I Don’t Want to Go: Running Away or Running Towards

I was seventeen and had recently performed in our high school play. A fellow cast member approached me one day and told me his brother (who went to a different high school) had seen me in the play and would like to go out with me. He then took out a family photo and pointed to his brother. I looked at the boy in the picture and facetiously said something like, “Hubba hubba”.  The guy in the picture was cute but I had no desire to go out with him. However, I felt uncomfortable rejecting the idea outright, and thus it was that the guy was given the OK to call me.

And he did. I was chatty and friendly, though resistant, and we set a place and time for meeting. As luck would have it, it snowed heavily right before our date and I used this as an excuse for canceling. But the boy rescheduled. I did not want to go, but I did. It was raining that day. I wore my raincoat with the hood up and waited for him outside the frozen yogurt place. While dragging him on a hunt to buy a present for someone, I talked a lot, occasionally allowing him to participate.

We returned to my house and stood outside. I reached out to shake his hand – a cordial and professional thank you and goodbye. He said he would leave it to me whether we got together again. Later, I wrote in my journal that he was a good guy and that he’d left it to me, which I appreciated and would not be acting upon. But he persisted. We got together many times after that. About ten years later, that guy and I married.

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Jennifer ParosComment
Rekindling the Flame: How I Found My Way Back to Writing Fiction

I wish I could say it started in the Bodleian. Before you can go into the reading room and page through Oxford’s oldest, rarest books, they make you swear not to “kindle therein any fire or flame.” You read the Bodleian Oath off a slip of laminated paper with a library staff member watching you, and it feels faintly ridiculous, but also solemn, like you’ve become a liegeman or a bride. They call it a vow of “allegiance,” as if literature itself were a sovereign nation, and they print it on tote bags and tea towels you can buy at the gift shop.

I can see why a reader would want to own a piece of that memory. Saying the words made me want to laugh nervously, and maybe I did, but I also felt transformed. That’s why I wish I could claim that I wrote the first few lines of a story there – because the inspiration lit up my brain like a tongue of flame, in that book-lined sanctum where no other fire was allowed.

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William KenowerComment
Happy Surprises: Learning to Cooperate With the Unknown

I cannot remember which birthday it was; I think I was turning thirteen. Unbeknownst to me, my Mom was attempting to orchestrate a small surprise on my behalf. I remember my friend Wendy asking me to go somewhere in a manner that seemed out of the norm. My antennae went up; it felt as though I was being covertly steered. Things were happening, behind the scenes, over which I had no control. I became uncomfortable and resistant. The thing is – I liked birthdays and I trusted my friends and family. It was a knee-jerk reaction: I wanted to know what was going on. In the end, due to my lack of cooperation and hyper-awareness, I effectively ruined my own surprise.

On the other hand, as a child, I once hid a dollar in hopes I’d forget where it was and happily discover it later. When I eventually did find the dollar, even though I’d forgotten about it, the experience was lackluster. Having engineered my own surprise, I just knew too much. It’s those incalculable factors – in life and in story telling – that make things so interesting and joyful. I had wanted the delight a surprise can bring but without any of the unknowns and uncertainties. As the years have gone by, I still can’t consider myself an embracer of surprise. But recently, I encountered a surprise that made me think about them differently.

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Jennifer ParosComment
Caveat Scriptor: Let the Writer Beware

I felt my skin clawed off by the writing instructor and five strangers, all of them “helping.”

Under the bright interrogation lights of the workshop table, I watched her mouth say braggy, superficial and elitist. I reeled from each verbal punch, getting foggier as she continued. Did she just say spoiled? Trust fund? No, no, no. This can’t be right. That wasn’t what I wrote. Like a boxer down for the count, I struggled to hang on, absorbing each blow and trying not to tear up. “Does anyone else have a problem with the word diva?” Heads nodded all around. “Why should we care about these women?”

My piece was about life as a single woman working overseas. I tried to show that, while it sounds glamorous to have an interesting job traveling to far-flung places, there is difficulty and loneliness in being cut off from traditional support networks. My friends and I paid a high price for the benefits of such a life. I hoped my essay was quirky and funny, and that it conveyed how we created a global support group. I hoped readers would relate to these women and recognize the universality of friendship, even in unusual circumstances. They didn’t.

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William Kenower Comments
The Story of My Life

In my junior year of college, I enrolled in a creative nonfiction workshop without fully understanding even what the title of the course meant. Back then, I fiercely identified as a fiction writer, and had already completed a draft of a novel. When I wanted to write about real-life people, I disguised them as fictional characters with a couple of borrowed personality traits or lines of dialogue.

