this woman’s work

And I was reading Patricia Hampl and it made me think about something I’ve learned in the past year.

I’ve always brought way way way too much into my essays. One of my big jobs as a writer is learning how to cut the hell out of things and focus. I hear Steve Martin in my head, “Let’s get small!” When Becca would edit me she would often say, “You’ve got three essays here. You could go this way or that way or this other way but you can’t do all three; you have to decide which one you’re writing.”

And this was confusing to me because one of my great gifts (curses sometimes but you know, most times it’s a gift) is that I see webs connecting everything to everything. I get so greedy for all of these ideas that I’m grasping for that I forget that it makes for a lousy essay because I have no point. So one of the things I’ve been trying to do in the past year is to get small — to get more tightly focused. To trust that a single idea can be enough to illuminate an essay.

It’s not that I get rid of all the ideas — I just throw out the ones that don’t serve the main point.

Ok, so I was in the bathtub when I was thinking about this because now when I read I do something I should’ve learned to do a long time ago, especially considering that I spent three years as an English major — I think about what I’m reading. Most of the time I read in a big gulp but it’s been kind of recently that I realized that a good book (or essay or short story) defies gulping. A good book (or essay or short story) gets better if I don’t binge on it. It’s not a matter of reading more slowly; it’s a matter of savoring what I read.

So. Anyway. I’ve become a better reader because I want to be a better writer. And that’s been helping. But that’s not what I was thinking about in the bathtub.

Actually what I was thinking about was how pleased I continue to be with that Textured essay because I think I finally did something I’d been trying to do for a long time with it. One of the things that helped me figure out how to write that essay was A Braided Heart: Shaping the Lyric Essay by Brenda Miller. Now I have to tell you that I don’t really love that essay so much as a reader because I think it’s simplistic but reading it was a help. What Ms. Miller does is show how to braid an essay the way you braid challah and in the essay she explicitly does this. She takes three ideas: making challah, writing a braided essay, and — something else. I don’t remember and I can’t find my copy of the book. (Maybe it’s upstairs? Hmmm.) Anyway, she writes it in a stark braided pattern and her ideas are different enough that it stays segregated even as it becomes a single essay, just like the strands of dough form a single loaf of challah. It’s a useful essay. But to do it just like that kinda seemed like cheating to me. Like making a regular piece of work look arty, you know?

Still, it was very useful because I read that essay while I was trying to figure out how the hell Sallis Tisdale wrote her sublime The Weight that Women Carry, which is much more complex. And I started to see — just a glimmer — of how a person could do that. (Tisdale’s essay is the pinnacle of essay excellence to me — I can just hope to touch the hem of her skirts someday.)

So the Textured piece was the first time where I felt like I pulled this off and pulled it off deliberately. See, I knew the essay was about two things: it’s about me struggling to understand what my obligations are to Madison within the context of my experience as a white woman and it’s about the context in which Madison will experience her hair as a black woman.* For my context, I wanted to write about my friends’ comments and convey my insecurity and lack of personal support and for Madison’s context, I wanted to talk about the historical/cultural background of African American hair care. But I wanted to keep it a very small essay and so I didn’t want to go too deep into that. I wanted to keep it small and home-y and personal and not have it be a big lecture about hair.

The essay really started to work for me when I hit on using actually doing Madison’s hair as the central image. Once I figured that out, I knew it was going to come together. I chose to do that because that would cement that this isn’t theory for me, to sort of head off debate and make people feel … more generous to the ideas in the essay. I also wanted to show that caring for Madison’s hair is something loving in a literal way. And finally I wanted to demystify her hair care while also using some jargon to showcase the complexities.

Now if you go and look at that essay you’ll see that every single paragraph speaks to at least one of those three things: doing Madison’s hair, the context of my experience, the bigger context of her cultural history/mores.

