Friday Five

Very random this week:


1. Common Sense Media: OK, this topic has been kind of tweeted/blogged to death this week, but I just wanted to add my two cents. As a parent, I understand how difficult it is to filter through all the television shows/books/movies kids might be interested in. Organizations like CSM attempt to highlight the potentially objectionable, to save parents some time and uncomfortable questions. I understand the motivation; however, I think the process dehumanizes both the art and our understanding of art. Plucking odd moments from a story and attaching a label to them (lying, alcohol use, sexuality, consumerism) does nothing to communicate the worth of a story, or its potential impact on a child. If my mom saw the CSM label for "Are You There God, It's Me, Margaret," a book that made me sigh with relief that maybe I was normal, I wouldn't have been allowed to read it (emerging sexuality, Playboy references, etc.). That would've been a travesty.

2. Dandelion Greens: I know how good dandelion greens are for me. In fact, I've known for a long time, but until a few weeks ago I never tried them. What I couldn't get past was the image of my 86-year-old neighbor obsessively spraying every budding dandelion with the gleeful intensity of Chemical Ali. He hates them, and is none too happy with me when I let some pop out of the ground and turn to seed so my kids can blow on them, spreading the love. Last spring I considered eating the ones found on my lawn, but then my OCD took over and I imagined all the pesticides from my neighbor's lawn seeping into mine during the heavy spring rains. Anyhow, I was at Whole Foods about a month ago, found myself in front of the dandelion greens and, feeling brave, bought two kinds, regular and red. I love them so much I'm adding them to every recipe I can. So good!

3. Rewards: I believe in rewarding myself after completing a writing project. The rewards need not be material, but hey, they usually are. I'm not quite done with my revision yet (I'm sure my crazy smart agent will have even more ideas for making it better), but when I am, I'm buying myself this.

4. Olympics: Continuously awed. Amazingly proud. Totally inspired.

5. Recycling: This week our family did not have one bag of regular garbage to throw out come garbage day. Everything was recycled/composted, etc. Yay, us!

Stepped on a Pop Tart

For most of my adult life, I thought the line in Jimmy Buffet's song Margaritaville, I blew out my flip flop, stepped on a pop top, was actually ...stepped on a Pop Tart. Someone kindly pointed it out to me while I energetically sang along at a concert (OK, maybe not so kindly. It was more like, you dork!). I also thought that in U2's Where the Streets Have No Name, our love turns to rust, was actually our love tends to rush. I went to see them when they toured for the Joshua Tree, like, seven times but didn't discover my mistake until last year. A week ago, while listening to the radio on my way to work, Carol King's song Jasmine came on. I like to sing in the car. Loudly. I cranked it up and realized, OMG, she's singing Jazz Man. This song is clearly about a jazz musician, but I probably warped the other lyrics because I reaaaally like the smell of jasmine. Go ahead, say it...dork.

I thought maybe my hearing was bad. But then I realized, I heard what I felt was right. And now, even though I know the proper lyrics, it takes everything I have to hear them the right way.

For the past few weeks I've been working on a tough revision project. My friend Alexa called it a reimagining, which is probably more accurate. I just stared at my original draft on Day 1, thinking, how in the heck am I going to do this? Then I realized I shouldn't be looking at my earlier draft at all. In my head it was a finished product, and, like with the song lyrics, it was excruciatingly hard to train my brain to hear it differently. I opened a new doc and typed Chapter 1.

It made a world of difference.

So, to all my writer friends out there tackling revision projects: my thoughts are with you. Just don't ask me about the lyrics to Poker Face (You don't want to know what I thought...)

The Beatles on Query Letters

OK, I don't claim to be an expert at writing query letters. But I did do pretty well with mine, so all those hours spent combing the Internet for examples must have paid off. I could have saved myself a lot of time, though, if I'd just listened to one of my favorite songs, Paperback Writer. Turns out Paul McCartney knew a heck of a lot about what not to do when querying agents. Check it out (and my apologies if someone has done this before):



Paperback Writer

Dear Sir or Madam, Will you read my book? (Too general a salutation--personalize!)

