Partnership

It’s not a fairytale, exactly, but maybe it’s better. Maybe it’s the real thing.

Another day without Andy, another Atlantic Monthly article.

Riley spent most of his day going between the two pillows I laid flat on the couch, taking turns lying on each. Sadly I am not that easily entertained. Instead, I spent most of today tearing up over television (We Are Marshall and Grey’s Anatomy reruns) and cleaning. Much more interesting, right?

Aaaanyway…

Once you get past the intro, “Writing, Typing, and Economics” is pretty good, contrary to what its title might suggest.

All writers know that on some golden mornings they are touched by the wand — are on intimate terms with poetry and cosmic truth. I have experienced those moments myself. Their lesson is simple: It’s a total illusion. And the danger in the illusion is that you will wait for those moments. Such is the horror of having to face the typewriter that you will spend all your time waiting. I am persuaded that most writers, like most shoemakers, are about as good one day as the next (a point which Trollope made), hangovers apart. The difference is the result of euphoria, alcohol, or imagination. The meaning is that one had better go to his or her typewriter every morning and stay there regardless of the seeming result. It will be much the same.

The best place to write is by yourself, because writing becomes an escape from the terrible boredom of your own personality.

And one of particular interest to me, She Who Cannot Be Funny To Save Her Life:

I would urge my young writers to avoid all attempts at humor. … Humor is an intensely personal, largely internal thing. What pleases some, including the source, does not please others. … Also, as Art Buchwald has pointed out, we live in an age when it is hard to invent anything that is as funny as everyday life.

Hmm, should I let Dooce and Jon Stewart know? Oh wait, their humor IS based on everyday life.

After receiving another rejection today (for my flash fiction piece CHASING TRAINS), I went on a submission spree and hit up like seven different publications (both for that piece and for THE TENTH TIME). While investigating markets to submit to, I stumbled across several great pieces in The Atlantic Monthly about writing. I was going to post excerpts from all of them, but the second one I read was a monster, so I’ll just stop there today and continue with the rest later.

Without further ado…

So You Want to Be a Writer - the first I found, and sort of a compilation of the rest

It is close and thoughtful reading, she asserts, that is in fact most important to the apprentice writer.

In days gone by, writers-in-training honed their craft not by soliciting advice from successful writers but by simply absorbing the greatness of those who came before them.

Letter to a Young Contributor - written in the mid 1800s, which explains the style (and length…)

No editor can ever afford the rejection of a good thing, and no author the publication of a bad one. The only difficulty lies in drawing the line. Were all offered manuscripts unequivocally good or bad, there would be no great trouble; it is the vast range of mediocrity which perplexes: the majority are too bad for blessing and too good for banning; so that no conceivable reason can be given for either fate…

You are writing for the average eye, and must submit to its verdict.

The first demand made by the public upon every composition is, of course, that it should be attractive. In addressing a miscellaneous audience, whether through eye or ear, it is certain that no man living has a right to be tedious. Every editor is therefore compelled to insist that his contributors should make themselves agreeable, whatever else they may do. To be agreeable, it is not necessary to be amusing; an essay may be thoroughly delightful without a single witticism, while a monotone of jokes soon grows tedious. Charge your style with life, and the public will not ask for conundrums. But the profounder your discourse, the greater must necessarily be the effort to refresh and diversify.

“The greater part of an author’s time is spent in reading in order to write; a man will turn over half a library to make one book.”

… there is no severer test of literary training than in the power to prune out one’s most cherished sentence, when it grows obvious that the sacrifice will help the symmetry or vigor of the whole.

(That idea greatly resembles Stephen King’s mantra, “Kill your darlings.”)

Do not habitually prop your sentences on crutches, such as Italics and exclamation points, but make them stand without aid; if they cannot emphasize themselves, these devices are commonly but a confession of helplessness. … Reduce yourself to short allowance of parentheses and dashes; if you employ them merely from clumsiness, they will lose all their proper power in your sands.

