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You are here: Home / Archives for NaNoWriMo

NaNoWriMo

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November 1, 2011 by admin

FREE BOOK OFFER AT THE END OF THIS BLOG ENTRY!

Good morning! I’ve started my Day 1 of NaNoWriMo and have, so far, about 2,200 words for the day. I’m hoping to hit 5,000 today to get rolling. There are a few days this month where it will be tough to get in a good word count, so I’m trying to start out with a full head of steam. Good luck and happy writing to those of you who are participating!

I’ve been so busy with The Foreign Language of Friends that I don’t always tend properly to another wonderful project of mine. In 2009 I edited Patchwork & Ornament: A Woman’s Journey of Life, Love, and Art by Jeanette Feldman (my late mother-in-law). Originally I had planned to put Patchwork together just for the family, but the longer I worked on it, the more I felt that others might enjoy it, too.

Patchwork went on to win an Indie Excellence Award for Best Memoir of 2010. Feathered Quill and Midwest Book Reviews gave it five stars on Amazon. But it is the comments we receive from individuals who read it that mean the most. As Jenny tells the story of her life in bite-sized essays, poems, and stories, readers reflect on their own lives. Somehow, Jenny’s warmth shines through, and readers feel as though they are having a conversation with her, as opposed to just reading someone else’s life story. Originally, I had planned to make the book just for the family, but I felt its magic as I worked on it, convinced that others could relate to her story.

Briefly, Jenny grew up in poverty during the Great Depression. In the South Bronx, where she lived, there was little hope for the future, but through the power of art, she gained a broader perspective on the world — one that allowed her to transcend poverty, even though she would never realize commercial success as an artist. Patchwork & Ornament includes several full-color photographs of her work.

Here’s an excerpt, from which the title is derived. Enjoy! A FREE BOOK OFFER FOLLOWS THIS EXCERPT!

Patchwork and Ornament
≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈
Why are your artworks so ornamented, when you love cubist and minimalist art?

Shopping Bag
One of many homemade shopping bags - a piece of art on its own

When asked this question I was intrigued and decided to write about it to clarify my answer to myself. I found the answer in my early childhood, from the lives of my grandmother and mother and from the apartments they lived in and decorated.

My aunt, my uncle, their son, and my grandmother lived in a three-room apartment on Freeman Street in the Bronx. There was one bedroom, another room that acted as a dining room/bedroom for my grandmother, and a kitchen with an eating area where the family actually ate their meals.

The floor in each room was covered with printed linoleum, each in a different pattern with no attempt to match or to complement the other. The floors needed to be covered and covered cheaply, and that was that.

The dining room made the biggest impact on me. That was where our family would sit together for holidays or on our infrequent social visits. The linoleum floor in the dining room resembled a version of a Persian rug, with deep reds and blues. My aunt and grandmother made curtains from a heavy, textured cotton called cretonne that was printed with palm trees, exotic tropical flowers and fruits. The cushions on the dining room chairs were each made of different fabrics and colors. Again, nothing matched anything else in the room.

Dishes in the china cabinet were parts of sets, piled together in random fashion. The table was large and covered in a white cloth embroidered in the center and edged with machine crochet lace. A cut crystal bowl filled with fruit sat on the sideboard, and a small beveled glass mirror hung at a height that reflected no one’s face. One would need to twist and bend in order to achieve such a glimpse. This was a room put together in bits and pieces over a period of time by people who did not care one iota about the way anything looked. They were poor immigrants struggling to survive in the cold depths of the Great Depression. They put together a home using what was at hand and went to second-hand stores for the rest.

Collage
Many of Jenny's artwork pieces had a "collage" look to them.