I’m thinking about this today because I’ve felt so frustrated with this next essay I’m working on and then I remembered that I have to get small and then when I’ve shrunk it down I’ll know what to put in and what to leave out and it’ll be ok. And I got so excited when I came up with a start and finish to it (while reading Blue Arabesque) that I jumped out of the bathtub, hastily got dressed and ran down here to type it all out in a fit of water-logged optimism.

* There was a line that stated this literally but it didn’t work. But it was about seeing a white guy at my synagogue with hair the texture of Madison’s and suddenly understanding that it wasn’t about the texture of her hair — and no, I didn’t choose the title — it was about the color of her skin. People sometimes make a small fuss about how Madison’s hair isn’t truly “black” because her curls are looser but see, she has brown skin and that’s what dictates the mores for the state of her hair.

Madison had her first field trip this morning (to Lynd’s Farm for my local readers!) and then I had an appointment with a potential client (my first response from my postcard mailings). Last night I went to a networking event where I didn’t see Eve although she saw me. The event was interesting. I met a couple of intriguing people (neither of whom have client potential but that’s not the only reason to go to these things) and the food was great and I was able to get chocolate back home to the family, which is always a good thing.

I’m thinking about fear today because as I walked up the hill of the parking lot after my potential client meeting I was sick to my stomach with foreboding. (By the way, we left the meeting with the understanding that they’ll probably be giving me a try-out and when I told her my rates she just smiled and didn’t a) laugh; b) snort with disgust; c) blanch. But as is appropriately themed to this entry, I’m now wondering if I should reinterpret her pleasant smile as a smirk. Ugh.)

I realize I’m being awfully melodramatic these days what with the fear, the loathing (no Las Vegas — ha! ha! I kill myself!), etc. You know, the whole plummeting self-esteem thing. But as I was walking up that hill almost wishing she wouldn’t send me anything to write because then I wouldn’t have to fail miserably I got to wondering why on earth I have these terrible fears of failure given that failure has not yet killed me.

One could surmise that perhaps I didn’t have enough practice in my formative years. Like many a bright child, I deliberately avoided situations that might actually challenge me. I only entered contests I thought I had a good shot at winning (and I often won them) and I only participated in games in which I thought I’d shine, (which means I spent a lot of times moping on the sidelines). One could surmise that. But then one would be forgetting that I have in fact had some marvelous failures and rejections and I’ve been fired and dumped. (Oh lord, maybe I should assume the worst, eh?)

No. I guess I just fear failure because I’m a normal person and lots of us do. So enough with WHY and on with the what in the hell am I gonna do about it?

I’m tired of fearing failure. I think fear of failure is why I haven’t actually written a book proposal for a book I’d want to write. (I’ve written two for books I don’t want to write.) I think it’s why I spent an awfully long time pitching service magazines when I really wanted to be in Harper’s and why I’m having a helluva time with this sample chapter. (Although I’m moving on it, I swear.)

Sometimes the anticipation of success is just too much fun to take the chance on actual failure. But daydreaming isn’t serving me well. I need to knock it off and stop letting the stomach ache as I leave the meeting dictate my next course of action.

(Still, I’m nervous every time I hit “send” to a client even when it’s a client who has sworn up and down that she loves me. I hope that clears up with practice.)

The presentation is OVER and it was FUN (once my knees stopped knocking) and the other papers were FABULOUS and I got to meet a ton of people I’d either never met or only met virtually including two people from Columbus!

I can’t write more because I’m both wired and tired, which is a deadly combination.

We got here too late to do the open mike I agreed to do (must remember to email organizer) and I only got to go to the very last session but it was really really moving. I want to write about it more but I’m tired and Madison is literally bouncing off things in the room. (She’s spinning and ricocheting off of the furniture.)

