So, I was looking at CNN recently and couldn't help but check this out.
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/showbiz/2009/10/20/dcl.charlaine.harris.intv.cnn
I actually did find the interview inspiring, from the point of view of an aspiring genre writer. Over the course of it, Charlene Harris talks about her journey to her current genre, things going on in the world of Sookie Stackhouse, and genre writing, particularly the supernatural-mystery genre, and the True Blood TV series. It is, in all a very short interview, but certainly amusing.
And how can you resist this headline: "I like my guys without fangs," Author Says ?
What do you think?
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Friday, October 16, 2009
My Non-existent Work/Life Balance
Lately I've been struggling with my work/life balance. I've been engrossed in some very big projects at work and as a result I've been unable to actually fit in the time for my writing. I've been getting home any time between 7-9pm and just too exhausted to spend another 3 hours working on my novel. Which i know is defeatist claptrap, but it's where I've been lately. Its also why my blog posting has been sporadic and slightly shorter than usual.
With the poor economy, more lay offs and in general more work to go around its hard to treat my job as a 9.30-5.30 affair. When I was fresh out of college I really believed that work ended at X time. Especially as I didn't get paid overtime. Now, i still don't get paid overtime, but more and more frequently I'm at the office later and later. Plus, professionally I've been given a lot of projects that are testing my merit and work as an assistant and clearly designed to push me forward. So, I've found it incredibly difficult to just turn my machine off and leave work unfinished.
Normally, I'm very good at reminding myself I have two jobs, one that pays the bills the other that fulfills my days. Although, with my day job now being something that I've grown to love, its weird to find I have a passion for both professions. So, my question to all you writers out there is how do you find that balance between work and writing? I used to be able to answer this question with a simple work ends at 5.30 and writing is from 8-10 (or so). But now, I can't.
So, when all of you out there get very busy how do you juggle all your work and writing commitments? So far I've been reassessing my writing goals and making them smaller (hey, it's better to get a little bit done than nothing, right?) and trying to force myself to have at least two nights a week out the door no later than 6pm. Its been working, but its a slow process. Now, if only I could reclaim my lunch hour...
So, the floor is open for suggestions. Just how do you strike that tricksy balance?
With the poor economy, more lay offs and in general more work to go around its hard to treat my job as a 9.30-5.30 affair. When I was fresh out of college I really believed that work ended at X time. Especially as I didn't get paid overtime. Now, i still don't get paid overtime, but more and more frequently I'm at the office later and later. Plus, professionally I've been given a lot of projects that are testing my merit and work as an assistant and clearly designed to push me forward. So, I've found it incredibly difficult to just turn my machine off and leave work unfinished.
Normally, I'm very good at reminding myself I have two jobs, one that pays the bills the other that fulfills my days. Although, with my day job now being something that I've grown to love, its weird to find I have a passion for both professions. So, my question to all you writers out there is how do you find that balance between work and writing? I used to be able to answer this question with a simple work ends at 5.30 and writing is from 8-10 (or so). But now, I can't.
So, when all of you out there get very busy how do you juggle all your work and writing commitments? So far I've been reassessing my writing goals and making them smaller (hey, it's better to get a little bit done than nothing, right?) and trying to force myself to have at least two nights a week out the door no later than 6pm. Its been working, but its a slow process. Now, if only I could reclaim my lunch hour...
So, the floor is open for suggestions. Just how do you strike that tricksy balance?
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Whose Gaze?
I had a friend once in college who was an Art History major. She was continually talking about something called “the Male Gaze.” She was particularly into Renaissance art, and told me that a piece of artwork was actually a conversation between the subject of the painting—usually a beautiful female—and the person looking at the painting. Every artist had an ideal viewer in mind, and, according to my friend, Renaissance artists pictured their ideal viewer as male. So they painted a lot of beautiful women in various stages of undress, looking at the viewer provocatively. They weren’t looking at another woman that way. They were performing for the Male Gaze, not the female one.
Renaissance art may be part of history—but the Male Gaze is as contemporary as it gets. The modern media caters to it relentlessly. A really obvious example of this is the typical beer commercial—it’s rare to find one without a scantily-clad model implying that she’s available to any slob who orders this beer in a bar.
