Tina Laurel Lee

Coworking, Groupthink, Collaboration, TPR

2012-01-16T11:30:00.000-06:00

Have you heard of the co-working movement?

There actually was a New York Times article about how groupthink is a possibly harmful trend in society away from solitude and creativity.

There is a trend. I created TPR as a collaborative space. I host writing classes in my studio where we group write. I love Downton Abbey because of the whole ant-as-worker idea. The situation of those servants is enviable, all working together to cook, clean and serve, that sounds like my kind of dream. Many hands make light work. That is why people with kids have playdates. That is why GenX parents are paying so much attention to our children, in our own childhood we spent too much time alone. Or something. Don't get me started.

So I disagree some with that article. All I have to do is experience a totally packed yoga class and feel how much power there is in the combination of focused attention. When there is group focus, so much that is non-measurable gets done. The world is changing to accommodate that. I predict we are seeing a paradigm shift and we are moving away from old ideas of success and individualism to something so much more collaborative.

So the challenge therefore is discipline. A way to work on our individual projects, and at the same time pool our resources. Find ways to support each other, but collaborate on energy and attention. Attention = Power. I am dangerously close to being new-age-y here. But you will know what I am talking about when you think about those moments at a concert or a ballgame. You have experienced it. Think about a party with a good host and the way talk and enjoyment flow. You have experienced it raising your kids and running marathons. Hell you have experienced it watching marathons. There is energy in crowds. It is learning how to manage the work along side the interaction. It's learning how to manage our creative process. It's learning how to use our intuition and apply solitude and concentration to get something done. It is learning to trust the creative process and knowing when to join the group and just get the dishes done and when to do butt-in-chair. Or perhaps the discipline is in making the work the ordinary, the everyday, the norm. It doesn't have to be brilliant. But that is better explored in a different post.

So I hadn't articulated the idea of groupthink when I started TPR, I just knew that it was something I wanted to explore. But now I know what The Practice Room is. It's a virtual coworking model. Maybe not the best one, just the first one that I have come up with. But it's the way of the future and it is only with experimentation and practice that we will get better at it.

Dianne has an excellent post describing what we do over there. She is a marvelous host every Monday evening 8 pm eastern time zone. Write with her tonight. Try out the energy for yourself.

In other news, I have updated my class page with the first class listing of 2012. Click through here to read about it. We have begun experimenting with using our time together towards developing individual projects using the-crockpot-of-awesomeness model as described by the lovely TPRer, Marisa. We use directed exercises and conversation to supply images as ingredients, then let time simmer them into something complex and nourishing and hot. The final part is what you do on your own. Write, write, write.

We had an alt mitzvah here last month.

2012-01-12T16:40:00.000-06:00

Our alternative, very different and personal event recognizing my son's foray into age 13 and beyond grew organically. Initially influenced by a group of friends we have met with for the last few years that also negotiate a double cultural heritage. They have become a spiritual family of sorts, really proving that it takes many hands to make light work.

This spiritual process of making meaning is hard work.

It is much easier to SHARE prayer, candles, eating, feeding and wrangling of children when you are practicing rituals that you didn't grow up with. One thing that has become crystal clear is that although we all come to the process with this half-Jewish and half-Christian heritage, each of our paths are different and distinctive. And that is part of what I love about this group and my own family.

I come from a family that is large and extended and blended in so many ways and it is from that intricacy of input that I have learned that it is what we bring to the common that creates our life as art. I love how my family celebrates our mainstream holiday. It is with our own particular take on food, wine and family. And it is the thing that is different and particularly ours that is most meaningful to me and what I hope we are passing on to our children.

I wanted this event to illustrate my son's difference, to show what is personal, what is distinctive, how life, coming of age, and alt mitzvahs are art projects.

And if there was any doubt that we were headed in the right direction, it was put to rest when we sorted photos to make the slideshow I have pasted below.You will see in the resulting retrospective what is distinctive and special about my son's interests and how they kept coming back to this moment, his care of creatures of all sorts. You will see photos of movement and dance and performance and art and performance art. Which culminate in a few pictures of food.

My son has been feeding us what seems like forever: pancakes, baking, serving homeless men at St. Stephen's Shelter, and lately combining his knack for beauty and interest in things Japanese with Bento box lunches.

Some of the food related photos involve a recent class project where he made homemade root beer. He had corked the mixture in empty wine bottles and was to take one to school to share with his class. In my husband's instructional and helpful way, he got out a wine bottle and said you will need to know how to open one of these. But this is a boy who has grown up in a bottle-opening household. Needless to say, it was more of an education for hubby than it was of son.

So with the pictures I have tried to locate my son someplace in particular, to say this is where you are, this is what we see, and there is so much more to come. Thanks to all everyone who has called on him with new responsibilities. Those of you that have taught him things in your woodshop, had him stirring an enormous pot in your driveway, raking leaves, building a sukkah, and most of all calling on him to watch your children and teach your children to dance. I am incredibly grateful to those of you that he will call on when he needs. Most of all I am grateful for him and what he's shown me.

We have been learning from him for a long long time. We have these photos from a trip to the Canadian Rockies and whenever any of the adults held the camera we looked UP at the enormous mountains with their snowfields and rock faces. But when my son took the pictures he captured the teeming ferns and flowers that grew around the running melt from the snow. The pictures he took were incredible, these tiny views that we all had just stepped over and moved on. I can't wait to see all the other perspectives he will school me on.

Thanks, young man, for showing me those things and thank you for every other thing you have yet to teach me. I promise that I will be open and willing to learn. I am excited to learn.

The Figure of the Teenager

2011-12-08T11:57:00.001-06:00

Awesome images in the video below showing "youth as a political and cultural battleground." That is why I write for whom I write.

Anita Laydon Miller discusses the MFA with me!

2011-12-05T07:00:00.000-06:00

My friend Anita is in the process of getting her MFA degree and recently we had a conversation about our experiences. Perhaps you're considering an MFA? Perhaps this will help. Find full links to Anita and her books at the bottom of the page!

TINA: I want to know more about your MFA program. Can you tell me what it is about?

ANITA: My MFA is through Seton Hill University in Pennsylvania. It takes a few years to earn the MFA at Seton Hill. During each semester, I take a couple classes long distance. One of the classes is always writing based, so students complete at least one novel by the time they graduate--I'll probably get a few done. Twice a year, all the MFA students go to Pennsylvania for about a week. We take classes and critique each other's work and meet with our mentors. It's a great time. I missed my last residency, because I was hospitalized. It was such a bummer to miss it.

Where did you earn your MFA? Did you learn a lot through your program?

TINA: I went to the creative writing program at the University of Minnesota. It is a three year program and what I loved about it was the teaching assistantship. I spent three years teaching undergrads lit and comp and loved the experience. I learned a ton and much of it was about teaching. I also think workshopping in group settings where you get to hear others respond to a piece of writing that you are also engaged in critiquing is one of the most valuable learning experiences I have ever had. I really miss it now that I am writing full length books. At the time I was writing non-fiction essays. I had a lot to learn.

I am very curious about a "writing based class." Can you tell me how they work?

ANITA: I'm jealous about your assistantship component. My program doesn't offer anything like it, but I guess it would be hard to do, since I'm several states away from the university!

The writing-based class involves writing approximately 60 pages per semester. The pages are written in increments and shared with a mentor and a couple students/critique partners. I have learned sooo much from my mentors. They've truly helped me improve my writing. I look at things I wrote before the program and cringe. My critique partners have also been great. I learn as much critiquing their work as I do reading the critiques of my work.

Do you see any negatives about MFAs?

TINA: And I'm jealous that you are doing the program now with your family-life and writing-life so well established! I think I would have gotten so much more out of the MFA knowing then what I know now (because I would do it again in a heartbeat!).

I guess that is what I think I missed with the program -- what it actually means to establish a writing life. I think the program really eased me toward an academic-life rather than what I needed to learn -- to write through thick and thin and to love it even when it was thin. Sometimes you have to be stupid and say things wrong and write in cliches to get to what is creative and new. But the judgement that is so inherent in academia really stopped me short of that.

Your class sort of seems to be the antithesis of what I'm talking about. Writing so much in a semester seems like it would really push you to produce and not be at all precious in your writing. It might be the antidote to the academic strain toward comparison and expected outcome.

What do you think? Are there other drawbacks you see?

ANITA: It's actually stipulated in my program that the work our critique partners see should not be "finished" work...you can't turn in something that's already published, for example. The designers of the program want people to see the benefits of critiques. Having said that, we don't turn in junk, either. We want our mentors and critique partners to be impressed with us...because we all want that validation, don't we?

Also, I took a module (this is basically a one-shot class) during my residency that talked about writing while living a full life. We discussed "obstacles" to writing (things like other careers, children, housework) and how to work around those obstacles.

There is a balance that must be achieved with the MFA--listening to the critiques, but maintaining your unique voice. It's a struggle. And it's hard to hear when your writing isn't working. That's always tough.

You sound like you miss the MFA work. Maybe you should go again. :)

TINA: That class sounds great. Those designers are smart!

I do miss school. And it's the validation I miss. There is something so justified about having the school work to do.

The trick with the degree I hold in my hand now. You'd think I'd find justification with this MFA I earned. I finished the program, I got in, someone chose my work and yet I am not satisfied. Publication has that same draw. Validation. Suddenly writing is a real job. Someone saw enough worth in your work to put it out there in the world. But, like the MFA, publication is not going to be as validating as I expect it to be. So again there is the balance. Balancing expectation with outcome.

An MFA program is not going to make life easier for anyone but it will provide a lot of built in structure for getting the work done and getting feedback and making writing connections. All those things are valid in themselves. I would love to have that life to do over.

One of my challenges is I wasn't writing fiction during my MFA so I have taught myself a whole new genre since then. On my own. Not to mention I was going to school back when the internet was hardly anything. I envy your experience of knowing exactly what you want to do AND having the blogging established and social media to help you out. But...I have to keep moving on to the next thing: publishing my books in some shape or form and taking my teaching experience into other teaching opportunities.

How do you balance it? You have much going on with promotion of your two eBooks, a nano novel on the way, your school work, critiquing, blogging, your column, not to mention family life which has way too many facets to count; how do you do it all?

ANITA: Regarding validation: I'm not always successful at this, but I'm learning to VALIDATE MYSELF. It's pretty simple, saying "Anita, you are awesome." I don't know why I'd want anybody else to do it, when, frankly, I'm the one I really want to hear it from. See, when I wanted to hear it from an agent or editor, it was just so that I could, in turn, tell it to myself. Now, like with epubbing, I'm skipping the gatekeeper and going right from the person who needs to send the message to the person who needs to receive it: Anita to Anita.

Regarding doing it all: I don't. My husband helps with so much (you sound like you've got a great husband, too) and my kids are a big help. Sometimes my kids get the short end of the stick, but I tell myself that if they see me working on something that's important to me, they'll find their own passions when they're adults...things they'll want to put time and energy into. Here's the thing: I love writing. And I have days when I think I suck at it, but then there are those really wonderful days when I tell myself, "Anita, you're awesome." :)

Good luck to you, as you find your way in publishing. And thanks for having me at your blog!

TINA: The pleasure is all mine! I have loved your blog since way back and always benefited from your wisdom! You make an excellent point about who we really need to please with our writing. The books are better when we write for ourselves. And thank God for good husbands! And children too. You absoluteley are a marvelous working role model for them. Thanks so much for this conversation and I can't wait until I can read your YA eBook!

Check out Anita's blog, middle grade blog, and her buy page. I've read both her kids eBooks and they are totally worth the purchase (they are a bargain at 99 cents!). A Scary Good Book is a great kids mystery with an even better protagonist, perfect for those Trixie Belden lovers among us, but if you're more into aliens, laughs and high-stakes adventure, give Earthling Hero a try!

I needed to share this.

2011-11-15T08:41:00.001-06:00

Thanks to the ever irrepressible J.

keep drawing from studio shelter on Vimeo.

Not to worry. My NaNo book is coming along roughly with many mistakes.

NaNo equals process not product.

A little bit of writing, a little bit of Gaiman, a class plug.

2011-11-03T11:02:00.000-05:00

Have you ever seen this? It's the fabulous Neil Gaiman reading his picture book, Instructions! (I guess I don't know if I should call it an illustrated poem.) Illustrated by Charles Vess.

Writing exercise for your nano novel: After watching this, try writing the next section of your novel in second person as a set of instructions for your main character to act out. It brings your novel back to the level of thought/action beats and has the effect of fun, orderly tone where you (and by this pronoun I do mean you) are the one pulling the strings!

Refreshing, I tell you!

Check out my new class page where I have announced a November offering. (Things are gonna keep changing around here for a while until I get better organized. House cleaning is always the last thing I want to do, but it must get done.)

This link makes a good case for taking my upcoming class. We will explore a single project with lots of hand writing. My current NaNo had its roots in short explorations through writing prompts, now it is weaving itself together like nothing I have ever written (Caveat: this is only the 3rd day of NaNo, so I will keep you posted). So far, so good!

My Choice in Publishing

2011-10-18T07:00:00.000-05:00

A group of us are posting on our thoughts on traditional/nontraditional avenues of publishing today. We are all titling our posts My Choice in Publishing. You can find our Tweets and contribute your own (please do!) with the hashtag #mychoiceinpublishing. I'd love to know what you are thinking.

Publishing has never much felt like MY choice. A book is published like this: Someone decides its worthy. They put their name and labor behind it. Sell it to their people. Their people sell it to the world. That is when I will know I'm a writer. Or at least that is how I have been imprinted.

But lately the news has been bleak about the likelihood of that happening. And it keeps coming. Just this weekend the NYT published a story about Amazon stepping up to sign authors. Two days ago on Anne R Allen's blog, agents are overwhelmed, taking too many writers on and not serving the ones they have. Author advances have plummeted and big publishing houses are not willing to take chances on those new authors (watch this video from yesterday on Meghan Ward's Writerland). Besides, the story of an agent/editor finding me and falling in love with my book seems like another of those fairy tales I'm prone to.

My thoughts changed after my friend Anita self published. But not right away. My first thought rose in my stomach like a wave: So cool she is taking this risk. She is so brave and smart. But I am still going the traditional. My initial response, she can do that but not me, showing how attached I am to those old markers of success.

But since then I have watched the worlds attitude towards self-publishing shift. All the reports that the internet has made it possible for writers to get their books to readers faster than ever, cheaper for the readers, more lucrative for the writers. And more and more writers are making the choice. Just read this dialogue between Eisler and Konrath and you'll be convinced too. They say publishing houses are holding on to status quo for dear life against the tide of change and without considering the interest of readers or the interest of writers. Publishers are attached to their role as the gatekeeper and according to E and K, it's a missed opportunity (in the above link to Meghan Ward's video, Andy Ross talks about being a new agent right now and how being new allows him to approach the changes differently).

It's said that the printing press had a big part in the cultural and industrial revolutions. The gatekeepers of the time (the church) resisted and claimed that so much access to the written word to be the end of the world.

And the world did change a lot.

The printing press brought the world inexpensive ways to exchange information.

Sounds familiar. This article from Slate delineates a history technological scares from printing press to Facebook.

And the world still changes.

More and more people are reading books on hand held devices.

Not just people, but CHILDREN. And books can be delivered to them immediately. As it is the middle man is becoming obsolete. We cannot see how markers of success will be rewritten. With the printing press, publishers stepped in and were needed to get ideas to the people. How will the good books get to the children's hands? That is yet to be decided.

So...My Choice in Publishing: I don't know.

My book is not ready. I think it still needs someone to fall in love with it, take it on as one of their own, foster it out into the scary big world of the traditional/nontraditional published alike. So I will keep looking for that person until I can see and fix the book myself.

But my job is try to see the world without the lens of my attachments. I am a writer after all: we SEE things.

Can we let go of the world as we know it and step into the future with our eyes open as the canon shifts and shakes under our feet like the giant pile of paper books that it is?

Can we navigate the world not knowing what the future of books and publishing will be?

Well, we can at least write about it.

I will leave you with this:

Oh those Norwegians!

Read these other choices in publishing:

Heather KelleyEdited to Within an Inch of My Life
Kristine AsselinWriting. For Real.
Lynn KellyLynn Kelley: LynNerd's Random Acts of Writing.
Ansha Kotyk Ansha's Blog - A Writer's View of the World
Anita Laydon MillerAnita Laydon Miller's Middle Grade Blog
Tom M. FranklinFranklin, Ink

Or meet me on Twitter and tell me about your choice.

another reassuring video

2011-10-12T14:42:00.000-05:00

Much shorter this time. So you should totally take the time.

Ira Glass on Storytelling from David Shiyang Liu on Vimeo. (Here is a link to the long version where Ira Glass critiques himself. Very interesting.)

Thanks to Marisa for the link. Boy, do I love my practice room! Thanks for all your support, people!

Today's Video

2011-10-05T14:40:00.000-05:00

I would love to do what Sarah Kay does. I find this TED talk energizing and exciting and leaving me wanting to go find teens to hang with. It's 20 minutes of your day so only watch it if you have the time. Some of you should be working on revisions, others of you have birthdays to get ready for and still others have classes this evening with writing exercises to come up with and bathrooms to clean. You know who you are.

Dancing Men in Bodysuits

2011-09-26T09:45:00.000-05:00

I love the way the dance keeps becoming something unexpected. You think you know what is going to happen and then whoosh it changes direction. What is the novelesque equivalent?

Thanks to OK-Go for wearing slightly risque outfits and being willing:

I am deeply into a revision of my first manuscript. I picked it up again after an 8 month break. The distance was necessary. I think it is a good revision. But the book started from big ideas and aspirations. It is a first book. I have worked at it for too long. I learned much about writing novels and characters and sustaining plots and subplots within its 50k words. I have axed characters, chapters, flashbacks, and bus scenes - at least its weight in words. After all the book's sacrifice, all its willingness to bend to my whims and the whims of each crit partner, can I salvage its inner beauty, can I find an essence of truth that needs to be read?

I'm not sure.

I have to be willing to fail at this. I have to be willing to make a fool of myself. Be willing to be a laughingstock. Be willing to be dumb. Be willing to go slow. I may also have to be willing to give it all up.

Willingness is hard for me. I'm giving it a try.

(thanks to J for the video link many long months ago - finally ready to use it :))

apple scene, lit scene, music scene, also announcing class

2011-09-20T12:31:00.002-05:00

It's apple season and I am in love with these chestnut crab apples. They are the perfect size for my kids lunches and you know how I am always fretting about the making of lunches. They are crunchy and sweet. That is just the description is at the appleman's booth at my farmer's market. I can eat about a million of them a day (that may make an argument for a larger apple but they are not as much fun).

