Guest Blogger Ann Evans on Knowing How it Feels to Win an Oscar—or Whatever

About four years ago, over a long cup of tea at her suburban home a half-mile from my own, where she was packing to move to a more urban environment, Ann Evans asked me to take a look at an early draft of a possible memoir about dating as a senior, and provide some critical feedback. I was happy to do that. In those early anecdotes and tentative reflections, I was pleased to detect a larger story lurking, and encouraged her to develop it. I'm so glad she did.

Ann's writing appears in academic and literary magazines, she has also built a career as a linguist, and is a recently retired professor. She was featured on the Discovery Channel’s "Sex in America" in 2012, and appeared on the cover of Eldr magazine’s issue on “Sex and Intimacy over the Age of Sixty.” A wife, mother, and grandmother, Ann has traveled widely and lived in Spain, Israel, Italy, Austria, Germany and Greece, and speaks six languages. Ann lives in Hoboken, NJ, with her (third) husband.

Please welcome Ann Evans

After being told (you know how many times) that it was almost impossible to get published; after both professionals and onlookers patted me on my little head and told me: “Well dear, write if you have to.", "Don’t write with the expectation of ever being published.”; and after assorted other indignities, my book was published in November 2014, by the hybrid publisher, SheWrites Press.

It felt something like winning an Oscar.

I plunged into promotion and publicity, following as much of the standard marketing advice as I could without working at it all day every day. I hired a publicist and a graphic designer and moved for a while to another mental planet. The sojourn there hasn’t been so bad. 

Writers and non-writers gave me analyses, some outlandish, about the publishing business, including intricate musings on Amazon’s mysterious algorithms. Some told me how much better it was in the old days—when Truman Capote would pop in for lunch. If I listened long enough, I’d learn a new nugget of information. I reminded myself of the first rule of writing memoir—other people are not really interested in the writer’s life; they are interested in improving their own lives and if a writer can give them some ways to do that through a good story, they’ll read the book. Each person contains their own memoir.

It was disorienting to read on Amazon that Daring to Date Again was number one in my category, “dating.” Being number one in anything was good news, but what did that mean?  Had I sold ten books or a hundred? A few months later, I set up a free account with NovelRank which estimates how many books have been sold on Amazon.  After the first blush of sales, the book’s ranking fell, nudging me to do some more marketing. 

One day I was 1,036,000^th overall. I sold one book (which I learned through NovelRank), and the next day was at 365,000^th. What kind of crazy algorithm is that? I have gradually deduced that it is not common to sell books on Amazon “by the boatload,” (as one webinar promised). Every sale makes an impact. My question still is whether readers pay much attention to Amazon rankings.  Number one would make an impression, but number 2,570 or 1,460,000?

Being interviewed for the radio was fun. I could sit home in my pajamas and do a crackerjack interview over the phone. Since this was my first book, I did not expect to appear on national radio shows, but discovered many internet-based shows with a large following.  Since the shows were Internet based and thus available on each station's site, I could critique them afterwards. Through NovelRank, it appeared as if each interview generated a few sales on Amazon.  

My best radio interviews felt like a schmooze, during which the interviewer's mind and mine were both palpable, without either dominating. My appreciation of Terry Gross increased.

I am still undecided about the wisdom of hiring a publicist. The radio interviews and print articles she garnered haven’t brought in enough book sales to pay her fee, and that makes me uneasy. On the other hand, readers usually buy a book only after they have heard about it several times. Through my publicist, thousands of people have heard about the book for the first time. It is up to me to find the second, third, and fourth introductions.

I thought creating the audiobook would be a breeze, but as the narrator, I had to learn how to use a microphone, avoid making mouth noises, use dynamics to make an aural point, and not to sink at the end of sentences. The measure for audio editing is three to four minutes to every recorded minute, and Daring to Date Again  will be about nine hours long. I couldn’t afford to pay for 27-36 hours of editing time, so with the help of my audio engineer, Roy Yokelson of Antland Productions, I edited much of it myself.

At first, I listened to every tiny sound and progress was slow, but I quickly got more efficient and skilled. Post-recording, Roy had to control the pacing and breaths and set it all up to comply with Audible’s specification. Today, months after print publication, we are nearing completion.  I am now ready for other audio ventures, which will go more smoothly. So why do it? Audio books are (deservedly) priced higher than hard copies or ebooks, and my 40% royalty (I chose to publish exclusively on Audible) will bring me more profit for each sale. Besides, my childhood fantasy of becoming an actress is being fulfilled.

Book reviews were another revelation. Since my book is about dating, I had to decide, for example, how graphically I would write about sex. One agent told me to “be sure to include the word ‘sex’ in the title, because people like sex.” I didn’t want the book to be pornographic though, so, as the Kirkus review mentioned, I wrote my share of sex scenes, but concentrated on “the social, biological, and emotional components of sex.” Several male readers complained about the lack of down and dirty sex scenes, but  Kirkus found my ruminations “illuminating” and “a kick.” I think I could be more graphic in my next book without slipping into porn.

