’m awake.
Writing has never felt more liberating.

***

January 13th
Five days since graduation….
@ Starbucks with Chels

So…eight out of twenty-eight are out ( I’m referring to query letters/submissions to agents). Two (I call these two agents AGENT A and AGENT B throughout this blog entry) out of the twenty-eight are reading the manuscript as we speak, because they actually requested it. Eighteen have rejected me flat out. (I started submitting to agents at the end of November with the guidance of my mentor).

Suffice it to say, all rejections have been various incarnations of the following:

"Thank you for giving us the opportunity to consider your work. Unfortunately, we do not feel strongly enough about your project to pursue it further.   As I am sure you can imagine, we receive a tremendous number of submissions, and we are forced to limit our focus to a select group of projects. Agenting is very subjective, and even though we could not take on your project at this time, another agent might feel differently.   Please accept my best wishes for success in your writing career."

Really, I have this very evolved perspective of all this. I honestly believe what they say is true. It’s kind of like dating: It’s nothing personal, but I'm just not attracted to your type.

I mean, how can I get angry at that?

Although, it is irritating when they end their emails with best wishes or warmly…

January 20th
12 days since graduation
@ Starbucks

An agent (I call this one AGENT C) got back to me. I just sent my first 10 pages to her just a week ago! She LOVES my story THEATER GEEKS IN LOVE. She practically was signing me in this email, telling me who a bunch of her well-known clients are. Can’t wait to see what she thinks of the rest. Sending it out tomorrow! YIKES!

January 22
14 Days since graduation
@ Brueggers with Chels

REJECTED from AGENT A: “I’m afraid I’m not as enthusiastic as I would need to be to know I am the best agent. I know another agent will feel differently.”

This simply confirms what I’ve been thinking. If someone wants me, it won’t take this long (it had been almost 2 months) to get back to me when they have the manuscript. : (

February 4
27 Days since graduation
Home

Rejected from AGENT B:
“This is a fun concept and a terrific title but I didn’t fall in love with the execution of to the point that I need to in order to pursue this. Of course this is a subjective business and I ‘m sure another agent will feel differently…”

Later…I email my former mentor from school:

“Seriously, this might be a waste of my time. She's right, you know. I'm a good writer. I'm funny. But the execution...it's not on the level that anyone, right now, in the industry would take a leap on. I really appreciate that she got back to me and I don't even feel anything other than...reality. I went to school hoping that it would bring me closer to that place I thought I could get to if I wrote the best thing I could...But the truth is, with or without the MFA, I will be in the same place. Unpublished. Without an agent. On my own trying desperately to climb up an impossible, steep mountain without any gear. The one thing I'm good at is teaching. I should focus on that more and say forget it to the rest.   So I have to go now...to continue to write my next novel. : ) “

February 8
31 days since graduation
@ my writing workshop during Free Write/Warm Up

Since returning home, I find myself naturally looking at the end of a writing session to see how many words I’ve taped out. I’m at about 24,000 words of my new novel and each time I look at the bottom of the doc. at the end of a writing session and see that I easily taped out 500 to 1000 words, it increases my confidence that I will be able to write another novel. That I haven’t forgotten (During my two years at school I worked only on short stories). Oh, of course, the words I am writing aren’t brilliant or polished, but I allowed myself to write a shitty first draft. Why not? There’s no deadlines any more and one thing I learned first hand from going to school is that deadlines–when it comes to composing creative work–are elastic and have to expand to fit the state/moment of the writer and what he or she is able to do.

So I’m getting off on how many words I write in a session, and it’s actually motivating me. However, also while I write, the voices in my head say the following things:

1.    This book is really impossible to write in terms of scope. Who the hell would want to publish or read a story that covers all four years of high school?
2.    Your writing is sooo fucking piss poor since you graduated. It’s like school made you stupider (see!).
3.    You should tighten the story line and scope now before it’s too late and you have 100,000 wasted words.

And yet, I continue to write, even with those voices yapping away. I just simply acknowledge them, and then I keep typing. Even as I’m typing and thinking, God this sucks total ass, I continue.

My mentor has taught me that perseverance is really the only way to achieve anything in this industry, more important that patience which is the second most important virtue for a writer. I have to remember that the recent rejections from the three agents who seemed enthusiastic about my work, those rejections are simply indications of not a match and another step closer to finding the ONE.

It’s like dating…Which I haven’t done in 17 years and was NEVER very good at.

This new novel also is like my salve, my antidote to moping around about the failure to land an agent (yet). My mentor also told me that the best way to cope with the waiting game when submitting is to work on something else. So really the reason why I’m being so free with this new project is because it’s an act of therapy….The act of sitting down and typing words that are part of a story, the act of composing another fresh new novel that’s not attached to any baggage from my previous publishing experience is so important write now. I feel reborn.

I look at the Maddie books I published, and I don’t really feel the old feelings of remorse or sadness or anger…Well, maybe a little, but it’s muted. My books still haven’t been picked up by an agent or publisher…but I’ve changed. I’ve grown. Time has passed and with that, I have some kind of perspective or growth. I know that the Maddie books are, in fact, just as good as the stuff that’s been published by a Scholastic or Random House. I also know that that isn’t reason enough for them to get picked up, and, in all reality, they never will. That will be a project that is left flailing in the wind, unfinished .

Those are facts. I can’t change REALITY. But time does provide this kind of shifting of perspective and my perspective is: Those are my self published books…they aren’t selling like hot cakes or being grabbed up by publishers. But that doesn’t mean anything else, other than what it is.

This writing thing is a humongous mountain with really bad weather and cliffs and rocks, but the view is fucking amazing no matter how high or low you are on that mountain.

Stay tuned for tomorrow’s entry a month later, more news from agents and my awakening begins.

FEAR OF FAILURE, THE CONCLUSION

2010-11-11T09:41:00.044-05:00

PART III

Be sure to have read part one and two before proceeding.

I feel that impatience again. All the while this stuff is happening, I’m writing books 3, 4, and 5 of the Maddie series. I start to wonder why my first book hadn't sold to a publisher (it had been four years). Book sales of the first and second book are stalled also. My agent and I have long discussions on the phone about it. She doesn’t seem concerned, really. How long before you drop me, I ask her. I’m not dropping you, she tells me. I believe we will sell this.

Unfortunately I don’t believe it. So, I’m 32 and my bio clock is ticking for a baby again.

As all of you who have followed this blog recall, that pregnancy is hell. I’m sick, on an IV sick, hospitalized a few times sick. And yet, through it all, the burning impatience continues, and as I vomit and schlep around that god forsaken IV, I decide it is time to do what I wished I had done years before: I apply to an MFA program. Only one. Hand selected by a trusted author friend who has been after me for a few years to give up the game and go back to school. She promised me this is where I could forget the game of publishing and really spend time on my craft. As I give birth to Vivian, I receive my acceptance letter to The Solstice Program at Pine Manor College. Yippee! I have to wait to recover from birth, and then when Viv was six months old, I attend my first residency.

Book three was already in shape for self-publication during the year time period before I started school. My editor again said, “Wait. Why not submit?” She even had the name of an agent she had told about me. This time I took her advice and submitted a query and first chapter…and got rejected. I’m depressed and now in school, having a first semester that really is horrific. I feel like I can’t write. I think of dropping out of school, even.

So what do I do? What I always do, that used to work but at that point stops working. I act on impulse and self pub that third book.

***

This particular move on my part was out of desperation and fear, unlike when I had self-published previously. I had no expectation of My Sister’s Wedding. All I wanted was for people I know to have the opportunity to read it, and so when it sold well, I was thrilled, but it was a bonus. But the third book was self published because I didn't want to face any more rejection. Submitting to just one agent was not enough, but my self esteem was so easily affected by ANY rejection that the thought of trying again seemed like some kind of emotional suicide. But I loved what this book could offer YA literature. So, I figured, I’ll just do what I know, what's comfortable. Self publishing this time was really hard, too. I lost steam quickly because I was in school, focusing on craft and self publishing requires you to focus on marketing...It felt contradictory to where I was in my writing life. I wanted to turn inward and just write. This time it also felt a little applying to college...like only applying to your safety school and none of your “maybes” or “reaches”. But what else do you do when you don’t get in anywhere? You settle. This time around with self-publishing I felt like I was settling. And if any book of mine deserves to NOT “settle” it’s Fear of Falling. I learned that despite my initial success into self publishing, what I needed and what I wanted (and always wanted) was a book deal with a publisher.

***

So, now, 60 something days till graduation, I begin to think about life after my MFA... Originally, I thought I would tuck myself away quietly, save all my manuscripts for Chelsea and Viv and forget trying to get any of my books published. I thought that maybe I could just blog and write the occasional article or column and let go of the book deal fantasy. If I wanted to, I could self publish the other Maddie books, but only for friends and family. I’m not saying this in a “poor me” way but in a realistic way. It’s not the end of the world. I still can write. I can do it just for me. That’s ultimately what JD Salinger did anyway.

But there are people in my MFA program who aren't really letting me do that. They fill my head with a lot of positive affirmations like you are good enough, you can do it, you are funny, your voice is just as important as (fill in the blank of a YA author). Now I don’t really believe anyone who says that. Not that I think they are bs-ing me. It's just that as much of a dreamer as I am, I’m also a realist. If it ain’t quacking like a book deal, then it ain’t a book deal, you know what I mean? I’ve been at it for a decade almost, and I’m no closer to a book deal than I was on day one...Or am I?

So…for reasons that are connected to the faith my classmates and mentors have in me, I’m ready to go back out there again. I’m not giving up. No matter what I “believe” or don’t “believe” about myself, I have to leap and trust that someone out there will fall in love with my work.

Life after the MFA... a topic every student of a Fine Arts program ponders (blogs about, writes articles on, etc). I think the support I have from Solstice will continue both online and live (reunions!), but ultimately my success or failure into publishing will be on me alone. And this time, there's no fear of failure.

Part II of Fear of Failing

2010-11-10T08:48:00.002-05:00

If you missed yesterday's entry, please go back read part one.

PART II

I start hanging out at book signings and events with Radio Host Friend and her local author contingent. Their successes are contagious (two of them sold a few thousand copies of their self-pubbed books. One of them used iUniverse.) I begin to think maybe I don’t need to wait any more. “You already have the audience,” Radio Host Friend assures me. I did. My manuscript at this point had made its way around my high school students.

By December of 2003 my manuscript is sent off to iUniverse for an evaluation to see if it is in shape to be published. I receive a PERFECT evaluation, and by February, I not only have a three week old baby girl but a brand new shiny book (with a cover I absolutely hate) I’m home with this baby who sleeps and eats perfectly. I’m a ferocious mother to her and my baby book. I sit her on my lap, even nurse, all while I compose press releases, flyers, emails, newsletters promoting my book. I strap Chels to me and throw a sack of books over my shoulder and tour the state asking bookstores to consign with me and host book signings. I walk into every public middle and high school within a twenty-mile radius and hand donate my book. My tenacity pays off BIG TIME. I do a local book tour, land on the front page of my hometown newspaper, am endorsed by the high school I went to and taught at, schools and libraries ask me to give talks, pay me even to do them. My maternity leave turns into a whole new career change. By the end of the year I win a prestigious award that garners the attention of several well-known agents. I choose the one who seems the nicest and who calls me back first.

Oh and I quit my teaching job.

I immerse myself into the world of publishing, too. I discover SCBWI after a gig where several YA authors and I bond. They all tell me to join. I go online and join then discover their conferences. For the next three years as my agent submits to publishers and we almost make it to a deal several times, I attend every regional and local SCBWI conference I can get my hands on. I meet Ellen Wittlinger (who sees an early draft of Fear of Falling, then called Coming Out and she renames it for me after reading the first ten pages). I meet Laurie Halse Anderson who tells a motivating story about staying home to raise her kids and trying to write books. I also am still getting lots of speaking and teaching gigs. I put out the second book with a new book editor who has spent over twenty years in the biz. She tells me my work is better than what’s currently out there. She even suggests not self-publishing but waiting things out, maybe submit the second book. My ego soars (never a good thing). Life is good. But I don’t heed her advice because deep down I have a fear and it’s called Failure. Life had been going really well without it, and I didn’t want to invite that Enemy back in.

While book two doesn’t sell quit as well, it’s still well received and wins lots of good praise and awards. It’s endorsed by some schools, too. My teaching and speaking gigs are at an all time high. I make several of the papers across RI and even write a few articles both online and print for different publications. Amazon Shorts (which no longer exists, I believe) decides to publish a short story of mine, and I’m asked to submit a piece for a literary magazine and an anthology. I’m on radio and then TV. I feel AWESOME.

But then…

Stay tuned for part three, the conclusion to my story (so far...).

FEAR of FAILING

2010-11-08T17:29:00.001-05:00

In just 62 days (not that I'm counting or anything) I will graduate from THE SOLSTICE PROGRAM at PINE MANOR COLLEGE with an MFA in WRITING FOR YOUNG PEOPLE. As I prepare my thesis and graduate lecture, I reflect on the past 10 years of trying to launch myself as a published author...and come to a conclusion about my next move.

I have been quiet lately, cyber-speaking wise. Part of it is being really busy with writing for school and my day job has been more demanding (it’s college application season). Also... drum roll…I’m trying again. Officially. No. Not for another baby. For an agent. Yep. I’m prepping to get back out there, honing my query and synopsis and compiling a list of possible agents for my new work (my creative thesis for school).

For those who have followed my journey on this blog, you can imagine (just scroll back to previous entries) how painful this is for me. In the not so distant past, I really took my lack of success breaking into the mainstream publishing world very hard. Dare I say, I developed not just a chip or block on my shoulder but a whole God damn house was erected on my back, this house of resentment, jealousy (especially when attending author events), and anger. When I look back at the path behind me, which began way before I self-published, I see how I arrived at a place of struggle, but I also see where I began, which was with a simple desire to share my writing with the people in my world.

***

PART I

In 1999, I finish the manuscript for My Sister’s Wedding, just one month before my wedding and at the end of the first year of my first teaching job. I’m 24. Aside from a few fellow teachers who read early chapters, no one else reads it. I compile a list of publishers and agents and then write a query letter, all based on reading The Writer’s Market cover to cover and scouring my back issues of Writer’s Digest. I send out probably fifty of them and wait. Eventually I’m rejected or ignored by all…except Brock Gannon, an agency that requires its writers to PAY THEM. I am naive and eager. So I sign the contract.

Not quite a year later, I shit-can the so-called “agency”, which obviously did nothing for me, and I become fearful of ALL agents. So, this time I send the manuscript out directly to editors at pub houses (based on my research in The Writer’s Market) and receive (rather quickly) several replies. They all say similar things like, the voice of the pov character is spot on, the plot has some holes, but your characters are really authentic. Two editors work with me for a couple years revising the manuscript. Both change pub houses in this time and bring me with them, and I even make it to an acquisition meeting for both.

But alas, no book deal happens. All the while, I enter the Delacorte Press First YA book contest, and while I’m not the winner, I get notes from an editor who says, “Send me more stuff.” I do. She rejects me, but says I love your character’s voice. Keep trying and send me something else.

While I don’t send her anything else because I really want to make MY SISTER’S WEDDING work, I’m encouraged by what I perceived as these tiny “successes” with all the editors. I decide to deepen my research. I go online and see a lot of information about book doctors. I find one with substantial credits in YA literature and have the manuscript professionally critiqued. She does a tremendous job. Looking back, it was like being in school. She was my teacher and she helped me hone the plot for MY SISTER’S WEDDING. The process of revising it was like getting extractions during a facial–painfully necessary to get rid of the bacteria and shit that clogs up the pores, but when you look in the mirror afterword, you are glowing.

After we finish, I send it back out again to both agents and publishers…and still receive rejections. It’s now the end of the summer of 2003, and I’m pregnant with my first child and 27 years old. I’ve switched jobs to teach high school now, and my students become my audience for my work. They ask me why I haven’t gotten the book published, why do they have to pass around a manuscript in order to read my book? Their enthusiasm makes me write more and more but… also I start to feel impatient. This impatience is so intense, it makes me act without careful thought. But this is the period of my journey that my impulsiveness is a benefit and not a hindrance.

One Saturday morning I’m settling into the couch to correct essays, when I turn on the radio, I hear this voice…that sounds like one of my Jewish camp friends from Long Island, NY. I turn it up and hear the voice say something about books and reading. I listen some more and realize this is a show about books and authors! I google the show’s name and get the host’s contact information. That Monday I send my manuscript out, with a cover letter that says something like: Please read my book and tell me what you think. I love your show! Thanks, Hannah. I hear back from her…she actually reads it and invites me on her show and becomes my personal cheerleader over the next several months. She offers suggestions to help me figure out the path to publication. One of them is to attend a book signing with her on the cape with an author she knows personally from interviewing her. That author is Jennifer Weiner.

I read Jennifer Weiner’s book Good In Bed in one night, print out a copy of my manuscript and don’t sleep. I’m convinced that Jennifer and I are going to hit it off like me and my radio host new pal, and Jennifer is going to love me so much, she will take my manuscript and read it then pass it along to her agent. Plus the name Jennifer has been good to me, right?

Ah–ignorance is bliss!

So I don’t need to tell you the humiliating conclusion to The Cape Cod road trip. Not only does Jennifer smile nervously like I am a stalker when I introduce myself, coo at her baby girl, rub my own not-yet-swollen belly, and ask her to read my book (“A YA version of the stuff you write!”), but she actually says with a sigh, people are always asking me to read their stuff, and I just can’t do it. Something about being afraid of being accused of stealing that writer’s ideas. Suffice it to say, my radio host friend and I ride back home with the copy of my manuscript strapped into the back seat like petulant child.

Oh and we ran out of gas. : (

But yet…I’m not jaded or deterred. Radio Host Friend introduces me to some other local authors…all of which are something called Self Published.

Hmmmmm….Impatience increases to a dangerous boil and my brain starts ticking and tocking. I begin to feel this pressure of Time. Time before my whole life gets a major renovation. As Chelsea grows in my belly, so does this burning need to see my book in print. The sensation is so vivid and visceral that when I dream of Chelsea in my belly, espresso bean brown eyes and straight black hair (creepy huh, those of you who know her) but I also dream of a hazy image of a book cover that is a blur of dark colors. I can smell the skin of Chelsea in my dreams, and I can smell the scent of the pages of my not yet born book.

Stay tuned for tomorrow, part 2, when my whole life changes...

What Are You Reading Now?

2010-09-10T19:46:00.003-04:00

The following list was composed after I posed a question to my Facebook buddies: "What are you reading right now?" Here are the responses:

"Too Much Happiness Alice Munro. I can’t stop reading!”
"“Rereading...Rainbow Six Tom Clancy
"Hunger Knut Hamson. I've read it a bunch, but just loooove the protagonist. Hamsun was a favorite of Henry miller.”
"My Sister's Wedding, by Hannah R. Goodman. Excellent book, absorbing, complex characters.”
“I am reading Laurell K. Hamilton, The Killing Dance...very good read.”
“The Child Thief, by Brom. I'm still out about whether or not I like it, but the story is interesting. I like it when people take traditional stories that everyone knows and completely changes them so I thought I'd give it a try.”
"Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers, a depiction of the Vietnam War from the POV of a young soldier. Great, unique voice, laugh-out loud funny, and harshly realistic. Loving it.”
“No time for reading, but I have been listening to various classic novel audiobooks from librivox. Currently, I'm listening to David Copperfield, which has great characters but I find it somewhat slow and boring. Just finished Picture of Dorian Gray which was pretty good. Of course, being classics, I assume you've already read them.”
“Just finish 1984, again.”
‎”Racing Weight, How to Get Lean for Peak Performance. Its a good read but mostly it just makes me hungry. Oh and its by Matt Fitzgerald.”
“The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao*. Maybe the best book I've read in five years. Maybe longer. There is not one boring word.”
“I just finished Sue Miller's The Senator's Wife--depicts the lives of 2 psychologically well developed female characters and their intriguing relationships. Couldn't put it down. I'm still thinking about the unexpected & spot on ending and how Miller got her characters there-- her foreshadowing was superb.”
Wally Lamb's -The Hour I FIrst Believed
“Currently reading 'The Zookeeper's Wife' by Diane Ackerman. I'm liking it a lot, and I'm fascinated, but the authorial intrusions that crop up every once in a while (but not often enough to feel fluid) keep pull...ing me out of the lyricism of the rest of the writing. It's like... she's got me, and I'm there with the characters, watching a fawn's legs splay on a wooden floor as its tiny hooves slip, smelling the musk of lynx kits, listening to the gibbons call and echo in their eerie rising hoots... and then you get a line like, "you can tell this sort of thing from pictures of their house." It's like, hey, wait, I was reading a story about a couple that run a zoo, and it's past tense, and I was listening to the monkeys. Why the hell are you talking about a posthumous interview with their neighbor?”
“Middlesex is an amazing book. You either love it or hate it. I loved it.”
“My Summer Vacation by Hannah Goodman. Have you heard of it? It's OK. :)” “Oh, and Swim the Fly by Don Calame. Very funny YA book. My cousin-in-law, who's a children's librarian, wrote a raving review for it on Facebook which is why I ordered it.”

Highlights From Solstice Summer Residency, July 2010

2010-07-21T16:19:00.001-04:00

Below are my top six "take aways" from my fourth semester residency at Pine Manor College's Solstice Program. I will post ALL of my notes in the next entry (which will be quite long and probably only interesting to other Solstice students!).

