Friday Fridge Clean-Out: Links for Writers -- June 3, 2016 Edition

> Running out of ideas of where to write away from your house/office? Read Shaun Levin's two-part guest post at Aerogramme Writers' Studio: "Taking Your Notebook for a Walk," an A to K  (and L to Z) of interesting places to write. I thought I knew them all, but many of these surprised me (mostly in a good way).

> Writer Jac Jemc shares her acceptance/rejection stats for applications to writer residencies. 

> Judy Blume has joined the growing list of bestseller authors who have opened independent bookstores. 

> Check out Brooklyn Magazine's "50 Fictional Women We're Obsessed With."

> Planning a blog tour to promote your book? Women on Writing has a few tips.

> At the blog of The Writers Circle (where I teach locally), founder and co-director (and historical novelist) Judith Lindbergh recently posted Part Three (finding an agent) of an excellent, detailed series on getting published. Part Two tackles "the dreaded synopsis," while Part One focuses on the elevator pitch / query letter.

> Interesting, short interview by Debora Black with Mira Ptacin (about the writing, and the difficulty of selling), her memoir, Poor Your Soul, at Bill & Dave's Cocktail Hour. (For a bonus, follow the link at the end to Ptacin's lovely post on her journey to E.B. White's writing shed--and her own move to a Maine island.)

> Finally, enjoy this Yankee magazine essay about a quirky bookstore customer, by my Bay Path University MFA teaching colleague Kate Whouley.

Have a great weekend!

Image:  Flickr/CreativeCommons - Don O' Brien DOK1

Friday Fridge Clean-Out: Links for Writers -- March 14, 2014 Edition

> In The Atlantic, Megan McCardle breaks down the psychological origins of procrastination, and explains why writers are such champions in this department. 

> The Boston Public Library offers an annual Writer-in-Resident fellowship, offering a private office and $20,000 stipend over nine months, to an emerging children's writer. The current and former recipients talk about the experience. 

> How much do I love notebooks?  I keep a large writer's notebook near my desk at all times, and stash tiny ones (Staples sells the 2" x 4" ones in groups of five, often on sale), in car, purse, laundry room, kitchen, bathroom.  Jessica Morell concurs.

> Scrabble players: Nominate the word you think should be added to the official Scrabble dictionary's next edition. 

> The National Book Critics Circle book awards are finalized, and you can find the list and links to excerpts from some over at The Millions.

> Whether you're visiting book clubs from your own dining room table, participating in an online class or critique group that meets via Skype, or conducting interviews, you can use these three tips for looking good on your webcam.

> I have one or two of these "10 Self-Limiting Habits Successful Writers Don't Have," but I fight them, sometimes successfully.

> If you're promoting a book or writing-related event, or sharing links to your published work or resources, the time of day when you post to social media sites does matter.

> This article is nearly a year old, and Ms. Howard has since died, but I'm still passing it around, especially to any writer friend who moans about being too old for this game.

> Here's a cool step-by-step peek into the art and process of designing a book cover when the book's subject is well-known (and not universally liked).

> Finally, rejection is rarely fun, but the Form Rejection Decoder Thingy (pdf) by Sarah Einstein, is. (via Brevity)

Have a great weekend!

Image: G&A Sattler/Flickr Creative Commons

Friday Fridge Clean-Out: No, it's not late. No, it's not. It's not.

In 30-plus years of writing, I have never missed a deadline, not a real deadline anyway, not one set by an editor, a contract, a publisher. But the thing is, Friday Fridge Clean-Out does not actually have a deadline, not really. So if I feel like it's still (or finally) Friday, when in fact it's already Saturday, well that's okay because you know what, in this case I'm the publisher. (Gee I've always wanted to say that.)

Please enjoy these links for your weekend reading.

►Oh, so that’s how you write a huge novel. Literally, how novelists write, that is, physically.

►Library Journal, would you please stop with the excellent lists of memoirs to be published soon? Don’t you know I already have an overflowing shelf of to-be-reads?

►You can read this in case you were wondering what effect the recession is having on the literary culture of New York City (in case you've run out of other things to wonder about).

