I’ve been writing hard for years, dreaming up projects, deciding how to frame them, finding the right words. I’ve struggled to find the right agent (not just AN agent but the exact-right-perfect-for-me-one). I’ve considered dropping out more than once. There were times when it seemed like nothing would ever sell.
And then…
… all the atoms in the universe line up.
A few weeks ago, I announced the sale of my upcoming anthology THE V-WORD, and last week Publisher’s Marketplace had this:
Amber Keyser’s SNEAKER CENTURY, an illustrated social history of the ubiquitous shoe, to Domenica Di Piazza at Twenty-First Century Books, for publication in Spring 2015, by Fiona Kenshole at Transatlantic Literary Agency (World).
I think I just might be floating a few inches off the ground, or maybe it’s my sneakers!
I grew up in and around Portland, Oregon, and had the good fortune to go to high school at St. Mary’s Academy, a mere hop-skip-and-jump from Powell’s City of Books (aka best bookstore in the world and I’ll fight for that title). As a teen, I haunted the Blue Room, trailing my finger along spines, seizing titles, and sitting cross-legged in the aisle to read first chapters. I read ravenously and widely, rarely giving up on a book.
I was a book slut.
That was then. Now…
I’m afraid writing has ruined me. (Not really, but that sounds kinda awesome, doesn’t it?) I’m in the middle of reading six different books right now. A couple are research for my new book THE V-WORD. Another is excellent nonfiction but with very tiny print. One is an incredibly well-written memoir about a topic that breaks my heart every few pages. Two more are short story collections. I want to read all of them, but none has forcibly sat me down in the aisle at Powell’s and refused to let go. The last two novels I read were by acquaintances so I finished them even though neither blew my socks off.
And this is where we get to the ruined part.
It takes something extraordinary to really blow my mind in fiction. I want powerful writing and characters I could swallow whole. I want a book that makes me think either I wish I had written that or I never in a million years could have written that.
So imagine my happy when I picked up PICTURE ME GONE by Meg Rosoff. On second thought, don’t bother with that, go read it yourself and see why I started yesterday and finished today.
Binge reading that my book slut self can appreciate!
I am so excited that I finally get to talk about my newest book project. Here’s the announcement from Publisher’s Marketplace on 1/28/14.
Amber Keyser’s THE V-WORD, a collection of personal essays by women about losing their virginity that captures the complexity of this important life changing decision and reflects diverse, real-world experiences, to Lindsay Brown at Beyond Words, in a nice deal, for publication in Spring 2016, by Fiona Kenshole at Transatlantic Literary Agency (World).
We’re going to be doing some amazing things with this book. I can’t wait to tell you more about how it came to be, who the contributors are, and why it matters, but for now, I’m flying high and am happy to share the buzz with you.
Earlier in the month I blogged about a forth-coming book called RECLAIMING CONVERSATION by Sherry Turkle, the author of ALONE TOGETHER. I resolved to focus on meaningful conversations in my life rather than the social media version via “likes” and “shares.”
While having tea with a friend the other day, we got to talking about conversation itself and the different kinds of conversations we have with the people closest to us versus with colleagues and acquaintances.
When we first meet people, we do a lot of story-telling. We share experiences. We try to present ourselves in a way appropriate to the situation. It’s kind of tacky to say we are “on message,” but it’s the truth. We are trying to be professional with colleagues or be scintillating with someone we might be attracted to. It’s not that we aren’t honest, but we don’t bare everything.
With family and close friends, we don’t have the same kinds of conversation. We already know the stories. We often talk less because there’s more subtext. We get each other’s reference both humorous and snide. We know the things that are likely to provoke or upset. When we’re being kind, we avoid those things. When we’re tweaked, not so much.
Our conversations hold more of the mundane but can get deep and emotional much faster. Maintaining intimacy and connection with family takes effort. We have to be more intentional about our conversations. I think the tendency is to avoid the ones that are hard because we are entrenched in the way things are.
It’s scary to muck about in the system we’ve got working within our family even if it’s not working very well. But the mucking about could be an opportunity, too. A chance to deepen our relationships and step beyond the day-to-day that so frequently dominates our interactions.
