Work.

I have just submitted an application to be a remote "Generalist Intern" for a publishing house in New York City.

Is there any more self-effacing job title than this: Remote. Generalist. Intern.

What could possibly suggest more all-encompassing and yet, invisible, work?

Do not forget that interns transact work in an uneven exchange for no pay. Just for the experience.

Behold! This is a situation mothers know much about. Perhaps that, paired with my extensive love of the written word, will make me a perfectly suited candidate! I am not as grumpy about this as I sound.

As my favorite hockey player says: "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take." Thanks, Wayne Gretzky. I know nothing really, about ice hockey, but seem to be on similarly slippery ice.

Happy Weekend!

Open for (the) Business (of Sharing).

I am going to make this blog public. I have been mulling this over a lot in the past few days but a couple of articles I read last night really led me to this conclusion.

The Ethical Implications of the Parental Overshare
The Atlantic, author: Phoebe Maltz Bovy

Why I Write About My Daughter on the Internet
Huffington Post, author Lyz Lenz
 "Where is the line when someone elses' story ceases to be yours and becomes theirs?  If it happened to you it's your story. You need to tell your story and let others have the job of telling theirs." 

These articles have been bumping about in my mind today. Very interesting points brought up in both. It certainly gives voice to the nagging concerns I've had over the years about the privacy of those close to me, who may come up in my writing. And it gives me pause. 

I'm glad people are debating these things, pausing to think about them in our world, which seems to be moving so fast no one stops to think much about how it's brimming with narcissistic "me-ism" and TMI moments. We're all getting caught up in it in spite of our best intentions. It seems to be human nature.

To the above questions from Ms. Lenz's article (the second one linked above) I would add: "when do the minutiae of one's daily life or their musings cease to be interesting and perhaps even become cloying?" One can always switch the channel, as they say, but I'd like to think my work would be less about navel-gazing and more about pushing forth ideas in order to -- again -- get others thinking. For me, that's the best of what writing can do. It can get us to think about things we otherwise may not have. 

All this being said, everyone likes a little fluff now and again so there will likely be content on here occasionally that is not thought provoking nor trying to be. You have been warned! I am an avid fluff lover. All work and no play ... we all remember that scene from The Shining, right?

This is what I know:

• I am fiercely private but there’s no getting around the fact that I write to express my thoughts and I often feel I have something to “share.”

• Of all the blogs I've started, the one I got the most out of personally was the one I made public. I think I felt more compelled to write knowing I wasn’t ‘screaming out into an abyss.' It was satisfying to open myself up to others and I realized I was touching peoples’ lives, even if it was only for a few minutes a day.

• I need to write. Builders build houses with wood, concrete, brick. Cooks make things with vegetables and other ingredients. Painters use acrylic and canvas. And I make "things" with words. With context and syntax and nuance and metaphor and little black characters on white pages or screens. I will continue it regardless of whether I am sharing or not, so why not share? Am I a writer if I don't share, or am I merely a diarist? I would rather be the first of those two, though personal diaries certainly have their place. I trust myself to gauge where the line is between the revealing and the truly intimate, and to mind the gap between the two.

• The chances of becoming a published writer are near zilch if I don't share my work. I've always said this, yet found a reason to still hide behind a wall. I am a "late adopter" of the openness required to express myself widely, as successful writers do.

• I will not be everyone’s cup of tea. This, I need to keep reminding myself, is JUST FINE and a measure of taking risks and having an opinion. Some readers may not like me for reasons I can't understand. But is it really my job to understand? Perhaps, sometimes. But for the most part, a thick skin is required so I am toughening mine up.

• I will not overshare - because my life is entwined with lots of people I love dearly and they deserve privacy, even as I take a step outward with writing about my life. So I will be referring to people for the time being, anyway, in less than specific terms and not by name. There will be photos but this won't be an exposing forum for my kids, especially.