It's local kidlit season too. I went to two readings this past weekend.

Kurtis Scaletta's The Tanglewood Terror. I dragged my son and his friend--it wasn't a hard sell. I loved the scenes he read, found them hugely touching. I think I would have, even if he hadn't. And the boys loved the props. The book is about a mushroom crisis and the boys took notice.

The second reading was Kelly Barnhill's The Mostly True Story of Jack. I brought same son and same friend and daughter. I loved that she set her mostly child audience to thinking about questions before she even began reading. The Wild Rumpus Bookstore birds were squawking and the toddlers were partying and she read perfectly despite the ruckus (the bookstore totally lives up to its name, Kurtis' reading at The Red Balloon was much mellower, like I imagine a balloon ride might be!).

Do you remember what music scene was like in Minneapolis circa 1987 (probably I am the only one old enough to for that)? Well our kidlit community is just as rockin' now. I'm so not kidding. Steve Brezenoff's novel Brooklyn, Burning just came out. Anne Ursu's new book Breadcrumbs is coming out end of this month. And this is just the really recent books. (Please tell me if I'm missing anyone, but I so don't want to leave anyone out.) And there seem to be kidlit writers and illustrators all over the place. There is a ton of energy around here.

Back in '87 I had pledged to see all my favorite bands by the time I graduated: Husker Du, The Replacements, The Cure, David Bowie, I can't think of those guys from Wisconsin (darn it, my brain is like that) and prob more. I missed out on The Replacements because I was behind in social studies. Or was it math? It was a hard choice, graduation or Let It Be (More likely it was Tim, but for the purposes of my story, Let It Be serves better. For the record, my favorite Replacement's was Hootenanny). I may have made the right decision.

Well, I missed Steve's reading due to family engagements out of state, but that fact has a beautiful synchronicity because his epigram is from "Androgynous."I began reading Steve's book last night. Reminds me of Cannery Row by Steinbeck. Is that weird? It is one of my favorite books of all time. So I mean it as a complement. The relationships in both are so sweet and that sweetness contrasts so well with the cultural starkness of poverty. Maybe also the drinking is similar in both. But it's probably been since 1987 that I read Cannery Row, so my memory may be rusty. So yeah, I haven't finished but I am loving it.

All three books are getting loved by various readers in my weekend entourage right now. Kurtis' book went home with friend Jesse, who was terribly interested in the fungal terror (and the pig was sweet too). My son cannot put down The Mostly True Story of Jack and keeps exclaiming, "Kelly Barnhill is such a good writer!" He also told me that the story started as magical realism, but it quickly became very fantastic. I will admit I am intrigued. And I picked up Brooklyn, Burning last night against my better judgement (no time to read, I have a revision to finish, people) and I am so glad that I did.

Also announcing: Class begins tomorrow in my studio! Check it out! You can subscribe to email announcements (which always happen in timelier fashion) in the sidebar.

I'm back from vacation.

2011-08-30T15:00:00.001-05:00

Never really announced around here that I was going or when I was coming back, but I believe the folks knew over at TPR. But here I am and school has already begun for the kiddos and the garden is bursting at the seams, so I am off running. Where do you think I have left my writing?

Just to recap quickly: went on some beautiful hikes on Mount Rainer in Washington State (see below).

Josh and I have a long history of the self-portrait--some are better than others.

This is right before my hat blew off and on to the snowfield where we were too scared to go and get it. Look closely and you will see my son was less than thrilled.

Before that I was in northern Minnesota doing the quintessential Minnesota cabin thing.

Before that I was in the little known Voyagers National Park boating with very good friends.

I miss my hat.

Saw a plethora of sisters (one of my sisters remained back home with the dog). Saw many favorite cousins (some of mine and some of my childrens'). All in real life, which for many of us is a rarity. All in all it was a perfect escape from virtuality to reality -- lots of stone, water and snow and family -- now I return to keyboards and screens and folks I am counting on to get me working again.

Help me!

Hello all! Really looking forward to face time at TPR. :)

Bargain Good eBook: get it while it's hot!

2011-08-08T08:00:00.093-05:00

Anita's new middle grade mystery goes on sale today. Her last kid's ebook, EARTHLING HERO was a fast paced and fun read. TODAY she has a second kids' ebook, A SCARY GOOD BOOK, available! Based on her sample of it (available to read here), it's gonna be even better than the first. And you got to admit the time is right. You can put it on your eReader in seconds flat. Right before you head out on that car trip, and it's bound to be a book the whole family can enjoy!

You know the price is right too. At $.99, this book pays for itself with the first couple of paragraphs (although they are technically free if you check out that link above). I love the voice as it introduces us to Hannah's misery. The tension in these sentences is palpable as we wait for the narrator to tell us why, unfolding detail after detail, delaying our gratification even as elucidating us to Hannah's life. Satisfying and titillating at the same time. This promises to be a well-written and interesting good book!

Read the description below or click over to Anita's blog and give it a try!

Twelve-year-old Hannah Stone tells everyone she’s “okay,” but that’s a total lie. Two years ago her dad was killed by a hit-and-run driver. The detective in charge of the case never found the driver, but he somehow managed to get Hannah’s mom to fall in love with him. The jerk. And speaking of love, Hannah’s developed a major crush on Ollie Ortega—he’s her best friend and the only one she can talk to—a crush on Ollie is so not a good idea.

Also not a good idea? Searching for a missing person with no help from the police. But that’s exactly what Hannah does when she finds messages in library books—underlined words that point her in the direction of someone who needs her.

And, suddenly, Hannah’s even further from okay. She breaks into a library, gets caught in a kidnapper’s web, and is stalked by her dad’s killer, all in an effort to save a life…but can she save herself, too?

Let's hang out!

2011-07-15T13:50:00.003-05:00

Read this post about how to conduct writers' hangouts in Google+. Seems clear that I should form a TPR circle and we should try this out. There has been lots of talk about this in our TPR chats. We explore ways in which we could possibly do a Brady Bunch style chat (remember the lead in to the show? The other famous old-era example would be Hollywood Squares). Skype requires money for group calls and gchat only allows one person at a time.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Have you tried Google+? What do you think of it so far? And writing circles? Are they gonna be all the rage?

Watch this hangout video.

Makes you wanna do it doesn't it?

In the meantime, I am installing a guestbook over at TPR. I encourage you to sign in if you have ever visited or participated in TPR. As always click through that door to see what you find on the other side. Hopefully I will have the book all ready for you! I will publish links in The Practice Room to make it easy to keep up with fellow practice room writers. (Idea thanks to the great Heather Kelly.)

We had our first Google+ Hangout at TPR on August 3rd at 2 pm EST. Click through to see how it went.

The San Francisco's Writers' Grotto

2011-07-12T10:25:00.000-05:00

I know of the place because of Dave Egger's connection to it but to I don't really remember what that connection was. You can click through and check their classes out or read on and I will tell you of them here*. Journalling Happy Hour sounds a lot like our class. Down to the last line even: yoga without the stretch pants (We said it a little differently: no spandex required). The fee is a little rich compared to ours (I'm guessing the overhead at the Grotto is steep compared to my little studio space), but ... what a excellent sounding class! I'd totally sign up!

Cases of convergences thrill me. This isn't exactly up to par with Lawrence Weschler’s Everything That Rises, a book I bought for my brother-in-law years ago. To this day, I pick it up to read every chance I get. Weschler's connections between the seemingly unrelated are beautiful. Click through for a example. You can even click farther to see images of maps?/leaves? that are stunning.

Maybe there is different kind of name for what I'm talking about. Events where ideas erupt like volcanoes simultaneously all over the world, even though folks have no overlap. As far as I know the grotto has been doing classes like mine for years and I just thought it was a fresh idea, plunked right down in my head from who knows where. But more likely I think it is a cultural convergence, one of those phenomena of timing and consciousness. Whatever the case, this was the exact class I was dying to take back in 2005 when my daughter had turned 3 and it was time to return to the writing. Where were those ideas then? (It was yet another baby I was raising!)

Another class on their list was one I am also doing around here! Can you believe it?! I have been calling it a Write-in. We use the Pomodoro technique to structure time. 25 minutes followed by a 5 minute break and then repeat. I copied Jan. She described it first on her blog. Four of my writing girlfriends came over and we had a practice almost a month ago. We wrote early on a Saturday morning. It was a productive blast. Plus there was great food, coffee and mimosas. I plan on trying it in the evenings eventually. The practices will iron out the kinks. And then I will open it up to my list.

Starting my next class tomorrow. Link to the page above if you want to sign up!

*Actually I went back to their site and it turns out you can't read about the classes anymore - they must be SOLD OUT.

Wan made this!

2011-07-05T08:26:00.000-05:00

Check out The Wide-Eyed Legless: A collection of things "mer-inspired" for your surfing pleasure. It is curated by a good friend and crit-partner of mine.

#wits, showing enthusiasm, Twitter

2011-06-27T11:12:00.001-05:00

I went to see #wits with Neil Gaiman last friday. You can watch a streamed version here (Oops, not available anymore. :( Sorry.). Above is Galahad, Josh Ritter's last song of the show. He is the main reason we bought tickets. I love the way this man writes poetry. I first saw him perform a few years ago when he played at the varsity. I was an instant fan, enamored with his puppy-like energy. This same energy is also the same reason I married my husband. I am attracted to palpable non-Minnesotan ways of showing enthusiasm. Very different from my staid and grounded demeanor.

I have never wanted a smart phone so badly as when reading tweets up on the screen both before the show and during intermission. It was during intermission that the New York news hit that they had passed the Gay marriage law. The theater was already buzzing with a party like atmosphere because of the ability to make charming repartee via social media but when someone tweeted the news (I believe it was @editrixx, you know Steve Brezenoff don't you? Well, his wife made the announcement, didn't know at the time, only found out later on Twitter. If only I had a travel size Twitter-checker, I could have said hi.) The whole theater erupted in cheering. Such fun! Another non Minnesotan showing of enthusiasm. Another reason to love Twitter.

another class announcement

2011-06-07T14:48:00.000-05:00

Don't mean to bore my regular and non-local visitors, but it can't be helped. Keeping it brief.

In response to the requests, we will keep the studio doors open for drop-ins. Link to the class description here. This is the perfect opportunity to try the class and practice your writing. Email tina dot laurel at gmail dot com for details.

Open studio for the next three Wednesdays: 7:30 until 9:30. (Think yoga class with writing postures. No spandex required.)
$10 drop-in or $25 for all three.

After Wednesday June 22nd, who knows? It's an experiment. But definitely a fun one!

This kid knows his stuff.

2011-06-03T11:13:00.002-05:00

I'm all a-Twitter.

2011-05-23T11:38:00.001-05:00

Thanks to Nathan Bransford, I just read his blog and learned a lot about Twitter's @replies. The subtlties of who recieves @replies and when just makes me love the place more (also read about the subtle shifts of old school RTs verses new school at Nathan's blog - follow all the comment links if you want to find out why to use the old retweet protocol). Of course I found the post from his tweet in the first place. Which has been what has been the most fun about Twitter. The things you find (this you tube video about anti-gay marriage amendment in my legislature, these pictures of homemade dams, stink bugs and the Ashpocalypse, not to mention it is how I heard about school closings and the 9 pm curfew after last afternoon's tornado shook up the Northside, and this was just today). Twitter will not replace my bloggy connections, but it's faster and doesn't require quite the committment. It's poetry is a little addicting. I find my twitter feed developing its own personality. Sometimes its mood surprises me. I'm still figuring it out but I do believe it is going to to make the blog world better. I can see why this bird is all the rage.

Also, play the twitter game: #AlternateEndings today! Follow any of these folks if you want to see how it works @heatherGKelly @lauraPauling @JonathonArntson @kellypolark @tinalaurellee.

A writing exercise and how it worked.

2011-05-19T11:01:00.000-05:00

The first class of my new session was last night. I had so much fun! One of the things we did was use this blog post from Kidlit.com - specifically Melissa Koosmann's take on Harry Potter: good telling and how that complements showing. The exercise: we pick a word out of my trusty bag, take a moment to daydream the image to describe. Then we come up with a telling sentence. This can be bland and boring. Contrast it with the showing if possible. Then detail the image. Timed: 10 minutes

It was more prescriptive writing than we normally do in class and was a little hard to grasp at first. Here's how it worked for me: My word was "coughing." My sentence about it threw me right into a voice and I spent too long telling, but once I realized, I got to showing. It was cliched but interesting for me to approach a beat like that, setting up the purpose before choosing the details. Afterward we all read and discussed. I learned as much from examining others' attempts as making my own. Ryan's topic sentence worked really well. His word was "nighttime." A bland sentence about a job. Followed by details of nighttime and secrecy. It gave his showing immediate meaning and drama. His paragraph described a robbery.

Another purpose a style like this might serve is to plot scenes. Could a series of these "topic sentences" provide a framework to the whole emotional arc of a character or reader to which I can apply the showing details after? I want to try.

I learn so much from my class. :)

A list

2011-05-09T09:51:00.002-05:00

I love cabbage, let me count the ways:

1. Cabbage is cheap and you can find it on your supermarket shelves at any time of year.
2. Cabbage stays crisp for 6 weeks (or longer!) in the refrigerator (also stays crisp and fresh in your backpack when you take it on a hike).
3. Raw cabbage dips into numerous things (if you are in a hurry to your unplug after yoga try it with a little peanut butter)
4. Cooked cabbage is pleasing with sausage, white beans and tomatoes in a soup; or lovely with lentils, turmeric and ginger in a dahl.
5. For a quick dinner eat cabbage raw with a fish stick and chipolte mayo on a tortilla.
6. It's very beautiful sliced open (I always buy the red kind although I think it would be better called purple).
7. It can look like a rose.
8. Chefs love it.
9. Did you know that Captain Cook took sixty barrels of fermented cabbage (sauerkraut) when he sailed around the world in the 1770s? Not one crew member developed scurvy.
10. Cabbage is an ordinary vegetable but has many layers. (I wanted to link to my post where cabbage first came up. In the meantime, you can read about onions and their many layers - while I keep looking for it.).

P.S. Check out the Twittergame today! #badquerytips I contributed my measly single tweet, but there are plenty others twittering very funny ones. Read more about it here.

I like your emails and all but...

2011-05-05T07:35:00.000-05:00

I miss the days of cozy commenting. You know what I am talking about? Where there's a conversation after a blog post. The blogger posts. People comment. The blogger comments back. Sometimes those comments can take you to whole different places and subjects and sometimes it's where the best epiphanies come from. I'm afraid the conversation may have switched to Twitter. I am afraid of that because I'm not particularly conversational on Twitter.

Melissa(MG Higgins) had a post a bit ago discussing the merits of the email response vs. commenting in response. Quite a lot of people came out in favor of blog comments over the emails. Anita's posts and subsequent comments feel like a convo to me (join the convo about Middle Grade books here.) What do you think? Are there any others out there? I'd love recommendations. Direct me to some blogs where a lively conversation exists. And what do you think those authors do to make it happen?

Tea or something?

2011-05-02T14:36:00.001-05:00

Proudly announcing my next class session (which means posting it here and sending out an email to my local contacts):

Dates: 3 Wednesdays: May 18th, May 25th, and June 1st, 2011.

Time: 7:30 pm - 9, 9 - 9:30 optional writing time

Cost: $25 for 3 sessions or $10 per class - pay at class.

Location: south Minneapolis in our new studio space

And here is the description:

Writing Bootcamp!

Jumpstart your writing metabolism! Join our three week writing intensive workshop and get physically writing. Find yourself motivated and energized as Rachel and Tina lead you through structured exercises and give you the tools to establish your own writing routine. Open to all experience levels (modifications will be offered). Bring your favorite writing utensil and a cheap notebook. Please email Tina at tina.laurel@gmail.com with questions or to save a spot in class. Class capped at 6.

Come strengthen your writing core - because you get better at what you practice!

If you are in town, you should try to come. It really is a fun class. The people and the enthusiasm are fantastic! Practicing writing is energizing. And my garage space has turned out to be very convivial.

I need your advice though! Now that is it warming up (I think it is warming up - it is seriously hard to tell around here) what should I serve to my peeps instead of hot tea?

Time for a Makeover

2011-04-28T07:24:00.000-05:00

It was 1984 and I had gone to The Salvation Army Thrift Store ("The Sal") and bought myself an outfit. A little too daring for my small town high school. But was it? Seriously, nothing I had worn since I moved to town in 5th grade was satisfying the powers that be. I had fit in in Minneapolis but small town rules were much more rigid. I just couldn't get them right. There wasn't enough money for me to keep up with the proper Adidas and Izod uniform. So I planned my makeover. The night before I lay my outfit out. Necklaces to wrap around my wrist. A short black slip over leggings and the piece de resistance a leopard printed corduroy jacket. I was to be so Desperately Seeking Susan before I had even seen the movie. The beauty really wasn't the outfit though, the beauty was Madonna's attitude. I donned that as well, but I was nice (I like to think I was more of a Cyndi Lauper type).

Time to play?

2011-04-23T08:31:00.004-05:00

There is a great article on creativity here via Mike Jung. You should read it if you have the time. Essentially Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich (writer of 8th Grade Super-Hero) writes about how taking the time to play feeds the writing and she gives ideas. The beginning, where she says she cleans fast but does not write fast, could have been said by me (it's true - I have speedy cleaning skills). Like Olugbemisola, I do not appreciate my slow writerly-ness. Oh how reassuring to have someone else write words like that and publish them on the internet! Thank you, Olugbemisola.

Oh, and here is part two. More things to play with.

Happy Anniversary, Dear TPR!

2011-04-12T09:44:00.001-05:00

So tpr and I lit one candle this morning at the early morning unplug. Since he doesn't have a plate of his own I let him borrow my YOU ARE SPECIAL TODAY plate.

In preparation for this anniversary I have been going back to read those first recaps. I am in the habit of recapping each chat, listing who was there, and noting any links that were shared. I had forgotten that the first few times there was no chat box. We just checked back in comments. That first TPR had something like 26 comments as we tried to have a conversation wibij style. (Does anybody remember that fun old game? We are hoping you haven't forgotten.) It didn't take too long before I explored posting chat boxes at tpr and the current format was born. Back in the early days when tpr just began, there were some doozy recaps. Especially the evening tprs, which brought out folks from the west coast. There were some good and wild times. Here are just a few of the early recaps for your reading pleasure:

Reconvention Chat, April 28th, 2010: Total success! If staying up late (Ann Marie until 3 am in Greece!) is success. The energy in the chat room was palpable and you gals and guy are quick and smart. I bow to your extreme artfulness and I can't imagine what you write on your hour alone. Present: Ann Marie, Jon, Heather, Marisa, Casey, Dena (surprise! awesome!), Elana, and last and for sure eldest, myself(yay!). Thanks you all for coming! What a fabulous time I had!

