why we love guest bloggers

It is amazing to me to get to hear the stories of writers who are parents from far-flung places. I am so grateful to our members who have volunteered to add their voices to this blog!

These last two weeks, thinking about how the daily routine of guest blogger and Pen Parentis member Geoff Kirsch up in Alaska must differ from mine, have humbled me and reminded me that yes, we are all from vastly different backgrounds -- but then I went to a nowhere-but-Manhattan event (I was guested in to a fundraiser for a local orchestra with a live performance by a Broadway star, held in the art-strewn historical Tribeca loft of a couple so well-to-do their kids were having a pillow fight with silk throw pillows and no one even noticed over the loud murmur of cocktail conversation) and I realized in talking to the thin outer skin of the upper crust that all of us: from these unbelievably rich people, down to my ironic and dry Facebook friend from high school whose last status update mentioned the fact that her local food kitchen had given her a sack of donated rice that was full of small bugs, and also served many in the community whose eyesight wasn't as good as hers--all of us who are writer/parents have two things in common: we love our kids and we don't have enough time in the day to do our writing. This is what binds us together despite other differences - we have to get over the guilt that in writing anything other than a shopping list or a note to a teacher, we are stealing time from our kids.

That's hard.

But here's the thing: I truly believe it's worth it. Creative expression is a valuable talent, and those of us who can actually string words together to form images that stay in people's minds have a mandate to use that talent. What we create changes the world. Just look at how passionately people talk about the ideas they got from books. Teaching our kids that art is valuable is probably part of why people like us were meant to have kids in the first place.

So go write. Just make the time. Make it.

Next up, we have another guest blogger: this time a fascinating writer from California who is taking her toddler to South America in order to write. She leaves on Wednesday.

I can't wait.

Music to guide us

In our world, we multitask. 

Facebook and other social media send us alerts during the workday; and often we have a peek at the message. The phone rings (or buzzes, or plays a melody, or quacks, or honks) while we are talking to a friend and we check to see who is calling. As parents, we are masters of listening to one kid monologue about a space station he is developing while the other explains that she’s not sure her best friend likes her as much as she did the day before yesterday – all while we are picking up a trail of jackets, scarves, and lunchboxes and deciding where they should go. 

I bring this up because my son’s principal told me the other day that kids can’t keep track of reading two fiction books at once. Something felt wrong, though at first glance it seemed a reasonable comment. We all pretty much read one book at a time. Most of us have a pile of books on our bedside, but we only have bookmarks in one (or two: but the other is the one that we will likely never finish because it's boring.) Books are one-at-a-time. It does make you think that maybe our brains can't follow two (or four, or six) complicated plots at once.

But think about your friends. They are always telling you long intricate stories and you pretty much know which one of them is suffering a hideous divorce, and which one has the ailing mother, and which one is going to tell you about her "awful" job that pays $500K/year. 

Well, maybe they're all minor characters in your ONE story of your life. That's possible. Novels often have divergent threads of narrative that go nowhere.

But what about television (when you used to have time for that) – ? Before having kids, I kept track of the plots and multiple characters in Friends, Seinfeld, Mad about You, who knows how many other shows…I had no trouble with that. So why do we have this notion that we can’t read more than one book at a time?

Or work on more than one project at a time?

This is me, thinking on paper. But it seems to me that what let us get from one show to the other was something concrete. Namely: the theme song. I mean, listen for that sproingy jazz riff at the head of Seinfeld and the characters of Kramer, and all the rest just leap into your head. Same goes for a glimpse of…anything. Name your magic: Gilligan’s Island, Blossom, Greatest American Hero, Full House, Andy Griffith Show, King of the Hill. You play some music and your brain clicks in.

Can we do this with our writing? Can we condition ourselves to get “in the mood” for writing our novels this way? Leaping right back in, after a 30 second intro? Maybe one song would drive us nuts. But how about this--choosing one single playlist to put on repeat or shuffle through for the duration of the writing, so that any of the songs on the list will throw you right back into the scene you were working on when the timer went off reminding you that Jeremy needs to be picked up from school and brought to jazz yoga.

We are Pavlovian creatures and music plays on us. That’s a fact. Why can’t we use this to our advantage as busy, harried writers with very little time?

I want to believe so. Anyone who has experience with this, comment or write to me. I’m dying to know if this will work. I might even try it at home.

Emotional Garbage Truck

Okay, so here's what last week's crazy parenting moment reminded me of: 

I was writing a novel while I worked (at my fancypants corporate job I was required to look busy but there was often no work to be done) and one day found myself in an all-out war with a secretary over the office supply products that kept vanishing from my desk. It wasn't exactly a "stapler" moment (have you seen Office Space?) but very very close. I resolved to leave as soon as I got into an MFA program. And luckily it was the right time of year and I was able to schedule and take a GRE within a week and the applications sent by the end of the month and I was in by the end of the year. Never looked back. 

