This week I've been weathering the Blizzard of 2011, an epic storm even by our tough Chicago winter standards. All in all I only lost about a half-day of productivity as hubby and I worked to clear the 2 feet of snow from our driveway and walk, but then it was back to business as usual. Not that we had much of a break---my husband was still expected to put in a full day's work from home for his corporate banking job, and I also put in a full day's work as a freelance writer-slash-mom.
Lately my freelance writing income has really picked up, to the point it is now roughly equal to what I earned working full-time in the corporate world. (This notwithstanding the fact that on a strict hours-worked basis, I am still only working part-time). People ask me how I do it. I tell them it's my livelihood, and since I have bills to pay, somehow I manage to muddle through. Which is not always easy when you're also caring for a busy three-year-old boy, mind you.
A while back a local playwright friend of mine marveled at the fact that I don't keep my "creative" writing and my "business" writing separate. In the theater world, it is pretty much de rigeur for people to have "day jobs" that they work their theatre lives around, and that's also true for many playwrights. But I'm a writer by trade and profession, and as such I consider playwriting to just be another kind of writing that I do for my livelihood, so I don't see any need to keep it "separate." (It's not as if I'm doing a lot of playwriting these days anyway, since I prefer to devote my attention to writing for a living, as opposed to for fun. I do get paid for my playwriting, mind you, but it's a drop in the bucket compared to what my other writing pays). This same playwright also doesn't have any children to worry about feeding, so I guess that probably plays into her decision to compartmentalize her writing life.
Some people in my playwrights' collective have been wondering where I've been lately since I don't make it to meetings much anymore, and I just tell them I've been busy working. "Doing what?" they ask. "Writing," I reply. Which is usually met with a puzzled look, then silence.
To me, either you write for a living or you don't. Plenty of people wax on about how they would love to write for a living, and yet they don't treat it like a job. If writing is your job, you get up every morning, and show up for work. (And if work is your laptop in your living room instead of an office, you still show up.) A typical day for me will include setting up interviews for the articles I'm required to file as a freelance journalist, writing an article or two and filing with an editor, then maybe plugging away at my current novel-in-progress. There might be an email or two into my literary agents or my editors, plus general housekeeping, keeping track of earnings and taxes, whatever. If I'm lucky I'll also have some time to read for pleasure (which I also consider part of my job as a writer, since reading other writers is the best way to keep your writing chops up). And remember, on top of all of this, I'm caring for a three-year-old, with no child care help.
So let's just say I really have no patience anymore for people who say, "Oh, well, I've been meaning to write, but I have writer's block," or "I really want to finish that novel I started, but I don't have time," blahblahblah.
Well, I've got the perfect cure for writer's block. It's called the mortgage payment. Deal, folks. And if you can't, leave this writing stuff to the professionals. I've already got enough competition as it is.
Peace.
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Creativity
I've been neglecting the blog of late since I've been devoting a lot of my free time to some hobbies. Call it "refilling the tank," if you will. I'm a very creative person and always have been. And since my profession (writing) is also creative, it was a great career choice for me. But sometimes my writing saps my energy and drains the creative tank, as it were, and I get stuck. I need to change things up a bit in order to get the writing juices flowing again. Plus I have some neurotic tendencies (well, to say "some" would be a gross understatement) that tend to smooth themselves out when I'm working on making something from scratch----be it cooking a dish, baking a cake, sewing a dress, painting a picture, whatever. I really get into the "zone" when I make things by hand, and the whole world and my troubles just dissolve.
Some people take Prozac. I do crafts.
I was very into arts and crafts as a teenager, and my original college major was in the nationally ranked design and art college of the university where I would eventually pursue an English degree. I spent pretty much all of my free time in high school in one of two places: the art department and the theatre/music department. I took four years of studio art in high school as well as music/theatre/performing arts, and even got professional (paying!) art commissions and singing gigs as a teenager. I kept up with the music and theater throughout college and my adult life (doing both professionally, as well as writing professionally) but my studio arts interests kind of fell by the wayside after my freshman year of college. (I did eventually write art reviews and cover the Chicago art scene as a journalist, but that's not the same.)
