Writing
I created an annex to my blog over on Tumblr to share multimedia-type stuff. It’s easier than sharing it here.
I wanted a place to put stuff that I find inspirational because I am getting more and more interested in video/mp3 possibilities especially as I’ve gotten ready for this digital storytelling class I’m helping to teach later this month over at The Fuse Factory.
I’m teaching the narrative piece of the class and then sticking around for support for (and also to learn from) my co-teacher Jason Gonzales. I first met Jason way back when at Katzinger’s where he was on the line (home to the dead heads) and I was in retail (home to the feminists). But I knew OF him before that because he used to go to the same bar I went to (and where I’d later meet Brett) in a long black trench coat (because it was the 80s) with sticky-up, electrified hair (again, it was the 80s) and his big blue eyes. I had one of those semi-crushes on him. You know where you don’t think of the person except when you see them out and then you LOVE them? But I never talked to him.
Then at Katzinger’s he showed me his old driver’s license and I screamed, “OH MY GOD! You were that blue-eyed boy!” Because by then he sorta looked more like a hippie with granny glasses and a long, straight ponytail.
Heh.
Anyway, he’s the nicest guy ever and also a very passionate teacher so I can’t wait to watch him teach!
Back to my tumblr. I want to be able to stretch creatively and see what I can do with my writing OFF the page (screen). I really want to learn more about video and audio editing and that space is going to be where I put stuff that catches my fancy in that arena. Feel free to grab the RSS feed but it’s also pinging my twitter and facebook. Yes, I AM saturated in social media. Thanks for noticing!
Jenna and I have decided to take over the world.
See, this is what happened. My book? Never sold. I got nice feedback from editors who basically said, “Industry’s tanked. Not taking chances on a new writer. Thanks.” Our choices were to move to smaller publishers or rethink the project. Delia and I talked and decided rethinking was in order because editors like my writing but weren’t so crazy about the book. Woe is me, right? Yes, friends, woe. is. me.
So I grieved that and around that time I also started my job and I grieved that, too. And my whole life seemed lousy and I’d never be a writer again and oh it was all so awful and miserable and basically I have been moping around the house a lot in 2009. Then Delia asked if I’d ever thought of working with Jenna on a book. And I said, why no I haven’t but let me give it a think. And I thought for all of ten seconds maybe and then emailed Jenna.
Jenna and I scrapped the memoir idea because we couldn’t think of how to meld our stories right and then I dug around in my notes and found this other idea, which we both like a lot and now we’re all google waving at each other over it.
I have never written with another writer and that kinda scares me but it’s Jenna so that kinda doesn’t. Because I feel like in a lot of ways we’re on the same wavelength about stuff and our experiences are complementary not just as adoptive mom to first mom but also to our parenting ideas and our work ideas and our juggling lives and WordPress fixation and multitasking careers, etc. We have a lot in common but we also have a lot of good differences and I think (hope!) that this will translate to being able to write a book together.
If nothing else, together we have a platform that kicks major ass.
Where we are now is talking about chapters and each of us deciding what research we want to do. We’re going to use google wave to share info so that we can collaborate as we go even as we each take responsibility for certain parts. Then when we feel like we’ve gotten some basic info down, we’ll work on writing it together. I’m not sure how that’ll work but if we get together on a structure to follow so that we’re on the same page there, then each of us can maybe write what we want to write and then edit for cohesiveness. I’m hoping Delia has some thoughts on how to do that. Or we’ll hire Becca to help us. Because she’s brilliant.
Here’s hoping that 2010 brings more good things because I am about done with all that 2009 moping but seriously!
I’ve been thinking a lot about digital storytelling. The concept has interested me since I first heard about it and then Alison asked if I’d help teach a class on it this December for Fuse Factory. It’s part of thinking, too, about how publishing is changing and figuring out what’s next.
I’ve always been interested in mixed media work. Way back when I was a teenager, I wanted to do a multimedia project with some artist friends based on this (really terrible) collection of prose poems I had. I was picturing an installation with painters, film makers and musicians but I never got past a lot of intense conversations about Art over tea at the King Avenue Coffee House with various interested parties. The internet has made this kind of thing a lot easier and I’ve been collecting stories about it over at this tumblr: Fresh Hell Creative.
