writing

body / writing — Comments Off
14
Jan 12

Motivation

Last week at The Frisky, Amelia wrote about how while she has found an exercise she loves (yoga), she still has trouble getting motivated to go to yoga class after work. I totally understand. After work, all I want to do is stuff my face and sit in front of the TV for three hours. Hence, my thwarted attempts to work out in the evenings, even though my bus passes my gym.

So I decided to work out and go to yoga on the days I work from home, Tuesdays and Thursdays, and at least once on the weekend. You think that would be easy, right? Wrong. Although I had all the time in the world, I *still* had trouble getting motivated, and would find lots of excuses. I have a deadline for work, I need to write, I can go another day, etc.

Finally, last month I was able to meet my goal and go to yoga twice a week, and do cardio at least three times a week. How?

I set a short-term goal. Amelia said her New Year resolution is to go to yoga class three times a week. For me it’s much easier to say, “For this one month, I’m doing X,” instead of, “From now on forever, I’m doing X!” That’s what I did in December, which seemed to kick my ass into gear.

I broke down “going to the gym” into tiny steps. When I was working out after work, I’d tell myself, All you have to do is go into the building, fooling myself into thinking that’s all I had to do. But of course once I was in the building, I worked out.

In terms of working out and going to yoga during my WFH days, I fooled myself into thinking:

All you have to do is lay out your workout clothes.
All you have to do is get out your yoga mat.
All you have to do is load up your gym bag.
All you have to do is change into your workout clothes.
All you have to do is put on your sneakers.
Etc.

Soon that first step, laying out my workout clothes, became a trigger to getting my ass out the door and to the gym.

I remind myself that I will ALWAYS feel better after a workout. Even if I decide to do 30 minutes of cardio instead of 40, or “just” the elliptical instead of running, I always feel better afterward, never worse.

I try to stop arguing with myself. Back when I worked for a company that had a gym on the premises, I’d still argue with myself about going. Should I, shouldn’t I, should I, shouldn’t I? Finally one of my co-workers said, “You spend more time arguing with yourself that actually working out.” That made something in my head click, and I simply stopped arguing with myself.

I wish that had been a permanent change. At times, I still feel myself spiraling down the arguing sinkhole, convincing myself not to workout. What I’ve tried to do is simply take arguing with myself out of the equation completely. That way I don’t give myself the opportunity to come up with excuses not to go.

Now what I need to do is apply that to my writing.

In a lot of ways, working out is easier than writing. Quality matters less. If I have a sucky run, it doesn’t affect my next run. If my writing goes awry, it could mean I’m heading in the wrong direction, or that I have a lot of work to redo, which can be discouraging. You don’t redo a run over and over till it’s a right. Plus with exercise, you see faster results.

Writing coach Julie Isaac gives some great advice about how to get motivated to write daily (or whatever your goal is) more easily. The tips I like best are Make Writing a Priority, Write First, and Break My Daily Goal into Smaller Goals. I hadn’t realized that my writing (ie, not work-related) hasn’t been a priority. I often tackle other stuff (like, ahem, Words With Friends) before writing. This is what Julie says about writing first:

How often do you find yourself saying, “I’ll write as soon as I finish … (the dishes, my favorite TV show, organizing my desk, etc., etc., ad infinitum)” And how often does the day slip by without you doing any writing (or very little)?

There’s only one way to answer both of the above questions with “never,” (or at least “rarely”), and that is to Write First!

Let the dishes sit in the sink for an hour… Write First!

Record your favorite TV show… Write First!

Let the piles of paper on your desk get a little dustier… Write First!

For the past couple of days, I’ve been trying this. On Thursday, a WFH day, before I started my day job, I wrote in my notebook for about an hour. The amount of time or number of pages (or page in this case) wasn’t the goal. It was getting a short scene done. And it felt awesome for the rest of the day knowing I’d gotten at least a little writing out of the way.

I always plan on writing on the train to work in the mornings. But more often than not, I end spending the short ride catching up on Words With Friends or Twitter. Yesterday I consciously told myself, “Write first!” and I got another scene done, and didn’t even look at my iPhone. (In fact, I totally lost track of where we were and almost missed my stop.)