I had originally planned to be a fine arts major in college, but my parents were terrified I'd end up starving to death, so I compromised and became an architecture major instead. I could draw, but I also was good at math and science and I thought buildings were cool, so I thought this was a reasonable compromise. Plus I'd actually stand a chance of getting a job when I graduated. I got admitted to the No. 1 architecture program in the country at the time (University of Cincinnati, which US News and World Report still ranks as No. 1) on a full scholarship. To say that the program was rigorous would be a gross understatement, too. Not only did I have to shell out literally thousands of dollars in drafting supplies my first quarter, I also pretty much had to give up eating and sleeping and spend my entire life "in studio." The program was hard to get into to begin with, but the first year was designed to weed out 60% of the incoming freshmen class. It was so very, very hard that I often I sat up nights at my drafting table and sobbed. Being one of very few women in a male-dominated major was also not easy to deal with. I also had bad experiences with professors and fellow students (and one other woman in particular, who harrassed me and destroyed my architecture models because she secretly liked the guy I was dating at the time).
After trying to stick it out for a while, I knew that architecture was not for me. I considered switching majors over to fine arts, but the fine arts studio was right next to the architecture department, and I wanted to get the hell out of that entire end of campus. So I followed my love of reading and writing across the quad to became an English major instead. To keep my parents happy I told them it was really since I planned to go to law school, but that was pretty much a lie. I just wanted to read and write and be left alone. And the rest, as they say, is history.
Speaking of history, I've always been a huge history buff, and one of my hobbies is historical reinactment. I'm especially fascinated with the history of writing, books, and publishing, especially old illuminated manuscripts. I had done some calligraphy and illumination as a kid but stopped doing it after the architecture-major fiasco. But lately I've been getting back into it, and I'm surprised how good I am at it after taking an almost 20-year hiatus. Spending an hour or two working on long-obsolete writing and publishing techniques has done wonders for my psyche, not to mention give me a newfound appreciation for just how easy it is for us to communicate in writing here in the 21st century. It wasn't always that way----reading and writing used to be a luxury enjoyed by very few, and books were luxury items that cost lots of money and also were a means to show off the great wealth of their owners.
I've been back into my artsy-crafty stuff for about a year now, and it's actually boosted my productivity as a writer tremendously. Whenever I get stuck on a writing project, I go paint something, or maybe do some sewing or leathercraft, which I also like. Eventually I want to put all three skills together and make a leather-bound medieval manuscript codex, but I think I'll have to wait until kiddo is a little older before I attempt something that ambitious. In the meantime, here's some samples of my work.
Some people take Prozac. I do crafts.
I was very into arts and crafts as a teenager, and my original college major was in the nationally ranked design and art college of the university where I would eventually pursue an English degree. I spent pretty much all of my free time in high school in one of two places: the art department and the theatre/music department. I took four years of studio art in high school as well as music/theatre/performing arts, and even got professional (paying!) art commissions and singing gigs as a teenager. I kept up with the music and theater throughout college and my adult life (doing both professionally, as well as writing professionally) but my studio arts interests kind of fell by the wayside after my freshman year of college. (I did eventually write art reviews and cover the Chicago art scene as a journalist, but that's not the same.)
I had originally planned to be a fine arts major in college, but my parents were terrified I'd end up starving to death, so I compromised and became an architecture major instead. I could draw, but I also was good at math and science and I thought buildings were cool, so I thought this was a reasonable compromise. Plus I'd actually stand a chance of getting a job when I graduated. I got admitted to the No. 1 architecture program in the country at the time (University of Cincinnati, which US News and World Report still ranks as No. 1) on a full scholarship. To say that the program was rigorous would be a gross understatement, too. Not only did I have to shell out literally thousands of dollars in drafting supplies my first quarter, I also pretty much had to give up eating and sleeping and spend my entire life "in studio." The program was hard to get into to begin with, but the first year was designed to weed out 60% of the incoming freshmen class. It was so very, very hard that I often I sat up nights at my drafting table and sobbed. Being one of very few women in a male-dominated major was also not easy to deal with. I also had bad experiences with professors and fellow students (and one other woman in particular, who harrassed me and destroyed my architecture models because she secretly liked the guy I was dating at the time).
After trying to stick it out for a while, I knew that architecture was not for me. I considered switching majors over to fine arts, but the fine arts studio was right next to the architecture department, and I wanted to get the hell out of that entire end of campus. So I followed my love of reading and writing across the quad to became an English major instead. To keep my parents happy I told them it was really since I planned to go to law school, but that was pretty much a lie. I just wanted to read and write and be left alone. And the rest, as they say, is history.
