Talking to Your Readers

Next to actually having a good day of writing, what could be better than getting to talk to your readers or potential readers. So that makes last night, my first time of book reading, signing and selling at the Westwood Library a fully great experience.

Even when you say you're not nervous, the prospect of being alone in a room when you're hoping to read to the public is daunting. It conjures up every memory of a time when you were stood up or ignored starting back with grade school, when your second grade crush walked right by you without a glance.

But life has a way of evening the score sometimes, so there I was watching the room fill up with both strangers and the friends who surprised me by coming. You get to qvell about your characters, hoping people will find them as interesting as you did for so many years of your life. When they sit there, listening, quiet and attentive, then ask intelligent questions, well is there anything better? Not for a writer there isn't.

And when they come up and plunk their moneys down in order to buy a copy, that's just the cherry on the whipped cream on top of the cake. And not fattening either. It's definitely a good day. And it makes the next writing project seem a little bit more validating, as you sweat over the research, the characters that become frozen, the drama that doesn't feel dramatic.

Such is the joys of writing!

Woman Writer On the Stage with Ed Asner, Keith Carradine, Fran Dresher, etc.

No one but could ever say I had a career in the theater, even though I spent several years in New York studying with Herbert Berghof, Bill Hickey, Lee Strasberg, Allan Miller, also appearing in strange little venues, where the director would come back and say, "Tonight we're doing one for ourselves, kids!" That was because there was more of us on stage than in the audience. Still once, someone came up to me at concert at Cooper Union and told me they had enjoyed me in a play I had been in, so you never know.

But anyway, this weekend I had a taste of being on stage again, as I volunteered to help my friend Stephanie with a festival of play-readings she produced (including two of her own) which benefitted the WGA Support Fund helping non-writers who were affected by the strike. I thought it would be just narrating the stage directions in one or two plays, but it turned out to be all six of them, both days, all day starting with rehearsals in the morning. Geez, I forgot how tired you can get just sitting talking. But the plays were fun and serious and poignant and poetic. People who didn't see it and didn't know about it missed a great weekend of theater. How often does a complete unknown get to share the stage with Ed Asner, Keith Carradine, Ralph Waite, Frances Fisher, Melanie Mayron and Fran Drescher. It made me want to write something theatrical, as well as getting back into my novel.

Oh lord, I'm running out of excuses as to why I'm not writing. Discipline, self-discipline, strict daily discipline. It doesn't count if you only think about writing, only if you sit down and write. Janet Fitch always told us it was a muscle which needed to be exercised every day. So I'm off to write. You too, I hope.

Woman Writer Abroad in the World of Pre-Owned Cars

I'm feeling very pleased with myself today but unfortunately it has nothing to do with writing. I had decided to get a new car, actually a pre-owned one. Notice how no one calls it "used" anymore, it's pre-owned. And for that privilege they charge more. However, as much as I have loved all my Volvos (3), especially the ones that safely crumpled after being hit, I decieded that a Prius, which gets about 45 miles to the gallon, might be the better part of valor, with gas prices surging upwards (thank you President Bush). But buying or even looking at cars is not my thing. First of all I know very little about cars and I always feel that I'm being taken. Bargaining or negotiating is also not my thing because I know I'm being taken.

Still I really think I did okay this time. I knew that Priuses were good, Toyota is good (my first two cars were Toyotas) and I checked out on the internet, what the "pre-owned" ones went for. Then I kept saying no until they came down, agreed to let me test drive the car all weekend, and then the next day agreed to lower the price yet again. I still feel that they must have taken me, because they gave in, but the car drives well and I'm happy, so what the hell. Writers aren't negotiators, they can't do math as Janet Fitch used to say, but with a fully loaded car, 45 miles to the gallon, how miserable should I be!

(Someday I'm going to faint dead away because someone will have actually read my blog and left a comment, even harsh criticism would be welcome. Well, not too harsh).

