I give inspirational talks to writing conferences all the time. I'm good at inspiration. One of my talks is called "Defeating Your Demons." In my advertisement for the talk I promise to silence all those terrible voices inside writers' heads, those voices that say that it's impossible to get published, that kids today don't read, that everything has already been said before. After hearing my rousing speech, writers in the audience are supposed to dash away, reinvigorated and restored, to WRITE!
It is time for me to give this talk to myself. I've just had a major, devastating rejection on a project that I've been working on for the past six months, a project that was VERY close to acceptance, or at least I thought that it was. And then: no go. This is on the heels of a rejection I received for another project, also the fruit of much toil, last fall. Oh, and this most recent book series was rejected for being "old fashioned" - just what an author at my stage in her career most doesn't want to hear, especially after she thought this idea was PARTICULARLY cutting edge.
This is what my demons are saying:
Your career is over.
You are washed up.
You are over the hill.
Even if you think of new ideas, they, too, will be old fashioned.
You don't even want to write books that are "edgy" or whatever the opposite is of old-fashioned.
There are thousands of books being published every year. Who needs yours?
Why is it so much easier to silence other people's demons than to silence my own?
Okay, sister, time for the Claudiaized version of the talk.
Your career is not over. In fact, the editors who rejected your work at both houses took pains to say that they want to work with you again, and SOON - just on a different project from the ones you've been working on. But still.
Besides, let's face it, those "six months" of work on this most recent project really was just a matter of weeks, if you eliminate all the non-writing time, and complaining time, and sheer idleness in between each writing stint.
You are not washed up and over the hill. Your books get good reviews. They receive some (modest) end-of-year distinctions. You get invited to cool places (like Warrensburg, Missouri, coolest of all!) to talk about them.
Old-fashioned books still win the hearts of readers, if they are done well enough. Just make your next old-fashioned book irresistible. That's not so hard to do!
There are thousands of books being published each year, so why NOT yours?
Besides, Miss Claudia, none of that is really to the point. What is the point? The point, my dear, is that you love to write. You are only happy when you are writing, particularly when you are writing in the early morning with a mug of hot chocolate beside you. Particularly when you are past the midpoint of a book. But you can't get to the middle without writing the first half. And you can't write the first half without writing the first page. And you can't write the first page without writing the first sentence.
All right. Turn off your computer. Get dressed. Walk to the Blue Door Cafe. Order hot chocolate. Drink it. Start writing. Go! Go! Go!
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Little Buddies
Today I met with a mentorship program on campus that brings elementary school students from nearby Cloverdale to spend the afternoon with college student mentors: little buddies and big buddies. One of the most motivated and wonderful students from my winter term class on children's book writing is an organizer of the program, and so I came at her invitation.
Although I speak regularly at elementary schools, I have to confess that I was surprised at how unused I am to being around so many kids in such an unstructured setting, without the constraints provided by school authorities. These kids had so much energy! So MUCH energy!!! Nadiyah asked me to talk to them for about ten minutes - which was plenty! - and then open the floor for questions, which I did.
The fun part came as they settled down - well, sort of settled down - to write and illustrate their own books. I circulated around the room, admiring their efforts. Some had long, complex stories dictated to their mentor/helper; some wrote the stories themselves and read them to me (a good thing, as I could never have guessed how what was written on the page corresponded to what was being read aloud).
One child decided to call her story "The Digging Dog" - great title! Then she asked me: "What should the first word be?"
The question caught me off guard. I spend a lot of time thinking, as all writers do, about what the first line or sentence of a story should be. I had never before thought about what the first WORD should be. She settled finally on "Once." That is certainly a time-honored first word! I had to leave before she decided on the second word.
No one ever said that writing was easy. We writers have to come up with word after word after word after word. I don't know if I helped these little buddy writers today to make it any easier. But it was fun to watch one young writer giving every word so much thought and loving care.
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Chocolate Fountain
I was already having a very pleasant Valentine's Day. Unexpected flowers arrived from a friend, delivered to my Prindle Institute office, to congratulate me on making the Chicago Public Library best-of-the-best children's book list for 2011, and there is nothing like the squealing fun of having flowers appear on the morning of February 14th. I enjoyed reading everybody's Valentine posts on Facebook. Email brought the announcement of the birth of a dear friend's baby, so now she has two little boys. Class went well.
