Do as I SAY… Not as I DO… Part 1

I'm a screw up. I teach writers, yet for the last year I've been ignoring all of those rules that I pound into their heads during every class, presentation or contact with them.

Rule #1 -- Write Every Day

Haven't done it. Guilty as charged. No contest. Lock me up and throw away the key. I'm trying to get back into it, but it is HARD once you've been away from it for a very long time. Even writing these words is agonizing… the critic is sitting here on my shoulder screaming at the screen…

"You call that original?!? 'Lock me up and throw away the key' is SUCH a cliché…"

And then uses other less direct methods of undermining my attempt here:

"Do you really think anyone is out there who is still listening? Who really cares? The number of blogs reportedly doubles every six months and you've been entirely out of the game for over a year… that's 4x the number since your last entry…"

More sinister still:

"Come on… do you really want to admit to your audience that you've had a little lapse? It undermines your credibility as an expert you know… and who wants to buy a book from a WRITER WHO ISN'T WRITING?!?"

Answer: I do. If I can't admit that I face the same challenges that they do each and every day when they sit down at the computer or pick up and pen and notebook, then how can I understand them?



This year has been a tumultuous one to say the least. We've added a 2 year-old little girl from China to the family and had all of the paperwork, visits to various state agencies for fingerprinting, document certification, and letters to the Chinese government, the U.S. government and then there was the preparation for the trip… the gymnastics of financing and making sure that the other kids and pets were cared for while we were in China… Then there was the trip itself, a glorious life-altering perspective for me, my family and my world-view. Now that she's home, she has endless doctor's appointments, tests, and shots to catch up on… all of which takes time. And she's still in a period of adjustment. She doesn't sleep well at all during the night. She has been whisked half a world away, been placed in her 3rd home (1. Orphanage; 2. Foster home 3. With us) in less than 6 months with a bunch of people who don't speak her language… could you imagine how frustrating that would be?

But this hasn't been the only thing that has thrown me off this year... computer problems... computer problems resulting in critical data loss... I'm struggling to rebound from this over a year later. We're talking major creative efforts here... but more about that later.

So as it stands, I’m trying to get going again… I’m teaching classes in November and trying hard to get the practice going again.

Muse Review: How to Become a Famous Author Before You’re Dead

How to Become a Famous Author Before You’re Dead; Ariel Gore; Three Rivers Press; 2007; 265 pages; Trade Paper

I borrowed this book from the library for two reasons: 1) I heard Ariel Gore on the Writers on Writing podcast http://writersonwriting.blogspot.com/ and she was a fun, engaging speaker. 2) How could you not like the title of this book?

The title sets the tone for the book which is casual with an anarchist streak. Her advice, presented in short, packed sections (most of which are no longer than 3 pages long), crackles with energy. She also supports her beliefs with quotes, details from the lives of other writers, and interviews with writers that she admires.

Ms. Gore shoots out of the gate with a roar, advising all writers to write at all costs, because as her inspiration for writing the book, her friend Alison Crews (who died of a seizure at age 23), never got the chance to do so. Here is some of her advice for the student who complains that she cannot find the time to write:

“If you don’t have time to write, stop answering the phone. Change your e-mail
address. Kill your television. If you don’t have a baby, have one. If you have a
baby, get a sitter. If you work too much, work more. If you don’t work enough,
work less. If there’s a problem, exaggerate it… The shock of the new—shake
yourself awake. There is only this moment, this night, this remembrance rolling
toward you from the distant past, this blank page, this inspiration yielding
itself to you. Will you meet it? You don’t need money and a room of your own, you need pen and paper…”

Within the Q&A style interviews with other authors, each of which ends with a writing assignment for the reader, Ms. Gore doles out a plethora of good advice. (Sorry, Ariel, the word might be stupid, but it is a fun way to say “a whole buncha.” Pleh-thuh-raa! Plethora. Don’tcha just love how it rolls off the tongue?) Many of the authors she interviewed encountered a lot of resistance from the traditional publishing industry and fought through it to become literary stars.

I think the best part about this book is that it radiates energy like you’d expect of a lit star. Every page crackles with impatience and raw willpower. Do it now. Don’t wait for tomorrow or someday. Do it now! The book jumps from chapters with practical writing advice (i.e. Write; Fight for Your Time; Get Your Heart Smashed, but Just Once or Twice), to the do’s and don’ts of publishing (i.e. Be Nice to Interns; How to Piss Off an Editor; Be an Anthology Slut) and to, of course, brazen guidelines for self promotion (i.e. Demolish Arrogance; Grab the Mic; Stand Out on the Corner in a Gorilla Mask and a Pink Tutu).

