Friday Fridge Clean-Out: Links for Writers -- January 20, 2017 Edition

> Most writers like to know how other writers get it done. Emma Donoghue (author of Room and other works), offers excellent insight in a Guardian piece, including time management, allowing herself to write badly, and more. 

> Like podcasts? A batch of new episodes of Exactly are available, with host/originator Kelly Corrigan interviewing Mary Roach, Nicholas Kristof, Margaret Atwood, and others.

> Devotee of Edgar Allen Poe? For his 208th birthday, Electric Literature gathered up audio of five (living and dead)  celebrities reading The Raven.

> I mentioned last week a Resolve to Write event I led with local writers. One of them, a write-at-home, mom-of-a-toddler, summed up how it's going as she tries on some new writing-day organizing advice.

> If you haven't yet visited the blog of novelist Caroline Leavitt, do it! She features many many interviews with authors, and always asks unique questions.

> At the National Society of Newspaper Columnists, contemplating the purpose of a columnist today.

> Ever wonder, what writers think about questions students are asked to answer about their literary works? Poet Sara Holbrook wrote this funny/not funny account: "I Can’t Answer These Texas Standardized Test Questions About My Own Poems."

Have a great weekend!

Image: Flickr/CreativeCommons - Felipe Sasso

Friday Fridge Clean-Out: Keep Writing, Keep Writing, Keep Writing. Did I say to keep writing?

• I hate that newspapers are folding and I detest that book coverage in print media has been on the wane for a few years already. However, I do like reading the reminiscences of former book columnists, like this one by John Douglas Marshall, long time critic at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (which went all-online this week).

• For those seeking freelance article assignments, here is a helpful interview with ultra-successful magazine writer Lisa Collier-Cool, otherwise known (at least in my own head) as Queen of the Query (Letter).

• A low-cost, low-stress approach to turning the workshop concept (or at least the terminology) on its ear.

• Literary agent Nathan Bransford writes a witty, interesting, and informative blog. I'd like to point you to two of his recent posts, the first titled Ten Commandments for the Happy Writer. Excerpts from two of his rules:

"There is time in the day (to write). You may have to sacrifice your relaxation time or sleep time or reality television habit, but there is time. You just have to do it."
and
"Didn't find an agent? Keep writing. Book didn't sell? Keep writing. Book sold? Keep writing. OMG an asteroid is going to crash into Earth and enshroud the planet in ten feet of ash? Keep writing. People will need something to read in the resulting permanent winter."

I kept coming back to these two pieces of advice because over the past two weeks I met with two private writing clients, and both were stuck in what I call the "mother-writer vise," bewildered about how to squeeze more writing time into full days, reeling from recent disappointing agent feedback. And I basically told them the same thing. Well, what I actually said was: Steal the time. Stop volunteering for everything at your kids' schools. Let the house get dirty. Make the kids do chores. Train the husband or teenager to cook (or at least defrost & microwave). And as far as rejections go - I said what I always say: I see. Carry on.

Bransford also addressed Writer's Block in this post. I myself waffle between thinking of writer's block as a bona-fide affliction (when it's bugging me) and a neat little rationalization for procrastination (when others are complaining). Bransford asked how writers deal, and got nearly 225 comments. Hmm… maybe just reading through 200+ blog comments is enough to break through…

Have a great weekend. Make some time to write. Any little bit of time. Carry on.

Friday Fridge Clean-Out

► Yes, it's a long way off. But the folks at Nonfiction Now/The Bedell Nonfiction Conference have announced their next date: November 4-6, 2010. Maybe by then the publishing/media/entire world will have rebounded enough so that we can all afford airfare to Iowa. And for those thinking of proposing a panel presentation – no excuses - now you have plenty of time to plan.

► Apparently, I'm a Flower Smeller, according to my blogger-writer friend at Exile on Ninth Street. Yikes, can it really have been almost a month since he said so? I'll be passing on the accolade here next week. Thanks to Todd, who apparently is not only a Flower Smeller himself, but a semi-famous one too.

► I'm intrigued by entrepreneurial journalists like those behind Spot.us, where writers suggest investigative pieces that think ought to be written, and site visitors vote with dollars to fund the project, so writers can get on with what they do best. I'm guessing we are going to be seeing more ventures of this kind, what with thousands of print journalists being pink-slipped, magazines dying by the dozen, newspapers disappearing, and the trend, unfortunately, likely to continue through a good chunk of 2009.