Many people assume I will soon be a rich author. Ha! People introduce me as a “famous author.” Ha! I have to keep myself from laughing and honor their respect. They are setting the bar for me.

The best step toward the success that some others assume I have already achieved, in fact the only next step, is to write another book. I am hard at work doing just that.

Note from Lisa: You can connect with Ann via Facebook, Twitter, and at her website. Ann would like to send one blog reader a signed copy of her book. Just leave a comment here by April 25 (must have a U.S. postal address).

One for me, Two for You: Writing Community and Paying it Forward (and Sideways, and ...)

What does it mean to be part of a literary or writing "community"? At every level: it means the world. To have writer friends and acquaintances who have your best interest at heart? Alliances built on the idea of mutually assisting one another as we blunder, write, and make and break our way through this life. My own literary community delivers gifts to me every day. Two very recent examples:

1. The play's the thing: Deborah Lerner Duane and I have been friends for 22 years. She's had a successful corporate, then solo PR career (during which we often collaborated when I too was running a small PR agency), then went on to complete a master's program in a totally unrelated field. Now, she will soon also be a produced playwright,( not once but twice!). Deborah and I have met for breakfast once a month, every month, for many years, a kind of two-person board of directors; we're there to encourage (often push!) one another, cook up strategies, check in on goals, set deadlines, vet plans; keeping each other honest when we say we're going to do something. Over the years, she's helped me get over many self-imposed hurdles, urged me to seek bigger opportunities, agree to do something challenging, and achieve goals. 

Last fall I challenged her to begin entering play festival script contests. We set deadlines. She wrote, entered, won. I am so proud of her, and reminded again of the power of two friends seriously committed to each another's goals. 

Did I mention that I only knew of the existence of 10-minute play competitions because a student of mine in a workshop at The Writers Circle last year was a fledgling playwright who had entered and won a particular competition, and that's how I could recommend it to Deborah – with a link at the ready – that first time we talked about her moving from writing to submitting?

2. From her to me to you, etc.: Last month, Alyssa Martino, a writer completing an MFA at University of New Hampshire, mentioned she was moving to Brooklyn, and maybe we could have a cup of coffee in Manhattan? I asked if she'd be at the ASJA conference (American Society of Journalists and Authors), and sent her the link to the ASJA Education Foundation's annual conference scholarship. You know the rest. She won, and we'll be having that coffee at ASJA next month where I'm on a panel because Candy Schulman, who I met on Facebook through our mutual writing friend Liane Kupferberg Carter, invited me. 

Did I mention I won the first ASJA conference scholarship in 2011, and only because my writing friend Erika Dreifus clued me in?  That I attended my first ASJA-sponsored event 30-odd years ago, because Bill Glavin, my college magazine professor, took the time to recommend it? And at that panel, a freelance writer named Arky Gonzalez, gave me his card and when I moved to Southern California two years later, met me for lunch and shared editorial contacts? Did I mention Alyssa was once a private student of mine? That I was so pleased to write her a letter of recommendation for UNH, where she would study with Meredith Hall, who once lectured at my Stonecoast MFA program? And who took the time to let me interview her the next year?

I have dozens of other such stories. This may sound like I'm tooting my own horn – look at me, I'm such a good literary citizen; but in each case, I was only able to do what I did because another writer had done what he or she did.

Many other people have similarly helped me in small and large ways. When I tweeted about Alyssa, she noted "writers pay it forward."

My goal is to always be paying, and not as often looking to see who pays me. Because sometimes, though only occasionally, that reciprocal payment is withheld. And it stings.

Sometimes, though happily only very occasionally, people I've assumed are part of what I'd thought of as a mutually supportive literary community have let me down. Behaved badly. Just a couple of weeks ago, in fact. When it happened, I briefly considered (hell, I wrote), a rant of a post about it. 

Then, semi-smart 50-plus-year-old human and writer I am, I put that messy, needy draft aside for a while. Yes, it hurt like hell. Then, the moment passed (okay, it took two weeks), and I deleted the draft of that whiny rant. Decided the better approach was to write this post – the one about how much I love helping other writers, and how much I appreciate when another writer helps me.

Onward.

Images: Stage: Flickr/Creative Commons-Justin S. Campbell; Hand: Flickr/Creative Commons-GrowWear; ASJA Conference: ASJA.

