Random Acts of Writing

What Makes a Writer a Writer?

It's probably more honest to title this musing "What makes me a writer" or "What should/am I doing to be a writer", even "...to become a published writer" (cuz inclusion in my college and high school literary magazines doesn't really count.)

As of this afternoon, here are my answers:

1) Write

2) Revise

3) Read writing by good/great writers (and/or if I don't like the writing I'm reading, think about why.)

In supplement to these basic practices, the following seem to be helpful as well:

a) Connect with other writers

b) Critique their work, and be critiqued by them

c) Attend select writers conferences and/or programs. (I recently had a great week at Vermont College's Postgraduate Writer's Conference, and plan to attend SCBWI Michigan's event in October)

I hesitate to add d) Read books about writing, because for many many years I read writing books but didn't write. Okay, I journaled, but didn't take the next step.  So, approach the reading about writing with caution.

Your thoughts?

- aae

Pecan Pie Lava - A Thanksgiving Hazard

It is only Thanksgiving eve, and the dinner preparation mishaps have already begun.

It started benignly enough. I thought there were two pie plates in my cupboard. Alas, there was but one. Undeterred, I pressed a tart pan into service, the kind with the bottom that pops out. The pumpkin pie, which takes longer to bake, would go in the official pie plate. The pecan would bake in the tart pan. I dutifully put cookie trays (ones with no edges) under the baking pies to keep any filling spilling contained.

It turns out that the pecan pie did not want to be in the tart pan. The crust (a gluten-free attempt at dough) combined with the corn syrupy filling to produce a substance similar to molten lava. Copious amounts of this matter flowed to the bottom of the oven. I could almost hear it gloat “Cookie sheet? I laugh at your cookie sheet!” as it had its way with the heating element.

I removed the pecan tart/pie (with cloth potholders) and thought it would be a good idea to separate the pan from the cookie sheet (to which is was firmly adhered). I was wrong. Oh folly! Oh frizzle! Oh fudge! I now have some impressive blisters along the side of my left thumb, where the filling/lava and my skin connected for far to long.

Oh what will tomorrow, the day of cooking the 15-pound bird, crafting stuffing, smashing potatoes, bring? I really will try to be careful…

Why Barnes & Noble is great for latte but sucks for research

Let me say at the start that I like B&N. I like that in any city I find myself in, chances are good a familiar and predictable Barnes & Noble bookstore will be there. It's a great place to spend some time, to browse bestsellers, and use the now-free wifi whilst sipping an extra hot decaf mocha (my personal favorite). But B&N is not, I repeat NOT a place for book related research (unless you are interested in observing people, how people move through & B&N bookstore, and/or in what manner they utilize the cafe space.)

I know better. I'm a librarian by profession and inclination. Though some libraries are considering a more bookstore-based display system, I'm a big fan of keeping the current classification systems. Dewey Decimal, Library of Congress and an online catalog make locating a particular book easy peasy.  Really.  I just spent the past hour in B&N trying to locate several children's picture book for an MFA project. In a good public library it would take maybe 5 minutes, 10 tops to locate the 3 titles I eventually found here at B&N. But that's okay. I came for the coffee, the no-direct-cost-to-me internet access and thought I might find a few more books for my MFA project.  It's good reminder...independent booksellers, chain bookstores and libraries all have their purpose and place.

And now, back to my latte (which costs me less than one at a stand alone Starbucks thanks to my B&N member card.)             - aae

More Cooking Brilliance with the Bounty of Western Massachusetts

Oh so simple. 

A bunch of freshly grow garlic (with garden soil still dusting the cloves) sat patiently next to the stove.

Quarter-chopped local zucchini steamed in a pan.

A flash of inspiration: One clove of the newly harvested garlic sliced thin with a serrated knife (crushing whilst cutting) strewn on top of the steaming zuke.

Result: Simple heaven in vegetable form.

Not quite haiku, but something akin.

- aae

In the live audience for "Wait Wait...Dont Tell Me!"

500 Librarians and their hangers on (spouses, children, friends) filled the Chase Auditorium in downtown Chicago for a taping of Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me last Thursday night. It was heaven for the NPR geek crowd!  Peter Segal is as funny in person, if not funnier, than he sounds on the radio. Carl Kasell is indeed a lovely human being who, in his own words, adds a touch of class to the unselfconsciously irreverent news quiz.  Paula Poundstone is/was a deadpan wacky as usual.  SNL alumna Julia Sweeney was relatively quiet at first, but let in rip regarding a riff about Atheist Camp. And Adam Felber sandwiched between the two women of humor, was also a hoot.

My Kingdom For A digital Camera!  Well…I do have not one but two cameras somewhere, but the chances of my putting hands on them in a timely manner, though better than the likelihood of finding the chargers and cords, is slim to none.  Oh the images I could've captured: The Wait Wait stage set. Me shaking hands with Peter, Me chatting with Carl…. It could’ve all been preserved for posterity in pictures. Alas, all I have is a signed program ( Peter’s illegible scrawl) and the warm memory of a lovely chat with the delightful Mr. Kasell.

To hear the 7/11/09 show, click here. My laughter is embedded in the audience's.

