►Over at The Awl, good reading for those who love copy editors, those who have worked as copy editors, those still working as copy editors, and those who, like the writer, have been there/done that and don't want to again. (Phew, 150 comments! And who said copy editing is boring?)
►I hadn't ever thought about publishing anything on Scribd, but after reading about Hyla Molander's experience (via Jane Friedman's There Are No Rules blog), it makes me wonder.
►For writers curious about opportunities to supplement income and/or build a small portfolio of online freelance pieces, MediaShift looked at one editor's experience at a hyper-local news site.
►I've loved the writer Beth Kephart since reading her memoir A Slant of Sun, about raising her developmentally challenged son, a decade ago. So I was happy to recently discover her blog, and this short but oh-so-true post for memoir writers, about how we remember.
►Today is the 75th anniversary of Penguin Books, and to help celebrate, the publisher asked bloggers to help them give away some books. I'm happy to oblige, because hey, where would we readers be if not for that little penguin on the spines of all those books we read as kids? If you'd like to win a copy of Kathleen Flinn's memoir, The Sharper Your Knife, The Less You Cry (about her year at a venerable Parisian cooking school), leave a comment on this post only (and be sure there is a way for me to contact you via email if you're chosen). Comments for the give-away will close on Friday, August 7 at midnight.
Have a great weekend.
Friday, July 30, 2010
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Guest Blogger Candy Schulman on How Personal Essay Writers Think (and what they need to do)
When you’re a personal essay writer, you notice the bylines on every personal essay you read, anywhere, every time, and you keep a mental list of other essayists whose work has muscle, exemplifies the craft, and is just plain good to read. Candy Schulman’s name is on the mental list I keep. So I was especially delighted (and a little embarrassed) when she contacted me not long ago to let me know she is a regular reader of this blog.
Candy's essays have appeared in The New York Times, New York Magazine, Newsweek, The Washington Post, Travel & Leisure, Glamour, Parents, Salon.com, and in the anthology Lost and Found, Stories from New York. She is also an Associate Professor at The New School, where she teaches the creative non-fiction workshop titled Finding Your Voice in Non-Fiction.
Please welcome Candy Schulman.
One day last winter, as I was picking up my mail in my apartment building lobby, I noticed that the front of my building was sealed off by crime tape as if an episode of Law and Order were being filmed. But this was a real life crime scene: an elderly woman had jumped to her death from her eighteenth floor window. I stayed in the lobby, mentally taking notes on neighbors’ reactions and the ensuing police investigation.
Was I intruding into someone else’s tragedy? Was I a voyeur? Or was I just a writer, doing my job?
I remember Philip Roth once remarking that at his mother’s funeral—the most profound day of his life—his mind was taking note of every detail, knowing he would use this material somewhere, someday. He felt guilty at first, but then reconciled the fact that this is what writers do. It’s part of our job.
I couldn’t get my mind off the poor woman in my building who’d committed suicide—and immediately wrote an essay called The Nameless Old Lady Who Jumped. An essayist cannot just record the facts of what happened—she must take the story somewhere. I connected this tragedy to my own mother, who had recently died after a long illness, knowing first hand how desperate elderly people can be. I was both an observer and participant in the story. The theme of loneliness in old age was identifiable and generalizable to many readers.
A writer always “takes notes” because ideas are everywhere. Once I was on the subway, rattling under Manhattan, when I heard a faceless conductor’s voice, announcing each stop with poetic descriptions of city neighborhoods. I took out the notebook I always carried with me, and started recording—not only the conductor’s lilting announcements, but the way the subway riders at first found it annoying (interrupting their reading or music selections), and slowly started to smile, bonding with each other the more the conductor orated. He was transforming a tedious job into something that made the riders feel uplifted.
Never leave home without your writer’s notebook. But taking notes isn’t enough. How do you take an idea and lift it into an artfully-crafted essay?