► Even the grey lady is (finally) getting linky. The New York Times homepage now has a (sort of hard to find) small square button which says "Try our EXTRA home page." Click it and you get an enhanced NYT home page, with lists of links to relevant stories from other sources. There are the likely, predictable suspects, such as the Weekly Standard, Washington Post, and Talking Points Memo, but many also from less obvious sites – today, for example, Hot Air TV, Half Sigma, even Gawker.

►Blood Dazzler, by my friend Patricia Smith was named one of the top five books of the year by NPR. Patricia's brand new (really new) blog is here.

►Following the advice of a (successful) writing coach friend, I've stuck a name on my next nonfiction workshop series, calling it: Resolve to Write in 09. For info, email: LisaRomeoWrites at gmail dot com.

Support Your Local (Print) Newspaper: If You Dare

I'm a huge believer in print media's ability to rise to the competitive challenge of digital media – that is, I believe in the print industry's editorial capabilities. Business-wise, maybe not so much. If my experience this morning is any indication, I might have to start believing those doom-and-gloom "print is dying" forecasts. Here's why (condensed for the sake of not boring you with the entire 18 minute exchange).

I dial 1800-NYTIMES, enter the seven or so different numbers required to reach a live operator.

Me: I'm currently a 7-day-a-week home delivery subscriber; in fact, I've been a subscriber for about eight years. But $40 a month has gotten to be a problem. Any special promotions or anything?

NYT: No, I'm sorry.

Me: What about all those special prices I see? I recently saw one for about $25 a month. Isn't there any break for current, loyal, long-time subscribers.

NYT: No, those specials are only for new subscribers. But I'll be happy to pass along your comments to our customer service department.

Me: I can't understand why you reward newcomers but never reward current subscribers.

NYT: Sorry about that.

Me: So, if I were to cancel, I could call back in a week or two and get that special deal as a new subscriber?

NYT: No, you can't get that for 90 days after you cancel.

Me: What about if I got just the Sunday paper?

NYT: That's $18 a month. But I'd suggest you get the Saturday-Sunday service, which is only $22 a month, because right now there's a special for Sat-Sun subscribers who want to upgrade to 7-day-a-week service, at no additional charge for the first 12 weeks.

Me: Well, why don't you just switch me to Sat-Sun, then give me that upgrade?

NYT: Oh, our computer system won't let me do that all at once.

Me: OK, then I'll switch to Sat-Sun now, and call back in a day or two to upgrade.

NYT: Oh no, you'd have to wait longer than a few days to do that.

Me: Like a week or so?

NYT: Well, I can't guarantee that special will still be going on then.

Me: When does it end?

NYT: We don't have that kind of information.

Me: You know, for an industry in which newspapers are closing down every day and laying off thousands weekly, you folks certainly aren't making it easy for people who actually LOVE the newspaper to continue to support it.

NYT: (nervous titter) I can understand your frustration.

Me: You know, I subscribe to a lot of magazines, and last month I got a $28 renewal notice for one, and the blow-in card in the current issue had a rate of $15 for new subscribers, and so I called their 800 number, and they immediately offered me the $15 rate.

NYT: Well, I'll pass that along too.


I can't blame the patient and polite woman at the other end of the phone who is simply trying to earn a living in a presumably thankless job. So I thanked her, took the Sat-Sun deal, and hung up knowing I had knocked $18 at least off our monthly expenditures, even though the Saturday Times is rarely invigorating reading. But I'm holding out for that upgrade.

I love newspapers. I love the New York Times more than most people love their lattes in the morning. I want it in my hands, physically, every day. But I've decided I'll read it online on weekdays now. Which is too bad for a lot of reasons, but the one that saddens me most is that my 14-year-old already had developed that sit-down-with-the-newspaper habit (sports, weather, and national news), and the 10-year-old was right behind (science and food). They'll move online a lot more readily than I will, of course. But the question is, will they really? If the paper's not spread across the breakfast table, or on the kitchen counter after school, on perched on the hassock after dinner, will these kids – of the Nintendo, Wii, texting generation – ever seek it out, even online?

When I was in high school, anyone could pick up a free copy of the New York Times from the social studies room. You had to get there before third period though or they'd be gone. At home, my parents subscribed to the two local daily newspapers, one of which just announced it will probably be out of business by January.

That daily exposure to newspapers had a huge influence. I'm willing to concede that 30 years from now someone, somewhere, may well be saying that about their favorite news aggregation sites.

I suppose I hope so. I also hope that upgrade deal is still there when I call the Times next week. I hope the Times is still there.