Does anyone know where Ann Marie went? I miss her and all her caps! I also miss Dena! Come back guys!

Reconvention Chat, April 29th, 2010: Chat Update: Where we experimented with the shift key, compared weather and discussed meatloaf, step-family status and Jon channeling his character. I'm sure much more has been forgotten. Present: Heather, Jon, Marisa, Kelly, and Elana.

Reconvention Chat, May 17th: The chat where we commiserated with Heather about how soul wrenching critiques can be when delivered in an English accent, with Marisa visiting from the beach, and providing descent as her English husband is only kindly with his accent, we pitched in to help Casey decide what to draw with her stick, while J compared burritos to eating diapers. Fun was had by all.

Reconvention Chat, May 18th where cabbage makes an appearance: The chat where water leads to all things(I cannot do justice to the beautiful water repartee), or was that cabbage, a guessing game of Jon's least faves, Kate wrote something like a million words, Casey's kids are clean, the lovers are haters, and I vow to have Kelly loving cabbage yet. Present: Jon, Kelly, Kate, Casey and myself.

There! We said it on May 18th, Cabbage leads to all things!

Reconvention Chat, May 24h 2010: The chat dawned with Dena finishing up her story and Kate admitting to cheating. Marisa was back from her vacation and all was right with the world(or The Practice Room) and just to prove it, her musical Muse was a sweetheart. Two phrases were coined: LETS GET READY TO RUMBLE and competitive writing isn't just for NANO anymore (as H said on her blog!) Giving The Practice Room a new competitive feel(we're turning over a new leaf). And there was talk of holding muse auditions. Marisa said, From musical muse to peeing on the side of the road muse. Dena said, We should have a muse lottery and pick muses out of a hat and assign them. Between Kate and Marisa it is a reality tv show, named America's Next Top Muse ala Kate. Dena suggests: We can put crazy muses in the mix lol. The possibilities! The numa numa kid, me peeing on the side of the road, the dramatic squirrel. Will you get stuck with the muse for the hour or the rest of your life? Bwahahahah! (Just remember it started here folks!)

I would still love to play the muse game. Oh what have I been doing with all my free time!

Reconvention Chat, May 25th: The chat where the moping devolved into mooning and more tawdry stuff. But by the end everyone was feeling a little better. Jon, Kelly, Marisa, and Myself.

By now we call moping, mooping and I didn't find the chat where that devolved.

Reconvention Chats, May 27th 2010: Earlier in the day: The chat which may very well be Kate's very last one--or at least for a good long while. We wish her lots of good luck as she heads out on her travels and also with her big news. We will watch her blog for updates: My Life in Fiction. (We may also miss her because Marisa and I could very easily succumb to pity parties on our own!) Present: Marisa, Kate and Myself Later that same day: I'll have to go back and look, but that may have been the largest chat ever. Subjects ranged from how long are your chapters, twitter, to strategies of querying, as in: I plan on querying Nathan so I can get the first reject. in less than a minute and I was thinking I should query Mandy Hubbard because she gripes about rejected queries on Twitter... and I want to know what she'll say as she rejects mine! But also covered braces, how to make a smiley face, text speak and twitter speak. Meaty chat to say the least. Present: Casey, Jon, Laura, Heather, Kelly, Marisa and myself.

Reconvention Chat, June 25th: The chat where we commiserated with Heather about how soul wrenching critiques can be when delivered in an English accent. Marisa visited from the beach, and provided descent as her English husband is only kindly with his accent. We pitched in to help Casey decide what to draw with her stick, while J compared burritos to eating diapers. Fun was had by all.

I have to admit that between those old chats (and that is just a few) and now I have gotten a little sparse on the recaps. But I will include this morning's recap:

April 12th 2011: Anniversary, Happy Birthday party! Same folks who graced the very first TPR a year ago. We did a quick little celebration and then we got on with business. Talking crits and virtual hugs.

Makes me wonder what I will come up to make tpr searchable (any ideas?) or how to keep an ongoing record of visitors. TPR big events: First few months, Tour de Writing, WriteOnCon, Nano. I organize my memories of the year with these larger worldly things. But ordinary is enough. As I look forward to another year I remind myself that TPR is all about being ordinary. That we meet everyday to practice the the things we want to be doing and the reason for the place is not the place but the community it serves. So, perhaps I will get better at making the place searchable this year. Maybe I will do monthly guest books, write here's-what-happened-in-the-practice-room posts, get better at labels, so that by the end of the year I can look back and have a record of this second year. Or maybe not. The point is to keep writing and supporting each other. Thanks so much for the year, folks.

Step Five: enough already!

2011-04-06T22:46:00.000-05:00

The rest of this week I will be spending a bit of time with my mother. Much needed time, but I can't wait to see you next week, when I have extra attention to focus your direction. It will also be TPR anniversary on the 12th. I will attempt to recap the year, the folks, the rough drafts and finished drafts.
Oh and there is this: Recently my son showed me a dance he has been choreographing. He plans to perform it with his little sister and some other small family friends at our summer camp talent night. After he turned the music on and poised to get started, he said: Mom, the dance will look very different by the time we perform it. This is a rough draft, just like writing.

As far as I can tell, blog intentions are too.

Step Four: Rewarding Yourself (or how it works for me)

2011-03-31T10:02:00.000-05:00

This is the forth post in a series leading up to TPR's one year anniversary on April 12th. It is time for us examine our habits and recommit to the practice room premise (it was also time for me to spell it out)! Find the other steps here, here, and here.

Make writing itself the reward.

I did Julia Cameron's book The Artist Way five years ago. Back when I just returned to writing after having my second child. I had got through grad school with one baby on my hip, but it was painful. I planned on giving up the writing when the second came around. Just for a little while. And then graduated very pregnant, gave birth a month later and did not pick up a pen again until the new one was three. Very thought through. It seemed like a good age. And when my planned return to writing came around, I did manage to find a little bit of time to sit down and do it. But the writing did not come as planned. I discovered it is not like riding your bike. There is too much baggage. I would pick up my pen and get tired. Excruciatingly so. Everything in my being screaming at me to stop. I took a lot of naps.

In the meantime I had discovered mindfulness. My new baby daughter required it of me. She was an explosive, sensitive infant and didn't comfort as my son had. For both our sakes I needed to learn how to breathe. And I did. I meditated her to sleep at night. I did yoga for me. I learned to breathe for her when she couldn't.

She is a changed kid. I can not take credit for it. But, thanks to mindfulness, I did no harm.

Writing was another sensitive and reactive baby. I needed to find mindfulness to cut it off at the pass before I made it to some kind of monster. Enter The Artists Way. You can say a lot of things about that book and I won't, but her morning pages are brilliant. Her program requires three handwritten pages a day. There is no goal to this writing. No good or bad day. No need to read them. No need to believe what they tell you. Just do it. The writing doesn't matter as much as the practice itself does. Writers write. I write. I wrote every crappy thought that crossed my mind. I didn't like them or hate them I just put them behind me. The words began to be something I craved instead of something that put me to sleep. It became another form of meditation. And in itself a comfort. I still write my morning pages everyday. But the pages have changed. I can not take credit for it.

There are a lot of critiques of writing as therapy. I don't totally get them. Where are the critiques of biking as therapy or yoga or breathing, because as far as I can tell all things that get you to the place where you no longer matter are therapy. The things that bring us to that flow state are therapy. That is where we find connection to something greater then ourselves.

I am writing this blog post as I write my pages. I do them on the computer now. At 750 Words. That address in the ether feels unhindered by expectations. I can explore my thoughts on my new manuscript, write a draft for a blog post, write copy of class descriptions and circle round my fears and insecurities, circumventing them until I am writing more and more and more. I copy and past what I want to save, I leave behind those things I don't. I am not a good writer, nor am I a bad writer. I write.

How do you reward yourself?

Next Thursday: Habits are behavioral.

News, News!

2011-03-25T09:46:00.000-05:00

First of all, I have a new class slotted to start on Wednesday. We tweaked some things based on feedback and there is a new description and times for the next class. So if any of you folk are nearby enough to come write with me, I would love it. Email me!

Writing Bootcamp

Jumpstart your writing metabolism! Join our three week workshop aimed to get you physically writing. Find yourself motivated and energized as Rachel and Tina lead you through structured exercises and give you the tools to establish your own writing routine. Open to all experience levels (modifications will be offered). Bring your favorite writing utensil and a cheap notebook. Please email Tina at tina.laurel@gmail.com with questions, to save a spot in class, and for more information. Class capped at 6.

Dates: 3 Wednesdays: March 30th, April 6th, and 13th, 2011.

Time: 7 pm - 8:30, followed by an optional 30 minute writing session

Cost: $25 for 3 sessions, payment due at first class.

Location: Linden Hills neighborhood

Come strengthen your writing core - because you get better at what you practice!

Also, Anita, middle grate writer and book reviewer extraordinaire, has a new blog dedicated to middle grade titles. Anita is by far one of my favorite bloggers. She has so much to say and yet she keeps it succinct. One of the finest traits in blogging. And she is always asking your opinion! Her perspective is unique, refreshing and upbeat. All the things that will make her your go to source for all things middle grade! Find her new blog here, friend her up, leave a comment, you will feel brilliant when she responds! Her blog is alive with interaction!

Third Step: Understand the Agreement (just for an hour)

2011-03-24T09:23:00.000-05:00

This is the third part in a series leading up to The Practice Room's one year anniversary on April 12th. The first step is about the power in attention. Step two is about values, the engine that keeps us working. This post is about the agreement.

What does it mean to sign in to TPR?

For each person it's a different thing. For the stay at home mom, she puts off that huge to do list (and the small child) and focuses on her writing life for one TPR hour. For the blogger, twitterer, and chatter, it may mean that she turns off all media and just gets down to the uninterrupted act of writing. For the teacher that comes home to a busy family, it may be her one hour of the week that she lets herself jump in and fully engage with her project.

For all of us, it is an hour that we put people off, it is the appointment we have with writing, it provides the structure for something that otherwise feels too hard to do. It's the same amount of time as a TV show, less than the time it takes to watch a movie. The agreement is to write, not do the other things. Again, what that looks like to each person may be different. Whatever the actual writing task, it is our hour to hone that attention from step one, and live that value from step two.

But remember, we are like puppies, getting distracted by the world over and over again. And during the hour we train ourselves. Bringing our puppy selves back again and again. Kindly. And with plenty of treats.

Next Thursday: step four, rewarding ourselves.

(Re) Kindle your TPR Fire: Step Two, Identify Your Writing Values

2011-03-17T07:18:00.002-05:00

This is my second post in a series leading up to TPR's first birthday on April 12th. I posted the first step last week, Examine Your Writing Habits.

There is a lot of suffering in the world right now. It causes me to question my relative ease in it. As Japan shows us that no one is insulated, that hardship can and will affect us all, and the fact that I live in an industrialized country, may pose additional threat, my place in the world seems precarious. As I struggle with the feelings surrounding this doubt, it is the perfect timing for this post. To examine why I am doing what I do?

So what makes me tick? Why do I continue to tick even when the going gets rough? I am not talking rough like for those in Japan. I am talking the doubts and depression that goes with life in general. Generally, the going for writers is tougher than most. Look at the fate of some of the most admired writers - David Foster Wallace, Hemingway, Plath, Virginia Wolf, Shakespeare (haha, that's a joke. I think he died a happy old man dressed as a woman.) Those are just from the top of my head, which is on plenty of other things at the moment. Anyway our road has plenty of land minds, most of which are planted in our brains. If we are going to keep ourselves walking it, why? In the light of recent disasters, war, governmental chaos, demonstrations and sufferings, the likes of which will continued to happen over and over again, why do we write?

It is important to note that a value is not a goal. To get published, to finish this draft, to become wealthy and famous, to be respected, those are all goals. They will be finished when you reach them. A value is something that you will continue to strive for even after you reach the above goals. If it is important to you to be a good person, you don't just become one and stop trying, right?

I want to know what you really value. Why are you writing that book that you are working on? Why put yourself through this pain and suffering and demoralization? This cannot be as simple as making money, being famous, having a best seller, seeing your name in print. That is all a long shot and we all know it. This has to be something that feeds your soul. Some reason that would keep you at it day after day.

Here is why I keep doing it: I really believe that the more I do it the better at it I will get, especially if I try to learn from every step. I am fulfilled by it both as a mindful act, but also now that I have reached some level of mastery, I take pleasure in the product. The work thrills me. Even when it doesn't and I do not know what else to do for myself. I find sustenance for my children. I wash the bathroom floor yet another time. I still believe I have something to say, that this truth is worth documenting. It could change everything for someone, at least for a few hours of their life.

Why you do it?

Next Thursday: Step 3, Understand the Agreement.

(Re) Kindle Your TPR Fire: Step One, Examine Your Writing Habits.

2011-03-10T08:01:00.000-06:00

This is the first post in a series leading up to TPR's anniversary on April 12th.

A few years ago I went to a conference on parenting. The trainer used a study as an example of what not to do. It was a study meant to prove Primal Therapy. The idea was that "catharsis" releases anger and makes everything all better. The children in the study were to make use of punching bags and foam bats in managing their emotions. The thought was, when they were all done beating the heck out of things they would be more manageable. Instead the study found they were just more likely to beat on things. It turns out, this trainer told us, that you get better at what you practice. The story and the phrase has stuck with me (hence the doorway to The Practice Room).

Then there is the 10000 hour rule. It takes 10000 hours of practice in order to become a master, according to a study by Anders Ericsson in the early 1990s. He correlated achievement into hours of practice and found that the very best practitioners of ______ (fill in the blank with the expertise of your choice) had put in about 10000 hours of practice, the good 8000 and the average 4000 hours. Read more about it here.

So add those two things together and it indicates you should use your time wisely. Energy flows where attention goes.

This week examine your current writing habits whether you are active in TPR or not. Are your practices getting you where you want to be? No reason to get worked up about it, just notice. Ask yourself these questions: What makes you start writing? Why do you stop? What are your distractions? What are your procrastinations? Just describe. This is the first step in choosing where your energy will flow.

The practice room has been my chance to "hone my attention" (Thanks for the phrase, Dianne Salerni!). I do my best to let everything else slide during our unplugging hours and have found that because of the intentionality of the time, there is an intensity and productivity to the focus. Try it for yourself. Everyone is welcome!

Next Thursday: Step Two, Find Your Writing Values.

Still More Class. (and tpr anniversary coming up)

2011-03-04T12:00:00.000-06:00

The final class came and went last Wednesday. People brought in their "assignments" to take one written exercise further at home. They each approached this differently but all were energized by the prospect of something they did in class informing something outside of class. One person had never approached her words from the other side of her brain before and was struck at how different this felt, while other students were old hat at that kind of thing. A long discussion ensued on revision vs. drafting, voice and persona, creative nonfiction, etc. etc. That is the beauty of these writing classes, folks get comfortable with one another and you can't get them to shut up long enough to get those writing minutes.

My one regret, we talked more than we wrote this last class. But otherwise the whole series was a resounding success.

What can I do better next time? There are ways that I can tweak the description to better represent the class(expect to hear about this soonish). I can shorten the class by 30 minutes, not because we didn't use that time or enjoy it, but because 2 hours is daunting to commit after a working day. I can lower my overhead (even more because my spectacular park building doesn't require a lot) so that the class can remain small because its intimate size serves and still compensate me a bit for the time. And I love the idea of running these classes in series of 3s, pushing a little harder with homework and other expectations - but not too much. Maybe even an optional final writing exercise at the hour and a half mark so people have the option to get the two hours in, which is really what the class should be.

AND on a separate note The Practice Room will be a year old in April! Marisa, Heather and I convened for the first hour of official practice room unplugging (there had only been practice practice room unplugging before that). It has been a fantastic year of which I wish I had kept better records. In the next few posts I will attempt to both honor the work we have done and see if we can re-commit to unplugging practice for a productive second year. As always to come join - EVERYONE IS WELCOME - head through the door on the right. Next schedule posts Sunday, March 6.

More Class

2011-02-24T12:46:00.001-06:00

In the first class (last Wednesday night) we jumped into writing and reading out loud. It is daunting and scary to read something you wrote on the fly. You are tempted to make excuses and immediately taint what your readers hear, how you feel. But it is exhilarating when you listen. Not just because you get a view into the emotions and connections that are created by something you wrote. But also, you get to learn and riff off each other. Reflecting back to the writer right then and there and learning from the observations of others. Having someone articulate what you felt is not only validating but educational.

By the second class (yesterday) we found our groove. And the writing has begun to build on itself. One writer picks up the details of another (Ikea plates). Or two writers - prompted by the same word (dishes) - have counter responses to a piece, reading it for our comparison. Writing grows and expands the themes within one writers repertoire and then within the entire group. Finally, beneath the layers that we have written and read away, we found something else - a nugget of anger, a whole bunch of attitude, some crazy dirty character (or two) who makes everyone laugh. There was a whole lotta that and amazement going on last night.

Also Rachel (my writing and now teaching sister) designed a couple writing exercises, ones meant to get us out of the regular mode of narration. They stopped and turned us as we wrote, sending us in whole new directions. And there's an assignment. This week we will choose any section that we read aloud and spend time taking it further. That is up for interpretation - the taking it further part. It shall be fun to see where the words go next.

So often in writing we labor by ourselves. It is by nature a solitary work and so much of it begins and ends with you. YOU need to sit down and do the work, it is YOUR thoughts, ideas and handwriting on the page and finally YOU are the one at risk when you send it out and about in the world. But there is so much energy in writing with others, whether they sit beside you while you put pen to paper, collaborate with you as you write something new, or teach you as they respond to your work.

Soon a few will meet in cyberspace when they are done with an hour of work. YOU can too. Write with us and then discuss books, drafting vs. revising, writers block, loneliness - you name a writers' difficulty du jour and we are bound to hash it out in the practice room. As always find the schedule through the door on the right.

What have I been doing?

2011-02-17T13:22:00.000-06:00

I have two big writing things going on at the moment. On the one hand is a "class" essentially about getting your writing exercise. My friend Rachel and I are leading it. It's not about teaching as much as practicing what everybody already knows. Last night we wrote in ten minute sessions, using single words as prompts, and shared what we wrote as we finished. Then reflected back to each other what we heard. Not only was it fun to hear first impressions on our words but there were some amazing writers in the group. How energizing the whole experience was! I'm already excited for next weeks class!