Friday Fridge Clean-Out: Links for Writers -- March 27, 2015 Edition

> On their web "channel," the Los Angeles Review of Books is publishing a new literary journal, The Offing. And they're paying (a little), and the first wave of submissions was so strong, they're already closed to more (but re-opening on March 30).  (via Harriet Blog/Poetry Foundation)

> Literary Hub, set to launch on April 8, an effort by publishers, bookstores, publications, and literary organizations, promises it "will feature original and curated content about books and the people who write them, read them, love them."

> Poets & Writers has an app  for keeping up with New York City events. 

> Congratulations to (one of my mentors) Leslea Newman on the republication of her once-groundbreaking book, Heather Has Two Mommies. Get to to know Leslea a bit through an essay to her teenage self over at Dear Teen Me (also a great place to study the second person essay form).

> At Vela, Kelly Sundberg names eight flash nonfiction writers she's crazy about (with links to some of their most interesting pieces).

> According to Deadline Hollywood, one of Joan Didion's most iconic essays, "Goodbye to All That," has been optioned for a feature film, as has her novel, A Book of Common Prayer.

> Check out this "Freelance Rates Database" at Contently's The Freelancer site (and, if you have a recent paycheck for a media venue not listed, they'd love to hear and add it, anonymously of course).

> This one's from November, but I hadn't seen it yet. Over at Just English, a list of "18 Common Words You Should Replace in Your Writing". (Or, everything I usually cross out on student work!).

> If you're thinking of attending the annual conference of the ASJA (American Society of Journalists and Authors), today is the final day to register with the early bird discount. (And if you do, I'm on a panel on Saturday morning, and would love to say hello in person!).

Have a great weekend!

Image: Fickr/Creative Commons - beautifulcataya

Guest Blogger Lucy Ferriss on Why She Had to Learn to Write Badly

I met Lucy Ferriss at a memoir conference at Trinity College in 2007. I was less than one year into a low-residency MFA program, and between on-campus residencies (at University of Southern Maine), I often went in search of literary community and inspiration closer to home (Hartford, Connecticut being only two hours away). Lucy was the conference organizer, and had put together a craft-packed and busy weekend which fulfilled my wish list. If memory serves, we also shared a meal and some lively discourse. Months later, I was pleased to find one of her creative nonfiction pieces alongside mine in Sport Literate journal. I've been noticing her work ever since.

Lucy has published 10 books, mostly fiction, including her latest novel A Sister to Honor, for which she traveled to the remote Pashtun area of Pakistan. She is writer-in-residence at Trinity and lives in Connecticut and the Berkshires of western Massachusetts.

Please welcome Lucy Ferriss

I haven’t sent anything to The New Yorker in years, but when I was young and starry-eyed, I used to polish my short stories until I could see my reflection in them and shoot them off to an editor there. This was back when you licked stamps and enclosed SASEs to get your pages back, since it cost twenty cents a page to photocopy a manuscript at the local library. Perhaps in recognition of this effort, or maybe because they weren’t yet overwhelmed with emails, the editors used to respond with a dashed-off handwritten note. Thanks, but we can’t use it. Good luck!

           

One time, the note was more instructive. You need, the New Yorker editor had written, to learn to write badly.

           

Well, I never.

           

What was she on about? Write badly? I was putting myself through this exquisite torture only because I wrote well. I had always written well. Writing well, as far as I knew, was my only positive attribute. I had paid attention in English class. I knew the difference between lay and lie. I knew not to write a series of sentences in a row as subject-verb, subject-verb, subject-verb. I knew how to use the serial comma. I knew alternatives for the verb to be, and I had a list in my head of all the different ways to write he said (he exclaimed, he gasped, he pontificated, he muttered).

           

I made a paper airplane of the editor’s comment and flew it into the wastebasket.

           

But "write badly" had to mean something.   

           

It nagged at me, and I found myself noting instances in the work of my favorite authors where they wrote, well, badly. The prose stuttered. It circumnavigated the subject. It dropped into cliché. It repeated itself, and used it way too many times. Take, just for starters, Emily Dickinson. What was it with all those dashes? Did the woman have no idea how to punctuate?

A Bird, came down the Walk - 

He did not know I saw -

He bit an Angle Worm in halves

And ate the fellow, raw, 

. . .

           

And what about Thomas Hardy? I loved Hardy. I wanted to be Bathsheba in Far from the Madding Crowd. But just have a look at what the master hath wrought, in The Mayor of Casterbridge:

One of the two who walked the road was she who had figured as the young wife of Henchard on the previous occasion; now her skin had lost much of its rotundity; her skin had undergone a textural change; and though her hair had not lost color it was considerably thinner than before.

Even accounting for Victorian wordiness, the description feels flat and diffuse. The verbs are weak—walked, was, lost, undergone. Surely Hardy could be more precise and vivid.