►Mira's List is a terrific resource for grants, residencies, fellowships and similar opportunities. The list's keeper is also interviewed here.

►And finally, this one is strictly for fun, for those among us who can laugh at our own bad writing, or for those of us who never write anything bad. I mean write badly. I mean….

Have a great weekend.

Write Me a Roller-Coaster

If my 2009 New Year's resolutions had been to spend the month of January being frustrated, being disappointed, being grateful for the power of my extended network of writing friends (in person and online), and being left to wonder (often simultaneously) if "this writing thing" was the best or the worst part of my life – well, then I would have to get a gold star for keeping those resolutions.

I'm still exhausted and reeling from a confluence of experiences, events and situations, writing-wise, that made up my month; not to mention the mental gymnastics required to keep myself on something resembling an even keel. Though I’m not trying to be coy or overly dramatic, it still feels too soon to write about any of the situations specifically, except perhaps to say that:

• Sometimes what I want (to do, to accomplish, to experience) turns out to not be what I need, at the time, either as a writer or as a person.
• Sometimes my personal family life reminds me, emphatically, that the writing has to take (a way distant) second place, and that sometimes, this is a good thing.
• Sometimes, many jobs, even the ones which I seem perfect for, will go to others, even to others who seem singularly unsuited.
• Sometimes, someone (or some organization/publication/group) who previously had offered a career boost, instead closes a door.
• Sometimes, a quiet supporter of my work comes forward to make an unexpected, bold gesture which humbles me, and opens a window.

…Accepted essays fall victim to folded publications.
…A new column never bows because of a shuttered website.
…Clients change their minds, their budgets, their email addresses.
…Agents lose interest.
…A long-awaited residency at an artists' colony is interrupted by…life.

And yet….

- New writer friends appear and buoy me.
- A reading is well-attended.
- Downtime makes it possible to draft a business plan for a former idea, to polish a big chunk of a new proposal.
- Taking stock, slowing down, and taking a look around, once dismissed as luxuries, suddenly feel essential and important, and too-long overlooked.
- Writer friends graciously contribute killer guest posts, just because I ask.
- My family, and especially my husband, remind me that my presence is valuable, not (just) my words.

Always, and still, I come back to writing. And I remember, that there are twelve months in a year.

Guest Blogger Christine P. Wang on the Experience of a Residency Fellowship

I first met Christine P. Wang a few years ago at a meeting of a local writer's organization, where she read a few pages from her memoir-in-progress. Others read too that day, but I could focus only on Christine, whose clearly articulated writer's voice (both on and off the page), reached across the table and grabbed me. We kept in only sporadic touch, but when we ran into one another at a local reading this past summer, it did not surprise me a bit to learn she had been awarded a three-month residency fellowship to work on her memoir. I know one day I'll be doing an author Q&A with her, when she publishes that book, on growing up Chinese American in Tennessee. Meanwhile, I asked her to do a guest post for me, about being in the enviable position of having several months to concentrate completely on her project.

Please welcome , Christine P. Wang.

I started a memoir -- tentatively called The Game of While -- twenty years ago. I wanted to paint the mind of a psychiatric patient who takes off on a cross-country red-eye flight (because all flights to Africa are booked); who hitches rides on 18-wheelers across Tennessee, looking for a place to call home – before deciding that the closest thing is living homeless in New York City.

By 2006, I wanted to finish the book so I could think of other things. I took Mediabistro's course, Memoir Writing Basics, by Stephanie Elizondo Griest, author of Around the Bloc: My Life in Moscow, Beijing, and Havana (Villard, 2004). I began dreaming of being “a residency whore” (as Stephanie called it): someone who jumps from one artist or writer residency to another, doing nothing but their art.

In December of 2007 I was laid off as a developmental book editor in northern New Jersey. I was freelancing for a local newspaper. Now was the time. I applied to five residencies. Three rejected me, one offered too little financial aid, and the third -- the Santa Fe Art Institute (SFAI) – sounded too great to be true: a three-month fellowship, stipend, backdrop of the College of Santa Fe. On October 1, 2008, I climbed aboard a flight to New Mexico, free to do nothing but finish my memoir during the next three months.

