writing life

One mo’ from Courtney…

I think for me it was a slow process, starting from when I was in the womb…

We were reading the Great Gatsby in high school English, and I came across this line: ‘That’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.’ I felt enraged, but none of my classmates even seemed to notice.

It was a rainy Take Back The Night rally my first year of college… I looked around at the women on every side, and thought about how strange it was that I’d ended up here, given my conservative Republican upbringing. I realized that if I don’t identify as a feminist, no one really does.

One movie: Girls Town. Amazing.

A generation ago, feminists talked about their “click” moments: those split-second experiences that led them to join the women’s movement. Today’s young feminists come to the movement–which is looking less like a protest march and more like a blog–in myriad, often piecemeal, ways. It can be as simple as reading a book or attending an event or talking with one person or witnessing a horrendous act of sexism.

Deciding to identify as a feminist often requires a lot of learning and unlearning these days; so many of us have been exposed to the well-oiled machine of the anti-feminist movement. According to Newsweek, feminism might be dead. Charlotte Allen tells us that we’re stupid, via the Washington Post. Some older women within our own movement wonder if we even exist.

J. Courtney Sullivan and Courtney Martin are editing a new anthology for Seal Press on the topic, and we want your ideas. Send us a couple of paragraphs–in the style and voice that you’d use in a full-fledged essay–proposing what you would write, along with your name, email address, phone #, age, and ethnic background (we understand that this might seem a little reductive, but we are committed to including diverse authors). We’ll look them all over, then get back to you once we’ve accounted for a range of moments, perspectives, and cultural backgrounds.

We hope it will be a historic document, a totally entertaining gift, a course adoption text, and, most of all, a collection that makes young women who already identify with the movement feel seen and heard, and welcomes all those just growing into the still unfolding story of feminism.

Send your ideas to: clickmoment@gmail.com
DEADLINE: October 15, 2008

Bonus: We’ve already got some great feminist writers on board that you may have heard of, including (in no particular order):

Courtney E. Martin and J. Courtney Sullivan (well, obviously)
Jessica Valenti
Miriam Perez
Samhita Mukhopadhyay
Curtis Sittenfield
Rebecca Traister
Anna Holmes
Rachel Simmons
Winter Miller
Deborah Siegel
Alissa Quart
Hannah Seligson
Latoya Petersen
Shelby Knox
Jennifer Baumgardner
Amy Richards

Apologies for the lack of posting today! A GWP anomaly, and I missed you all!

I spent the day traveling to Washington DC, where my intergenerational feminist panel spoke tonight at George Washington University before the Women’s Leadership Program–and an amazing group of women those WLPers are. Pictures coming soon. Tomorrow, we’re keynoting at the Association for Women in Communications conference, and I’m excited to attend some of their sessions (and swim in the hotel pool) as well.

More from me tomorrow, I promise!

I recently received an advance copy of a new book by Alix Kates Shulman, To Love What Is: A Marriage Transformed (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008), which is excerpted in Salon this week. Many of you will know Alix from her much earlier novel, Memoirs of an Ex-Prom Queen. Her latest–a gut-wrenchingly true-to-life memoir this time–is breathtaking in its poignance. That’s all I’ll say. You can read from it right here.

And from a book publicity perspective, I’m fascinated at the way savvy authors now are doing video trailers. Alix has a wonderful one–check it out, here. And to hear Alix on writing, check out this podcast. Kudos to the ex-prom queen on each and every front.

So in spite of the fact that someone put a rather important convention and tons of enticing coverage smack in the middle of this writing retreat I’m on, I’ve finally had a little breakthrough. After a few days of a hellish start out here in writer’s paradise, I’m settling in on my chapter and slowly making headway. The whole experience has got me thinking about how fragile one’s sense of progress can be when one has chosen, for whatever fercockte (Yiddish for nutty) idea, to be a writer.

For anyone who’s ever gotten stuck in the middle of a writing project–meaning, in other words, anyone who seriously writes–a few upbeat quotes to share this morning:

“Writing is the hardest work in the world. I have been a bricklayer and a truck driver, and I tell you – as if you haven’t been told a million times already – that writing is harder. Lonelier. And nobler and more enriching.” -Harlan Ellison

“A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.” –Thomas Mann

“All writers are vain, selfish and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives lies a mystery. Writing a book is a long, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.” –George Orwell

“I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again.” –Oscar Wilde

“Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.” -~E.L. Doctorow

Hey wait–all the writing-is-hell quotes I could find were by guys. Got a favorite writing-is-hell quote by a woman? I know they’re out there. Please feel free to illuminate us and share in comments.