And I have also have been working on a group crit for a co-practiceroomer. We have been meeting on gchat to discuss the first 3rd of her dystopian work in process. There has been a literal floodgate of discussion about her book and the world and the narrator. It has been tons of fun to consider the difficulties of world building, characterization and book openings. Her book is complex and exciting and well done, so as a result we have had much to say about it. At the same time I'm trying to be aware of how overwhelming that would be (she also has a toddler and an infected wisdom tooth). Let's just hope it is not too much to stomach when you are on the receiving end. She is a trouper for letting us discuss and I only hope that these gals will do the same for me when my next novel comes round for the go-round. And I also hope that my book provides as much fodder for discussion!

Meanwhile the practice room has been trucking along. Join us and see how much you can get done in an hour. The next schedule posts on Monday, February 21st. Check it out through that door on your right.

As per Anita's Holiday Declaration!

2011-02-01T10:44:00.001-06:00

2nd Annual Unofficial Post a Photo of Your Work Space Day

Here is my soon to be work space. We are converting the garage into a "studio" for the whole family to use. I will finally have a little corner of this to call my own.

As you may recall, my work space from last year involved an exercise ball. I still mostly sit there, but as of Sunday night my (our) computer refused to boot up. So thanks to my hubby I have been using his work computer below at the cafe tables in our messy triple duty dining area.

I am in fact sitting there right now as I post this.

It is also TPR hour as I post this so I better get to work, as when the hour is up I must have something to say for myself!

I would love to see your workspace too. Let me know in comments if you have posted it on your blog and I will come to check it out.

Oh and here is the usual plug - come check out the schedule and join us in the practice room. Everyone is welcome.

a .38 Special metaphor for the new book

2011-01-24T13:32:00.001-06:00

My son is very comfortable with live animals. Lizards, salamanders, frogs, baby squirrels, baby bunnies, if you recall (just scroll down). He finds them often, picks them up always, and holds them gently but firmly. He is not afraid or squeamish (as I am). What is a good word for it? Pragmatic. He has a pragmatic touch. I stand back and want very little to do with them. I either touch them too gently or when I get freaked, too firmly.

What does this have to do with writing? I have a new manuscript in my hand (the one from Nano) and it is like a wild animal right now, unpredictable, dirty (as in a mess and I'm not sure what germs I want to get on my hands), most of all scary. It seems like I should take my sons approach. Have a gentle but firm grip on the thing. Unlike the last one where I pinned it beneath me as I tried to wrestle it into shape. With this new one, I want to take a new approach and hold it like my son would, with just the right amount of pressure. Respecting that it has a will of its own, but also what? What is it about his grip that I still have to learn? He holds it without fear but also has this sense of propriety over the animal.

As I write this post, I have this song in my head!

I chose this Youtube version because the video game images seemed to go well with book writing. And I think my manuscript would do well if I approach it with like passion. Can I hold this one lightly and never let it go? "Don't let her slip away, you sentimental fool." That line works for me.

Pragmatic, I say. It will be my new mantra.

Come find us at TPR. It has been busy lately and Jon Arntson has been hosting some late evening times (eastern standard time). That's the time of day when my writing is at its most stilted, but a lot of you out there are brilliant all the time. The practice room has been busy most days, full of writers working towards their goals. Come and join us. We'd love to chat writing with you. Check out the schedule through here.

Write Everyday (Resolution 2011)

2011-01-03T15:56:00.003-06:00

This post is about resolutions. You've got to expect it from my first post of the new year.

I am joining Jon and Heather in their commitment to write everyday or give a dollar to charity. You can join too, just go over to their blogs and email them with a link to your post on the commitment. Start at anytime. It is never to late to write.

So I will Write Everyday - beyond that my expectations are low. I will get up in the morning and put in 750 words and beyond that I can write all the crap that I want. The words will come out haltingly and like laundry lists of gibberish. And I am determined that I WILL KEEP WRITING THEM.

Like brushing my teeth, I will do it everyday even if I don't see immediate results.

Years ago, post-MFA, post-second baby and pre-novel I did the artists way ala Julia Cameron and the best thing that that book taught was to make writing a habit. She called them morning pages and only required 3 of them. The idea was to stay and plumb the secret depths of your mind just long and see what is in there waiting to come out. Let writing become your antenna. Like a prayer perhaps. Some people sit beside their bed with their hands folded. I do it a bit differently. I sit down on my exercise ball and type some words into the ether, using: 750 words . The guy who designed the site did Julia Cameron's artist rehabilitation as well. Then he made this website where I can go write into cyberspace. It's brilliant really. I make a mess far away from anything that resembles my manuscripts and the site keeps track for me. I can even rack up points although I am now on zero because I fell off the wagon over vacation. But oh well, no beating myself up, just put money into the charity jar. I choose St. Stephen's as the beneficiary of my laziness. My son has been serving meals there in preparation for his bar mitzvah. I will join him by putting my money into the pot - our family will take on ending homelessness with ferocity. So on the days when I can't write, I will make amends. (I'm $26 dollars in at this point - I put $25 in just to get myself started.)

As my yoga instructor said today: Out beyond ideas of right-doing and wrong-doing there is a field. I’ll meet you there. Actually Rumi said it first and I like it for this resolution, because you can't do wrong either way. I also like it for TPR. Come through the door at the right and check out next week's schedule. If you can make it, there is an hour for you to meet your resolution.

End of the world. Or just winter break come early.

2010-12-18T17:06:00.002-06:00

The snow here is hip deep after last weekend's blizzard and just too much to move out of the way of the nearly one million inhabitants of this city (plus the 'burbs). Taxi drivers are regularly getting stuck down the block and it took days for the snow plows to get to me. But really, the whole event has been wonderful (like a week in Tahoe), if a little creepy (in my daughter's words). She got stuck on a sleepover the night of the blizzard, so it turned into a double sleepover which is fine and dandy unless you don't know if you will have wait till the thaw to see your family again. And, I feel the same way - about the creepy that is. I never thought I would see my city quite so undone by a little snow. Finally we are plowed but the streets so narrow that city buses cannot get through. Confusion abounds about how to get your car out of the way. I am feeling like perhaps the end is near. There are too many people and they don't know what to do. I have never quite seen my city like this. It is this kind of stuff that brings nations down. I have been trying to spend even more time at home than usual. In the old days we would not have seen each other til the spring anyway. I like those old simple ways.

With all the general snowed-in-ness you think I would have made some virtual travels, but I haven't even done that. I have not made it out to folks blogs in the last week and I certainly haven't made it to my own. I guess I have been shoveling. So with this sad showing I am notifying you of my winter break.

TPR is also on hiatus. I will post the next schedule Sunday, January 2nd, 2011. Or you can catch Dianne on the evening of the 30th, when she hosts a pre-New Year unplug Thursday night. I will catch up with you all eventually and be back to blogging soon enough. In January, let the rat race resume!

For now, hope you get to hunker down for the shortest day of the year, write to your hearts' content and enjoy a little eggnog. Happy festivities and see you next year!

So I won NaNo.

2010-11-30T10:49:00.003-06:00

Seems to me like such a funny thing to say. It seems disingenuous in fact considering all the crap I let myself put down on paper over the course of the past month (NaNo = National Novel Writing Month). I was skeptical about the idea of winning NaNo before I even started. I firmly believe that in writing, as in children's sports, there is no winning or losing just how you play the game.

Well, that's a little simplistic, isn't it? We can win. There is money, popularity, good reviews, word counts. But the mind plays tricks and sometimes believing we are winners stops us up just as much as believing we are losers.

So I guess everything I needed to win NaNo, I already knew. I had learned it from yoga, from my crying daughter, from depression, from cleaning the house, from children's sports. There is only the moment and only discipline. All you can do is spend time doing what you love or whatever it is you need to get done. And the whole world is just fluctuations between those two things. And sometimes the things I love morph into the things I just need to get done but they usually morph back again - thank, God.

So yeah I deserve to win for pure tenacity. And I truly did win because I learned to trust my process. I found it validating to circle around my novel like a hawk. In the past I assumed my brain was disabled or something, not able to fly straight. This time I let it circle. And found it was heading straight down river but ever looking for prey. I discovered that when my gut is bored or disgusted with the words, it is just as well to stop and circle.

What do I have now that I am done? A book, mostly in long winded synopsis form, summary complete with motivation and character. I have to flesh out the last third into scene. And probably rewrite much of the beginning. (Oh is that all?) And I have the banner, which is darn good looking, right? I have more faith and I have fear and a very blank December ahead of me writing wise. I have been doing my morning pages as I had promised myself - 750 words every morning since I won, regardless of whether I want to or not. And it is a heck of a lot easier than the 2500 that I was doing for the first twenty days of NaNo. I think I need to commit myself to the next thing - whatever it is. Set my sights toward that and the discipline will follow. So yeah I guess I am a winner.

And I do have The Practice Room to keep me going. Come check out the schedule through the door on the right. Commit yourself. Thank goodness it is only for an hour and then you can get on with the rest of your life. Or some days it is the reverse of that, an hour that holds the rest of your life at bay while you do something that you love. Hope to see you there!

Facing the Word Count

2010-11-18T12:07:00.000-06:00

I am re-posting this from awhile back. Remember? It is the Rube Goldberg machine video from OK Go (Yes, apparently it is OK Go week. What can I say? Their videos are relevant to creativity and that is what I am all about).

Jon reminded me of this video with a take on it different than what I gleaned from it awhile back. It came up when I mentioned my feelings of insecurity as I write the new WIP. He told me to write on through and to watch this video again. The title of the song is in fact "This too Shall Pass." Why I didn't get it before I don't know guess I am obtuse (like that was ever in question). The idea of pushing through adversity no matter what destruction will befall you. No matter how many pieces of toast (this video) or that the TV and the piano will be crushed in the melee.

I am cruising on my NaNo word count. At this particular moment I have 43,124 words since the month began (I will add 2,500 by the end of the day. That is my daily goal till I hit 50,000 on Saturday. After that I plan on still writing everyday but I will ease way back to 750.). I am somewhere in the middle of my novel with just the barest of ideas of what will happen as I get to the end. I keep having to resubmit to the messy process and push on. This is when the doubts creep in. Is the thing I'm making gonna be pleasant to anyone else, make sense, be obtuse like me? The not knowing what is ahead is painful. It is like being in pitch black scary darkness. But the fact that it has worked this far - that I have reached the middle and there already is the tiniest light on up ahead - might mean I could make it the whole way. I guess it is a lot quieter then the OK Go video, but I feel the destruction on the inside. Facing it is the hardest part.

The Practice Room helps. It is humming along, keeping me disciplined. Come write with us. Be amazed with how productive you can be (obtuse or not, The Practice Room keeps me honest). Check out the schedule through the door at the right.

If it takes a lot of toast...

2010-11-11T08:40:00.000-06:00

OK Go

Last Leaf

OK Go | Myspace Music Videos

via sister Becka.

How I Write: NaNo

2010-11-08T15:10:00.001-06:00

I have been really liking my project. My goal is 2,500 words a day so that I will be done in time to properly host my parents when they come for Thanksgiving. So far I have been managing to get my words in, even last week when I spent 17 hours at my kids' school's book fair (today I still have 2000 to do).

It seems to help when I let myself start with a meditation on the page. I summarize the book following whatever nonsense flows from my fingertips, then ideas and scenes kind of come out of nowhere about nowhere in particular in the story. So my NaNo document involves a sort of outline by summery between expanded scenes that circle all over the time line. Sometimes I summarize plot points, other times emotions and conflicts After I am done writing my words for the day, I copy and paste everything in roughly in the right order (each scene has its own text document and title in Scrivener). I have a NaNo document that is a mess, including all attempts at brainstorming and repetitions of scenes and a Scrivener doc that I keep neatish!

I have never let myself write so crazily. We'll see if it keeps working.

The last couple of days has been harder. I'm tapped and insecurity has got a hold on me. So the message at yoga this morning was: Trust. And that resonated.

One month and then its gone. Hit select all and delete and all 50 thousand words are gone. But practice counts. Next time I will do this even better. For now, I am trusting. Trusting that this idea is good enough, trusting that my fabulous critique partners will help me make it better when the time comes, trusting that practice makes perfect and not the other way around.

Please check out The Practice Room's schedule through that door off to the right. How do you write?

Lookit! - The New Me

2010-11-03T09:25:00.002-05:00

Thanks to Jon. Do you still recognize me? Check out The Practice Room, it's all new too. I am getting all streamlined here and will continue to make it more so.

So do you want to know what it is like to work with Jon. FUN! He says things like: I'm all yours and you tell me what you want and I will try to make it work. I am not the first person he has done this for just look at Heather's and Tracy has a fine chalk talk button, and of course their is the quiet but beautiful wibij. So to start, he threw out a mock up and then let me respond. What if we tweak this? Adjust that? We did all of it on google chat. He'd make a change and email me the jpeg and then we'd compare the two colors if only we could write manuscripts with the same kind of constant feedback. So voila! Here it is! He's a marvel and I love it. Thank you, J!

The final process was coaching me through uploading all the jpegs and fussing with all of Blogger's fine tuning. Now in front of your eyes is part Jon's impeccable taste and vision. Part Jon's take on me and my two little blog spaces and part my influence as we jiggered around a bit. Process is always so lovely (unless it is painful, as it frequently is) and once again beautiful in collaboration! Many hands make the work light or so they say and that is what I hope for NANO as well. You did not think you would make it through this whole post without a mention of NaNo did you?

This NaNo has really coincided with a bunch of things that have made it possible to be rewriting myself right now. Part of the change will be how I write this NaNo novel. My old one just finished itself up and was a sort of master class in writing a novel, so my approach to NaNo will reflect what I have learned. My plan: slow and steady like a turtle. Thoughtful writing. Yet not too thoughtful! I will summarize the scenes I'm not prepared to write yet and focus on quality over quantity. And yet I am not going to fuss much. This is about forward momentum and staying true to the story and getting the words in!

I should be writing my NaNo novel right now!

What to expect when it is your first day in TPR chat...

2010-10-25T19:01:00.001-05:00

Imagine you have just participated in The Practice Room unpluggage hour. You found the schedule through that door on the right. You have shown up at the appointed time to post your goals for the hour in Post 1's comments. Post 2 announced the hour as the host sent you off to work in the above mentioned comments. You have spent the hour ignoring your children and emails and given your WIP undivided attention. You were more productive than you usually are, than you ever expected. You are thrilled and then scared as Post 3 appears complete with a live chatbox. This is the most daunting, where you will jump in and join the fun. Comparing notes and getting encouragement.

This is how it will go:

There will be a place to sign in to Chatroll. That is the site that hosts our chats. You can either choose to sign up as a guest (this has been done by many first time users of TPR) or you can pick a user name and password. Either way we will hail you when your name shows up on the side window. "Hi, guest4651!"

Then get ready, because the questions ensue:
How did your time go?
What are you working on?
What genre do you write?
Read any good books lately?
Do you have a blog?
And then we all share URLs.
Finally, if you visit this week, you will be asked: Are you planning to do NaNo (That is NaNoWriMo. See past posts about it here and here.)

Come ad try it out! As usual, you can find the TPR Schedule through the door to the right.

Special Event Notification: We will hold a NaNo Kickoff Chat Party on Sunday night October 31st at 11 pm eastern. Come and hang out with other folks planning to write their little hearts out during the month of November. This will be your chance to feel the calm before the storm. The tumult will begin at midnight the 1st of November!

Also, COMING SOON: A whole new look, both here and at TPR. The makeover is thanks to the great Jon Arntson and his eye for internet fashion - look at his pretty blog here.

BOOKS

2010-10-22T16:32:00.002-05:00

I have recently finished in no particular order...

The Absolute Value of -1 by Steve Brezenoff - Read this book for voice! And the prose is beautiful. I love what the reader learns in the end of the book about the beginning(and also about the end).

The Dead-Tossed Waves - Liked this one better than the first in the trilogy.

Hush Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick- this is a YA romance page turner, with the flavor of a mystery.

Looking for Alibrandi - The first of Melina Marchetta's books. Good characters. Good romance. Didn't love it as much as her others. I LOOOVED the others.

Everlasting by Angie Frazier -an adventure romance.

Before I fall by Lauren Oliver - I was so impressed with how she made all characters likable, even mean girls. This book stuck with me.

Mockingbird by Kathryn Erskine - on the short list for the National Book Awards and I totally see why. Told in first person and even as the narrator does not understand, we feel the pain of everyone around her. Well done.

Structure and Discipline: The Beauty of NaNo and TPR

2010-10-18T12:33:00.000-05:00

In my other life I am a homemaker. Or is that the other way around, that this life - my writing life - is the other? Regardless of which life you look at, typical structure is lacking. There is not start time or end time, no job descriptions or evaluations, very little in terms of work incentives. The flexibility that comes with that is very attractive; reading time, writing time, kid time, bon bons available at any moment. I love all that. But on a day to day basis I find this lack of structure painful. What's stopping me from getting bon bons at any moment? Better question, what is making me start writing, or clean the house, or force my child do his homework? Although I would never say I hate doing any of those things(I may hate the homework), my brain screams resistance. It would be a heck of a lot easier to just stay in my pajamas and read novels and let my kids do the same. What does any of it matter anyway?

Well, scratch that. The kids matter and so does the husband so I am obliged to do the laundry, and cook the dinner and all the rest. The home work? Well, I have to teach my son discipline, because if I have learned one thing from the lack of structure in my life, it that discipline is the only thing I got going for me as a writer. And it matters that I keep working on this writing thing because I want to get better and eventually succeed at it.

It was from all that pain that TPR has sprung. Not only does it structure my unstructured day into workable amounts of time but at the end of those time periods, I have a cohort with similar goals. We understand each other and know what it takes to get better at this writing thing.

And if you look at it that way, that is also the beauty of NaNo (I spoke of what NaNo is last week. Or go to the horse's mouth to learn about it). I read a post by Michael Stearns at Upstart Crow yesterday suggesting that 1000 words of writing per day is optimal and not NaNo's inflated 1,666 words per day - that is IF I write all 30 of them (but with Thanksgiving in there and my spirit wear volunteer job that is not likely, so I'm aiming for something like 2,500 words per day and taking weekends off). ALTHOUGH I totally agree with him, I WOULD write better if I didn't push so hard.

But here it is NaNo is an extended TPR. As a finite period of time, I can focus entirely(I don't really mean that, life must go on - which incidentally often happens during TPR too) on writing during the month. But before then everything else must get done.