Then, as I was leaving class, I was accosted by a faculty member who works at the DePauw Writing Center; she was standing outside the center door to invite everyone in for their Valentine's Day open house. Of course I accepted the invitation, only to behold a table covered with adorable little pink cupcakes, miniature brownies, and a CHOCOLATE FOUNTAIN, surrounded by plates of dippable objects: strawberries, pink and white marshmallows, bite-sized chunks of angel food cake.
Not only did I dip away merrily myself, I became the chief recruiting officer for the chocolate fountain. I ran down to the political science office and brought Deepa and Krista back with me. I ran up to the philosophy department office to share the news with colleagues there. I bumped into Lili from creative writing on the stairs: did she want to come see the chocolate fountain? Indeed, she did. I think I made four visits to it all in all.
The day finished up with session two of my Cheshire Calhoun reading group, this time discussing her essay, "The Virtue of Civility." I supplemented the usual wine and cheese and other munchies with a heart-shaped box of Russell Stover chocolates and a bowl of those little conversation hearts (which I can't stop eating). No chocolate fountain, but maybe four trips to the chocolate fountain were enough for one very happy Valentine's Day.
Then, as I was leaving class, I was accosted by a faculty member who works at the DePauw Writing Center; she was standing outside the center door to invite everyone in for their Valentine's Day open house. Of course I accepted the invitation, only to behold a table covered with adorable little pink cupcakes, miniature brownies, and a CHOCOLATE FOUNTAIN, surrounded by plates of dippable objects: strawberries, pink and white marshmallows, bite-sized chunks of angel food cake.
Not only did I dip away merrily myself, I became the chief recruiting officer for the chocolate fountain. I ran down to the political science office and brought Deepa and Krista back with me. I ran up to the philosophy department office to share the news with colleagues there. I bumped into Lili from creative writing on the stairs: did she want to come see the chocolate fountain? Indeed, she did. I think I made four visits to it all in all.
The day finished up with session two of my Cheshire Calhoun reading group, this time discussing her essay, "The Virtue of Civility." I supplemented the usual wine and cheese and other munchies with a heart-shaped box of Russell Stover chocolates and a bowl of those little conversation hearts (which I can't stop eating). No chocolate fountain, but maybe four trips to the chocolate fountain were enough for one very happy Valentine's Day.
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
A Conversation with Ian Frazier
Acclaimed author Ian Frazier - New Yorker writer for decades and author of many books including Great Plains, On the Rez, and his memoir Family - is here at DePauw for two weeks as a visiting distinguished professor of creative writing and writer-in-residence. Last night I organized an event out at the Prindle Institute as part of our year-long series of events built around the theme of "the ethics of life writing." For an hour, Ian sat with me and my colleague from creative writing Peter Graham by the Prindle fireplace to field questions about the ethical challenges involved in writing about one's own family.
He said that his family had saved so much memorabilia from their lives together - everything from huge quantities of letters to old pieces of farm equipment - that he had the sense that they wanted, or at least expected, that he would do something with it. He said that he writes only about what he loves, and that when you're writing from love, that love is going to illuminate what you write and usually ends up making others feel glad that their lives were recorded in that way. He said that the high school girlfriend whom he wrote about in one chapter had her lawyer (!) ensure that she read not only the parts about her, but the whole entire book, before giving it her blessing. He said that a writer has to balance the importance of some episode or observation to the book as a whole against the possible pain it might cause to those depicted in it. He said that he wrote about his recently deceased parents with the goal of restoring to them what they had lost in their late-life decline, and to give their lives meaning.
It was a wonderful hour of discussion - he's not only wise, but hilariously funny - and well attended, too (perhaps 65 people in the audience, from the community as well as from the campus). The little sandwiches I ordered from Treasures on the Square were very tasty. The predicted snow didn't materialize until people were safely home. Altogether, a most successful evening!