First you need characters. Bring them to life. Make them engaging and identifiable.
Create a point of view. Is the writer a part of the story? Are you a protagonist? You can’t just recite facts—that’s what journalists do. Why do you, as the narrator, feel passion about telling this story? What do you know about it that others do not?
Define the conflict. All literature has conflict, and essays must have dramatic tension to keep the reader curious to read on.
Develop two levels to your story. There are often two stories: the one on the surface, and the one below the surface. Be intimate with your story, yet step back to give yourself enough distance to see the underlying metaphor.
Use dialogue. You can’t always remember exactly what someone said, but do the best of your ability. As Vladimir Nabokov said, “Memory is a form of fiction.”
Balance the narrative, description, dialogue. Think of the essay as a piece of music, with different tones and harmonies. Incorporate fictional techniques to make your essay multi-dimensional rather than monochrome.
Move the plot forward. Of course you must compress and leave the mundane details out, but ask yourself: what are you trying to write about? Why are you crafting this story? You’re writing to tell—and show—the reader something you know, something you’ve discovered, something you’ve learned. Avoid trite phrases such as, “In conclusion,” or “I learned that…” Be subtle, especially with the ending.
Visualize the arc of your story. Build toward the climax, the denouement, the resolution.
Revise, rewrite, revise. Don’t underestimate the number of revisions it takes to finish a 1,000 word essay. As Henry David Thoreau wrote: “Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short.” I have printed out hundreds of revised pages before calling an essay “finished.” My ecologically-minded teenage daughter worries that I am wasting paper, but my response is: this is how writers write. And then I donate my old drafts to the recycle bin.
Note from Lisa: To find out more about Candy, visit her website.
Candy's essays have appeared in The New York Times, New York Magazine, Newsweek, The Washington Post, Travel & Leisure, Glamour, Parents, Salon.com, and in the anthology Lost and Found, Stories from New York. She is also an Associate Professor at The New School, where she teaches the creative non-fiction workshop titled Finding Your Voice in Non-Fiction.
Please welcome Candy Schulman.
One day last winter, as I was picking up my mail in my apartment building lobby, I noticed that the front of my building was sealed off by crime tape as if an episode of Law and Order were being filmed. But this was a real life crime scene: an elderly woman had jumped to her death from her eighteenth floor window. I stayed in the lobby, mentally taking notes on neighbors’ reactions and the ensuing police investigation.
Was I intruding into someone else’s tragedy? Was I a voyeur? Or was I just a writer, doing my job?
I remember Philip Roth once remarking that at his mother’s funeral—the most profound day of his life—his mind was taking note of every detail, knowing he would use this material somewhere, someday. He felt guilty at first, but then reconciled the fact that this is what writers do. It’s part of our job.
I couldn’t get my mind off the poor woman in my building who’d committed suicide—and immediately wrote an essay called The Nameless Old Lady Who Jumped. An essayist cannot just record the facts of what happened—she must take the story somewhere. I connected this tragedy to my own mother, who had recently died after a long illness, knowing first hand how desperate elderly people can be. I was both an observer and participant in the story. The theme of loneliness in old age was identifiable and generalizable to many readers.
A writer always “takes notes” because ideas are everywhere. Once I was on the subway, rattling under Manhattan, when I heard a faceless conductor’s voice, announcing each stop with poetic descriptions of city neighborhoods. I took out the notebook I always carried with me, and started recording—not only the conductor’s lilting announcements, but the way the subway riders at first found it annoying (interrupting their reading or music selections), and slowly started to smile, bonding with each other the more the conductor orated. He was transforming a tedious job into something that made the riders feel uplifted.
Never leave home without your writer’s notebook. But taking notes isn’t enough. How do you take an idea and lift it into an artfully-crafted essay?
First you need characters. Bring them to life. Make them engaging and identifiable.