That's how I tend to deal with situations in which the emotional weight is preposterous compared to the actual reality of the situation. I assess, I change things, I fix it or I go away from it.

But last week, I got caught up in a stupid emotional undertow that was all about parenting. A riptide of useless anger at things that I have no business being irritated by. Normally, I would tell myself to asses, change, fix, or go away. How can you do that as a parent? I find myself in emotionally overwrought situations daily, if not hourly. I discover I am yelling over the fact that a kid wants to wear a summer dress when it is obviously a fall day outside. I find the last, uneaten bite of scrambled egg can give me hives. Pajamas on the floor? Look out.

It's not like I can give up parenting and go to grad school. I haven't even paid off the last one.

This is what a time-out is supposed to be about: this stepping away from it to asses and destress. But we don't usually. We have too much to do. If we manage to extract one kid (by giving them a time out for yelling back at us) we usually still have another kid or spouse or bills to pay or someone texting us or a dog to feed or garbage to take out or god knows what to deal with - we can't just duck into our laptops and try to write about it. 

And yet, writing your situation into words helps a lot - write it down, get it out of your head. Use the back of a receipt or email it to a close friend. This is why Facebook posts are good, or Tweeting. Because it forces you to take your emotions and turn them rationally into words. In order to do that, you have to assess. 

On the other hand, be sane about it - FB, Twitter, even emails - you're sending out this stuff into the universe. People are going to respond. Think before you publish! 

And that's hard as a writer. We love to publish.

Here's a tip: write and then assess. Was I writing this down in order to clear my head? If yes, then it's emotional garbage. Don't try to publish every piece of emotional garbage that was cluttering your head. You're writing to get it out of your head, not to put it into the world. Put it away. Post in on FB if you have set up appropriate privacy standards. Or better still save it in a file. Don't look at it again. Head cleared, get back to your real work.

Obviously if your real work is a memoir, well, it's interesting isn't it? Memoirs and creative nonfiction are such a delicate balance of the author needing to process his own feelings (listen to our podcast of Darin Strauss discussing why he wrote his memoir) and wanting to advise others on how to deal with the issues you faced (Abby Shur, our very first Pen Parentis Fellow, wrote a memoir about obsessive praying. The podcast of the panel discussion that night is available to logged-in members of Pen Parentis.) And the noise of the garbage in our head can be so damned loud sometimes that it's hard to find the creative space to actually write fiction. So maybe that memoir is important. But take some real time assessing whether it's important because it cleared out the creative space in your head, or if it's important because it will actually help other people get through what you went through.

We as writers forget that writing does not necessarily equal readers reading. So many writers publish too quickly and are appalled at the horrific feedback they get in comments (too easy for response, no one writes you a letter flaming your book, they just post it to the whole world after they give you one star on GoodReads.) So think twice before you publish your personal junk. Be sure. And then treat it like any writing - get an editor, make every word count, and like I said last week, make sure your main character (that would be you) is clear on what they want. In a positive way.

Remarkably? this helps with parenting too. If you are clear on what you want "I want you to wear shoes that will not get damaged in the rain today." Then your kid can assert what they want "I want to wear my diamond studded felt-and-cork flip flops" and you can discuss without fighting. "Will your diamond-studded shoes be damaged by the rain?" "Yes, and I don't care." "I'm sorry you don't care. However, you must find shoes that won't get damaged by the rain." "I hate you, you are a horrible mother."

Well, it's dramatic, anyway. Write it down on the back of that receipt for those shoes (what possessed you to buy those in the first place??) In the novel you're writing, that girl would have put on her rhinestone-studded rubber flip flops and gotten to school on time. When you drop off Princess at third grade, come home and change the scene to reflect the much-more-entertaining reality of conflict. Or have your character wear the shoes to school and they'll dissolve into a puddle of actual money that slips down into the sewer...

One day you'll be stuck in your writing and you can go to your file of angry moments and you can harvest it to get your characters in a scene again: all scenes have drama and as a writer said at our salon, Kids are drama all the time. For them the stakes are life-and-death over everything: which shoes to wear to school, who took their chair at the table, the fact that they erased something they meant to keep. Use these moments. Be inspired by them. It doesn't have to be a memoir or a blog - it can be inspiration to get your paper characters acting like flesh and blood. 