How to Be a Famous Writer... is as much about the business of writing as it is about the writing process. Without promotion, you can write works of utter brilliance that will be read by no one, so Ms. Gore encourages us (typically extremely introverted) writers to get out there and learn how to tap into our inner diva/lit star, or as she so cleverly puts it our “superhero alter ego,” and use it to help us produce work and share it with our audience in however we can.
This book is entertaining, offbeat and filled with inspirational advice. Check it out!

Rating: **** (Buy on Sale/Discounted)About Ratings: ***** -- Well Worth it at Full Retail Price; **** — Buy on Sale/Discounted; *** — Buy Used; ** — Borrow It from the Library; * — Waste of a Good Tree

New Flash Writing column posted on flashquake.org

My latest Flash Writing column has been posted on www.flashquake.org. It discusses the insideous ways of the inner critic or "monkey mind." Check it out.

The Son Teaches the Father

The first week of June, we went on vacation and spent a couple of days in the Boston area. We saw some of the sights that the city has to offer. We took a Duck Tour, visited the Science Museum, the Boston Aquarium, and took a Swan Boat ride. But the most memorable and touching event of the vacation took place just inside the door of a subway stop near the Boston Commons.

A man sat in the entry to the subway station with ragged clothes matted wiry hair, and hands and face crusted with dirt. He croaked out to us as I hurried my children through the atrium, looking away from him. As we descended the steps to the turnstiles, Ben was pulling on my jacket… “Dad… DAD… that man needs help. We have to help him. I think he was missing an eye! Leah and Isaac jumped in, “Yeah, he looked kinda scary. What are we going to do?”

I slipped my hand into my pocket filled with a lot of loose change from the days travels and collected it all in my hand, maybe $2.00 worth of change, and asked Ben, “Do you really want to help him?”

“Yeah, Dad, we gotta help him,” so I handed Ben the change and said “Here, let’s give him this, it isn’t much, but maybe it can get him something to eat or something.”

Ben dashed back up the subway steps. Stood in front of the man, and said: “Here. I hope that this helps you,” and handed him a fistful of change.

“Thanks a lot, little guy, my name is Steven.”

“I’m Ben,” he replied, reaching out to shake his hand, just as I had taught him in Cub Scouts a couple of weeks earlier. The man’s dirty hand engulfed Ben’s tiny one and he shook it briefly.

“Thank you very much,” he said, “That is very nice of you.”

I stood a few steps away at the top of the subway steps looking at the man’s bright blue eyes (he wasn’t missing an eye after all) and feeling a mixture of shame of myself and extreme pride in my son for creating one of those moments that makes a lifetime memory out of an ordinary event. Feeling tears almost come to my eyes, but not quite getting there. And knowing a couple of facts for sure at that moment:

I think Ben would have given the man all of his birthday money at that moment if the thought would have occurred to him. I felt like I had almost failed as a parent and a role model by simply turning away, and hoping to shield my kids from a desperately poor person, maybe out of instinct or not wanting to answer any questions about the reasons why, which I may never know.

Maybe it was a deep seated greed that wanted to keep all of that spare change for myself, or the assumption that the money would be used for alcohol or drugs, and feeling justified at keeping the money myself, and not wanting to tell the kids that. But who knows for sure? It is not my place to question why a man asks for help, but that I should give it freely. And it took the son to be the role-model for the father to remember that lesson.

Muse Review: _Dead Until Dark_

OK. I read the description for this series in a Science Fiction Book Club magazine -- Dead in Dixie a compilation of the first three books in the Sookie Stackhouse (a great character name)/Southern Vampire Mysteries, and what's not to love? A cocktail waitress that can read minds, who also happens to be the girlfriend of a vampire. Not a vampire with some Gothic Eastern European name, or something snooty and suggestive of French aristocracy, but the name of Bill. Not William, but plain ol’ ordinary Bill.

This mystery series has developed an entire culture surrounding the “outing” of vampires. They exist in our world and the world has developed ways to help accommodate them by developing synthetic blood, and protecting vampires from being staked or drained of their blood, which has healing properties, and is quite valuable on the black market. Vampires are generally considered to be suffering from a disease, not merely that they are supernaturally undead, and some of them even try to integrate themselves into the culture of the living and trying to live the life of a “normal” human.