           

Crossing into our century, I encounter Mary Gaitskill, perhaps my generation’s most forceful dramaturge of female desire. Her novel Veronica, about a fashion model named Alison, was deservedly a National Book Award finalist. But in one scene after another, the writing seems to miss its mark:

In Paris, things happened fast. Two weeks after my first job, I met the head of Céleste. His name was Alain Black; he was a South African with a French mother. He was the man I had glimpsed on my first day there.

I have no idea whether method attended the madness of these authors as they crafted these sentences. But I can tell you this. Dickinson’s dashes and oddly placed commas yield the sense of her breathing, or trying to breathe, as she writes that poem. Hardy’s uninflected description of Michael Henchard’s wife has the effect of stage directions, notes on the actress who is about to step onto the proscenium—making you feel that the whole novel is a sort of play. As indeed it is, a morality play about bad faith. As to Veronica, the third-person narration channels Alison’s indirect discourse, and she’s an insecure, narcissistic wreck.

           

The so-called bad writing, in other words, risks tasking a reader’s patience, but its rewards go beyond sharp description or elegant syntax. To learn to write badly, I had to

• abandon my own cleverness

• listen to the cadences of my characters, including their silences and stumblings

• put every bit of writing to the service of the story

• trust my reader as much as my characters trusted me.

I still struggle. I long to use words like penumbra and viscid and hate giving them up for shadow and sticky. In my latest novel, A Sister to Honor, I write of a character who has committed a terrible act, What, oh what had he been made to do?—which sounds melodramatic to me, but he’s a melodramatic guy, and that phrase kept hammering at me. Almost every time the copy editor corrected a verb to subjunctive voice (“I wish she were here”), I threw it back to the indicative (“I wish she was here”).

           

Elizabeth Bowen has a bit of advice for writing dialogue: Effect of choking (as in engine), more to be said than can come through. Though the reference has long been obscure—when was the last time any of us choked a car engine, forcing the gas through a tiny hole to give it more explosive propulsion?—I like to apply the advice to what my long-ago editor called bad writing. What can’t come through does come through, in the end, and all our velocity depends on it.

Note from Lisa: Lucy would be happy to answer questions from blog readers, in the comments section; she'll *stop by* a few times over the next two weeks, so leave your questions or other comments for her there. She's also like to give one blog reader a complimentary signed copy of her novel, A Sister to Honor. Just leave any comment here by April 11 to be in the running. (Must have a U.S. postal address.)  You can connect with Lucy via Twitter or Facebook, and visit her website. 

Images courtesy Lucy Ferriss

Author Interview with Lisa Lenzo on her short story collection, Strange Love

A couple of years ago, I was fortunate to occasionally edit essays and short stories for Brain, Child magazine—a most enjoyable freelance editing gig. That's how I met Lisa Lenzo, whose short story collection, Strange Love (Wayne State University Press) was published in 2014. I so enjoyed working with her on "Aliens," a story that first appeared in Brain, Child, that I knew I'd want to follow-up one day with an author interview. When I read the book, I was captivated not only by Lisa's prose, storycraft, and characters, but by the setting along Lake Michigan, and the role the lake and weather plays in her book. 

Strange Love is a current finalist for Foreward Review's IndieFab Book of the Year, and was also chosen as a Michigan Notable Book for 2015. Bonnie Jo Campbell, in her endorsement on the back cover writes, "These stories will surprise you with their intensity and intimacy, and Lenzo's language will mesmerize you." 

Lisa L. was kind enough to answer my nosy questions.   

Please welcome Lisa Lenzo

Q. The stories move in a chronological way, with the same central characters – Annie and her daughter Marly – over 10-plus years, but also leave out chunks of time. Did you write them in that order? Did you write additional stories to make the collection fuller? Were there other Annie/Marley stories that you left out?

LL. I wrote the first story, “Still Life,” many years ago—it was finished in time to include in my first book, Within the Lighted City, but it wasn’t a good fit for that collection. I didn’t write my next relationship story until a decade later, when, after coming home from another date with an odd and interesting yet frustrating man, I thought: This is ridiculous! This is hilarious! I need to write this down. And I proceeded to write down scene after scene from that relationship, which I then transformed into a story. At some point I had three long stories about my relationships with various men, and I realized I could write several more and have a collection.

I ended up with five or six long stories, which I showed to my writing group. They really liked Marly, Annie’s daughter, who appeared in many of her mother’s stories, and they wanted to see more of her. They also thought the stories about the mom’s boyfriends should be cut way back. So I cut the five stories I had about Annie by about half and wrote four Marly stories, which I then interspersed between the Annie stories. That makes it sound easier than it was.

The most difficult thing was to write each story so that it stood alone, yet didn’t repeat what was included in the earlier stories. For instance, when I mentioned Marly’s flame-red hair or her abusive boyfriend in one story, I couldn’t mention them again in a subsequent story as if introducing them for the first time.

