Communication Addiction, or, I would've written sooner but I just needed 5 more minutes on Facebook

I’ve been thinking about writing this blog for a month, and I am going to post that I’ve written it on Facebook. I will check back frequently to see if people have looked at it. I might go to the stats for my blog to see if anyone has looked at it, probably even check where in the world people may have looked at it (yay! One person in Czechoslovakia likes me!).

Any comments on Facebook will all show up in my messages, linked to my LinkedIn page, and comments there or on the blog will go to my email. But not to my regular email; comments to my blog go to an email address I rarely use but which gets forwarded to my regular email address. Maybe one or two people might text me about it on my cel phone or call me (it’s true, some people still do that) on my landline.  Thank heaven I don’t have a twitter account or a web page; there aren’t enough hours in the day for me to keep track of so many forms of talktalktalk and simultaneously keep myself clean, fed, and employed.

Ironically, it might be a bit rant-y about how electronic communication is melting our minds. So you can leave now if you feel compelled to wander through layers of YouTube videos instead. I won’t hold it against you. I’ve been known to get lost in that vortex as well.

If you still have the capacity (and you’re still here), you should read this: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/306868/

It’s a 2008 article by Nicholas Carr, published in The Atlantic, that considers the way our brains are being reconfigured by our exposure to various forms of media. It’s longer than your average USA Today article and definitely longer than something you might find on Facebook or Buzzfeed, and infinitely longer than any tweet. And it doesn’t say we’re getting stupider, or more antisocial, or going blind from staring at screens or getting fat from so much time sitting in front of our laptops. But it’s important because it talks about our powers of concentration, our ability to focus on a single task.

Another irony: I first read this article on paper, and was fascinated by it. Today when I went to find a handy link for this blog, I had a hard time re-reading it because of all of the moving ads interspersed throughout the text (oooh, maybe I really do want to buy that LED-lit dress that changes color when I walk…). Focusing on an article about focusing was virtually impossible with all of the shiny stuff floating around.

Anecdotally, I’m discovering that there are a lot of people suffering from depression, anxiety, obsessive behaviors and ruined relationships because of the time they spend enmeshed in a web of media. It’s as if they’re slogging through a jungle with a machete, cutting back vines and swatting mosquitos the size of Smartcars and fending off snakes and leopards to get…they forget where.  But along the way they begin to feel that if they step away they might miss something; they think that the amount of friends or followers is more important than the quality of their friends or followers. And if they put something out there and it gets responses it’s almost a high – responses are validation, camaraderie, …love. How could one not want that feeling? Who wouldn’t want to see that other people think the same way they do, or support them, or at the very least, read what they have to say?

So they go back, and back, and back.

BUT. I have had people send me texts when they are in the same room with me, or send me messages that aren’t complete – they admit later they forgot what they were going to say, but pressed send anyway. I have friends that before they even pee in the morning will check Facebook, or will let everyone know they’re peeing by posting about it on Facebook (okay, that’s possibly an exaggeration, but it’s the minutiae like that that boggles my mind). It’s become such a habit to check their various forms of media that they don’t leave the house without a charger for their device of choice; they can’t be off the phone or the iPad in traffic or in a restaurant or even among their family and friends.  Their brains have been altered; they need a constant fix.

Think cocaine, only without the drip at the back of the throat. Lots of speedy babbling, but not always about anything of value or that makes sense.

I dipped my toe into the Great Lake of Facebook because other writers told me I really needed a page; they also advised me to get a Twitter account (but I just don’t have all that much to say a lot of the time, and, as evidenced by this blog, I do NOTHING in 127 or 144 or however many characters Twitter limits you to when I do). I don’t have a web page, or a “platform.” I find that even with the relatively small amount of time I spend monitoring what social media contact I do have, I am losing my ability to focus on the tasks at hand, much less write creatively.  If someone actually wants to publish me eventually, might they then decide I don’t have enough of a following to promote my work to take me on?  It’s a conundrum.

I have a landline phone, people – the kind of phone line that if all of the power goes out, I will still be able to call all five of the other people in the US who still have a landline to see how they’re doing before everyone’s looted. I was perfectly happy with that until all of this “media” became a “necessity.” Well, that and texting. Which I frequently used, originally, as evidence to point out to one of my then-teenagers what they said they were going to do as opposed to what they actually did. Therefore, I am completely cool with texting.

