Posts Tagged ‘writing life’
Cindy on December 6th, 2008
“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” — Mary Oliver
So, I asked a newly retired newspaper columnist if she’s planning to start a blog — especially now that her work isn’t appearing regularly in print. I’ve admired her beautiful writing for a long time, I told her, and would happily read anything she cares to post.
“Does the world really need another blog?” she shot back, adding that it’s hard enough to keep up with her e-mail — not to mention Facebook, Twitter, Gather, LinkedIn, and all the other “distractions” online. “Who in the world has time for all of that?” she said. “Now that I’m retired, I want my real life back.”
My columnist friend got me thinking about how much time I’ve been spending online in recent years. After putting in two or three hours (daily) on writing projects or assignments, my routine goes something like this:
- Answer e-mail
- Work on posts for various Web sites (including 50-something Moms)
- Update status on Facebook
- Visit friends’ blogs and leave comments
- Surf the Web for juicy political articles
Before I know it, morning has morphed into afternoon, and I’ve only left my desk to refill my coffee mug. Hanging out in cyberspace was perfectly fine — even ideal — when my son was much younger and needed a stay-at-home mom. But the kid is 23 now, and lives five hours from home. Besides, even when he was in middle school, the Internet didn’t monopolize my time.
So what did I do with my “one wild and precious life” before a keyboard became part of my anatomy?
I accomplished so much more. For starters, I generated a lot more article proposals for print publications. I read more books. Met friends regularly for lunch or dinner. Started and completed more art projects. Rode my mountain bike, took longer walks, or worked in the garden. Explored local businesses and flea markets. Pored through cookbooks and tested new recipes on my appreciative family.
Like my retired friend, I want that life back again.
Trying an experiment this week, I limited my “social time” on the computer to 45 minutes per day. (That includes checking e-mail, surfing, and visiting blogs.) At first it felt weird, since I’ve been compulsive about checking my e-mail several times a day. But soon I felt happier, more creative — and liberated from the tyranny of my computer. I felt as if I’d finally seized control of my free time.
During that free time this week, I made a few simple Christmas gifts for friends, then completed an altered art project to enter in upcoming exhibition. After cleaning my art studio, I picked out a pretty note card and wrote a heartfelt message to a college room mate. (Imagine her surprise when she gets snail mail from me!) Later in the week, I cut evergreen branches to decorate the empty planters on the porch. I called my mother more often, just to talk. I even had time to plan a small party for dear friends whose December birthdays typically get lost in the holiday shuffle.
Once again, I began to appreciate the sacred in the ordinary.
My late father used to talk a lot about the importance of life balance. “Everything in moderation” was one of his favorite catchphrases, and he used it whenever the topic of substance abuse or addiction came into the conversation. This fall, I realized that my computer use was bordering on obsession or addiction. And like any addiction, it was impacting my attitude and relationships with the most important people in my life. I knew I needed to come up for air.
I truly enjoy posting blogs and following colleagues on Facebook. I love surfing the Net and making new discoveries, new friends. And I love reading the blogs of other writers. I can’t “quit” entirely — but from now on, I’ll try to spend less time hugging my computer. – Cindy La Ferle
Please note:Â I’ll still continue to post essays, short blogs, or announcements at least twice a week.
Cindy on August 18th, 2008
Conceit spoils the finest genius. There is not much danger that real talent or goodness will be overlooked for long. Even if it is, the consciousness of possessing and using it well should satisfy one. The great charm of all power is modesty. — Louisa May Alcott
Original painting: “Tangled up in Blue” by Douglas La Ferle
I ran across the Alcott quotation (above) in my daybook last week, and it got me thinking. Does anyone still use the words “conceit” and “modesty”? How quaintly Victorian they sound.
These days, whether we write novels, run restaurants, perform at nightclubs, or design buildings, we’re more inclined to talk about marketing, promoting, and “branding” ourselves. We dream and scheme to get our 15 minutes of fame — and some of us will stop at nothing to get 15 minutes more. Boasting has become an art form.
As a younger writer, I was always uncomfortable just thinking about self-promotion. I’ve learned to get used to it (but rarely enjoy it) and I still consider it a necessary evil. Competition for media attention is fierce, and career survival often depends on plugging your own work. As another writer once told me, “If you don’t toot your horn, who will?” Yet every time I put myself out there, I can’t quite shake the sleazy feeling that I’m being, well, conceited and immodest.
Writing during the American Civil War, Louisa May Alcott was both an abolitionist and a feminist. Her dad used to hang out with the likes of Thoreau and Emerson — the most progressive thinkers of the time. Yet she still talked about old-fangled virtues like dignity, intergrity, and modesty. I miss those words. – Cindy La Ferle
Cindy on June 27th, 2008
Lately I’ve been thinking about Fame and Celebrity — how these two showoffs are misleading many new writers and muddling their aspirations. Another writing instructor told me recently that her students seem more interested in marketing and promotion than in developing their craft. Some have barely written the first chapters of their novels or memoirs — but they know what they’re going to wear on “Oprah.” Holy Toledo.