• I have the support and love of a lot of people who are fierce about encouraging me to take leaps when I feel I need to. Here is a quote shared among myself and some of my close friends today:

You've got to get to the stage in life where going for it is more important than winning or losing

wherever I am when you feel sick at heart and weary of life, or when you stumble and fall and don’t know if you can get up again, think of me. I will be watching and smiling and cheering you on

I have a close friend who also struggles with making her dreams real by making them more public. For an artist, the work is intensely personal and the self consciousness that informs this tentative stance is exactly what makes artists artists. However, the exposure raises the stakes because it makes you more accountable, and we all know it seems like a steeper fall when others are watching. I hope my doing this and reaching out toward a larger audience will encourage her to do so as well.

Want to join me? I am rolling out my Welcome mat.

Just Write: An Essay on the Craft.

I have often heard it said that in order to be a writer, “just write.” Is this truly how people distill arrival at this much desired destination?

“Just write.” No -- I say plan, envision, immerse, act, think, listen, research, talk, excavate, invert, subvert, mull over and reinvent. It is not sufficient to just write. Nor would I say is it possible without a certain very strong urge and commitment to do so. A life of isolation in your own thoughts and words, with no promise of compensation, validation or financial reward is tough on the ego. Never mind all the rejection one faces when finally ready to share their work with the world. I know people who seem more ready to admit to grave moral failings or remarkable lapses in judgement before they would venture to step out onto the limb of actually calling themselves (gasp) a writer. This is perplexing and sad because writers serve a very important purpose in culture and always have.

Liz Gilbert’s anecdote about “catching” that moment when one is visited by the fickle and fleeting inspiration or muse, captures some of the imprecision of this art.

One has not only to be poised, well read, practiced and ready when the muses visit, but motivated for the hard work it takes to render something worthwhile of the ideas. These ideas and inspirations often hit us in the middle of daily life when we are doing something like driving our children to school with nary a pencil nor scrap of paper in sight and no red lights to speak of to even be looking for such tools.

They rise like bubbles threatening to become lost in the ether, bursting while we are left searching the air blindly with our fingertips, seeking their imprint. They likely will resurface again in some iteration, somewhere, like long lost friends. And then we will know to repurpose our free moments -- force them if we must -- in order to extend a hand toward these much awaited visitors, grasp their hands firmly, give them their due attention, look them squarely in the eyes and say “it's nice to see you again.”

From there you will seek out a quiet spot, and listen to this revered guest as they spill forth their wisdom. When we lose an idea, it is as though the air has soaked up the good stuff and we are left swilling the aftermath of our own thoughts, the profuse yet fleeting backwash of our brilliant ideas. And nothing is more infuriating, exasperating, or really, more sad for people like us, who keep setting the table for a guest who doesn’t always show up because they keep getting lost on the way.

Writer is a persona: when writing, it is a mask you wear, a character you create if only to withstand the task of creating the work. Some refer to it as being a medium between the muse and the words. A certain sense of remove is what allows me the comfortable distance from which to spill my ideas less self consciously.

We are largely in our own worlds yet I promise you we are slaying dragons of self doubt and frustration behind closed doors.

As writers we absorb and observe the world and make sense of it with words. We love language and words, syntax and context, the playful way reordering words can subtly change meaning. We live in a soup of words that are streaming and echoing in our minds nonstop. We are ruthless observers, and as anyone with a writer friend knows, everyone is fair game, all is grist for the mill and you very well may show up in their writing -- be it veiled or not so veiled. And yes, there is a certain self-centeredness to the notion that all writers feel urgently that they have something important to say. You’ve been warned.

We are visionaries creating something out of many “nothings.” No one’s process is quite the same, yet the mechanics are. Pen to paper, voice into recorder, fingers on the keyboard. I heard writing described by author and playwright Claudia Dey as a ritual akin to taxidermy:

"I often liken it to taxidermy ... you comb the wilds of your world, you find a beast, you enter into a darkened room with this beast, you scissor up the middle, you take out everything that could rot it, and then you create a mannequin and you sew the skin back onto the mannequin. And the more time that you spend artfully enlivening (sic) this beast: so making eyes out of glass, and eyelids out of clay and a nose out of plastic and lips out of wax -- the more the beast comes to approximate life."

