Writing Time

Beautiful Ruins

This is such a delicious book. I'm 2/3's through it and rationing it, reading other less wonderful books at the same time, so I don't gobble it up all at once. Jess Walter has written a wonderful read with real plot, characters you care about and right-on details of place and time. I went to Amazon to read the reviews, which is always an eye opener. Famous authors, newspapers etc. gave all rave reviews, but oh, some of those Amazon readers are a cranky lot.  Out of 739 reviews 332 loved it, and then downhill to the bottom 48 readers who did not like it at all and gave it only one star. It confused them and they didn't like switching back and forth in time. This is such a good lesson for published writers who read their own Amazon reviews: amazing books get trashed! One reader reviewed my anthology, Cherished, which had essays in it by some of the best writers in the world, saying that it would have been a much better book if it had been written by "real people" not writers. 

Here's a quote from ArtQuotes.com to remember: 

Don't pay any attention to what they write about you. 
Just measure it in inches.
 Andy Warhol  

Parties and Book Readings: Invitations!

 

Please come to Diesel Books in Brentwood next Tuesday (June 18th) if you're in LA. We're having a party for KICKING IN THE WALL and some of my fabulous students who are in the book will be reading, and I'll talk about how to kickstart your writing with 5 minute exercises. Oh, and did I mention the wine? 

If you live in the South Bay, we'll be doing both reading and party at Pages bookstore in Manhattan Beach.(June 27th) Both bookstore events start at 7:00.

On August 5th we'll be at Vroman's in Pasadena. (Not the 8th as I announced to about a thousand people in an email blast.)

And other stuff: 

Next Thursday, June 20th, I'll be reading with five other writers in Victoria Zackheim's "Women's Voices" at the Pacific Palisades Library at 6:30. 

I'm teaching a three hour writing workshop through UCLA Arts and Healing on Saturday, June 22nd, 9:30 - 12:30 in Santa Monica. Come join us. For more information: http://www.uclartsandhealing.net/programs.aspx , on August 21st a mini-workshop at the Santa Monica Library 3:00-4:00, and a three hour workshop at Book Passage in San Francisco October 5th. 

My UCLA Extension classes for the fall and winter are Advanced Non-Fiction in October and November for six weeks, and a four day intensive version of Courage & Craft in the Writers Studio In early February.

Hope to see you at a bookstore reading or in a workshop!

 

So You're Published....

Remember how I'm always saying don't get your hopes up that the world will change when you get published? Well, I just got a very funny email from my student Jeri Okamoto Floyd on this subject. Some of her wonderful work is featured in Kicking in the Wall (along with fifteen other students) - and her copy of the book had just arrived from Amazon. She was very excited.  She took a picture of it in her office. (above)  When her girls came home from school she told them the good news and got ready to read some of her pieces to them. They said, yeah, yeah, yeah, Mom, and got a snack from the fridge and disappeared. So she read her work to her dogs.

Beyond Our Own Navels

 

 

 

It is now September. I don’t know how it can be September but it is and no doubt you’re as stunned as I am at how fast the summer went. 

 

I’m sitting at my computer up in Montana trying to write an essay that’s part of a book proposal I need to finish by next Tuesday, and once again (again and again and again) I’m learning how hard it is to write something that’s true and clear, something that’s beyond my own navel and possibly meaningful to a reader. If you’re sitting there at your desk trying to do the same thing, just know that you’re not alone.

Post Modern Love: Submissions Wanted

 

Two of my wonderful students have started a website and are taking submissions for essays to publish on line. (Be sure to check out their very funny letter to Dan Jones, editor of the New York Times Modern Love Column.) Here’s the info:

 

The new website Post Modern Love (www.postmodernlove.com) was established to broaden the territory for Modern Love-type essays. The editors are taking submissions for essays about love that are 2,000 words or less. There are three categories of submissions -- please visit the site for additional details and guidelines. 

 

Timely Response

 

 

I spent three days in Yellowstone National Park  this week – a place of such winter stillness and beauty and solitude that all I did was take notes on what I was seeing and thinking. So I was amazed at the timing of this HARO e-mail response for advice to writers (see last post re:HARO)  from Sheryl Kayne that was waiting for me when I got back: 

 

As writers, we often need to reconnect with nature. Currently there are twenty-nine National Parks Artist-in-Residence (AIR) programs (http://www.nps.gov/archive/volunteer/air.htm).   Each program must be applied to individually and has its own eligibility requirements, application fees, guidelines and expectations.  I was the writer in residence for a month in The Everglades  National Park, and it was an experience I'll never forget. It's one thing to visit a National Park and quite another to get to live inside one, devoting yourself to your writing.
-  Sheryl Kayne, www.immersiontraveler.com, author of IMMERSION TRAVEL USA: THE BEST & MOST MEANINGFUL VOLUNTEERING, LIVING & LEARNING EXCURSIONS (Countryman Press, a division of W.W. Norton & Company, 2009).