***

I. The following exercise is from Laura Williams McCaffrey's class called ACT YOUR AGE,
an exploration of ways to depict age in fiction. She spoke about the influence of science, history, and culture and how we can use these influences to portray the age of our characters. At the end of the workshop, she assigned us the following exercise:

Think of a historical moment in your life at age sixteen and write your memory.

My Example:

I sit in fifth period study. My stomach growls. I think of my ppj and apple in my locker. I try to focus on my homework-finding Slope. I carefully recopy the equations from the text book into my notebook. The teacher pushes a TV into the room just as the bell rings for first lunch. We, unfortunately have third. I erase a mistake, rewrite a problem. There’s only a few of us in this study, mainly other sophomores, a few seniors who don’t have permission to leave for lunch. The teacher must have turned on the TV because I hear a hum and soft buzz then the squeak of the rolling cart again. I’m still pretty engrossed of the which is odd but I am concentrating pretty hard and don’t look up when the teacher clears his throat and says, “Uh, I’m turning on the TV for those of you who may want to watch the war.” Now I stop writing and look up at him. “We are showing it now in all studies. Uh, if you don’t want to watch, you can go to the library.” He fumbles with a bunch of papers. “I have passes. Does anyone want one?” I look around. Everyone else does the same thing. One kid leans back in his chair making a loud squeak but other than that no one makes a sound. “Well okay. Uh, so if anyone changes their mind, let me know.” He turns the dial on the TV. The screen is black with flashes and pops like bottle-rockets. The bottom of the screen is a scroll: WAR IN THE GULF. A reporter narrates in the background but the sound is muffled. I pick up my pencil and get back to work trying to block out the muffled pops and ignore the flashes I can still see even when I look down at my work.

*When I looked at this after I thought about how this was a way of showing the time period in history and the age of a character versus telling. This might be a good exercise to do for character development.

2. The following exercise is from David Yoo's class MINING PAIN FOR HUMOR which focused on the different ways to incorporate humor into your writing.

David had us take come boring and overused cliches and make them funny. I failed at my attempt but perhaps others out there can do better:

Cliche Exercise: Take a cliche and make it fresh and funny.

cold as ice
cute as a button
smooth as silk
sweeter than sugar
strong silent type

My example:

strong smelly type
cute as velcro
sweet as Splenda (these are my lame attempts)

Another exercise he had us do was "titles of heavy metal bands that never made it".

My lame attempt:

Skid Dough
Puns and Moses
Deaf Cow
Rotting Stew

*These types of quick exercises are ways of practicing being funny...which I think you have to practice, like anything else.

3. David Yoo ran the critique workshop for my group (writing for children and young adults) and he had us do these awesome exercises that were quick but powerful. Check them out.:

Exercise:
Three lists of 10. At age 16, who were the 10 people most important to you? The 10 happiest moments? The 10 saddest moment?

    1.    My three best friends
    2.    Parents
    3.    Sister
    4.    Grandmother
    5.    several ex boyfriends
    6.    a few cool teachers (math, director of school play, AP US History)

    1.    Camp summer ’91
    2.    Hanging out at HoJos with friends
    3.    Cast party for You Can’t Take it With You
    4.    Getting the lead in YCTIWY
    5.    Performing solo for dance
    6.    Going to Sachuest after play practice
    7.    Boston 17th birthday with my best friends

    1.    Party gone wrong at Fort Adams, rushing friend to hospital
    2.    Being stood up on my 17th birthday
    3.    Valentines day ’91...
    4.    Every night I stayed up to await HIS call....

What I notice is how, looking back, these things that seemed so great or terrible are so insignificant to my adult self but felt HUGE to my 16 year old self. Also that had I written a list for 17...it would be a lot heavier. Sixteen was the last year of innocence....I only had three sad things...I think that this also forces me back into my adolescent self and that will help me write from for that age more authentically.

4. Another list type exercise from David:
Describe the “villain” in your life when you were in high school from your point of view at sixteen and then take on the pov of the villain describing you.

baseball hat
mean
won’t go away
shows up unannounced

goes out with all the wrong dudes
like her friends
think of her as my friend but not really

*So...this proved to be very hard for me. I kept wanting to be the adult and psychoanalyze both myself and the person who I called "villian". I also think drudging up this stuff is uncomfortable because it's from so long ago. But this is the stuff that helps me write for teens, so drudge up I will!

5. This is from Dennis Lehane's class CHARACTER AS ROADMAP. He focused on how you develop characters and shared with us his new technique for starting novels. He begins with a series of questions that he answers through his main (and minor) characters. The answers provide the "story" of the character.

EXERCISE

    1.    Which quality of yours makes you most proud?
    2.    What’s your personal quirk(s)?
    3.    What about you is borderline negative but not particularly harmful?
    4.    Greatest hope for your self in your life?
    5.    If you could have one wish no matter how impossible what would it be?
    6.    What’s the personal event or person who broke your heart?
    7.    What is your greatest flaw?
    8.    What is your greatest fear?
    9.    What is a phobia of yours?
    10.    Have you ever let someone down who was in need?
    11.    Describe a moment you rose to the occasion or did something exemplerary.
    12.    Have you ever lied to someone you love the most in the world? (Big lie)
    13.    What’s your addition?
    14.    Have you ever engaged in behavior that you shouldn’t?
    15.    What would make your life PERFECT?
    16.    What’s your first dramatic memory?

6. Finally, I conclude with ADVICE FOR THE FUTURE from our commencement speaker (I have not graduated yet but we all attend the graduations every residency) Philip Lopate.

    1.    Be more arrogant
    2.    Learn how to bluff until the world starts saying “yes”
    3.    Cultivate specialties...research enhances writing
    4.    Don’t quit your day job
    5.    Don’t get hung up on self imposed boundaries.
    6.    Make lots of friends...because you will lose some.
    7.    Hang around enough people who don’t have enough money to sue you.
    8.    Cultivate detachment
    9.    Cultivate judgment
    10.    Read
    11.    Yes...do try and get published.
    12.    Mulitple submissions is a good idea
    13.    Go to parties and sleep with editors..make yourself known.
    14.    Be patient.
    15.    Don’t get pessimistic about the “death of literature” stuff
    16.    Don’t allow yourself to get yanked around by contradictory advice. Don’t try to turn yourself inside out.
    17.    Be wary of taking advice from strangers especially those in suits.

A Writer's Prayer

2010-06-28T17:10:00.001-04:00

A Writer’s Hope

I am hopeful
that today will be better than yesterday
that 35 will be my lucky year
that it’s not really over even if the fat lady has sung...several times

I am hopeful
that my words will come out
imperfectly perfect
that I will meet my soul mate agent
across a crowded room
and it will be like falling in love

I am hopeful
that my MFA will not be in vain
that I will teach, write, work, work, work
and it will all be worth it.

I am hopeful
that the deep ache in my arms,
will morph into a strength– a muscle– that
will ease the pain, the burden of bracing, carrying, and
typing.

I am hopeful that the best is truly yet to come,
that I will be a late bloomer
and it will be okay
that destiny is real
faith is alive
and cliches are actually useful because they usually are true.

Updated Annotated Bibliography from Semester Three

2010-06-08T17:33:00.000-04:00

About.com: Classic Literature website. http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/kchopin/bl-kchop-thestorm.htm. The Storm. Kate Chopin. January, 2009. Delicious but melodramatic language that was of the time period. Lots of tension and a clear plot line. Lots of telling verses showing but the language made it work.

Anderson, M.T. Feed. Cambridge: Candlewick Press, 2002. I became very depressed while reading this book. I also felt myself get kind of angry at the author, which probably isn't fair. I feel like he is making a statement about technology and this country and that made me a little annoyed. The idea and concept is truly unique and brilliant, and the fact that it moved me in some way means it is a really significant book.

Angus, Douglas. The Best Short Stories of The Modern Age. Fawcett; Revised edition, 1987. This anthology has all classic authors: Sherwood Anderson, Anton Chekov, Joseph Conrad, Shirley Jackson, D.H. Lawrence, Katherine Mansfield, Lionel Trilling, and quite a few more. My favorite piece is The Rocking Horse Winner because of the use of metaphor and symbol, which I can actually understand easily now, as an adult, instead of not seeing it at all when I read it in high school. This is about a truly dysfunctional family who wants to keep up with the Jones at all costs. The father uses his son to help him select a horse to bet on and over time, the poor boy starts to feel responsible for helping his father increase his luck. I read it this time feeling very sorry for the child who rides his rocking horse into a frenzy, channeling the winning horse. I interpreted this as a metaphor for what children will do to please their parents, sometimes dying over it as the little boy in this story does.

Asher, Jay. 13 Reasons Why. New York: Penguin Young Readers Group, 2007. I liked the suspense in the book and the premise– someone who has committed suicide speaking, on tape, to the collection of people that she holds responsible. Asher pulled off something that if not written well and with authentic dialogue, would not have worked.

Alexie, Sherman. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian. Boston: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 2009. Pee-your-pants funny. Reminded me, at times, of “There’s Something About Mary” in that I couldn’t believe what I was reading. David Yoo’s book Girls for Breakfast also came to mind while I read this novel. Brilliant and funny. Unique and perfect for any teenager who is markedly different from those around him or her.

Altman, Steve. 317am.net. “What Good Is an Unreliable Narrator?”. November 26, 2009. Web. January 2010. This was a good piece for understanding where the term “unreliable narrator” came from (Wayne Booth). Turns out, the technique is as old as The Canterbury Tales.

Atwood, Margaret. Cat’s Eye. New York: Anchor Books, 1998. Unfortunately, I do not like the author’s writing style very much. It’s a kind of denseness that I find claustrophobic. The plot was okay, but I couldn’t get through the entire book.

Bagdasarian, Adam. First French Kiss and Other Traumas. Canada: Douglas & McIntyre Publishing, 2002. I enjoyed this and thought the structure was unusual. It seemed like a fictional memoir and instead of separate stories the pieces were different vignettes all around the trauma of his father’s death.

Barnholdt, Lauren. Two-Way Street. New York: Simon Pulse, 2007. Well, it was a fast read but there was something forced about the plot. It seemed unlikely that parents would force their daughter to go on a cross country trip with her boyfriend who just dumped her all because that was their plan for her to get to college. Also, the MySpace references were irritating. It made it seem like a commercial for it. Turns out the author has s very active Myspace page. I did like the alternating points of view though, as I’m intrigued with POV choices. It was a good read but a little contrived with the plot.

Bauby, Jean-Dominique. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. New York: Random House, 1997. Amazing tight language. A story to be read in one setting. Have a box of Kleenex. In terms of first person point of view–I know it’s a memoir, but memoirs still can have a point of view worth studying–this book presents a unique first person with almost all internal monologue and that highlights the idea that we are all free in mind if not in body.

Billingsley, Franny. Folk Keeper. New York: Antheneum Books For Young Readers, 1999. This is a page turner with vivid action and description. I was disappointed to find out that it’s based on another legend/story because I was really impressed with the plot/world.

Britton, Vickie. Writing-novels.suite101.com. “Writing In first Person”. November 23, 2007. Web. January 2010. A general piece about the pros and cons of first person. Not much new here.

Brown, Rebecca. The Gifts of the Body. New York: Harpercollins, 1994.This wasn’t a memoir but based on the author’s work as an AIDS homecare worker. It is truly amazing in terms of the preciseness of writing. I read this thinking, there’s nothing else like this out there.

Burroway, Janet. Writing Fiction. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Addison-Wesley. 1999. Sometimes too technical and not user friendly. But the journaling and point of view sections were really helpful to me. It’s probably the best technical craft book out there.

Cabot, Meg; Jaffe, Michele; Harrison, Kim; Meyer, Stephanie; and Myracle, Lauren. Prom Nights From Hell. New York: HarperTeen, 2007. I read a lot of anthologies last semester so I tried to avoid them this semester. But, this had some notable authors, so I had to read it. I enjoyed this anthology even though it’s not my taste–fantasy/fantastical. I was intrigued because several of the authors in the anthology were not known for their fantasy/fantastical work. I selected one of the pieces to annotate and while the story itself bored me, the writing was excellent, particularly the use of a close third person point of view with a dual voice.

Caletti, Deb. Honey, Baby, Sweetheart. New York: Simon Pulse, 2008. This is an award-winning book…but not an award-winning story. The language was a bit melodramatic for me but I appreciate the vivid descriptions and sensory language. It is supposed to be a teen romance story with a not Disney princess ending–which I also appreciated. The title comes from, in my opinion, the best character in the story. A septuagenarian lady who tells the main character that after her husband died, she decided she was no longer going to be someone’s honey, baby, or sweetheart. That is really the award-winning part–message for me as a reader.

Card, Scott, Orson. Characters & Viewpoint. Cincinnati, Ohio: Writer’s Digest Books. 1988. Book. I loved this as a craft book because it was very specific about how viewpoint is created. This goes beyond the pros and cons of each point of view and discusses the “how”.

Cart, Michael, ed. Rush Hour: Bad Boys. New York: Delacorte Books For Young, 2004. I met Michael Cart years ago and he was so kind and knowledgeable about YA literature. I think he’s the grandfather of the genre. Maybe the inventor? I like his willingness to bring forth stories that are risky and different. This collection was just that, and Jacqueline Woodson’s piece Poe-Raven is the most brilliant short story I read this semester. Nothing happens yet everything happens–it’s a narrative of internal revelation and understanding.

Cart, Michael, ed. Rush Hour: Sin. New York: Delacorte Books For Young Readers, 2004. I didn’t like this collection as much as the other one. The stories seemed more about the plot verses the character pushing the plot.

Corrigan, Kelly. The Middle Place. New York: Hyperion, 2008. Cried and thought about how I wished I had a father like Kelly’s.

Coelho, Paul. The Alchemist. New York: Harper Collins, 1993. As someone on Goodreads said, “I was underwhelmed” by this book. It was, in a few words, trite and boring. Maybe I missed the point or am too jaded or read too many self-help books.

Curtis, Christopher Paul. Bud, Not Buddy. New York: Random House Children’s Books, 1999. Not a good as The Watson’s Go To Birmingham. I had high hopes and was bored.

Davis, Stephanie. Smart Boys & Fast Girls. New York. Smooch, 2005. I connected to this book because the girl opens the story by saying she is every boy’s “buddy” and now, junior year, wants more. I expected to see this struggle played out, and it really wasn’t the main thrust of the plot. However, I did let go of that enough to enjoy it. But it made me realize that it’s important to go through your story to make sure that things you “say” are things that you “show” and if you don’t, maybe that’s not something you need.

Dundy, Elaine. The Dud Avocado. New York: NYRB Classics, 2007. I loved this book except when the author took a left turn into an epistolary novel. Tried to make this work into my thesis but failed because, all in all, it’s not a truly great book in terms of point of view.

Ellis, Bret Easton. Less Than Zero. New York: Random House, 1985. The voice and story bored me. I know that part of the point is for you feel the numbness of the characters. I thought that could be achieved better if it were condensed down to a short story.

Fictionweek.com. “Fiction Week Writer's Group Discussion: Examples of Point of View in Modern Fiction Part 1: First Person”. 1996-2009. Web. January 2010. More of the same basic information about the differences in point of view.

Flake, Sharon. The Skin I’m In. New York: Hyperion Books for Children, 2007. What I liked about this story was the message and portrayal of mentorship between a teacher and student and that its characters were varied and not slices of a stereotype of inner city African Americans. I also thought the internal struggle of the main character with her looks was relatable and universal–this opens the book to a very wide audience.

Flake, Sharon. Who Am I Without Him? New York: Hyperion Books for Children, 2005 While there were may stereotypes portrayed and that’s not my favorite thing to read, within each stereotype was a uniqueness in character and story.

Gallo, Don, ed. No Easy Answers: Short Stories about Teenagers Making Tough Choices. New York: Bantam Doubleday Dell Books for Young Readers, 1997. Really enjoyed this eclectic collection. Some stories had mainly dialogue and others had a lot of exposition– good for my annotations. The first story had such a great premise but the way too long exposition kind of made it long-winded.

Gallo, Don, ed. Visions: 19 Short Stories. New York: Bantam Doubleday Dell Books for Young Readers, 1987. I’m not a fan of sci-fi or fantasy but there were Richard Peck’s “Shadows” was really lovely and sad. You think that this girl is haunted by a ghost but it turns out what she sees is a boy hiding in her house is the son of one of the aunts caring for the narrator. It’s all classic Peck and filled with irony.
Gallo, Don, ed. Sixteen: Short Stories by Outstanding Writers for Young Adults New York: Bantam Doubleday Dell Books for Young Readers, 1984. . I didn’t like this collection. I found the stories to not be satisfying. I often thought, am I just not getting this?

Gilks, Marg. writing-world.com. “Establishing the Right Point of View: How to Avoid "Stepping Out of Character". 2001. Web. January 2010. Really like this article because it was personal. The author shares an early example of her work with a botched up point of view. Then goes on to discuss how to avoid making those same mistakes.

Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. The Yellow Wallpaper (Dover Thrift Editions). New York: Dover, 1997. While it’s hard at times to follow exactly what is happening, that actually doesn’t matter because this is a story about what goes on inside the mind verses events that happen outside the mind.

Gotlieb, Lori. Stick Figure. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2009. One of my students read this for summer reading, and so I joined in–I resisted reading this when it came out years ago, fearing it would be another Hollywood royalty psycho-drama. However, this was a painful but humorously told story of Lori, daughter to a famous producer mother Linda, about a young girl’s journey into and out of anorexia. One of the better memoirs on the subject!

Greene, Graham. The Shocking Incident. http://www.nbu.bg/webs/amb/british/6/greene/accident.htm. To me, very much the 1960’s, with the kind of quirky bizarre pig-falling and killing the dad. It was okay but not my thing. I think was a play on “when pigs fly”.

Green, John. Looking For Alaska. New York: Dutton Books, 2005. A little melodramatic but liked the character development of the narrator and “Alaska”.

Hill, Laban, Carrick. Casa Azul. New York: Watson-Guptill, 2005. An interesting idea and fun way to look at history/biography of Freda Kahlo.

Hills, L. Rust. Writing In General and the Short Story in Particular. New York: First Mariner Books, 2000. Incredibly helpful about the parts of plot. Will use this again and again!

Howe, James, ed. 13: Thirteen Stories That Capture The Agony And Ecstasy of Being Thirteen. New York: Simon Pulse, 2006. I loved every story in this collection and really fell in love with Alex Sanchez. So much so that I went on and read two more of his books.

Kearny, Meg. Home By Now. New York: Four Way Books, 2009. This lady makes me want to write poetry. The use of metaphor is brilliant and shames my own lame attempts, and, yet, I think careful readings of her work can help me make my own a lot better.

Kearney, Meg. The Secret of Me. New York: Persea, 2007. The brevity of words with the hugeness of story.

Krauss, Nicole. The History of Love. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2005. The feat of having multiple povs impresses me as a fellow writer but as a reader, by the last fourth of the book, I just felt like I wanted it all to come together in a more satisfying way. That her mother's grief never seemed to go anywhere bothered me and that so many of the people who needed to meet one another died before they could get the chance frustrated me. This could all be that I wanted a more neat and tidy ending, not necessarily happy, though. I found myself skipping pages towards the end. I loved the narrative voices of Leo and Alma but could have done with out the third person narrative from the deep past–it didn't fit in with the other narrative voices in a way that felt cohesive. Krauss is an impressive writer and her ability to get inside two very different pov characters proves that over and over.

Lanagan, Margo. Black Juice. New York: Harper Teen, 2005. I liked this because I had no idea what I was reading and yet I continued to read.

Levithan, David,. ed. This Is Push: An Anthology of New Writing. New York: Scholastic, 2007. Out fifteen stories I really dug ten. Liked the idea of each story pushing truth and reality but not sure how they were defining those terms. Loved the Kristen Kemp piece!

Mandelbaum , Paul, ed. 12 Stories and Their Making. New York: Persea, 2007. Some of the stories I didn’t care for like The Story of My Life Kim Edwards, who wrote The Memory Keepers Daughter. I felt like it was contrived and after I read it, there was a section about how she wrote it and she said she took it right from a headline. I read this because it was supposed to be a story that had a tight plot. It totally bored me. I loved the Sandra Cisneros piece, even though it was a little confusing to follow.

McCafferty, Megan, ed. Sixteen. New York: Three Rivers Press, 2004. I enjoyed the variety in the anthology–from Ned Vizzini’s story about a boy from the old west coming of age via a brothel visit with dad to Carolyn Mackler’s story about two girls–one who has found religion and one who has just had sex. Most seemed to be really from the point of view of the modern teen except…I annotated one of the stories called Infinity, which, when I annotated it, I really liked–at least the use of symbols. She uses the metaphor of mastering a rotary as a symbol of mastering decisions about sex. However, when I look at the actual story now, it seems like a rather 1950s view of sex and teenagers. Dessen seemed to portray the men in the story, the boyfriend and father, as strong and capable drivers while her mother was timid and scared. I take that as men are powerful and able to make decisions about sex while sex is bad and dangerous for women and that they couldn’t possible even think about such a terrible thing.

McCaffrey, Laura, Williams. Alia Waking. New York: Clarion Books, 2003. The voice of Alia, her strength and determination inspired my inner teen. The “waking” is one that isn’t portrayed enough in literature. I hope that McCaffrey is simply ahead of the times. The writing is superb and exact.