I want to be clear: This isn’t a media bash. I have learned a lot from various types of social media, and research is far less onerous than it was when we used card catalogs and microfilm. Correspondence with friends in far off places is less expensive and nearly instantaneous. News travels faster, and globally, even though it’s sometimes difficult to tell what is real and true news. I think it’s important to figure out how to discriminate between what is valid information and what’s just sensational and potentially hazardous to your judgment and time management and real-life relationships.

And it’s important to know when to stop…to stop getting sucked in to ignorant arguments sane people would never have in person, to stop and look up from your little screen at what’s actually going on around you, to stop looking for gratification without and look instead for ways to be happy and directed from within.

Your brain will thank you.

I now open the floor to anyone who feels that I should still totally get a Twitter account…

Translation -- Look, Eat, Dance, Love

A lot of time has gone by since the last time I decided to put together a blog. Sometimes things happen and you find yourself caught up in events and taking on responsibilities that you don't expect to last as long as they do or be as involved as they turn out to be, or you're not emotionally in the place you need to be to wax philosophical, or be funny, or point out something useful about writing or life in general.

In the middle of everything going on, there are some moments, or in my case occasional hours, that make you grateful for what you have, who you know, where you've been. No matter how crazy or awful or frustrating everything around you gets, sometimes there are unexpected idylls you need to stop and enjoy, and recognize for what they are: moments to be joyful, and loving, and grateful -- to discover, or just be silly, or weep or sing.

This is not Scorpio, but that's what I saw first...

Sometimes these moments come quietly, on a walk with a friend around the block in the deep dark streets and suddenly you realize, looking up, that you can recognize the constellations -- something you thought you'd forgotten how to do. And there's the sky, in all its wonder, and you are under it, looking up. And you are very, very small, and somewhat amazed.

PizzaClubNoLimitsMilan.com
Via Carlo Imbonati, 20
Milano, Italy
The most delicious place!

Sometimes these moments are in a different land, surrounded by a dozen people speaking a language you barely grasp, in a wonderful restaurant where there are thirty different kinds of pizza and everybody is laughing and kind.



Sometimes it's on a car ride with your child who is not really a child anymore, listening to music you aren't familiar with, saying "play that again!" until you learn the words and can sing along. Even if you can't dance while you're driving, you can always dance later. You've got the song in your head now, even if it's mostly in Korean and your favorite line is the ridiculous falsetto of two English words: "Bay-bee Girllll..."

Exo: "Call Me Baby" -- I dare you not to want to dance once the chorus hits you.

Sometimes it's in listening to someone you love very dearly because they need listening to -- or sometimes that someone is listening to you, because you need listening to -- and you realize how lucky you are to have that person, that connection. And you don't have to say how much you love them and how much you love that conversation. Because they know. And you are still... very small... but what's between you is not. 

Find those moments. 

 

Uggh....So. Many. Words.

A fellow writer, after listening to some samples at Critique times I attended, frequently and succinctly had this to say about individual readings that had been presented: 

"Too many words!" 

Ninety percent of the time he said this with a smile, so you knew he was doing his best to be constructive. Unfortunately, his brief assessment rarely specified exactly which words there were too many of, so that could be a frustrating exercise if you were the person trying to figure out where to edit your excesses. A lot of the time that person was me. I like words. A lot.

A couple of weeks ago I was working on a project that made me wish he was sitting with and coaching the project's author, on exactly what had to go, with his heroic catchphrase. Here is a small sampling of some of the interesting turns of phrase used: 

"The flames of the fire reached almost to the ceiling on top of the walls." 

"I was too afraid and scared to talk."

"His eyes fell to the ground."

"He turned his back to her so he was facing away from her."

"It was probably possible."

"She watched the steam rise up from the kettle."

"We noticed as we got closer the skyscrapers got larger and bigger."

"His thighs and ankles ran hard against the pavement."


Sometimes I had to get up from my desk and think about how to say "too many words" constructively, because I know, I really know, that writing something clear and connective and interesting can be really fucking hard. I had to suggest a more concise sentence, pace around the story without stepping on meaning, without imposing my own voice and structure upon the author's own. 