Create a point of view. Is the writer a part of the story? Are you a protagonist? You can’t just recite facts—that’s what journalists do. Why do you, as the narrator, feel passion about telling this story? What do you know about it that others do not?
Define the conflict. All literature has conflict, and essays must have dramatic tension to keep the reader curious to read on.
Develop two levels to your story. There are often two stories: the one on the surface, and the one below the surface. Be intimate with your story, yet step back to give yourself enough distance to see the underlying metaphor.
Use dialogue. You can’t always remember exactly what someone said, but do the best of your ability. As Vladimir Nabokov said, “Memory is a form of fiction.”
Balance the narrative, description, dialogue. Think of the essay as a piece of music, with different tones and harmonies. Incorporate fictional techniques to make your essay multi-dimensional rather than monochrome.
Move the plot forward. Of course you must compress and leave the mundane details out, but ask yourself: what are you trying to write about? Why are you crafting this story? You’re writing to tell—and show—the reader something you know, something you’ve discovered, something you’ve learned. Avoid trite phrases such as, “In conclusion,” or “I learned that…” Be subtle, especially with the ending.
Visualize the arc of your story. Build toward the climax, the denouement, the resolution.
Revise, rewrite, revise. Don’t underestimate the number of revisions it takes to finish a 1,000 word essay. As Henry David Thoreau wrote: “Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short.” I have printed out hundreds of revised pages before calling an essay “finished.” My ecologically-minded teenage daughter worries that I am wasting paper, but my response is: this is how writers write. And then I donate my old drafts to the recycle bin.
Note from Lisa: To find out more about Candy, visit her website.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
On writing revisions and craft, Cash is on the money
I've mentioned once or twice, my utter fascination with, and interest in, the craft of writing song lyrics. (Not, mind you, that I think I'm going to be doing much of this myself, but a girl can dream.) This past weekend, I had the delicious gift of two afternoons poolside, and tore through the new memoir Composed. It's written by Rosanne Cash, an accomplished lyricist, composer, recording artist and performer, and previously published short story writer and children's book author. Cash's somewhat elliptical structure appealed to my stubborn nonlinear inclinations, and her sometimes lyrical (sorry, there's just no other word for it) prose, anchored in clear-eyed story-telling, made it a pleasurable read.
In several places, and particularly in the final chapters, she discusses how her craft evolved over time as life experiences piled up alongside creative confidence. Here, she talks about the "hard earned craft of songwriting," but I think her point travels well across literary genres.
[Disclosure: Before I could act on my own to-be-ordered book list, I received a complementary copy of Composed from the book's publisher, Penguin.]
In several places, and particularly in the final chapters, she discusses how her craft evolved over time as life experiences piled up alongside creative confidence. Here, she talks about the "hard earned craft of songwriting," but I think her point travels well across literary genres.
"…as I get older I have found the quality of my attention to be more important, and more rewarding, than the initial inspiration. This maturation in songwriting has proven surprisingly satisfying. Thirty years ago I would have said that the bursts of inspiration, and the ecstatic flood of feeling that came with them, were an emotionally superior experience, preferable to the watchmaker's concentration required for the detail work of refining, editing, and polishing. But the reverse is proving to be true. Like everything else, given enough time and the long perspective, the opposite of those things that we think define us slowly becomes equally valid and sometimes more potent. I have learned to be steady in my course of love, or fear, or loneliness, rather than impulsive in its wasting either lyrically or emotionally."Which to me means, more or less, that the more intimately you work within your craft, the more you work at "refining, editing and polishing," the better your writing will be, whether that's songwriting or fiction writing, or memoir writing. The part about coming to this knowledge after a certain number of years elapse, while certainly true for most artists, doesn't mean we all have to wait that many years to learn this lesson.
[Disclosure: Before I could act on my own to-be-ordered book list, I received a complementary copy of Composed from the book's publisher, Penguin.]
Monday, July 26, 2010
Writing exercise -- use these four words in a sentence: Happy. Married. Happily Married.