Meyer, Stephanie. Twilight. Boston: Little, Brown Young Readers, 2005. The ending of this book made me kind of moan and groan. The whole other vampire liking her scent thing just seemed contrived. Otherwise, liked the romance.

Moffet, James and McElheny, Kenneth, R. eds. Points of View An Anthology of Short Stories. New York: Signet, 1995. This was perfect for my semester-long study of point of view. The editor organized the stories into categories based on their point of views. I particularly liked the story Acts of Faith about anti-Semitism in the US military during world war two. The author used anonymous narration with a single point of view, but I saw that there was definitely more than one point of view portrayed. Even though it seemed a little inconsistent with the pov at times, overall, it worked.

Myers, Walter Dean. Monster. New York: Amistad, 1999. I loved the format of this book–screen play with diary in between. I also liked that Myers uses a point of view that is first and then also third, which, together actually made for some distance between the reader and narrator. So much distance that you never know if the protagonist was actually guilty.

Myers, Walter Dean. What they Found Love. New York: Wendy Lamb Books, 2007. Enjoyed the varied voices of the characters but wished for more of a through-line.

Na, An. Wait For Me. New York: Putnam Juvenile, 2006. Beautiful language, but I did feel some of the characterization in Mina to be too vague.

Oats, Joyce Carol. Faithless. New York: Harper Perennial, 2002. I didn’t like this book. I read on Amazon that no one gave it less than three stars, so maybe something is wrong with me. Her work doesn’t seem timeless, like I though it would. The ending of the first story seemed like a scene from melodrama from the 1950s–an inference that the father killed the mother and buried her in the backyard– and was predictable. I was intrigued by the title, but felt disappointed. Could it just be that I don’t get it?

Potak ,Chaim. Zebra. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1998. This collection about 6 pre teens and the life changing events they go through has a promising strong start with the first three stories from the male perspective but when Potak tries to write from a girl’s perspective he falls way short.

Rasley, Alicia. The Power of Point of View. Cincinnati, Ohio: Writer’s Digest Books. 2008. Book. This was another great craft/technique book that helps the writer to reexamine his or her work with a focus on point of view. She doesn’t make a case for any particular one but does discuss her own struggles with point of view.

Rowling, J. K. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. New York: Scholastic, 2004. I’m not a fan of the Harry books, but Rowling is a master of dialogue.

Ross-Larson, Bruce. Stunning Sentences (The Effective Writing Series). New York: W.W. Norton & Co, 1999. After Laura suggested that I work on varying my sentence structure I looked for a quick reference that wouldn’t bore me to death. I found this in the bookstore and read this on the treadmill in two days. The clear and simple examples and instruction really influenced and encouraged me to play around with sentence variation both critical and creative work. It explained and elaborated on the idea of rhythm in your writing.

Salinger, J. D. The Catcher In The Rye. Boston: Little, Brown, & Company, 1991. I have read and taught this probably twenty times and always discover something new. This time I realized the power of Holden’s voice, not just that he sounded like a teen from 1950, but that his voice, the sound of it was a universal sound of angst and fatigue. I related.

Salinger, J.D. Nine short stories. Boston: Little, Brown, & Company, 1991. A classic. Never tired of reading A Perfect Day for Bananafish, which uses a kind of old fashion exposition technique of talking on the phone to reveal background.

Sanchez, Alex. So Hard to Say. New York: Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division, 2006. I am not a fan of his writing style, which, at times seems forced and awkward, but his courage to tell these stories about gay teenage boys wins me over. I liked the premise of a girl falling for a boy as he is discovering he is gay and didn’t find it smarmy in the telling of the tale.

Sanchez, Alex. The God Box. New York: Simon Pulse, 2007. This was a little less interesting to me as the previous book. The stuff about God, the bible quotes, were way too much, but it proved that Sanchez did his research. Again, boy discovers he is gay but in this one he has had a girlfriend for 4 years and now must come to terms with her and himself. There is a bashing scene that I really got emotional over.

Scofield, Sandra. The Scene Book. New York: Penguin, 2007. I read Sandra’s out of curiosity but found her ideas helpful. It was more of a workbook, which wasn’t what I was looking for. I think this is a nice craft book to have on hand when trying to fine tune your stories and make sure you have all the elements of scene. What I really liked was Sandra’s little bits about her own writing life and how she created her own self-study of books. The other nice part about the book is that it isn’t too technical and very user-friendly for beginner or advanced.

Seton Hill Website. http://jerz.setonhill.edu/writing/creative/shortstory/ an article about writing short stories. Basic and helpful reminder of the basics. Used this in the beginning of the semester to remind myself of the elements of plot I wanted to really examine.

Shange, Ntozake. Ellington Was Not a Street. New York: Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers, 1983. Unique idea to take a poem and make it into a children’s book, particularly when the poem is not necessarily for children. But to read it this way makes a heavy theme easier to digest and understand.

Shuma, Holly. Love And Other Natural Disasters. New York: 5 Spot, 2009. This is chick-lit that wasn’t that bad although a little predictable. I liked the premise of an emotional affair.

Spinelli, Jerry. Stargirl. New York: Dell Laurel-Leaf, 2000. Well, I didn’t love, love this book years ago when I read it for teaching purposes. I was annoyed by my inability to characterize the type of fiction–was it a parable? Was it a fairy tale? What is this thing? I loved Jerry Spinelli and was put off by this departure–as I saw it. Reading it now, open to the idea that you cannot always characterize what type of YA fiction you are reading–and that’s good thing–, I started to enjoy it. I annotated this and found that the use of images as symbols was interesting and effective. I still am not in love with the story though. Is the message don’t be different, conform? That, in the end, being different doesn’t work? I don’t know. Too confusing.

Steele, Danielle. Rogue. New York: Bantam Dell, 2008. Yuck. Repetitive, trite, flat.

Summers, Courtney. Cracked Up To Be. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2008. I liked this until the end. The missing girl poster thing confused me.

Toole, Kennedy John. The Confederacy of the Dunces. New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1987. The single most brilliant use of third person omniscient! It beats out Anna Karenina in the effective third person POV category. Additionally, characters are brilliantly developed through dialogue and interior monologue through third person. The plot is hilarious even if some of the author’s laborious descriptions slows things down. The last quarter of the book is a page turner.

Tsetsi, Kristen. Homefront. Nashville: Penxhere Press, 2007. I wrote an annotation on this book, and, yet, it is hard to write a quick blurb about my feelings regarding it. I will say this: clear, beautiful, evocative language and a first person point of view intriguingly reporterish. My hang up was that–and you have to read this in order to get it–I felt like the author/narrator hated children and, therefore, as a mother I found the portrayal of a pregnancy in the book rather upsetting. But my own prejudice was put aside, and I really loved this book.

Tracy, Kristen. Lost It. New York: Simon Pulse, 2007 Well I liked this as it dealt with the decision to have sex and how it can change things but in a unique way although I found the ending kind of disappointing. Plus I felt like it was saying that when you have sex, things always go bad. I’d like to write a story about someone’s first time being great.

Vorwald, John and Wolf, Ethan. Creating Short Fiction: The Classic Guide to Writing Short Fiction. New York: Spark Publishing, 2006. Simple to understand.

Wild, Peter, ed. Noise: Fiction Inspired by Sonic Youth. New York: Harper Perennial, 2008. Liked a lot of it and hated some of it. I just didn’t get some of the stories. Not sure if I would call this YA.

Woodson, Jacqueline. Locomotion. New York: Puffin Putnam Books for Young Readers, 2003. I loved these children and wanted to take them home and care for them but I also marveled at their strength. Woodson writes reality.

Woodson, Jacqueline. Feathers. New York: Peguin, 2007. Book. Brilliant, beautiful, awesome writing. I did feel the end of the book fell a little flat for me because it kind of was more “telling” than showing. But the writing is spectacular.

Yoo, David. Girls For Breakfast. New York: Delacorte Books for Young Readers, 2005. I loved this book. David has created a character that you hate and love all in the same moment. His protagonist, ultimately, is a kind of hero though. His self deprecation isn't just for effect, and as the novel progresses it turns into self awareness and insight. It's a kind of epic novel following the main character from 3rd grade to senior year graduation. This is a book not only about race and identity but really about being a boy. I would subtitle this "The secret life of boys" and wish I had read it in high school because I would have been far more sympathetic to the plight of the teenage male.
Zarr, Sara. Story of a Girl: New York: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 2007. I like the minimal pop culture references as well as the minimal technology, which makes it so that you can read it twenty years from now. I felt like it was a timeless piece about the relationship between a girl and her father after she is labeled the town slut. This was no slick Gossip Girls like it could have been. The writing was lovely and literary.

Surrender

2010-05-08T16:04:00.001-04:00

Surrender

Nothing I thought might work is working.
This isn’t even working.
The words aren’t coming.
The words that did come don’t matter...

The pain is there no matter if I type or sit or drive or eat or sleep or bathe.
Can’t hold or rock or type or reach
without
the searing.
Tears fill my eyes
out of sadness for what could be
for
what might have been
for
“if only...”

Stopping
is
depressing.

So, I go on and reach and type and rock and hold and then later–
in the hot water where I don’t feel anything but warmth and the pain is muted–
I exhale.

I cry only in the car and when I write at a coffee shop.
Or
in the middle of the night when everyone sleeps.

I cry at all I give up on.

I can’t even control myself here in this cafe
no one seems to notice
which is good.
I could say, “It’s just allergies.”
I fumble in my bag for tissues, but all I see is the heat wrap I carry for long bouts of writing.

One of the girls behind the counter–
long blond pony tail
runs out from behind the counter and hugs a young man who comes through the door which has a bell.
Tan, straight teeth, short hair.
They hug and sit down.
He chews gum. She leans back and twirls her hair.

***

In the car earlier, Chelsea sang every word of a Taylor Swift song that said something about the day being a fairytale and I
–of course–
cried.
She didn’t notice.

I realized I never dreamed of that fairytale.
My fairytale was about NYC, agents, and editors...book signings...

But her fairytale, her hopes and dreams of being
a writer, a chef, a teacher, a fashion designer
are still possible
while mine
are
not.

Searing, aching, pinching.
Stiffness
of the joints.
It’s time to let go. Stop holding on.
This is the irony of life that I always thought was just on paper:
All I thought I would be and do,
I will not.
I will drop my arms, I will stop clutching and pulling and twisting and gripping.

I will surrender.

Pain, chronic

2010-04-25T18:57:00.002-04:00

and if i spoke my truth what would it say?
and if I could hear my pain what would it say?
i have worked hard, so hard
harder and harder and harder still–
nothing new about that
except pain
and
loss
of words
expression
pain, more and more, as I type
pinch on the left at the joint of the elbow and forearm
pain–
pinch, burn
ache
deep
gun shot pain
worse than anything
than labour
no end result
no end
I see no end
and I cry
and I cry
I feel myself losing myself
like I did when I had Hyperemesis
the loss of self
the loss of me
who is positive
upbeat
funny
clear headed
multitasker
strong–
I am weak
I hurt
so vulnerable
losing so much of who I have built myself to be
writer
Nope.
can’t type, can’t write, so how am I a writer?
mom
not as much as I want to be
I can hug, I can encourage
but I can’t pick you up.
My focus is weakened by the pain
and I have been tackling it.
wait...
a warmth is in my elbows now not sure if it’s pain can’t tell the difference between–
oh
wait
there it is.
the pinch in the left elbow just as I think– there.
it pinches and pinches

it’s like everything every effort– with getting published with trying to make my business work–every effort is just literally met with a gun shot straight into the heart.

I have to stop because it hurts so much

I’m back
and even though i am losing, i keep trying
when does that character trait become something not commendable?

gun shot pain in both elbows, the right and left hinge
i cry and i cry and i try and try and i do what everyone says and, yet, i am worse and i don’t want to tell my family that because i know they are sick of my pain sick of my pain and so am i
i worry about the future and how how will i write my thesis for next semester and how will i hold my baby and how will i work and make a living what about when i finally surrender and let the pain eat me completely

am i a fighter out of stubbornness, out of defiance, out of rebellion, out of f- you i will show you, out of rejection, out of under dogness?

or am i just stupid and nothing can beat the hope out of me?

i have nothing left and i am running on faking it and i don’t know how much longer that will last

it scares me but i also know there’s nothing i can do about it, it just is

you can’t understand chronic pain until you are in it you can’t articulate it until you are in it and it hurts
the word hurt
look at the “u” part of it
its top is open and vulnerable and that’s where I am so open so unable to stop the pain

ANOTHER REJECTION

2010-03-24T13:51:00.004-04:00

So.

Okay, I hesitated even writing this, even just writing it to myself, let alone sharing this with the world. But you know what? I write to vent and be heard. So, here it goes...

I F@#$%#@ hate REJECTION. Seriously, I try to be all zen about it. I try NOT to be angry.

F*(% that.

It sucks. This contest, (I entered the Amazon Breakout Novel contest and got through the first round but didn’t make the second and just found this out five minutes ago) just like the Delacorte one I entered so many years ago, is such a friggin’ tease for me. I always seem to come into things second or third best. Or, I get a tease that it might happen. With the Delacorte one, I got a handwritten note from a certain editor named Jennifer who said the story didn’t win but I love your voice and I want to see more. Then I showed her more...and didn’t hear back for a year! Just to hear “Oh, thanks but no thanks." There’s been countless correspondences with agents and editors like that, and I don’t want to relive those torturous times. The deal is, this rejection for Fear of Falling– with this recent contest– particularly sucks because I didn’t get excited about it at first. really wasn’t going to tell anyone, but then I did, and now it’s kind of like telling people you are pregnant too early and then finding out you never were and now you have to go back and tell everyone.

IT SUCKS.

So.

I got rejected. Yep, I’m a LOSER. By definition.

I am sitting with the feelings of it and letting myself just feel it and not struggling with it or telling myself a bunch of bullshit. When I do that, I form a weird, secondary pain, one that comes from the struggle of pushing back what I really feel. We all do that, right? Something happens–a rejection or betrayal– and, at first, you are like, “Oh, hey, I’m cool. Whatever. I don’t need that shit. I’m so much better than that. WHATEVER!” Then, the pain hits. “Oh, man, this sucks. Man, this just sucks.” Then you fight it again, but this time it’s really hard and almost feels worse than the actual rejection itself. “Oh, God, I suck. I’m such a loser.” Then I fight that with: “No– I’m not! Whatever. Just don’t think about it. Let go. Who cares. It means nothing....” But, the truth always comes through. The truth of my feelings, that is. And that truth is...it does hurt and fighting with the hurt, hurts even worse.

So.

Here I am. Feeling the pain of yet another rejection from yet another publisher. Even though this is a contest, it is one with a prize of publication and book contract. In other words, winning this, for me, would be like winning the lottery. No, better. It would be better to get a book contract than win the lottery. Because a book contract is earned. It means validation. It means I have made it. I have mixed feelings about saying that. I guess I really don’t like to admit that I want the validation of the publishing industry because that will imply that their criteria is valid when, in fact, we know that’s not always the case (just look at some of the shit they publish!).

But getting the book deal, in a weird way I don’t want to psychoanalyze, feels like winning prom queen. Me. The anti-prom queen girl. If I win prom queen, it means all the bullshit rules of the beautiful, perfect people getting everything they want–those rules are all turned upside down. If I’m the prom queen–the girl who you thought would never, could never be the prom queen–if I win, then maybe we all have a fair chance. This part of me that feels that way is the same part that is still fifteen years old. The same part that can’t stop writing young adult fiction. The part of me that gets rejected from the publishing industry.

This rejection from yet another publisher, brings up all kinds of other moments in my life of rejection. Of course, these moments are all before the age of eighteen because that’s the part of me that is the writer. Here’s what I immediately thought of when I read the list of who made it to the second round. I thought of how NO ONE asked me to either my junior or senior prom, and I remember standing at both proms looking around and realizing not one person in my class of roughly 120 kids wanted to go with me to prom–okay, split that in half. Not one out of 60 people in my class, people who I have known since third grade, not one thought going with me to prom would even be tolerable, even just as friends. I sucked THAT much. I remember thinking that and wanting to kind of curl up and just sleep for the remaining years of high school. Now, I think back and I can be all adult about it and say, “Well, whatever. It really doesn’t mean much to not be asked to prom. I mean, who cares? What does it mean in the scheme of things, right?”

The problem is that it may not mean much in terms of will I get up and move on in my life, but it means something to me inside each time I am rejected. Rejection SUCKS. And no matter what it’s for, it all feels the same. Dank, dark, yicky, sad, shitty frustrating, and unfair. It leaves such a heaviness in my body, such a feeling of not really being in this moment but being deeply inside my mind, where all the pain sits.

I sit and type this at Starbucks, feeling like I really am a loser. I mean I have been writing and trying to break into the mainstream world of publishing for so many years, and I keep getting the proverbial kick in the face, and, yet, even with this rejection, I am not giving up. Now does that make me? Crazy? Tenacious? Admirable? Stubborn? Stupid?

Of course, when rejection happens, I look at the work itself that is getting rejected, and I say, “Well, you know. I am just not good enough.” Now that reality used to hurt me really deep. When I would come to the realization that the rejection slip meant I wasn’t good enough, I would just really struggle with that and think, “No. No. I am good enough. He/she/they are just stupid and don’t know a good thing when they see it.” But now, wiser and older, I realize that, the thing is, I am not good enough. Period. End of sentence. All of these publishers and agents can’t all be stupid and not know what they are talking about. I am not good enough to get a real, genuine, book deal.

As I say that to you, I know some of you might get nervous for me. Listen, don’t worry about me. I can sit with this reality and not die. I can sit with this reality and still get up and write.

Shit, I am writing right now.

***It's several hours later and I have had time to come out of the dankness of the initial feelings of being rejected. It isn't true that I am not good enough for a book deal. What is true is that for this particular publisher and this particular contest, my work wasn't right. In fact, that's what being rejected really is about. We just aren't a match. What can you do?

Things That Annoy Me

2010-03-14T21:45:00.000-04:00

Things That Annoy Me

I gave this assignment to an 8th grade student who is working on paragraph development. We each responded to the prompt, “Things That Annoy Me”. When we were done, we evaluated both my student’s piece and my own. I asked my student to tell me what was good about each. My student looked me square in the eye and said, “Yours has ‘voice’”. Then my student set out to revise his own, and when he read the new version to me, it had lots and lots of voice.

Being annoyed is part of the human condition. For me, being annoyed seems to come easily lately; my life is quite stressful, and I find with an increase in stress, comes a decrease in tolerance for pet peeves. I really hate– I mean hate with a kind of furor that should be reserved only for a Mike Tyson boxing match– when my family members leave their clothes, shoes, and toys (including my husband) all around the house. It makes me feel unappreciated and ignored, as I have requested– pleasantly, even– to them all to "Please pick up your stuff!" Another pet peeve of mine is when my cats leave remnants of their escapades in the kitty box on my couch. Yes, they like to shake their rumps on my couch after a good poop so that the tiny litter specs collect within the crease of the couch, which is a futon, which actually is another pet peeve of mine: Furniture that tries to pass off as something it is not. A futon wants to be both couch and bed, when, in reality, it makes for a poor, uncomfortable couch that’s hard to vacuum kitty litter off of and a really hard bed. So, these are my most pressing pet peeves: family leaving stuff around the house, kitties leaving litter on my futon/couch, and furniture that tries to pass off as something other than its own kind. Now, I'm going to go watch TV on my futon and pet my cats. But, first I have to go pick up everyone's stuff...

So, I challenge my blog readers to respond to the prompt: Things That Annoy Me. And, be “voicey” about it! Post it in a comment to this blog.

Unedited Love poem to my Daughters

2010-02-17T13:32:00.003-05:00

A WriterMommy’s Poem

shit
“what the world needs now is love sweet love..”
floats out above the speakers at Starbucks
and
two little girls just a few years apart both blond and their brother and mother walk in.
pain
missing my daughters.
guilt creeps in as if to control and justify
but now
I watch it
know it for what it is
and realize
i
just
have
pain
it’s the pain of missing them
the bittersweetness of parenting
the guilt
is like this odd secondary pain that’s the result of the struggle
sometimes
it’s not about doing anything
but
about
just
letting
the thoughts
the feelings
be

now
i must
go back
to work
here
writing
but their laughter
makes me pause
tear up
little girls and their laugh
sisters
I have to bite my lower lip
the laughter is waterfall cackle and rises up above all the other noise
the whir of the coffee machines
the music that floats around
I don’t push it away
my pain of missing my sweet babies
I tear up and bite my lips harder and it’s hard to type from my tears
I miss them
they leave, giggling
their braids flailing
a tear escapes and I quickly swipe at it
and
get back
to work
thankful that
they
are
gone.

Why Write?

2010-02-06T15:04:00.005-05:00

Why Write?

I write to express.
I write to understand.
I write to see.
I write to hear.
I write to know.
I write to grow.
I write to create.
I write to get closer.
I write to be better.
I write to inspire.
I write to witness.

I’m writing because it feels right. I’m writing because other forms of expression don’t capture my intentions. I write because it’s less impulsive than when I speak. I'm bound to piss off less people with writing than speaking– I can slow down, I can think when I write. I write because I can’t draw or paint. I can’t sing or play an instrument. I write because I teach and I tell stories and writing is the best mode for both. I write because it’s easier to do so than anything else. I write because I like it, I love it, and I can’t get enough of it. I write because it’s the one thing I don’t get sick of, because it promises the most possibility. I write because it’s holy and sacred but absurd and ludicrous. I write because it makes me feel complete and whole and fragmented all at the same time. I write because it heals and teaches and helps. I write because most of the time I don’t know what else to do.