That's what a copy editor is supposed to do -- I'm supposed to make it better without figuratively grabbing the manuscript and slapping it around until it fits what I think will work. Because sometimes I'm wrong. Sometimes the author really wants the redundant "larger and bigger",  or "probably possible" is a voice-ism of a first person narrator. Personally I assume ceilings are at the tops of walls so the phrase isn't necessary, or I'll delete "up" because what other way would something go if it's rising?; and I get the most comical imagery in my head watching eyes hit the ground, or thighs and ankles running without the rest of the body in play -- kind of like those Irish step dancers whose top halves are almost perfectly still while their legs and feet snap precisely, a thousand steps a minute, across a hardwood floor.

But because of my friend Harris, I carry that mantra -- when I work and when I write -- not because you should always use the least amount of words possible, but because you should choose the words that mean something, that make sense and beauty and story, only using the words that count. And you really don't need any more. 

And for him, I have only these three: We'll miss you.

No big philosophical stuff today, just Hemingway

Child Number Two quoted Ernest Hemingway to me this morning, on the subject of writing. I'm not a big reader of Hemingway, but I love this quote: 

"The most solid advice for a writer is this, I think: 
    Try to learn to breathe deeply, 
      really to taste food when you eat,
    and when you sleep, really to sleep.
Try as much as possible to be wholly alive
    with all your might, and when you laugh,
       laugh like hell. 
And when you get angry, get good and angry. 
       Try to be alive, 
    You will be dead soon enough." 


Thinking about this quote makes me want to walk in the woods, take up boxing, ride a Ferris wheel, and drink red wine. Also to write. 

Have a lovely week -- breathe deeply.

On Going Gray

Recently I encountered someone I'd known in my twenties, someone I used to meet when I hung out in places where there was drinking and loud music. I was thirty pounds lighter then and my hair was probably to the middle of my back and permed out of its genetically straight nature. We're talking over thirty years ago. I had not seen him in the years between.

I met this person during a business transaction set up by a mutual friend. He confessed he did not remember me. We did that thing where you talk about people you knew way back, when you could still dance for about six hours without getting short of breath, and what they were up to now. I had to admit I did not know or sometimes recall most of the people he mentioned, since I'd moved away from the town where he still lives, and anyway, I'm one of those people other people generally do not remember. I wasn't any more popular then. I'm okay with that.

Midway through the reminiscing, he said, "You know, my wife could help you with that hair. She works out of our house, she's pretty good."

We finished our transaction, talked a bit more, and he left.

Now, I do not know why this comment from someone I had not seen in decades -- barely knew then except to sing out the chorus of a ZZ Top song with on occasional Saturday nights among other inebriated people -- bothers me so much. I've got a niece who teases me about my hair going gray, which never bothers me. My mother occasionally comments upon it. Doesn't bother me.

But here's the deal: I am fifty-(mumble mumble). I took a good, newly self-conscious look the other day at my hair -- you see what this virtual stranger has done by invading my psychological space?

damn it

 -- and I would estimate that I am about 60/40 still brunette. That's pretty good.

 The last time I actually dyed my hair, somewhere near its original color, the people I worked with did not comment. You know what it means when there's no comment. It's generally not good. Honestly it looked like someone had dropped a mink on my head. I have never been remotely beautiful, but now I am not remotely beautiful and fifty-(mumble mumble). Dyed hair just doesn't work for my face.

Of course, I also never have the response I need when someone says something that rattles me, or I don't realize how much it rattles me until they're no longer there to respond to. But here's what I should have said:

I like my partially gray hair. It would be nice to be twenty-something again, to be able to dance and drink and stay up all night, but I am who I am, and my hair is the way my hair is.

I have grown/nearly grown children now. I have been married nearly a quarter of a century to someone who's also 60/40 gray. I love him more now than I did when we were both 100 percent brunettes, even though some of the gray I've developed is due to the experiences -- both good and bad -- we've endured together. I've lost and gained dear friends; worried exponentially through the teen years with our children; survived financial ups and downs, sleep deprivation, natural disasters, conflicts between family members, car crashes, holiday meal traumas, travel snafus, and career changes.