There's the structure that I need. A DEADLINE! We have until November 1st! I will finish that resume, clean a couple closets, write a couple queries, do a little blog re-haul, and make sure those characters are prepared for the deluge soon to come at them. When November comes, I will be writing those words hour by hour in TPR and hoping that you are there to share my discomfort (or triumph! as the case may be). Click through the door on the right to find this week's schedule.

And after November? I guess I will just have to deal with the mess I make when December comes.

What do you need to get done in the next 2 weeks?

In Preparation for Nano: TPR talk

2010-10-11T16:23:00.001-05:00

NaNo has been the talk of TPR (The Practice Room) chats of late. NaNoWriMo that is. You know the obscene sounding writer's crusade where people think they can write a whole novel in one month, keeping track of word counts and WINNING when they get to 50,000. And yes, everybody wins when they get to 50,000(I didn't know that). If you want to know more read NaNo in a nutshell page. So it seems a number of us practice roomers are poised for the word counts of November. And today we are just three weeks shy of of the starting gun.

One of the more satisfying part of my recent revision was when I kept a running tally of words deleted from my manuscript. Each day I watched and thrilled as my word count decreased (odd but true). And, in theory deleting words is easier that writing them, so I am a little stressed about the prospect of all that typing. Thankfully, in the meantime I don't have to type at all, I get to daydream in preparation for the starting gun. I can rake leaves and clean bathrooms while listening to my novel-to-be's playlist. I could collage and find some sort of visual representation that I'd like to capture in words. Or even fill out fun worksheets like this one about plot, and this great new one about characters, or if the spirit seriously moves me snowflake the whole thing.

So do you have NaNo plans? And what do you do to get ready?

And just in case you want to do a few practice sprints during an unplug hour or join us for a chat, find the schedule through the door along the right sidebar!

Do you want to do good AND learn some too?

2010-10-07T11:26:00.000-05:00

What - I'm posting again so soon after the last post??! I just have so much information to spread.

Okay:

SWATI AVASTHI has a blog tour that has ALREADY STARTED. This tour is in honor of National Domestic Violence Awareness month. All the days of October she has posts featuring different aspects of her debut novel SPLIT (read my recommendation here). And each comment will earn money towards Family Violence Prevention Fund. I know from personal experience that Swati is a terrific educator and I have already learned reading the first few posts of her tour. Follow her tour, each of your comments earn a dollar towards the cause. In conjunction to the blog tour, there is an AUCTION full of the things a writer loves and wants, all proceeds benefiting the Family Violence Prevention Fund. Know that money raised will go towards ending violence to women and children around the world AND the purchase towards the betterment of your manuscript! ...Reading the things Swati has to say about character and voice cant hurt either!

Ignoring Kidlit Bloggers Conference 2010 Does You No Good

2010-10-06T10:59:00.000-05:00

It is in my neck of the woods, do you hear? I have been seeing the words brandied about and in past years I have paid a bit of attention feeling jealous as other people go and get to meet their blogger friends in the flesh. But this year I turned a blind eye at blog posts and what not about the event, figuring I don't want to make myself feel bad not being able to travel long distances and all (for expense and time reasons mostly). This year it will take place 5.9 miles from my house at The Loft Literary Center - love that place. And I will submit my check today (a mere $45 pittance in comparison to other conference prices).

Read about the conference here. You can see the list of attendees down the blogs sidebar and find a posting about the schedule (Maggie Stiefvater as keynote) and links to other bloggers' plugs for why you should attend. Just so you know, Minneapolis is beautiful in October! If you go, maybe we could carpool?

Posting The Practice Room Schedule

2010-10-03T19:51:00.000-05:00

Watch The Practice Room for additions and changes.

Monday, October 4th
4:30 pm EST

Tuesday, October 5th
7:15 am EST
11:00 am EST

Wednesday, October 6th
10 am EST
1 pm EST

Thursday, October 7th
7:15 am EST
3 pm EST
8 pm EST Thanks, Dianne

Friday, October 8th
7:15 am EST
11:oo am EST

I finished my manuscript last week.

2010-09-30T11:12:00.000-05:00

This time I reached the end of it and knew it was actually the end. I have passed the 54,268 thousand word document called St. Jude's Shelter for Hopeless Causes off to most of my final readers and I wait for the feedback. This is like it has been before. I wait with the same doubts and still the waiting is waiting, but it is also different. I have changed the book hugely, cut out parts that I loved, rearranged the whole thing and done it again, finally discovered what my MC is really thinking. Thanks to all you folks that help me get it here: early writing group Sean and Laura, my writing partner Andy (jeeze I cannot thank you enough!), Paul Michael Murphy (who's feedback was totally valuable thanks for slogging through that draft!), Heather (my dear! got me to a new beginning), Jon (yes you totally did help over and over), and last and perhaps the midwife to me and the book in this final form, Marisa(I am so grateful that you loved it's oddness). I will never write a book like this again. And not just because it is totally unique and beautiful in it's finished form but also because I know a lot more now than I did when I started (say amen to that)!

The things Next Book have going for it:
-Confidence and momentum (the antithesis to all the stalling and floundering I did on last book).
-Writing Partners from the first words instead of writing into a vacuum.
-Daydreaming and playlists and having fun!
-Knowing more about pace, tension and character, so as not to torture quite as many folks with my words.
-Knowing how to hear critiques - I've had a ton of good practice getting and implementing feedback and I would not be here without it. It is a hard thing to do and I appreciate all you all have done for me.

Posting Just Monday's Practice Room Schedule

2010-09-26T21:49:00.002-05:00

Tomorrow schedule:

~~11am EST~~ 1pm EST

My uncle is in town and I haven't figured out the rest of the week yet. Look for it at The Practice Room. Through that door to the right. Please put any requests in the comments below. And please note Dianne is hosting Wednesday night! Yay.

I went to Steve Brezenoff's reading

2010-09-24T10:45:00.002-05:00

Last night Steve Brezenoff read from his new book THE ABSOLUTE VALUE OF -1 at Magers & Quinn. Steve and I met a year and a half ago at a Loft conference. He told me then about this book and in the time since has provided me with loads of useful info. It was a pleasure to get to see him and support him back! The book is told by four different narrators, one of which just has a bit part. Steve read us the first chapter of each of the others.

A lot of things come up when you watch someone you know read. Like: What parts will you use if your time ever comes? How would you answer that question from the back about inspiration? What will you do about the swearing parts when your mother-in-law is in the audience? Or worse, your grandma?!

I did once read my work in front of a crowd. It was required for my MFA degree. I was extremely pregnant at the time and couldn't breathe to save my life, partly because my lungs were scrunched to my throat and partly because I was standing in front of a room full of fellow writers and family. I wrote nonfiction back in grad school and had decided to read the vacuuming parts of my essays. What can I say, vacuuming then is a fact of my life. They also happened to be the funny parts. But I botched it all as I rushed through the whole thing panting and shaking.

Steve's reading was perfect. He paused to prepare us (and his MIL) for the swearing. He took his time and sips of water. He answered the inspiration question and even one about getting into character. He read his three narrators and they were funny and touching. It whet my appetite for the book (not that I wasn't already chomping at the bit). His reading did everything a reading should do. I wish you could have been there.

Posting The Practice Room Schedule

2010-09-19T19:10:00.000-05:00

Monday September 20th
7:15 am EST
11 am EST
4:30 pm EST

Tuesday September 21th
7:15 am EST
11 am EST
10:30 pm EST

Wednesday September 22th

11 am EST
4:30 pm EST

Thursday September 23th
7:15 am EST
11 am EST

Friday September 24th
7:15 am EST
11 am EST

Posting The Practice Room schedule + video

2010-09-12T17:07:00.000-05:00

This video was sent to me by my good friend and neighbor, Heidi. The prose blew my socks off. What do you know of The Raw Shark Texts? All I know is it is a novel. Not YA. Have you read or heard of it?

Here is this weeks TPR schedule:
Monday September 13th
7:15 am EST
11 am EST

Tuesday September 14th
7:15 am EST
11 am EST
4 pm EST

Wednesday September 15th
7:15 am EST
11 am EST

Thursday September 16th
7:15 am EST
11 am EST
4 pm EST
8 pm EST Dianne!

Friday September 17th
7:15 am EST
11 am EST

Posting The Practice Room Schedule

2010-09-06T16:17:00.002-05:00

Monday September 6th
Labor Day

Tuesday September 7th
7:15 am EST
11 am EST
4 pm EST

Wednesday September 8th
7:15 am EST
11 am EST Marisa!
9 pm EST Marisa!

Thursday September 9th
7:15 am EST
Rosh Hashana!
8 pm EST Dianne!

Friday September 10th
7:15 am EST
11 am EST Marisa!
9 pm EST Marisa!

Saturday September 11th
?
Sunday August 12th
?

Taking a little break and a quick reading review.

2010-09-01T13:21:00.001-05:00

I am not gonna blog today and I am sorry that I have not been getting out and about much to blogs lately. I am very excited about my revision and am going to continue on in that venue. You can catch me in The Practice Room if you have been missing me. Find the schedule through the door off to the left.

Reading update:
Finished THE ROAD by Cormac McCarthy. Couldn't help but love all it's beautifully written horror. I cried at the end. Thought of it the whole time I was canning the day before yesterday (tomatoes from the garden and apples from a neighbor). I hope some post apocalyptic boy and his father find it. I hope my family doesn't ever live that way.

Finished SAVING FRANCESCA by Melina Marchetta. My new favorite author! I loved it's odd density. Gives me some hope for my own dense writing style. And she has such different books in her repertoire This was the second book she had written, JELLICOE ROAD which you may know, her third. I have dreams of a quiet yet brilliant writing career like this. Reminds me of Sharon Creech, not as much in writing style as in career style.

Finished FINNIKIN OF THE ROCK also by Melina Marchetta. Did I say she was my new favorite author??? Fantasy. Hard to get into, but I often find that with world building. Something about the themes reminded me very much of THE LOST CONSPIRACY. In the end I loved the characters and devoured the book.

Didn't finish WHALE TALK by Chris Crutcher. I liked the voice of the book but in the end I found it boring because there was just too much talking and not enough action or interaction really.

Posting the Practice room Schedule

2010-08-29T19:16:00.000-05:00

First week of school for us and who knows where this schedule will lead. I am back to the early mornings, but afternoons are yet to be determined. After I see how this week goes we will know more. In the meantime, check back. This schedule was made without Marisa's input so there may be more coming. And for her, it is the second week of school! Any changes will be in red:

Monday August 30th
7:30 am EST
11 am EST

Tuesday August 31st
7:30 am EST
11 am EST

Wednesday September 1st
7:30 am EST
11 am EST

Thursday September 2nd
7:30 am EST
11 am EST
4 pm EST
8 pm EST Dianne's leading her first TPR! Thank you!

Friday September 3rd
7:30 am EST

Saturday September 4th
?
Sunday September 5th
?

How I Write: Reading as a Writer

2010-08-25T11:13:00.000-05:00

This is the last weekly installment in the lovely Ansha’s How I Write series. Find the full list of contributors and their posts here. Last Wednesday the series folk posted on writing resources, this week is an open week! I decided to write about reading. I am a writer mainly because of the way I read with abandon as a child. It made me want to . I loved the things that words could do to people, and I wanted to make that happen with my own words. But somewhere along the line, I stopped reading the way I did as a child. Because losing yourself in the words is not conducive to learning how to use them to your advantage. Reading as a writer requires a slowness and a certain amount of critical observation. But I have found a phenomena in my reading life that reminds me of that childhood reader. Once in awhile something just turns on in my head and I cannot get enough reading. I keep trying to articulate this. Here is how I described it in a post from last December (and don't let my 2nd person address fool you, it really happens to ME): You pick up a book to read and you are driven all the way to the end(or sometimes you only want to read beginnings but you read the beginning of all 20 books you have home from the library). Your eyes eat up the words and it is almost as if you are searching, searching, searching. It's thrilling. And then one day the engine dies, I mean, it is just completely gone but the only reason you know is because you picked up a book. You held it there in front of your face and you realize you are totally stalled. The words are bumpy. They are in the way instead of pulling you forward. It seems so cruel to find out like this. You were excited to pick up the book. The writing had gotten hard and reading would be such a panacea. But both the reading and writing engines out of gas at the same time. Like a breech in contract. And you have to realize once again how integral the reading is to the writing and vice-versa. And that there is no way over under or around this mood, you must go through it.
That description captures it as well as anything. And still doesn't capture it at all. Why don't I have more control over this? Why then are there only these rare moments when reading becomes everything and instinctual, as if some animal brain (not unlike my child brain) is trying to find something and whatever that thing is connects directly to my writing?

For right now I have to be satisfied that that is just it, it is instinctual and I cannot articulate that searching part of my process. Some part of me knows what it is looking for, but the conscious part of me is left out of the communication loop. Afterward, after I have soaked in all the words, the process goes underground. Or at least that is my guess! BUT WHO KNOWS, REALLY?

So, go check out what the rest of the folks have to say!

Posting The Practice Room Schedule

2010-08-22T14:21:00.000-05:00

I am back from two cabin-y weeks in northern Minnesota (and feeling very out of it!). So glad that blog buddies Marisa and Heather could hold down the fort while I was gone. They are fabulous!

Somehow in the process of relaxing I may have lost my grip on TPR and writing. Something about those chats and daily check-ins make me feel like I have the finger on the pulse of everybody's process. But everybody continued to write and chat even as I applied sunscreen and floated down a river. We'll see if it is like riding a bike this week. Maybe I can get back up and running no problem or maybe I have lost my balance (or is it gaining balance when you spend time away from the internet?). Time will tell. I have lots of daydreaming under my belt. But I am hopping right back into my revision with comments in hand--and I feel good about it.

Here is the week as I have tried to anticipate it. This is our last week of summer and there is shopping and teacher meeting and whatnot to be done.

Any changes will be in red:

Monday August 23rd
9 am EST
5 pm EST

Tuesday August 24th
9 am EST

Wednesday August 25th
9 am EST
3 pm EST

Thursday August 26th
9 am EST
3 pm EST

Friday August 27th
9 am EST

Saturday August 28th
9 pm EST Marisa!

Sunday August 29th
9pm EST Marisa!

How I Write: how-to books and classes

2010-08-18T07:05:00.133-05:00

I'm on vacation! But Blogger is helping me out, letting me me continue to participate in the lovely Ansha’s How I Write series. Find the full list of contributors and their posts here. Last Wednesday the series covered finishing up a novel, this week find posts on resources: books and classes.

Books and Classes! They are all relevant to process as long as you and it are in the right place at the right time. I'm a firm believer that a writer is only ready to learn what a writer is ready to learn and whatever that is has to be perfect. And for sure there will be a book or class to match. I usually turn to books and classes when whatever I have been doing has stopped working and I now need to trick myself into doing something new and different.

I love books about writing, and I often have difficulties, so I have revolved through many many many of them. Here is just a sampler:

I have this on hold at the library:

On my coffee table is this:

This is a beautiful book for inspiration:

Try me next week and see if I have moved on.

In my fantasy class we would all write together and share whatever blatherings that came out. We'd write to prompts and write fast and time it and then ask each other all about it when we were done. We'd be amazed that we all were sitting in the same room and yet our imaginations went everywhere and afterward we would talk craft. Things like weak characters and what to cover in your beginning and how to find a good critiquer. And we'd figure out ways in which to trick each other into writing more and we would remind each other that sometimes it gets hard and that usually means is that there is an easier time after.

How I Write: knowing when I'm done???

2010-08-11T07:05:00.071-05:00

I'm on vacation! Somewhere in northern Minnesota far far away from Internet access. The Practice Room is being governed the beneficent and elegant Marisa. And the Magic of Blogger is taking care of me here at Watch Me Practice so I am still contributing to the wonderful Ansha’s How I Write series. Find the full list of contributors and their posts here. Last Wednesday the series was about revision, this week it is about finishing said revision.

I guess I would be better suited to answer this question if I had any idea how being done felt. But knowing how I feel about what I have, I can tell you that I’m close. I’ve read plenty of other people's books that were not done yet. Published or otherwise. And I’ve known that they haven't been done. So as far as my own goes, how will I know? I'm looking for the familiar signposts of doneness. You know, word counts, a beginning middle and end, tied up plot lines, some critter to tell me I'm ready, yadda yadda yadda. I have thought I was done in the past, or near done, as I do now, but this time is different--I swear.

To quote my husband’s Uncle Mort: if you think you are lost, probably you have just not gone far enough. We have found it to be almost always true. If we go just a bit farther down the road we find the right turn off. This little bit of wisdom can apply to just about everything. A writer has got to trust she will see the right turn off. The book still needs a lot of polishing and some content tweaking. And I’m sure it would be best, smoother, more solid if I started it over from scratch and wrote it again knowing everything I know now. But after writing it all over again, I would for sure learn something new and then there would be something else to change. So why not just take this new expertise to a fresh idea?

That is just what I am doing: Call myself done for now and move on to the next idea. On vacation I am day dreaming and brainstorming and collecting ideas toward WIP2 and WIP3. And taking a break from # 1, after all these years.

FINALLY: Have you been going to WriteOnCon (you have to go and tell me how it is!)? There is most likely opportunity there to see and hear how others do it. Free classes and advice - what could be better than that? Then go and write with Marisa at TPR because she is holding down the fort for me while I am gone. Yay!

The Practice Room while I am on vacation

2010-08-07T09:06:00.000-05:00

So I am going to Family Camp next week and will not be here to lead TPR sessions. Also there is WriteOnCon. So here is the plan:

MARISA TO THE RESCUE!
She will lead sessions on Monday:
11am EST
4pm EST

And the rest of the week is to be decided (no early mornings though so don't even try). So go place your vote here for when you want to TPR during WriteOnCon.

How I Write: Revision Narrative

2010-08-04T10:46:00.004-05:00

I’m contributing to Ansha’s How I Write series. Find the full list of contributors and their posts here.

Last Wednesday the series was about revision, this week again about revision. Why? Because revision goes on forever. Don’t be surprised if next week is about revision as well (it’s not actually) because that is the way revision rolls, all over you!

So I promised a revision narrative for the book that as of yet has to be named: for more about revision narrative go here.

My book saw its first spark of life at the end of my MFA career at the same time that my second baby was born. Unlucky for it. I was totally burned out and pledged to take a three year break from writing. When I returned from that prescribed and methodical break I pushed through a -2 draft (I like the term zero-draft because of what it implies, but this draft was so much less than zero). I came out with the basic frame for the story and I learned that writing is not like riding your bike. Assuming that riding your bike is more of a feel, like getting a feel for balance, that you never lose however long you go without. Writing is definitely a muscle. And my writing muscles were atrophied. I was disheartened. When my daughter was in kindergarten I wrote -1 draft. -1 might be a generous label. This draft took me about 6 months and then I took it to the Big Sur Writers Conference(hugely generous gift from my mom), a fantastic place to make connections to other writers, learn a ton about both the industry and craft in a very beautiful location--I understate--it is sublime. But I don’t suggest you go with a -1 draft.