Speaking of history, I've always been a huge history buff, and one of my hobbies is historical reinactment. I'm especially fascinated with the history of writing, books, and publishing, especially old illuminated manuscripts. I had done some calligraphy and illumination as a kid but stopped doing it after the architecture-major fiasco. But lately I've been getting back into it, and I'm surprised how good I am at it after taking an almost 20-year hiatus. Spending an hour or two working on long-obsolete writing and publishing techniques has done wonders for my psyche, not to mention give me a newfound appreciation for just how easy it is for us to communicate in writing here in the 21st century. It wasn't always that way----reading and writing used to be a luxury enjoyed by very few, and books were luxury items that cost lots of money and also were a means to show off the great wealth of their owners.
I've been back into my artsy-crafty stuff for about a year now, and it's actually boosted my productivity as a writer tremendously. Whenever I get stuck on a writing project, I go paint something, or maybe do some sewing or leathercraft, which I also like. Eventually I want to put all three skills together and make a leather-bound medieval manuscript codex, but I think I'll have to wait until kiddo is a little older before I attempt something that ambitious. In the meantime, here's some samples of my work.
Saturday, January 1, 2011
New Year's Discoveries
In celebration of a new year (and new beginning), I thought I'd share the following few lovely tidbits I've discovered recently. Hope they brighten your life as much as they have mine.
1) If you want to go shopping for some new stuff, but you can't because you're broke, go root around in your closets, cabinets and attics through the boxes and bags of crap you forgot you had in the first place. Chances are you'll find some great stuff.
2) Hotel shampoo makes great (and cheap) bubble bath.
3) The smell of lavender will make you happy.
4) Just because you disagree with someone's political/personal/religious/whatever beliefs, doesn't mean you can't be very good friends with that person.
5) When people make harsh judgments about other peoples' relationships, it usually means they have a history of bad ones.
6) What happened back in high school doesn't matter anymore. Except, of course, when you rekindle a beloved old friendship.
7) Sometimes crying can be a good thing.
8) Never underestimate the power of tea.
9) No one can judge you until they've walked two hundred miles in your shoes (and gone through labor, too).
10) Silence is indeed golden.
11) Most stuff that is labeled "As Seen On TV" sucks.
12) It's never too late to make things right.
13) Sometimes you just gotta spend a day in the house doing nothing but watching bad Japanime cartoons.
14) You're never too old to enjoy a good comic book.
15) If it sounds too good to be true, you should probably quit drinking and go to bed.
16) No matter how old you get, you'll never be as old as Dick Clark.
17) Nothing is quite as magical as the smell of gingersnaps baking during a snowstorm.
18) Snow angels are the best angels.
19) There's always someone worse off than you. Just look at Lindsay Lohan.
20) Remember that cute boy you had a huge crush on in junior high who wouldn't give you the time of day and called you mean names? Well, now he weighs 300 pounds and is unemployed and miserable. Karma, baby.
1) If you want to go shopping for some new stuff, but you can't because you're broke, go root around in your closets, cabinets and attics through the boxes and bags of crap you forgot you had in the first place. Chances are you'll find some great stuff.
2) Hotel shampoo makes great (and cheap) bubble bath.
3) The smell of lavender will make you happy.
4) Just because you disagree with someone's political/personal/religious/whatever beliefs, doesn't mean you can't be very good friends with that person.
5) When people make harsh judgments about other peoples' relationships, it usually means they have a history of bad ones.
6) What happened back in high school doesn't matter anymore. Except, of course, when you rekindle a beloved old friendship.
7) Sometimes crying can be a good thing.
8) Never underestimate the power of tea.
9) No one can judge you until they've walked two hundred miles in your shoes (and gone through labor, too).
10) Silence is indeed golden.
11) Most stuff that is labeled "As Seen On TV" sucks.
12) It's never too late to make things right.
13) Sometimes you just gotta spend a day in the house doing nothing but watching bad Japanime cartoons.
14) You're never too old to enjoy a good comic book.
15) If it sounds too good to be true, you should probably quit drinking and go to bed.
16) No matter how old you get, you'll never be as old as Dick Clark.
17) Nothing is quite as magical as the smell of gingersnaps baking during a snowstorm.
18) Snow angels are the best angels.
19) There's always someone worse off than you. Just look at Lindsay Lohan.
20) Remember that cute boy you had a huge crush on in junior high who wouldn't give you the time of day and called you mean names? Well, now he weighs 300 pounds and is unemployed and miserable. Karma, baby.
First-person, present tense.
Today on New Year's Day, I'm blogging about the challenge of writing in first-person, present tense at the Decadent Publishing blog. Check it out here:
Peace.
Peace.
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Banned In The SCA
Added for clarity: It's not my book itself that's been banned, it's just any advertising for it. (Just in case any lawyers are reading this). Draw your own conclusions as to what that really means.
