Back in October I attended a conference at the HQ of Writers’ Digest. I met Chuck Sambuchino – a very cool guy. Good speaker, easy to look at, but most important, his advice is practical and smart. I read his blog regularly. Today’s post is by a guest, a new writer (like you!) who shares what works for her. You can read about it here. The only place I differ from Jessica is that I loved reading about Stephen King’s desk in his book “On Writing.” In fact, I love asking authors where they work, what their “office” – if they have one – looks like, when they work (morning, evening, on the freeway? Hope not!), how they motivate themselves, how they divide their time between writing and everything else, like family, day job, and life in general. In future posts, I’ll interview authors and tell you about it.
Commuting in the Inland Empire
For ten years I commuted up and down the Cajon Pass, an hour each way. Now I only commute every Tuesday, when I go to a kindergarten class in Moreno Valley to help out, and I see stuff that reminds me of the commute. Like now. I’m in the car, coffeed up, jabbering into my recorder (a very cool device that uploads to my computer). Anyway we’re all waiting in line because the light on this rural highway is red, and just as it turns green a guy comes FLYING past us in the right-turn-only lane. He blasts through the intersection to the head of the line, cuts left and races on. The thing that gets me is, you KNOW he thinks he’s a genius, but the real reason he’s not dead is because somebody had the brains to let him in.
Kindergartners and Lazy Parents
I help out in a kindergarten class once a week. Many of the kids start the school year not knowing the simplest things, like how to write their names, but they pick it up lightning-fast. They might not know anything about colors or patterns, but the second we show them – almost before we get done showing them the very first time – they understand. I’m thinking in particular of this one bright, beautiful little girl whose eyes light up with excitement as she gets things. She’s so freaking smart and she loves to learn. So here’s my question: how is it possible that this person has been alive for five years, and no one has shown her what BLUE is?
Hope for Women’s Rights in Saudi Arabia
From Time Magazine, this is heartening: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1929152,00.html
The Zeitgeist as Depicted at an Airport Newsstand
I’m standing in the Cincinnati airport after a weekend with the lovely folks at Writer’s Digest (which writer, I wonder?) and I notice that you could do an anthropology paper from just reading the headlines on the latest magazines: Most of the women’s magazines are about IMPROVING YOUR INADEQUATE SELF. Cosmo, of course, screams about sex (bad girl sex, the sexy ass workout, sexual panic, Megan Fox’s body). Then for the slightly older girls: “When He’s Turned Off By Your Body In Bed.” Honestly, does that ever happen? Then for the rest of the female demographic there’s Readers’ Digest, with the headline, “Don’t Be A Victim! Crime Fighting Tips That Could Save Your Life!” (I picture my 84-year old Mom flashing a Buck knife.) Then in the Porn for Paranoids section: Time’s cover features “The Tragedy of Detroit”; Newsweek “The Mind of the Taliban” featuring the requisite hawk nose, unibrow over haunting dark eyes, and The Atlantic (“Torture…”) – calling my flight. Got to go.
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