Archive for November, 2006
Besides Dems take the house, I was tickled to come across this gem today:
It’s really silly to just be a slave to work that you can do instead of want to do.
Found it in my interview notes for an article I’m writing on self-employment. The interviewee who said this is a former math professor with degrees up the wazoo. Not long after she began teaching, she found herself dreading Mondays and living for the weekends. So to make life more interesting she started her own petcare business on the side, as an evening and weekend hobby. Still, she didn’t think she could ever give up the day job she had trained so long and hard for, despite the fact that it was bleeding her soul dry. This is what I should be doing, she’d tell herself about the unfulfilling math career. And because women are so underrepresented professionally in mathematics and the sciences, she felt it was her responsibility to tough out a gig she’d grown to resent, if for no other reason than to serve as a role model for young women contemplating what career path to follow.
Somewhere along the way the weekend hobby took on a life of its own, eating up every waking second this woman wasn’t at her day job, all the while remaining a constant source of joy. It was time to choose between shoulding and wanting, and this time to choice was clear: Kick the day job to the curb, and pour her heart into her burgeoning petcare business. And so she did. And happy she remains, with a thriving new enterprise of her own.
Career coach extraordinaire Curt Rosengren first introduced me to the debilitating concept of shoulding all over oneself, though I doubt he put as ineloquently as I just did. As a roadmap of sorts for The Anti 9-to-5 Guide, I wrote an article earlier this year on ten myths of career change we women subject ourselves to. Unfortunately, when it comes to career change, shoulding is just one of the many roadblocks we set up for ourselves. You can read about nine other ways we’re our own worst enemies here. (Free subscription may be required.)
The shoulding ourselves doesn’t begin and end with career decisions though. There’s also the crippling shoulding we creative types commit when we sit down — or avoid sitting down — to work on our arty projects. While devouring all sorts of online interviews with writer Aimee Bender this week, I came across this great conversation she and Lovely Bones author Alice Sebold had with each other, on shoulding all over one’s creativity, among other things. If you’ve ever thought to yourself, I should know the work of all the literary greats before I pick up a pen myself, or I should write literary fiction as opposed to sci-fi/fantasy because everyone knows lit fiction is [insert snooty assertion here], or I should plot out every twist and turn of my novel before I actually begin writing the dang thing, read this interview.
November 8th, 2006
Don’t those words have lovely ring to them? Here’s what Time had to say about Nancy back in September:
Nancy Pelosi, the leader of the Democrats in the House, portrays herself as a polite, grandmotherly lady. She constantly discusses her five grandchildren, makes sure her office is stocked with Ghirardelli chocolates, perpetually smiles and never swears in a business in which almost everyone else does. She even has a few cute quirks she and her staff would love to tell you about: a diet consisting mostly of chocolate and chocolate ice cream, and so much energy, she rarely sleeps. Just the other night, she will tell you, she was up watching MTV after midnight.
Don’t believe it for a second. Would your grandmother ever say, “If people are ripping your face off, you have to rip their face off” (Pelosi’s approach to handling attacks from Republicans)? How about “If you take the knife off the table, it’s not very frightening anymore” (her explanation for why she won’t let voters forget George W. Bush’s unpopular Social Security proposal from last year)?
The 66-year-old San Francisco lawmaker is an aggressive, hyperpartisan liberal pol who is the Democrats’ version of Tom DeLay, minus the ethical and legal problems of the former Republican House leader. To condition Democrats for this fall’s midterm elections, she has employed tactics straight out of DeLay’s playbook: insisting other House Democrats vote the party line on everything, avoiding compromise with Republicans at all cost and mandating that members spend much of their time raising money for colleagues in close races. And she has been effective. House Democrats have been more unified in their voting than at any other time in the past quarter-century, with members on average voting the party line 88% of the time in 2005, according to Congressional Quarterly….
Right fucking on!
November 8th, 2006
I took a workshop at Richard Hugo House in Seattle this weekend with the endlessly talented Aimee Bender, author of The Girl in the Flammable Skirt, Willful Creatures, and An Invisible Sign of My Own. Reason I mention it is not because the class was eye-opening and wonderful (it was), but because toward the end of class on Saturday the conversation invariably turned to the instructor’s own creative habits.