Q. I understand you tried to make the collection into a novel but it didn't feel right. Can you talk about that attempt, the process of understanding whether you are writing a novel or a collection, and what drove your final decision?

LL. I knew I was writing a collection early on, and by the time I was done, that it was a novel-in-stories. But my agent said that the term “novel-in-stories” was not being used anymore, that the term in favor was “linked collection,” and collections “don’t sell.” It was my agent’s idea to turn it into a novel so that she could sell it—she thought I would be able to transform it into a novel, because it was almost one already. 

So I tried to do what she asked by filling in the chronological gaps and also filling out Annie’s and Marly’s lives, so that the focus wasn’t so much on boys and men. But I ended up with my string of neat, self-contained stories—each its own little cabin--looking as if I’d tacked them together with scrap lumber. And I found the overall story was stronger when there were time gaps and the focus was mainly on men. Of course you can’t help but get some sense of the rest of Annie’s and Marly’s lives, too, especially the mother-daughter relationship, which is the strongest and maybe the most interesting relationship in the book. Ironically, I think Strange Love as it is could have “passed” for a novel—readers and reviewers keep telling me it reads like one.

Q. Lake Michigan (often ice covered) is central in the stories, and you've said that as a Michigan native the lake is in your "bones". Do you think of the lake as a character in the book?

LL. I grew up in Detroit, which is also in my bones, but when I first came to live on the lake at the age of 18, I fell under its spell, and it has held me ever since. “Character” seems too small a thing to describe The Lake, which, from the vantage point of anyone on the beach, looks as big and wide as an ocean. It’s actually an inland sea, and for Annie, it’s as large as God—or actually, maybe larger, since she’s not sure God exists. And the Lake is Godlike—vast, mysterious, powerful, both soothing and harsh. It’s larger than life, larger than any character I can conceive of, whether man, woman, or child. It is an overreaching and underlying presence in Annie’s life and mine.

Q. Annie and Marly are variously in relationships with men and always with each other; so there's some romantic love, and some is familial--representative of the pursuit of love itself, which often does feel strange or work out strangely. I wonder what you had in mind by the title?

LL. Yes, it’s the pursuit of love that feels strange and works out strangely. And all love is somewhat strange, when you consider it closely enough--both weird and wondrous. At the same time, I think most people will agree that Annie and Marly’s men, with maybe one exception, are odd or strange or eccentric to varying degrees, and that Annie and Marly are somewhat unusual, too. As Marly says at one point, “You’re not exactly casebook normal, Mom, and I’m on medication.”

Q. We first came into contact when I was a freelance editor for Brain, Child, working with you on minor revisions for the story, "Aliens," in which a teenage Marly tries to distance herself from her mother. I was so happy to see Annie and Marly again in the pages of your book, as if they were old friends. I wonder, is that a small glimpse of what it's like for a fiction writer when you go back and revive characters?

LL. I tend to come back to the same characters, based on my family and myself. Then I need a break from them, so I write something totally different. Then I come back to my family again and, yes, it is nice to be in familiar territory, where I know the people so well that the main challenge is not in creating characters but in conveying them to the reader as richly as I can.

Q. Some writers find it easier to write about a geographic place when they are away from it, while others like to be in the environment they are writing about. Where do you fit in? Do you write best about Michigan and the lake region while there? Did you get away at any time while writing, and did that help or hinder your ability to conjure the place on the page?

LL. I think I work better when I’m in the place I’m writing about. Then,for instance, if I want to describe the ice on the lake, I can just walk down to the lake in winter and check it out. I’ve recently finished Taking the Blue Star, a novel set in and around Saugatuck, Michigan, and after one of the earlier drafts was done, I had a friend drive me to all the places where the characters traveled, at the same time of year (November) that the novel takes place, so I could look around me as my friend drove and flesh out the details related to setting.

Looking out at the fields of corn, still standing but dead, the stalks pale and dry, I thought ghost corn, unsure of whether I’d made up that phrase or heard it somewhere, and I gave that thought and phrase to one of my characters. One of the scenes happens at a nearby monastery, and another at the local gun and pizza shop, places I don’t normally frequent, and I wandered through both several times, getting a feel for them and seeing what was on display and for sale, casing both joints for whatever details I needed to use for my novel.

Q. Your introduction mentions you couldn't have completed the collection "without my writing pals". Can you talk about your writing community? Is it a matter of getting actual feedback on drafts? Or is it (instead or also) more about support and encouragement, having someone around who knows what an editorial rejection feels like?

LL. I rely on both things—feedback is essential and emotional support is, too—but since I am dedicated to writing and am not going to be deterred by rejection, it’s the feedback that I need the most. I sometimes worry that I’m missing out on greater connection to writers and writing communities, because unlike most writers, I have a nonacademic job, and I work too late in the evenings to attend most readings. I’m looking for an agent to sell my finished novel, and I wonder if it would be easier if I were in an academic setting and had access to more writers. But I’m grateful for all the writers I do know. And I truly rely on my closest writing friends to help me make my rough manuscripts into finished ones.