He said that his family had saved so much memorabilia from their lives together - everything from huge quantities of letters to old pieces of farm equipment - that he had the sense that they wanted, or at least expected, that he would do something with it. He said that he writes only about what he loves, and that when you're writing from love, that love is going to illuminate what you write and usually ends up making others feel glad that their lives were recorded in that way. He said that the high school girlfriend whom he wrote about in one chapter had her lawyer (!) ensure that she read not only the parts about her, but the whole entire book, before giving it her blessing. He said that a writer has to balance the importance of some episode or observation to the book as a whole against the possible pain it might cause to those depicted in it. He said that he wrote about his recently deceased parents with the goal of restoring to them what they had lost in their late-life decline, and to give their lives meaning.
It was a wonderful hour of discussion - he's not only wise, but hilariously funny - and well attended, too (perhaps 65 people in the audience, from the community as well as from the campus). The little sandwiches I ordered from Treasures on the Square were very tasty. The predicted snow didn't materialize until people were safely home. Altogether, a most successful evening!
Monday, February 13, 2012
Addiction
I have been stuck in my writing of late, withering from want of encouragement from the great world beyond, wishing I would get more reviews of my Mason Dixon series, wishing I would get some end-of-year distinction for the THREE books I had published last year, wishing I would get an invitation to somewhere alluring, wishing I would hear from a certain editor about a certain project.
Then last night, while I was wasting time on Facebook, I saw that the Children's Book Guild of Washington, D.C., had posted a link to the Chicago Public Library's recently issued list of the "Best of the Best" children's books of 2011, because two Guild members were on the list. I am a member of that organization, even though I haven't lived in the D.C. area for over two decades now. So I clicked on it to see the names of my two Guild member friends, and when I did, I had the nice surprise of seeing my own Fractions = Trouble! as one of the featured titles (easily overlooked by the Facebook poster, as nonresident members can be out of sight and out of mind). Good news at last! I posted my own little Facebook brag; as of this writing some 72 Facebook friends have "liked" my post.
Yay, I thought! I got my little fix of fame! I got my little whispered word of encouragement from the universe! Now I was ready to write!
Alas, all I've done today is surf the Internet to see if I can find MORE little fixes of fame, MORE whispered words of encouragement. Like an alcoholic who has that one fatal swig of hooch, I've reawakened a ferocious thirst.
This is not good.
I need to stop this. I need to write something for its own sake, for the sheer joy of putting words on paper. I need to do this because I am a writer, and writers write. If I can't write a chapter, I can write a page. I can write a poem. I can make notes in my creativity journal. I can write this blog! (I can always write this blog!). No more self-Googling! I'm going to stick my fingers in my ears, and if the universe has anything else to whisper to me, it will have to wait until I'm ready to give it my attention, because as of this minute, I am going to be too busy writing even to notice.
Then last night, while I was wasting time on Facebook, I saw that the Children's Book Guild of Washington, D.C., had posted a link to the Chicago Public Library's recently issued list of the "Best of the Best" children's books of 2011, because two Guild members were on the list. I am a member of that organization, even though I haven't lived in the D.C. area for over two decades now. So I clicked on it to see the names of my two Guild member friends, and when I did, I had the nice surprise of seeing my own Fractions = Trouble! as one of the featured titles (easily overlooked by the Facebook poster, as nonresident members can be out of sight and out of mind). Good news at last! I posted my own little Facebook brag; as of this writing some 72 Facebook friends have "liked" my post.
Yay, I thought! I got my little fix of fame! I got my little whispered word of encouragement from the universe! Now I was ready to write!
Alas, all I've done today is surf the Internet to see if I can find MORE little fixes of fame, MORE whispered words of encouragement. Like an alcoholic who has that one fatal swig of hooch, I've reawakened a ferocious thirst.
This is not good.
I need to stop this. I need to write something for its own sake, for the sheer joy of putting words on paper. I need to do this because I am a writer, and writers write. If I can't write a chapter, I can write a page. I can write a poem. I can make notes in my creativity journal. I can write this blog! (I can always write this blog!). No more self-Googling! I'm going to stick my fingers in my ears, and if the universe has anything else to whisper to me, it will have to wait until I'm ready to give it my attention, because as of this minute, I am going to be too busy writing even to notice.