But you find it elsewhere, too. There’s no question that sex sells. But whose sex? Beautiful women shill for everything, from cell phone plans to cars to vacation cruises. This is odd, when women control at least half of all household spending money in the country. You occasionally see advertisers using these tactics on women as well—I remember reading an article from some advertising exec for Mr. Clean, suggesting that they wanted women to “fantasize” about their chrome-domed spokes-cartoon. But compare the number of beautiful women you see in ads to the amount of beautiful men, and you’ll probably see that the women are much more ubiquitous.
It’s not ads, though, where I really notice the Male Gaze. It’s movies and sitcoms. Have you noticed, in TV-land, how often beautiful women get with average—or even sub-average—guys? I think I first noticed something was up when I saw There’s Something About Mary. I just remember thinking, “Come on—Cameron Diaz chooses Ben Stiller over that football player? The guy looks like a tree stump with eyebrows!” And then there’s Cider House Rules—if Tobey Maguire wasn’t a movie star, do you really think he’d have a chance with someone who looks like Charlize Theron? Puh-leeze.
You notice it a lot in sitcoms, too. King of Queens is an obvious example. So is That 70’s Show—Donna was so out of Eric’s league. You even see it in cartoons—the fat, kinda slow guy is so often paired with the good-looking, smart wife, it’s become a cliché. These movies and shows clearly aren’t written with women’s desires in mind—they’re written by, for, and largely about guys.
Our culture worships a feminine ideal that most women can’t attain—and then pairs that ideal with male icons who couldn’t be more ordinary. It sends women a bleak message: you have to be gorgeous. And even then, you’ll probably wind up with the fat guy. Or the one with the overbite. Guys, of course, are conditioned to think it’s realistic to date women who look like models, no matter what they themselves look like. All this is bad news for normal-looking girls, who find themselves competing with Charlize Theron, as well as for beautiful women, who get pestered by potato-shaped guys in bars who think they actually have a chance.
So what can we do about it? Easy. Let’s make a bunch of movies that pair Judy Dench with Brad Pitt. Let’s have some more sitcoms about older women paired with Latino hotties ten years their junior (hey—it worked for I Love Lucy). Let’s show women that guys aren’t half as shallow as the media says they are.
And let’s think a little more about the Female Gaze in ads. There are a lot of products out there who are missing out on half their potential customer base. I’m not a big fan of Bud Light, for example. But I’d probably drink it, if I really believed it had the power to compel that hot guy by the jukebox to come over and hit on me.
Which is why I love romance novels. But that's another blog post.
Renaissance art may be part of history—but the Male Gaze is as contemporary as it gets. The modern media caters to it relentlessly. A really obvious example of this is the typical beer commercial—it’s rare to find one without a scantily-clad model implying that she’s available to any slob who orders this beer in a bar.
But you find it elsewhere, too. There’s no question that sex sells. But whose sex? Beautiful women shill for everything, from cell phone plans to cars to vacation cruises. This is odd, when women control at least half of all household spending money in the country. You occasionally see advertisers using these tactics on women as well—I remember reading an article from some advertising exec for Mr. Clean, suggesting that they wanted women to “fantasize” about their chrome-domed spokes-cartoon. But compare the number of beautiful women you see in ads to the amount of beautiful men, and you’ll probably see that the women are much more ubiquitous.
It’s not ads, though, where I really notice the Male Gaze. It’s movies and sitcoms. Have you noticed, in TV-land, how often beautiful women get with average—or even sub-average—guys? I think I first noticed something was up when I saw There’s Something About Mary. I just remember thinking, “Come on—Cameron Diaz chooses Ben Stiller over that football player? The guy looks like a tree stump with eyebrows!” And then there’s Cider House Rules—if Tobey Maguire wasn’t a movie star, do you really think he’d have a chance with someone who looks like Charlize Theron? Puh-leeze.
You notice it a lot in sitcoms, too. King of Queens is an obvious example. So is That 70’s Show—Donna was so out of Eric’s league. You even see it in cartoons—the fat, kinda slow guy is so often paired with the good-looking, smart wife, it’s become a cliché. These movies and shows clearly aren’t written with women’s desires in mind—they’re written by, for, and largely about guys.