I never addressed events in my life directly in my writing. I never pictured myself writing anything close to an essay in which I exposed my own thoughts and feelings about real people and real places, or, least of all, reflected on myself.

How can I be creative, but still tell the truth? Aren’t those goals contradictory?

I flipped through the syllabus to see the topics we would be writing about that semester. The place you call home. A color. A time you were othered. A time you were expected to do something because of your gender. How you reckon with the outside world.

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William Kenower Comment
You are the Important Part: The Power of Our Interest

When I was a child, my mother took me shopping for shoes. I tried on a pair; she pressed on the toes, squeezed the sides, and instructed me to walk around the store. Then she asked, “Will you wear them?”  I stared down at my feet, hoping to find the answer there. The question was difficult. What if, for some reason, I did not wear them? It seemed important - maybe too important. And that importance weighed on me. The more I pondered the question under the dominant influence of my mother’s interest and concern, the more tentative I became.

 During my school years, I believed almost everything was important. In high school, I had trouble sleeping for a year because of that belief. There is a way to redefine importance so it doesn’t lead to indecision, insecurity, manic behavior and/or sleep deprivation. Focusing on interest more than importance can put us in a naturally engaged, unpressured position. For most of high school I didn’t think I was interested in anything. In truth, I was focusing so much on assignments and grades and so little on what was compelling to me, I didn’t even realize just how interested I was. I had accidentally taken myself out of the equation.

 Our human minds are capable of making us feel wobbly about almost anything, and the story of importance sets the stage for just how much we wobble. A so-called important decision is much harder to make than a seemingly unimportant one. And we believe things are important when we think our happiness is somehow on the line, and that the power to be happy lies outside of us.

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Jennifer ParosComment
Glossophobia

My late dad used to say: “The best gift you can be given is the ability to see yourself as others see you.”  I’m not so sure.

A writers’ organization asked me to speak at their annual conference on penning the personal essay.  For ten years, I’ve composed non-fiction narratives with inspirational messages, usually intended for magazines – secular and religious – and for anthologies, especially the well-known Chicken Soup for the Soul series.

Although gingerly hesitant at first, I eventually consented to give my dog & pony show, which would include a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation, something I’d never created. Before this moment, I’d spoken to a few book clubs, small writers’ groups, a Rotary gathering (with polite applause), and a sorority meeting for teachers, where many didn’t seem overly interested. I’d been a high school teacher, an instructor for OLLI’s continuing education, and a lecturer at a Rescue Mission, but I’d not performed on stage in front of a crowd of more than 100 real writers, who had paid money to hear me pontificate on the scribbler’s art.

I was nervous. When asked if I’d mind being filmed for YouTube, I declared, “Yes, I do mind.”

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Let the Story Unfold: The Dangers of Seeking Answers Too Soon

For many years, whenever my husband went out and was the slightest bit late in returning, my youngest son would inevitably declare, “He’s dead.”  It wasn’t just his father; he routinely came to this conclusion regardless of the person or circumstances. He was also quick to diagnose physical symptoms as cancer or, less specifically, something terminal.  When we watched movies together, at the start of every film he would question why a character was upset or happy, ask what had happened, or demand explanations for just about everything. We encouraged him to wait and allow the story to unfold. There simply wasn’t enough information available to answer. But he continued asking – striving to pin things down that were still in the process of unfolding.

 

Watching my son rush toward answers (even unwanted and wrong ones) sheds light on how my own preoccupation with solutions and outcomes takes me out of the flow and into anxiety. I might believe it’s the unknown that’s causing my angst but, in truth, labeling uncertainties as “problems,” as well as the urgency to fix them, creates the distress and unease.

 

A bud needs time to open. There is no manual or mechanical method for expediting that process. It has to happen on its own using the natural intelligence that knows how to bloom. Noodling with it won’t help and most likely will hurt. We don’t call a bud a problem because it has yet to bloom. An experience can also be seen similarly – as in progress, in the process of blooming into the next thing. This is a less stressful way of receiving life and keeps us working with things rather than trying to fix them.  

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Jennifer Paros Comment
Tiny Seed of Confidence: Leaving Pressure and “Overwhelm” Behind

When I first started art school it wasn’t uncommon for me to periodically melt down. I perceived myself as under great pressure – time-wise and creatively – and feared I wouldn’t be able to pull it all together. With my focus fixated on external conditions and demands, I had a hard time functioning well. I was staring at aspects of my reality as though they were parts of a thousand-piece puzzle I had to assemble in ten minutes. My mind jumped from one piece to the next saying, “I don’t know where this one goes; I don’t know where that one goes; I don’t know . . .” I felt insecure and overwhelmed because confidence is an inside job and cannot be known while our attention remains outwardly fixed.