There was a lot of residue from my MFA experience in that -1 draft. I had thrown everything in and the bathwater too--including mixed metaphors, which I kinda love (they don’t actually encourage you to use mixed metaphors in grad school). While I was at Big Sur, with feedback in hand I took the scalpel to my first chapter and whittled it down and received glowing second reports. What I learned is that I could revise, and serious revision pays off(as does feedback). But the other comment I received was: the book needed to be in first person. I had this whole 50 thousand words in third. A ridiculously poorly written piece of junk that had this sort of experimental meta narrator I was into because she was quirky and self concerned and a little omnipotent. I knew I had to get rid of her, but to totally rewrite the thing from another perspective???

I went home and rewrote the first chapter in first and third person. And liked them both. They were two completely different books. I threw out -1 draft and started writing 0 in first person for no better reason than somebody had told me to, because I honestly couldn’t tell what was better. It took me a year to write. I practiced putting one word after the other without much confidence. It wasn’t until Andy, my writing partner, came along, at the end of that seriously long period of time that I started to get ongoing feedback and really learn what and how my prose affected people. He read everyone of those seriously bad words and told me what he thought. I started to see how words and lines and phrases worked on people and how a reader’s imagination filled in the blanks. I also developed the story and its intricate tapestry of theme--this is an odd little book with an even odder tapestry. Finally after a year of that, I got some online help and that is where revision came into own. I had been relying rather heavily on a ruse in order to hold my readers interest. I had learned in grad school that I wrote beautiful prose but there was no tension to sustain a reader through its winding path. So trickery was my response. My newest critiquers have confirmed what I learned in grad school. I finally had deconstruct the sham structure and face some of my characters more serious hardships, which led me to this current draft. Which finally has a MC that is likable and flawed. And maybe even some interest. Maybe this is draft 1.

And just to refer back to that bicycle thing; now that I got my writing muscle back. I find there is a little balance that goes on too. It has taken me this long to start to get the feel of this thing, maybe it’s being able to balance craft and flow.

A note on my narrative: I left out a lot and it's way too long! I would grade waaaay down for this verbosity. And in the end this covers how I approached revision. I think it would be even more interesting to look at my specific book and take the pieces apart. But for now--enough is enough.

Posting The Practice Room Schedule

2010-08-01T20:57:00.002-05:00

This week has me very busy in the afternoons, so the only practice room sessions are in the mornings for those of you west coasters that try to come (I made them as late as I could guarantee). Sorry that I can't pull any later ones off. I have kids to pick up at different times. A block party to be present for and various writing groups this week. Ta da here it is. But please come here or to The Practice Room itself to look for additions, because anything is possible... And as always schedules are subject to change! Update: Sunday at 10:16 pm: Marisa to the rescue!!!

Any changes will be in red:

Monday, August 2nd:
7:30am - 8:30 am EST
11 am - 12 pm EST
4pm Marisa!

Tuesday, August 3rd:
7:30 am - 8:30 am EST
11 am - 12 pm EST
4pm Marisa!

Wednesday, August 4th:
7:30am - 8:30 am EST
1 pm - 2 pm EST
4pm Marisa!

Thursday, August 5th:
7:30 am - 8:30 am EST
1 pm - 2 pm EST
4pm Marisa!

Friday, August 6th:
7:30 am - 8:30 am EST
11 am - 12 pm EST

As usual, if you let me know when you will come I will update any changes in comments.

How I Write: Revision

2010-07-28T09:11:00.002-05:00

I’m contributing to Ansha’s How I Write series. Find everyone's posts here. Last Wednesday we wrote about motivation. This week revision. Oddly enough revision is a big deal for me this week. It has taken over my life and I do not want to stop to write about it. I have been in the throws of revision on this same manuscript for nigh on 3 years now. But this week is different. I feel driven in a way I haven't for years. I am cutting cutting cutting away at the last third of my manuscript. If you have been anywhere near me in this Blogosphere you would have heard me say that. Goal = cutting the final 3rd of my book from 30k to 15k words. It is the outline third of my book, not the literal third. If you look at it on a 9 point plot grid, it is the bottom 3 squares. I want to cut half the words away to make it literally one third of all the words in my book. I have cut 6k words and I don't know if I can find 9k more to do. But I am going to try.

When I taught creative writing during my MFA program, one of the ways we graded was on a revision narrative. If my students could really articulate what their revision process was and what they were learning about their writing through that process, it could really bump up their grade. I have often wanted to take that time with my own book, to write a revision narrative time-lining the past three years and what I have learned. Somebody in The Practice Room recently said that revision was a process of layering for them. And for me this layering business has been two fold. Not only am I layering on meaning and tension in my novel. But I am also adding to what I know about writing them. But I find my memory is short and time is in even shorter supply as I really want to get my MC to her final hour.

Next week, revision narrative...

Posting The Practice Room Schedule

2010-07-25T16:35:00.002-05:00

Also find the schedule posted at the head of TPR. Any changes will be marked in red. Comment here or at TPR to let me know when you can come. I will let you know of any updates through comments:

Any changes will be in red:

Monday, July 26th:
7:30am - 8:30 am EST
11 am - 12 pm EST

Tuesday, July 27th
7:30 am - 8:30 am EST
11 am - 12 pm EST the spectacular Marisa
5 pm - 6 pm EST

Wednesday, July 28th:
7:30am - 8:30 am EST
11 am - 12 pm EST the spectacular Marisa
5 pm - 6 pm EST
Late Night with Heather Kelly! 10-11pm EST (I'm pretty sure)

Thursday, July 29th:
7:30 am - 8:30 am EST
1 pm - 2 pm EST

Friday, July 30th:
7:30 am - 8:30 am EST

11 am - 12 pm EST the spectacular Marisa

Update: Been posted 5 minutes and I'm adding to it already!

How I Write: Motivation

2010-07-21T07:45:00.002-05:00

I’m contributing to Ansha’s How I Write series. Find everyone's posts here. Last Wednesday we wrote about getting the first draft completed/ setting a writing schedule, this week motivation.

Yay! This one is easy for me. One word: co-workers. It is a weird term when you talk of writing, right? Writers are solitary beasts aren’t we? Sitting and staring at our own screen, in our own houses, spending time with the imaginary people in our heads. And yet, as much as my introvert self loves that part, my head can easily lead me way astray. Writing in a vacuum where nobody cares what and when I get anything done, nobody knows why it is taking me so long and how come I haven’t published already. Nobody even knows how to ask questions about my work. I think they might want to ask me IF I work.

Well, to be fair, my family really wants me to finish and even cares that I am a writer and supports the time I spend with the imaginary folks in my head, but in moment to moment interaction, they often care more about getting their toast buttered than whether I get 500 (more realistically 5) more words in.

So having somebody actually counting on me doing my thing everyday and knowing how hard it is to plod ahead at my snail’s pace makes all the difference.

So that’s what I did. I found a writing partner and we meet face to face every couple weeks. I met other folks through blog commenting and reading. We shared our manuscripts and cheered each other on. Heather and I met in the mornings online to get ourselves up and working. It was like having an office where someone was waiting for me to get my stuff done. We unplugged on our own before I eventually made The Practice Room. Now we unplug en masse.

Right now the blogosphere is full of ways to motivate:

Sign up for Writeoncon, or Heather’s Tour de Writing , Patricia Timms is having a Writing Triathalon at her blog or come here for The Practice Room. It will make you feel like you have someone in the cubical beside you and that is does in fact matter whether you cruise the byways of cyberspace instead of buckling into your second draft. They will care that you finish, that you work hard everyday, that you make those imaginary heroes in your head as flawed and beautiful as possible. And you will keep working. Because that is the only way.

I’ve written about coworkers before here.
Find other folks writing about motivation here.

Posting The Practice Room Schedule

2010-07-18T12:25:00.002-05:00

Also find the schedule posted at the head of TPR. Any changes will be marked there in red and I will also try to note them in comments on this post or at TPR:

Monday, July 19th:
7:30am - 8:30 am EST
5 pm - 6pm EST

Tuesday, July 20th:
7:30 am - 8:30 am EST
11 am - 12 pm EST (the lovely Marisa)
10 pm - 11 pm EST

Wednesday, July 21st:
7:30am - 8:30 am EST
11 am - 12 pm EST (the lovely Marisa)
5 pm - 6 pm EST

Thursday, July 22nd:
7:30 am - 8:30 am EST
11 am - 12 pm EST (the lovely Marisa)
3 pm - 4 pm EST

Friday, July 23rd:
7:30 am - 8:30 am EST
11 am - 12 pm EST

How I Write: Drafting

2010-07-14T07:59:00.000-05:00

I’m contributing to Ansha’s How I Write series. Last Wednesday the series was about starting a new work in progress, this week Getting the first draft completed/ Setting a writing schedule. And speaking of schedules, I am so glad I signed up for this series because it has kept me posting when I normally wouldn’t. My household is still full of people until Friday, I haven’t had a single moment to check out the blogs I love, and last week I couldn’t find the time to respond to commentors. I haven’t even posted my progress at Tour de Writing. It will probably take me a little bit of time to get back my sea legs, but I hope to be back to normal by next week.

I am sort of at a loss about first drafts. Back when I wrote the first drafts of my story (and I really consider that there were more than just one first draft), writing was something I wanted to do and something I loved, but it was barely part of my life. I needed to force myself to write. And very little of those first words remain. Although those were the words that found my story.

Recently I saved two blog posts that seemed to be about this part of the process. One was Laini Taylor, whose post describes how she writes scenes to learn things about her characters and stories (Laini Taylor is also generous about her writing advice with a whole website called Not For Robots full of writing wisdom). She has to remind herself that this writing thing we do is a process of discovery and let herself write things that are not going to end up somewhere even if they are cool. Janice Hardy says every author can expect tangents in their drafts. She is revising a first draft now and says in each scene she has had to find the personal goal of the character and align the scene to fit that goal first and then find it's place in the premise goal. She writes of cutting chapter after chapter of her draft because it wasn’t serving the story but it was helping her discover other aspects of it.

I want to have the looseness and understanding of Laini so that I can write and discover the things to make my story rich and as real as possible.But, like Janice, I want to be able to keep the personal goal of my characters in line with the premise goal of my novel so that both my readers and myself can care about what is at stake. Here is a conflict worksheet that has been helping me to that end (in revision). It is a ton of questions and using them still is no guarantee that I still won’t go astray and write oodles of scenes that wind their way away from that goal. But with the snowflake under my belt, a plot diagrammed in a nine point grid (see previous post) and the questions that will keep me aligned to the conflict, I figure I am good to go. And I will set out on drafting like a journey. Consulting my maps and compas, I can find my way. But if something interesting crosses my path I better explore that too.

But, that leaves schedule. Here’s my solution. Sign up for Tour de Writing. Sign up for Nanowrimo. Come here for The Practice Room. Take a class. Find some way that works to hold yourself accountable and then get to work and do it the way that makes the most sense to you. Write fast if that is what it takes. Make a collage if it takes that.

Oh, and just so you all know, Heather Kelly offered to host some late night (for her and me) Practice Rooms. See the schedule. There is one tonight at 10 EST and one on Friday.

Posting The Practice Room Schedule

2010-07-11T19:25:00.001-05:00

Big thank you to Marisa and Heather who hosted practice times last week. I peeked into the chats, tons of fun! Even when I am too busy the practicing goes on! Thank goodness (and by that I mean the goodness of those gals' hearts)!

Click here for the most recent post or to sign up for the post practice party (see the instructions above)!

Monday, July 12th:
7:30am - 8:30 am EST(early morning)
1pm-2pm EST(mid-morning)

Tuesday, July 13th:
7:30am - 8:30 am EST(early morning)
1pm - 2pm EST(mid-morning)

Wednesday, July 14th:
7:30am - 8:30 am EST(morning)
11 am - 12 am EST (Marisa. Yay!)
10pm-11pm EST (Heather. Yay!)

Thursday, July 15th:
7:30am - 8:30 am EST(morning)

1pm - 2 pm EST(afternoon)

Friday, July 16th:

7:30am - 8:30 am EST(early morning)
10pm-11pm EST (Heather. Yay!)

How I Write: Starting a new Work in Progress

2010-07-07T08:16:00.000-05:00

I’m contributing to Ansha’s How I Write series (click to see the full list of contributors). This weeks subject: starting a new work in progress.

I’m gearing up for Nano, I think. NANOWRIMO, is write your novel now month. A month in which people are sprinting through their stories, letting the words pile up behind them, attempting to finish the first draft of a novel in one month. I have done abbreviated versions of this in the past. In fact the first severely flawed first draft of my current novel was product of a Nano month. But this time I would like to try to spend the month of November drafting after getting to know my characters and plot.

So I guess this is how I get started now. First, I set a goal: To be drafting by November. Then, I figure out what I need to do to reach that goal: It will mean completing the snowflake for this new story and then diagramming it with the nine point plot grid and spending the rest of my time daydreaming about my characters and all their difficult situations. Recently I read this post at Upstart Crow, and I plan to apply the Rule of Twenty to my next book (fact is I think I have applied it to my current wip too, but I wrote all twenty drafts of those options, my new way I will do it all in my imagination.)

And here’s another tip, sign up for Heather Kelly’s Tour de Writing. Set your goal in her comments and keep track of it over the coming weeks. Maybe you will win a prize, or just maybe the prize will be committing yourself to that new project and getting some words down on the page! So I just set a revision goal over there this morning, and now I think I will head out and type a second goal into her comments.

Happy trails everyone, and check out how others start their new wips here!

Calling all Practice Roomers (with photos)

2010-07-05T19:23:00.003-05:00

We have had the most enormous party ever last night. The party was to celebrate my sister's engagement to the fabulous Jonathan (not the Jon A of internet fame but Jon B of Communist Daughter of which I mentioned last week). With a band (so fun!) and 100 + people and fireworks. The food and sangria was FABU!

A picture of our backyard stage(who knew?!) above and my mother, sisters and me below (guess who is who!). Not very flattering of me. Pictures make me uncomfortable and I always end up doing something goofy in them. Like here I'm talking to Jeffrey the photographer(and brother in law to be--he is brother to the goom) while everybody else looks so beautiful as per usual.

My sister and her kids are staying at my house and so is my mom and stepfather. AND the house has one remaining bunny.

So I must explain: Our house is located on its own version of Teletubbyland. Lots of green space, and bunnies are a major part of the landscape. We found four in the grass on Wednesday. My dog was picking up the teeniest in his mouth and the rest were scattered like confetti around him. We left them there for two hours to see if their mother returned.

Based on my son's googling, we have estimated their birth date to be last Wednesday morning(the same day we found them, also my daughter's b-day) Best means of care, also via Google, kitten formula and an eye dropper. Alas when mother didn't return, we figured they were orphaned or abandoned. Wild bunnies are hard to keep alive in captivity, we read. And we can now attest to that fact. 3 of the four have died. But not for my son's lack of trying.

So when is there time for The Practice Room?
This is what I came up with. Any of you out there have other needs and wants not being met, please pipe up!

For the most recent Practice Room post, click here! The door at the right takes you to the most recent Practice Room schedule, once you are there click on the link to sign in at the most recent post.

Tuesday, July 6th, 7:30am-8:30 am EST(early morning).
Tuesday, July 6th, 11 am - 12pm EST(mid-morning). Marisa will be TPR's hostess with the mostest!!YAY!

Wednesday, July 7th, 7:30am-8:30 am EST(morning)
Wednesday, July 7th, ~~2pm-3pm (afternoon)~~ 3-4 pm Whoops! I am time-zonally challenged!

Wednesday, July 7th, 10-11pm(night) Hosted by the Fabulous Heather Kelly!

Thursday, July 8th, 7:30am-8:30 am EST(morning)

Thursday, July 8th, ~~2-3pm EST(afternoon)~~.3-4 pm

Friday, July 9th, 7:30am-8:30 am EST(early morning)
Friday, July 9th, 11 am - 12pm am EST(mid-morning). Again Marisa, YAY!
Friday, July 9th, 10 pm - 11pm (night) Hosted by the Fabulous Heather Kelly (or Marisa?)!

How I Write: Research

2010-06-30T08:47:00.001-05:00

I’m contributing to Ansha’s How I Write series (click through to see the full list of contributors). Last Wednesday the series was about backrounding (my term) story ideas. And, as always, reading the posts was educational for me, I came across new tools (character sheets) and definitions (plotters versus pantsers), also educated by my commentors, I even got into a little trouble there (Thanks, H!). Thanks to everyone who blogged and responded, I feel like I learn new things all the time.

This week is about research. And for me, research is an extension of backgrounding.

First of all: Ode to Google.
Oh Google, how I love you ! You are always there when I have never been to Bath, England, which (so far) is always (jealous of you, Marisa!). When I want to know the etymology of etymology and then how to spell it. When I want to learn about Free Indirect Speech and the rules of the Mall of America. Oh, Google, I rely on you all day long. What would I do without you?

As far as other research goes, I sometimes like to go and be places. Places that have to do with my writing. I like to write in that spot. But more often, I save images and links that connect somehow to the idea of my book. Like this is an image for my next novel: A Catolog of Nature from The National Museum of Natural History .

Or this Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. Although I have yet to figure out how it relates. Most of my research happens by accident and afterwards I have to figure out how it relates.

I use research for discovery and then I use instinct to know when it is time to stop discovering and put it down on paper.

Now off to the list to find out what research means to other folk!

I had a sleepover with Heather Kelly!

2010-06-29T17:17:00.003-05:00

When you work on the Internet you know your coworker only as words on the screen. I had a sense of her voice, just as I would a character voice in a novel, but I only see her, encounter her is when I step up to the computer. The space between us is the great divide. The things that connect us, I can only imagine, ones and zeros, wires and electrical impulses, links and keyboard clicking, our fingers, the delay and the pause. The words, Heather is typing. The emoticons and the lols.

Heather was coming to Chicago. Which in my mind was a halfway point. But six hours on my own is a long way to drive. It was never like it was really going to happen. I hemmed and hawed and tried to imagine going there all by myself. I sort of got a hotel room. I sort of got coverage for the kids. And then like magic my sister and her finance were talking, his band, Communist Daughter (check them out! They may be your new favorite band!) had a show, and my sister wasn’t going to go alone. Their first show in Chicago, what are the chances it is the same week that H. is there? A message from the blogging gods.