*I just wrote this with my students at my writing workshop "Writing Through The Block". To register for upcoming workshops or to learn more please go to Hannah's classes.

Bristol mom publishes her third book

2010-02-05T14:25:00.000-05:00

Bristol mom publishes her third book

Notes From Pine Manor College: Solstice Program in Creative Writing, 10 Day Residency

2010-01-16T14:23:00.001-05:00

These notes are a brief (and subjective) look at what an MFA student (me) jots down during an intense and profound experience of living, eating, working, and breathing with fellow writers for 10 days straight.....Take a peek inside. Again, these are just notes from the different workshops and readings and not a complete picture of the entire residency at Pine Manor College's Solstice MFA Program in Creative Writing.

JAN 1

Meg and Tanya: Opening Remarks

*Since I'm a third semester student, I kind of just listened and didn't really write anything down until our group was addressed:

Critical Essay (4th semester students offered their advice)

-Cindy "Love that I have words of wisdom to share…Pick a topic that you are passionate about…the critical paper becomes another piece of creative work…"

-Kerry "Get brave to talk about your topic in personal way…Why do I want to do this–keep asking [yourself this question].

-Not sure who said this one. My notes were smudgy here! Being courageous–initial idea didn't work at all. Be willing to go back to the drawing board. Willing to sit with anxiety.

***REMEMBER!!!!!! Mentor is not God or (a god)!
Critical thesis (what I am writing this semester)
    focused topic
    tackle of of your weaknesses

FIRST WORKSHOP WITH THE GREAT LABAN CARRICK HILL

Advice for looking at our fiction:
1. Who is talking? Is their sensibility and value being revealed in every paragraph
2. What's at stake? The so-what question.
3. Is the action being driven by emotion not by the need to move the plot forward. The plot movement is the result of the emotions?
4. Come up with questions that we should be asking ourselves.

Goals
-Kimberly finish draft
-Hannah to approximate
-Jasen- get emotional movement
-Kathleen- go back fill in the gaps
-Krystal fill in the gaps

Tell Laban what you are looking for (out of workshop sessions) don't be passive

"We want the best for the story."- Laban

Discussion on packets
Cover Letters of packets is an extended synopsis of what you are doing.

What are your goals this packet? What's the upcoming plan? How does this packet fit in with the last what are they issues you have struggled with and what have you mastered What is your detailed response to mentor's comment dialogue.

Random note that seems kind of cool:
How identity is performed so that it is not a characature. Failure of imagination.

FIRST READING OF RESIDENCY (Each night we attend readings of faculty and graduating students as well as visiting guests.)

Pine Manor faculty and poet goddess, Dzvinia Orlowsky

I just love the way she reads and the sound of her voice so I wrote down some random parts of her reading that struck me:
-"Magic power of 7"
-"At midnight animals will let you know what you did wrong."
-"Congratulate my nerves for chewing through the last leaf of sleep."

Sequential poems, using numbers instead of curly queues
"talons" (I just like that word)

-"the finger is pointing at you and you don't know why"

JAN 2

MORNING WORKSHOP

( Each day we focus on one of our classmate's work and critique it. I found it incredibly helpful to listen and jot down the feedback for everyone as there was something I could learn for myself.)

Kimberly's piece (Most of these comments are from our workshop leader, Laban).
-emerging from emotion
-emotion needs to drive this
-we are cabinet makers. A chapter is an end table you've constructed. Beginning and end is important.
-the emotions are subordinated in subordination clauses
-don't front load your novel
-move along at the knife edge of emotion
-use an adverb in first draft to remind yourself to go back and show
-make dialogue contain it
-simile needs to underscore emotion. This one does: "His voice was deep and rumbled like logs shifting in a fire." (from Kimberly's piece.)
-it feels like accessorizing rather than revealing something about the relationship with her mom: "The orange light lit up her face underneath making her wrinkles look like waves on a lake at sunset.
-rub one person's motivation against another's
-what's at stake?
-JK Rowling does this well. Keeps you in the moment.
-don't think 'how will this feed the story?'
-how does your simile inform character or story or are you accessorizing?
-dramatize versus exposition
-YA characters in transitional place
-plot happens through emotional logic
-begin and end with a bang
-hold on to tension until you are uncomfortable
-What's in your head is inexact language- an analog for landscape
-be as reductive as possible
-how do you create an apparatus to transfer this to someone else's head
-all about emotion
-action comes out of that

Discussion of Black Juice, an unusual collection of short stories by Margo Lanagan.
-satisfying one query but not primary (Black Juice)
-First story in Black Juice is reporting, witness speaking only in the moment
-begin at the most emotional point not being wetted to "time". what is it that we care about?
-feelings and actions, subject and verb
-begin with action no mediating it or explaining
-nothing is natural about language it is an artiface

Ellen Hopkins Olive's Ocean (a suggestion for reading)

exploit tension a (random note)

KRYSTAL'S CLASS
The Raw and The Wounded (Krystal's class focused on Twilight, by Stephanie Meyers.)

How did Meyers create a credible world?
What is character?
    -a scar?
    -a catch phrase?
    -a habit?
No!
Why do we care? Why are we upset? What makes us cheer or laugh? Why do we relate to characters in fantastical worlds?

    -you build a story in character
    -you build character in detail
    -values, desires, quirks, mannerisms
    YOU NEED MORE THAN THAT
_____________
Reality must prevail.
Humanity is key.
Realism and humanity
_____________
imperfections=credibility
the ugliness is beautiful
_____________
Burroway- 6 methods of character presentation, indirect or direct, authorial or other character interpretation: appearance, action, dialogue, thought

_____________
imperfection and flaw is that Edward is a vampire and his conflict is internal
_____________
Speculative fiction
    what is it to be human
    why does it matter
    WORTHY OF READERS
_____________
credibility
_____________
Who cares? emotional logic

JAN 3
MORNING WORKSHOP
I don't know what these notes are from exactly.....

-Bartleby, The Scrivner recommended reading
-The way two people "rub" together–grinding brings out characters. That's how tension is created, spot on. Out of that comes plot.
-When you write, you are having a conversation with books you love.
_____________
add scenes and constantly repair our narrative

JAN 4
MORNING WORKSHOP (on Kathleen's piece.)
-emotional time vs. chronological
-start in the middle of things
-all emotions to be physicalized
-"This is perfectly good, but I'm always looking for home runs. You've got it here to really swing for the fences." -Laban
Advice for after finishing a RD of a manuscript
1. Come up with one word to describe the entire book or story
2. Then, one sentence to describe the main character's journey
3. tip summary of each thematic concern and tension
4. How is each chp shaped and connected

Some random notes.
LET GO
BILLY JACK
"internal goth"
intensify do not accessorize
"Is it ever not right to love somebody?" Kimberly

"Subvert the dominate paradigm." Laban to Kathleen
_____________

VENISE BERRY'S CLASS: CLARITY AND DEPTH

Range–Where are you between Danielle Steele and Toni Morrison?

Deconstruct to learn how the author's did what they did.

TME editors are too afraid to edit her (Morrison)
        Her work reflects life in a way because "life is not linear" as she has said in interviews

JAQUELINE WOODSON SKYPE TALK

All kinds of ways of having family–didactic. But we show as writers
-Jesus Boy (a character in Feathers)
    Let reader bring themselves
-Write what you know…but you have a whole lot of information. All the experiences of what you know–family and ancestors before you.
-After Tupac
    Main character is unnamed. There's a reason she's unnamed.
-Feathers
    was called the Jesus Boy originally
    Jackie doesn't always know names
        -"I'm not conscious of a whole lot. I don't outline."
        -African American community never go by given name…as in Feathers.
-Jackie's goal is to have as few characters as possible but in Feathers the class and the students are important to the story. It's a story about a group of kids moving toward hope.
-Write about stuff I really care about. You get to create a world, that may or may not exist and do what you want.
-If You Come Softly is alternating first and third person
-"I feel like I don't have the answers…As writers, we ask the questions…We are on the journey with our characters.
-Write about what you care about
-Write about what exposes you
-Rail, NY–Poe Raven
-Jackie has her students read poetry. Sense of urgency with poetry, visuals too.
-When you get it, you feel it. It's visceral. I read out loud. It has to sound good. Line by line.
-Looking back, young adult tries not to use current slang
-You have a sense of that already we have info inside
-write the charter I would like to know
-sometimes leaves house without glasses for break
-hyper aware how do I have catharsis
-figure out what it is and do the hell out of it
-write the scene from another person's perspective
----------------------------------------------------
SANDRA'S CLASS ON WRITING THE CRITICAL ESSAY
-Your critical thesis is a conversation with other writers

I. Argument
    reasoned discussion but is
    not argumentative
    no hedging bets
Classic style
    Clear and simple writing classic

Prose
    Don't get involved in an trying to prove the weight of this

Rather make this a conversation not casual but friendly you are at ease in it and not self conscious

the sentence follows the thought
writing is not thinking in terms of a classic style it's expressing what you have already observed and thought out–in an explicit way

The writer has thought this through. It's variable because he uses text to support.

I don't have to express that I have trouble with this argument

Sandra thinks this is an instance where dirty first draft is a bad idea

Build an essay sentence by sentence

Therefore you feel responsible for the assertions you make.

Don't use quotes in any other way than to support what you already know.

not persuasive more lyrical and interesting

writing is char and economical but not plain and unadorned you say it and get out not bloated

Douglas Baver

Charles Baxter Burning Down the House

Don't talk about the doubts you have. What you write depends an prior thought

no hypothesis yet it should be fresh

Enjoy this task

II. Good writing has structure direction pattern- one that is intuitive to grasp. It has direction–the writing and the sentence.

Different possible
schema

focus and inspect- deconstruct
move towards "x"
accrue- adding on to what I'm saying and each addition adds on to my subject. For example, moving from center to periphery. Central focus that has arms. Move from "c" to periphery
linear/circular
question/focus
tentative thesis

a critical essay is not a close reading or annotation its more you have to take that to another level its not a review of another's although you may include another's thought you may look at maerial that stimulates you but that you don't quote or use
this is not an evaluation based on taste . The issue is what you see in it that instructs or informas

Its not old news. It engages with outer writers by assuming other writers are engaged.

Make a generalization about the text that the text supports.

HOW?
1. How do you do it?
Have something you want to write about. Usually it's too big.
ambiguity stay fluid for a little while
figure it out
2. Guidelines
    thesis- should be an answer to a question?
Mine is:
    How do you make first person pov varied or vary narrative voice in first person pov

thesis will answer this
start by accumulated data before you generalize then cluster
analyze and synthesize

Steps
1. observe
2. analyze (deconstruct and identify
3. synthesize (put back together in a different way, my way)
4. interpret and shoo knowledge that this is true
5. choose a strategy for putting it together.
    take a subtopic and firue it out the best way to develop a paragraph

Think about strategy and organization.
DON'T USE "in fact"

TOP 5
1. try to cover too broad a subject
2. to write to fast and get whetted to your draft
3. failure to know schema and logic
4. talking in a puffy flowery way or too academic or being overly casual- don't use contractions except isn't/don't

SENTENCE FOLLOWS THE THOUGHT

the "I" in YA– it's varied? Confessional?
Maybe we can learn from adult

varying tone with first person POV Maybe Holes.

READING WITH MELISSA STEWART

AND STEVEN HUFF

Tanya's opening to Melissa. Why aren't we wondering what the animals are doing…
Melissa's book tells what happens to the animals in the rain, butterflies take cover under a canopy of leaves and squirrels put his tale over his head

Steven Huff- Poem "balls"
"sperm count"
"As with sex/ did as instructed/ the first… Little floods
They were healthy but lazy…"

Sometimes in the middle of theses readings, I have these ideas about what I am working on. Here's my thoughts during the reading that night:

How do authors vary the voice and tone of a first person narrator? What are the different modes of first person POV and what strategies do author employ to convey the tones? What is the effect of these tones?
Why does realistic YA shy away from reportage?

reportage
reflective
confessional
stream of conscious

It's accused of being easy!

strategies
internal monologue neg. space
dialogue
word choice

JAN 6
KARIMA GRANT'S CLASS
Exploding the single story
finding your own literary space

"To whom do I owe the power behind my voice, what strength I have become yeasting up like sudden blood blood under the bruised skin's blister?"
      -courageous women and slaves before me?
      -anyone who encouraged me to speak it students mentor teachers friends
"To whom do I owe the symbols of my survival?" (my people before me?)
     -doubting my voice
    take the tape off so I can speak
Audre Lorde, Zani, A New Spelling of our name
How do I begin to find the inquiry into voice

(Karima asked us to try and answer these questions.) This is what I came up with:

    I would say I am enough
    I would say I am a writer
            I am an author
            I am right
    I would say everything about me is fine–is not too much or too little
    I would say I am growing and changing
    I would say you cannot label or define me
    I would say my choices are right and that I have the right to change my mind at any moment

    I would have the right to not seek your approval
    I would say I know best
    I would say my mistakes and flaws are mine and they are okay
    I would say you are not better than I
    I would say you don't know me you cannot contain me and I don't need to be contained

Liberty is scary
If I don't stand for my own self, I can't speak for any of you.

Africa
    any master/narrative story that maintains the order/status
    the holocaust is a master narrative (Faye's lecture)

Consequences

    Power
        who tells the story
        how is it told
        when is it told
    Vulnerability
        when we are young we are susceptible (Twilight) sometimes we choke on it
    misunderstanding
        of others
        of self
    silence of voice
        in the face of master narrative how do you speak words of power

white as a block identity

when the first wave of European Immigrants came they learned "nigger" and became white

Explode the single story
    History
        public/private
    Place
        public/private
    Language and Culture
        colonial/native tongue
        society/personal family

Baobab tree is symbol of Senegal–no two look a like.
One of the last to go slaves
first president was a poet

So Long A letter
    Single story of Senegal women

Ken Bugul
    The unwanted one

The abandoned Baobab Exploding the single story structural adjustment

More of my own thoughts....
The power of point of view
    Why do YA authors choose first person so often?
        confessional
    stream of consciousness
        discovery
    reflective
to have a story focuses on voice and tone
exploding the YA story
Form and structure of a short story

Varying narrative voice (through tone) of first person POV
    Homefront
    Catcher in the Rye
The Things Fall Apart
Write from a place without hesitation
"Kersa" Wolof
Be discrete
"A single story can only happen with complacency." Karima
"I believe deeply in the universal…." Karima
Obama=exploding the story

JAN 7
MORNING WORKSHOP WITH THE FUNNY DUDE DAVID YOO AND FABULOUS LAURA WILLIAMS MCCAFFREY
Shug
    A lot you can articulate that will come out in other ways

When you have a lot going on emotionally in a scene, how do you convey it?
        weed out
        plot out emotional beats
Stupid Contagious

JAN 9

PUBLISHING PANEL WITH:

David Yoo, Ray Gonzalez, Amy Hoffman, Randall Kenan, Laura Williams McCaffrey, & special guest Dorothy Allison

I just took down what spoke to me. Since I know a lot about the process of how to try and break in, I was looking for some unconventional or unique thoughts:

author of Trash, Dorothy Allison (also wrote Bastard out of Carolina). She got angry. "Fuck it. I just want to upset people."
Laura- Alia got swept up from the slush pile…"I don't know if there's any point in your career where it's easy."
David-Fifth novel (Girls for Breakfast) and second agent when he finally got a novel published. "Everything is very slow."
"The state of publishers merging and layoffs isn't benefiting authors and readers."
Dorothy Allison- "Try arrogance. Why not? You can fuck up. But you'll fuck up anyway."
-Got 37,000 for "Bastard". Half up front half later when you sell.
-Dorothy went and pounded pavement and got her books in bookstores.

-Children's and YA don't have a small press option and that's because we need access to libraries.
The Forrest through The Trees David's agent wrote this.

THE LAST DAY, JAN 10TH.

Snippets of Meg's Parting Words
"We are all a little radio active and...it's impossible to explain [to those at home] and don't make any changes…because you are not in your right mind…sometimes you get kind of depressed…Real World…but that's where your work is rooted…which helps with the deep falling off the cliff feeling…reach out to our community when you need to…don't think your best friend or boss wants to hear your new poem or story…but not everybody understands ..celebrate each other's successes..and don't feel somebody else's success will take away from yours. Fall in love with one another's work is the antidote."

Jaqueline Woodson's Feathers and thoughts while on the elliptical

2009-12-28T14:00:00.002-05:00

The following blog was written last Wednesday December 23, 2010. I thought awhile before posting it. I asked myself, why ? Why share this? The answer is that this blog is about the process of writing. The pitfalls, obstacles, what works and what doesn't–for me. I hesitated in posting because of the subject matter, but the subject matter isn't what is so important here. What is important is that I sat down and just wrote something, something spontaneous, something unexpected, something from deep inside. Something that I don't think I wanted to write about but more had to, and in doing this writing, I let go of whatever has been blocking me over the last two weeks.

I also think that the inspiration in this piece is significant–another book, reading someone else's writing stirred something within me that made me want to write, and, therein lies the power of reading.

----------

This isn’t what I thought I would write. I had a tumbling of thoughts while on the elliptical this morning reading for my upcoming residency. Feathers by Jacqueline Woodson. Then I went to Starbucks to write, and this is what came out. I haven’t written much lately, and when I was writing, it was for school. But I feel like I have found my voice again.

This is me, raw again, raw and vulnerable.

_______

I had a revelation on the elliptical today:
My dad has no middle name.
I mean, I knew this, of course, but it hit me:
He was never given a middle name
never given something that most children are given when they are born.

***

The missing name.
The missing heart.
The missing center.

He is a mystery.
He is predictable.

He doesn’t call on the kids’ birthdays
and misses the holidays.

He used to.
He used to take me for long walks and talk about
life.
He used to call and
check in.
But now–
he does not.
Why?

For years he faked it.
For years he forced himself.
This is what I think.

***

I haven’t seen my father since June, for my daughter’s ballet recital.
He lives 20 minutes away.

***

I don’t have to
decorate anything or
buy anything or
cook anything
today or tomorrow or the next day.

I miss my father and my mother and sister, all together.
I miss them during this moment of being on the outside,
that is,
outside Christmas, and,
well, now I know:
It’s
familiar.
It’s all I have left
of
my family as it used to be.

When I am on the outside,
I am close to the past, when I didn’t know everything.
Because I think (really this is a fantasy, though, and I am really wrong. I just tell myself this, that I just have this version of my childhood and perhaps my sister has another.)
somewhere,
each of them might be feeling that too
pretending to be a part of it all, to fit in,
but they don’t, and they are in a state of parallel existence.
Nodding and smiling at the right moments but inside sighing and wishing to be alone.
But I really liked it a lot when it was the four of us on the outside together, eating Chinese food on Christmas.
I miss it.
I miss my family even though I feel certain that my father never wanted to be there, to be with the family, with me, my sister and mom, but unlike when you sense that from a friend and then move farther away–unlike that– it doesn’t matter.
It doesn’t matter that he didn’t want to be there, it mattered that he was there.

The fact is that I want a dad, just not mine.
It feels peaceful to acknowledge this.
I wish I was alone right now so I could cry,
but maybe this holding back is good and will make me write more.

***

On the elliptical I thought those thoughts all because of the book I was reading, Feathers. Then I had all these random thoughts about the book, thoughts that brought me to my father.

I noticed that there’s a thing about names in the story, about how the new kid wants to be called Jesus and how Frannie’s name is really Abby but is called Frannie because her brother had an easier time calling her that (Abby is her middle name).

That’s how I landed on Dad thoughts, but really Dad is always there lurking in the shadows of my thoughts.

Sometimes he is not lurking but blocking the middle of the road of my life.

***

So–

Abby/Francis and the Jesus boy from Feathers. Yeah, that’s what made me land on my father, but like I said, he is always there, somehow. Mostly not in a way that stops my life, but more the effects of that relationship linger around the edges of everything.

***

i wish i wish i wish

nothing
I don’t wish anything
I don’t want to say it...
but–
it “is what it is”
maybe a better and more clear way of saying that is
Dad is Dad and I am me and we are both too old to be not who we are
and I know
who he is
isn’t what I want in my life
despite my wanting to be okay with who he is
I guess I am not okay with it
and despite this other part of me that used to dictate how I dealt with all this (which took tremendous effort. So much that I had panic attacks regularly. Funny how once I submitted to my real feelings about my father, those panic attacks disappeared) despite the part of me that says you and your sister are different people. He treated you differently from her and you have to base your relationship on that–
Really?
Not sure about that because now, now he treats me like he treats Jen, and in his eyes we are the same.

“I miss you....”
Do I?
I’m not sure about missing him
but
I am so sad that I don’t have a dad
that there’s no one to call if–
if what?
I was going to say if I got stuck in the snow
but
I wouldn’t call him anyway.
I’d call AAA.
That’s kind of funny.

In an alternate universe
I have my dad
he calls to see how I am
if I need help with anything
like–
gosh
I can’t even think of anything.
I don’t even know what that looks like.
is that sad?

***

No middle name
two middle names
not using your given name
choosing a different name

What could that all mean?