It’s live! It’s live! My personal website is now live at: girlwpen.com

I’ll likely change the domain name to my name, since the GWP blog is going group and all, but that’s where the individual stuff lives for now. I’ve listed upcoming talks and past writings and all the usual suspects, and now info on the consulting and coaching and training that I do is listed there too.

For those of you needing to make (or redo) websites, it’s a WordPress template, with a personal redesign engineered by Kristen Loveland the Brilliant. Kristen, you are a goddess. (And I hope you are getting some rest.)

What better time to kick those new writing projects into gear than early September? Once again, I’ll be joining Kristen Kemp (feature article maestro) and Catherine Orenstein (op-ed mistress) for a weekend of nonfiction instruction up at the Woodhull Institute‘s retreat center in Ancramdale, NY. Here’s a description of the module I’m teaching:

How to Write a Book Proposal

In this module, instructor Deborah Siegel will teach the group how to take a subject about which they are passionate and generate from it an exciting, marketable, serious non-fiction book proposal. She will cover the proposal itself, the chapter outline, the bio, and the marketing section. Deborah will then walk the participants through the cycle of submission to an agent; the agent’s submission of the proposal to multiple houses; the bidding process; the signing of the contract; the writing cycle; the editing and copy editing and fact checking cycle; the publishing cycle and the publicity phase of the hardback non-fiction book. She will show participants what the common mistakes are that writers make in crafting book proposals and will demonstrate the difference between an unpublishable and a highly commercial book proposal both of which are based on an identical subject.

More info on it all, including how to register, here.

Ok, so my expectations for a week-long writing retreat were, dare I say, rather grand. The reality? I’m struggling. But trying to cultivate compassion and not harsh on myself too much.

The lesson here, I feel, is not so much be careful what you wish for, but be flexible. If one tactic for getting into what you’re working on doesn’t work, try another…right?

So today I’m working on a commentary that’s due, and that’s also connected to my chapter’s argument. Bird by bird, as dear ole Anne Lamott would say, bird by bird.

Anyone care to share their I-was-stuck-but-now-I’m-found writing story? I’m listenin’.

Image cred

I’m so distracted I’m so distracted–this convention comes right in the middle of a week where I’ve sequestered myself at a writers’ retreat (blessed event!) and I’m having the DARNDEST time focusing. Fortunately, or unfortunately, perhaps, there’s wireless here.

Just as ya’ll helped immensely when I was at the outlining stage the other week, I turn to you, dear GWP readers, once again: Does anyone have any tips for avoiding checking convention coverage every 3 seconds? If you’ve got em, I’d love to hear them.

For all you first-time authors out there, I just came upon a very cool find. The Debutante Ball is a group blog for debut authors (looks like almost exclusively women). They offer “takes on weekly bookish and not-so-bookish topics” and invite readers to “watch our collective sanity crumble as our debuts approach.” Man, I know the feeling.

Thought I’d share some links from their blogroll, as they list a number of other group blogs about books that GWP readers may find of interest:

• Beatrice
• Channeling Erma
• Critical Mass
• Drunk Writer Talk
• Good Girls Kill
• Jungle Red
• Naked Authors
• Penny Dreadful
• Rocket Girls
• Writers’ Group Blog

And speaking of group blogs, I just heard a new term to describe them: “grog.” I don’t think I like. Sounds too much like “frog”, or a drink you swig at an Irish bar, no? I think I’ll stick with “group blog” when referring to the future incarnation of GWP. Unless anyone else has a suggestion? I’m open!

Thanks to Speaking Matters, Lisa Johnson, Woodhull, and the Association for Women in Communications, here’s where I’ll be hanging out come September.

Hope some of you can join me!

SEPTEMBER 2 – “Girl with Keyboard: Making Waves in the Feminist Blogosphere”
University of South Carolina, Upstate
Noon workshop

“Talking ’bout My Generation: Youth, Gender, Race, Class and the 2008 Election”
University of South Carolina, Upstate
7pm talk

SEPTEMBER 5-7 – “Raise Your Voices”
Woodhull Nonfiction Writers’ Retreat
Ancramdale, NY
Workshop on nonfiction book proposals

SEPTEMBER 26 – “Women, Girls, Ladies: An Intergenerational Conversation about Work”
Association of Women in Communications Conference
Doubletree Hotel Crystal City
Washington, DC
12:45-2pm (luncheon panel)

I’m currently booking for December. To bring me to your campus, company, or organization, please email info@speakingmatters.com. Thanks!