Nadine Feldman, Author

celebrating strong female characters and whatever else strikes my fancy

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Women Friends: How Do We Keep It Together?

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I read a lot of women’s fiction, and often a group of women come together in a particular situation and form deep, lasting bonds with each other. Heck, I’ve even written a book that follows this pattern! I didn’t write it to honor my best gal pals, though. The women I feel closest to are scattered all over the country. When we get together, not nearly often enough, it’s as though no time has passed, but I don’t have a group of local women to meet for coffee and commiseration. I think I wrote my novel in part to create characters that I wouldn’t mind hanging out with!

As I worked on the manuscript, I grappled with what I see as changes in friendships that have occurred over the years. I remember as a young girl when neighbor ladies came over to visit my mom. My grandma, a seamstress who worked out of her home, kept a pot of coffee on for people who dropped by for fittings and a chat. She enjoyed the confidential nature of those conversations, saying, “I could blow the lid off this town if I wanted to.” But she didn’t, because she valued her relationships.

Fast forward a few decades. For a time I worked in an office made up entirely of women. Overall, it was a great time. Yes, we had our moments, but we often hung out together socially, and we had a lot of fun. I saw none of the competition among women that I would see later in an environment of both men and women. I was in my 30s then, and I was in a “golden age” of friendships, complete with those long, sharing telephone calls that sometimes extended late into the night.

Where did those friends go? Our company merged, and many of us went our separate ways through resignations and layoffs. We held things together for a time, but other jobs, commutes, and family responsibilities intervened. After that, I enjoyed the company of female co-workers on other jobs, but nothing clicked in terms of friendship.

I also found that in the environment of other corporations, some of the women bonded together in a “mean girls” sort of way. Once I was invited to have lunch with a group of ladies, and their sole topic of conversation was to gossip about another co-worker whom I happened to like. Needless to say, I was never invited to their group again, and had they invited me, I would have turned them down.

As we age, many of us are part of the sandwich generation, where we are caring for children and parents at the same time, often while holding down a job and trying, at some level, to keep the house clean. I was fortunate during this period to have the option to drop my corporate responsibilities, but it also created a level of social isolation. My buddies still have jobs, and they often don’t stop even to have lunch these days. Some, I have stopped asking.

I don’t give up easily, though. I chat with a few of the neighbors from time to time, and I find some promise there. I have bonded with some of my fellow women writers, which feels good, even if that’s all online.  I visit my scattered friends when I can. And, of course, when all else fails, I can always make up new characters and revisit old ones!

I’d love to hear from women on this. Are your friendships alive and well? How did you meet? How do you keep your relationships strong over the years?

Reframing the Menopausal Mind

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When I was a kid and frequented t-shirt stores during vacations, I frequently saw a t-short that said, “Watch out! I’m low on estrogen–and I’ve got a gun.” Of course, these days wearing such a shirt would invite visitors from Homeland Security, but as a woman of “a certain age,” I can appreciate the sentiments of the shirt.

This type of thinking about the menopausal mind, though, has also worked against women. Growing up, as women started to take charge of their careers and seek greater levels of leadership, I often heard the question, “What if a woman President, while in a menopausal temper, hit “the” button?” The implication of course, is that a menopausal woman cannot handle her mood swings–and that men don’t have them. Yet I often observed in my work life that the men most concerned about my emotional nature had high levels of emotion themselves.

Yet, while I have confident in my abilities not to do anything (too) foolish, I have a few days a month when I feel my world crashing down around me. Fatigue and depression smother me, the deep-in-the-pit kind that partners closely with despair and hopelessness. It doesn’t make me less capable, but it ain’t pretty, either.

Through supplements and herbal tonics, which I’ll discuss in more detail in future blogs, I have been able to even out my moods more during the month, and I have hope to quiet the storm a little bit. I hold on to the words of my late, beloved mother-in-law Jenny, who promised me that I will feel liberated in my post-menopausal years. Oh, Lord, I hope she’s right!