Our culture worships a feminine ideal that most women can’t attain—and then pairs that ideal with male icons who couldn’t be more ordinary. It sends women a bleak message: you have to be gorgeous. And even then, you’ll probably wind up with the fat guy. Or the one with the overbite. Guys, of course, are conditioned to think it’s realistic to date women who look like models, no matter what they themselves look like. All this is bad news for normal-looking girls, who find themselves competing with Charlize Theron, as well as for beautiful women, who get pestered by potato-shaped guys in bars who think they actually have a chance.
So what can we do about it? Easy. Let’s make a bunch of movies that pair Judy Dench with Brad Pitt. Let’s have some more sitcoms about older women paired with Latino hotties ten years their junior (hey—it worked for I Love Lucy). Let’s show women that guys aren’t half as shallow as the media says they are.
And let’s think a little more about the Female Gaze in ads. There are a lot of products out there who are missing out on half their potential customer base. I’m not a big fan of Bud Light, for example. But I’d probably drink it, if I really believed it had the power to compel that hot guy by the jukebox to come over and hit on me.
Which is why I love romance novels. But that's another blog post.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Moving Forward With Small, Achievable Goals
I finished my book in July and started editing in August. I was doing well for a while, then I went on a three-week trip to Ecuador. And when I got home, I found I'd lost my writing momentum. I had already partially re-outlined my plot, resolving some plot issues I'd been concerned about and making my plot more cohesive. But upon returning, I didn't remember where my outline was going--and the notes I'd left on my first draft seemed incomprehensible.
So what do you do when you've lost momentum? Make it easy to get started again. I lost momentum for over three weeks because fixing my novel seemed like such an impossible task. I had this enormous binder full of notes and a half-written outline and I had no idea what I'd been doing before I left. It all seemed like a tangled mess--and I worried about not being able to retrace my train of thought. I was overwhelmed.
I got started on my outline again by redirecting my mental attention. Instead of telling myself I had to sit down and untie the gordian knot of my novel, I told myself I'd just reread the new outline I'd written. That's all. It took thirty minutes. Just that simple re-read reminded me of my direction and got me inspired.
Now I'm finished reworking my outline and will be tackling the rewrite this month. Is it going to be easy? No. But I make sure not to let myself know that. Every day, I sit down with the idea of doing something small and achievable. Five pages here, a thousand words there--it's all coming together. It's easy to get discouraged and sidetracked when you're always looking at the big picture. But remember you don't have to rewrite the entire novel in one sitting--you just have to rework one scene at a time. With small, regular efforts toward a larger goal, you're sure to get your novel edited.
So what do you do when you've lost momentum? Make it easy to get started again. I lost momentum for over three weeks because fixing my novel seemed like such an impossible task. I had this enormous binder full of notes and a half-written outline and I had no idea what I'd been doing before I left. It all seemed like a tangled mess--and I worried about not being able to retrace my train of thought. I was overwhelmed.
I got started on my outline again by redirecting my mental attention. Instead of telling myself I had to sit down and untie the gordian knot of my novel, I told myself I'd just reread the new outline I'd written. That's all. It took thirty minutes. Just that simple re-read reminded me of my direction and got me inspired.
Now I'm finished reworking my outline and will be tackling the rewrite this month. Is it going to be easy? No. But I make sure not to let myself know that. Every day, I sit down with the idea of doing something small and achievable. Five pages here, a thousand words there--it's all coming together. It's easy to get discouraged and sidetracked when you're always looking at the big picture. But remember you don't have to rewrite the entire novel in one sitting--you just have to rework one scene at a time. With small, regular efforts toward a larger goal, you're sure to get your novel edited.
Monday, October 5, 2009
I've Been Workin' on the Railroad....
Okay... perhaps it's not that bad. In fact, I am rather proud of this week's accomplishments, all things considering.