Does anyone truly believe that in order to be a writer you must “just write?” Is that all there is? On one level yes, it is the most basic act which defines the vocation / calling / art / profession / obsession.

But the title of writer is far more hard won than that advice suggests. I would say to a budding writer these things: read everything you can, everything that interests you and never stop. Don’t only let yourself gravitate to writing you admire or aspire to be like; push yourself further. Read poetry to learn about the meter of a sentence and the musicality of words. Read novels and essays. Read a lot. Analyze the structure and format of the writing that resonates with you and ponder how a piece that moved you achieved what it did. Always be on the hunt. Always be observing. Never go anywhere without a notepad and a couple of pens or pencils. Put your work aside when it isn’t resonating with you, like someone you love but just need time away from. There inside is something redeeming more often than not but you need perspective to see it.

As Tobias Wolff once said what is writing but “black marks on a page” and yet it has such weight for something so thin. The sum of those scratches can change someone’s life.

Saying just write and that will make you a writer is like saying simply bear a child and you will be a mother. No. It takes much more than that and it’s something you earn.

You also have to be a responsible steward of the gift if you are so lucky as to gain some talent  or recognition from all your hard work along the way. You have to be ready to receive the idea and channel it when it comes. I treat ideas as spirits or as one would handle a scared animal -- don’t look it in the eye or it may skitter off. Allow it to trust you, to get used to your scent and trust then approach. Be ready to receive. It could also be perceived as a commitment phobic lover, the one you’re infatuated with in secret -- the one you desperately want to know but don’t want to crowd. As in that case, give the idea time to breathe and yield to you. If you do, you will witness its approach. Is that a romantic enough view of writing for you?

Then there is the intersection between writer and reader. I think this is where the magic happens. That intersection is what validates the writing and perhaps therefore this is what makes the wordsmith -- toiling away in a vacuum -- a writer. The reader meets you halfway but there is no spark of connection if you do not open your heart and bravely let your writing out into the world for it to be acknowledged and consumed -- for it to touch someone else. A favorite poet of mine -- and someone with whom I've had the pleasure to sit around a table, sharing poetic works -- Billy Collins, once composed a poem called "Night Letter to the Reader" which is the equivalent of a silent nod to the one looking at his words, as if to say "I see you." He often addresses his reader directly. I stood silent when I heard him speak of this: what an intimate exchange, yet on such a large scale. Yet it is this very thing -- the tenuous but riveting connection -- the magic between a writer and reader.

Collins on the relationship between writers and readers

After all, isn’t that why writers write? To say something to someone? Because perhaps at some point in their life they, in an unguarded moment, were touched by something an author wrote, fell in love with words and decided they too wanted to pursue the craft? Are we writers if we are only writing for ourselves, or are we merely diarists, albeit with a bit more creative flair?

For a writer to be a writer, then, there are a constellation of things that align -- motivations, mechanics, skill, persistence, and making the writing public, among others.


originally composed: December 16, 2011

The Granules of Motherhood.

The Granules of Motherhood: Why This Blog?

Well, I finally did it -- I stopped being a bystanding wannabe, asking myself perplexing questions like “how do mothers find the time to start blogs?” and I took action and started one. I took a swan dive off the precipice of possibility and decided it was time (even if I rarely have any).

The name? I’ve been conjuring up imagery of Tibetan sand mandalas for a while now; and being amused at how they seem to symbolize for me what motherhood feels like these days. Sand mandalas are created with a single-minded devotion and fierce attention to detail. They are meticulously watched over and created, representing life and its transitory nature. There are days when it feels like motherhood and its various rote but rewarding machinations, though done with love and reverence, are as impermanent as the granules of sand in a mandala. It feels as if each day the slate is swept clean, for better or worse, and the only place to be is in the present moment, hoping and believing that each day you seize the opportunity to re-create something beautiful out of your own experience of motherhood.

August 4, 2006