My father wasn’t given a middle name.
Why?
Was his brother given one?
Something is missing from my father but for many years he faked his way that he had it
What is it?
Emotions?
Grief?
That word just came to me
he doesn’t seem to grieve
like when his best friend of over 30 years died
he was consumed with what he had to do
would call
sporadically and say
I’m so overwhelmed with dealing with the estate
Never did I hear him say
“I am so sad
this is so sad
he was so young
cancer sucks.”
or
“I should really look at my own life
life is short
I should really try again with my kids before it’s too late.”

Nope

Something is missing from my dad

***

I keep thinking about the middle name
no middle name.
they couldn’t think of one?
Maybe they were fighting about it.
Maybe Tilly, his mother, was tired.
What was the whole thing like?
The birth of my father?
I know it was November
1944
The war had not ended
What was the day like?
They already had a child
A five year old boy (the same age as my older daughter)
A boy who would grow to be a bully to my father until the day he punched him in the face but they would face a life time of competitiveness that would drive such a wedge between them
My uncle has no children
Does he have no middle name too?

Was my father wanted? Did his father hold and cuddle him immediately, did Tilly?

Later, when they were old and grandparents they showed love, through letters and phone calls,
We didn’t see them much
Mom says he, my dad, didn’t want to
Dad says Mom hated his family
Who knows

I recall them, one day. It was June, I think, the last day of school. We were living in VA, and I came home and walked into the backyard and there they were sitting together on our picnic table, and I don’t know what they said but in my mind they are smiling and I am happy.

My childhood was happy
I mean, that’s what I feel when I look back at it.

things got bad when I was 14.
I felt something wasn’t right
but no one would say what it was
instead they all said it was me
something was wrong with me
but
it wasn’t me
it was them

***

My father has no middle name

If you aren’t loved enough
what happens to you?
Your heart
isn’t tender
or vulnerable
you don’t know how to be vulnerable
being loved shows you how to be vulnerable
vulnerability equals true intimacy
Can this be learned?
Could my father learn how to be tender and loving?

***

An old man
not really old but
around my father’s age
sits in the leather chair facing the window to the outside
he doesn’t move much
he leans his chin on his hand which is propped by his elbow resting on the chair’s arm
he stares at nothing
is he a father?
does he think of his daughters
that maybe he will see tomorrow for xmas eve–
unless he is Jewish–
the other hand holds on to the other arm of the chair

what is he thinking?

Responses to last week's homework assignment

2009-12-14T13:39:00.000-05:00

The following was the final assignment for my recent workshop with the responses below:

Write a scene that features:

a red, silk handkerchief
a matchbox car
someone laughing
someone slicing cheese in a kitchen
the number 4
someone leaving

Untitled

Linda Fiorenzano

The ten foot tree stands perfectly in the living room of their forty five hundred square foot mansion. Edward and Jacqueline sit across from each other on matching white chenille sofas. The unscented artificial tree sparkles with tiny white lights, German glass ornaments and the family's twenty year old Swarovski crystal star. The lower half of the tree is covered with an obscene amount of silver tinsel added by four year old Adam and two year old Casey. Through the large bay window behind the tree, Edward sees the first snowfall and feels the warmth from the crackling fire.   Edward sips his martini while Jackie and the children enjoy warm apple cider. Gretchen enters the room from the kitchen where she finished slicing cheddar cheese and poached apples for them to nibble on before Christmas dinner.
    The doorbell rings and Adam jumps up and picks up his entire collection of matchbox cars in his new NASCAR carrying case and rushes to answer the door. Grandma Rose is standing there with a huge smile wearing her mink coat and holding bags filled with beautifully wrapped gifts. She drops her packages in the foyer and bends down to receive hugs and kisses from her only grandson. She scoops Casey up from the Oriental rug into her arms as she throws her arms around her neck giggling and laughing the entire time. Jackie retrieves Casey and exchanges forced pleasantries with Edward's mother. Rose asks when her oldest son, Thomas, and only daughter, Rachel, are due to arrive. Edward says they are running late as usual and should flurry in just about the time the family is sitting down for dinner.
    Edward fixes himself a second martini as Gretchen offers Rose some cider. The children beg their Grandmother for their gifts. Rose happily reaches into the Nordstrom bag and pulls out one silver box decorated with a simple silver ribbon for Casey and another box with no wrapping paper for Adam. The children slowly open the boxes and tear through the tissue paper to find new cashmere scarves, gloves, and hats. Pink for Casey and hunter green for Adam. They seem disappointed as they ask for another gift.   Rose smirks at Jackie and looks at the remaining gifts to find the ones the children really want to open. Casey happily reveals her new American Girl doll whose face looks exactly like her own and wears the exact same dress Casey is wearing today. Adam chases his new remote control helicopter into the dining room.
    Edward walks over to the back of the tree, reaches through the branches to the center and pulls out a small gift simply wrapped in red paper and a white bow.   He walks up behind Jackie, taps her on the shoulder and hands her the box. She giggles with excitement. She wondered when Edward was going to give her the only gift she was waiting for. She stands with her back to him and rips off the wrapping paper and top of the little white box. She frees the inner velvet box, snaps it open and gasps with joy. Nestled perfectly inside the black velvet box is the sparkling and flawless five carat diamond ring set in platinum. She takes the ring from box, places it on her right ring finger, and lifts her right hand up in the air staring at the sparkling beauty and smiles. She never thanks Edward for the gift. Rose never asks to admire the new jewel. Edward again thinks to himself that the purchase was a stupid one and reminds himself of all the practical expenses the hundred grand could have been put toward.
    Everyone hears a ruckus at the front door as Rachel makes her grand entrance. She's wearing a black leather mini skirt, knee high black leather boots, a skin tight white spandex camisole, and a red silk handkerchief tied around her neck. The camisole perfectly matches her complexion and the scarf is the same tone as her caked-on lipstick. She loudly calls out for the children and her brother as she stumbles into the foyer. Gretchen rushes to Rachel's side to escort her into the living room where the family is gathered. Rose is not surprised by Rachel's appearance but still wants to crawl under a rock. Rachel hugs her mother and Rose nearly falls over from the stench of booze. Rachel stumbles to the children and hands each of them a coloring book and a box of used crayons. Jackie rushes to her daughter's side to retrieve the crayons from her and hides them in the drawer of the coffee table. Edward grabs Rachel's arm and pushes her into the kitchen to lecture her and try his best to sober her up before dinner.
    Thomas and his partner, Scott, arrive shortly afterwards. Thomas is walking on his own today as Scott wheels the oxygen tank closely behind Thomas so the mask on his face is not disturbed. Rose walks over to her son and hugs him gently, but tightly. He smiles and kisses her on the cheek. His spirits remain high as he battles the side effects of the experimental drugs treating his AIDS. Jackie says hello to Thomas and Scott but never approaches either of them. Edward and Rachel emerge from the kitchen and Thomas recognizes the signs of the scene from past holidays.   Rachel rushes to Thomas's side to hug him with hopes that he will not preach about the wrongs of her life and just let her continue to get sloshed. Again, everyone hears loud banging at the front door and Edward rushes to see who it is. He looks through the peep hole just as the guy on the other side swings the door into Edward's face. Edward shouts the guy and pushes him back outside. He quickly determines this has to be Rachel's latest bad decision.   The guy is screaming Rachel's name and demanding she come with him. She rushes out the door, knocks over the topiary and falls down the front stairs, landing at the guy's feet. Edward forbids her to go with him, but she tells Edward she's sick of his "holier than thou" attitude and gets in the car. Edward shakes his head back and forth as he watches them leaving.
    He walks back into the house with his head hanging low and says nothing to the family. No one asks what happened to Rachel. Gretchen announces that dinner is ready and asks everyone to take a sit in the dining room. Edward recites grace out loud and the family speaks 'Amen' in unison. Quietly Edward adds an extra thank you.

Coming Home

Jenny A. Williams

As I open the front door I can hear laughing some where deep in the house. The smell of freshly baked gingerbread cookies fills my nose as I step into the front hall. “CLAIRE!” My mother rushs at me from the kitchen. Her warm embrace always brings tears to my eyes. I never let myself feel how much I miss her until I am back in her arms. This is always the best part of the holidays, the coming home. Being away at college has given me so much independence and yet I still miss that physical part of my family – a daily hug, the reassuring squeeze of my hand, or a kiss goodbye.

My mother takes my hand and leads me into the kitchen where I see my older sister at the counter slicing cheese getting ready for our annual soup and sandwich tree trimming night. Her four-year-old son on the floor behind her completely unaware of my presence. Now it is my turn to give out hugs, “COLLIN!” I yell. My nephew drops his matchbox car and runs full speed past the kitchen table and right into my midsection. “Auntie C!” He squeals as I grab him by the waist and lift him upside down and swing him over my shoulder and then slowly lower him back down to his feet. “Can I have a hug?” I ask - there is nothing quite like these toddler hugs. Collin flings his arms around my neck and squeezes with all of his might. I have to swallow back the tears – this is home, this is what I have been missing so much. Trish makes her way over to us and says, “OK Collin, let go of the Auntie C – it’s my turn.” Collin giggles as he squeezes one more time and then lets go and is gone as quickly as he appeared. I stand up and my sister grabs both of my shoulders to hold me at arms length to look me up and down. “It is SO good to see you – I have missed you so much!” I hear a waver in her voice as she pulls me to her. Man, have I missed her! Ever since she got married and had a child I feel like I only have my sister half time. Her holidays are now split with her in laws and not having her and her family around for Thanksgiving just made me feel so empty, so quiet. I realized then how much they are a part of who I am. The emptiness of Thanksgiving is completely erased as Collin comes marching in to the room waving a red silk handkerchief. This is the handkerchief I had bought mom for Christmas. How on earth did he find that?

“Look what I found!” He screams and runs a lap around the table wanting me to chase him and who can resist? I take off after him as he darts out of the kitchen and down the hall towards the front door. I see my duffle bag is unzipped, upside down and my clothes are all over the floor. I am glad I sent Collin’s gift ahead so my mom could hide it. I reach out and tackle him and throw him on top of my clothes. “What were you looking for in my bag, Collin?” I start tickling his ribs. His laugh is so infectious. “TELL ME! What did you think you would find in there? A dump truck?” I tickle him some more until he is gasping “Please, Auntie C – stop! I will pick up all of your clothes, I promise.” I let him go and together we scoop up my clothes and stuff them back into the bag.

“Help, me bring my bag upstairs Collin.” He grabs the back end and together we hoist the bag up to the second floor turn the corner and go in to my room. He has already dropped his end and is on the bed before I can object. Where does he get this energy? “Your bed is the bounciest, Aunti C!” Again, that little giggle and again how can I resist him? I climb up on the bed with him and start jumping. Now, I remember why this was so fun – just like when Trish and I were young, flopping on each other, pushing off each other to get up and start it all over again. It’s just the two of us – here together. “Touch, the ceiling Auntie C. You can do it!” And I do. And my childhood flashes in front of me. Trish and I used to do this very same thing – reaching and reaching for the ceiling and laughing and hiccupping. I love that Collin, Trish’s son helps me remember how much I loved being with Trish, growing up with her, wanting to be just like her. I look at Collin and wonder if he has any idea how much I love him, how much I love his mother.

Collin bounces down on his bottom and falls down on his back. “STOP! STOP! I can’t jump anymore.” Is he finally tired? We lay next to each other staring at ceiling. “He pants, “That was really fun. Mommy never lets me do that. I love you, Auntie C.” These are the little things that make coming home so great.

Final Assignment for 2009

2009-12-08T20:49:00.000-05:00

The following is the final assignment I gave my students. I post this in the hopes that you, dear reader of this blog, will also respond to it by writing your own scene and then post it in the comments. If your own writing has fizzled out, this may be the way to reignite the fire.

Write a scene that features the following:

a red, silk handkerchief
a matchbox car
someone laughing
someone slicing cheese in a kitchen
the number 4
someone leaving

If this assignment intrigues you, you may want to join us in class in 2010. Read below for the schedule:

For 2010, live classes will run as Saturday four hour intensive workshops. Each of these will cover all of the general concepts of Releasing The Writer Within and are perfect for anyone, beginner to advanced. Students may purchase one workshop at a time, or pre-register for all five and get a steep discount. See below for details:

Releasing The Writer Within: Saturday Intensive Workshop
Dates for Saturday Workshops 2010:

February 6th, 2010 Breaking Through The Block
March 6th, 2010 How To Finish What You've Started
April 10th, 2010 Using Your Own Life to Create Powerful Fiction
May 1st, 2010 The Basics of Storytelling
June 5th, 2010 How To Read Like A Writer (and use what you learn in your work)

Place: 16 Cutler Street. Warren, RI. East Bay Chamber of Commerce Conference Room.
Time: 1-5 pm.
Cost: $85 (member rate). $100 (non-member rate). Pre-register for all five workshops and the rate is $75 per class for a total of $375. You must be a member to pre-register.

Registration form.

Write+Naked

2009-11-28T15:31:00.000-05:00

Write+Naked

BUSY GIRL

2009-11-28T11:54:00.000-05:00

I have been delinquent in my weekly blogging because life is too busy. One of the fruits of my labor has been school, particularly, three short stories (and I don't write anything less than 30 pages per first draft, so there goes the idea of short) and an annotation paper to the tune of 12 pages (which is nothing by now) as well as an annotated bibliography from the first two semesters of school....

Therefore, I am too tired to write something angst ridden about self publishing for the third time...which is what I need to write about...but I am simply zonked. So, I grant you, in this blog, my complete annotated bibliography of semester 1 and 2. Gotta do something else with it besides share it with my favorite and beloved teacher and brilliant author Laura Williams McCaffrey.

*******************

About.com: Classic Literature website. http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/kchopin/bl-kchop-thestorm.htm. The Storm. Kate Chopin. January, 2009. Delicious but melodramatic language that was of the time period. Lots of tension and a clear plot line. Lots of telling verses showing but the language made it work.

Angus, Douglas. The Best Short Stories of The Modern Age. Fawcett; Revised edition, 1987. This anthology has all classic authors: Sherwood Anderson, Anton Chekov, Joseph Conrad, Shirley Jackson, D.H. Lawrence, Katherine Mansfield, Lionel Trilling, and quite a few more. My favorite piece is The Rocking Horse Winner because of the use of metaphor and symbol, which I can actually understand easily now, as an adult, instead of not seeing it at all when I read it in high school. This is about a truly dysfunctional family who wants to keep up with the Jones at all costs. The father uses his son to help him select a horse to bet on and over time, the poor boy starts to feel responsible for helping his father increase his luck. I read it this time feeling very sorry for the child who rides his rocking horse into a frenzy, channeling the winning horse. I interpreted this as a metaphor for what children will do to please their parents, sometimes dying over it as the little boy in this story does.

Asher, Jay. 13 Reasons Why. New York: Penguin Young Readers Group, 2007. I liked the suspense in the book and the premise– someone who has committed suicide speaking, on tape, to the collection of people that she holds responsible. Asher pulled off something that if not written well and with authentic dialogue, would not have worked.

Atwood, Margaret. Cat’s Eye. New York: Anchor Books, 1998. Unfortunately, I do not like the author’s writing style very much. It’s a kind of denseness that I find claustrophobic. The plot was okay, but I couldn’t get through the entire book.

Bagdasarian, Adam. First French Kiss and Other Traumas. Canada: Douglas & McIntyre Publishing, 2002. I enjoyed this and thought the structure was unusual. It seemed like a fictional memoir and instead of separate stories the pieces were different vignettes all around the trauma of his father’s death.

Barnholdt, Lauren. Two-Way Street. New York: Simon Pulse, 2007. Well, it was a fast read but there was something forced about the plot. It seemed unlikely that parents would force their daughter to go on a cross country trip with her boyfriend who just dumped her all because that was their plan for her to get to college. Also, the MySpace references were irritating. It made it seem like a commercial for it. Turns out the author has s very active Myspace page. I did like the alternating points of view though, as I’m intrigued with POV choices. It was a good read but a little contrived with the plot.

Bauby, Jean-Dominique. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. New York: Random House, 1997. Amazing tight language. A story to be read in one setting. Have a box of Kleenex. In terms of first person point of view–I know it’s a memoir, but memoirs still can have a point of view worth studying–this book presents a unique first person with almost all internal monologue and that highlights the idea that we are all free in mind if not in body.

Brown, Rebecca. The Gifts of the Body. New York: Harpercollins, 1994.This wasn’t a memoir but based on the author’s work as an AIDS homecare worker. It is truly amazing in terms of the preciseness of writing. I read this thinking, there’s nothing else like this out there.

Burroway, Janet. Writing Fiction. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Addison-Wesley. 1999. Sometimes too technical and not user friendly. But the journaling and point of view sections were really helpful to me. It’s probably the best technical craft book out there.

Cabot, Meg; Jaffe, Michele; Harrison, Kim; Meyer, Stephanie; and Myracle, Lauren. Prom Nights From Hell. New York: HarperTeen, 2007. I read a lot of anthologies last semester so I tried to avoid them this semester. But, this had some notable authors, so I had to read it. I enjoyed this anthology even though it’s not my taste–fantasy/fantastical. I was intrigued because several of the authors in the anthology were not known for their fantasy/fantastical work. I selected one of the pieces to annotate and while the story itself bored me, the writing was excellent, particularly the use of a close third person point of view with a dual voice.

Caletti, Deb. Honey, Baby, Sweetheart. New York: Simon Pulse, 2008. This is an award-winning book…but not an award-winning story. The language was a bit melodramatic for me but I appreciate the vivid descriptions and sensory language. It is supposed to be a teen romance story with a not Disney princess ending–which I also appreciated. The title comes from, in my opinion, the best character in the story. A septuagenarian lady who tells the main character that after her husband died, she decided she was no longer going to be someone’s honey, baby, or sweetheart. That is really the award-winning part–message for me as a reader.

Cart, Michael, ed. Rush Hour: Bad Boys. New York: Delacorte Books For Young, 2004. I met Michael Cart years ago and he was so kind and knowledgeable about YA literature. I think he’s the grandfather of the genre. Maybe the inventor? I like his willingness to bring forth stories that are risky and different. This collection was just that, and Jacqueline Woodson’s piece Poe-Raven is the most brilliant short story I read this semester. Nothing happens yet everything happens–it’s a narrative of internal revelation and understanding.

Cart, Michael, ed. Rush Hour: Sin. New York: Delacorte Books For Young Readers, 2004. I didn’t like this collection as much as the other one. The stories seemed more about the plot verses the character pushing the plot.

Curtis, Christopher Paul. Bud, Not Buddy. New York: Random House Children’s Books, 1999. Not a good as The Watson’s Go To Birmingham. I had high hopes and was bored.

Davis, Stephanie. Smart Boys & Fast Girls. New York. Smooch, 2005. I connected to this book because the girl opens the story by saying she is every boy’s “buddy” and now, junior year, wants more. I expected to see this struggle played out, and it really wasn’t the main thrust of the plot. However, I did let go of that enough to enjoy it. But it made me realize that it’s important to go through your story to make sure that things you “say” are things that you “show” and if you don’t, maybe that’s not something you need.

Ellis, Bret Easton. Less Than Zero. New York: Random House, 1985. The voice and story bored me. I know that part of the point is for you feel the numbness of the characters. I thought that could be achieved better if it were condensed down to a short story.

Flake, Sharon. The Skin I’m In. New York: Hyperion Books for Children, 2007. What I liked about this story was the message and portrayal of mentorship between a teacher and student and that its characters were varied and not slices of a stereotype of inner city African Americans. I also thought the internal struggle of the main character with her looks was relatable and universal–this opens the book to a very wide audience.

Flake, Sharon. Who Am I Without Him? New York: Hyperion Books for Children, 2005 While there were may stereotypes portrayed and that’s not my favorite thing to read, within each stereotype was a uniqueness in character and story.

Gallo, Don, ed. No Easy Answers: Short Stories about Teenagers Making Tough Choices. New York: Bantam Doubleday Dell Books for Young Readers, 1997. Really enjoyed this eclectic collection. Some stories had mainly dialogue and others had a lot of exposition– good for my annotations. The first story had such a great premise but the way too long exposition kind of made it long-winded.

Gallo, Don, ed. Visions: 19 Short Stories. New York: Bantam Doubleday Dell Books for Young Readers, 1987. I’m not a fan of sci-fi or fantasy but there were Richard Peck’s “Shadows” was really lovely and sad. You think that this girl is haunted by a ghost but it turns out what she sees is a boy hiding in her house is the son of one of the aunts caring for the narrator. It’s all classic Peck and filled with irony.
Gallo, Don, ed. Sixteen: Short Stories by Outstanding Writers for Young Adults New York: Bantam Doubleday Dell Books for Young Readers, 1984. . I didn’t like this collection. I found the stories to not be satisfying. I often thought, am I just not getting this?

Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. The Yellow Wallpaper (Dover Thrift Editions). New York: Dover, 1997. While it’s hard at times to follow exactly what is happening, that actually doesn’t matter because this is a story about what goes on inside the mind verses events that happen outside the mind.

Gotliebb, Lori. Stick Figure. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2009. One of my students read this for summer reading, and so I joined in–I resisted reading this when it came out years ago, fearing it would be another Hollywood royalty psycho-drama. However, this was a painful but humorously told story of Lori, daughter to a famous producer mother Linda, about a young girl’s journey into and out of anorexia. One of the better memoirs on the subject!

Greene, Graham. The Shocking Incident. http://www.nbu.bg/webs/amb/british/6/greene/accident.htm. To me, very much the 1960’s, with the kind of quirky bizarre pig-falling and killing the dad. It was okay but not my thing. I think was a play on “when pigs fly”.