For years I wrote about motherhood and avoided writing about my husband and/or my marriage. That began to change when I focused the research semester of my MFA program on exploring how contemporary women nonfiction writers represent the spouse in memoir and personal essay.
More recently, my regular personal essay writing gig over at Your Tango's LoveMom section more or less requires that I examine the marital relationship in the larger context of "the intersection of life, love and kids." My piece over there today pivots on the difference (if there is one) between being happy and married, and being “happily married” (whatever that means!). It begins this way:
More recently, my regular personal essay writing gig over at Your Tango's LoveMom section more or less requires that I examine the marital relationship in the larger context of "the intersection of life, love and kids." My piece over there today pivots on the difference (if there is one) between being happy and married, and being “happily married” (whatever that means!). It begins this way:
A decade ago, when one of my sons was still a preschooler, a friendly old gent in the grocery checkout line tried to make small talk with the boy, who was attired in a New York Yankees jacket.You can read the rest here.
"Oh, are you a real slugger?"
From the kid, silence.
"Are you a big strong boy?"
More silence.
Finally, winking, "Are you married?"
The boy spoke. “No, I’m happy.”
Friday, July 23, 2010
Friday Fridge Clean-Out: Links for Writers, July 23rd Edition
►Novelist Janet Fitch has 10 Writing Tips That Can Help Almost Anyone. I concur.
► Neiman Storyboard did it again, this week with a Q/A with Rebecca Skloot (author of recent NYT bestseller The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks), on the subject of writing narrative history. You'll want to click over just for the photo of Skloot's visual organizing board.
► Do you like interviews? Mark Twain clearly didn't. I found this over at the UMagazinology blog, which concerns itself with the material carried in, and the creation of, magazines published by colleges and universities.
►At the Guide to Literary Agents blog, a step-by-step outline of a proposal for a (reported or prescriptive) nonfiction book. (hat tip to Nathan Bransford).
► Harriet Brown, a brave women writer (who edited the Feed Me! collection in which I had an essay), debuts the book trailer for her forthcoming memoir, Brave Girl Eating, about her family's efforts to help one of her daughters overcome anorexia.
► Ever take on a writing project specifically to rev up a non-writing part of your life? One of my New Jersey writing buddies Steph Auteri got a taste recently.
Have a great weekend.
► Neiman Storyboard did it again, this week with a Q/A with Rebecca Skloot (author of recent NYT bestseller The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks), on the subject of writing narrative history. You'll want to click over just for the photo of Skloot's visual organizing board.
► Do you like interviews? Mark Twain clearly didn't. I found this over at the UMagazinology blog, which concerns itself with the material carried in, and the creation of, magazines published by colleges and universities.
►At the Guide to Literary Agents blog, a step-by-step outline of a proposal for a (reported or prescriptive) nonfiction book. (hat tip to Nathan Bransford).
► Harriet Brown, a brave women writer (who edited the Feed Me! collection in which I had an essay), debuts the book trailer for her forthcoming memoir, Brave Girl Eating, about her family's efforts to help one of her daughters overcome anorexia.
► Ever take on a writing project specifically to rev up a non-writing part of your life? One of my New Jersey writing buddies Steph Auteri got a taste recently.
Have a great weekend.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Writing Reruns: Posts from the Past.
Over the last few weeks, I've noticed a bunch of new comments here on old posts. Which suggests that perhaps newer readers might find some value in some posts from the past. (How's that for justifying a too-busy-to-blog day?).
So what do editors really do with a pile of submissions? In which I feature excerpts and links from Peter Selgin's cop to how he manages his role as literary journal editor.
A Writer's Creed: Get What You Need. Maybe It's What You Want After All. In which I discuss how getting that MFA, or any good chunk of writing education, will disrupt life in general.
Point of View: A 10-year-old Explains it All. In which my son teaches me something. (Happens all the time.)