 

Sometimes I was so overwhelmed I’d get in the shower and weep. Afterwards, I’d wash up on the shore of my bed, and then, soon . . . get up and do the assignment. Post panic, I allowed myself to return to ideas and inspirations, and use my inner (rather than outer) vision. In this way, I reunited with confidence. I didn’t gain confidence by forcing myself into action, but by letting my focus shift back to me – breaking the spell of external demands. 

 

In an interview, comedian and late-night host Conan O’Brien spoke of suffering from intense anxiety (a familial trait) all his life.  He said there’s one thing that has always gotten him through.  “At my very core there is this tiny little seed of pure confidence . . . It’s sometimes hard for me to find . . . but it’s there.”  It’s common to think we need a lot of confidence to create what we want, in which case feeling confident can seem impossible, but a seed is actually plenty.  And when we know confidence exists at the core of who we are, then we know where to look for it, as well as where it cannot be found.

 

I watched video in which a five-year-old boy at a karate dojo tried to break a board with a kick. His teacher coached him, but the boy fell down the first time he tried. The boy kicked again but did not use enough force. He cried and rubbed his eyes. The rest of the children cheered him on by chanting his name.  He continued to cry. The teacher reminded him he could do it. The boy tried again and failed, but then, in a split second, something in his countenance and attitude changed and his next kick broke the board.  The children cheered, ran in, and hugged him. Though surrounded by encouragement and support, it was his internal shift that was key. He went from staring at something he couldn’t yet do, to rooting himself inward where he found that seed of confidence – his power.

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Jennifer ParosComment
Avoid Seven Common Mistakes in Marketing Your Articles

Do you like marketing? Most writers answer, “Not really,” and some even exclaim, “I hate it!” The truth is that we, writers, prefer to craft our stories, describe our unique experiences, and paint new pictures with our words. Yet, after the manuscript is finished, we face reality: to be paid, we must sell our writing.

Recently I read the poem “Conversation of a Bookseller with a Poet” by Alexander Pushkin (the greatest Russian poet) where Poet praised his freedom (found through inspiration) and refused to betray it by selling his poems. Yet Bookseller presented his argument, “You cannot sell your inspiration, but you can sell your manuscript,” which convinced Poet to close the deal. This poem made me think: Maybe my own negative attitude to marketing also resulted from mixing the creative part of my writing vocation with the business one? If I separate them and give the business part the attention it deserves, it could alleviate my financial worries and bring me more creative freedom!

Naturally, I began improving my marketing skills and identified my seven most serious mistakes. After asking my fellow writers about their marketing techniques, I realized that many of them also stepped on the same rake.

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William KenowerComment
Bigger Than Death, Larger Than Life: Embracing Our Greater Value

My father died recently. He was eighty-five years old and died in his sleep. When we arrived at his house, the police officer told us we could look at the body if we wished. The emergency care workers had laid it on the floor in his bedroom. After some time, I walked up the steps and peered in from the doorway. There it was – covered with a sheet – and the first thing I thought was how very small his body was – much too small to have housed him.   

All that intelligence; he was an idea-, word-, movie-, book-loving, writing, teaching, leading director of all sorts with an unrelenting persistence and stubbornness. Everything I knew about my father, which was certainly not his totality, must have streamed through his physical self but couldn’t have been contained in it. 

It made me think of neuroscientist Jill Bolte Taylor’s 2008 TED Talk in which she describes suffering a hemorrhage in the left hemisphere of her brain. Her language-centers, memory, and logic gradually went “offline.” She describes being unable to define the boundaries of her body – seemingly blending molecularly with her environment and losing her personal identity. She says she knew a great peacefulness. “I felt enormous and expansive, like a genie liberated from her bottle . . .. I remember thinking there’s no way I would ever be able to squeeze the enormousness of myself back inside this tiny, little body.” 

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Four Ways to Make Your Pitches and Posts More Profitable

Freelancing is often described as a constant hustle. It can be, but it doesn’t have to be a struggle. By finding ways to make your work go further, you’ll save time and make more money. You may even recharge your freelancing career. 

Here are four ways to turn your pitches and posts into money-makers.

1. Pull New Ideas from Each Original Pitch 

From every post idea, create at least five others. This is idea generation at its easiest. Instead of scrambling to find completely new topics to write about, simply take your pitch and make a list. 