Green, John. Looking For Alaska. New York: Dutton Books, 2005. A little melodramatic but liked the character development of the narrator and “Alaska”.

Hill, Laban, Carrick. Casa Azul. New York: Watson-Guptill, 2005. An interesting idea and fun way to look at history/biography of Freda Kahlo.

Hills, L. Rust. Writing In General and the Short Story in Particular. New York: First Mariner Books, 2000. Incredibly helpful about the parts of plot. Will use this again and again!

Howe, James, ed. 13: Thirteen Stories That Capture The Agony And Ecstasy of Being Thirteen. New York: Simon Pulse, 2006. I loved every story in this collection and really fell in love with Alex Sanchez. So much so that I went on and read two more of his books.

Kearny, Meg. Home By Now. New York: Four Way Books, 2009. This lady makes me want to write poetry. The use of metaphor is brilliant and shames my own lame attempts, and, yet, I think careful readings of her work can help me make my own a lot better.

Kearney, Meg. The Secret of Me. New York: Persea, 2007. The brevity of words with the hugeness of story.

Levithan, David,. ed. This Is Push: An Anthology of New Writing. New York: Scholastic, 2007. Out fifteen stories I really dug ten. Liked the idea of each story pushing truth and reality but not sure how they were defining those terms. Loved the Kristen Kemp piece!

Mandelbaum , Paul, ed. 12 Stories and Their Making. New York: Persea, 2007. Some of the stories I didn’t care for like The Story of My Life Kim Edwards, who wrote The Memory Keepers Daughter. I felt like it was contrived and after I read it, there was a section about how she wrote it and she said she took it right from a headline. I read this because it was supposed to be a story that had a tight plot. It totally bored me. I loved the Sandra Cisneros piece, even though it was a little confusing to follow.

McCafferty, Megan, ed. Sixteen. New York: Three Rivers Press, 2004. I enjoyed the variety in the anthology–from Ned Vizzini’s story about a boy from the old west coming of age via a brothel visit with dad to Carolyn Mackler’s story about two girls–one who has found religion and one who has just had sex. Most seemed to be really from the point of view of the modern teen except…I annotated one of the stories called Infinity, which, when I annotated it, I really liked–at least the use of symbols. She uses the metaphor of mastering a rotary as a symbol of mastering decisions about sex. However, when I look at the actual story now, it seems like a rather 1950s view of sex and teenagers. Dessen seemed to portray the men in the story, the boyfriend and father, as strong and capable drivers while her mother was timid and scared. I take that as men are powerful and able to make decisions about sex while sex is bad and dangerous for women and that they couldn’t possible even think about such a terrible thing.

Meyer, Stephanie. Twilight. Boston: Little, Brown Young Readers, 2005. The ending of this book made me kind of moan and groan. The whole other vampire liking her scent thing just seemed contrived. Otherwise, liked the romance.

Moffet, James and McElheny, Kenneth, R. eds. Points of View An Anthology of Short Stories. New York: Signet, 1995. This was perfect for my semester-long study of point of view. The editor organized the stories into categories based on their point of views. I particularly liked the story Acts of Faith about anti-Semitism in the US military during world war two. The author used anonymous narration with a single point of view, but I saw that there was definitely more than one point of view portrayed. Even though it seemed a little inconsistent with the pov at times, overall, it worked.

Myers, Walter Dean. What they Found Love. New York: Wendy Lamb Books, 2007. Enjoyed the varied voices of the characters but wished for more of a through-line.

Na, An. Wait For Me. New York: Putnam Juvenile, 2006. Beautiful language, but I did feel some of the characterization in Mina to be too vague.

Oats, Joyce Carol. Faithless. New York: Haper Perennial, 2002. I didn’t like this book. I read on Amazon that no one gave it less than three stars, so maybe something is wrong with me. Her work doesn’t seem timeless, like I though it would. The ending of the first story seemed like a scene from melodrama from the 1950s–an inference that the father killed the mother and buried her in the backyard– and was predictable. I was intrigued by the title, but felt disappointed. Could it just be that I don’t get it?

Potak ,Chaim. Zebra. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1998. This collection about 6 pre teens and the life changing events they go through has a promising strong start with the first three stories from the male perspective but when Potak tries to write from a girl’s perspective he falls way short.

Rowling, J. K. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. New York: Scholastic, 2004. I’m not a fan of the Harry books, but Rowling is a master of dialogue.

Ross-Larson, Bruce. Stunning Sentences (The Effective Writing Series). New York: W.W. Norton & Co, 1999. After Laura suggested that I work on variying my sentence structure I looked for a quick reference that wouldn’t bore me to death. I found this in the bookstore and read this on the treadmill in two days. The clear and simple examples and instruction really influenced and encouraged me to play around with sentence variation both critical and creative work. It explained and elaborated on the idea of rhythm in your writing.

Salinger, J. D. The Catcher In The Rye. Boston: Little, Brown, & Company, 1991. I have read and taught this probably twenty times and always discover something new. This time I realized the power of Holden’s voice, not just that he sounded like a teen from 1950, but that his voice, the sound of it was a universal sound of angst and fatigue. I related.

Salinger, J.D. Nine short stories. Boston: Little, Brown, & Company, 1991. A classic. Never tired of reading A Perfect Day for Bananafish, which uses a kind of old fashion exposition technique of talking on the phone to reveal background.

Sanchez, Alex. So Hard to Say. New York: Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division, 2006. I am not a fan of his writing style, which, at times seems forced and awkward, but his courage to tell these stories about gay teenage boys wins me over. I liked the premise of a girl falling for a boy as he is discovering he is gay and didn’t find it smarmy in the telling of the tale.

Sanchez, Alex. The God Box. New York: Simon Pulse, 2007. This was a little less interesting to me as the previous book. The stuff about God, the bible quotes, were way too much, but it proved that Sanchez did his research. Again, boy discovers he is gay but in this one he has had a girlfriend for 4 years and now must come to terms with her and himself. There is a bashing scene that I really got emotional over.

Scofield, Sandra. The Scene Book. New York: Penguin, 2007. I read Sandra’s out of curiosity but found her ideas helpful. It was more of a workbook, which wasn’t what I was looking for. I think this is a nice craft book to have on hand when trying to fine tune your stories and make sure you have all the elements of scene. What I really liked was Sandra’s little bits about her own writing life and how she created her own self-study of books. The other nice part about the book is that it isn’t too technical and very user-friendly for beginner or advanced.

Seton Hill Website. http://jerz.setonhill.edu/writing/creative/shortstory/ an article about writing short stories. Basic and helpful reminder of the basics. Used this in the beginning of the semester to remind myself of the elements of plot I wanted to really examine.

Shange, Ntozake. Ellington Was Not a Street. New York: Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers, 1983. Unique idea to take a poem and make it into a children’s book, particularly when the poem is not necessarily for children. But to read it this way makes a heavy theme easier to digest and understand.

Shuma, Holly. Love And Other Natural Disasters. New York: 5 Spot, 2009. This is chick-lit that wasn’t that bad although a little predictable. I liked the premise of an emotional affair.

Spinelli, Jerry. Stargirl. New York: Dell Laurel-Leaf, 2000. Well, I didn’t love, love this book years ago when I read it for teaching purposes. I was annoyed by my inability to characterize the type of fiction–was it a parable? Was it a fairy tale? What is this thing? I loved Jerry Spinelli and was put off by this departure–as I saw it. Reading it now, open to the idea that you cannot always characterize what type of YA fiction you are reading–and that’s good thing–, I started to enjoy it. I annotated this and found that the use of images as symbols was interesting and effective. I still am not in love with the story though. Is the message don’t be different, conform? That, in the end, being different doesn’t work? I don’t know. Too confusing.

Summers, Courtney. Cracked Up To Be. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2008. I liked this until the end. The missing girl poster thing confused me.

Toole, Kennedy John. Here’s a great POV book– The Confederacy of the Dunces. New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1987. The single most brilliant use of third person omniscient! It beats out Anna Karenina in the effective third person POV category. Additionally, characters are brilliantly developed through dialogue and interior monologue through third person. The plot is hilarious even if some of the author’s laborious descriptions slows things down. The last quarter of the book is a page turner.

Tsetsi, Kristen. Homefront. Nashville: Penxhere Press, 2007. I wrote an annotation on this book, and, yet, it is hard to write a quick blurb about my feelings regarding it. I will say this: clear, beautiful, evocative language and a first person point of view intriguingly reporterish. My hang up was that–and you have to read this in order to get it–I felt like the author/narrator hated children and, therefore, as a mother I found the portrayal of a pregnancy in the book rather upsetting. But my own prejudice was put aside, and I really loved this book.

Tracy, Kristen. Lost It. New York: Simon Pulse, 2007 Well I liked this as it dealt with the decision to have sex and how it can change things but in a unique way although I found the ending kind of disappointing. Plus I felt like it was saying that when you have sex, things always go bad. I’d like to write a story about someone’s first time being great.

Vorwald, John and Wolf, Ethan. Creating Short Fiction: The Classic Guide to Writing Short Fiction. New York: Spark Publishing, 2006. Simple to understand.

Wild, Peter, ed. Noise: Fiction Inspired by Sonic Youth. New York: Harper Perennial, 2008. Liked a lot of it and hated some of it. I just didn’t get some of the stories. Not sure if I would call this YA.

Woodson, Jacqueline. Locomotion. New York: Puffin Putnam Books for Young Readers, 2003. I loved these children and wanted to take them home and care for them but I also marveled at their strength. Woodson writes reality.

Zarr, Sara. Story of a Girl: New York: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 2007. I like the minimal pop culture references as well as the minimal technology, which makes it so that you can read it twenty years from now. I felt like it was a timeless piece about the relationship between a girl and her father after she is labeled the town slut. This was no slick Gossip Girls bs like it could have been. The writing was lovely and literary.

Life Happens When You Are Busy Making Plans

2009-11-08T19:33:00.000-05:00

I was planning on taking a sabbatical from teaching my workshops starting in January. But, after careful thought, I have decided to modify it. The feedback I received, coupled with my own reluctance to give up doing something I love (even thought it’s for another something I love), has made me rethink taking a year and half off teaching.

My motivation for issuing myself a sabbatical came from the amount of work I have for school, which is only going to increase come my third semester in January. The third and fourth semesters at Pine Manor’s Solstice program (little plug) are designated for writing your thesis–not one but two, one in each of those semesters. So, looking at my life, coaching and tutoring (my work) and then my children (I have a 16 month old and almost 6 year old), I realized, I cannot do it all. Something has to give.

However, after receiving quite a few emails that asked if maybe I would consider running one or two more abbreviated workshops before I go, I thought–there’s got to be a way to continue to teach and get the time off I need.

So, I came up with a plan: Between February and June, I will run five Saturday afternoon intensive workshops that will focus on journaling your way to storytelling–perfect for anyone interested in writing anything from short, creative nonfiction essays, novels, short stories–anything creative. I will teach the powerful techniques that are the hallmark of Releasing The Writer Within and introduce some new things that I have learned at school. I will also throw in some during the week one-night two hour classes–possibly a class on revision and a Critique & Feedback. So, my sabbatical will really be from July to when I graduate in January 2011.

Don’t forget, too, that I am offering online tutorials–classes online for individuals rather than a group of students. Those tutorials can begin at a designated date that I will determine with the student. I also am offering online classes that begin the first Wednesday of every month and run for four weeks. The cost for the classes and tutorials are the same.

Click here for the schedule for all these classes. Don’t forget becoming a member of Releasing The Writer Within enables you to receive the very steep discounts on all classes as well as writing coaching sessions and packages.

Self-Trust, Self-Publish, Self-Promote

2009-11-02T13:14:00.000-05:00

The Rug Pulled Out

I am getting better at riding out the shit that life throws me. Right now, in my personal life, the life I don’t write about in my blog (believe it or not I do keep some things to my self), I have had something happen to me that is best analogized with this: You are walking on, what appears to be, a lovely bike path, nice and flat, miles and miles of easy asphalt ahead of you. You are just going and swinging alone, enjoying the feeling of moving forward, the lovely scenery with water to your left and a thicket of trees to your right. Then, suddenly, upon the next step, you drop, fall, down, down, down, and land in new place, bruised and lost. It’s sudden. There’s no warning. And now, you have to figure out what to do.

This “shit” that life has thrown me is not the worst thing to have happened to me ever-that would be death, divorce, or illness. It’s none of those. Maybe that’s why while this sometimes wakes me in the middle of the night, but my heart doesn’t pound and I don’t get a tightness in my chest. While I am consumed with it in my head during the day, it’s more just the buzz and noise behind everything else.

So, it’s not that bad. I guess.

But, the point is, the reason for me sharing this with you all is that this “shit” has given me some perspective on my writing, and more importantly, (what this blog entry will eventually be about) on the marketing of my new book, Fear of Falling.

Struggle?

Due to this shit in my life, marketing my book seems like a minor concern and yet, at the same time I say that, I feel guilty. I shouldn’t neglect this book. Marketing is my duty in a way that when you create something, with it comes the responsibility of caring for its well being. I know the book isn’t my child, and I have blogged about realizing my old metaphor of birthing books and parenting them into the world doesn’t really work. A book is not a child. I get that. But still, I wrote the thing and published it. Shouldn’t I tend to it regularly? Or, is it like what happens with your pets once you have children? Where all your energy used to go to loving Fido, now poor guy is lucky if you clean his food bowl once in awhile.

Guilt?

While I feel guilty about Fear of Falling not getting as much of my time as it should, I am well aware of how futile book marketing efforts can be. That I can do every single thing short of tying the book to my neck like a necklace and still not sell a lot of books. I have talked at length about the going-up-hill-with-a-bag-of-rocks-on-my-back experience of book marketing. The reality is that you just don’t know what will work, and you do a lot of shooting arrows in the dark. That was fine with the first and second book and that was fine before I had two children and that was fine when I wasn’t in school and that was fine when my business was slow. But now, I am pressed for time. Now, I have other things that are simply more important.

Frustration

Even when I was a marketing nut, the result was almost the same as not doing a whole lot. With book one and two, I did every single thing possible and sold a total of a bit more than 1500 (and I still sell some here and there). That is fantastic for self-published with no help. But the amount of time and energy it took was enormous, and I don’t regret it, but my life is very different now and I can’t live that way. I have to make money to support my children, and so my time has to go to children, work, and husband. Plus, I am in school, and school comes before marketing my book. I have to accept my limitations, and I have to let go of these voices that say “You should have waited to publish this one” or “You should have tried harder for a new agent or tried at least once with submitting to a regular publishing house.”

Should’ve, could’ve, would’ve.

And...more frustration

It’s frustrating to love your book and believe in it but feel as though the time it takes for promotion is futile. Shot in the dark, and if you keep shooting and missing, you get pissed because your time could be spent doing something else. Recently I sent out a gazillion press releases, spent $800 on it and got only one response. Seriously? WTF?

And...more struggle

The struggle is with the guilt I feel for not devoting the amount of time I did with book one and two. The struggle I feel is the sadness of how so few will get to read this current book. How, in many ways, this is the most important one. The struggle is to say, “I did this for simply the sake of my art and not to sell or promote.” Which is the truth. I went into this one saying, “I am publishing book three because I have to. Because if only two people read it and are moved and touched– it’s worth it.” I don’t regret self publishing it. I just wish that the few things I do for marketing would snowball effect out and bring in more readers.

Self-Trust When You Self-Publish

When it comes down to it all, I have to trust my self and my process with this book, and I have to remind myself why I did it and reconcile myself with the reality that some of the marketing I have done, which cost lots of money and time, isn’t working, and so that’s it. That’s it, as in, time to stop wasting money and time and just do what’s easy and accessible and free.

Forgive and let go...

I am done efforting with marketing and from here on, I will market only in ways that are easy. And if I don’t sell any more books, I accept that.

The struggle between work, school, marketing, children, husband, house. I really understand I no longer can do it all and do it all to the best effort. One of those things will suffer. It can’t be the children or husband or work or school. Those are, in ways, effortless. It’s the marketing of this book. Sorry, book. I love you, but I can’t do much more than I am doing.

----------

Told you all, way back before I released this book, that I would be really honest about the third time around in self-publishing. So, here’s the update on the book’s progress.

Middletown High School in Middletown, RI ordered 12 copies to give out as awards to teachers for a unit they did on bullying. MHS is my alum and place I taught a few years back. I wish they would invite me to come and do a workshop. Cross your fingers. I have put it out there so...

I had a signing at Barrington Books and sold 20 copies between the three books.

Reviewing/blog goddess and student/friend of mine Joanne Carnevale posted the first official review.

A fellow named Marc Marc Archambault, author and blogger, will review the book on his blog My Indy Book Review.

Devyn Burton from 5 Awesome YA Fans has the book and will review some time next year on his blog http://fdreview.blogspot.com/. The Faerie Drink Review

I submitted to the IPPY awards.

I have acquired 73 fans on Facebook!

The Bristol Phoenix Wrote a lovely piece about the book and me. http://www.eastbayri.com/detail/131943.html

The Jewish Voice will be running a blurb and a head shot in their next issue.

Mt. Hope High school here in Bristol asked me to come and do a workshop.

The Barrington Library– so I hear– has a display of my books!

Clark’s Alum magazine featured a quick blurb about the book.

A reviewer from the Young Adult Book Club website is set to review the book shortly.

On the other hand...

The Newport Daily News has passed on writing an article about me. Too bad. They did a nice job a few years back on my first book.

A few weeks back there was a request from the press release service I used. Haven’t heard back, though. I spent $800 on this wire/press release service. I only got one response. Lesson learned.

I haven’t set up any more signings yet.

Ran a contest only one person submitted to. : (

If you have any easy and quick marketing ideas, email me! I will post any that I try out.

Book Giveaway Contest/Excerpt of Hannah's first two books!

2009-10-24T17:33:00.000-04:00

Write Naked runs its first EVER book giveaway contest.

The Contest
Write a review of Fear of Falling and post it on Amazon. Then, send Hannah the link to the review, and she will send you a free, autographed copy of My Sister’s Wedding or My Summer Vacation–your choice! But hurry, only the first five reviewers will win the prize!!!!

Deadline is November 20th!

_______________________________________

From Chapter 1 of My Sister’s Wedding

“For God’s sake Barb, the waste paper basket was right next to you!” My mother screams from the bathroom. “Did you have to vomit all over the $700 veil?
     We are in my mother’s bedroom and Mom is in the bathroom furiously scrubbing the veil in her sink and screaming every profanity possible. Barbara is standing in her dress bawling, makeup running. I am holding the bustle up with one hand and wiping Barbara’s face with a tissue with the other hand.
     “Sorry Mother, I guess I missed!” she spits back at her.
     I am tired. Tired of my mother getting upset over the wrong thing. How come she doesn’t say: “For God’s sake. Barb, did you have to get trashed the night before your wedding?”
     Instead we stand around screaming and crying over a veil.
     Moments later, after I tuck Michael’s ring (designed by his father who owns a swank jewelry store in town) into my tiny, blue-beaded purse, we tumble into the white stretch limo and are on our way to meet Michael, my dad, and Michael’s parents at the temple. We are fifteen minutes away. My mother is discussing draperies with the limo driver (she constantly tries to recruit more customers, no matter the situation).
     “Now, Mrs. Hickman, my wife wants to buy all these curtains and pillows. I tell her: You make it! Why do you have to buy them? Women used to make this stuff. Why does she have to buy it?” says the limo driver, who is a balding, wrinkled man with a toothy smile.
     “George is it?” My mother asks him. He nods, teeth gleaming. “George, your wife probably is a busy woman. She takes care of you and maybe the grandchildren–”
     “Great grandchildren!” He announces as if they were a prize.
     “My!”
   “Six!”
     “Well, then, George, don’t you see how hard she works?” George nods vigorously. “Does she really have time to make drapes and pillows?” She stresses the word “drapes”. My mother refuses to say curtains.
     “I guess not.” Poor George has been defeated by Martha.
     “Let me give you my card....”
      My sister and look at each other and roll our eyes. She mouths to me, “Sucker!”
    My sister busies herself with her compact, fixing her lipstick. It all somehow doesn’t seem real; my sister is getting married and leaving the house. It just doesn’t seem possible.
      My mother closes the deal with George and turns back to us. She looks over at Barbara and says, “Did you bring any concealer?”
     “Why?”
     “Because you have circles under your eyes.”
     I stare at my mother. And that’s because...?
     My sister looks into her mirror. “I already put some on.”
     “Well,” my mother smoothes her dress. “You need more.”
     “No, I don’t, Mother.” Barbara turns to me. “Do I need more concealer?”
     I stare at her, not wanting to get involved. Not wanting to open my mouth for fear that I may scream, who gives a shit! You’re friggin’ hung over! Can we just say it already?
     I say nothing because now they are going at it. I tune them out and stare out the window. I have started to become aware of my family and how screwed up it is.