Sunday, February 12, 2012
A Day Spent Reading
It turned bitter cold here this weekend. I took advantage of the weather to spend my entire day yesterday doing what I might love best in the world - even more than writing? - well, almost as much as writing: reading.
I forced myself out of my nice warm bed in the morning and headed over to the Blue Door Cafe. I sat there for two hours, over hot chocolate and "breakfast casserole," reading Cheshire Calhoun's paper, "The Virtue of Civility," for our reading group on Tuesday night, as well as getting through ten more ten-paged submissions for the Undergraduate Ethics Symposium - papers on topics such as the dearth of legal services for the indigent in New York City, arguments against penalizing "poor lifestyle choice" in the context of health care provision, benefits to Muslim women of wearing hijab, and removal of exotic species from public lands.
Home again, I got back into my nice warm bed and stayed there for the next seven hours. I read all of Nick Hornby's hilarious/disturbing novel, How to Be Good. I read three (short) children's books I'm going to be reviewing. I read the first four essays in Edwidge Danticat's collection, Create Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist at Work.
In The Writing Life, Annie Dillard says, "Who would call a day spent reading a good day? But a life spent reading -- that is a good life.” She's right about her second point: a life spent reading is a good life. But she's wrong about her first point. Who would call a day spent reading a good day? I would!
I forced myself out of my nice warm bed in the morning and headed over to the Blue Door Cafe. I sat there for two hours, over hot chocolate and "breakfast casserole," reading Cheshire Calhoun's paper, "The Virtue of Civility," for our reading group on Tuesday night, as well as getting through ten more ten-paged submissions for the Undergraduate Ethics Symposium - papers on topics such as the dearth of legal services for the indigent in New York City, arguments against penalizing "poor lifestyle choice" in the context of health care provision, benefits to Muslim women of wearing hijab, and removal of exotic species from public lands.
Home again, I got back into my nice warm bed and stayed there for the next seven hours. I read all of Nick Hornby's hilarious/disturbing novel, How to Be Good. I read three (short) children's books I'm going to be reviewing. I read the first four essays in Edwidge Danticat's collection, Create Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist at Work.
In The Writing Life, Annie Dillard says, "Who would call a day spent reading a good day? But a life spent reading -- that is a good life.” She's right about her second point: a life spent reading is a good life. But she's wrong about her first point. Who would call a day spent reading a good day? I would!
Friday, February 10, 2012
Dread and Delight
Yesterday I wrote about the knot that I have in the pit of my stomach on the days that I have to teach. Today I want to record the flip side of that: the exhilaration that comes when teaching goes well.
My class yesterday went very well, in my own humble opinion. I have never before taught a class with such a diverse population of students, including a woman from Ghana, a woman from South Korea, a woman from Tokyo, an African-American woman, a Latina woman, as well as students from different disciplines (philosophy, biology, politics, science, women's studies). And even, in this class on Feminism and the Family, one male.
On Tuesday we had gone around the room and generated our own definitions of the family, ranging from "a group of people who live together related by blood or legal ties" to "a group of people joined together by commitment and love." We did this in the context of discussing an essay by Linda Nicholson on what she calls the myth of the "traditional family." Yesterday we talked about what families are "for" - what purposes do they serve for their members and for the wider political community? - as a way of engaging the debate between political theorists William Galston and Iris Marion Young about the degree to which certain family forms (e.g., the "intact" two-parent family) achieve these purposes better than alternative arrangements. Lots of people talked. The time flew by (at least for me - but believe me, if it drags for me, it drags even more for my students). I was happy about the class for the rest of the afternoon.
It's strange how I dread Tuesdays and Thursdays, when I teach, and look forward to MWF, which offer me wide open meadowlike spaces to write, read, work, cross all kinds of other tasks off my list, and yet I'm almost always ecstatic on Tuesdays and Thursdays, from having class go well, whereas I often sit paralyzed on MWF: I have so much that I should be doing, but nothing that absolutely has to be done TODAY, that I sit at my desk unable to make myself do anything.
Anything except for my blog, of course!