The first barrier breached was texting. Somehow her words magically appearing in my phone made my heart leap.

A lot was going to have to come together for this to work. She didn’t have a car. Neither of us knew the city. She had several relatives she was coordinating with. We only really had a band, a bar and a time to work with. Communist Daughter , The Whistler, 8pm.

We started texting Saturday Night: “Barbeque plans changed due to rain. At the movies.” “Still driving. ETA 2hours.” “If I get dropped off, can you give me a ride back?” “We’ll park at our hotel and take the ‘L’. Do you want to sleep over?” “Just finishing up dinner. I’ll text when I’m on my way. Is that really okay?” “Absolutely! Eating at the restaurant next door to the club.” “I’m Here!!!” “Where!!” (40 messages in total!)

So Heather IRL! You want to know? She is much like she is on line. Confident, clear, precise, interested, interesting. But here are the things that I couldn’t have known: she laughs a lot! She looks just like her daughter (I should have known that, but somehow it was so striking to me irl. I have probably seen more pictures of her daughter than of her!). She is so brave (aren’t we all to be doing this writing and blogging thing?), but she is brave IN PERSON. She came to a bar filled with strangers in a strange city and came back to our place where we stayed up late and giggled while we painted toenails and braided hair and talked about the cute boys at the show!

And me, I was so nervous to be talking out loud, I kept using my hands until they were flying all over the place, blabbering and blabbering. But it was okay, she was nice, and apparently my voice is huskier in real life. So don’t be thinking I am a high pitched screecher just ‘caus I type that way. It is just that my hands are flapping around nervously!

Okay, and this is something else, people in Chicago yell. We got yelled at a lot for doing apparently strange things in that strange city. (I think I shouldn’t take it personally. But just know that if anyone yells at you in Minneapolis, they probably really mean it and you should stop whatever you are doing. But you won’t get yelled at here.) But one of the strange things was trying to approach the Bean to take our pictures there (closed at night apparently). So alas I have no proof. Except for the necklace she and Jon gave me for my birthday(last may!!). Which fortuitously, in the yoga studio steam today came apart and I had an inspiration for a few letters that belong beneath the glass (they are backwards in the photo).

This was very special experience. I loved every minute of it, no matter that people yelled or the vlog never happened, and the Bean went unvisited (I got there earlier in the day, but it wasn’t the same w/out H.) and other untoward events. It still made this cubicle across the country so much homier and now there is an actual voice and big eyes and an actual laugh to put with the lol and words on the screen!

Can’t wait for practice room IRL, when we can ALL be together!

Posting The Practice Room Schedule

2010-06-28T21:15:00.001-05:00

Sorry I have gone missing! I was off meeting Heather! Which was fantastic! And also an odyssey away from the computer. Two days of totally unplugged, but starting tomorrow I will be back at the real thing! Click the door to the right to head on over(that directs you to The Practice Room schedule post. Find the link to the most recent post to sign in! Can't wait to write with you!).

Tuesday, June 29th, 7:30am-8:30 am EST(morning).

Wednesday, June 30th, 7:30am-8:30 am EST(morning)
Wednesday, June 30th, 12pm-1pm (midday)

Thursday, July 1st, 7:30am-8:30 am EST(morning)

~~Thursday, July 1st, 12-1pm EST(midday).~~ I am schedule challenged. New time 11am -12pm Eastern.

Friday, July 2nd, 7:30am-8:30 am EST(morning)

I have a lot going on this week, therefore choices are slimmer than usual! Let me know if there are times that you'd like to see return next week.

How I Write: Backgrounding the Book (for next time)

2010-06-23T09:07:00.004-05:00

I’m contributing to Ansha’s How I Write series, click link to find full list of contributors and their posts.

Last Wednesday the series was about how ideas are created. I loved reading different writers’ takes and approaches. This week, I am joining in. The topic is character development/plotting-arc building/world building.

Although it occurred to me: why am I doing so, as in: what the heck do I have to contribute?

This book writing thing has been hard for me. This first one is nearly done and I feel as if I know less now then I did when I started. The more you know, the more you realize there is to learn, I guess.

How do you approach character development/plotting-arc building/world building? For ease, I will just call it Backgrounding. Because that is absolutely what I didn’t do.

I approached this book all wrong. And now I can’t even remember how I did. I had an idea, and it was big. I guess that is the first thing that was wrong. I wanted this story to represent something and I tried to tell it without considering the tale itself (plot), the world (an off kilter reality that I am only now getting in touch with--3 years in), or my main character (she morphs even as we speak).

This is what I have learned on this first book, DON’T START WRITING TOO SOON! I am going to do much of this Backgrounding in my head before I even write the first word of my next draft. I wrote too soon last time

(although I will say that it helped me to get the required amount of words in. You can never write too many words or take too long. Right? I am right, right? Tell me I am right.).

My friend Jon makes buttons and plaques and plotmapthings before he begins to write, playing and trying to see the story. My friend Heather makes playlists and writes out character motivations. My friend Marisa swears by her outline, says if she ever diverges she just makes a mess of things. My friend Dena has a book with a terribly complicated plot that seems to be writing itself, but she must already know everything about it. Kate imagines here character doing the things that she does everyday(just look at her imaginary friends post from today). She says if you spend that much time with them, when you sit down to write you are bound to know what they will do as you throw the hard situations at them (she needs jokes by the way). Paul describes using voice journals and here is Elana’s comment on that post:I’ve never done this, not in quite the way you’re describing. But I have just let my characters talk to find their voice. I put them in a high-stress situation and write out what they say — or don’t say. Then I do a scene where they’re alone and see what they notice. If they talk to themselves. Etc. It helps me ground myself with who they are and how they talk, what they notice, what they don’t, how they describe things, etc. That’s helped. Now doesn’t that sound smart?

I learned most of this in The Practice Room or from folks' recent blog posts. I am going to try all of the above before I start drafting the next book, so as not to try to reinvent the wheel next time.

I also plan to use these lovely resources:
The Snowflake Method: This will walk me through a long involved process considering all the above things. I am so doing this! See how Jon does it.

This clever little nine point plot resource will help me consider the highs and lows of my story, see them visually and how they relate to each other.

Now I go to read the rest of How I Write posts and will have even more ideas!

Posting The Practice Room Schedule

2010-06-20T13:54:00.002-05:00

Come join us in The Practice Room, doorway is off to the right. The schedule is posted for the next week and also at The Practice Room itself. Come at the scheduled time and write with us for the hour. To see how it works click here (or that door to the right). I will not post the second or third post in the event no one signs in for the first post! If I adjust the schedule, changes will be marked in red or crossed off. I will also send a note through comments. Hope to see you there!

Monday, June 21st, 7:30am-8:30am EST (early morning)

Monday, June 21st, 10:00 am-11:00 am EST (morning)

Tuesday, June 22nd, 7:30am-8:30 am EST(early morning).

Tuesday, June 22nd, 10am-11am EST(morning).

Tuesday, June 22nd, 10pm-11pm EST(night).

Wednesday, June 23rd, 7:30am-8:30 am EST(morning)

Thursday, June 24th, 7:30am-8:30 am EST(morning)

Thursday, June 24th, 10-11am EST(morning).

~~Thursday, June 24th, 10pm-11pm EST(night).~~ Must cancel. My brother-in-law will be here. Yay!

Friday, June 25th, 7:30am-8:30 am EST(morning)

Friday, June 25th, 10-11am EST(morning).

Posting The Practice Room schedule + video

2010-06-13T12:08:00.002-05:00

Here is a video about "Time Perspectives." I found it through Kottke.org as per usual. I at first thought it was going to be about time zones and therefore play right into The Practice Room schedule: As in Ann Marie's after midnight is my dinnertime, or my dinnertime is just as Casey sits down to work, or I'd schedule at 6 but the last thing I want to do is scare Marisa off. But instead I found something just as interesting in different ways.

First it all, I love this method of explaining ideas, the sped up video of info-cartooning (probably it has a real name, I just made that up that description, vivid, isn't it?) Reminds me of Thought Bubble.

Secondly, I am fascinated by cultural changes. Professor Philip Zimbardo talks about how present technology is affecting age old perspectives of time.

Finally, it makes me think of my son and his new interest in video games. I know! I've had it good until now, my son has been relatively uninterested and we have not had to have that battle. But now that he is 11, it seems there is no stopping him. His brain is like a broken record lately (does that reference work anymore?! Talk about the times, they are changing!)

So it is long, 10 minutes, but perhaps you will like it!!

And as for your perspective of time, you can have a little of everything when you join in the after practice chat which happens each time we reconvene. We are future oriented(when we set our goals at the first post) and we are present minded (while we spend the hour writing), and plan on looking backwards at the end. Turns out we are hedonistic (the chat itself is a little pleasure). Come try it out for yourself.

This week is going to be different for me. My son will be away at sleep-away camp (I have to drop him off during prime writing times tomorrow!) and my daughter is going to a horse day camp, so practicing times will be all over the map as I drop off and pick up. I may post changes as I discover what my schedule really is. Canceled times will be crossed off, changes made in red, added times in red, I will also announce changes in Practice Room chats if I can. Yay! Let's write!

For the most recent unplug post, click here!

~~Monday, June 14th, 12pm-1pm EST (late-morning)~~ Cancelled

Tuesday, June 15th, 7:30am-8:30 am EST(morning).

Tuesday, June 15th, 10am-11am EST(morning).

Tuesday, June 15th, 10pm-11pm EST(night).

Wednesday, June 16th, 7:30am-8:30 am EST(morning)

Wednesday, June 16th, 10-11am EST(morning)

Wednesday, June 16th, 4-5pm EST(aft-evening)

Thursday, June 17th, 10-11am EST(morning).

Thursday, June 17th, 10pm-11pm EST(night).

Friday, June 18, 10-11pm EST(morning).

I will not post the second or third post in the event no one joins me for the unpluggings! If I adjust the schedule, changes will be marked in red or crossed off. Okay, already added some (Monday, June 14th). We'll see how those early mornings go--I may add even more...

Link for You

2010-06-09T08:37:00.000-05:00

I love Maureen Johnson's Manifesto!

The Weekly Progress Report (for this week and last)

2010-06-07T10:00:00.001-05:00

In Marisa’s Friday Flashback she talked about realizing she was a writer. I don't remember when I figured it out, but I did do it. I wrote a novel at nine in the attic of our duplex apartment. Or I would work on it in Clem's class, during creative writing. He gave me special permission to work on my novel instead of writing a short story like everyone else. I wrote and illustrated it in fourth grade and threw it away when I reread it at 12. I thought it was stupid, unfinished and I wasn’t sure what I was thinking anyway.

Marisa on the other hand, had a file cabinet. Given to her to keep her hours and hours of hard work. That floors me. It seems like in so many ways a simple file cabinet at the age of nine could that solved a lifetime of problems. What if I had learned organization at an early age? What if I had known then what I do now; that sucking is part of the process? That you might as well just save it all so at least you have proof that you have written the required amount of words to be a writer. QUESTIONS: How many words is that again? Do I really know that?

So after reading her post I noticed a pattern. Yes this was one of those epiphany moments, but it just seems so obvious and stupid now (as everything clearly does). This pattern: Write something, finish it, think it is obvious and stupid then give up on it.

Do you know I started this Blog Post last Friday during the unplug? I was writing my weekly writing progress update and was going to renew my commitment to my book (Heather pointed out the irony of writing a blog post about commitment during an unplug hour supposedly pledged solely to working on my project. How many shades of gray are there? I'll figure it out.) But I didn’t quite get it done, as I had to go searching for my son’s black shirt and then head off to his school skit. I returned to it this morning. And now, it is stupid, unfinished and I’m not sure what I was thinking anyway.

Well, that is what I do. My book is in the same predicament as this blog post, and as my first discarded novel was.

So I pledge the next hour to one more try. Okay? I will get it ready to send it off to Marisa and Rachel and Terri (my grad-school gal friends who have been waiting patiently). And I will post this post just now, just as it is.

Posting The Practice Room Schedule

2010-06-06T22:25:00.005-05:00

For the most recent unplug post, click here!

Come and join us if you can! Everyone is welcome. Check in at the appointed time, write for an hour and then report back and tell us how it went. To get to The Practice Room click the above link or go through the door at the right!

Here's this week's schedule.

Monday, June 7th, 11am-12pm EST (morning)

Monday, June 7th, 5pm-6pm (evening)

Tuesday, June 8th, 11am-12pm EST(morning).

Tuesday, June 8th, 10pm-11pm EST(night).

After Tuesday, the kids are out of school and summer starts for my family. So let's try a summer type schedule just to experiment. It might change a little bit in the next few weeks. Those night 10pms followed by those morning 8 ams could be hard?! We shall see. What do you think? I'd love to hear your feedback.

Wednesday, June 9th, 8-9am EST(morning)

Wednesday, June 9th, 5-6pm EST(aft-evening)

Thursday, June 10th, 8-9am EST(morning).

Thursday, June 10th, 10pm-11pm EST(night).

Friday, June 11, 8am-9pm EST(morning).

Posting The Practice Room Schedule

2010-05-31T21:33:00.000-05:00

For the most recent unplug post, click here!
Come and join us if you can! Everyone is welcome. Check in at the appointed time, write for an hour and then report back and tell us how it went. To get to The Practice Room click the above link or go through the door at the right!

Here's this week's schedule.
Monday, May 31st, MEMORIAL DAY! (Just plain old unplugged unplugged, so no unpluggage.)
Tuesday, June 1, 11am-12pm EST(morning).
Tuesday, June 1, 10pm-11pm EST(night).

Wednesday, June 2, 5-6pm EST(aft-evening)

Thursday, June 3, 11-12pm EST(morning).
Thursday, June 3, 10pm-11pm EST(night).
Friday, June 4, 11am-12pm EST(morning).

I will not post the second or third post in the event no one joins me for the unpluggings!

The Weekly Progress Report (a new feature of this blog)

2010-05-27T09:50:00.003-05:00

I must apologize to anyone still paying attention to me and my blog. I have not been able to make it back to your blogs in the manner that I am accustomed and feel is your due. This hurts my heart. I am missing you all but I have a million living things IRL that are calling for my attention.

My excuse is my urban farm. Do you want to see a picture?

Picture Goes Here
(true to form I couldn't get my hubby's camera to save the picture or email it to myself so, as per usual, I have nothing to show for it. Like my book, the garden is a total mess. Take my word for it.)

Here is an illustration of some of the urban livestock experiencing life as we know it.

But come to The Practice Room and you get tons of attention from me (and a bunch of other cool folks!!!). It seems to be a system working for everyone (who comes that is. I am a firm believer that not all processes are created equal! So this is a plug for those that have been on the fence!). Find the schedule and The Practice Room space through the door to the right.

Now to the Report!

About The book (FYI):
Heather(my MC, I knew her way before I met the illustrious Heather Kelly) is homeless, as well as hopeless. That is why she and her mother and brother are staying at St. Jude Shelter for Hopeless Causes. And although, Jude, the shelter's director, is not the saint the shelter was named after, he is the next best thing, because he hands out dollar bills and candybars. But what do all the messages really mean? Can Heather learn what she needs to know in order to save her family from Jude's influence and find something to hope for?

Donald Maass' question: If I stopped writing this novel right now, why would it matter?

And the correct answer cannot be: Because then I would have wasted all this time fussing with it for the past 3 years of my life(and then some), not only writing the damn thing but also telling every one that I know that I'm doing so.

But of course that is the first thing that flew into my head. Unbidden. Unwanted. Lordy!

And so I am questioning everything, like is it time to put it aside. Am I just not passionate enough? Are my ideas stupid, too complicated or a fatal combination of the two?

But, here are the things that I love about the book:
1. The hair: messages sent via hair-do. It is a quirk of my protagonist that I didn't see coming and decided to go with. Along with the hair comes a myriad of magic as ephemeral as faith.
2. The lessons Heather learns. They are important and worthy and ones that everyone needs to know. Including myself.
3. Much of the book is true, well-written and profound. There are things about homelessness and growing up that everyone even with a home and full grown can understand. And should understand.

I know that I have to throw myself at it full force. I know that there is no looking back. And that this is a crisis of faith. It is not the book itself that I question, but myself. The book is great. It is the person writing it that is faulty. Oh, it is now that I need the muse in the corner (Dena, is that you?). As god is my witness, I will belt this thing out.

Do I have to write it? I think I am past that point. At this point it is all craft and craziness. I alternate between the two.

So what's your answer to Donald Maass' question?

Posting The Practice Room Schedule

2010-05-23T22:01:00.001-05:00

Here's this week's schedule. For the most recent unplug post, click here!

Monday, May 24, 11am-12pm EST (morning).
Monday, May 24 4-5pm EST (aft-evening). Casey--I'd love feedback on how an hr earlier works for you.

Tuesday, May 25, 11am-12pm EST(morning).
Tuesday, May 25, 10pm-11pm EST(night).
Wednesday, May 26, 5-6pm EST(aft-evening) THIS IS A CHANGE IN TIME!
Thursday, May 20, 11-12pm EST(morning).
Thursday, May 20, 10pm-11pm EST(night).
Friday, May 21, 11am-12pm EST(morning).

I will not post the second or third post in the event no one joins me for the unpluggings!

WG, WG and Love

2010-05-20T10:33:00.001-05:00

Mademoiselle M.(I introduced my favorite book recommend-er here) told me that both Will Graysons were whiny. She was right, as usual! They are. But it didn’t bother me one bit. In fact I loved the book more for the Will Grayson whiny-ness. And I love MM more for saying it.

So if you don’t know Will Grayson, I will take a moment to explain it to you. Written in alternating chapters by the great John Green and a lesser known man to me, but one I have come to love, Levithan (his character was my darling when he collaborated Rachel Cohen on Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist). John Green’s Will Grayson is the straight best friend of the very big, in all ways except in a name, Tiny Cooper and Levithan’s undercase Will Grayson is terribly whiny, gay, and as of yet, unknown to them.

But like I said it made me love my MM more. She is the kind of friend that never would have abominable second guessings of friendship as the properly grammarizing Will Grayson did of his with the fabulous Tiny. My MM does not tread lightly nor feel sorry for herself. In the world, MM blasts full force with purpose and intentions, unlike the Will Grasons. Thank goodness because it is soon to change our world for the better.

If you want to make brilliant characters you should study how the wonderful pair of Levithan and JG created Tiny Cooper, unlike the straight WG, I was pretty sure I would love to have him as my friend. I’m pretty sure I would have stopped reading the book with out him. Maybe I should adjust the above statement. If you are interested in making characters that I love, you should study the building of Tiny Cooper. Because I really loved him. I couldn’t help thinking of Jonathon as I read this. And not because he was so much like him (In J’s own words, he doesn’t relate to Tiny at all) but because he had recommended Will Grayson, Will Grayson so highly, and because the things that I love about Tiny are the same things I love about J (exuberance, love, and honesty)!