I took notes for my book during the session because I was so inspired. I’m thinking about choice and the context of choice and the way hindsight changes our interpretation of things so that it’s all fluid. And I’m thinking about how I want to write about why I won’t write about Jessica’s decision to place Madison with us. That’s how I want to start the book — by explaining why I won’t talk about her decision to place and why there’s a whole lot of the story I’m leaving out. But I’m going to make the leaving out underscore the point of the box (because I think I’ve figured out the point of the book.)

Enough. I’m exhausted. Time to hit it.

Last night Leslie read my paper out loud to the group (because I was too nervous to read out loud, which doesn’t bode well for reading out loud at the conference but then again, the conference is full of strangers and my writing group is full of friends and I care what my friends think while strangers are people I’m likely never going to see again). Anyway, she read it out loud and it seems short — it’s about a page and a half too short, according to Becca, who hasn’t read it but gave me the page count. I don’t know if I can stretch it and frankly, I’m inclined not to even though we’ve already figured in time for questions. It just seems to be working now and I don’t want to pad it. It does need a line edit but I’m less worried now about embarrassing myself. (One question though — Is Bruner with a long U?)

I don’t mind public speaking but I’m not crazy about public reading. Shannon says some of the people there will be incredibly bad readers and not to fret but I can’t help it. I have a slight lisp and reading (except to preschoolers) brings it out.

Maybe I’ll pretend the room is full of preschoolers and occasionally hold my manuscript up like I’m showing everybody the pictures. Heh.

Oh, a quick addendum to yesterday’s post for David who was commenting on the girliness of Miz Madison. Not only did she say she was going to buy a car to come visit me (and make muffins) but she also said it would be a hyundai (like our old car) and it would be pink! With sparkles! And (she added dramatically) rhinestones!

She takes after her aunt that way.

If I make him one I’m going to make it password protected or something. And I won’t link it here. I’d like him to have the writing practice and he’s interested in learning html.

I’ve been thinking about blogging a lot as I work on this paper I’m supposed to present. The title is: “Someone Else’s Shoes: How Dialogue On-Blog Impacted a Real Adoption” (I’m pretty sure I mentioned that here before — forgive me for repeating myself!) I’m writing it about Jerome Bruner’s theories that we make things true by putting them in narrative form. (Read more about that at that wikipedia link.) I started getting interested in this when I was writing that article on forgiveness and I started talking to one of the interview people about journaling and infertility because I’d read this study about how women who used journaling to talk about their infertility used those stories to make sense of the chaos of what was happening to them and that this changed their actual experience. And then we got to talking about journaling being a therapeutic tool. When I hung up I started thinking about how blogs don’t seem to necessarily be therapeutic for every infertility blogger and then I thought that it’s because blogs have comments and so the narrative shifts in response to those comments and this is why I think some infertility bloggers can sometimes feel more stuck in their infertility than someone who’s journaling alone.

Anyway, that made me think about how blogging has impacted my own adoption story and I know that specifically that it was hearing from first moms (then called birth moms on my blog) before and after Madison came home — particularly in that first year — that strongly influenced my story. So this week I sat down and thought hard about that and how it’s changed me and how it’s changed how this adoption has played out. My thesis is that if writing a narrative constructs reality, then having a blog invites other people to help you construct that reality. It’s been true for me anyway.

Now doesn’t that sound like it might be interesting if I actually get it written in time?

The trick I’m having is that I’m only talking about that first year because that was before I was really reading any first mom blogs (I believe that many of the first parents were blogging on LJ — I may touch on that). I want to strictly focus on how the realization that first moms were reading me changed my thinking and then to specific bloggers who challenged me a lot that first year. Since my argument is that writing narrative — not reading it — creates reality, I’m focusing only on my blog and my commenters.

(I wonder if it’s kosher that I just blogged all this? But in the interest of constructing my reality — and my paper — I needed to get it down here, too.)

1. Got news that an article was killed today. (sigh) Kill-fees are a nice thing even if killed articles aren’t.

2. I have two meetings tomorrow, a deadline and paperwork to fill out across town. I’m already tired just thinking about it.