I don't know what to conclude from this. Maybe that structure is good, that real deadlines (like having to walk in the door of Asbury 112 at 12:40 and teach that class) are motivating. I need to try to trick myself into imposing more restrictions on my non-teaching days. I do find that I get more done on those days if rather than facing my hundred-item to-do list, I tell myself: just do this ONE SMALL THING, but ACTUALLY DO IT. So now I need to come up with my one small thing for today. It should either be: 1) start reading the 68 10-page submissions that I have to assess between now and February 20 for our Undergraduate Ethics Symposium - read at least ten of them today, or maybe at least five, or maybe just make myself open the zip file and read at least ONE: or 2) spend at least one hour on the paper I'm supposed to be contributing to a volume called Philosophy in Schools: An Introduction for Philosophers and Teachers - my chapter is supposed to be on "philosophical children's literature for middle school." For some reason I'm stuck on this, maybe because I just wrote something similar for a volume called Philosophy and Education: Introducing Philosophy to Young People and so I have to find a way not to repeat myself. Either one of those tasks would do. The one that is stressing me most right now is the book chapter, so I should do just ONE HOUR on that. Or even half an hour. Or even fifteen minutes.
And then dread will turn into delight. And the rest of my life will be happy forever. That's how I feel on Tuesdays and Thursdays after my class. That's how I want to feel today.
My class yesterday went very well, in my own humble opinion. I have never before taught a class with such a diverse population of students, including a woman from Ghana, a woman from South Korea, a woman from Tokyo, an African-American woman, a Latina woman, as well as students from different disciplines (philosophy, biology, politics, science, women's studies). And even, in this class on Feminism and the Family, one male.
On Tuesday we had gone around the room and generated our own definitions of the family, ranging from "a group of people who live together related by blood or legal ties" to "a group of people joined together by commitment and love." We did this in the context of discussing an essay by Linda Nicholson on what she calls the myth of the "traditional family." Yesterday we talked about what families are "for" - what purposes do they serve for their members and for the wider political community? - as a way of engaging the debate between political theorists William Galston and Iris Marion Young about the degree to which certain family forms (e.g., the "intact" two-parent family) achieve these purposes better than alternative arrangements. Lots of people talked. The time flew by (at least for me - but believe me, if it drags for me, it drags even more for my students). I was happy about the class for the rest of the afternoon.
It's strange how I dread Tuesdays and Thursdays, when I teach, and look forward to MWF, which offer me wide open meadowlike spaces to write, read, work, cross all kinds of other tasks off my list, and yet I'm almost always ecstatic on Tuesdays and Thursdays, from having class go well, whereas I often sit paralyzed on MWF: I have so much that I should be doing, but nothing that absolutely has to be done TODAY, that I sit at my desk unable to make myself do anything.
Anything except for my blog, of course!
I don't know what to conclude from this. Maybe that structure is good, that real deadlines (like having to walk in the door of Asbury 112 at 12:40 and teach that class) are motivating. I need to try to trick myself into imposing more restrictions on my non-teaching days. I do find that I get more done on those days if rather than facing my hundred-item to-do list, I tell myself: just do this ONE SMALL THING, but ACTUALLY DO IT. So now I need to come up with my one small thing for today. It should either be: 1) start reading the 68 10-page submissions that I have to assess between now and February 20 for our Undergraduate Ethics Symposium - read at least ten of them today, or maybe at least five, or maybe just make myself open the zip file and read at least ONE: or 2) spend at least one hour on the paper I'm supposed to be contributing to a volume called Philosophy in Schools: An Introduction for Philosophers and Teachers - my chapter is supposed to be on "philosophical children's literature for middle school." For some reason I'm stuck on this, maybe because I just wrote something similar for a volume called Philosophy and Education: Introducing Philosophy to Young People and so I have to find a way not to repeat myself. Either one of those tasks would do. The one that is stressing me most right now is the book chapter, so I should do just ONE HOUR on that. Or even half an hour. Or even fifteen minutes.
And then dread will turn into delight. And the rest of my life will be happy forever. That's how I feel on Tuesdays and Thursdays after my class. That's how I want to feel today.
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