And to contradict what J is saying right now about WG,WG at his blog, the book is a regular love fest. Boy on boy love. Boy on girl love. Friend on friend love. Mother on son love. Father on son. Platonic love. Romantic love. Gay love. Straight love. Gay loving straights. Straights loving gays. Me loving the book. It is extremely representative, although no, I do not think inappropriate(I might have made it sound otherwise but it is just hype).

Also, the collaboration of this book made me love both authors more(and I couldn't help but think of J). I had half expected a book where two halves were mushed together. Loosely connected stories that sold books with names but not effort. But I was wrong. The characters played off each other beautifully and the authors let the story unfold, using each others' chapters to reveal more. It was a beauty of a collaboration that I had to return to the library, so I do not have evidence to back me up. Just take my words for it.

And everything I learned of collaborating, I have learned from J and H. I would love to take a Tiny Cooper moment here to sing their praises. Like Tiny Cooper, my girl Mademoiselle M. they blast full fource with purpose and intention and you must love and admire that. I do. How can I do it more authentically show it than with The Sound of Music? The Alps, Julie Andrews, and this video does it all, but you only have to watch a little of the following clip to get the full effect.

I appreciate you, Jonathon Arntson and Heather Kelly! Let's do something like Will Grayson, Will Grayson someday. Maybe with less whining.

How to Stop Worrying and Learn to Love the Internet

2010-05-18T15:52:00.000-05:00

...is a great title of a piece by Douglas Adams written in 1999 (The title is right up there with Miranda July's art project-Learning to Love You More). Do you remember who Douglas Adams is? The guy who wrote The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Here is Wikipedia's version of him.

I am cutting and pasting a quote from the above book right here because I loved it so much. I found it through Kottke.org. Where else do I find anything? Jason Kottke has some very fine things to say about this "evergreen piece of wisdom" himself, but he keeps it at a minimum (I so admire him). So read it if you want. Or just read the quote here:

So people complain that there's a lot of rubbish online, or that it's dominated by Americans, or that you can't necessarily trust what you read on the web. Imagine trying to apply any of those criticisms to what you hear on the telephone. Of course you can't 'trust' what people tell you on the web anymore than you can 'trust' what people tell you on megaphones, postcards or in restaurants. Working out the social politics of who you can trust and why is, quite literally, what a very large part of our brain has evolved to do. For some batty reason we turn off this natural scepticism when we see things in any medium which require a lot of work or resources to work in, or in which we can't easily answer back -- like newspapers, television or granite. Hence 'carved in stone.' What should concern us is not that we can't take what we read on the internet on trust -- of course you can't, it's just people talking -- but that we ever got into the dangerous habit of believing what we read in the newspapers or saw on the TV -- a mistake that no one who has met an actual journalist would ever make. One of the most important things you learn from the internet is that there is no 'them' out there. It's just an awful lot of 'us'.

I do so love that last line. Because it is so true. There is an awful lot of US here, blabbering and communing. If you want to find me, I'll be at WIBIJ tomorrow (Wednesday). It is game day (starting time 1pm Eastern). We will be doing a lot of the aforementioned blabbering and communing(and glittering--not mentioned) as WIBIJ is my version of a megaphone (we hand them out at the tent, come use yours too). And there will be another book to give away. We don't know for whom or for what and even when, we are just trusting that we will when we see it. I do hope you will join US!

Posting The Practice Room Schedule

2010-05-16T22:05:00.003-05:00

Here's the week's schedule. For the most recent unplug post, click here! For more info on The Practice Room see the side bar.

Monday, May 17, 11am-12pm EST.
Monday, May 17, 5-6pm EST.
Tuesday, May 18, 11am-12pm EST
Tuesday, May 18, 10pm-11pm EST (I changed this time to one hour earlier)
Wednesday, May 19, 5-6pm EST
Thursday, May 20, 11-12pm EST
Thursday, May 20, 10pm-11pm EST
Friday, May 21, 11am-12pm EST

I will not post the second or third post in the event no one joins me for the unpluggings!

What Will WIBIJ Do?

2010-05-12T09:07:00.002-05:00

Can you folks help me figure something out? We are considering signing up WIBIJ as a Amazon Affiliate. Things that are attractive about this: We will be able to continue to give our readers books as fodder for playing. Continue to support the lovely authors that provide stops for our games. And make it easy for you to buy the books that we feature. We would love for our game to continue to provide books as winnings. And if you love our game it seems like a win-win way to support it.

The second consideration to that is the three of us care deeply for our local independent book stores. But as we live in different parts of the world from each other, our common denominator is WIBIJ and other sorts of Internet commonalities. Therefore, Amazon is a little bit local, all things considered.

So I went hunting for information and here are some of the things that I found.

I had heard of Indiebound but had not really known that it had it's own affiliateness. I like that there are options out there for folks who would rather shop independent. Here is my local independent bookstore on Indiebound. Here is a blog that describes a shopping experience with Indiebound vs. Amazon.

Seemed like a great option, but I did wonder, would it really provide as much commission as Amazon? Because of the familiarity, ease of it's online model and recognition, my guess was that most people would quickly click through to buy a book from Amazon but hesitate before they did the same at Indiebound. With further googling I found this post of a Twitter conversation that seems to indicate just that. Blogger affiliates make money (enough to buy the books to give away on their blog and pay postage) with Amazon but not Indiebound, at least according to this convo.

So after my google forays for information, here is my idea for what wibij should do:

Become affiliates to both Indiebound and Amazon. Link books to both sites, listing the Indiebound link first. State clearly on the blog that we are both Indiebound and Amazon affiliate, we want to support local independent book sellers, but we also care that our blog game participants, readers and general cheerers-on keep coming back for more of the good stuff we provide, as such we provide options for their ease or philosophy as the case may be. And each purchase made through said links will go to support the game, our awards, and any other fees we may incur over the making of our game.

The reason I post my thought process here is not only to make it transparent, but also to enlist your help. I would love your thoughts on this matter. What have I naively left out? Do you have your own sage advice? What would you, lovely blogger, do?

UPDATE: more linkage: wordpress explanations

Posting The Practice Room Schedule

2010-05-09T19:54:00.003-05:00

All are welcome!

Join me in The Practice Poom for the following dates and time this week(for more information see the links at the side). Please feel free to put in a plug for a certain time. Hope something works for you.

This week's schedule!
Monday, May 10, 12-1pm EST.
Monday, May 10, 5-6pm EST.
Tuesday, May 11, 11am-12pm EST
~~Wednesday, May 12, 5-6pm EST~~Cancelled
Thursday, May 13, 12-1pm EST
Thursday, May 13, 11pm-12am EST
Friday, May 14, 11am-12pm EST

I will not post the second or third post in the event no one joins me for unpluggings!

Read About Me: at Jon's request

2010-05-06T15:15:00.000-05:00

I was tagged in a Meme by Jon. The answers are short, but sweet I think. And for sure there is something Jon does not yet know about me.

Where were you five years ago?

1.) not writing
2.) not doing yoga
3.) sad
4.) worried

5.) fat

Where would you like to be five years from now?

1.) here but with more confidence
2.) at a Unpluggage Convention Writer's Retreat (in person) of our own design
3.) working on my fourth novel
4.) agented
5.) edited

What is on your to-do list today?

1.) the recap
2.) dinner
3.) fold the laundry
4.) dishes
5.) The Practice Room at 11pm EASTERN (be there or be square)

What five snacks to you enjoy?

1.) popcorn (popped in oil with nutritional yeast and salt OR truffle salt)
2.) wine (it IS totally a snack! and if you serve it with popcorn it can be dinner as well)
3.) pizza
4.) pizza
5.) pizza

What five things would you do if you were a billionaire?

(...and not necessarily in this order)

1.) buy books for every single round of wibij
2.) airline tickets
3.) conferences
4.) buy new pants
5.) pay for you all to go to above conference(practice room folk and those of you that as of yet have not tried it---you know who you are)

Now it's time I 'tag' 5 more people!!! And I am not up for it!

No tagging for me.

Although there are bunches and bunches of you I'd like to know more about.

Off the top of my head, I already read Marisa's and Dena's, Jon's, I will get to read Heather's and Kris's and Anita's and Kelly's and Casey's. I'd love to read Laura, and Paul G. and The Rejectionist's lists. Elana. What about Tracy and PMM and MG who has not been around? Becka, my sister. My other sisters without blogs. How about those folks that play wibij, Jeff and Crystal, and Sarah and Sheri? And a whole bunches of other new folk. See there is no way to limit this list.

Spreading the Awesome to Swati Avasthi

2010-05-03T07:00:00.002-05:00

If you have found me on this round-robin brilliance of Elana Johnson than you have arrived from author Dawn Metcalf's striking blog where she hugged A.S. King (Dust of 100 Dogs).

Now you arrived here:

WELCOME!

I am hugging Swati Avashti and her new book SPLIT!

First: her son and my son played soccer together a couple of years ago and our daughters ran up and down the sidelines while we sat on the grass and talked shop. That is where I first met her. Since I have discovered many connections between us and she can write a book in half the time I can! But she is generous and supportive to me and everyone she encounters. For example: I saw her this weekend at The Loft's Children's and Young Adult Literature Conference, even at lunch she was wisdom and lessons and I saw her lean in and give my table-mate some tips. It made me want to abandon my roast beef for a pen. She is smart about a lot of things, but especially voice. Her book is evidence of these skills--here we go:

I highly recommend this book because:
1) This main character has just done the unthinkable and stood up to his abusive father, but there is something else. Jace is hiding something that only his ex-girlfriend knows. It is tearing him apart. Swati has made Jace compellingly vulnerable for someone so tough. You will care about this kid, despite his complications.

2. Swati's spare and uncomplicated narrative drives you into the book. There is a lot at stake for Jace our main character and you won't want to stop until you find out what happens to him. Swati pulls no punches, this is a story about the cycle of abuse and Jace teeters the edge of control and self-loathing.

3. At the conference this weekend, the subject of boy books came up--I am sure more than once, but when I was there the argument was made that this whole concern of boy's not reading books is in some respects the industries-self fulfilling prophecy. So I say: Read "boy" books in order to buzz them. Debunk that myth that there are no good boy books out there. This book fits the bill, the stereotype of boy book with high interest, intense plot. But not only does it fit that stereotype, it also confounds it with authentic emotional content that will have you reeling because of its complicated truthfulness.

Go check her out.

Teenreads review of Split.
Here's an interview with Swati.
Here's Swati's website.

And last but not least, the link to Elana's recommended reads page.

Continue your tour of Awesomeness with the fabulous Bethany Wiggins hugging author Lindsey Leavitt (Princess for Hire)!

Unplugging Schedule This Week.

2010-05-02T09:22:00.000-05:00

Here's the week's schedule. For the most recent post in The Practice Room, click here!

Sunday, May 2, 11pm-12pm EST
Monday, May 3, 12-1pm EST.
Tuesday, May 4, 11am-12pm EST
Wednesday, May 5, 5-6pm EST
Thursday, May 6, 12-1pm EST
Thursday, May 6, 11pm-12am EST
Sunday, May 9, 11pm-12pm EST

I will not post the second or third post in the event no one can join me for the unpluggings!

Another Argument to Write Together (or Watch Me Get Spiritual)

2010-04-29T14:21:00.000-05:00

Here are more thoughts on Unplugging Phenomena:

Believe it or not doing yoga in a room that is so full of people that your mat is two inches from the mat of the person next to you is extremely pleasant. You'd think with the sweat, the proximity, the embarrassment when you fall out of crow pose would make this kind of class uncomfortable. But, no, there is something about the dance, when the whole class cartwheels their arms as one, as if we are a room full of windmills! To plant hands on the mat, lowering ourselves to the mat and then starting the flow all over again. Like windmills it is eerie and beautiful and full of energy. I feel sometimes as if I am hovering above myself, there is nothing but postures and movement and tangible energy in the room. And sweat.

Sometimes writing is like that too. Without the sweat. Especially our unplugging practices. The people writing with me are much farther away (some farther than others!), across time zones, and oceans and serious land masses. I've never met these people face to face, and yet when we unplug our minds are at like purposes, almost as if we are praying together, there is power being connected even if it is through circuits and satellite dishes (or the ephemeral brainwave?). Studies do validate prayer and meditation, especially in numbers and I would argue that all good writing is like prayer.

The fact that someone is waiting for you to when you return from the writing, and not just because they need a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, is like icing on the cake(Dena, I honestly wrote this before our chat!). And perhaps it is like magic, the praying, writing, yoga, tennis, the zen of whatever it is that you do, where there is something about our bodies, our minds that can't be seen, joining together. Something powerful and beyond our ken. That makes the words come a little faster, the ideas easier, the writing better.

Believe it or not!

Writing As Practice

2010-04-27T09:11:00.004-05:00

That is the dining room. In the vases are crabapple blossoms(my mom always cut these branches and filled the house with them and I want to grow up and be just like her) and tulips. Soon there will be lilacs--my favorite! I can't wait. When the lilacs are in bloom is also when you can go to the woods to look for morel mushrooms! Delicious in butter and pretty in your hat (when you collect them, that is).

On to the real point of this post:

I am a member of a group of women that meet once a month and write together Natalie Goldberg style. We pick words and give ourselves 20 minutes to write and then read out aloud whatever crap we have written. I like that it takes away the preciousness of sitting down to write. The listeners tell what resonated with them. There is no pressure, no need to produce anything, it is like getting together to play tennis with less exercise, more wine and no competition.

At this point, I don't do it to gain skill, although at one point I did it because writing was one of the last things I ever did for myself. I needed the writing time for building confidence. Now I lead the full on writing life. And our writing practice meeting are an opportunity for me to write socially. (The practice room allows that too.) (More later this week on why writing socially works.) And I still love these get-togethers. It is terribly reassuring to have somebody writing next to you and know that we all put our pants on one foot at a time. Writers forget that when they look at finished (read fully dressed) products.

But it is one example of writing practice. Doing the writing for it’s own sake. Just because it is enjoyable. Just because your curious what will end up on the page. There is no means to an end, and I rarely look back to see what I got. I date the page and it remains in the notebook along with old grocery lists, inane notes about taxes and the things my son has to remember to bring to school. Last fall I ditched a bunch of these notebooks. Pages and pages of scribbling. C'est la vie.

Writing practice, just like any other kind of practice does help you get better, but that is not the reason you do it. You do it because it is what you do.

Mark Your Calendars

2010-04-25T19:43:00.001-05:00

So I wanted to post the unpluggings for this upcoming week. I meant to do it last Friday but the whole deal got away from me. First the recap on WIBIJ?! Then school carnival, volunteering to sell spirit wear (the whole event would benefit from alcohol and I'm quite certain the school would make more money) and a weekend away with the book club women(no lack of alcohol here). Now I am back and planning for the week.

From now on unplugging schedules will be posted on Fridays both here and at The Practice Room. And there will always be a link through The Practice Room door noting the schedule. If you want to know more about The Practice Room go here.

Here is next week's schedule based on my ideas of what might work for those who have shown interest and have let me know what might work.

Monday, April 26, 12-1pm EST.
Tuesday, April 27, 11am-12pm EST
Wednesday, April 28, 5-6pm EST (This one is for you, Casey!) (After 11pm in Greece??)
Thursday, April 29, 12-1pm EST
Thursday, April 29, 11pm-12am EST (This one is for you, Elana!) (Definitely late in Greece!)
Sunday, May 2, 11pm-12m EST (and this one!)

Special message for Ann Marie: Do any work for you? Is Greece seven hours later than eastern standard time?

I will not post the second or third post in the event no one can join me for the unpluggings!

A Post About Choking (or something)

2010-04-22T11:43:00.000-05:00

I like Jonah Lehrer. I wrote about his book before: How to Decide. I never read the whole thing through, perhaps if I did, it would be very helpful for the likes of me as I can be the indecisive sort. I am very good at seeing all sides of any situation. Often that is too much information.

Lehrer has gotten his share of flack because he has said that depression is helpful. What I think he was trying to do was depathologize depression. A valid endeavor I think! Showing that depression has a way of making us work for things and it is not at all abnormal for us to feel down (don't we writer's know that well). There is something to be said for this. Just as we need anxiety so we don't get killed by a lion, we also need depression to keep us real (I don't know really, what do you think the flip side of depression is? Lehrer says it pushes us to deal with complex problems.). But Lehrer blurred the lines of his argument by just saying depression is good. He perhaps has not worked with folks that are deeply stuck in their sadness where depression has seriously impaired their life. Just ask my hubby (he's a therapist).

But generally I find Leher's brain work, brilliant and encompassing. His recent article on how not to choke has helped me with many things. Starting up The Practice Room, even though it scared the heck out of me(it is going great though and has been a thrill). Getting through this recent block. Maybe this article will even help me get through reading my whole darn unfinished book. Nah!

I have a tendency to over think things, yes a tendency towards depression (good thing I live with a therapist. Thanks, honey!), but once I know the things, recognize the switch in my brain that needs to be turned off, I need to let myself get into the flow to fix it. 'Cause as we learned from my last post deliberate practice means pushing ourselves to work on the things that we don't know how to do. It is what makes us better at things. It is what Mozart did, Tiger Woods does all the time, and just look at Agatha Christie's notebooks! It is that switch from revision to drafting, polishing to practicing, choking to writing. As the Bhagavad Gita says: your right is the performance of actions, but not it's fruit. An interpretation of that is: using your gift is it's own satisfaction, so do what you do for it's own sake. It is simply part of your being.

Here is a quote from Jonah Lehrer:

There was a way to ward off choking. When the expert golfers[read "writers"] contemplated a holistic cue word[such as; smart funny fast, interesting], their performance was no longer affected by anxiety. Because the positive adjectives were vague and generic, they didn't cause the athletes[read "word-smiths"] to lose the flow of expert performance or overrule their automatic brain.

Off to try that out!

Unplugging Notices

2010-04-20T07:20:00.000-05:00

Two today (Tuesday April 20, 2010): 11 am eastern and 8 pm eastern. (Do both like me!)
Thursday: 12 am eastern.

Up coming unplugging plans: watch the schedule! I plan to host afternoon unpluggings and later evening ones (are you a midnight writer/illustrator/artist???). Put in your vote: do you want an early AM one??

Join us in The Practice Room (through the door on right). Read more about it here.

Do feel free to join us.

Real post tomorrow! I promise.