Being a Writer in the 21st Century

In Becoming Alice you found out that Ilse became Alice in the 20th Century, not only in name, but also as an American person. Fast forward just a bit. Well no, fast forward a long way in years all the way into the 21st Century. That same Alice who was such a fish out of water and struggled to fit into the American landscape, is now trying to catch up to the technological demands of the 21st Century.

Yesterday I spend most of the morning trying to replace an ink cartridge in my printer. I’ve done those replacements before. No big deal, I thought. The trouble arose out of the fact that I purchased a new printer that not only prints, but is a fax machine, telephone, and has internet access capabilities. I haven’t checked whether it also will brush my teeth in the morning. I only wanted a printer. Period. Nothing else. There is no such animal on the market.

Never mind, I’ll just use the printer and send off those first ten pages of my new work to someone whose judgement I trust and who would give me an honest critique. I purchased a double cartridge, not wanting to be bothered so often. God, but they are expensive. I digested the price. Writing is really important to me and proceeded to install it.

I lifted the top from the printer and the ink cartridge carrier came into full view. Piece of cake, I thought. I removed the old one and installed the new one. The printer/fax/telephone/computer told me it didn’t recognize any of the red, blue, yellow, and black cartidges. I hadn’t even touched the color inks.

I’m not without any technological knowledge altogether, so I turned the printer/fax/telephone/computer off and unplugged it from the socket. Replugged it, turned it on, and the same message came up. I went to the handbook. There is no information about “how to replace an ink cartidge.”

Long story short: It took me two and a half more hours to notice that in installing the new black cartridge the other three colors popped out of their place by 1/16th of an inch. I needed to reinstall all four colors to make the @#$%&* work. Sigh!

Being a writer in the 21st Century is not for sissies!

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Old Friends

I’ve finally found a little chunk of time to get back to my blogging. My writing time has been going to a fictional story that is bouncing around in my head. Perhaps I should say it has gone into rewriting the first ten pages two or three times. Each time I think it gets better. The down side is that I’m not getting on with it. Now I’ve come to believe that I should write the entire story down to its very end and then come back for my rewrites, however many they may be.

Then a couple of other events interfered with my gettting to this blog. One was attending a graduation in Texas and the other was a visit from an old friend for several days. I just hope I live long enough to finish writing my story.

Now, back to the visit from my old friend which was wonderful. We have known one another for —– years: too many to admit to. Shall we just say that we essentially grew up together. Our parents were best friends. The remarkable thing is that we were very different from one another as children. She was a happy, outgoing kid while I was shy, introverted and troubled. Somehow, we got along great.

Fast forward many many years. I moved away from my home town. She remained. Marriage and children followed. Careers followed. Happy events and unhappy events followed. Our lives took different paths. But somehow our friendship remained … strong.

My friend came to visit a short while ago and we found out that we are no longer so different from one another. We have, and have had, some of the same problems. We have dealt, and are dealing with them, in similar ways. We have some of the same interests: travel, reading books, going to the theater and concerts, movies, understanding world events and politics. The list goes on. The few days she was here just flew by and I can’t wait for our next visit.

Some childhood friends grow so different from one another over the years that they can hardly find a few words to exchange. How lucky I am that is not the case with my old friend.

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The World of Machines

I’m all over the map going in all directions and getting nothing done. This time being “all over the map” is literal since I’ve just spent ten days in New York, the Netherlands, and Holland. That is one of the reasons why I haven’t posted anything here on WordPress. I was busy getting together clothes, sundries, toiletries, medications, reading material (for those long plane rides,) and paper to work on my next writing project. You’d think I was going to be spending time with a Stone Age tribe in the Amazon. Didn’t it ever occur to me that I could buy any one of those items in all of the above-mentioned destinations?

But the frustrating part of it all was that when I finally did find some time before my departure to get onto my computer, I couldn’t get through to the internet. A hasty call to my computer guy resulted in our needing to do more research to find out if my computer had died, or if the fault of lay in the hands ofTime Warner. They were in no hurry to come out to my house and my plane was leaving.

Never mind, I would have a computer at my disposal on the ship that was taking me on a River Cruise in Holland. Two computers for 130 guests on the boat! When I finally was able to get to one of them the ship was always located in a position out of range of the satellite. I tried to switch gears and pull out my writing pad. As soon as I finished a sentence or two, the Cruise Director would blast an announcement over the loudspeaker about our next port of call, or a waiter would ask me if I wanted to order a drink.

Perhaps you wonder why I didn’t spend any time getting to know my fellow passengers. The answer is that many of them were playing bridge in the back lounge. Good night, they could have done that back home in Iowa. Some of them came in packs of nine or ten people and they remained self-contained the entire time. I shouldn’t neglect to mention the three or four people who spent most of the cruise reading a newspaper or a Kindle. Luckily I brought mine along with me. The only problem was that I finished reading my book and couldn’t download another because there was no wifi connection available.