Q. In the online MFA program I teach in, we talk about designing a writing life, given that most students will always have a full- or part-time "day job" that isn't writing (and not every writer will want to teach). I believe that, like your character Annie, you work for a bus company. Can you describe how you organize time around your job, and how you sustain a writing life? In terms of productivity and craft, what does a writer, in it for the long haul, need to do to continue to write and not be frustrated by lack of time?

LL. I’m lucky in that, rather than working 9 to 5, I work in the afternoons, so I have the whole morning to write—more time than a lot of my teacher friends who are writers. The drawback is I usually work at my job six days a week and also into the evening, I don’t have summers off, and I’ve never had a sabbatical. Like any serious writer, I still have to draw lines around my writing time and create a balance between time for writing, family, friends, errands, etc. I worry that sometimes my friends and family are disappointed in some of my choices. But they mainly understand, I think, and it helps tremendously that I have a super supportive husband.

Q. What are you working on now? In addition to fiction, do you write in any other genre or form?

LL. Right now I’m doing research and taking notes for a book whose working title is None of Us Are Free. It’s an autobiographical and historical novel that takes place in Detroit, focusing on 1972 and 1973, when I was 15 and active in a city-wide radical movement whose main concerns were the criminal (in)justice system, the heroin epidemic, and a lethal and racist police unit known as STRESS. In addition to fiction, I also write creative nonfiction. My work often falls between the two, and I’m constantly struggling with trying to decide and define which of the two I’m creating. Some pieces are definitely one or the other, but many occupy a middle ground.

Note from Lisa Romeo: You might enjoy this Michigan Radio interview with Lisa Lenzo. And be sure to visit her website.

Swag ! Lisa Lenzo would like to send one blog reader a complimentary signed copy of her book. Just leave a comment here by Sunday, April 5. (Must have a U.S. postal address.)

Images of Lake Michigan ice, courtesy of Charlie Schreiner; others courtesy Lisa Lenzo

My Husband and I Didn't Have a "Meet-Cute" Moment. So of course, I wrote about it.

Personal nonfiction writers often ponder the delicate issue of writing about loved ones, in particular spouses, a subject I once spent months researching. What I found, and have observed, is that most contemporary memoir and personal essay writers fall into (or straddle) three categories:

- show work to a spouse while it's still in very early draft form, giving him/her full veto power to delete anything

- share it only in late stages of editing, with either (a) a willingness to discuss cuts, but no guarantees; or (b) just as a heads-up

- stay mum until publication

I'm mostly in the second category - b - *Honey, FYI, this piece is coming out next week, and you're in it.* But sometimes I slip into the third. Why? Because I can. Because my husband, bless him, has a sense of humor about himself and us; because after 27 years of marriage he knows to pick his battles; and (maybe best of all) because he is almost completely isolated from social media (his choice).

Seven years ago, I began a narrative essay about how we met, fell apart and come back together multiple times over 12 years. In its various incarnations, the piece grew, deepened, languished, shrank, came back to life in varying forms. 

Once, I showed a draft to a writing friend for input and -- because we had dinner planned with this friend and her fiance -- I let Frank read it, mostly so that if the topic of what my friend and I were each writing came up, he wouldn't be in the dark. He shrugged. That was four years ago. I brought the drafts out to play with a few times since, then buried it again.

Finally, last fall, something shifted. I started with a blank screen, and after only a few hours (and 7 years) of rewriting, out it went on the submission trail.

Happily, Blue Lyra Review liked it and "Not Quite Meet-Cute" is part of their newest issue, now live. Which is why, last week, I told Frank, in a by-the-way moment, "A piece I wrote about how we met and dated is going to be published." He shrugged. 

I titled this one after a line in the film The Holiday, when the lovely actor Eli Wallach (who plays a now-elderly but once famously productive screenwriter from the golden age of Hollywood), explains that the magical, sweet, sometimes comical moment when fated lovers in a film first encounter one another, is called the "meet-cute."

My husband and I didn't have one of those. 

Here's how my story begins: 

People often ask how my husband and I met, confusing meeting with meaning.I tell them the meet-cute version: it happened at a New York Giants football game, two teenagers who forgot umbrellas and shared an improvised over-sized black trash-bag poncho. It is true, this story, and you can get by with this story, entertain and please people who want to know it is still possible to be sleeping beside the love of your life some thirty-eight years after he first made you swoon. 

But it’s not that simple. 