For a while I medicated with birth control pills, but after two years of taking them, without much relief, I was concerned about continuing a dose of artificial hormones. I also didn’t like the idea of masking whatever I might be feeling. Just as I stopped coloring my hair because I wanted to see its real color, more and more I wanted to see, and feel, the real me.

What I find most interesting, though, is that I am changing my attitude about those mood swings.*

It’s tough to get through the depression, but the other side of it, which always comes, fascinates me. While in the funk, I ask myself, “What are you trying to tell me?” Usually it’s something I need to do, or not do, or to do differently.

This time around, the message was about completion. I had too many projects laying around in some stage of progress, and nothing getting done. So, I made some adjustments. First, I hired an editor to work with me on two of my writing projects so I can get them done more quickly. Time will tell, but so far she impresses me as someone who “gets” my work but who will provide honest feedback to make it better.

Second, I changed my routine so that I get my daily word count in early in the day, before taking on errands or housework. Only the gardening comes first, and that’s to beat the worst of the heat. Most days, I’m getting to work on my word count by 7:30 a.m.

Once I made these simple adjustments, I felt clean and shiny and new again. By listening to my depression and taking its counsel, I found my way back to joy. I hit my word count by 8:30 a.m., got some exercise, and wrote some more. More and more, I believe that the menopausal mind is one that insists on truth, even when it’s unpleasant, and that’s a good thing. Better that than pulling out a gun, anyway!

 

*If you suffer clinical depression, please do not hesitate to get help through therapy and, possibly, medication. The kinds of mood swings I’m talking about here tend to come and go quickly and do not qualify as clinical depression.

Same Blog, New Focus: Creating “A Woman’s Nest”

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If you visit this blog, you’ll notice that changes are afoot. I am creating “A Woman’s Nest” to focus on my core audience: women in midlife. Why? Well, I am a woman in midlife, or thereabouts (I’m working to live as long as I can!), and I find this stage of life to be more fascinating and complex than I ever dreamed. There are hormonal issues, aging parents (as part of the ubiquitous “sandwich generation”), and a deeper urgency to realize dreams.

I’ll still talk about writing from time to time. After all, I am a writer, and the fiction I’m working on is aimed at women in my age group. It all ties together, and that’s what I’m trying to accomplish.

As we start this journey, I hope it will be together. I would love to hear your hopes, dreams, and concerns, and, wherever possible, make this blog about you, the reader. We can laugh and cry together as we navigate this special, wonderful, difficult, precious, and sometimes painful time of life.

Stay tuned. These changes are still in development and will unfold over the next several weeks. In the meantime, thanks for reading.

A Writer’s Labor and Birth

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While 50 pages of my novel sit at the agent’s office, waiting to be read, I am busily doing one more spit and polish on the manuscript. My editor had made recommendations, which I followed, but I want to make sure that all my latest changes make sense…either in case the agent wants the rest of the story, or I decide to query other agents, or I decide to self-publish again.

As I get closer to the end, though, I feel a familiar sensation, one that hits me every time I finish a project. That is, a fear of death emerges. Now, I hesitate to some degree to talk about this, but a few years ago I learned that I’m not the only writer to feel that way, so I might as well tell the truth. It’s not as bad as it used to be– it’s one of the main reasons I didn’t start writing until I was 39. These days I just say, “Yep, here it is again.”

Thing is, every time we write a book we are reborn in some way. Maybe it’s a piece of myself that I don’t need anymore that dies, and that’s what I struggle to let go of, but finishing a book is a bit like having a baby, except you’re not dealing with diaper changes, cries, and sleepless nights.

Well, sometimes we still get the sleepless nights, but it’s not the same. Like a baby, though, the book needs nurturing even after it’s “born.” We send it around to publishers and agents, announcing that we have the cutest baby book ever. If someone says our baby is ugly, we take offense. And, we must care for it, revising, resubmitting, getting feedback, etc., to help form it into the best little citizen book we can. We don’t know what it will be when it’s grown up, or how others will perceive it.