Writing the Seasonal Essay: This Time Next Year. In which I advocate getting a really big jump start.
Writing and Kids: Not So Mutually Exclusive. In which I get a little tough with writers who blame poor productivity on having procreated.
So what do editors really do with a pile of submissions? In which I feature excerpts and links from Peter Selgin's cop to how he manages his role as literary journal editor.
A Writer's Creed: Get What You Need. Maybe It's What You Want After All. In which I discuss how getting that MFA, or any good chunk of writing education, will disrupt life in general.
Point of View: A 10-year-old Explains it All. In which my son teaches me something. (Happens all the time.)
Writing the Seasonal Essay: This Time Next Year. In which I advocate getting a really big jump start.
Writing and Kids: Not So Mutually Exclusive. In which I get a little tough with writers who blame poor productivity on having procreated.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Stuff My (Writing) Students Say, Part Five
In this series, I usually note something a writing student has said, observed or complained about, and then offer my ideas. This time, I'm giving the floor to the student, who made this insightful comment about process when writing memoir. It followed a discussion about dispensing with the need to know exactly, early on, where one should begin with a piece of writing and/or where it's going.
Angela said:
I am happy and relieved that the creative process can be just that. A process that happens as it should without the stress of wondering if it's all going to fit together. Life is such that not everything starts at the beginning, goes to the middle and then ends. Take a jigsaw puzzle. It begins with the first piece but it's mate may not show up until 20 or more pieces in. Eventually it is all put together, but in pieces. Perhaps the center is completed first or maybe one of the corners. The end result is the same no matter how it is constructed, a complete puzzle.
As I see it, LIFE is always being "written" from the middle. We all know how we began this existence and we know that it will end. It is the middle, the juice, the meat of the journey that entices us. The "story" of our life can sometimes be re-worked. Not deleted, but rather redirected. It will still make up the heart of the journey and the beginning and end will take care of itself. I think this should be true in writing, because as we draw out the middle it will become evident how we got there and where we might end up.
The first three Stuff My (Writing) Students Say posts are here.
Angela said:
I am happy and relieved that the creative process can be just that. A process that happens as it should without the stress of wondering if it's all going to fit together. Life is such that not everything starts at the beginning, goes to the middle and then ends. Take a jigsaw puzzle. It begins with the first piece but it's mate may not show up until 20 or more pieces in. Eventually it is all put together, but in pieces. Perhaps the center is completed first or maybe one of the corners. The end result is the same no matter how it is constructed, a complete puzzle.
As I see it, LIFE is always being "written" from the middle. We all know how we began this existence and we know that it will end. It is the middle, the juice, the meat of the journey that entices us. The "story" of our life can sometimes be re-worked. Not deleted, but rather redirected. It will still make up the heart of the journey and the beginning and end will take care of itself. I think this should be true in writing, because as we draw out the middle it will become evident how we got there and where we might end up.
The first three Stuff My (Writing) Students Say posts are here.
Monday, July 19, 2010
What writers can do while waiting for acceptances, offers, and you know, the other thing.
You've sent off your article query, or your submission, or your agent representation query, or that requested manuscript or partial. And now you wait. Well of course you are also busy writing something else – many something elses – but in the back of your mind, you are waiting, waiting, for a reaction, an assignment, an acceptance, a sale, a contract, an offer.
While you are waiting, get ready.
• Resolve that you will be open to an editor, publisher or agent's suggested edits, title changes, and other ideas. Develop the mindset that you will listen and seriously consider what may be suggested. You know, they are editors, agents and publishers for a reason. They know stuff.
• Keep working on that personal website and/or blog, and keep building that online presence and network of literary friends, readers, writing colleagues. No matter what any particular response holds, you are going to need those folks for marketing purposes, support, sanity, or all three.
• Have a long and a short bio ready to go, w/hyperlinks in place.