I made my writing goal last week by Thursday (This week: 3600. Onward Ho!) and decided not to push it. Not knowing how much time I would be able to devote to either endeavor over the course of the weekend, I had decided to take a little time during the long ride out to a friend's wedding (CONGRATS AGAIN, JAMES AND AMY!!!) and work on some editing. And boy did I ever. Between the car rides there and back, when I wasn't driving, I was able to finish most of chapter one. I added a little over 3000 words -- which is great because I eliminated a lot, probably about 3000 words or more (and if I continue with the edits that I've been contemplating will be just the start of an entire overhaul of the next four chapters and the elimination of most, if not all of chapter two). I was surprised at how easily it worked. Some trips I find I can't do anything at all, while others have some crazy abundance, maybe to make up for the ones where I sit for seven or more hours in the car (or bus or plane or train) and ask my SO over and over again "are we there yet?" (I fear for the day we have children. He may lose it. Seriously.)
Here is where my confidence lags, though. I honestly wonder if I'll be able to keep this level of productivity up now, and if I do, will I run out of whatever it is that's been buoying me these last few weeks during NANO? Perhaps, perhaps not.
I would feel a little better, going into NANO if I felt some things were off my plate. And if I did more research into what I'll be writing for NANO. It wasn't something I could work on this weekend, because until Sunday night, I was without internet. I suppose part of this shaky confidence is knowing that what I did (and have been doing) is frankly insane in the light of what Jenny and Ginny are doing. What do I think I am, trying to edit and write at the same time?
But, on some level I saw it as a kind of "free time." I'd already done my goals for this week.
On the other hand, if I'd used that free time to work on my current writing story, would I have gotten 3000 more words out of myself (doubling my goals and getting me that much closer to having this finished before NANO)? Or would I have had a car ride of staring at the lovely turning leaves but asking myself as my power slowly dwindled -- on so many levels -- are we there yet?
So, I suppose the ultimate question I'm posing is, is it smart of me to have taken this route this week and divided my time between two worlds, as it were, which may or may not get me closer to eliminating one of the balls in the air in my right hand? Or should I have taken a more decisive step towards finishing the story I'm still writing, thereby moving that ball from my left to my right?
What do you think?
I made my writing goal last week by Thursday (This week: 3600. Onward Ho!) and decided not to push it. Not knowing how much time I would be able to devote to either endeavor over the course of the weekend, I had decided to take a little time during the long ride out to a friend's wedding (CONGRATS AGAIN, JAMES AND AMY!!!) and work on some editing. And boy did I ever. Between the car rides there and back, when I wasn't driving, I was able to finish most of chapter one. I added a little over 3000 words -- which is great because I eliminated a lot, probably about 3000 words or more (and if I continue with the edits that I've been contemplating will be just the start of an entire overhaul of the next four chapters and the elimination of most, if not all of chapter two). I was surprised at how easily it worked. Some trips I find I can't do anything at all, while others have some crazy abundance, maybe to make up for the ones where I sit for seven or more hours in the car (or bus or plane or train) and ask my SO over and over again "are we there yet?" (I fear for the day we have children. He may lose it. Seriously.)
Here is where my confidence lags, though. I honestly wonder if I'll be able to keep this level of productivity up now, and if I do, will I run out of whatever it is that's been buoying me these last few weeks during NANO? Perhaps, perhaps not.
I would feel a little better, going into NANO if I felt some things were off my plate. And if I did more research into what I'll be writing for NANO. It wasn't something I could work on this weekend, because until Sunday night, I was without internet. I suppose part of this shaky confidence is knowing that what I did (and have been doing) is frankly insane in the light of what Jenny and Ginny are doing. What do I think I am, trying to edit and write at the same time?
But, on some level I saw it as a kind of "free time." I'd already done my goals for this week.
On the other hand, if I'd used that free time to work on my current writing story, would I have gotten 3000 more words out of myself (doubling my goals and getting me that much closer to having this finished before NANO)? Or would I have had a car ride of staring at the lovely turning leaves but asking myself as my power slowly dwindled -- on so many levels -- are we there yet?
So, I suppose the ultimate question I'm posing is, is it smart of me to have taken this route this week and divided my time between two worlds, as it were, which may or may not get me closer to eliminating one of the balls in the air in my right hand? Or should I have taken a more decisive step towards finishing the story I'm still writing, thereby moving that ball from my left to my right?
What do you think?
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