The F Word

I've been thinking about the F word and modern day usage.  I've noticed some of the young people at the high school where I work don't notice that it falls from their lips continually, punctuating the most mundane of topics. They also are not concerned about adults around them, hearing them swear, particularly using this term with it's dual meaning of physical intimacy and a really raw deal. Similarly, the conundrum of a very tender male body part and the insult used to indicate severe stupidity....  But I digress.

Back to the F word, culture and teen obliviousness. Perhaps it's inevitable, as language evolves (twittering as web 2.0 phenomenon, not bird noises; googling as searching, not staring with wide eyes) and changes (apparently "sick" is back to meaning "good" or "great", but perhaps that has shifted again.)  I remember in elementary schools (late 60s or early 70s), chastised by my mother for using the word "kid". "Kids are baby goats.", she informed me imperiously. By middle school she was probably using "kid" to describe a child.

I don't recall when it happened, a few years back perhaps, when the F word started appearing (regularly) in the New Yorker. The New Yorker for heaven's sake!  The E.B. White and Malcolm Gladwell New Yorker. The magazine stacked in the living room of my childhood home. The New Yorker I would pour through as a kid, reading the cartoons and ignoring most everything else. Perhaps the New Yorker can not be held responsible for the trend of folks using the F word as easily ad unselfconsciously as "Oh shoot" or "Dang".  Which reminds me, my mother didn't like us (the kids) using "god" as in "God, Mom" (whilst rolling eyes heavenwards) because of the taking the lords name in vain thing.

My daughter first used the F word in front of me several years ago. Perhaps she was still in 7th or 8th grade?  It slipped out one afternoon. Maybe we were driving home from school, she in the back seat. "F***" she said, exasperated about something. I was surprised, stunned really. But curious and slightly amused, not parentally mad. After a brief pause, I said her name with a question, looking over my shoulder.  "Oh mom, I'm sorry. I usually just say that inside my head.", which had me cracking up in my own head at the thought of my prep school straight arrow daughter swearing a blue streak internally.

I just finished reading Dave Eggers' autobiographical novel "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius". On the last page (of the paperback edition - # 437 actually) only half-filled with text, eleven of the words are some variation of the F word (adverbs and acts involving a maternal parent). And it is entirely appropriate and moving within the context of the story, writing style, voice, etc.  Plus the book is nearly 10 years old (and still selling, congratulations David!). So, they don't really stand a chance, do they? The teens who mill around the boarding school mail room undeterred by my middle-aged maternal presence, exclaiming that this or that is so f-ing boring or f-ing unfair or what are they f-ing going to do this weekend.

- aae

I like being a grown-up because…

There’s the obvious perks to being a grown-up such as driving, using credit cards and eating pretty much whatever I want whenever I want to. *

But one of the surprising things I like about my middle-aged woman hood is not being afraid talking to (most) people like I was when I was (that’s a lot of I was-ez) a child, tween, teen and/or young adult.  In fact, I find I actually like chatting with people, all kinds of people, and don’t hesitate talking with them if it seems appropriate. 

Case in point:  Wedding last weekend outside of Washington D.C.  Despite my husband’s family insisting I am Allison Mumby  (note the double L), not Alison Ernst, I had a truly lovely time.  At the rehearsal dinner, I sat across from certifiably old people, a kind couple who were heading on into their 50th anniversary.  I’m guesstimating they were in their 70s a quarter of a century older than me. We chattered amiably through dinner, which is not particularly amazing as I am a fan of the aged (for the most part).  The turning to talk with a row of young men in suits, clean-shaven, recovered from wedding eve hangovers, was the surprise.  I don’t recall why or how I initiated the conversation, but I did…and found myself twisted in a fairly flimsy faux bamboo chair, talking with these guys about how they went to college (Colgate) with the bride, but were sitting in the groom’s section because they were all about equal opportunity.  One had a friend who went to NMH and knew just were I lived, though he’s from Maine, and living there near family after years away, and yes he does know Small Point/Popham Beach outside of Bath where I got married and oh be the way Blake the Groom brought Kris the Bride to the wedding after they’d been dating just a few months and that’s where and how she met the family (which she was on this very day marrying into, as well as Blake marrying into hers.    The likelihood lf my turning around and talking to these guys (or guys like these) when I was in my early 20s (the age of a niece sitting mute next to me, wide-eyed) was pretty much nil.  I was painfully self-conscious of my not-good-enough-ness.  At mid 40 I am felling pretty darn good enough thank you, with really does make it a whole heck of a lot easier to talk to people, in spit of my tendency toward introversion (in the Meyers-Briggs sense of the word.)

*Here’s the reality check piece related to the cool stuff adults get to do at will…. there’s also the responsibility part.  Such as earning the resources to fund the car, the gas, the insurance, and going through the proper licensing and auto registration procedures, and then there’s obeying the applicable laws including speed of the vehicle and parking issues, and if by chance one is caught violating any of these said vehicular laws, there’s dealing with consequences in a responsible manner, with usually involves paying a ticket.  I won’t even start in about credit cards and food.  Suffice it to say, it’s more multi-layered than it looks at first.