Writing, Reflection & One Resolution for 2013

By on December 31, 2012 in creative writing

Additionally, forgive me for talking about me me meeee.

Here we are: the finale of 2012. Despite numerous prognostications and my own nerves, the world didn’t end. Just like when I turn to the last page of a journal, I love to look back and ask what the hell happened?

When I scroll back through the posts of this year, I discover an interesting inversion: though the year began with lonely weekdays and little connection to the outside world, you, dear reader, kept my spirits high. Then, as the year progressed and I began to write more (and sometimes for money!) I began blogging less.

The switch occurred for two major reasons. First, I learned that any work I posted on my blog could be considered “published” and therefore ineligible to submit to contests. Second, I began introducing myself as a Marketing Communications Consultant and actually won projects, which necessarily ate up quite a bit of my time. Rather than focus on creative work every day, I began writing and learning how to make money.

Another 2012 discovery came in the form of my preferred genre. When I undertook November 2011’s NaNoWriMo, I wrote about half of a fiction novel. As my sci-fi gears ground to halt, I revisited my MFA portfolio and realized my favorite pieces were true. I loved to write about real life and welcomed the challenge of elevating the authentic through art. Writing true stories, I discovered, also relieved my fear of the endless horizon. Real life offers  a temporal beginning, middle and end, constraints that offer the structure I need. I took my first creative non-fiction class in the spring.

Since that first course I’ve taken two more class, several day seminars and read onstage (from memory!) twice. I’ve written short and lyrical essays, chapters of a startling long-winding work, and blog posts for artists across Charlottesville. Between growing groups of writer friends and discovering new literary mentors, I built a community to surround my effort with the love and attention my extroversion craves. I’m proud of my progress, such as it is, and feel ready to take great strides in 2013.

My only major resolution: finish 15 essays (or one very long piece) by June 30th.

While January 2012 saw me sitting lonesome in an armchair in my new living room, writing fiction and banging my head against an emotional wall, January 2013 looks completely different. I’ll be working full-time at my old scent company while my replacement enjoys her maternity leave. As I bounce back and forth from Virginia to New Jersey, and I’ll revisit a life I thought I’d left: corporate by day, writer by night (and early morning). I’ve got ten weeks of classes, a writer’s retreat, and a book of ten-minute prompts to get me moving. I’m really excited to go all-in, and I’m grateful that, as always, you’re here by my side.

I’d also love to hear your goals, to know the dreams and writerly passions you plan to fuel in 2013. How will you there? Any big dates in mind?

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Publishing Person of the Year: Whoever Wrote Fifty Shade of Gray

By on December 18, 2012 in art, creative writing, humor

Personally, I did not read Fifty Shades of Grey (nor do I intend to), but I was delighted to hear the hilarious lowdown from Ron Charles, a book critic for The Washington Post. After Publisher’s Weekly announced author EL James won 2011 Publishing Person of the Year, Charles put together his take on the je ne sais quoi that made the British writer so noteworthy.

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Thanks to Poets & Writers for sharing this.

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3 Ways to Expand Your Literary Network

By on November 26, 2012 in creative writing, inspiration, quarter-life crisis, true story

Note: this post originally appeared on Cville’s WriterHouse blog.

When I moved to Charlottesville a year ago, I spent my first three months holed up in my townhouse, writing furiously. Four hundred pages and zero social interactions later, I knew something had to give.

Writing is a solitary endeavor, but the extrovert in me was losing it. I clung to the salespeople at Belk because they sounded so genuine when they asked how my day was.

“Great!” I sobbed, clawing at their sensible lapels. “I just moved here from New Jersey, and it’s really great to be in this mall with all of these people and bright lights!”

I’d moved to Charlottesville to get uncomfortable, to shift out of my corporate routine and into a creative one. But I discovered something in those first months: writing without company felt less like a kick in the ass and more like a blanket of isolation and despair.

I shook my post-verbiage shell shock by connecting with my local literary community.  In this season of Thanksgiving, I’m grateful to be surrounded by caring, supportive writers, and I want to share three easy ways you can do the same.

1. Take a Class

Nothing gets conversation moving like shared experience. In-class prompts, readings, and homework assignments not only sharpen your skills, they also offer weekly connections to like-minded writers.

Classes at Writerhouse gave me a respite from the dark and lonely places in my mind, the fear of the hours it takes to get a few words peppered on the page. I’m a real addict—I just finished my third non-fiction class—and the people I’ve met have been just as special as my education. Some of us even meet outside of class to continue writing together. Bonus!

2. Get Social

November is winding down, but NaNoWriMo is still in full swing. National Novel Writing Month is the perfect time to introduce yourself to writers in Charlottesville and across the country.