• Know what you will do if a contract arrives: Sign right away or have an attorney look it over? Ask a professional organization's legal services office to do so (the Author's Guild, for example)? Have a more experienced writer friend weigh in? Compare it to those you've signed in the past and decide yourself?
• Make sure you know the rights you will want to keep, those that matter to you. Contracts can be altered. Learn how.
• If you're waiting on an acceptance for a piece that will get published relatively quickly afterward, now is the time to do the final fact checking you may have (oops) neglected to complete before submitting.
• Be ready to respond in a timely manner, even if you need to ask for more time to respond fully. Fire back with, "Thanks, I'm very excited! I am in the middle of an urgent project today (or this week), but will respond fully on ____ ( name the day). Is that okay?"
• Have a digital author photo ready to send.
• Don't research the media venue / agent / publisher AFTER getting an acceptance / assignment / offer, and then decide you'd rather not. But if that's the case, know what you will say to graciously back away.
• Resist the urge to follow up too soon, too often, or rudely. Everyone is busy, everyone has an overflowing email inbox, and most of the time, most people actually are trying their best.
• Think of what you will do next, if the response is negative. Have a tiered list of "next to try" at your fingertips. Each time a "no thanks" arrives, you'll already have the next destination in mind. This is especially effective if you harbor doubts that you sent it to the wrong places the first time around.
• If you sent out simultaneous subs, know how you will handle withdrawals so you won't waste others' time now that the work is taken.
• Have a simple invoice template ready to go.
• Decide that you will be professional and humble whatever the response. Practice saying YES with gusto, saying "sorry, this won't work out after all," with grace, and saying "thanks for considering it anyway," with appreciation. Mean it.
• Remember that you are not going to exhibit any prima donna tendencies, making those who actually are interested in your work crazy with ridiculous demands. Or way too many reasonable demands. In other words, be a writer about whom editors, agents and publishers say, "She/He was great to work with." Because you know what, most of them know one another!
What did I forget?
While you are waiting, get ready.
• Resolve that you will be open to an editor, publisher or agent's suggested edits, title changes, and other ideas. Develop the mindset that you will listen and seriously consider what may be suggested. You know, they are editors, agents and publishers for a reason. They know stuff.
• Keep working on that personal website and/or blog, and keep building that online presence and network of literary friends, readers, writing colleagues. No matter what any particular response holds, you are going to need those folks for marketing purposes, support, sanity, or all three.
• Have a long and a short bio ready to go, w/hyperlinks in place.
• Know what you will do if a contract arrives: Sign right away or have an attorney look it over? Ask a professional organization's legal services office to do so (the Author's Guild, for example)? Have a more experienced writer friend weigh in? Compare it to those you've signed in the past and decide yourself?
• Make sure you know the rights you will want to keep, those that matter to you. Contracts can be altered. Learn how.
• If you're waiting on an acceptance for a piece that will get published relatively quickly afterward, now is the time to do the final fact checking you may have (oops) neglected to complete before submitting.
• Be ready to respond in a timely manner, even if you need to ask for more time to respond fully. Fire back with, "Thanks, I'm very excited! I am in the middle of an urgent project today (or this week), but will respond fully on ____ ( name the day). Is that okay?"
• Have a digital author photo ready to send.
• Don't research the media venue / agent / publisher AFTER getting an acceptance / assignment / offer, and then decide you'd rather not. But if that's the case, know what you will say to graciously back away.
• Resist the urge to follow up too soon, too often, or rudely. Everyone is busy, everyone has an overflowing email inbox, and most of the time, most people actually are trying their best.
• Think of what you will do next, if the response is negative. Have a tiered list of "next to try" at your fingertips. Each time a "no thanks" arrives, you'll already have the next destination in mind. This is especially effective if you harbor doubts that you sent it to the wrong places the first time around.
• If you sent out simultaneous subs, know how you will handle withdrawals so you won't waste others' time now that the work is taken.
• Have a simple invoice template ready to go.