It took me years to write, will you take a look? (Not relevant.)

Based on a novel by a man named Lear (This makes the book sound derivative.)

And I need a job, so I want to be a paperback writer, (Desperation is never attractive)

Paperback writer.



It's a dirty story of a dirty man, (Repetition=poor vocabulary)

And his clinging wife doesn't understand (Vague. Why doesn't she understand? We need plot! What is the basic conflict?)

His son is working for the Daily Mail, (A laundry list of characters. Again, what happens?)

It's a steady job, but he wants to be a paperback writer, (Lack of originality.)

Paperback writer.



It's a thousand pages, give or take a few, (Word count, not pages!)

I'll be writing more in a week or two. (Only query one work at a time.)

I can make it longer if you like the style, (Only query completed works.)

I can change it round, and I want to be a paperback writer, (Find a critique group. Revise. Then Send.)

Paperback writer.



If you really like it you can have the rights (Copyrighting your material = amateur)

It could make a million for you overnight (No room for bragging in a query.)

If you must return it, you can send it here, (Agents need full contact info!)

But I need a break, and I want to be a paperback writer (Let the book speak for itself.)

Paperback writer.



Paperback writer--paperback writer. (Again, repetition=bad.)





So there you have it--the Fab Four on what not to do when writing queries!

Friday Five: I'm Baaaack Edition

Hey, all! Here's a Friday Five for a cold January morning:

1. J.D. Salinger, RIP. I was bummed about Howard Zinn passing on, but this one really, really hurts. The Catcher in the Rye was that book for me, the one to make me feel like I wasn't alone in the world. This means a lot when you're fourteen. And as I got older I appreciated his other stuff even more; in my early twenties I was completely obsessed with Seymour Glass, a creation I believe (with very little evidence) was the closest fictional representation of Salinger. I haven't read his stuff in years, but I predict a Glass Family binge for me this spring.

2. iPad. Regardless of the truly craptastic name (I mean, did they have any women at all in their focus groups?), I think the iPad is fairly awkward and impractical. Apple is going to have to work pretty hard to convince me otherwise.

3. Joisey Shore. I watched episode six last night, so I'm all caught up on the adventures of Snookie, Ronnie, and The Situation. I love these kids for their simplicity (Gym-Tan-Laundry) and the way they fully embrace their cultural identity. They are what they are, these guidos and guidettes. This is a total throwback show, and not to the 90s, where the kids are kind of stuck, fashion-wise, but waaaay back, like to Frankie and Annette frolicking in Beach Blanket Bingo and Yvette Mimieux experiencing Snookie-like drama in Where the Boys Are. Even with the drinking and hot-tub shenanigans, these kids are just looking for a good time, and when the bad times come, they stick up for each other, because they're, like, family. This is a wholesome show. It really is.

4. Knitting. I'm doing it! Two lessons and I can make a scarf. So I'm taking orders. If you want a cute, ladder stitch scarf with dropped stitches, random holes, and strange lumps, I'm your gal.

5. The Big Chill. It's flippin' cold in Chi this morning. 5 degrees. This should be good for writing, as there's no way I'm going outside. But it's seriously so cold where I type that my fingers are stiff. Oh, spring, you can't come soon enough!

Have a good weekend!

Howl at the Moon

(Just got back from a teacher institute/seminar thingy and I'm about to get back to my revision, but first a few minutes of....PROCRASTINATION!!!! Whoo-Hoo!)

I love film adaptations. Novels either fare well or get completely warped beyond recognition, but, hey, it's always fun to see how a filmmaker interprets a writer's vision. Author bio-pics, though? Ugh. Hate them. I know there aren't that many, but the ones I've seen have been stinko. Some examples: Heart Beat (John Heard as Jack Kerouac!!! Really???), Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (I love my Johnny, but his Hunter S. Thompson works my every last nerve.), and even Jane Fonda as Lillian Hellman in Julia (Ugh. I know people like it, but...Ugh.)