I loved a scene from a recent episode of Modern Family. Cam and Mitchell go out to a romantic meal but agree not to talk about their upcoming wedding or their daughter, Lily. Their conversation is stilted and uncomfortable until suddenly it goes deep, way deep, when the couple at the table near them implodes. By the end, Cam and Mitchell are in a better place.
“What?” you say, cocking an eyebrow. “You’re a writer. Words are your thing.”
Yes. I am a writer. I write pretty much every weekday, rolling around in words like a puppy in a laundry pile. I struggle to find the right words to build worlds my readers can believe in. In each book, whether fiction or nonfiction, I strive to tell “true” stories.
In my “happy place”
It’s a perfect job for an introvert like me, defined, as Susan Cain does in QUIET: THE POWER OF INTROVERTS IN A WORLD THAT CAN’T STOP TALKING, as a person who prefers low stimulation environments. Give me a park over a mall, a dinner with friends over a kegger. My happy place is unplugged, in the wilderness, with people I love.
So why is it that time and time again during my writing day, I turn to Twitter and Facebook for that uniquely extroverted cacophony that is social media?
But I also turn to Twitter and Facebook for connection. Sometimes real conversations ensue (like a recent one with Olivia Croom on what constitutes a “challenging” read for adults), and I’ve built genuine friendships that started on Twitter and extended into real life. What would I do without @kiersi,@quickmissive, @heidi_schulz, and @teribrownwrites?
Sometimes though, I log into social media feeling a little desperate, wanting someone, anyone to reach out to me. That rushing stream of over-stimulating snippets washes over me, and I’m left feeling like I did at 16 flipping through a copy of Vogue Magazine, lumpy, unfashionable, and definitely left out of the conversation.
In short, overwhelmed.
“Oh, you introvert you!”
Exactly! But the article (which of course I found on my Twitter feed) that really spurred this blog post is by Luke O’Neil and came out on Esquire.com. Click through and read THE YEAR WE BROKE THE INTERNET: AN EXPLANATION, AN APOLOGY, A PLEA. O’Neil’s thesis is that what he calls “Big Viral” is killing journalism.
As our information gathering moves online, we have to swim in this great, gushing mess. The “news” portals that dominate are the ones that generate the most click-throughs. These new media outlets need their headlines to go viral. As O’Neil, a journalist guilty himself of feeding this beast, points out:
“You don’t need to write anymore–just write a good headline and point. If what you’re pointing at turns out to be a steaming turd, well, then repackage the steam and sell it back to us.”
He illustrates this point with the “news” stories that went viral and turned out to be bogus (e.g. snow on the Sphinx, Samsung paying Apple $1 billion in nickels, etc).
“Uh, Amber?” you say. “Where are you going with this?”
I read this this article and thought Oh, shit, I’m part of the problem. I’ve clicked on those links to celebrity side boobs. I’ve wandered in the morass of BuzzFeed and UpWorthy. I’ve “shared” and “liked” in a millisecond.
I don’t want to be part of the problem. I want my words to matter, and I want them to further connections with real humans.
Last night, my family was eating out at one of our favorite restaurants (The Rendezvous Grill in Welches, btw), and I was telling them about an interview I’d read by Megan Garber with Sherry Turkle, an MIT psychologist, who has written ALONE TOGETHER: WHY WE EXPECT MORE FROM TECHNOLOGY AND LESS FROM EACH OTHER and is working on a follow-up book called RECLAIMING CONVERSATION. My son pointed out a couple across the room sitting together and staring into their iPhones. Alone together.
In the article, Garber writes:
“The conclusion [Turkle has] arrived at while researching her new book is not, technically, that we’re not talking to each other. We’re talking all the time, in person as well as in texts, in emails, over the phone, on Facebook and Twitter. The world is more talkative now, in many ways, than it’s ever been. The problem, Turkle argues, is that all of this talk can come at the expense of conversation. We’re talking at each other rather than with each other.”
“So what are you going to do about?”