A burning desire to share your message is a noble-enough reason to become a writer. An insatiable need for attention is not. Along these lines, I stumbled on this tip from journalist and author Po Bronson:
“Don’t romanticize writing or think you’re cooler than other people. Don’t think you get special attention or have needs that are more special than anyone else’s needs. That manner of indulgent thinking inevitably leads to a bonfire, a flameout of selfishness. It borrows from the future in hopes that one can make it all pay off today. It’s unsustainable. Manage your responsibilities, take care of them, don’t borrow from the future.” Be sure to visit Po Bronson’s blog for more excellent writing advice like this. – Cindy La Ferle
Cindy on June 26th, 2008
Shopping at my local craft store, I was paying for an armload of supplies when a chatty customer behind me asked what I was planning to make.
âYou must be an artist,â she said, after I briefly explained that I was getting started on a new collage.
Me, an artist? I’d been fooling around with altered books and other paper arts for several months, but never used the word âartistâ to describe myself. Art was my diversion — something I did for pure pleasure when I wasn’t writing essays and newspaper columns. âArtistâ was a term I usually reserved for the seriously gifted creator. It evoked poetic images of men and women cloistered in light-filled studios, producing museum-quality masterpieces. Most artists I knew had fine arts degrees, and their work was displayed in galleries. Like Benedictine monks, artists occupied sacred space in another world.
So I blushed when I told the other customer that, no, I’m not really an artist — just a person who dabbles. A crafter.
Labels of any kind, social or political, make me nervous. Driving home with my new art supplies that afternoon, I remembered how long it had taken me to call myself a âwriter.â I’d worked six years for a reference book publisher before I sold my first review to a local newspaper. Several freelance assignments followed, and soon after I published the first of several essays in a national magazine. Even then, I felt like a fraud whenever I used the word writer to describe myself in social situations. Real writers and authors wrote critically acclaimed bestsellers. They had New York agents and made guest appearances on âOprah.â Journalists like me wrote pieces that ended up as birdcage liner (or scraps in a collage).
At some point, every writer struggles with the same identity crisis. As Anne Lamott notes in Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (Pantheon Books), there is âsomething noble and mysterious about writing, about the people who could do it well, who could create a world as if they were little gods or sorcerers.â But whether we write or paint, sew or sketch, what we call ourselves is far less important than honoring â and believing in — our own creativity.
In his landmark bestseller, Care of the Soul (HarperCollins Publishers), Thomas Moore says that art is our birthright. He urges all of us to pull âthe artsâ down from the pedestal that makes them seem too precious or out of reach. He reminds us that everyone is an artist when his or her work is crafted with soul and passion.
âArt is not found only in the painter’s studio or in the halls of a museum,â Moore writes. âIn fact, when art is reserved as the province of professional artists, a dangerous gulf develops between the fine arts and the everyday arts.â
I often remind students in my writing workshops that every art or craft is as much about process as it is about product. It’s not about marketing or publishing or making a name for yourself. When you’re totally engaged in the act of creating something you love -â whether you’re searching for the perfect word for a sentence or a luminous shade of blue for a watercolor background — you know you’re on the right path. Meanwhile, removing the pressure to produce a âmasterpieceâ makes the process even more fun.
These days I head for my art studio whenever I’m blocked or need a creative nudge. And when my life feels like a series of disparate parts that don’t make sense, the paper arts are wonderfully therapeutic. Crafting a collage, like writing an essay, requires that I look at my world in new ways. I hunt for beauty in places I’ve overlooked before: tool boxes; hardware stores; recycle bins. I delve for possibilities in thrift shops and my own junk drawers. Every object is sacred, and even my junk mail is worthy of a second look. Everything has a story waiting to be told â not necessarily in words, but in shape, form, texture, and color.
Am I an artist? Maybe that’s not for me to say. Today, when people ask what I do, I tell them I love making art — and encourage them to do the same. — Cindy La Ferle
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This essay was originally published in Strut for Women, and was a third place winner in Detroit Working Writers 2008 Spring Readings Competition
Cindy on June 23rd, 2008
I’m always on the lookout for books on the craft of writing to recommend to new writers in my workshops. My shelves are crammed with old favorites like Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird and Brenda Ueland’s If You Want to Write. But it’s not easy to find helpful books for those who want to learn what it’s really like to be a freelancer typing alone at home, maybe in a terrycloth bathrobe…. So I’m happy to share a new title, Sixty Candles: Reflections on the Writing Life, which was published this year to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the American Society of Journalists and Authors, the nation’s leading organization for professional freelancers.
Written by ASJA members, Sixty Candles lights the way with dozens of short essays — some reflective, some informative — on the ups and downs of the freelance writing life. Everything a new writer needs to know, from how to cope with isolation to the thrill of breaking into that first glossy magazine, is shared between these covers. (The book includes a short essay of mine on dealing with rejection.)
“Never lose faith in freelancing,” writes Norman M. Lobsenz, an ASJA founding member. “It is a tough business, and not getting easier to survive in electronic times. Yet somewhere along the way each of us has learned to have faith in our skills and in our selves.” Â If you’re serious about writing for top newspapers and magazines, this book is worth your time and $14.95. -- Cindy La Ferle