My grandmother was another strong influence. An Orthodox Jew, she wore a proscribed shaitl, or wig, of what looked like red horsehair. A more unattractive wig has yet to be designed. She made dresses for herself styled like muumuus, with a round neck, long sleeves without cuffs, and the hem just short of floor length. She wore a white apron that covered her almost completely from one hip to the other and was tied around the waist. As parts wore through, she patched it with any fabric at hand. She would do the same to the bosom of her dress when her heavy breasts wore the material to shreds. She wore these patched clothes anywhere at all, whether shopping the outdoor markets on Jennings Street or visiting us.

My mother, whose financial situation was much more precarious than my grandmother’s, would never wear patched clothes, never. Bitterly ashamed of her status in life, she tolerated neither raggedness nor patches. She would alter clothes, setting a new waistband into a dress or skirt to lengthen it, or making a shirt from a too-short dress, or attaching a wide velvet border to a coat when the longer look came into fashion. She made curtains, too, comforter covers, tablecloths edged with printed ruffles and seat cushions to match, and most of our clothes and doll clothes from scraps.

I was exposed to cubist and abstract art at Cooper Union, which gave me a different perspective from my influence at home. For a time I restricted myself to the severity and discipline of such art. I loved it. I found peace and order in the strictures of abstract art. At that time, I needed those elements to help structure my life.

Still, looking at great paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and in the Museum of Modern Art opened me to possibilities in combining textures and colors. And of course, the streets and buildings of Manhattan provided the greatest design class of all. Signage, posters, billboards, shop windows, people dressed in every fashion possible, cars, buses, vendors on street corners; I lived, worked, and studied in a vast collage environment.

As time passed, my work and my life became more dense and complex. More ornament, more richness became evident in the work, and storytelling, which has always been pleasurable to me, became important to the visual work. Instead of fighting and trying to work back into abstract or minimalist art, I went towards the new development, using ornament as narrative.
I see in the work I do, in the manner I have furnished our home, the effects of all these experiences. My childhood world of family influences grew to include, as in the manner a collage is made, layers built up from the complexities of my life, one over the other revealing like pentimento, ghosts of previous experiences.

***

FREE BOOK OFFERS!

  1. Buy an e-book copy of The Foreign Language of Friends from Amazon and post a review by November 30, and your name will go into a drawing for a free copy of Patchwork & Ornament OR a free copy of the print version of The Foreign Language of Friends (your choice).
  2. Buy 1, Get 1 Free! Purchase a copy of Patchwork & Ornament by November 30 and get a free, signed print version of The Foreign Language of Friends.

To claim your free book, provide proof of purchase (such as a confirmation e-mail from Amazon). If you’re going with option one, please let me know which review is yours.

Filed Under: books, fiction, writing Tagged With: books, Foreign Language of Friends, jeanette feldman, jenny feldman, NaNoWriMo, novels, patchwork and ornament book, women

NaNoWriMo and Totsymae!

October 27, 2011 by admin

As I watch the clock countdown to November 1 and the start of NaNoWriMo, I am a jumble of excitement and trepidation. Writing a 50,000 word draft in a month is the writing equivalent of the Indy 500, where we have to keep the car on the track and avoid hitting a wall and crashing. In a writer’s world, a wall is usually less about exhaustion (though that can happen, certainly) and more about the inner critic that nags and complains and tells us our stories are stupid and no one will ever read them.

Sometimes we hit a wall when our characters veer the story into a ditch, leaving us scratching our heads and wondering where the tow truck is. How do we get the story back on track? Many NaNo’ers do a lot of prep work ahead of time to keep their stories on the road: outlines, detailed plots, character sheets, etc. I don’t do anything beyond a loose outline because I’m a “pantser,” or one who flies by the seat of her pants when writing. The good news is, I have fun when my characters surprise me. The bad news is, they’re often lousy drivers, with the local tow truck driver just shaking his head and saying, “You again?” The finished stories have stories of their own, with plenty of skid marks and discarded words, paragraphs, pages, even whole chapters that get thrown out of the window and littered onto the ground. When I ride with my characters, I have to remember to take my dramamine along, because they don’t care that I’m carsick.