From Chapter 5 of My Summer Vacation

I feel like a child who smells chocolate chip cookies and is lured out of her room and into the kitchen by the hypnotic smell. Inside the music shack, some instrument cases and stands are scattered around the scuffed hardwood floor. As I peer around the corner of the foyer area, I see curly brown hair flopping up and down. The boy who owns the hair looks up and the playing stops. Red blotches creep up his thick neck. He’s stocky. Tan with dark black hair. Cute in a cuddly way.
     “I’m sorry,” I say. “I was walking by and I heard the song and—”
    “That’s okay. I was just messing around. I hope it’s okay.” His voice is deep but soft.
     So he’s not a CIT. But he looks and sounds way too old to be a camper. The cook’s kid or something? He reminds me of Jack Black. Maybe his younger brother.
     “Is it okay?” Now he’s asking me. He closes the piano. “Are you one of the JCs?”
     “No, no. I’m a CIT. In the pub shop. Are you a—?”
     “Camper,” he finishes for me. “I’m a camper, but it’s my first year. I’m starting a little late. I’m going to be fifteen in July.” Fifteen is the cut-off age for older campers before they have to either be a CIT or forget coming to camp.
     Pause.
     “I love John Lennon,” I say. “No one my age likes Lennon or the Beatles.” I motion to the piano.
     “You’re really good.” I like this kid. Immediately. He could be my Peter for the summer. Not that I want to bump out David. But I think David will be otherwise occupied.
     “How old are you?” he asks.
     “I just turned sixteen.”
     “You look older. I thought you were a counselor.”
     “You too.” We both laugh. Instant cocoa and marshmallows. That’s what my sister says when she connects with someone. It’s something she picked up in rehab from a sixty-year-old recovering alcoholic who was her group therapy counselor.
     I walk over to him and lean against the piano. “What else do you play?”
     He starts clanging out the John Lennon song, “Woman.” I feel a shiver that doesn’t belong in this stickyhot weather. His voice is gravelly but deep and strong. It doesn’t belong on anyone under forty. I hide my tears with a cough and eye rub.
     He finishes the song and looks up at me. “So how did you get into old music?”
     “I have a sister who’s nine years older than me.” I stop, not sure I want to reveal the full reason for Barbara’s appreciation for older music.
     “My brother, Orin, is nine years older than me.” He tugs on his curls and runs his hand rapidly over the back of his head. “A real screw-up. But a great musician. If he hadn’t blown a major record deal, he’d be a Behind the Music episode.”
     His candor nails me to the floor. “Maybe it’s an older-sibling trend to be a screwup. Mine’s a recovering alcoholic.”
     “At least she’s recovering,” he says. “Although Orin, I guess, is too. He’s always recovering or trying to recover or in recovery.”
     Holy shit.
     I feel compelled to top him but I can’t. “Wow.” It’s all I can come up with.
     “Even fucked up, Orin is a rockin’ singer and guitar player. Arista Records wanted to sign him last year after they heard him play with his band Couch Brats. They wanted just him. He fucked that up. Never showed up for their first meeting. They even sent a car to our house. The record dude even called and asked to come by. Orin was busy at the hospital.”
     He stops, and I notice he has a sort of weird tic, where he moves his jaw slightly from side to side. I haven’t moved from my position, arms leaning on the piano. I fiddle with a hangnail on my left thumb and wait for the end of the story.
     “Yeah, he was busy getting his stomach pumped. Too many pills along with the coke the night before.” He slides his jaw.
     I want to say Wow again, but instead I say, “That sucks.” Pretty original.
     “He’s one of those people that went to school stoned every day and got straight A’s. I can’t even have a bad night’s sleep and make it through first period. He’s OD’d five times and died on the table twice.” He moves his jaw. He talks like his singing voice sounds ... over forty.
     “I’m Maddie,” I offer.
     “Brian.” He leans back a little on the bench, holding on to the piano. “Do you play anything?”
     “No. But I love music. I wish I could play.”
     “I can teach you.” He leans into the piano keys and lightly plays a few. “It’s easy. Do you read notes?”
     “Actually, yeah.” I inch over to the bench and sit next to him.
     “I can’t.” We both laugh again. “Maybe you can teach me that.”
     “So you play by ear?” I ask him as I slid on to the bench next to him as naturally as brushing hair out of my face. “My father’s mother could do that. I never met her. Supposedly she was nuts and would play the piano in this bright pink housecoat all day. Local bars wanted to hire her but every time she was supposed to play, she’d wear her damned housecoat. My dad says she thought she wouldn’t be able to play without it. I get why my dad married my anal-retentive mother. Imagine what his home life was growing up!”
     “Yeah, I think it’s genetic. My mom, her grandmother, Orin, and me.”
     “No one else I know can do it. Play music, I mean.”
     “Maybe you can.” He grins. “You just don’t know it.”
Brian keys a few bars of “Imagine” by John Lennon. Another one that makes me cry. This time I don’t bother hiding it. Cocoa and marshmallows. Brian plays the entire song and when I look over at him toward the end, he’s tearing up too.
     After I leave the music shop, I realize I hadn’t thought about Justin once.

An excerpt from my new book Fear of Falling

2009-10-17T20:20:00.000-04:00

Fresh off "the worst year of her life," sixteen-year-old Maddie Hickman has sworn off love and her once-beloved self-help books in favor of editing the school paper and "banging out weepy poems." When she receives an anonymous letter from a gay student who's been physically threatened, Maddie is forced to step out of her self-imposed isolation, face her own personal problems, and take a stand. But how far is she willing to go? Will her best friends Peter and Susan stand with her? Can friendship survive past and present personal problems as well as challenging parents and unbending school administrators? And just how far are the three friends willing to go?

From Chapter 5

Fear of Falling

I turn to Mrs. Leahy. “Mrs. Leahy? Do you have a minute?”

She cocks her head. “Where have you been all week?” I understand what she’s really asking. I tick the answer in my mind: Not hanging around after school, clacking out sad poems. All my editing for the paper was done in between “meetings” at Susan’s house and the three pounds of homework from AP History. Thank God the school paper is published triweekly.

“Sit,” she instructs. “Listen, I think it’s great that you’ve been busy with other things besides school.” She smiles. “So, what’s up?”

I look at the spine of The Great Gatsby on her desk. Then a deep breath. “I’ve decided to write the article about being gay in high school.”

Confusion or maybe anger flashes across her face as she looks away. Then her tiny hands flutter to her desk and she purses her lips. “Well.” Her face flushes while she looks from me to the door and back to me. “Where are you going next period?”

“I have History.”

She knows, just like I do, that Mr. Morgan is the kind of teacher that says if you’re taking AP History and are late, you’re obviously the kind of student who has a good reason. She gets up and closes the door so silently that there’s not even a click when it shuts. Like she’s trying to be quiet because a baby’s sleeping or something.

“Listen, Maddie. That letter you received. We’re dealing with some serious stuff. Very. I don’t want you involved.” She suddenly looks young, like a student almost. Her eyes are wide and slightly watery, just the way most of us look the first few periods of the day. Her hands rest on the desk; she’s holding her left pointer finger with her right hand. “To be quite honest with you, I’m not sure if an article is a good idea.”

“But why?”

She sighs and shakes her head. “I’m not sure how much of this I should get into with you…”

I don’t blink or move.

Another sigh. “Mr. West thought he might be able to figure out who the student is. And he told me he’d take care of it, that he would keep everything anonymous. He told me not to worry. Of course I did, but … listen, this isn’t your responsibility—”

“Anonymous wants me to help him.” I’m angry now. I stand.

“I know, Maddie. But this isn’t your battle to fight.”

“But he came to me!”

“You aren’t the adult here.”

I step back like she punched me. “What do you mean? God, Mrs. Leahy, you’re the one who tells us to write how we feel and not be afraid to share it with people. That the written word can change people and society. You’re the one who lectures us on bigotry and homophobia. I mean, why shouldn’t I fight this fight? Why shouldn’t I fight for the freedom, the right to publish this article? Why shouldn’t I fight for Anonymous?”

“Maddie, this is a public school, and it might not be the place to—”

“Oh, my God! If this isn’t the place, then—” I throw my hands up. “So what do you want me to do? Forget that this kid called on me, asked me to help him? You always tell us to do the right thing and stand up for people who can’t stand up for themselves. To be a voice and spokesperson. I don’t get why I can’t just—”

I swear I see tears brimming. “I’m sorry Maddie. I really am. But this … this situation. It’s really out of my hands. And yours.”

She reaches for my arm but I pull away.

“You have to let this go and focus on yourself, Maddie. You have a lot going on as it is, and—”

“Forget it, Mrs. Leahy. Forget it.” I slam out of the classroom, surprised at my own anger, and that I even let her see it. I pat my pocket; at least I didn’t show her the draft.

Writing Through The Block: Avoidance, Fatigue, Parenting, & Yoga

2009-10-11T14:02:00.000-04:00

Below are my random thoughts on this week, a week of sick children and husband, a week of exhaustion, a week of low creativity.

***

Avoidance

I’m avoiding the homework. Not homework for school but for the adult writing class I teach every week at the East Bay Chamber of Commerce in Warren, RI. So, I'm sitting here until something comes up–even if it's garbage or rambling. So bear with me.

OCD

Because I have to keep my blogging commitment and because I am OCD about my writing commitments, I am using this for my blog. This both motivates and blocks me. Other people will read this, and, therefore, some holding back and censoring will happen. Not in the first draft, but in the draft you all are reading now.

Tired

I am tired. My oldest daughter was sick all week, my baby is teething and the suckers won’t pop through. For four days she has been swollen, unable to suck her pacey or drink her bottle. She clings to me, her sister, her daddy, and her nanny like a baby koala. Her grip is desperate. She laughs when we distract her, but it’s like she’s trying really hard to keep it together and then by about 3 pm, she can’t.

Peace?

You go to another place when your children are ill. Pleading, desperate, scared, anxious, and then kind of numb, autopilot. Today, though, Viv (the baby) napped, my husband now has a sinus infection so we put him down for a nap too. My oldest, Chels, is all better, so she and I hung out on the porch and enjoyed the silence, well the no-crying silence. The wind blew the leaves and also the pages of the magazine we shared. But it was a moment to let my shoulders down. It was peaceful. It gave me a moment to be grateful that although I am tired, although I haven’t had ANY moment alone this week, the kids and hubby are all okay, nothing serious.

Exhaustion and Letting Her Help

But dealing with your children is a kind of exhausting that is indescribable. You become angry, irritable, resentful but then in an instant, you look at their faces, or, in my case, watch your daughters take a bath together (because everything else has failed to soothe the baby). Chels washes her sister, lovingly and gently, crooning, “It’s okay, Vivi, I’ll make it better.” Then she turns to me and says, "Mama, her skin is so soft. I never touched her belly like this. It's so soft!" The baby turns and notices her sister has joined her, and her beautiful cheeks and lips smile and dimple and then she claps. It's her way of saying, "Yay! Good idea, big sis!" The bubbles spray, and this makes her giggle harder, and then it makes my oldest giggle, and so they are giggling and spraying bubbles. I watch how my older daughter steps in at those moments that I really can’t do one more thing. “Mom, I’ll play with Viv, it’s okay.” And off she will go, holding her baby sister’s hand, into the living room, to stack blocks or read a book together. Chelsea has made getting through these last three days, possible. As soon as she felt better, she stepped in and said, “Mom, let me help.” As guilty as I felt for possibly putting this burden on her, I let it happen.

My Daughter's Gift

Saturday morning because of Viv being so uncomfortable, I couldn’t go to yoga as I usually do. The Saturday routine is I go to yoga, Mike drops Chels off at her yoga class, and I meet her when I am done and wait in the nearby café and write. I live for this every week. This week I really needed it, but as it happened, I couldn’t get there that morning. So I take Chels to yoga and fifteen minutes before her class ends, an adult class begins. Having long since missed my own regular class, I desparately wanted to join and jokingly told the teacher that just before she went inside to teach. She said, "Come on in!" I told her she made my day. I went in, not really prepared with a towel or my yogi toees or a mat or water, but the spontinity and the love of my teacher inviting me in was healing. It gave to the parts of me that did all the giving this week and the parts that cried out that they needed to be nurtured.

Feel The Guilt But Do It Anyway

Amazingly as the fifteen minutes ended, I turned and saw Chels, who had just finished her class, looking through the window at me, she smiled and waved. I hurriedly got out of my pose and went to her but she said, "Mommy go back, it’s okay. I’ll be fine” and her teacher chimed in to say she could stay with her while I finished. The class was just an hour total and had another 35 minutes or so left.

I wish I could say that I went back in and had this blissful experience, but I didn’t I was clogged with guilt and though I was and even confessed to the teacher I felt that, I stayed until almost the very end, and I was really glad I did.

Here's What I Don't Want To Write About

I don’t really want to write about the struggle of motherhood. The guilt of motherhood. The feeling like I’m complaining, bitching, or nagging. I have so much to be grateful for, and when I write about this struggle, it feels wrong. Who am I to complain? Maybe it’s not complaining about the struggle that I want to do. It’s something else. To capture the indescribable.

This week I felt moments of intense emotional pressure and squeezing, and I felt this sharp and clear inability to meet my own expectation of good mothering. I snapped at my older daughter when I shouldn’t have, I begged and cursed at the baby during the 100^th hour of crying. I snapped, bitched, and nagged at my husband when I shouldn’t have. I am infallibly human and unable to be the calm, serene, do-it-all mom I want to be.

And yet...

I resent...myself? Society? The media? For my wanting to be this do-it-all serene mother.

I don’t want to write about that so…

I don’t want to write about this, and, yet, I must blog. I don’t want to write about my writing or work for school this week. I don’t want to write about the stuck feeling I have– not a block, not a huge wall in front of me. Just kind of inability to move my feet quickly, to push through the fatigue. Yep. I am tired, and I long to take a break in the routine of writng, working, mothering…I long to go for a long walk with a girlfriend and talk about anything, even about the writing, working, and mothering. But I want to take a break from the treadmill of it. I’m tired of doing, of not being able to slow down. Of being sooo in the very moment. Of just trying to survive it all this week.

Ready To Do Homework

So now, having written what I didn't want to, having written about the tough parts of the week, my creative block is moved. Now I'm ready to get to that homework assignment. If you'd like to read what it was, click on the link below.

http://docs.google.com/View?id=ddwr3rgq_75hfqgkmfz

Internal Struggle: Some Thoughts

2009-10-05T15:43:00.000-04:00

For me, self-promotion causes a wretched internal struggle between me as an adult and me as a kid. The adult sees this is as a necessary part of the business of publishing. No big deal. But the kid, she sees self promotion as one of those nightmares where you find yourself in Math class...totally naked.

***

I’m self-conscious of the email blasts I sent out last week for the new book. Will people open them? Does anyone care? Does anyone want to read another book of mine? Do I sound self-serving? Self-consciousness oozes into sadness: I’m all alone in promoting my book. I worked so hard on this book, and what if no one gets to read it? Then, I get angry at myself for not being more Zen/hippy about the whole thing. For not “trusting the universe, trusting my process”.

So…gotta take a giant step back. When the struggle begins, I don’t stop doing what needs to get done. I continue to blog, send out emails, put reminders of the first book signing (October 18 at 1 pm, Barrington Books) up on my social networks, mail out copies of the book to contests and reviewers, and tell every single person who comes into my office about my new book. But inside, I’m a little kid, red-faced and embarrassed, standing at the front of the classroom, forced to present some school project to the class, toeing the ground, terrified to look up at a sea of faces. Inside, I protest, crying and yelling, I don’t want to do this! I, like the red-faced little kid, don’t want to have to feel that fear of being rejected, of being laughed at. I want to cling to my mommy and hide my face so I don’t have to go out there and self-promote.

When My Self-Consciousness Began

I wondered about this as these feels came to me this week. Was I always so self-conscious? Nope. Before high school, I was the center of my social circle, loved to have parties at my house, never thought twice about standing up in front of my class to do a report. Never felt any kind of social anxiety. It never dawned on me to be self-conscious. I was too busy having fun. But, then...

I remember the summer before Freshmen year, I gained weight and eventually got very fat. I felt really self-conscious around the group of girls who had been my middle school best friends. Instead of talking to my friends about my fears and anxieties, I just retreated and acted like nothing was happening (at least on the outside). I tried to hide the weight with clothing. Of course, it was no secret and hard to really hide. My solution was to run away from my group of friends because I assumed if I tried to stay, they would reject me anyway. Who wants to be friends with the girl who used to be pretty and popular but is now a loser Fat Girl? It’s awful, and it's wrong–being fat or thin, ugly or pretty, is not what makes others like you, but I was fourteen and that’s how I thought. My deeper fear was that those were the only reasons to like me–so called popularity or being pretty and thin– and since I lost that, wouldn’t they all just walk away? My fear of rejection and my embarrassment was so scary–I just avoided anything or anyone that might say “no” to me. This was all in my head, but it felt very real. That avoidance, that act of walking away before I gave my friends a chance to reject me, while it was done as an act of self-preservation, only increased my fears of rejection and my anxiety.

As the years passed in high school, I got more comfortable with myself. Yes, some of it was that I lost the weight I gained. Some of it was a new sense of being the observer in a crowd. Not being the center of attention was a relief in many ways, and I got very comfortable in that role. But I had created a phobia for myself. I avoided any kind of "putting myself out there" situation. By senior year, I had kept myself as safely away from rejection as possible–when it came to dating or friends. I avoided parties and went to a lot of dances stag. Often times, I felt lonely and limited. Why not go to a party once in awhile? Why not ask someone to a dance? Over time, I realized that if I kept avoiding embarrassment and rejection, that fear would keep growing, and I would continue to live in this little shell. I would always be and feel on the outside looking in.

So, senior year I vowed to not let embarrassment get to me and that I would do something to face my fear. I chose Senior Night, an evening of entertainment brought to the school by the Drama Club. So, I, along with some of my Drama Club cronies, got up on stage and lip synced to Aretha Franklin’s Respect…While I was up there shimmying and shaking, I realized I didn’t even care who was in the audience or what anyone thought. The idea of being self-conscious seemed so….almost narcissistic. Who am I but one individual among a sea of many? What does this moment on stage mean really? It means nothing to them, or maybe it means I’m an idiot, but what they thought didn’t matter because this moment meant I was free from fear of rejection and embarrassment. It was a pivotal moment to me. It meant I had arrived, and I was not afraid. I also realized that I had to stop obsessing over my perception of what others thought or didn't think about me. Again, I was just another person in a sea of many.

Then & Now

So what’s the connection? I guess it’s that I fear rejection now as I did when I gained weight in high school. The weight gain was something I thought other people would reject me for. Because, let’s face it, being heavy in high school is hard, even if no one makes you feel self-conscious, the reality is, you are not usually as readily accepted when you are heavy because you are “different” from everyone else.

And now, as an adult, I feel “different” in this world of publishing. I fear rejection now as I did as a teen. I’m not a “pretty and popular” (a.k.a mainstream) YA author. I’m a self-published YA author, an unknown, one who has been rejected by the mainstream publishing world, and there are not a lot of us. I fear rejection because, in my head, I think, who wants me if I am not cool, hip, “in”?

But then I think of me, at age seventeen, on stage, singing and dancing and free of the albatross of fear, of self-consciousness. I come back to my thirty-four year old self and realize that none of this– my crazy thinking, my anxieties– matters. What matters is the act of doing, of getting out there, of sharing my work and connecting with other people and the only way to do that, is self-promotion.

Random Thoughts On The Journey of Self-Publishing

2009-09-28T12:42:00.002-04:00

The Undiscovered Gem

Coral, a deep red or pink precious gemstone, can only be found by divers who are deployed into the faraway waters of Northeast Asia, Northeastern Australia, and areas in the middle east. Lapis Lazuli, a deep blue gemstone, is retrieved by professional climbers who traverse the “inhospitable” mountains of Afghanistan. Tanzinite, a violet blue rare gemstone, is found by miners in the foothills of Mt. Kilimanjaro. My question is, how did someone know to look in these places to find such rare beauty? Was it more of an accident? Where they looking for something else and then just stumbled up gorgeous stones?

I wonder if my books will be like an undiscovered gemstone, hidden in the deep crevices of some mountain or buried deep in the middle of the ocean or, worse, found in some mine no one can get to? Perhaps, one day, probably when I am dead, someone will uncover my books, buried beneath the ruins of my home office. Someone will find them and hold them up for all to see, hailing, “I have found the precious books! They are rare, they are beautiful!” Maybe deep sea divers and miners will be deployed to excavate the remains of my office so that all the remaining copies can be retrieved. And, finally, the world will know the adventures of plucky Maddie Hickman, her angst, her friends, and her foibles.

It's a nice fantasy.

But a better one is that someone stumbles upon them now, holds them up to the masses, and proclaims that they are the next big thing in YA literature. I would rather be alive for the Big Moment, you know?

Seriously, this is going to be hard.

Back at it with book three....

I have to pound pavement with a heavy sack. I have to knock on dead bolted doors. I have to send emails and post information on websites that no one may even read. I have to get the word out because no one else will.

I hate how self conscious and dumb I feel going into the local indie bookstore, three four times because the owner says she wants to host a signing, says she will display the books I have given her.

Yes, given her...until she puts the order she says she will put in...She keeps saying that she wants to get the best discount and make sure they are returnable...I keep reassuring her that if she calls iUniverse, they will take care of her, even gave her the extension to dial once she calls.

She has my books bound together with a large rubber band on the shelf in her office and hasn’t been able to contact iUniverse...Something about “they didn’t pick up.” I don’t argue with her. I give up. I will go and retrieve my books by the end of this week if I don’t hear from her, and then, I will just let go of the idea of a signing there anytime soon.

I have pounded on that door enough.

I Know The Leaf

I struggle with the marketing and publicity of this book.