My gray hairs are earned. They are part of what I look like because of what I've experienced, just like my laugh lines and the never-fading scar on my knee from a game of hide-and-seek gone wrong when I was five. They mean that I've come far. I'm not judging anyone else who wants to change their appearance, to feel younger, to experiment with how they look, but I'm comfortable this way. I don't need to be twenty-seven again, even though I sometimes wish I was, because I happened to like being able to dance for six hours without getting short of breath.

I don't need help fixing something that's not broken.

What I Did On My Summer Vacation

Writers Police Academy, 2015

(This blog's been simultaneously published on the Long Island Romance Writers' blog.)

Where unruly passengers are dealt with.

I only need one word to describe the Writers Police Academy held this past weekend in Appleton, Wisconsin, and that is AWESOME. Take roughly 300 people, put them together for four days of seminars and demonstrations about law enforcement, criminal behavior, things that blow up, a couple of amazing German Shepherd dogs, a jet (yes, as in “airplane”), and hands-on workshops about guns, blood, fire and EMT practices, and forensic psychology, and you get AWESOME.  

Karen Slaughter does stand-up

Add in generous sponsorship by the Sisters in Crime, guest speakers from the ATF, FBI, police forces (Ohio, California, Wisconsin, New York to name a few), the Secret Service, forensic specialists, firemen, and one (I heard) hunky SWAT team – plus the bonus of hearing from down-to-earth and funny Alison Brennan and hysterical, riffing-on-my-dysfunctional-Southern-roots Karen Slaughter – and about 300 raffle baskets, and you’ve got the kind of exhaustion that comes from a full mind and shared laughter.  And there’s no way I’m leaving out one kickass female officer who thrilled us with her fierce respect for the law and her responsibility and drive to uphold it. Also because she rocked the uniform, drove like an ace, and made us all want to be her.

Colleen Belangea, Lee Lofland, Joe LaFevre

Lee Lofland, who originated the Academy and is a former sheriff, is warm and organized and funny, and there’s a camaraderie among the instructors revealed by their mutual teasing. One of former Secret Service Agent Mike Roche’s classes is Romance Behind the Badge and he’s known affectionately as The Love Doctor; John Gilstrap gleefully taught us how to “blow shit up”; and Marco Connelli, former NYPD detective, took us through his days undercover and explained “defenestration” (look it up!). Joe LaFevre, our man at the brand new Fox Valley Technical College and Public Safety Training Center, made sure every one of us had our questions answered and was a terrific host. Dr. Katherine Ramsland explained psychopathy in both children and adults, and Instructor Colleen Belangea (our hero!) talked about what it was like to be one of the few females on the force when she started in the mid 1980s.

There were so many possibilities for research that I’m sorry if I leave any out. There were jail tours, police ride-alongs, simulated and real firearms training, crime scene photography, forensic procedures and portraiture, and methods of handling everything from handcuffs to light sources to martial arts moves to intercepting a fleeing vehicle.

Every day I met someone new, from every corner of the country. Some of the attendees had been coming for years (WPA is in its seventh year), but many of us were newbies – it didn’t matter how many times you had been to the Academy before; everyone was excited. Although the conference was centered around getting your story – thriller, mystery, procedural, romantic suspense, spy novel, noir – right, many of the writers crossed genres. I met many writers who were part of Sisters in Crime, but many as well who were RWA, or completely unaffiliated.

Some of us occasionally pointed out where it would be a good place to hide a body (but only theoretically, since Appleton's actually a very nice town -- check out FatGirlzBakin for amazing cupcakes or the Appleton Brewery for great brews and snacks), or asked how you could (again, just theoretically, we promise) blow up a cottage from a mile away, or how relationships worked between members of different branches of law enforcement. We learned about biological dangers and what the term “badge bunny” meant, how luminol reacted when bleach was used to clean up a crime, and how witnesses could be coaxed to recall the criminal’s features or suspects to confess. If you wrote about good guys versus bad guys, this was the place to be.

Lee told us near the end that the planning for next year’s event would be starting shortly after he got home from this one. 

If you’re interested in finding out more, look for the Writers Police Academy online and join their mailing list. Or try #2015WPA or www.The GraveyardShift.com, which is Lee Lofland’s blog. 