New page in Salon history

A lot of you who follow this blog, I count as my friends - and as such, I want to take a little break from trying to inspire all writers who are parents and just sit back with a cup of coffee and thank you for everything you've ever done for me. You know who you are: I emailed or called you or you replied to a desperate Tweet or FB post and when you found me struggling to get my ass over whichever fence was currently in my way, you gave me either the shove or the swift kick in the rear to get me the rest of the way over. I'm being all facetious but that's my nature - so let me drop the eternal sarcasm and tell you seriously and with all warmth: thank you for not giving up on me.

Thanks to your belief, the Pen Parentis Literary Salons were picked up by Andaz. Starting on the Second Tuesday of September (which happens to land smack-dab on my least favorite day of the year, thanks to the fact that since 2001 I've lived one block from the madness) and going until May from 7pm -9pm, please join me at the Andaz. They have a spectacular bar and food menu - my favorite drink is the 'corpse-revivier' - and have been so welcoming and excited to host the Salons that I am shaking my head wondering why I never left the last million times they invited me.

For you, because you are so lovely, here's the messy story. Ready?

In late 2008, I was looking for a place to house a salon that Arlaina Tibensky and I were vaguely considering. We thought it would be inspiring to hear from a bunch of authors who had somehow managed to find time to write despite having little kids. I had date night with my husband at a "new Todd English" restaurant that had just opened nearby. It was overbooked, but the hostess was happy to let us eat "in the library"...one look at the floor-to-ceiling books and I knew Pen Parentis had found its home. It took a little negotiating to convince the GM of the place that we weren't a book club, but once he got the idea he was grudgingly interested in giving us a trial. We? Completely in love with our new space.

Once we had a location, we aimed higher: thought it would be great to hear from people who were able to actually manage to publish something great despite having kids. "Great" was loosely defined as: we liked it, or had heard of it and really wanted to read it. Luckily Arlaina and I have wonderfully divergent taste in books, so that she'd invite people I hadn't heard of and I suggested people she was wary of (our earliest meetings were fairly hilarious). What stunned us was the overwhelmingly positive response we got from everyone: even people like Jonathan Lethem, who we had tracked up to Maine where he has a secluded writing cabin, were intrigued by our idea. And others were positively gracious; Jennifer Egan and Deborah Copaken Kogan not only read for us but also gave us names of friends who had kids, who were also great writers. Arlaina and I were astonished by how many of the writers who were successful had a small tight community of other writer-parents to hang out with. Our salons mattered to people. Each time we'd present a pair of authors, at least one of them would tell us they ached for this sort of a group when their kids were really little.

Pen Parentis grew up around that idea. Building a community of writers that are parents has been a spectacular job - and social media has grown up with us, so that now we have not only this blog, but a Twitter feed (@PenParentis) and a Facebook page (www.facebook.com/penparentis) as well as our website. We just started a private LinkedIN group to allow for the kinds of intimate discussions that happen all the time at our salons -- if you or anyone you know is a writer with kids - please feel free to request membership! It's free and we'd love a huge active group!

Sorry - got off story!!  I was telling you about our move.  So over the years we learned that the location was a property that was used to train new managers. Over the three years, I met something in the line of seven restaurant managers, three events managers, four sales managers, and at least four GMs. Each time I called it seemed someone had moved on or was about to be replaced. It was a little exhausting to explain, over and over, that no, we were not a book club. Not even a "high-end" book club. But the library kept us. Brass railings, candles, and most importantly, books that someone lovingly chose - all of them were books a real human being might read. All the way to the ceiling.

Then this summer rolled around. We had our first community-wide children's lit festival. 175 people turned out. It was magic. I called up our space to make sure we were on track for September only to discover the whole restaurant had closed. The new GM was in the middle of ripping out the bookshelves. He told me I would be delighted with the results - it would be a lovely country Italian place. 

Like Harry's Italian across the street? I asked, or more like the expensive Italian around the corner?

He was ripping out the books. I felt justified in being a little bit mean.

But no hard feelings. I knew right where to go. The GM of Andaz Wall Street was constantly wondering if I was ready for a new location. I had always passionately loved his property: they brought in a farmers' market, opened an outdoor bier garden, their staff had always been so lovely to me. I loved going to Wall and Water to eat, it's by far one of the best restaurants downtown. The bar downstairs is sleek and spectacular. Really, all Andaz hotels are a vision, they just feel special the second you walk in. And how great was it to finally find a GM who loved the idea of hosting a series of literary salons. They showed me a lovely space with floor to ceiling windows - showed me where they would set up a bar. They were gracious and welcoming and excited to work with us to promote the event. It was a whole new partnership.