So you can imagine my horror when I found out James Franco was hired to play Allen Ginsberg.

Everyone gets a little geeky to the point of obsession about something. For me it's Beat Generation writers. Jack Kerouac. Allen Ginsberg. Gary Snyder. William Burroughs. But especially Jack and Allen. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have moved to NYC if I hadn't read Kerouac's On the Road. And I wouldn't be able to really appreciate what can be done with language if I hadn't read Ginsberg's poetry to the point of memorization. I'm almost ashamed to admit how much my high school fashion sense (um, if you can call it that) and basic worldview were strongly shaped by these writers' lifestyles.

One of the best nights of my life was spent at a Beat Generation literary festival held at NYU. I sat in a small auditorium listening to surviving Beat writers perform their work. A thin older gentleman sat in front of me, bopping along to the words, jumping out of his seat when the mood struck, and finally leaping on stage to grab the mic. It was Allen Ginsberg. He must have been at least 70 years old.

So today I saw some clips from the soon-to-be-released Howl. The filmmakers decided to focus on Ginsberg's 1950s obscenity trial. Even though that piqued my interest, I was prepared to hate it. Really hate it. But...

Franco is fantastic. He gets the voice down, the attitude, the energy. Check it out if you have any interest. (Oh, and in clips #3 & #4, my boyfriend Jon Hamm plays a lawyer.) I think I found an author bio-pic I just might like!

Vacation

...taking a short hiatus to finish up a writing project...now if I can only stay away from the Jersey Shore...

Is Time on My Side?

I get home pretty late from work, and though I really should just wash my face and crash out, I can't. I need to unwind a little, and this usually takes the form of watching bad TV and eating food I'd never admit to keeping in the house (Pop Tarts! Yo-Gos!). But with Mad Men, Glee & True Blood on hiatus, and Lost not starting until February, the pickings are pretty slim on my DVR. Last night I was scrolling though the guide, so desperate I almost turned on Bride Wars, when I saw The River's Edge was starting. I clicked INFO and saw the date. 1986. Nineteen-freaking-eighty six. I remember seeing it in the theaters. I wasn't old enough then, but in the 80s theaters just took your money, no questions asked. I went with my friends and we drank vodka we'd poured into empty perfume bottles (a whole nother story). I was obsessed with Keanu (that's Kay-ah-noo, not Kee-yah-noo--get it right) Reeves and was secretly delighted Ione Skye dressed all grungy, like me. I thought the movie was cool. If pressed, I'd probably say it was "really deep and metaphysical" (I didn't really know what metaphysical meant, but I used the word all the time.). The next week I probably went to see The Sure Thing or Ferris Bueller and forgot most of what I saw in River's Edge (except for Kay-ah-noo).

Totally different experience twenty-odd years later. No vodka for me--just chamomile tea and some Spanish cheese leftover from New Year's Eve. As the movie progressed I found I could not pay attention to it--even though Dennis Hopper and Crispin Glover put on quite a show--because I felt so horrified on behalf of the young actors. Ione Skye was sixteen when she made this movie, and she has sex onscreen! OK, she's miming real sex, but still. There is a twelve-year-old kid in it and he's shooting off a gun and throwing around the f-bomb! All I could think was, where were their mothers?

The lines between the generations are the blurriest they've ever been. The girl who babysits for my boys shops at the same clothing stores I do. My son listens to Green Day. I listen to Green Day. My freaking father-in-law listens to Green Day. I like to think I'm still pretty young, pretty hip. But every so often, something comes along and reminds me that twenty years have gone by. And I have changed with age. A lot.

I wonder how this affects my writing. I write YA because I loved that time of my life, even though it was often horrible. I feel close to all the emotions--in fact, it feels like they live right below the surface of my skin sometimes, so accessible, so fresh. But I wonder about the impact of time on memory. I wonder about what things don't ever change and what do. I think about the writers I know who still possess their SAT study guides and prom dresses. I wonder how my perspective differs from theirs. Then I wonder if it really matters. What do you guys think?