Once upon a time, book publishers would splash "BANNED IN BOSTON" across book covers as a selling point. The same thing was done by Broadway show producers, when it was common to pre-screen new plays in Boston before opening them on the Great White Way---it was also common for the Watch And Ward Society, a powerful group made up of a few of the most powerful of those strait-laced Irish-Catholic Bostonians, to object to books', movies', and stage shows' "immoral" content, and to subsequently have the offending material banned (for more information about the history behind this, check out this book).
Yep, banned. As in, shut down the shows, burn the books, close the bookstores that sold the books. (Of course, all this accomplished was making the books/movies/plays that much more popular everywhere else.)
What sorts of things got Banned In Boston, you ask? Here's a few examples of such notorious smut that posed a dangerously subversive moral risk to the Boston community:
- The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway
- Oil!, by Upton Sinclair (recently made into the film There Will Be Blood)
- Elmer Gantry, by Sinclair Lewis (made into an Oscar-winning film in the 1950s)
- Most of the works of William Faulkner (seriously)
- The Atlantic Monthly magazine and the entire Alfred Knopf publishing house were also frequent targets of the Watch and Ward Society. (Because everybody knows what kind of immoral smut they put out, right?)
- Also burlesque stage shows and even straight dramatic plays, like the works of Eugene O'Neill (!)
This policy was instituted in direct response to my publisher's requests to purchase display advertising in several SCA publications. Rather than accept the ad dollars for my apparently very controversial book, the SCA banned these types of ads from appearing altogether. Even better, SCA turned those ad dollars away at the same time that they're jacking up SCA membership dues due to "difficult financial circumstances." (Huh?)
The reason given for the policy? "Because advertising works of fiction is contrary to the SCA's educational mission."
Again, I say, Huh? (Oh, right, I forgot. Reading works of fiction is in no way educational. Can I get an amen?)
You might remember my post of a couple weeks ago about the hate mail my book TENDER IS THE KNIGHT has generated. Well, suffice to say, I think it's pretty obvious these two incidents are directly related.
In response to this, I've decided not to renew my SCA member dues until further notice (which will also entail me resigning my local herald's office). Sorry, but I can't send my hard-earned dollars to any organization that institutes authoritarian, across-the-board Orwellian book-suppression policies that smack of hysterical censorship. If you're an SCA member I suggest you do the same. Even better, write a letter to the SCA Board of Directors protesting this decision. They won't listen to me (I've already been told as much by Those In Power) but they might listen to you.
In the meantime, buy my book. It's Banned In The SCA, after all---so it has to be good.
Peace.
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Why You Need an Epub Agent
I get asked all the time why I have an agent when so many of my books are published by epublishers. Because you can still land ebook deals without an agent (and because epublishers often pay very small advances, or none at all), many people think you shouldn't bother getting an agent.
Based upon my experience, I would disagree. Saritza Hernandez, a staffer at the L.Perkins Agency where I'm a client, specializes in the ebook market, and she recently wrote this blog post about why you might need an ePub agent. Thought I'd share.
Peace.
Based upon my experience, I would disagree. Saritza Hernandez, a staffer at the L.Perkins Agency where I'm a client, specializes in the ebook market, and she recently wrote this blog post about why you might need an ePub agent. Thought I'd share.
Peace.
Thursday, December 2, 2010
I'm Really A Playwright
In my other, non-novelist life, I'm really a playwright. I created this little ditty on Xtranormal after I saw some similar ones posted on the topics of "So You Wanna Write A Novel" and "So You Wanna Get A PhD in the Humanities". Since I'm not only a novelist/graduate of an expensive graduate degree program in the humanities, but also a playwright, I thought I'd be ideal to comment on the fabulous world of playwriting for the American theater.
Because if you can go $50,000 into debt to complete an advanced arts degree at an elite university and then fritter away 15 years of your life trying to get your plays produced, you too can enjoy the fabulous life of the American playwright, which features such perks as rampant classism, the proverbial casting couch, Midwest bias, rampant substance abuse, and early death by suicide (or perhaps if you're lucky, a grand old age spent living in flophouses and eating Alpo):
Peace.
Because if you can go $50,000 into debt to complete an advanced arts degree at an elite university and then fritter away 15 years of your life trying to get your plays produced, you too can enjoy the fabulous life of the American playwright, which features such perks as rampant classism, the proverbial casting couch, Midwest bias, rampant substance abuse, and early death by suicide (or perhaps if you're lucky, a grand old age spent living in flophouses and eating Alpo):
Peace.
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