I thought about using my cell phone to call some of my friends back home, but I hadn’t purchased an international card before I left. All this made me aware of how dependent we have become on the amazing machines we have at our dispoasal. Imagine life without a computer, cell phone, or wifi connection. Yikes!

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Time to Write vs. Time to Promote

My mom had a saying which she used often, especially when she was stressed about not having enough time to two jobs that were of equal importance: “One can’t dance at two weddings on the same afternoon of the same day.”

I sometimes feel like that. My dad told us another story which applies to me as well. He, as a doctor, had a nurse of whom he was very fond. He said she did everything he told her to do efficiently and in a timely manner. But if he made the mistake of telling her to do two things, she became so confused that she didn’t do any one of them correctly.

Right now I fell exactly like his nurse. I spend my time being pulled in two different directions in my literary life, one is to promote my memoir, Becoming Alice and the other is to continue writing my next work which is a fictional story, based on true events.

The bottom line is that I can’t find enough time for me to spend to do either one of them justice, especially the writing aspect. Once I get going on a project, I like to keep going. I don’t like being pulled back and forth. I know I must make a decision soon or I’ll drive myself crazy. I know exactly how dad’s nurse must have felt. I don’t want to get to the point where I won’t be able to do either one of those jobs as well as I think I could.

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It Is Never Too Late

I’m going to book a tennis lesson on my serve. That might seem ridiculous to anyone who knows how long I’ve played tennis, and who knows how old I am. I have played tennis most of my adult life. I’m not going to tell you how old I am. Most of my friends are still trying to figure that out by trying to put together a few hints that slipped out by mistake somewhere along the way. In any case, I have played tennis long enough to know how to make all the moves, but somehow I still can’t pull off a serve that has any power behind it. I guess I could support my decision to take a tennis lesson by pointing out that even the most successful tennis players of the world have coaches that point out to them certain ways of doing things, ways they may be totally unaware of, to improve their games. So, on that basis, I think I’m okay to take a lesson. Perhaps I’m not putting my shoulders into the right position, or not throwing the ball high enough, or following through the right way. We’ll see.

Now, as to taking that lesson at my age … that is another story. I am reminded of the fact that there have been some very successful people who started their careers at an age much beyond mine. One for example is Grandma Moses, the renowned American painter. She didn’t paint her first picture until she was seventy-six. She wasn’t discovered until she was seventy-eight, and she became internationally famous at the age of eighty. Luckily she lived until she was one hundred and one before she died so that we could behind a large portfolio.

Another remarkable story is the one about Harry Bernstein. He wrote an extremely successful memoir about his early life in England entitled “The Invisible Wall.” He was ninety-six years old. And in the first page of his book he tells his readers that he is “delighted to hear that Target has chosen my book … as its book club pick.” Wonderful! So, I don’t think I’ll apologize for taking a lesson on my serve right now. Perhaps someone will write about me having written Becoming Alice at my age.

You see, I think it is never too late to do what you think you must do. What I must do is get back to writing my next book, which is well on its way now.

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Gender Stats in Publishing for 2009-The Gap Exists

It is already January 2011 and I am still cleaning up from left-over bits and pieces of information that I wanted to address from 2010. One of them was an email received from a site that I watch. It is http://www.shewrites.com and I think it is worthwhile to stay tuned.

The email gave us the Gender Stats in Publishing for 2009. Please note:

Amazon Top 100 Editor’s Picks 2009:
77 Men/23 Women

LA Times Favorite Fiction 2009:
16 Neb/9 Women

LA Times Favorite Nonfiction 2009:
19 Men/6 Women

The Ntional Book Awards 2009:
4 Men/o Women

Publishers Weekley Best Books 2009:
10 Men/0 Women

Washington Post Best Books 2009:
69 Men/17 Women

Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 1948-2009:
40 Men/16 Women

Pulitzer Prize for Poetry 1950-2009:
44 Men/16 Women

U.S. Poet Laureate 1937-2009:
36 Men/10 Women

I give up! I can’t believe women are so far inferior to men!

Give me a break!

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Stuck in Rewrite

One of the many questions I am asked about Becoming Alice is, “How long did it take you to write your book?” My pat answer is always: three years. Now, that is not true. It didn’t take me three years to write the book. I took me about half that time to write the book and the other half was spent in rewriting it.

Of course, I had the book edited by someone who I trusted to do a good job and many things were picked up which need to be redone, fixed, or eliminated altogether. I was prepared to do that. What I didn’t anticipate was that I became aware of the fact that about a third of the last part of my book didn’t hit the mark as powerfully as I wished. I had to make a decision to either publish a book that I myself knew could be improved, or to rewrite that third all over again. Being the Type A personality that I am, I rewrote that third and had the book published. It is the only way I can operate and I am so glad I did. Becoming Alice has done so much better than I ever dreamed it would.