I’m not planning on turning into a rogue, anti-technology hermit, but I am resolving not to be part of the problem. No more side boob links. No more sharing things from viral sites. Instead, I’ll take time to think before I “share.” I will continue to post and tweet good reporting and spread the word about opportunities that will help my fellow creatives, and perhaps most importantly, I’m going to focus on online interactions that build connections and could help us to “reclaim conversation.”
Time and I have a convoluted relationship. It doesn’t help that time masquerades as linear when really…
Well, you’ll have to chat with Einstein (or Ruth Feldman) about true nature of time. All I will say here is that time is not what we think it is. Or actually, time is precisely what we think it is. If I’m sure there is “no” time, then I am rushed and overloaded. If I am convinced that time is bountiful then space opens.
But let me get to the point before I topple into metaphorical chaos. Writing takes time. Books get written word by word. Those brave souls that participated in National Novel Writing Month committed their Novembers to throwing down 50K of those suckers. To “win” at NaNoWriMo, they had to clear the decks and “make time” for the novel writing almost every single day. (Bravo to each and everyone that did it!)
True confessions: I am NOT a NaNoWriMo-er. I do not have the constitution for it.
I am a crack writer.
No, I’m not taking after Toronto’s crack-smoking mayor.
What I mean is that no time is too small for me to get something done. I can’t chain myself to the idea that if I don’t have a 2-3 hour window of time then there’s no point in writing. I certainly prefer large blocks of time, but often they are not there. Life has this pesky habit of intervening so I grab what time I can.
The week before Thanksgiving, I spent the majority of every day building a library in my house. (This is TERRIBLY exciting and BEAUTIFUL and pictures will be coming, I promise!) However, in the midst of construction, I was also scrambling to finish a novel revision for my agent and make headway on the nonfiction book that is due in January.
I got up early and nabbed 45 minutes before the kids woke up. I used the hour between when they got on the bus and my fab library builder helper showed up. I used the 30 minutes of daughter’s piano lesson and the time waiting in the car by my son’s soccer field. I still went for my runs in Forest Park (because there is no better way to break through knotty revision issues). I still made food for my people. Life continued, and I got the work done.
The novel is in the hands of my agent. The nonfiction book is queued up for another revision. The library is almost, almost done.
My sweet friend, Heidi, has this thing about giraffes. You’ll have to ask her therapist for the details but her tall-necked aversion means that every single time I see a giraffe, I think of Heidi.
On Wednesday, I stumbled across a paper mache giraffe collapsed in the back of a truck. (Yeah, these kinds of things really do happen in Portland.) I pulled over, parked the car, and ran back to snap a picture for her.
When I was younger I was a ballet dancer. For every birthday, I got ballet-themed gifts–earrings, t-shirts, books, teddy bears wearing tutus. It was my thing.
Now I got sick of the pink satin shoes, and Heidi probably gets sick of the giraffe references (especially since she thinks they’re creepy), but I realize that obsessions are good for writers.
These are the quirky things that find their way into our work. They are the topics we sink our teeth into and just can’t let go. I love documentaries about people’s obsessions–competitive scrabble, beauty pageants, Dr. Bronner’s magic soap. Our obsessions go hand in hand with our creativity. They help us get our weird on and that is what leads to authentic voice.
Most days, I get right to work, knocking out word counts or revising away the crap. Today, I am metaphorically wearing this hoodie.
I’m trying to write something hard. I don’t want to do it. So I am 100% screwing around, putting my head to my desk, jumping up to prep dinner before it’s even lunch.
Don’t listen to the foolish unbelievers
who say forget.
Take up your armful of roses and
remember them
the flower and the fragrance.
When you go home to do your sitting
in the corner by the clock
and sip your rosethorn tea
It will warm your face and fingers
and burn the bottom of your belly.
But as her gone-ness piles in white,
crystal drifts,
It will be the blossom of her moment
the warmth on your belly,
the tiny fingers unfolding,
the new face you’ve always known,
That has changed you.
Take her moment, and hold it
As every mother does.
She will always be
your daughter
And when the sitting is done you’ll find
bitter grief could never poison
the sweetness of her time.