3. Between you and me, sometimes a regular paycheck and paid-for insurance sets my mind a-dreaming and my heart a-thumping. This freelancing thing, it can be the best thing ever and the absolute worst. (Did I mention the killed article?)

I know I was curious about press trips before I took one (I’ve only taken two) and I’m no expert but I can tell you how these two press trips worked in case you’re curious, too.

For one, journalists usually can only get press trips if they have a record of placing articles or if they have an assignment. Some press trips are scheduled and journalists are invited whether they have stories or not the same way a writer might get a written press release. An actual travel writer could point you in the direction of getting on those lists but I do know some folks subscribe to notices like MediaKitty.com. Then they get information about available press trips and if they’re qualified, they can try to go on them or else they can go to their editor and say they’d like to be sent there.

Now a lot of press trips are comped (when everything is free) but a lot aren’t — it depends. For travel reviews it’s not really kosher to get a free trip because you’re getting special treatment and you can’t really give an accurate review when you’re first in line and everyone’s on their best behavior. But other travel stories (like this one) it’s kosher because my assignment was to get to know the places so I can give some basic info. Like, for example, if a particular attraction was safe for a toddler or was better geared to a teen. You can get some of that info by calling up the people or reading their web site but a lot of the details are easier to get in person.

For this assignment I had a list of places to go with instructions to write on several but not necessarily all but I did end up seeing all but (I think) one. This is a testimony to the hard work of the visitor’s bureau rep who tried very hard to give all their many attractions equal time. (She was so great — thank you notes will be going out as I write the assignment because everyone was wonderful.)

On this press trip most of it was comped. We paid for some meals and our travel costs but the admission prices, a couple of lunches and hotels were paid for by either the PR/marketing people in charge of the attraction or by the visitor’s bureaus in the areas we were seeing. Now that sounds like a lot of fun (and it was) but it’s definitely work. Noah would start whining about the hectic scheduling and we’d have to remind him that this was how we were earning the vacation.

Our itinerary was insane. (Even the people we met for the tours commented on this!) so, for example, on Friday (our first day) we drove into town and to our first attraction at 11am, got a tour; our second attraction at noon, got a tour; met the visitor’s bureau representative for lunch; got another tour at another attraction at 2:30pm; another one at 3:15pm; a massive tour at a resort at 4:30pm (happily the kids and Brett were off the hook and played in the water park during this part) then dinner on our own; then at 7:30pm another tour and finally to our hotel (and a quick introduction to its amenities by 8:30pm only because we cut the last tour short. Then we started the next day with a boat ride at 9am.

I had planned on leaving the kids at some of the stops on the way to hang out while I hit attractions but it didn’t work out that way since we were so on the move, which means that they had to sit through a lot of lectures. Noah’s at the right age so he mostly enjoyed it (he was only dragging towards the end) but Madison, of course, had a rough time. I think it’s pretty unusual to bring your whole dang family on a press trip but the editor said it was ok and the people who helped pull it together said it was fine, too. I was very grateful for the patience of the guides and also for Brett’s willingness to silently remove Madison when appropriate.

In any case, we were at the mercy of the scheduling because some of the people had opened up their shops and things just for us and we didn’t want to keep them waiting. It was definitely interesting and I certainly got all the info I need (and more — I want to think about some other ways to pitch some of it) and as hard as the scheduling is I loved getting the inside scoop about things. But I wouldn’t want to be a travel writer as a career even without kids. As much fun as the occasional press trip might be, I think I’m just too introverted to do it on a regular basis. But I loved having this opportunity. There’s a whole lot of Ohio I didn’t know anything about.

I’m running around like a headless chicken. I’ve got a networking meeting and then a fun networking meeting. (One for work, one for creative work.) I hope I’ll have something to write about the second. Then tomorrow we leave for our press trip, which looks like it’ll be non-stop fun fun fun (read: hectic). I’ll be skipping most of the amusement park rides ‘cuz of my still screwed up neck. (Damn.)