For example, a post about inexpensive places to eat while vacationing in Barbados could inspire these topics: 

  1. Great places to eat with your kids in Barbados (a parenting blog)

  2. How to throw an island wedding bachelorette party on the cheap (a bridal blog)

  3. How to find appropriate meals and snacks on vacation if you have diabetes (a health magazine’s front-of-book section)

  4. Caribbean getaway deals for long weekends (an in-flight magazine)

  5. How to find authentic, but inexpensive, souvenirs made by local artisans (a travel guide for college students)

Another benefit of this tip is that your research is done. You’ll want to find another expert to talk to, but finding one should be much easier now that you’ve done preliminary research. 

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William KenowerComment
The Art of the Pitch

As this year’s PNWA conference rolls around, and as other wonderful writers’ conferences continue throughout the year, I think it is the perfect time to offer a refresher course on pitching to agents and editors. Over the years, as an editor, I’ve heard hundreds of pitches. Excellent ones, good ones, bad ones, and “please, please stop speaking” ones. Now, you don’t want to find yourself in that last category, so listen up, pitchers, and learn to be an ace so you can nail down a victory and avoid the standard bush league plays (yes, I’m on a baseball bender, so sue me).

So, what is a pitch? Well, it’s a short, face-to-face (ack!) meeting with an agent or editor, lasting around ten minutes. The pitch itself is your whittled-down book description, usually about three or four (sometimes five) lines. And you thought writing a synopsis was tough, eh? But how is this possible, you say? My book is so complex, so layered; I couldn’t possibly describe it in less than twenty sentences. Too bad, so sad, I say back to you. Remember that agents and editors have to pitch every single book they buy to their publishers, marketing team, publicists, fellow editors, book buyers, etc., so if you, the author, can’t hone it down, what chance do they have? And if agents and editors can write their own pitches for dozens of books each year, you can do it for one.

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Erin Brown Comment
How Do I Stop Scaring Myself?: Choosing a New Premise for Our Stories and Our Lives

My mother was five years old, almost six, when she became so ill she was taken to the hospital in an ambulance; she had contracted polio. It would be another ten years, around 1953, before the vaccine would be made available. In the 1940’s and 50’s, polio was peaking and understandably there was a lot of fear of the risk of paralysis and possibly death. But my mom doesn’t remember being frightened or missing her parents while in the hospital during her quarantine. She felt cared for, she felt safe, and the effects of the polio eventually faded and her body recuperated. Her mother, on the other hand, suffered exhaustion for many months afterwards. The emotional toll had been great.  My mother actually lived the experience; while her mother lived through a projection of what might happen – a projection that frightened her so much, it left her depleted. 

When I was eight I was so frightened of school the only thing I wanted was not to feel so afraid any more. I locked myself in the bathroom, I hid, I even jumped out of a (slowly) moving car to try to escape going to school. One night I slept under my bed, on the wooden floor, without a blanket or pillow so the bed would appear unused and give the illusion I had left. At age five, my mother had a logical reason to be frightened – separated from her parents, in a hospital by herself.  Objectively, at age eight, I did not. Yet I was terrified and she wasn’t. But my mother’s premise was that she was safe, her life was good, and people were taking care of her. I was operating from another premise. 

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Jennifer ParosComment
What to Expect When You’re Expecting (A Traditional Publishing Deal)

The day has finally come (and if it hasn’t yet, just use your imagination for that special time in the future): you’ve found an agent you love – and more importantly, one who loves your book. Your knight or knightess in shining armor has successfully pitched your manuscript to an editor at a publishing house and you’ve been signed to a two-book deal. The world is your oyster! Now you can tell your cantankerous, idiotic boss to stuff it, put down a large deposit on a McMansion, and sail off into the published-author sunset, sipping champagne at your lavish book party and city-hopping around the globe during your book tour.

Hold up, wait a minute, let us put some reality in it.

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Erin BrownComment
How to Make Your Characters Realistically Diverse

There’s a reason that “own voices” fiction is such a prevalent trend in literature right now: people want to see stories and characters from a variety of backgrounds, cultures, and experiences. Of course, authors should always tread carefully when writing about characters from backgrounds other than their own – but that doesn’t mean it can’t be done!

 

On the contrary, authors can and should include diverse characters in their works. Making them well-rounded and realistic is just a matter of following the right process. With that in mind, here are four crucial tips on how to make your characters realistically diverse.

1. Conduct thorough research before you start

This one should be pretty obvious, but it’s worth stating for the record: unless you are writing about a minority character based on your own experience within that group, it’s critical that you do some research before you start.