I first saw and heard my future husband when I was twelve and he sixteen, filling multiple roles in a high school production of My Fair Lady: dreamy looks, a swath of dark curly hair, and that last name – Frank Romeo. When we finally met at that football game three years later, I was with my best friend Anne, and he with his best friend Jeff. About five weeks of double dates followed, but I failed to notice Frank’s distracted twitch. I had forgotten that I first encountered him as an actor...

I hope you will read the rest here. And, if you're inclined, give it a boost with the Facebook Like button at the bottom of the essay on the BLR site

Friday Fridge Clean-Out: Links for Writers -- February 20, 2015 Edition

> Ann Hood--novelist, memoirist, essayist, editor, teacher--talks about her latest novel, her start as a writer, process, and much more, in an interview at The Writer. She was one of my MFA mentors, and I continue to learn from her, always.

> If you're here, you're a reader. Maybe you'd like to up your reading tally for the year? Check out the 50 Book Pledge (or 75, 100, 150, 200).

> The New York Times Sunday Magazine has been "re-launched" (and redesigned, re-imagined) in print and online. Except for those (like me) who are upset at the loss of the Lives column as a freelance essay venue, I'm hearing mostly favorable reviews about the first installment.

> Speaking of the Times, the Modern Love column (in the Sunday Styles section) continues as one of the most coveted pieces of literary real estate for creative nonfiction writers. This teleseminar on March 22, by an ML author, looks worth the time, and it's affordable.

> If you blog or maintain a website, you probably need stock images from time to time. HubSpot Blogs breaks down "10 Sites for Free, Non-Cheesy Stock Photos."

> Writer's Digest suggests "9 Ways to Break Into Major Markets with Personal Essays."

> My involvement with The Writers Circle (northern NJ) continues with teaching, and for the second time, acting as co-editor of a twice-yearly online journal. It features the work of some current and past adult, teen, and child writers. Here's the latest installment; for most, it's their first publication.

Have a great weekend!

Image: Flickr/Creative Commons, Lazurite

Guest Blogger Sandra Hurtes on How a Writer Stays Committed With No Promise of Success

This blog, which I've been publishing for eight years, continues to bring me into contact with many wonderful writers. Sometimes a single email exchange grows into a week-long or month-long (or longer) conversation; often, I invite that writer to contribute a guest post. That's more or less how I found Sandra Hurtes, who emailed me after reading an interview here with Sue William Silverman, one of her "writing heroes." Sandra is an adjunct assistant professor at CUNY and also studies watercolor painting.

Please welcome Sandra Hurtes.  

When Poets & Writers began its “Why We Write” column, I felt the topic was made for me. I understood the myriad reasons why I put pen to paper and fingers to keyboard. I hurried off an essay, noting my early life as a painfully shy and compliant child and how through writing I had found my voice and myself. When my essay was rejected, I was surprised. Until I went back to work, rewriting, going deeper, and not stopping until I cried. I discovered that it is only through the laying down of word after word after word that I can get to the center of anything, whether it’s a personal essay or a book I’m teaching in a freshman comp class.

As a freelance writer, I’m guaranteed nothing. Not publication. Not a reader. Not a dime for my efforts. And so being aware of the gifts writing bestows upon me is vital; it keeps me returning to the page.

I didn’t always feel this way.

Though I had an early sense that I was a writer, and dreams of literary success, it wasn’t until I was 44 that I settled solidly into my chair to begin the work. It was the 50th anniversary of the Jews’ liberation from concentration camps; my parents were survivors, and I needed to be part of the emerging global conversation. I loved every second (even the tearful ones) of working on my first fully realized essay, “A Daughter’s Legacy.” It first landed in The Jewish Press, then it was republished in The Brooklyn Woman, The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, and a small Israeli magazine. The thrill of fulfilling my goal and discovering the joy of writing set me on fire. The following year, I wrote four essays that all found homes in Na’amat Woman, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Washington Post, and The New York Times.  

When the Times called to tell me they were publishing my essay, I was giddy with happiness and nerves, certain I was headed for the big time. The Times piece led to messages from editors and agents who wanted to meet me, and the rush of attention filled a need I didn’t know I had. From my job as an office temp, I called in to my answer machine every half hour for messages. When the Times called to relay agent messages, I was ecstatic. But when there were none, I felt deflated. I was aware of this internal dynamic, and it made me uneasy.

I met with agents and an editor to discuss projects. My ideas included an essay collection or a memoir; I'd already begun a memoir draft. But each person I spoke with was interested in a novel; they assumed I’d been writing for years and had one ready (this was in the mid 1990s, before the memoir mania). My period of "fame" ended with no agent, no book deal, and a bit of insecurity.