• Decide that you will be professional and humble whatever the response. Practice saying YES with gusto, saying "sorry, this won't work out after all," with grace, and saying "thanks for considering it anyway," with appreciation. Mean it.
• Remember that you are not going to exhibit any prima donna tendencies, making those who actually are interested in your work crazy with ridiculous demands. Or way too many reasonable demands. In other words, be a writer about whom editors, agents and publishers say, "She/He was great to work with." Because you know what, most of them know one another!
What did I forget?
Friday, July 16, 2010
Friday Fridge Clean-Out: Links for Writers, July 16th Edition
►At The Paris Review blog, poets review songwriters. Or is that like saying poets review poets?
► Do you puzzle over when, how and whether you should use cultural references in your work?
► Blogs worth checking out: Work in Progress, a new blog from the publisher Farrar, Straus and Giroux; author Allegra Goodman's; and freelance writer Kelly James-Enger’s Dollars and Deadlines (hat to Erika Dreifus for the latter two).
► Writer Jesse Kornbluth’s Head Butler offers sometimes offbeat reviews of, and other musings about, music, books, movies, writing and more.
► At the Nieman Storyboard (which is always full of great material), Peggy Nelson looks at how short attention spans and technology may be affecting narrative.
►The literary journal Ploughshares has a good blog. I liked this guest post by Aimee Nezhukumatathil – with lots of photos – on the spaces where writers create.
► The Colorado writer who blogs at A Writing Life is sharing her experiences in a workshop with author Pam Houston, like this one, on Houston’s advice about that “analytical bitch in the closet.”
► Finally, if you haven’t seen it yet, Dennis Cass’s quietly funny Moby Award winning best performance by an author in a book trailer. Procrastinators, Luddites and lazy authors who would rather write than promote books will love this.
Have a great weekend.
► Do you puzzle over when, how and whether you should use cultural references in your work?
► Blogs worth checking out: Work in Progress, a new blog from the publisher Farrar, Straus and Giroux; author Allegra Goodman's; and freelance writer Kelly James-Enger’s Dollars and Deadlines (hat to Erika Dreifus for the latter two).
► Writer Jesse Kornbluth’s Head Butler offers sometimes offbeat reviews of, and other musings about, music, books, movies, writing and more.
► At the Nieman Storyboard (which is always full of great material), Peggy Nelson looks at how short attention spans and technology may be affecting narrative.
►The literary journal Ploughshares has a good blog. I liked this guest post by Aimee Nezhukumatathil – with lots of photos – on the spaces where writers create.
► The Colorado writer who blogs at A Writing Life is sharing her experiences in a workshop with author Pam Houston, like this one, on Houston’s advice about that “analytical bitch in the closet.”
► Finally, if you haven’t seen it yet, Dennis Cass’s quietly funny Moby Award winning best performance by an author in a book trailer. Procrastinators, Luddites and lazy authors who would rather write than promote books will love this.
Have a great weekend.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Department of Shameless Self-Promotion: A family essay about spending time with -- only me.
Over at YourTango, where I contribute a short essay every other week, I most recently wrote about how selfish I am. That is, how, and why, I regularly take time away from my family.
"In the last two weeks, I have only seen my husband and two sons for less than 24 hours and that is just fine with me. I love them all, enormously. But I love being alone, too. It's what feels natural to me. This was my biggest concern before getting married—could I live with someone, or several someones, for an extended time, no matter how much love was involved? To my relief, I discovered having a family, and living with them, is lovely—but only most of the time...."
You can read the rest here.
"In the last two weeks, I have only seen my husband and two sons for less than 24 hours and that is just fine with me. I love them all, enormously. But I love being alone, too. It's what feels natural to me. This was my biggest concern before getting married—could I live with someone, or several someones, for an extended time, no matter how much love was involved? To my relief, I discovered having a family, and living with them, is lovely—but only most of the time...."
You can read the rest here.
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