Sookie is unique because she can read minds, and most of the locals consider her to be crazy for this reason. The way Harris handles this special ability is a textbook example of how to establish rules and limits to a character’s special ability, in this case mind reading. Sookie has to actively try to block out the thoughts of others because they are disturbing to her, and even when she does open herself up to read another’s mind, the thoughts are often jumbled and self-absorbed, rarely providing any useful information to her, and this requires considerable energy concentrate to do this. So Harris can successfully maintain the suspense of the mystery that she has established by using these limitations to a special ability which you would think would spoil any mystery or secret that any character might have.

The story is told though the first person point-of-view, Sookie’s, and she uses it successfully to provide a lot of background info about the vampire culture without overdoing it. There is even an appearance by the “King of Rock-n-Roll.” Ever wonder why there are so many Elvis sightings? Well, Dead Until Dark has a creative explanation for it. This is a fun summer beach read if you’d like to enjoy an offbeat, different type of mystery.

Accepting Loss

Over vacation I did something that I have never done before. Well I did several things that I have never done before, I visited the top of the CN Tower "the tallest building in the world" (a fact that I need to look up to know for sure), took a “Duck Boat” tour on the Charles River in Boston (during a downpour, I might add), and nearly fried my laptop in a cooler leak that soaked the floor of our van when the ice melted (my laptop bag was nearest to the cooler). Fortunately, the inner pocket of the bag seemed to avoid getting too damp and the laptop was fine. Close call.

But the leather zipper binder that I’ve been using to hold my latest journal notebook that I’ve been keeping for the last 18 months or so (one of those cardboard-bound marble composition books) that I bought at the Harvard Bookstore in Cambridge a couple of years ago on a business trip is gone. I have no idea where it is or where I left it.

Part of me is convinced that there is no way that I’d ever leave it behind anywhere. Bury it in a pile of papers that need to be filed, yes. Stuff it under the pillows on top of the couch so Sarge won’t gnaw on it, sure. Accidentally kick it under the bed after tripping over a cat desperate for human contact after 9 days with only one 10-minute visit from a friend, absolutely… But leave it in a downtown Toronto hotel room? Not likely. Leave it on top of the Uplander while stuffing suitcases in the back of it along with all of the new gift shop treasures, Happy Meal toys, and debris from all of our stops along our journey from Ohio to Boston, then Boston to Western Massachusetts and Vermont, on up through New York to Niagara Falls on to Toronto and back to Ohio… well, maybe… I have left things on the roof of vehicles before, but mainly those have been limited to Super-sized orange drink and the occasional occupied children’s car seat (just kidding, DCFS).

But it hasn’t appeared in the chaos created by the unpacking and putting away of stuff, or after we cleaned out the van. I offered the kids 2 shiny quarters to whoever finds it (this is surprisingly still a big motivator for them at these ages), and upped the ante with a paddle ball that Microsoft mailed me this week for some reason (apparently they think that I’m some big internet freelance writing mogul or something), and still no dice. I called the last two hotels that we stayed at to see if anyone found it and turned it in. Nope.

I have never lost a journal or writing notebook before, mainly due to a deep-seated paranoia about just such a thing happening. Not because I fill them with all my dark secrets and local scandals that would warp the space-time continuum, but because I’m always going to wonder if I wrote something brilliant in there that would lead to a best-selling novel or life-changing insight.

I've had a hard time getting writing again on the hope that it will appear… I hate to leave a notebook unfilled, but I think I have to get over it and start a new notebook

I still have this nagging feeling that it is around here somewhere… even though we cleaned out the entire van, emptied all the suitcases and shopping bags of treasures, and begun scouring the less likely places: Under couches, in toilet tanks, and behind . I’ve even considered getting Sarge’s belly x-rayed to make sure that he didn’t devour it in retaliation for leaving him at a kennel for duration of the trip, but I think he is just too happy to see us to hold a grudge… and ecstatic about getting to bark at the mailman, the gas meter reader lady, the garbage truck guys, and of course terrorizing the UPS guy and any bicyclist or jogger who happens to offend him by running on HIS road in front of HIS house… go figure.

I think I need to up the ante again for the kids to 3, no 4 shiny quarters as the reward for finding it… that should do it.

Topic Tuesday III: At World's End

Arrrrrr! Me hearties... time for a themed Topic Tuesday... now get back to work or I'll have ye swabbin' the poop deck...

• Scallywag
• Blow the man down
• Broadside
• Booty
• Rope's end
• skull-and-crossbones

Check out the definitions of these terms and more or I'll send ye to the hempen halter. Arrrrr!
http://homepage.mac.com/crabola/PirateGlossary/Menu22.html