Twitter is a lonely writer’s paradise in November, when @NaNoWordSprints challenges writers to write as much as possible in given time frames. Take on their prompts, including key words and plot twists, and you’ll get involved in the conversation fast.

You should also search #NaNoWriMo on Twitter. You’ll discover a list of writers who encourage one another, and you can follow and engage with those who share your interests. I recommend starting with @CvilleWrimos.

3. Share Your Story

The easiest way to expand your literary network is to simply introduce yourself as a writer. Too many people hesitate to share their interest in writing, defeating themselves with ideas like “I have a day job, so I’m not really a writer,” or “I haven’t published anything yet, so my work doesn’t even count.” Self-criticism comes standard with a writer’s temperament, but it shouldn’t stop you from owning your art.

As soon as you say to a new acquaintance, “My name is _______, and I am a writer,” a world of connections will open to you. Everyone knows someone who is a writer, especially in Charlottesville, and once you share your passion with the world, the world will come to you.

Your Community Is Waiting

One year ago, I faced a long, dark winter without many friendships and too much angst about my work. Now I meet for weekly lunches with a tight-knit group of women, and we hold each other accountable to our writing goals. I’ve met journalists and essay writers, storytellers and poets, and I quietly thank the passion that binds us. If you’re reading this piece, I suspect you share it too, and once you start looking, you’ll find us everywhere.

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This is the paaaaaaart of me where I publish something in an honest-to-God newspaper

By on November 12, 2012 in art, true story

I wrote an article for our local weekly paper!

Here it is: proof that I can spend 20 hours on something that takes five seconds to read.

The piece is about a Charlottesville non-profit that installs sculptures all over town. It was really fun to learn more about it, and especially fun to drink sparkling apple juice with the yogis who coronated their friend’s work. Three cheers for the arts and local editors who trust a stranger when she claims to know how to write.

 

 

 

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Your Costume is…the Grinch

By on October 20, 2012 in notes

I went to a backyard campfire with Boyfriend a few (augh) weeks ago, and it was an incredibly beautiful fall night. Clear stars, hot flames, the thud-thud-thud of black walnuts hailing from the trees. As we sat around the fire strategizing how to toast our lone marshmallow, the subject turned to Halloween.

“Who knows how they’ll dress up?” I asked. I used my perky voice because the conversation was dying and we needed some spirit.

“I don’t think I’ll bother this year.”

“Me neither.”

“Yeah, it just doesn’t seem worth it. What about you, T?” Sarah* looked at Boyfriend, who attempted to balance graham cracker slices on a brick.

“Oh, I’ll just wear whatever Elizabeth tells me to.”

Ha ha, ha ha. “And this is why our costumes will suck. No help at all. What about you, Brian?”

The engineer crossed his arms and dug himself further into his low-slung camping chair. “No way.”

“Well.” I nibbled on a dry Hershey’s as our words sputtered out like the campfire smoke. “Well, how about this? So Boyfriend and I were having a debate the other night about buying candy for Halloween. I have this belief that you have to give kids something awesome because, I mean, come on. Childhood only comes once. But he didn’t want to spring for the nice stuff, so we might just go for toothbrushes.” I looked around, waiting for the groans of condemnation that would cement the place of Snickers in our giveaway bowl.

“You know what I plan to do?” Brian said quietly. “I’m going to turn off all my lights, barricade my porch with furniture, and lock my front door. That’ll teach ‘em.”

Sarah barked a laugh.

I spluttered. “What? What are you, like, a serial killer?”

“No, I just hate kids! I hate kids especially on Halloween! Like why should I give them candy? Just because they were born and their parents bought them a costume? Hell no.”

Boyfriend gave me a meaningful see-at-least-I’m-not-that-bad look.

“You should give them a LOT of candy, then. Or a Red Bull each.”

Brian shook his head in disgust. “Kids today.”

 

UPDATE: I bought SIX pounds of candy and had 11 trick-or-treaters this year. Needless to say, those 11 trick-or-treaters didn’t sleep for a week.

*Names have been changed to protect the innocent.

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One Year Ago Tonight

By on September 19, 2012 in mindfulness, true story

It’s been one year since I packed one more box, bought one last sandwich, and drank one more cup of coffee on the Jersey Shore.

My dad and I ate breakfast at a chrome-slicked diner. I asked for jalapeños in my omelet and the waitress to take our picture.

My mom and I met at Dunkin Donuts.  My sister, who works behind the counter and triggered my habit years ago, gave me her signature Vanilla Spice, perfectly tempered with sugar and cream.

We sat by the window and looked out at the sea and didn’t say much (for once). A postcard family in a donut shop. I was about to ruin the picture.

But even eleventh hour nerves could not cloud the impatience of  long-distance love. The moment had been a long time coming. The time, I knew, was now.

I drove away slowly and felt my heart heave.