Woman Writer Abroad in the World

I actually remember the excitement when JFK was President and the horror when he was asssassinated. So I understand the feelings of young voters who think they've discovered someone new, like Sen. Obama, but I also know how extraordinary it is to have a woman candidate up for the office. I'm sorry that the Clinton campaign didn't speak more to that landmark opportunity. Obama keeps saying how he doesn't want to inject race into his campaign, which of course immediately injects it, so I wish Hillary had talked about how women are still dismissed and denigrated (just look at the way the media has referred to her as opposed to anyone else in the race). She sneezes and it's dissected, Obama can only walk on water. People are human, they want to jump on the bandwagon if they think it might be a winning one, issues be damned. She good, she's smart, she just doesn't have the speaker quality that he has. They made fun of Al Gore because of his lack of charisma and look what happened to us. And he actually won! I just hope that Obama is full of smoke and mirrors because our country can't go down any lower on the scale than it has with the Bushies.

According to Karen Syed, CEO of Echelon Publishing, promoting your writing could be a fulltime job, and the most important one, if you want to sell books. At the past weeekend conference of the SoCalWritersConference in San Diego, I was bombarded by information and ideas on how to market your book. People were there with business cards, post cards, stand ups, bookmarks - all promoting their book. Some would collar you to tell you about their book and not so subtly suggest that you buy it. I felt like a waif, totally unprepared to do any of that. And I'm a former publicist (and was a very good one too!)

Karen stressed that you have to be shameless if necessary to get your book sold. Nothing illegal or illicit, but everything else in between. Putting my book along with dozens of others on a table that was crammed together was not the way to get sales. Not being a speaker or a group leader also relegated me to an unknown position. Still the weekend, in addition to give me the chance to meet Karen and some other agents, especially Adrienne Rosado of PMA Mgt. That and being surrounded by nothing but people who care about writing and reading - a great opportunity.
Now I have to get back to writing, BUT save time every day for some kind of internet push. Oh God, if only I were twelve years old, so it didn't all seem so overwhelming.

This has been a great week for the writer mode, not so much on the writing mode. I did two interviews, one phoner and one tv interview. I found out how much fun it was sitting and talking about myself, my book, my writing, my approach. my, my, me,me. me. My clients used to complain about having to do interviews. I think they lied, it's really fun! (Of course I haven't had the nerve to watch the tv interview. All those lines and dark circles, ugh.)

But writing is really the job of a writer and it's time to get back to a schedule of doing it. Just as soon as I return from the Southern CA Writiers Conference this weekend in San Diego. Then it's sitting at the computer and trying to push the new book along. I got some ideas at the UCLA workshop about character, but not so much about plot. It's hard having one without the other. More research should also help. Creating new worlds for your characters is exhausting work and the more details about what they saw, smelled, touched, wore, ate, - all these specifics are so important. But it still isn't story, just the grounding of story.

Someone in the UCLA class insisted that when she gets stuck she dreams the next part. Me, I'm lucky if I remember anything when I wake up. But maybe tonight will be the lucky dream.

Wow! After four days of intensive workshopping at UCLA, I both exhausted and jazzed. There's nothing like focusing on nothing but writing, surrounded by nothing but writers, which to jumpstart the creative processes.

First of all, I was lucky, being in a small class which had such diverse voices, but all interesting and engaging. Secondly, our instructor, Noel Alumit, (wrote "Letters to Montgomery Clift" and "Talking to the Moon") is a well-recognized novelist, who is giving and caring about the students. Thirdly, he brought in Sandra Zane, a literary agent from Global Literary Management, who also seems to care about writers, writing, reading, good work - along with all the rest of the business aspects. But she did remind us, as I've heard many times before, first page, even the first page of your work, as well as your query letter, most important words you might ever write. As a publicist, you always knew that an editor would give you ten seconds to engage their interest, make it work. (Now of course with emails, you probably don't get that much time before the delete button is engaged.)

Also, the class reminded me how much exercises can help in getting the creative processes going. Even those which don't seem directly connected to your work. It all feeds in and besides you can always find a way to use it for the work if you are truy open to new possibilities.

Okay, after four days non-stop, I have to go lie down and take a nap.
More later.