It took me nearly half of October to find my rhythm (not to mention adjust my lungs to the 7,000 ft. altitude here). I began writing and editing chapters pretty intensely: five days a week from 8:30 a.m. to noon, resuming again 6 to 9 p.m. In between writing sessions, I jogged or biked along a trail filled with local flora, went to dinner with my new friends or just piddled around in my room. I've discovered there is a reason for two-day weekends: It's crucial to rejuvenate.

My room is an incredible space with cathedral ceilings and a skylight in a bathroom I don’t have to share. It's comfortable, amply furnished, well-lit and equipped with answering machine and hair dryer, and the laundry room is free. A communal kitchen is stocked with staples (bread, cheese, eggs, milk, etc.), and although we do our own shopping for anything else and cook all meals, the center does provide monthly communal dinners. At first, food prep was a nuisance, but it’s a welcome break now – any chance for variation in the work routine. Can it get lonely? Sure, but the cure is hiking at gorgeous national monuments in the area and shopping and gabfests with other artists.

There are one or two lectures a month, but finding entertainment is otherwise up to us. Guest lecturers living among us have included MacArthur Fellows, photographer Fazal Sheikh and artist/architect/filmmaker Alfredo Jaar. Sheikh gave a slide show on his images of displaced women and children in the Middle East; Jaar played examples of the migration of sound with international recordings of a song his father used to sing. Both were part of SFAI’s current exhibition theme: “Outsider: Tourism, Migration and Exile.”

Living with 8 to 10 artists and writers can be as intense as the writing. We eat, sleep and work in the same area -- bedrooms, communal kitchen and living area, and studios (for visual artists). Writers who don’t want to work in their bedrooms head out for space in the library, common areas or around town. One of the best parts of my residency is being inspired by other artists committed to their craft.

Still, there have been clashes and close bonding in this microcosm of the world’s personality types. One resident left early because of issues with another resident. I’ve heard another left because she couldn’t handle a communal kitchen. I’ve found the best antidote to the tension – real or imagined -- is focusing on my work. Everything falls into place when I’m writing.

Work habits vary here as much as personality. I came expecting to find a group as obsessive as I was who wanted to do nothing but eat, sleep and dream about creating art. But I learned after the first month to head out each morning to a downtown Borders to write because I found it too hard to say “no" when residents come knocking, wanting to go hiking or take a road trip.
"Freedom" can be either cure or curse, even for the most committed artist or writer. But if "self-starter" is your strong suit, a residency may seem like heaven.

The only thing that really disappointed me about Santa Fe is the preponderance of strip malls and shortage of walkers and bicyclists that I’d envisioned in this southwestern town. That and not having a fiesta every other day.

My three month stay is winding down now. Our third and last open studio is in a week. In an open studio, we get to show the public what exactly we’ve been working on. I'll read chapters from my memoir; visual artists give a short talk and tour of their art studios. I’m only slightly nervous -- even though I’m the only writer, even though a Q&A is planned

I remember the intimidation I felt when I first arrived. I had published little; I imagined that all the others had such courage to do nothing but their art. The life of the artist is one I’d dreamed about, but never thought possible. Making friends with artists here, I see that dreams need the reality of hard work, and intimidation is really the need for a working plan. The most successful artists here are simply ones who committed to a dream, consistently worked hard at it – and always kept dreaming.

Some of us are wondering what to do next.

I came wanting to finish my memoir, not really believing I could. At the end of December, I’ll be leaving Santa Fe with a finished manuscript, an idea for a new project I've been thinking about, and a new conviction, set blazing by this residency and the encouragement of the artist-role-models around me. My art has a place in the world, too, I know now -- as well as the courage to believe: I am a writer.

Still in Residence

It's just past the halfway point in my final MFA residency and while I'm far too exhausted both mentally and physically to post anything lengthy or terribly insightful, here's a quick rundown, some random thoughts.