For hours I sang under my coffee breath. Southern Crossing, a mix CD: it took my mind off tears. I listened to songs I’d known long ago and watched the mileage climb.

Gray skies and rain across PA, down the spine of West Virginia. The clouds looked like they do today: blurry backslashes floating through trees.

I came into Charlottesville after night fell. I got twisted around, turned a U in a lot. When I found my development, the storm had passed; I slipped up a hill toward a back row of houses. My new numbers hung on featureless siding, bronze digits shining beneath a wet porch lamp.

I parked in a spot intended for residents. My bag grew weightier as I climbed the stairs. I stood at the door and paused a moment, inhaling slowly, tasting in the air.

Three hundred miles from life as I knew it, shivering trees shucked rain off their leaves. Families moved behind closed windows. Mountains hunched in looming darkness. And light spilled out beneath my new doorway: a puddle, a promise, around my feet.

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Audio September: Scheherazade

By on September 7, 2012 in art, creative writing

I love the sound of my own voice, and since the sages say to do what you love, I’m getting in front of a microphone again.

If you’re looking for a wordy way to spend $5 on Sunday, come to the Bridge at 7PM. The lovely ladies of Scheherazade, a storytelling series, organized an open reading where, to quote the group’s PR blurb:

artists in different genres present original, 10 minute works to an audience. September’s theme is “Soundtracks”: hi-fi/lo-fi, screeching, skreeling stories of lyrical pleasure and pain; heartbreaking tales that make you want to sing along.

This month’s theme is a nod to Audio September, a month of sound-inspired artworks including radio, poetry, music and installation art.

Check out the Bridge PAI website to see the entire line-up. Or if you’re free on Sunday swing by–I know it’ll be excellent, if only because other people probably finished their pieces already.

Cue my exit music. (Hint: it sounds like this.) Happy weekend everybody!

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When They Asked for Donations, This is Not What They Meant

By on September 7, 2012 in humor, true story

Last night I went to a party.

An open bar and buffet combo kicked off Year Four of the Future Fund, a giving circle in which Boyfriend participates. It’s a very progressive, very democratic approach to philanthropy that works as follows:

1. A group of hip young people contribute several hundred dollars each.

2. Said people vote on the category of charities they’d like to support that year. (Past examples include heathcare, “the youth”, etc.)

3. These hip young people solicit grant applications from local charities in said category. Thanks to the magic of pooled resources, these grants usually hit the $50,000 mark.

4. With infinite patience, the Future Fund grants committee culls applications to the Top Three.

5. Everyone votes for their favorite, and the winning organization makes good on their proposal.

Pretty awesome, right? I sat in on a meeting last year and realized there is no way I could ever do it. We debated some basic formatting questions about the application, and it took our committee three hours to make two decisions. One of which was still up for debate.

Anyway, I spent last night hobnobbing with some beautiful, infinitely patient Future Fund members and eating an inordinate amount of cheese.

A local DJ killed the turntables, gold and fuschia lights sparkled overhead, and a high-velocity fan blew everyone’s hair into glamorous, shining waves. Whilst surrounded by people who looked like this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yours Truly managed, via humidity and a poorly-executed ponytail, to look like this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
God bless everyone else, without whom we would have neither non-profits nor functional democracy. Amusement was my charitable donation for the evening.

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What’s the Point? (or How I Learned to Chill the Heck Out About Writing on a Theme)

By on September 6, 2012 in creative writing, notes

Note: this post originally appeared on Charlottesville’s WriterHouse blog.

After a week of furious scribbling, I passed my newly minted story off to a group of writer friends. “I’m excited by the idea,” I wrote over email, “but I’m not sure if it goes anywhere.”

Feedback trickled in over lunch. “I like the images,” one girl said.

“Nice use of dialogue,” offered another.

During the lengthy pause I picked at my fries. “Do you think that it, um, lacks…a point?”

The poet murmured something unintelligible.

The fiction writer looked at me sadly. “I never know what my point is either.”

“You know,” said the woman who straddled poetry and prose, “I never even know if I’m finished.”

We shared a brief silence and pondered the obvious: if we couldn’t identify our stories’ themes, how the hell could anyone else?

*

Fortunately my writing class met once a week. We broached this very subject while workshopping a classmate’s story about her grandmother’s interest in insects.

“What’s your theme?” the instructor asked her.

“Bugs.”

He looked at the rest of us. We nodded vigorously.

“My grandmother? And bugs?” She raised her eyebrows.

He sighed as though he heard that a lot. “Bugs are your subject.” We all looked at each other. “Your subject is separate from your theme.”

Cue the collective forehead slap.

“Your theme is the broader issue you cover—the universal idea, the heart of your story. It’s what your audience can immediately connect with, and until you articulate it, no one else will.”