(DOH!)

Do not waste a minute, not a second, in trying to demonstrate to others the merit of your own performance. If your work does not vindicate itself, you cannot vindicate it, but you can labor steadily on to something which needs no advocate but itself.

(That’s probably my favorite piece of wisdom/advice from this article.)

Do not complacently imagine, because your first literary attempt proved good and successful, that your second will doubtless improve upon it. The very contrary sometimes happens. A man dreams for years over one projected composition, all his reading converges to it, all his experience stands related to it, it is the net result of his existence up to a certain time, it is the cistern into which he pours his accumulated life. Emboldened by success, he mistakes the cistern for a fountain, and instantly taps his brain again. The second production, as compared with the first, costs but half the pains and attains but a quarter part of the merit; a little more of fluency and facility perhaps, —but the vigor, the wealth, the originality, the head of water, in short, are wanting.

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There was also an amazing archive of interviews with literary persona, which I will definitely be devouring soon.

In a recent radio interview, Dooce talks about how a blog must have soul to attract a loyal fan base. Just like with a TV show or book, the writer of a blog must develop characters that readers care about in order to draw the audience back day after day (or week after week, depending on the frequency of the posts).

I think that’s why I realized after just a couple weeks that my blog couldn’t be merely professional. Not only was it unsatisfying for me to write only about writing or reading, but I can’t imagine that those topics would satiate any normal reader for very long. (Whatever “normal” is.)

So that makes me wonder, who are my characters, and what about them is compelling? Of course, I think my friends and family are interesting — that’s why they’re my friends and family! — but do you? Should you? Have I done enough (or anything) to make them interesting?

I think that’s what I need to be more mindful of in the future, both for this blog and for my fiction writing (which features a slightly different kind of “friends and family”). Even if every post or story doesn’t flow as part of some larger linear stream, there needs to be some sort of narrative that holds it all together. There needs to be something that readers can connect to, follow, remember.

I’m not sure that every blogger puts this kind of thought into what they type into their content management system before hitting “Publish.” I know I usually don’t. But I think that’s part of what makes Dooce so successful, and unique.

From “Getting There”:

We spend years and years of our lives discovering who we are, and it’s not a sudden realization, but one day you figure out who you are, that you are the type of person who likes to be in charge, or you are the type of person who likes to be given a list of tasks. Maybe you’re the type of person who can’t have fun unless you know that the other people around you are having fun, or maybe you’re the type of person who has fun no matter what. And if you’ve had enough therapy you’re okay with that, you’re okay knowing that this? This is who I am.

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Lately a lot of things have been pushing me toward an edge. What edge, I wasn’t sure. Maybe I’m still not. But wherever this is, I’m standing here, looking down, looking up, looking back, and looking around, and trying to figure out which is the best way to go.

I spent this past year trying to do many things. First and foremost, I tried to be a good daughter and a good lover. I tried to be a good dog-momma. I tried to be a good writer, and a good account manager. I tried to be a good friend. For a while I even tried to be a good dancer. What was I thinking?

But seriously, I tried to do a lot of things, and sometimes I succeeded at some of them, and sometimes I succeeded at none of them.

Before this year, I thought I had learned from my father not to try to do too much at once — to be the master of one trade instead of the jack of all. I thought I had learned from my mother to pursue your dreams and never think you’re not good enough, never get discouraged when you face setbacks.

What I really learned, at least this year, is that I still have a heck of a lot to learn. And as usual, I have to learn the hard way: by doing and experiencing for myself. By making mistakes.

But that’s okay, because now I know more about who I am. I am not the kind of person who can do everything — at least not well. I am the kind of person who wants to numb her mind with television every now and then. I am the kind of person who can’t cook to save her life. I am the kind of person who is willing but still sometimes afraid to go after her dreams.

And that’s okay.