Right now I’m trying to get a handle on some of the technology. I’ve wanted to do some kind of installation project around adoption and I have a couple of ideas in mind. I’d like to do something that could grow beyond what I can do and invite others to join in because the other thing that fascinates me about the internet is that people can create something together that becomes more than the sum of the parts.
Look at this thing that HBO created, for example: HBO Imagine
(Check it out — I’ll wait!) (Don’t have time to look? Ok, it’s a flash-based cube and you can watch a story from any side. Once you’ve watched part, you are connected to a matrix that you can work through to lead you back to another side of the cube. It’s about getting a story from more than one perspective.)
Isn’t that amazing? Can you imagine an actual documentary like that told from the perception of different people involved in an adoption? That’s a bigger project than I’m thinking on but wouldn’t it be amazing?
I am fascinated by the stories we tell each other and that we tell ourselves. I am fascinated by the way we write our stories true and the way that truth is subjective. I’m interested in taking one piece of something and digging into it to see how it connects to the whole.
So that’s what I’ve been thinking on lately (when I’m not thinking about work, homeschooling, parenting, adoption, going back to school or the sublime man I live with). And I’ve been downloading different stuff to try to learn how to work it.
Oh and please vote for me!
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Now playing on iTunes: Talk Of The Nation Hour 2 <–and it just so happens to be an interview with Tina Brown about Book Beast and e-publishing! See, the times they are a-changing and it’s scary but it’s exciting, too!
via FoxyTunes
Back to this post.
I just keep thinking about this as a writer and as a (small-time) activist. I want to understand the universal in my specifics and I want to understand when I’m mistakenly extending my experience to other people.
I was thinking on this after I read momartfully’s excellent single mom post:
And I think of it now and then specifically around an essay that was in (I think) the Guardian, which I can’t find anymore and it points out that all the books about motherhood are written by writers, which means that writing mothers dominate the cultural discussion about motherhood, kinda the way the blog world thinks every mommy blogger is writing blithely at home between loads of sparkling laundry. (Watch Punditmom — only partially successfully — try to make this point to the Wall Street Journal.)
I think about how often people have said to me, “YOUR open adoption works that way but you can’t assume ours does.”
I think about that a lot.
I don’t really have a point except that I’m thinking about it and thinking, like I said, about how to express the universal from my specific and I think the only way to do that is to KNOW what’s specific, which isn’t always easy.
I’m filing this under writing because that’s how I’m thinking about it.
After a week of being sick and two plus weeks of having sick kids and not really taking time off of anything (just moving more slowly) I fell apart this weekend and started crying yesterday afternoon on until dinner when Brett packed us all up and took us out.
I was thinking on what Marta said in the last post where she baldly listed stuff I do and I thought, my god, no wonder I’m exhausted. Noah already does his fair share of work around the house (seriously, this kid fixes lunches and cleans with nary a complaint and watches his sister plenty) and as far as swapping with other homeschoolers — I can’t manage yet another arrangement in my life right now. The relationships I have and the things we’ve set up to get through our week are already about as much as I can handle.
But it did make me think. Well, first I complained a lot because I was, you know, sobbing and falling apart. But eventually I realized that something needs to give before I lose it completely.
So this weekend I thought about it and then on the way to the grocery store I realized — duh — I need to give up the internet.
Not totally because I do telecommute 3 days a week and I do love (smooch smooch) my blog but I need to give up twitter (at least for now) and I just unsubscribed from my 350+ RSS feeds. Now mind you, some of those were dead feeds and some were ones I forgot to unsubscribe from that were my old working life related and some were ones I skip most of the time anyway but a great big bunch of them were from people I like an awfully lot (many of you, basically) and it kinda scares the bejesus out of me to feel so out of touch. I’m afraid that I’ll miss your big news — happy surprises or calls for support. But I have to do it.
So I’m asking y’all to keep me in the loop via email if there’s something going on you think I ought to know about. I want to hear your announcements — I just can’t read every day like I’ve been.
Also? No more gossip blogs or news sites. No more guilty pleasure trainwreck blogs that I read for the schadenfreude, (which I think is spiritually suspect for me anyway). For now. Because I need to write.
I’m also going to try to use the blog less as a day-to-day diary and work more to stay up on my writing exercises (i.e., to write with a point instead of blather on) so the tone of this blog might change a little while I try to get my head back on straight.
(I’ve seen other people take these kinds of breaks and never thought anything of it beyond, Good for her! But I’m feeling insanely guilty about it. Like I’m not returning phone calls. Argh.)