I hear that some people are planning to put their works in progress onto Smashwords to get feedback from people. To me, that’s giving a kid a car before he or she has had driver’s ed. To each her own, I guess, but I’m not letting my characters take anyone else in the car until I’m sure they know how to drive. I’m just sayin’.

The best part of NaNoWriMo is the camaraderie among the thousands who do it each year. Most of us writers slog along with a certain level of isolation. Family and friends often don’t care how we’re going to rewrite our beginning or get Greg and Marsha together at the end when he’s in a coma from his latest drunken car wreck. I can be disconsolate when a character dies, and there’s no one to come over with a tuna casserole or to sit shiva with me while I grieve. During NaNo, since all the other participants are having similar experiences, we can talk to each other. Groups get together to have “word wars” and other games to keep the juices flowing. This weekend we have a kick-off party, and I hear there will be lots and lots of brownies! It’s one month out of the year when a writer is never alone or lonely.

To my fellow NaNo’ers: Good luck! Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines! See you at the end when that checkered flag comes down on November 30!

***

Now, since it’s Thursday, I want to pass along my weekly blog recommendation. I can’t believe I haven’t told you about this one before, because it’s one of my favorites. If you haven’t met Totsymae, it’s high time you did so.

Totsymae is a writer and artist with plenty of common sense and folksy wisdom to share. Whether traveling, offering insights on dating, or ruminating on politics, Totsymae observes the world in a way that many of us do, but she explains it in a way many of us can’t. Reading her blog, I’m often smiling and nodding my head. First I say, “Yep, yep,” and then “Why didn’t I think of that?”

In this visual world that we live in, Totsymae adds value to her blog through her colorful illustrations. Take a look! You won’t ever be bored.

Filed Under: NaNoWriMo, writing Tagged With: books, creativity, fiction, NaNoWriMo, Totsymae, writing

We’re Talking Books, So It Must Be Tuesday

October 25, 2011 by admin

With National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) starting November 1, many of my waking thoughts have concerned what to write about. I had chosen an idea and carefully crafted a chapter-by-chapter outline. I don’t spend a lot of time writing out the plot or character sheets like many NaNo’ers, because I am what’s known as a “pantser.” I generally have no idea what I’m going to write until I write it, and part of the fun for me is to let my characters surprise me. I do an outline for NaNo only to keep the nerves at bay — I know that if I panic, I can look at the outline and say, “oh, yeah, that’s where I was going.” And believe me, when you’re writing a novel in a month, it’s good to keep the nerves at bay.

This morning, just six days from the start, I woke with a new idea. It is so delicious I can hardly stand it, and my biggest problem will be NOT starting it until November 1.

I’ve had the habit of changing my mind like this since I returned to college, earning a belated degree in 2004 at age 45. I would write a paper, sometimes complete with all my footnotes neatly arranged. Then I would read the paper again, and some nugget would pop out at me that would cause me to rewrite the darn thing from a different, though more inspired, angle. So I’m used to changing my mind at the last minute. I wait until I get the juicy idea that is so compelling that I won’t mind shutting out the rest of the world while I write.

In the meantime, I also make time each day to read. This past week I read Frances Mayes’ Every Day in Tuscany: Secrets of an Italian Life. My editor has asked me to add a lot more setting and other visuals to Blood and Loam, and Mayes is a master of painting a picture of her surroundings. Travel narratives can be great teachers for description and setting, so it was fun to break away from novels to enjoy yet another of Mayes’ slice of life episodes in Italy.

I have also loaded up my iPad with books yet to read. I thought I would share what’s waiting for me. I can tell you what’s NOT waiting for me: the biography of Steve Jobs. I’d love to read it, don’t get me wrong. But $16.99 for the Kindle version? I’ll wait until the fuss dies down and buy it on sale, thank you.

Anyway, here’s what I’m reading or getting ready to read. What’s on your shelf?