My friend Angela has told me on more than one occasion that she’s heard Aimee Bender say in interviews that she writes two hours a day because for her, it’s “the law” — a non-negotiable rule she’s set up for herself. This of course came up in class, and Aimee confirmed that she indeed works on her fiction two hours first thing every morning, before turning on the lights or anything, often on weekends, too, except when traveling. Before she had the law to guide her, she said, she had too much angst about whether she was writing enough. In interviews, most published novelists and short story writers will tell you they have similar hard-and-fast writing rules and schedules for themselves because really, it’s the only way to get the job done. I just like how Aimee Bender calls it “the law.” It’s so resolute.
As I come off the final page proof review of my book (turned in this a.m. — yay!) and start to think about how I’m going to juggle some of my creative writing goals with the paying work I’ve signed up for this fall, Aimee’s law serves a good reminder: When juggling artsy-fartsy endeavors with bread-and-butter work, structure and commitment is everything.
November 6th, 2006
Since I’m busy reviewing my final page proofs for the book today and yesterday’s post was so agenda-heavy, here’s a little light reading for you: a Mad Libs letter of resignation by humorist Rob Bloom from the online version of Monkeybicycle, a fun lit journal I read periodically.
In case you’re not currently looking to tell your boss where she or he can stick it, Rob has thoughtfully provided other prefab letters (also written in the helpful Mad Libs style) you can use to dump your high-school flame, drop out of school, or ditch your fiance.
(Also, please vote Tuesday. And please help convince others to do so if you have the time.)
November 3rd, 2006
Get thee to a voting booth. Better yet, help direct your complacent neighbors to a voting booth on Tuesday, November 7th. With Nancy Pelosi poised to become the first woman speaker of the House if the Dems take Congress, how can you refuse? It’s one for the history books, people.
So where do you sign up? The webtastic folks at MoveOn.org have made it easy as (apple) pie for you to ring up voters from the comforts of your own damn sofa and encourage them to vote. You can start today on your coffee break, or tonight during commercials while watching McDreamy and McSteamy. Or you can do it this weekend, when maybe you have a bit more free time. Or Monday night, when it’s really freaking critical.
All it takes is an hour or two or three — as much or as little time as you have. Click the lovely flashing graphic or follow this link to learn more and sign up. Because when it comes right down to it, we freelancers are allergic to Republican agendas. So help a runny-nosed, hive-riddled freelancer out, would ya? Vote. Vote Dem. And encourage your neighbors to do the same.
(Note: It wasn’t my intent to post PSAs on this blog, but I can’t just sit by and do nada, not with all those money-grubbing, child-fondling freaks in office. So until the election is over you’re just going to have to deal with it. And yes, I’ll be making calls from my own home Sunday night. And on Tuesday, I’ll be knocking on doors with the DCCC.)
November 2nd, 2006
Some fab resources for writers I came across recently:
The Renegade Writer. The blog by Linda Formichelli and Diana Burrell, authors of the must-have book for freelance writers, The Renegade Writer: A Totally Unconventional Guide to Freelance Writing Success. Check out such helpful blog features as You Ask: We Answer (an interactive Q&A column) and Sourcery Central (a place where you, too, can find people to interview for that article you’re writing on those with unspeakably weird phobias — Paging Tyra “Can’t Get in a Pool with Dolphins” Banks).
Written Road. An invaluable blog for working and wannabe travel writers, by Jen Leo, author of the Sand in My Bra series of spit-take-inducing (or so I hear) travel essays. I mentioned this site in my book — reason being, it’s loaded with tips, markets, resources, and as the site’s subhead says, “the inside scoop to the travel publishing world.” Plus, Jen’s published about 9,000 books and articles on her travel adventures, so if anyone knows what they’re talking about, she does.
Miss Snark. The blog of a dominatrix-inspired, anonymous lit agent who doesn’t mince words. Tips and answers to all your burning questions about the book publishing biz are served up as wryly and brutally as possible. Submit an ill-informed question or a shitty mini-mini book proposal for that blog-turned-novel and be prepared to be crushed like the pondscum nobody you are. Or as the blogstress herself puts it, “When Miss Snark mingles with authors in her stilettos, there are no survivors.” Still, you will undoubtedly learn something. Or at least spit your milk all over your keyboard. Thanks to the infamous Ariel of Electrolicious for tipping me off to this wondrous site.
November 1st, 2006
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