I continued to write and publish essays. Sometimes readers wrote to say they connected with me; I loved that. Sometimes an editor reached out; that was an incredible high, underscoring my belief I would eventually make it big—a book turned into a movie turned into a move to Los Angeles to a house with an ocean view and writing as my day job. But in the real world, I still had no finished book manuscript. Wanting to have a book out in the world was a wonderful goal; but for me, it was also a deeply personal form of validation.

I branched out into writing service articles and hoped I’d make a living as a freelancer. This was still a time when you could call up editors and run ideas by them. But the few times I did, my voice trembled.  I felt as if I was putting my life on the line. I mailed my queries instead of calling, most of which received form rejections. Still, studying magazines and coming up with fresh topics was fun; sometimes I wrote entire articles on spec. I loved writing for its own sake, but each time I looked over my shoulder at peers who had agents or books on tables at Barnes & Noble, that pure love shifted. I became competitive and jealous.

I started the novel I thought might be my ticket to success while also working on my memoir and everything else I could squeeze in before, after, and during office jobs. I sent a self-help article to a magazine editor who had loved my Times piece. She left me a long voice mail. Sandra, you don’t have the skills for journalism. You should stick to essays. I’m passing on this article.  I sent it to a rival magazine, and six months later I received an acceptance. But by then I had given up waiting and instead placed it with a poor-woman’s (aka trashy) version of Cosmopolitan. 

My disappointment was blinding. The ups and downs of the freelancers’ life were too painful to manage. I continued to work on my novel, and believed in it enough to hire an editor. But it never quite came together in terms of character development.

One day, I told my mother I didn't want to write anymore. “That makes me very sad," she said.“I hear my voice in your words.” In that moment, I settled back into my chair and thought a lot about why I write.  

Since then, I've gone back to school for an MFA and I’m now an adjunct English professor teaching four classes a semester. I write all the time, mostly preparing lectures. It sounds dull. But the first time I prepped to teach Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, I spent hours exploring how a scientist’s brilliance led to his demise. I was on fire with the process of learning and from the gift I was able to give myself (and my audience of students).

I discovered I could labor over essays, and if they didn’t find a home it was okay. When they did, I was gratified when I heard from readers. As for the most organic book project I had inside of me—the essay collection—I self-published On My Way to Someplace Else. My goal was to contribute a body of work on the Holocaust, and I exceeded that by garnering excellent reviews.

My second book, The Ambivalent Memoirist, has a quirky style of short, digressive chapters. I didn’t look for an agent. I found closure in writing memoir and have closed that "book".  A line in the Publisher’s Weekly’s review -- “Writing as art and psychological salvation is at the heart of this book.”  -- showed me more about what writing means to me.  

Being published in newspapers and magazines is important to me; the reach it provides into other people’s minds and hearts is significant. I still want that. But I no longer feel competitive or even aware of what other writers are doing. I’m wedded to my process that allows me to grow and develop in ways I could not have, had I not become a writer.

Note from Lisa: Sandra would like to give one lucky blog reader a copy of each of her books (print or Kindle, your choice). Simply leave a comment by the end of the day on Saturday, February 28, 2015. US postal addresses only for print). Visit Sandra's website to learn more about her.

Images courtesy Sandra Hurtes.

Friday Fridge Clean-Out: Links for Writers -- February 6, 2015 Edition

> Prolific writer Jordan Rosenfeld, in a video hangout with Estelle Erasmus, talks about how she churns out so many essays that get published in so many, many places. Worth the 14 minutes!

> Is being "sponsored" (meaning more or less not having to earn a paycheck) the brass ring for writers struggling to find/make/take enough time to seriously pursue their projects? Start at the Brevity blog with this post, and then follow the links back to the original Salon post that got the conversation started, and sideways to a number of responses, both yay and nay.

> Interested in exploring Canadian literary magazines and journals? Here's a handy round-up (the post date reads 2013, but it was just updated last week).

> The Freelancer offers 17 journalism conferences worth your time in 2015.  (Including the ASJA Annual Conference, where I'm pleased to be on a panel about writing groups.)

> Poet Jessica Piazza is submitting only to paying venues in 2015, and chronicling (tumbling?) her experiences (plus talking with other poets and editors) at Poetry Has Value.  (hat tip Erika Dreifus)

> Another great listening experience - Donna Talarico, founder/editor of the online creative nonfiction journal Hippocampus, on the Higher Ed Social podcast, discussing juggling teaching and editing, and some interesting Hippocampus behind-the-scenes re: submissions, selection, etc.

> Looking for "feminist/inclusive" places to submit writing? The Fem has a list.  (hat tip The Review Review)

> Finally, I don't know a lot about literary translation, but I know what's funny about words, and I love this: Idioms that cannot be literally translated into English. Well they can be, but hold no figurative meaning.  Like: "There's no cow on the ice" from the Swedish.

Have a great weekend!

Image: Flickr/Creative Commons (Filipe Soares Dilley)