I’ll be watching and waiting to return, when I’m not writing more realistic sleuthing…

"The pool closes at eleven"

No Thank You Does Not Mean You're No Good

(This was recently published in Shorelines, the newsletter of the Long Island Romance Writers. With extremely minor adjustments, I'm re-running it here.)

When I was in my twenties, a boyfriend broke up with me because he said he wanted to spend more time drinking Budweiser with his friends rather than hang around with me. I suppose I was upset at first, but really, who can compete with that? Budweiser is, after all, the King of Beers, while I am a mere descendant of humble Italian and Irish peasants.  Over time, I have come to think of this as my most fortuitous rejection; shortly after he left me I met my husband, and I have been happily married for nearly 25 years. All functioned as it should in my universe.

                I have decided to keep the ridiculousness of that rejection in my mind as I go through the process of submitting my manuscripts for publication. It is sometimes difficult to keep perspective – last week I received two rejections within twenty minutes of each other, about a week after an agent who had offered me representation withdrew the offer when I asked if we could possibly negotiate the terms of the contract. The terms would have me agree to relinquishing 20 percent of everything I owned and thought of, including random ideas and possibly one or both of my kids. I didn’t have a problem with random ideas, since most of those involve matters like where to plant the beets and what might make an awesome color combination for hair clips, but I did have a problem with turning over twenty percent of my kids – one of them cooks and the other occasionally can be badgered into mowing the lawn. Long story short, I remain unpublished and unrepresented. 

                In the midst of my brief self-pity party, I made a snarky remark to someone I felt was a smidge overly optimistic about submission prospects, and found myself agreeing to write something about rejection.  And while I’m sure further details of my experience with Mr. Still-An-Alcoholic would be incredibly engaging, it seemed more prudent to discover what other writers had gone through instead.  A sampling, for which you might want to sit down:  

                Margaret Mitchell, author of Gone with the Wind, was rejected 38 times. Kathryn Stockett of The Help was rejected 60 times. Thirty-one publishers turned down James Patterson – he has since had sales of over 220 million books, spearheaded literacy projects for children, and had nineteen consecutive number one New York Times bestsellers. Stephen King received thirty rejections for Carrie, which was only completed after his wife retrieved it from the trash, where he’d thrown it after being rejected for an earlier project.  He’s done okay for himself since.

                J.K. Rowling was told “No thank you” by fourteen publishers before Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone was picked up.  Alex Haley worked for eight years on Roots only to be turned down a whopping 200 times for it – the book later sold over 8 million copies (1.5 million of that in the first seven months!) and was awarded a special Pulitzer Prize. Even the Diary of Anne Frank was rejected – fifteen times.

                Most of my rejection letters have been along the lines of “Thank you, but it’s not something we feel is right for our list” or “Thanks for your submission but it’s not for us. We wish you the best,” or my personal favorite (and my first rejection letter), “Please remember I am only one person and while the book may not be right for me, I’m sure you’ll meet with success elsewhere.”  Nobody’s ever been hostile or rude.  But consider these comments:

                “Stick to teaching.” Louisa May Alcott was given this feedback in response to Little Women. The book has now been in print for over 140 years.

                “An endless nightmare. I think the verdict would be ‘don’t read this horrid book’,” was one opinion given to H.G. Wells for his classic War of the Worlds.

                Vladimir Nabokov was told, “I recommend it be buried under a rock for a thousand years” in reference to Lolita, which went on to eventually sell 50 million copies.

                And finally, keep this in mind: It took Agatha Christie five years of submitting her work before she was published. The only other author to outsell her to date is William Shakespeare.

                  

Feel any better?

Me neither, actually. But knowing that my dinky total number of rejections so far pales in comparison to the quantity of “No thank yous” and other less kind responses these giants received does inspire me to keep trying.  On a grand scale, think of it this way – What were the opinions of 200 publishing professionals against Alex Haley’s eventual 8 million readers? Or the 14 individuals who didn’t “get” Harry Potter against the 450 million and counting that did?

I'm going to persevere. Eventually that one agent or publisher or distributor is going to come along and we'll have a nice discussion about my random ideas and how they're just what they've been looking for. Maybe we'll talk over a beer.