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Pain Is an Opinion: On Danger, Safety, and Being Seen

I was watching The Tonight Show, and Jimmy Fallon was playing a game in which he and his guest took turns reaching inside a box through slots. The box had one open side that faced the audience so everyone knew its contents except the one playing. As the game began, instinctively the participants’ minds went on the lookout for evidence of danger, attempting to keep themselves safe. Whenever they came in contact with the unknown objects (Peeps marshmallow bunnies, cinnamon rolls, earthworms, a frog), they overreacted and jumped back, certain it was something undesirable. The game was fun to watch, but in day-to-day life, the process of negatively projecting, avoiding the unknown, and fearing what might happen is tiring at best, crippling at worst. When our internal stories are about possible threats, then taking another step, going forward with a project, relationship, or a move of any kind can be frightening, even painful – because expectation and projection affect us so greatly. 

In an article I read on pain science, the author included documentation of a builder who had jumped down onto a 15 centimeters-long nail. Any movement of his foot was so painful, that in order to be treated he had to be completely sedated. Once tended, they found the nail had not entered his foot at all; it had gone between his toes. His foot was completely unharmed. But he had been in excruciating pain. The pain was real, but it was also incorrectly informed

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Jennifer ParosComment
Feeling Out-of-Date? You’re Not Alone: The Changing Landscape of Modern Publishing

It can get confusing out there in Publishing Land – so many options, so little time – unless, of course, your compelling novel is about some Girl/Wife/Woman that is Gone/Alone/Lost; a book that is easily marketed within an established, profitable niche by a large, successful, traditional publishing house. But if this does not describe your project – or heck, if it does, but you want to keep all of your spoils and you’re incredibly good at establishing your own marketing, publicity, and a large audience – then you might want to know your options when it comes to publishing. What’s the difference anyway between the Big Five publishers, mid-size and large publishers, and small presses? And stop those same presses: what’s the difference between those and self-publishing? Most importantly, what’s the best option for you?

A bit of background: the Big Five publishing houses are HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, Macmillan, and Penguin/Random House – all based in New York City. Many authors have the goal of being published by one of these five houses, and it’s a fine aspiration; after all, they have money, distribution, power, and prestige. That means you’ll earn a higher advance, get into the big bookstores, have a better chance of reviews, acquire a large print run, and have experienced marketing, art, sales, and publicity teams working for you. Pretty sweet deal, huh? And all you have to do is write an engaging enough book (usually with mainstream appeal) to catch a top-notch agent’s eye, and then get those houses into a bidding war over your groundbreaking tome. Easy peasy! However, on the downside, you might get lost on the huge list of a giant publisher and your publishing pairing might seem less of a supportive, two-way partnership than a mega, hands-off business transaction.

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Erin BrownComment
The Rules of Writing

I recently received a book called The Opposite Is Also True: A Journal of Creative Wisdom for Artists.  I am a sucker for books with quotes and pithy bits of information that can help expand my creative life. I spend an unholy amount of time on BrainyQuotes, finding inspiration for my students. But The Opposite Is Also True was different. The book consisted of a series of facing pages, each pair suggesting opposing theories or activities to help guide your artistic practice – plan a studio/write anywhere, do one thing well/have a range of talents, find a tribe/ignore everyone. The goal is to help you see both sides of each issue and recognize what sparks your creativity.

This could have been a frustrating book. It was tempting to sit back and say “Is there NO one way?  You’re the expert; tell me what to do.” And yet, that is exactly the point.  I’ve taught writing classes for decades, and been a writer for even longer, and I can tell you that what works for one writer generally will not work for the next (this also applies to readers, which is a marvelous balm for the ego when someone doesn’t like your work). Some authors write in the morning, others while drunk. Some need solitude; others need noise. I have a friend who writes 90-page outlines. My first three novels were written as they came, sets of stories that connected as they grew.

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Freedom From and Freedom To: On Quitting, Showing Up, and Getting Ready

I was lying in bed the other night unable to sleep. My right leg was aching so intently I couldn’t seem to pull my attention from it. I had injured a muscle, hadn’t realized it was much of anything, but gradually discovered it was something. My leg seemed to want to move, yet any attempt at movement increased the pain. After two hours of trying to fall back to sleep, I decided to get up. Supporting my troubled leg, I hoisted it out of bed, placed it gently on the floor and hobbled from the bedroom, giving into to both the insomnia and the discomfort. The next day, I whined and limped, angry I’d somehow done this to myself, and angry at the condition for getting in my way. 

After a couple days spent shaking my fists at the gods as both my mobility and frame of mind became increasingly compromised, I realized I had to give up. Not give up on getting better – give up on fighting. I was mentally flailing, unwilling to give myself a moment’s peace. I needed to stop. In order to allow my body to restore itself, I had to stop interfering; and I came to understand that my mental resistance was the interference.

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