Now that I know a little bit more about myself, I am setting new goals and reorganizing my priorities. I am making changes where change is needed. I am letting go of the bad, even if it means losing some good too. I am facing my fears head on — I am being Batman, as Andy would say.

So, cliché as it may be, I’m standing here on the edge of this cliff, and I’m going to leap. I’m going to have faith in myself, and leap.

And I’m pretty sure I’m going to fly.

Do you know what being all caught up with Dooce is like? It’s like being forced to read Harry Potter one page at a time. And do you know what being forced to read Harry Potter one page at a time is like? It’s torture.

TORTURE!

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(And yes, that means I have read every. single. (currently public.) post. on Dooce.com.)

Rule #1: Do your own thing.

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Every now and then, I get into a phase. Some might call it obsession. Me, I just call it enthusiasm.

Among my past phases: Sanrio, the Spice Girls, boys, and Harry Potter. Because I’m extremely nostalgic, and still a kid at heart, I will love each and every one of them until the day I die, but (thankfully) the intensity of that love will fade.

(Making room for NEW intensity!)

Right now I think my friends would agree, Dooce is my big obsession current phase.

I’ll be honest, I’m addicted. But I do think I’m learning a lot by reading each and every post in her archives. Sometimes it’s useless info (like what she was reading on July 30th of 2004) but sometimes it’s truly brave, or hopeful, or heartbreaking (in the most beautiful way), or just plain hysterical.

Her ability to turn anything — the ordinary – into a captivating story, it’s spectacular. It’s what I’m enjoying, and what I’m trying to learn.

That’s why I originally had “learning to be funny one dooce at a time” as the subtitle in my header image. But as Andy pointed out, that sort of gives the impression that I’m copying her, that I’m not that original, that I’m not doing my own thing. And that isn’t true.

(I’ve since changed the subtitle to “always leaping before she looks,” which IS true. I plan to change the header every few months anyway.)

Continue reading →

Dooce likes Grey’s too!

I feel so… validated.

Also, the new episode on 4/24 didn’t suck. (Shonda and the other writers must have gotten my letter.) It wasn’t a classic, but there were some good moments. Enough to make me stick around, anyway.

Next week’s gratuitous Kate Walsh appearance has me wary, though. Don’t get me wrong, I love Addison (in fact, bring her back from LA FOR REAL, SHONDA!) but her cameo is, as I mentioned, gratuitous. It’s a feeble attempt to remind people to tune in to Private Practice when it returns. And I don’t like being manipulated. Especially if it doesn’t involve chocolate!

There was a really nice article on Dooce in the Wall Street Journal today, and since Andy knows I am obsessed with have taken an interest in her lately, he saved it for me.

I felt like the article revealed another side of Dooce for me — hard to believe, given how much she reveals herself! — and a good warning to any of us who long for “fame and fortune.” Because, of course, those things come at a cost.

Behind her hip façade, Ms. Armstrong feels similar pain. She says she has sought therapy to cope with vitriolic posts. “The hate mail will invariably happen, and when it does your entire world will crumble around your ears,” she says. In one example, she says a person she thought was a friend posted a comment saying she “wanted to punch me in the face because she hated me so much.” She adds she can understand why “famous people turn to drugs or commit suicide.”

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Tomorrow Riley goes in for The Big Operation. o_O

Wish him luck, and don’t make fun of him for being a cone-head when he gets out!

I’m not gonna lie, I’m addicted to Dooce. I discovered her a few weeks ago thanks to Angie (who met her at SXSW!) and now I’m reading all her archives starting with the oldest (late 2001) and slowly but surely coming ever closer to the present. Fortunately she updates every weekday, which is really quite frequent for a “professional” blogger (still a strange concept to me) but slow enough that I should be able to catch up. Eventually.

Some fave posts so far: Original Sin and Tell it to Their Face for Christ’s Sake.

She even merits her own category on my del.icio.us account now. If that’s not high praise, I don’t know what is.