Oh.

As we talked it out, I came to realize that theme is a culmination of analysis and synthesis, the result of a clinical approach to  a creative work. It may feel like an Oprah ah ha! moment, but it’s nearly impossible to experience while we write.

One barrier to enlightenment is that a work in progress remains unfinished. We need to examine all the pieces before we attempt to solve a puzzle, an idea that has roots in modern psychology. In a recent newspaper article profiling psych professor Tim Wilson, Wilson’s UVA colleague summarized human thought as follows: “The reasons we give for our choices, even when accurate, are not so much insights as after-the-fact constructions.” No wonder we struggle to identify theme as we script choice after choice in the nascent stages of plot development. Thematic analysis, like all human reasoning, might be a study of after-the-fact.

*

At lunch the next week, I shared my discovery. “We don’t have to panic,” I proselytized. “We don’t have to know theme until after we’re finished.”

I’d been waving my hands, so the waitress stopped by. “Can I get you something?” she asked me sweetly.

“I’m good for now.” As she walked away, I turned to my friends. “But I might know more later. Riiiiiight?”

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Blogging: Show vs. Tell

By on August 10, 2012 in creative writing

This post originally appeared on Charlottesville’s WriterHouse blog.

I slide into my seat at 9:10AM, avoiding the smiles of freshly scrubbed classmates. I’m late, per usual, and my brain moves like molasses.

Deep in talk of the Terry Sullivan drama, the instructor parses literary details from a synopsis in The Hook. He speaks with journalistic intensity, poking the chest of the classroom with adamant phrases: take a note, write that down, yes, and who can tell me…?

Someone passes me a handout. “Tom Wolfe’s New Journalism,” the teacher announces. “Did everyone read it?”

I recall the article’s gist as I scan it. In the ‘60s and ‘70s, a wave of journalists abandoned the traditional newspaper ‘voice’ for something distinctly…literary. “[I did] anything,” Wolfe wrote of the time, “to avoid coming on like the usual non-fiction narrator, with a hush in my voice, like a radio announcer at a tennis match.” At the New York Herald Tribune, Wolfe massaged the truth to produce stories that read like art.

“What elements are at play here?” The instructor adjusts his Lemtosh frames and taps his sheet with a pencil. “What components identify this as creative non-fiction?”

I clutch my coffee. My classmates call out perfect answers: sharp details, real dialogue, well-cast characters. I stare at lopsided blinds in the window and turn over the concept of change in my mind.

*

When the cowboys of New Journalism explored taboo frontiers, they launched a stylistic gold rush. Creative non-fiction infiltrated the popular consciousness and became a laudable genre for novelists.

Forty years later, the landscape of journalism changed again. Blogging ushered the great democratization of storytelling, empowering anyone with fingers and an internet connection to publish themselves on the world wide web. As blogging became an increasingly viable form of journalism (largely due to readers’ consumption and click-throughs), countless articles were written that explain the “right way” to engage readers’ average 96 seconds of attention. As a marketer, I’ve read dozens of such articles and can boil the “rules” down like this:

  • Make lists.
  • Structure content so it can be scanned.
  • Include pictures, especially of faces.
  • Be pithy and brief.
  • Use bullet points.

In other words, don’t write—build searchable content. As Darren Rowse of ProBlogger writes: “In the end you need to find your own way on this… I try to write at least one longer post per day that gives readers a bit of meat to chew on (whether it be a tips post, a review post, a rant etc) but I also throw in ‘newsy’ posts throughout the day.”

No doubt Rowse—and my shortlist of rules—speaks to bloggers who view themselves as reporters, crafting short, informative articles on subjects within a certain field. But I can’t help but wonder what Tom Wolfe would think. From my perspective, these rules encourage a writer to sound like nothing so much as “a radio announcer at a tennis match.”

Another type of blogging exists, however. Writers like Jenny Lawson and Heather Armstrong keep blogs that carry the New Journalism torch: a unique voice, keenly observed details, and emotional import. Most often, these are the bloggers that achieve literary book deals.

So every blogger, it appears, has a choice to make. Follow the standards of the internet newsroom and gain a content-oriented audience? Or strike out alone and attempt to build a readership with only your voice as a guide?

To me, it’s the question of tell versus show. At its most fundamental level, blogging, as a form of non-fiction, reflects how we see and process the world. Some people prefer easy answers, sensory handles on straightforward solutions. Others prefer more oblique lessons, to tread between metaphor and sweeping ideals and let the truth find itself in the art.

*

I take a sip of lukewarm coffee and blink my way back to the classroom. It’s eerily silent. No student voices. Everyone’s looking at me.

The teacher peers with half-moon eyes over the rim of his glasses. “Sorry,” I stutter. My butt has gone numb. “Can you repeat the question?”

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