I talked to this fellow Rosh Hashanah celebrator (only she does it right and I just make honey cake) about where I am with this whole book dealie I’m working on and she gave me two thumbs up to head in the direction I’m heading in. It’s the obvious direction but I’m terrified and don’t really want to go there. One anonymous comment doesn’t even ruffle my feathers but add ‘em up and it’s scary. Even the comments I got on my Salon piece — mostly good (some of them even great!) but it was still horrifying. I think it must be like walking around in your swimsuit for a beauty competition. I mean, all those people just sitting there looking for flaws because it’s their job and all those other people doing it because it’s entertainment. And then when you’re up there you’re thinking, “Shoot, is the double-sided tape on my butt coming undone???” It’s just horrifying. I kept trying to push the personal away away away and it keeps coming back.

I guess I can only write the way I write and it’d be stupid to try to force a style on myself that I don’t really love or understand or have much practice in. (I mean, I love to read it but I’ve never gotten the hang of writing it.) I guess what I do write is usually personal, right? I mean the stuff that gets the most play clips-wise. It must be what I’m good at so that should be what I do. Plus I love to write it — I love it even when I hate it and right now I’m kinda hating it. Personal narrative (sounds so much better than the self-centered “memoir”) is such a joy for a mindf*cking writer like me. But sometimes I wish I could do dispassionate but thoughtful journalism. Damn.

Me and Leslie are fond of saying, “Writing is for suckers.”

Plus I’m just stuck on this naming chapter (I still think it’s the right chapter to start with). I can’t find the main thread to hold it all together.

So that makes me want to write a little bit about writing the Textured piece. For that essay I knew I was going to use doing Madison’s hair as the thread because it would give me the chance to do a few things:

• Personalize it (this isn’t a lecture about hair, it’s an illustration of my learning process);
• Organize it (the whole thing would be contained within our daily session so I wouldn’t be tempted to sprawl);
• Introduce some concepts gently (like some of the terms);
• Make for easy segues (for example, our babysitter’s comments).

And I think it worked pretty well. I could see the whole essay before I wrote it although I made big changes as I went (particularly after the editor got back to me).

I’m not seeing the same lay-out for the naming piece yet. I think I haven’t really nailed all I want this chapter to say so I can’t find a progression. I guess I have to keep brainstorming it until I can see how to turn it into a narrative. I’m also kinda getting hung up on word count, which is a mistake because word counts make me nutty.

Yeah, writing is for suckers.

But given the date, seems like I don’t have much reason to complain.

I wanted to write a little bit about structuring the Textured piece for Brain Child because I’m thinking about it as I struggle with this sample chapter and chapter outline but they’re hoping you’ll bring your discussions over yonder. I’m trying to think of something to say to kick things off. If you’d like, I’d love you to go read it and then comment at their comment page. I’ll be checking in there to respond to stuff.

Next a work-work-work update (i.e, a Smart Cookie update):

• This time my postcards got some hits to the site. I knew that the campaign was about long-term pay-off so I wasn’t surprised when the first batch got no (as in ZERO) hits. If I hadn’t been prepared I would have been disappointed and discouraged but I knew that I was counting on a snowball effect. Anyway, getting some hits from the second has been great and I added some services to a sidebar on my portfolio page because that’s the place people are clicking, too. (They’re skipping the “about” page some so if any of you are working on biz sites, I’d make note of that. It surprised me because I always read the “about” pages!)
• I’ve all of a sudden gotten a bunch of almost work (people who want to meet to talk possibilities) and a little bit of new work — emphasis on “little bit.” Again, I started this in March so that’s six months of pounding the pavement. Most of the work I’ve gotten I either got from online connections — mostly from this blog — or its consumer work. I think it’s taken this long because I chose to start in the spring and summer is slow slow slow and also because I didn’t really know what I was doing for the first three months.