 

 

 

Courage & Craft Published: The Marketing Whore Returns

Courage & Craft: Writing Your Life Into Story has just been published by New World Library. (www.amazon.com)  It covers all the genres of creative writing, offers guidelines for each, inspiration, reading suggestions and writing exercises.  If you know anyone besides yourself, anyone at all on this planet who wants to write his or her life into a memoir, essay, novel, poem or whatever – please buy this book for them as a present. And multiple copies for yourself.

I’m not really good at this. I want to write, not become a huckster. When my first novel was published I showed up at an Author’s Luncheon without a copy of my book. A veteran writer said to me in a stern voice, “Always carry your book!”   And when I set up a website for my last book (www.BarbaraAbercrombie.com), my  friend Deb who’s in advertising called me and said, “You need a link to Amazon on the site with a big flashing button that says: Order now! Operators standing by!”

The thing is most of us writers really just want to sit around in our sweats writing our stories. (I’ve gone on and on about this in another post in case you’re new to this blog). The fact is though, if you want to have your next book published you need to get your current book sold. And you also feel obligated when you have a terrific publishing company behind you like New World Library to get out there and do whatever you can for sales. (I’ve worked with publishers who don’t seem to care if your book sells or not, but NWL has been holding my hand every inch of the way.)

So: Courage & Craft: Writing Your Life Into Story! Available at Amazon (www.amazon.com) or wherever you buy your books.  If you live in LA please come to Dutton’s on October 12^th to buy a copy.

(Here’s a dirty little secret of published writers: you know those glowing reviews of books on Amazon? Well, we beg our family, friends and blog readers to write them.) 

Order now! Operators standing by! 

BookTour.com

Check  out:

www.BookTour.com    If you’ve published a book, this is a terrific new website to list your book and any talks, appearances, signings you have lined up (and for free!) It’s also an easy way to find out when your favorite authors will be in town.  Based on the premise that “technology can transform how authors find receptive groups of readers”, it was created by Chris Anderson (editor of Wired Magazine), Kevin Smokler (editor of Bookmark Now) and Adam Goldstein at MIT. The site is very user friendly – if you have a question hit their Contact Us button and send an email. You’ll hear right back . (I just updated my fall bookstore appearances on it for Courage & Craft and when I hit a snag I emailed them and Adam shot me instructions right back.) Let us know how the site works for you.

                     

The Marketing Whore

I feel like I’m dialing for dates. I’m surfing the net for writing groups and bookstores – looking for places to talk about my book when it’s published. Talk, give free workshops – I’m available! This is what happens when your book is about to be published. The official pub date for Courage & Craft is in October but you can get it via Amazon on August 30^th. (Don’t worry if you forget those dates, the marketing whore will remind you.)

Here’s the truth: there’s something that feels creative about this part of publishing. Not to mention the high of being the helpful writer for your publishing company.  I love my publishing team at New World Library – the editors who have evaluated my every word, the publicity department that’s getting me gigs around San Francisco in October. I feel blessed and at this point would do back flips for them.

But I know the day will come when I actually have to get on a plane or drive some place and give this talk, or teach this mini-workshop, and I won’t be able write because I’m selling, I’m schmoozing, and worrying about maps and parking and what to wear. And about five minutes into whatever I’m saying I’ll be sick to death of the sound of my own voice and thinking I’d rather be home watching reruns of the Sopranos but no, I had to go publish this book. Frankly this isn’t my favorite part of writing.  Writing and teaching, yes, and figuring out the marketing angle can be fun – but to go out and sell my book like pancakes or a used car, this isn’t the best part.

But it’s reality. If you want to be published, and you do get published, you too will go through this. On a scale of bad things going on in this world, the difficulties of publicizing your book are like minus zero. But think about it, plan for it, and add it into the equation.

I have a friend whose first book was published two months ago and she just emailed me: “I was picturing a marching band coming down Ventura Blvd. with two baton twirlers holding copies of my book in celebration.  What’s coming down Ventura has been a mix of EVERYTHING….It’s not the publishing that’s at all important, I can see that now.”  (And she got rave reviews and an ad in the New Yorker!)

So be prepared.  And read Carolyn See's wonderful book, Making a Literary Life. “It’s just another part of our demented fantasy” she writes, “that once we write the book, we are done with it; we can sit and think for a while and then go on to write another one. In reality, publication demands an almost Janus-faced split in your personality three months before and three months after your publication date.”

Be ready to turn into a sales person – and meanwhile, love the writing part.

FYI

Call for Submissions:
EARS XXI is a digital media company founded by Christopher Coppola.  His wife, Adrienne Coppola, a former student of mine and a wonderful writer, is the editor of the new EARS XXI on-line magazine and I just got this e-mail from her: 

We are looking for poetry, essays, short stories, as well as photos and illustrations.  We also have a dream section, where you can submit one of your dreams, which we will interpret visually for our readers.  Please check out our premiere issue at www.EARSXXI.com .