In the meantime, though, we wring our hands and fuss over it, doing our best and wondering where the damned manual is–because for all the books that exist on the craft of writing, there is no definitive way of creating a novel. In fact, I have already learned that each novel has a life of its own. I’ve finished two and started a third, and each one takes a different path, just as each child does.

We learn, in the end, that some efforts, despite our best intentions, are stillborn. They don’t quite work, they languish unpublished, or they don’t sell. It hurts, and we grieve. Sometimes we wonder if we’ll ever be parents at all! Still, we proceed with determination, like everyone who wants to parent a child, and we keep trying. We learn that when we allow ourselves to love, whether it’s a child we have or a book we write, we may die a little in the end. We may be disappointed. But we will not be sorry that we allowed ourselves to love in the first place–for that is where life’s magic resides.

 

Thoughts from 2011 #WLTcon

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The Writers’ League of Texas held its annual Agents and Editors conference this past weekend in Austin, Texas. I, along with a few hundred of my new best friends, made the trek to attend workshops, make new friends, and pitch to agents. This was my second conference; I attended two years ago. In those two years, a lot has changed!

Much of the focus has moved to social media as a way of branding and marketing a writer’s work. A “tweet-up” allowed attendees to tweet their questions about publishing, and I learned that many agents LOVE Twitter. I’m still not sure about it, but if the agents are using it and sharing publishing information, I’m happy to dive in. Previously, my tweets were occasional, uncertain, and inconsistent. Now, I’m in the know–at least a little bit! I’m now following several attendees, including said agents, and it’s a great way to get information about books, blogs, agents, and writing workshops.

When I attended two years ago, I was trying to decide if I wanted to publish Patchwork and Ornament traditionally or independently. I am glad I chose the latter because it allowed me to print the book before my father-in-law died, allowing him to see and feel the book, read the reviews, and watch it win an Indie Excellence award. I made a fundamental mistake, though, in not hiring a PR service to help me market the book.

When I published When a Grandchild Dies, I had a built-in audience. Between Amazon and Centering Corporation, a publisher and seller of bereavement books, my first self-publishing efforts were more successful than many, and I took it for granted that I had some PR skills. However, Patchwork has not fared as well. Now, having attended WLTcon, I have some leads on PR firms that can help me market my current project and perhaps resurrect Patchwork. These firms work specifically with authors and small publishers, so I will look into them further now that I am home.

I had my first-ever pitch session with Amy Burkhardt of Kimberley Cameron & Associates. Amy represented The Safe Food Handbook by Heli Perrett, where I learned never to eat raw sprouts–just in time to hear about the German e. coli outbreak attributed to raw sprouts. But I digress. The agency also represents women’s fiction, including Free to a Good Home by Eve Marie Mont, which I loved. Amy comes across as reserved and quiet, which helped put me at ease, or at least as at ease as was possible. The good news? She asked for a partial manuscript! Read the submission guidelines, she advised me, and I heard this message frequently throughout the weekend. Agents will not review manuscripts where the author could not be bothered to read the guidelines.

The best part of the conference, other than hanging with other writers, was the optimism of those representing the industry. Times are tough, and it’s harder to sell books these days, but a lot of dedicated people are keeping the faith and working hard. Their passion remains strong, and for that I am grateful.

 

 

 

Preparing for the Conference!

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For the next two weeks, I will be working diligently to get Change of Plans shaped up for the Writers’ League of Texas Agents Conference. While it’s not likely that someone would want to see the entire manuscript on the spot, I want to go in with the confidence of having a polished draft. During these upcoming days, I will be adding a few new chapters, polishing some minor plot problems, and preparing a synopsis and chapter outline. In addition, as part of my preparation, I am busily reading books that the agent I’ll be meeting with has represented or indicated that she likes.

Upon my return, I’ll write more about the conference and lessons learned along the way. In the meantime, though, I will stay away from the blog so I can git ‘er done. See you soon!