- Best seminar so far? Today, one given by visiting writer Jamie Cat Callan on what can be learned from scriptwriters and the classic structuring devices they employ. Her presentation was completely engaging, fun, far too short even at 90 minutes, and packed with usable insights; so glad my equally interesting fellow Stonecoast student Ann Rosenquist Fee lobbied for Callan to join the residency.

- That master class workshop I was leery about because it was being led by a poet? Terrific.

- That presentation I was worried about giving? From where I stood, a success; one reason -- I had a good time, so good I ran out of time way before I ran out of material. That's when I knew I could breathe.

- Got to work with a performance coach, William Steele, a USM theater professor and professional actor, in preparation for my upcoming reading. Actors know so much writers can use when it comes to reading aloud. About phrasing. Pacing. Rhythm. Peeling the emotions off the page. Volume control. Eye contact. So much.

- You know how, when someone introduces a writer they begin with, "It is my pleasure (or honor) to introduce…" Well, I found out this week – that's not just a line. It truly was a pleasant (if nerve wracking) honor to stand up in front of a packed room and give an introduction for my final semester mentor, the incomparable Barbara Hurd, who read from her new book of essays, Walking the Wrack Line. (you can read an excerpt here)

Hope you are enjoying the guest blogs that have been (and will keep) popping up here while I'm busy and slightly crazed. Next report from me will likely include the word graduation. Sniff. And, hooray.

Let's Clean Out the Fridge

In our house, by Friday most weeks, it's "clean out the refrigerator" night. All week, I accumulate leftovers from scratch dinners, remainders of take-out food, sometimes a thing or two my mother-in-law sends over, and then on COTR night, I lay it all out on the kitchen counter, hand everyone a plate to fill as they like and point in the direction of the microwave.

I'm always a little elated at this easy meal and also a bit disappointed – in myself. All week, as the leftover bits pile up, I make earnest but vague plans to turn them into a hearty stew, a substantial soup, a stir-fry, a crock pot dinner (even though I don't own a slow cooker). In the end, I rarely achieve this noble goal, and yet nothing much goes to waste, the troops get fed and the fridge is ready again for the next load of leftovers.

Which is my long-winded way of saying, I'm doing a bit of that here today. The past three weeks have been a haze of travel, worry and then trying to catch up. Meanwhile, I've been accumulating interesting tidbits in my "to be blogged about" folder, planning to make somewhat intelligent connections among and between them, hoping in a sense to create a couple of hearty meals for my readers. Alas, it feels like Friday night and the shelves are bursting and if I don't do a general clear-out, I may just get a little overwhelmed and dump it all in the disposal instead.

So, here's my bloggy version of COTR night. If you are a little bit hungry, fill your plate with whatever interests you.

►The Village Voice asked 16 writers to name their favorite obscure book.

►The subhead of this Guardian article says it all: "Magazines are peppered with 'real life' case studies - though more often than not, the subject is pleasing to the eye. Why are editors obsessed with unreality?"

►Ever shake your head when seemingly normal people are clueless about the most rudimentary stuff they should have learned in grade school? Though the aim of this magazine's newest webby tool is slightly different, I can see this idea working in myriad ways: Scroll over the word Montana, say, and a balloon would pop up with: "It's one of the 50 states, dummy."

►Some good news about book sales from Publisher's Weekly. And some grim news, if you are a book reviewer for PW.

►Check out the Web Habits of Highly Effective (writers and literary type) People. Do any of your most-liked sites overlap?

►As for my own web habits, this is one of my favorite new places. I'm not morbid or anything and was never an obit writer myself, but writing that looks back at a life – or looks at mortality or grief -- and not only in the usual way, intrigues me. Which explains why I can't seem to stop writing about my father's death.

►And, I love this free daily email, which brings me something interesting or funny or unusual in a quick and easily digestible format to break up my day. 'Cause I really do need more ways to procrastinate online.

►Erika Dreifus has a must-read interview about writers' residencies over at her blog, as well as a follow-up post that points you to a major resource when researching residencies and colonies – a site I've used, and I'm happy to say, helped me land a two-week spot at the Vermont Studio Center next winter.

Let me know how your dish turns out.