I have begun a second work. I think it will one day be a good story. My trouble is that I don’t have as much time to write now as I did when I wrote my memoir. So I write about a dozen pages and don’t get back to them right away. When I reread them to get into the swing of the piece, I always find ways to improve it. And then I take the time to rewrite those dozen pages. I haven’t been able to get beyond about twenty pages. I am in a rewrite rut.

My New Year’s resolution is to pick up my new work wherever I left it off and get on with it. I can always take a year or two after it’s completed to rewrite the darn thing. I think there is no way to avoid the rewrite, rewrite, rewrite law for authors.

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The Importance of Comments on WordPress

Christmas is about a week away now and I am still trying to stop reeling from all I have to do. Lucky for me I live in southern California and it has been raining non-stop for days and the forecast is for more rain in the coming week. I am thrilled. I don’t like driving the freeways in the rain, especially since I just heard on the news that the accident and fatality rate has quadrupled over the weekend. So I am at my computer catching up on just about everyone and everything.

During the overload period just prior to this week, a period when I also needed time to move from one home to another, I had almost forgotten that I write a blog, namely a WordPress Blog.

Then, out of the blue, I received a Comment! The email from WordPress announcing this comment reminded me that I, in fact, write one. I love writing this blog and I love receiving comments, but I get very few of those and I must wait a long time from one to another. It matters not. It is the writing I really enjoy doing.

Then, about ten minutes ago, I got a comment. And it was a comment on a blog I’d written quite a long time ago. It reminded me that the blog world goes on even without me and even when I haven’t added my thoughts to it. I am so gratified to know that, that I even took time out to tell all of you how important a comment can be.

And, as soon as I get through rewriting the story I’m working on the umpteenth time, I shall write a blog about rewriting. Come on back and read it … then write me a comment!

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A Writer’s Space of One’s Own

Thanksgiving has come and gone, and this year it has been especially enjoyable for me. My husband and I flew from California to New York to spend the week prior to the holiday with our oldest daughter. We shopped, we chatted, we went to a marvelous Broadway play, we cooked and cooked, and cooked. The dinner was outstanding; but being with most of our immediate family was the best part.

“So how was your flight over to the East coast?” one of my friends asked. The look on her face, lookin like she’d bitten into a sour lemon, told me that she didn’t think it coud have been much fun. She must have been thinking about going through security at the airport, sitting in economy class smashed between two strange people, having to eat a dry sandwich and drink a cup of cold coffee, and sitting immobile in one place for over six hours.

Our plane from Los angeles to New York was fully booked; not an empty seat available on the flight. People entertained themselves in a variety of ways: Many were on their computers. Others read their paperbacks. Some elected to sleep the time away. I decided to pull out a yellow lined tablet and worked on a story I had started some time ago.

You may remember Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own in which she proposes that a woman must have a room of her own to be a writer. Well I felt that I was the owner of that little bit of space on the airplane. I had a space of my own in which no one could intrude. There was no telephone that could ring to pull me out of my thoughts. There were no chores to be done which would prey on me and come back often to remind me they were undone. There would be no interruptions from anyone unbeknown to me. I was in, A Space of my Own.

I have over twenty handwritten pages of a story to show for the time I was on that flight. It is almost finished now. I am so happy to have had that plane ride in which I had a space of my own.

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Amazon’s Book Ranking

My mother came from the Old World; by that I mean Europe, many decades ago. If you’ve read Becoming Alice you know her pretty well. One of the things I didn’t write about was her propensity for interjecting into our conversations sayings for the ordinary things that happen in life. One of her favorite was, “every pot has its own lid.” That one was used to make old maids feel better about being unmarried. It meant that there was a man out there somewhere for her that would fit her needs, just like there was a lid for every pot.

Lately, I’ve thought about another one of her favorites: “a watched pot doesn’t boil.” It has absolutely applied to my latest experiences on the internet. I have a habit of watching, and I mean almost daily, my statistics on various sites to which I am connected. I am curious to see if anyone, and how many people, might have read a blog after I’ve posted it. Often I get a few hits and then the numbers don’t go up any more. But I keep looking.

Another statistic I watch is Amazon’s Book Ranking for Becoming Alice. There, the numbers change all the time, but mostly in the wrong direction.

This last month, my normal routine has been completely disrupted. I have had to move out of my home of many, many years. I’ve had an estate (it’s a joke, it’s just used furniture) sale and arranged for a donation to charity for what’s left over. I am now having to face cleaning the whole place up. Therefore, there has been no time to check my stats anywhere.

It turned out to be a great thing, because my stats jumped considerably in positive directions on all sites, especially my Amazon site. Since I can’t figure out Amazon’s ranking system in the first place, in future I am not even going to look at it for days or weeks on end. After all, “a watched pot doesn’t boil.”

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