Paperbacks:

The Remarkable Mrs. Ripley: The Story of Sarah Alden Bradford Ripley by Joan W. Goodwin. I am fascinated by the culture of Massachusetts post-Revolution through the Transcendental era (go ahead, call me geeky, it’s okay).

The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture by Wendell Barry. Blood and Loam is set in the Midwest in 1970, and this is research for the book.

Four Dead in Ohio by William Gordon. More research for Blood and Loam. My main character was a student at Kent State when the shootings occurred.

E-Books:

Twin-Bred by Karen Wyle

The Sacrificial Lamb by Jolee Morriss and J. L. Murphey

Escape from Second Eden by JoAnn Murphey

The Language of Trees: A Novel by Ruby Ilie

There are more, but this is a start!

Have a great day, and I’ll be back tomorrow with the week’s feature post.

Filed Under: books, fiction Tagged With: books, Escape from Second Eden, fiction, Four Dead in Ohio, Frances Mayes, NaNoWriMo, novels, The Language of Trees, The Remarkable Mrs. Ripley, The Sacrificial Lamb, The Unsettling of America, Twin-Bred

And Now, a Word From Our Sponsor…

October 17, 2011 by admin

Since last week was intense, I thought I would include some soothing photos from the Conservatory Garden in Central Park to begin our week with a smile!

Central Park
A lovely respite from protests and the overall busy-ness of NYC.

I seldom do commercials. In fact, I am squirming now with the thought of doing one at all. I blog because I love to, and I hope through my adventures that my readers see something of themselves. It’s always easier to promote the work of others.

That said, I have work of my own to promote today. At long last, The Foreign Language of Friends is now available on Amazon Kindle. In the next 2-4 weeks, it will also be available on other e-readers as well. At Amazon’s suggestion, I am creating a POD paperback version for those who want their paper books. I’ll post again once the book is available in these other formats.

I’ve priced The Foreign Language of Friends at the low, low price of $1.99, so buy early and buy often, and tell all your friends! If you haven’t seen my Friday postings before, check them out to get the first several chapters for nothin’. Yep, this is a commercial. Please buy my book! Help me keep my fabulous editor in business. She’s worth every penny. Plus, it’s a fun story. I had a great time creating it!

If you buy it and like it, may I ask one more favor? Please take a few minutes to write a review on Amazon. Thanks kindly in advance.

Now I am learning all about blog tours and am ready to gear up. I discovered BlogTour.org, which looks promising. Bryce Beattie, creator, conceived of the idea when he was working on his own blog tour. BlogTour.org matches authors who want to promote their work with blogs who are willing to feature authors. If it works, it can really simplify the process.

If you’re an author who is interested in BlogTour, take a gander at the website and sign up. You’ll find me listed there as a blogger willing to interview authors and their works, as long as they fit in with the general flavor of A Woman’s Nest.

More Flowers
It may be October, but there are plenty of flowers still in bloom!

In the meantime, my period of rest is over! My fabulous aforementioned editor, Jill Bailin, has turned Blood and Loam over to me for revisions, and it looks like she’ll be keeping me busy for a while. I also do my own book layouts, so I’ve pulled The Foreign Language of Friends into my trusty Adobe InDesign to get that done. And, I fully intend to do NaNoWriMo, which comes up in just a few weeks. Thankfully, my good She Writes friend Jodi Aman is offering a FREE 21-day meditation challenge in November, and I’ll need it to get some zen during all the craziness. It’s all good! I was getting a little cranky without a writing project, and I’m much happier when I’m juggling a lot of plates.

We’re back on track with my typical blog schedule, so I hope you’ll join me tomorrow for my latest book review. Have a great week!

Peace
Peace! Shalom! Shanti!

Filed Under: books, fiction, women, writing Tagged With: Amazon, BlogTour.org, books, Bryce Beattie, chick lit, fiction, Foreign Language of Friends, free, Jodi Aman, NaNoWriMo, women's fiction

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