So now I share this excitement with you. We've worked hard to book gorgeous writers for this upcoming season. Our Fellowship winner, Sarah Gerkensmeyer is flying in from Fredonia to accept her award and read her winning story. September 11, 7pm -9pm - come to the second floor of 75 Wall Street (in the Andaz Hotel) and let us entertain you. You deserve it. You know you do.

Want help? Give it. Part 2.

Face it, there’s a reason you’re not getting an agent: it’s not because your writing sucks. If your writing sucked, you wouldn’t be getting encouraging emails from agents saying they are sure it will find a market at some point. You would be getting only standard boring-as-hell, form-rejection letters that probably don’t have your name on them (if you are getting only this sort of rejection, quickly go take a writing workshop or writing class and find out why—the problem is likely technical and easily fixed)—but no, YOU are getting rejection letters that feel like apologies for not wanting a second date after a great first one… Short little half-apologies with lame excuses. Often it’s that your subject matter isn’t easily marketable, that your novel isn’t easy to categorize, that it doesn’t fall within typical guidelines, or just that the agent ‘didn’t connect’ with the material. I mean, if you were writing a zombie detective novel, or a torso-baring typical romance novel with a main character named Delphinia who at 27 is still a virgin, it would already be in print. But then you, dear author, wouldn’t be you.

Now the advice I’m about to give is time consuming, so listen up. I’m talking about FRIENDS here. I’m talking about people that you went to grad school with and held their hair as they puked and didn’t post the photos to FB (okay there wasn’t FB back then, but whatever) – I’m talking people who went to your kid’s first birthday party and who you swore to be friends with forever. Don’t let one-sided success screw up a good friendship. Just don’t!

I am NOT talking about the crazy guy from the MFA program who keeps friending you from other accounts because you sat next to him one day and were nice. I’m not talking about the crazy bitch from day care who keeps haranguing you to have a playdate because she has just written her fifth novel manuscript and wants you to blurb it (oh wait, crap, that’s me, nevermind) – and I’m certainly not talking about anyone that you don’t actually LIKE.

But that does leave a handful of friends. Even writers, you know who you are, have friends.

So what can we do to help each other? Well, you’ve done the first step: you’re seeking community. We really CAN help each other. It’s just that the one-on-one “here’s my agent’s cellphone number” help isn’t going to happen. Here’s a list of what we can do for each other:

• 1)   Read your friend’s books. (yes, some of them will suck. But just the fact that you bothered to put them into your long reading queue will mean SO MUCH to your friend that the next time his agent asks if he knows someone who writes X and you do, your name might come up.) – this goes for published and NOT published books. If you have three novels under your hat and your best friend from grad school is still struggling, well, do the shlub a favor and read his MS. And be honest: tell him, you need to take a writing class (he will hate you, but he won’t hate you more than if you keep NOT reading his MS). And vice versa: “I’m working on my own novel” is no reason not to read that friend’s book. Skim it. Read pieces. It’s not nice not to. If it’s awful, be gleeful in private and plan how yours will be better.
• 2)   Review that book wherever you’re a member, but keep the review really short (it was a great read! Or I loved this book!) – long reviews for friend’s books seem nepotistic. But do give your friend five stars if they deserve five stars: that’s just being nice. Plus (added nepotistic bonus) they might thank you in their blog which has 20,000 followers. And if the book really sucked, just skip the stars and say what you liked “great character of Pauline on page 245!” And published author-dude and dudettes: if you do read an MS that was great, guess what? Your 20K followers might want to know that too. You don’t have to be embarrassed to say “I just read a friend’s unpublished novel and really enjoyed it; I hope they find an agent soon!”
• 3)   GO TO YOUR FRIEND’S EVENTS! It’s so important to stay in touch, and if you are the only one who showed up at Barnes & Noble on that rainy Saturday, it will mean so much.  I learned this from my days as an actor: I can’t tell you how many auditions I got (mind you, it wasn’t jobs, no one hires you without trying you out: not in theater and not in books) – just because I showed up at a friend’s show. And it’s really good for YOU to go to these events: you’ll meet other authors. You’ll meet your friend’s agent. You’ll be able to network. Maybe you’ll meet your next editor, or at least know one editor’s name when you send your book out. Hell, just leaving the house for something other than a milk-run is a bonus these days.

These are super-easy things to do. Well, okay, the events thing might require a babysitter, but in general, what I’m saying is that we are a COMMUNITY. It is important to stand up for your friends. And yeah, Stephen King might not really notice when you show up, but he’s a freak of nature anyway. You went to high school with him and were best mates and now you saw him at a live event? Blog about it, cc-his alumni email address or tag him on the Facebook note, and maybe, just maybe, he will reply. Which will earn you a “like” on your site, which will lead to another blog entry, which will gain you a few Twitter followers, &etc…