Ignorance was bliss the first time around with self-publishing. Knowledge kills ignorance and can also kill the spirit that comes from not knowing. The sprit of not knowing is curiosity.

Watching my 14 month old journey through our yard, pausing to inspect leaves and rocks. She can do this for hours. She can sit with one leaf and inspect it, rub her fingers over it, tear it up. Learn about it viscerally. Lose herself completely in it, in order to know it.

I know about that leaf already. I know that if it’s dry and dead, it makes a crinkle noise. That if it is freshly fallen, it has an earthy smell and smooth feel. I know because I have experienced the leaf thousands of times. Each leaf is unique and each experience with it is too, but I am not going to spend hours inspecting and learning about it. My curiosity about the leaf is less than it was thirty years ago. I will have a moment while sitting with my baby outside. I will reach over, out of curiosity about what she is seeing, smelling, and feeling. But it will be a flash, and soon after I inspect it, I’ll be on to the next thing.

I Know Self-Publishing

I know self publishing. I don’t have the stay-for-hours curiosity I had five and a half years ago. I pounded pavement and knocked on doors happily, hungrily, blindly, ignoring the wrinkled noses and funny looks of people when I told them I published with iUniverse that, yes, I was self published, but I did have a publisher you could call and order the books from. Hell, you can get them from Ingram too. I schlepped those books to every gig I had, every class I taught, every speech I gave, every workshop I ran. I brought them with me if we were visiting family in other states, and I would scour the areas for local indie bookstores, and I would bustle in and say “Carry my book, whatever percentage you want to consign with me is fine. Just carry them.” No ego. No fatigue. I just cared about getting my book to people, any way I could.

It’s hard now.

I know the pushing-the-rock-up-a-mountain-with-ankle-and-wrist-weight feeling of self publishing. I know exactly how hard it is and exactly what hurdles I will have to traverse. It makes the pounding pavement that I know I must do all the more difficult. To market and publicize, you must have energy, time, and money. I have very little of all three. How will anyone reach this book? I used to have the spirit of this whole experience is amazing. It’s new and fresh, and even when I would attend a whole bunch of gigs and not sell a lot, the experience of those gigs was just fabulous. I didn’t care about numbers. Things have changed now, and I have a lot more responsibilities. I have two children instead of one, and I have a business with clients I really know, care about, and frankly provide me with my income. I am in school working harder than I ever have on my craft. I have to focus my energy on those things, giving myself whatever crumbs are left over. The fact is, I can’t do marketing the way I did before any more. I just can’t, and I believe that I need to approach this in a completely different way. I can’t do every single thing that floats by my in box. I can’t give away books to friends and family. I can’t beg bookstore owners to buy my books and host a book signing. I just can’t.

I Know This Book Is That Good

See, I don’t want me to sell the book. I want the book to sell itself, and I am just the author. I don’t want to be on the red carpet, but I want my book to be. I like being behind the scenes and that’s why I write. The way I sold a lot of books the first time around was by attending sooooo many gigs, I stopped keeping track. I sold books only because of me and my unwavering tenacity. Also, I can perform well and work a crowd. When I taught middle school, I could get a study hall of 250 kids to shut up and sit down. In a crowd, I can lose myself in a role and entertain, and if you get a kick out of me, you will probably buy my book. When I showed up at a gig and felt on, I performed and sold books. When I felt off and sat quietly or just did my thing robotically, I sold little or none. It never occurred to me that pulling back would ever work, that the books would sell themselves. What, in life, works that way? Nothing.

And I certainly don’t expect the book will sell without my effort, but what I want is to expose this book to as many people as possible, without draining my time and energy, in the fastest way. I need to figure that part out.

I want to have a book signing

Yet, books signings are not always fun.

And...the reason is marketing. Booksellers usually put the signing in the local paper’s calendar section. But I’m not sure how many people read that section any more, since so many people get their news online. Some bookstore owners may display the books with a poster or some visual to attract readers.
But, some don’t. And, bookstore owners may or may not put it on their website because they may or may not have one that they update more than once in a while. I always do a crazy blitzkrieg online marketing through social networks and my own data base. But not everyone on my list wants to or can attend the signing. Some of these things are really no ones “fault” just facts of the situation.

If little marketing was done or if the marketing was just not effective, when you actually show up for the signing, people come in and look at you, sitting with your books at a table. You feel a little like an orphaned puppy in need of an owner, and people look at you like they should come over and pet you, but they hesitate because they don’t want to take you home.

Right now I am trying to book myself a signing, but it’s proving to be so difficult. There appears to be an interest, but a hesitation to commit. Consignment isn’t really an option. It’s a big pain in the ass. I did that a lot the first two times. I had to purchase my books, and then sell them, and I am not good at the bookkeeping of that and wound up giving too many away or at too low of a discount. Some bookstores lost my books and never bothered to tell me. I had to call or come in many times. If they lost it, I didn’t want to put up a fight. It seemed so ridiculous.

The reason I don’t consign any more is because my books all have the highly coveted returnability. Highly coveted to a Print-On-Demand published author. Now that I have this returnability, there’s no difference between me and a regularly published author, from the book purchasers point of view. The whole thing with return-ability is that many of us Print-On-Demand published authors have our books available with the big wholesalers that bookstore owners purchase from at a discount, like Ingrahm, but our books, historically, have not been able to be returned. iUniverse, for a relatively low fee, allows its authors books (only the ones that are deemed qualified which means the well edited ones) to be returnable. Due to some errors (which have all been corrected) on the part of iUniverse through the process of publishing my recent book, they offered this to me for all three books at no cost. Now every bookstore can house my book or have me be at a signing without worrying about purchasing books from me on consignment. They can order the books, and whatever is left over, send back to the distributor. In other words, it makes having me do a signing much easier and less of a pain in the butt.
This bookstore owner seems skeptical of my returnability. If I was an author with a mainstream publisher and a publicist booking the signing, none of this would matter. None of this extra wasted time would happen–for me or for the bookseller. The bookstore owner certainly doesn’t want to be calling publishers, etc. This is a fact of the self-published author, not me being bitter. It’s a fact I accept. I don’t blame the bookstore owners for being so conservative. But it makes all of this more difficult.

A Party

So, I have decided that instead of launching this book at a bookstore, if I can’t get anyone to host me by the end of this week, I will have my own book party. Location and time to be announced. But, you are all invited. : )

And...I think that this journey with this book will begin to shape into something that reflects where I am in my life. My time and energy constraints will simply force me to narrow the focus on the things that work, that work with little struggle.

For example, I recently got a reply from one of my favorite, award winning authors, Alex Sanchez, who agreed to allow me the pleasure of sending him a copy of my new book. I admire and respect his work so much and just to have him say yes, means more than anything. To me, this is the type of reaching out efforts I want to do with my book. I also just sent a mini media kit with some of my books to a charity event. This was little effort but felt good and right. So, I will step forward, one foot at a time, focused, eyes open. One reader at a time. No struggle.

The Task of Revising With A Mentor

2009-09-21T12:41:00.000-04:00

This past week I set out to revise a short story for packet three, due back to my mentor on September 28th. I began the week were I left off in the previous blog–miserable. However, thanks to a phone conversation with my mentor, I went from being stymied and blocked, thinking I was a one trick pony, doomed to regurgitate the same shit, to feeling free and light and good about my writing, my ideas, and that I am capable of more, that I can rise to the expectations/suggestions given to me.

In looking back at the moments that I have been blocked this year, I see that the block usually occurs in the second draft. The first draft is the love ‘fest of "I am just writing, and it’s pouring out of me and yay, I love the sound of my own voice." Then, I show this draft to my mentor whose job it is to pull it apart, expose each individual piece that holds it together, deconstruct it so that it becomes fragmented and its parts exposed. When I viewed all its separate parts– its guts out on the operating table– I felt like, how the hell will I ever put this back together?

The process of revising with a mentor is like when you take your car in for just this minor thing like an oil change, but after the mechanic looks at it, he/she tells you fourteen different things must be replaced or fixed. Now you have to digest that news, get mad, and point your finger at the mechanic. Maybe you accuse him of taking advantage of the fact the you know nothing about cars and that he’s making all this up because it was perfectly fine before you brought it in! Translated: I showed you this piece, which I felt like I really understood–I felt like I was giving you something that was this certain plot and this certain theme and now, you turn around and tell me it may not really be this certain plot and theme. The only difference between the mechanic and my mentor is, I never thought my story was perfectly fine before I showed it to her. I did anticipate a bit more than an oil change. Maybe a tire rotation, too. However, I had no idea fourteen things were wrong with my story and that it needed such major work. While I didn’t have the distrust that one might have of a mechanic, I did feel like those fourteen things my mentor wanted me to fix were unfixable and that perhaps I should just get rid of the story.

Reading the notes from my mentor, I felt like I did years ago when Mike and I inherited a car from his parents...and all its mechanical needs and problems. Over the two years of owning that vehicle, we spent thousands of dollars on repairs. By the second year, when, after an oil change the mechanic told me we needed to shell out another four grand, I said forget it. And, as I looked at my story, I had the same reaction to hearing that news about that car–I wanted to get rid of it. I had had enough. The cost to repair was too high.

Here’s where the comparison between our money sucking car and my story ends: While we did sell that car, I did not get rid of my story. Instead, I reached out for my mentor, for advice about what to do. Perhaps Mike and I should have done the same with the car, and maybe we wouldn’t have wasted all the time and money we did. Maybe we could have sold it earlier and not spent two years frustrated and angry–the irony of that is my in laws kept telling us to sell it and buy a new car...which we eventually did, two years later. Lesson learned. Listen to people who know...listen carefully.

When I spoke with my mentor and told her how I felt, she said something like “The story isn’t in this state of disrepair you think it is. Look at all the parts you do have, that are working, that you are in touch with.” In other words, I did have a car worth saving and repairing. I just needed to get the oil changed, the tires rotated, and replace some fluids and maybe the brake pads. Big deal. Every car needs those repairs eventually. Most importantly, the cost to repair was not equal to purchasing a new car, so I might as well get it fixed.

My mentor and I spoke last Monday night, and by Friday I was done with my rewrite. I listened to her completely. I took her advice to heart. I think it was my mentor’s ability to normalize my fears and feelings about the revision that made me able to let go of the mental blocks I had about the story. It was also her validation and affirmation that I was able to work through the block and also that the story was worth saving– I did have a “solid engine” and no need for a new car.

Denial, Truth, Writing, and Listening to My 5 year old.

2009-09-13T09:38:00.002-04:00

Here’s what’s happening when I write this week. So I go along, click, clack, writing/typing away and then, suddenly I’m not sure what happens. When I first start, I feel myself inside the story, the plot and characters are just unfolding in front of me; each key stroke flashes a light on the darkness. The darkness is the story–it’s plot, characters, theme. Writing is this long walk in the dark, and my creating is the light in this darkness. So, I create, the light is in front of me, the way it is when you drive at night and you look ahead and see the light on the road. But you know how when you look way ahead and all you see are the dots and beams of light far in front, and you kind of lose sight of the road? That’s what happens to me while I write. I start off focused on what’s right in front of me, but, then– I don’t know what happens exactly. Sometimes, I feel like the story is slipping away from me, so I hurry and look ahead, but all I see is this wall, and I can’t stop my approach to the wall. It’s inevitable. And, the closer I get, the slower my fingers are on the keyboard, until the wall is inches from me and my fingers stop completely.

This isn’t going anywhere…

What are you doing? More vapid, melodramatic, reality show bullshit?

Can you only write first person present tense?

This story is dumb. Really what the hell is it about?

Isn’t this the same story you have written 900 times…

Does the main character always have to reject sex and alcohol because she reads a lot of self help books and/or has a friend who acts as her shrink?

You are a one tricky pony my friend and that trick is up.

So, then I take a breath, and stop and look around, talk to my daughter–yes, she is with me today as I write at Starbucks, and let me tell you, she is a prolific story teller. She sits with her My Littlest Pet Shop figures and makes up elaborate stories about pets getting famous or two pets getting married. The greatest thing about her, though, is this total ability to being telling one story, get a little bored or off track of it and just switch it to another story. She is just having a good time. When I just stopped to take a break, I said to her, “I'm just not getting this story.” She looked at me with her enormous chocolate eyes and patted me on the shoulder, “So just stop, Mom. Do something else.” I know. I know she is right. Five year olds usually have this whole life thing down much better than grown ups.

“Just stop. Do something else.”

I finally did. But the story…no, not the story, I’m not sure I give a shit about this particular story, the idea that I can’t GET IT, that’s nagging me. I keep thinking I can get this…I just have to go back and try harder…

Really? I don’t know. I worry now that I will do what I did last semester, spend all this time, the whole semester actually rewriting one story to the point where I HATED IT. That story from last semester–I haven’t looked at it since June and have no plans to ever look at it again.

How do I know if that’s what’s happening here? I don’t hate this story, but since I started to revise it with my mentor’s feedback…I just feel like…See, I can’t even articulate what’s wrong. I’m at the wall. Looking at it as I write this. It’s a brick wall. You can’t post anything on it because nothing will stick. You can’t knock it down, and it’s tall. I can’t see the top, so I can’t go around it.

Hello, wall.

The wall doesn’t talk because– hello– it’s a wall. I want it to talk. I want it to tell me WTF has happened to me since I started school. Why does everything I have written or that I write feel sucky…? I feel disconnected from my writing. I feel like I’ve lost whatever I thought I had. Whatever connection to teenage years and the teenage mind. I feel old. I feel tired. I look back at my writing, and the only thing I really like and feel connected to is Maddie. I am so excited by the new book by the idea of going back and working on the ones that haven’t been published yet. That excites me. I feel connected to that. This short story stuff…I suck at it. More importantly, I am feeling connected to it.

I think I went to school to become the writer I thought I should be because the one I was wasn’t able to get a book contract. Maybe I thought back then, I am not literary enough. I don’t write deep beautiful books about swimming with dolphins or fantastical worlds. And I can’t seem to get the teen chic lit thing down either. My work is not enough…not enough of anything out there now. So I figured maybe I could change. I am a good student, and maybe someone can teach me how to be a real writer.

Aren’t I already a real writer?

That was kind of a major thing to write. I have never written that Truth down. Isn’t that reason–let me go to school so I can learn how to write in a way that gets me a contract–isn’t that kind of a completely unrealistic expectation– a kind of fantasy? It’s magical thinking. It’s like saying there is a certain formula that leads to publication by a major publisher and that formula can be taught in an MFA program.

I can say this with full confidence: You get an MFA because you take your writing seriously and want to push yourself to grow.

I don’t know. Now I need to sit with this realization that I have been writing since January in the hopes that I will become changed into a literary writer who might have a shot at a book deal. And I have to confront this realization too…that hope, that wish just isn’t coming true. And, I have to look at the reality of the writer I am and the writer I want to be.

*After reading Joanne's comment I realize that I left something out of this blog. I might have hoped for a possible shot at a book contract (what MFA student doesn't) but I did go into the program with the desire to grow as a writer and to add that professional credit as a writer and teacher.

Self Publishing: Round Three

2009-09-07T19:29:00.010-04:00

Preface to the following blog entry:

I am using this entry for a blog contest on the website backwordbooks.com which is a self-published authors collective, the first of its kind, I believe. In an effort to support their site and perhaps makes some nice connections, I add their link to this blog entry. Please check them out.

www.backwordbooks.com

The following entry was originally posted on September 7th, 2009.

Commitment to Blog

Previously, I blogged when the fancy struck me. However, I have decided to take my self as a writer and author SERIOUSLY...Well, in terms of the craft, at least. The publishing world, that's another story. I think, in order to survive as an author, you need to NOT take it too seriously.

In light of trying to blog religiously, as I have realized with my MFA program, I think choosing a focus will help. That way the task of the weekly blog will not overwhelm me. I want to focus on something that I need/want to work my shit out about. Since I have a new book and since being a self published author has brought up so much ANGST in me, I think focusing on the journey of my newest book, FEAR OF FALLING, will be both useful and therapeutic.

Hollywood Ain’t Calling

I have gone into this book without any rosy notion that it will change my life. I do not have fantasies of Hollywood calling. I also know how much time and money it really takes to do justice to a self-published book and that you can do everything “right” and still not sell as many as you thought you would. In fact, I have no expectation of numbers. I published this book for the several thousand readers who read the previous books and for me. This book and its foray out into the world is about my desire to connect with each individual who chooses to pick the book up and open it, and more importantly, continue to read it after the first page.

I know the realities of going at it alone. So, with this in mind, I need to market this book with my head and not my heart. I need to really get it in my head (and out of my heart, which can easily break over such things) that I may show up to a book signing and not sell a single book. I need to accept that I have to do all the legwork of getting reviewers to review the book. I have to not-cry-for-me Argentina that I will have to purchase probably 150 books on my own to use for marketing (online reviewers and contest give-aways) and consigning to bookstores. I have to not feel guilty when friends, students, and clients ask to purchase a book from me. Or, rather, I will not allow the guilt feelings to make me hand over the books for free. Additionally, because it’s just me marketing the book, I have to accept the limitations of my life. I have children, my work, and school, right now. Marketing is going to have to be accessible, and my goal cannot be on the number sold. Rather the goal must be, getting the books to readers, one reader at a time.

I used to say that these books are like my children–I made them, I raised them, and now it’s my responsibility to make sure they go out into the world, properly. However, I have been a mother for almost six years, and now I have another child. With the first two books, Chelsea, my oldest was very young and I had a lot less on my plate. My books are not my children. In a way, they are like my pets. I will feed, groom, and care for them always. But they probably don’t get cuddled and snuggled as much as they should.

More on the Reality of Self Publishing

If any of you keep up with this blog, you know that FEAR OF FALLING went "live" to the web for purchase this week. This means that you can purchase it from online bookstores, like Amazon. It means that if you go to your local bookstore, they can order it for you. It also means that I can go to the local bookstores and implore them to order my book from the publisher or distributor. It also means that my publisher will be sending me my free 40 copies. Some of those will get consigned to independent bookstores. Why am I sharing all this with you? Because here’s the first of many hurdles I will have to traverse with this book. Hurdles I already know about because this is my third time around. That hurdle is…How do I get this book to my readers? You might say, “Well, through bookstores. Right?”

In theory, yes. The book is available–I know I keep reminding you of this. This is all part of my scary and efficient marketing plan. : ) So, yes the book is easily available at your online bookstores. So, what’s the problem? Well, it’s not the purchasing of the book online. It’s the other, old fashion way of purchasing your books–which many people still do. Going to a “live” bookstore! And this is where I have a possible problem.

Typically, if you are a self-published author, you are totally on your own and that means NO ONE helps you with the way your book reaches the hands of the readers. Now-a-days being self published can mean that you are totally alone, but it can also mean that you purchase the service of publishing from a company, as I have from iUniverse. So, I am not totally on my own. The publisher and I are partners in the publication of the book. My publisher, for a relatively small fee and after a lot of editorial evaluation (this means they don’t just agree to publish any thing), agrees to do some of the marketing and most of the distribution of the book. This is a GREAT thing for the self-published author.

But, here comes the glitch. Without getting too technical, iUniverse is a print-on-demand self-publisher. With POD books, the publisher prints them one at a time, or as the demand is made. When a bookstore owner calls into the publisher or distributor and asks to order my book, they can easily do so, but they are not allowed to return the books, should they not sell. This is not good motivation for a bookstore owner to agree to stock my book. Now, my publisher says for a pretty fair fee, they can make it such that my book is deemed returnable. That’s great, but I have already spent quite a bit on this book, so right now I can't add that item to the growing list of things to buy for this book's possible success. Mainly because the way my previous book sold was through the web, through me, and through my consignment with local bookstores. So hurdle one is traversing the non-returnable issue with local bookstores. How? To agree to sell the book on consignment. Great except…take note of hurdle number two in the next paragraph.

Hurdles and More Hurdles

Upon perusal of the author copy that arrived early last week, I noticed a minor error on the back cover. Something that I have corrected in the numerous proofing rounds with the publisher. This isn’t the first publisher error I have encountered with iUniverse this time around. Errors that were immediately corrected, not to mention that they kindly gave me little additional marketing services at no cost. However, it is still frustrating and time consuming to call them to correct the error.

They are going to take care of this error. But this now delays me from being able to get those forty copies of the book to the local bookstores for consignment, so I can set up some of my first signings. I also wanted to run some contests to give away a few of the books, plus send some to reviewers, so I can post some reviews of the book online.

All of that now has to be put off until the error is corrected and books are sent to me. So while the book is “live” on Amazon, I am stalled in really launching it.

The Rock Up The Mountain

I hope that I haven’t bored you all with this, but it’s the parts of being self published that frustrate me. I feel like if I had a regular book deal, this isn’t what I would be worried about. I would be able to spend this last hour as I have on this blog on my writing. When these things happen, things that remind me of being on my own in this huge task of marketing my book, I get a little depressed. It feels like I am pushing a huge rock up a very bumpy mountain.

And, yet, I am doing this again, for the third time! : )

But like parenting, the task of self publishing is hard, yet worth it more than I can express in words.

Tune in next week to see what happens next with FEAR OF FALLING!!!!

New book and upcoming class

2009-08-30T16:22:00.000-04:00

New book is up on my site but not ready to go "live" in bookstores. Check out the summary and cover.
Fear of Falling

Also, the last Releasing The Writer Within "live" class (until 2011) begins on September 8, 2009 @ 7pm in Warren, RI. Go to the website for details.