Today I did the same thing again: after breakfast and before my computer, I wrote another short scene. Then I wrote some more this afternoon. Just a little bit, but over the week it all starts to add up.

No Resolutions

Last week my yoga class was extra crowded with newbies. I’ve nothing against yoga newbies – I was one not too long ago (and still feel like one most of time) – but I know that by the end of January, most of them will have dropped out. The same thing would happen at my company gym: in January it would be crowded with poseurs, and by Valentine’s Day, it would be back to us regulars plus maybe 5% of poseurs.

I stopped making New Year resolutions a while ago. Why wait till January to start something new? Also, resolutions tend to be vague. “This year I’ll be thin! I’ll be more productive! I’ll stop worrying!” Vagueness, for me at least, is a guarantee of failure.

I’ve tried New Year goals, but that hasn’t worked for me. Last year I kept them up for a while then fell off the wagon. I hated not meeting my goals from week to week, so much so that I just gave up entirely.

So what’s a girl to do? This:

Adjust my expectations.
Set short-term goals – but don’t write them down.
Remember my accomplishments.

And here’s how I’m applying them.

Fitness

Expectations

I used to do hard cardio five times a week, which was easy with a company gym and Central Park just a few blocks away. I’d run at least four miles, and as much as six. Once a week I’d run between eight and 10 miles.

For a while I beat myself up for doing cardio “only” three times a week, for running “only” three or four miles, or “only” walking. But now I’ve accepted that’s okay, and remind myself that running three miles or walking one or two is better than nothing.

Goals & Accomplishments

You’d think writing down my goals for the week (cardio three times, yoga/weights twice, etc.) would be a good idea. NOT. Like I said, most weeks I wouldn’t meet my goals, and hated that so much, I stopped trying all together.

Now I tell myself my goals but don’t write them. For instance, my goal for October was to start walking to and from the train station on the days I worked, about two miles each way, three times a week. It was very easy to meet this goal because I enjoy walking, it took the same and even less amount of time as the bus, it’s much more relaxing than the bus, and the weather is good out here. Now the walk is not only a habit, but something I look forward to every day.

My goal for the month of December was to go to yoga class twice a week, every week (a class pushes me much harder than I push myself) and to do hard cardio (running or the elliptical) three times a week, every week. I didn’t write these goals in a spreadsheet. I mentioned them in my blog, but otherwise just held the goals in my mind.

And guess what, I made my goal! There was one day I missed yoga class because I had to go into the office (boo!) but at least I did an hour of yoga at home.

What’s also helped is tracking my progress after the fact. I love filling my spreadsheet with what I’ve accomplished, which encourages me to do something, no matter how small, every day.

My January goal is to continue what I’ve been doing, and also to do burpees/weights/yoga at least once a week. Right now I did that sometimes, but not consistently.

Writing

Expectations

I continue to struggle to have no expectations about my writing. I try to concentrate on the task at hand, and not worry about being successful (whatever that means) or comparing myself to other writers. Staying busy helps.

Accomplishments

These past few months I’ve felt blah about my writing. I haven’t published much outside of work, and have totally neglected The Nervous Breakdown, where I’m supposed to post once a month. Then I looked back at what I’d done over the year, and now feel re-energized and re-inspired. Here’s a totally self-indulgent recap of my writing accomplishments from over the year:

January

I wrote about my war with rats. Some Frisky readers gave me some love.

February

I wrote about what I think about when I should be thinking about nothing while doing yoga.

March

At The Nervous Breakdown, I was the featured author and also wrote about childhood and death. For The Frisky, I wrote about why I stand by Planned Parenthood. I kicked off the publicity campaign for my memoir by asking you guys to help me pick a cover and held a contest giving away copy of my book.

April

For Dark Sky Magazine, I wrote about vampires, tattoos, and divorce. I continued to market my memoir by giving all contest participants a free copy. I got some awesome new author photos. For The Frisky, I wrote that I’m really bad at being wrong, and for The Nervous Breakdown, about caring for someone with Parkinson’s disease.

May

I updated my website and published my memoir, woot! I wrote about the curse of the imperial roll. These cute little dictionaries I edited last year were published.

June

I started tweeting a lot for work, beginning with a live tweet of the Scripps National Spelling Bee. My piece that won Bellingham Review‘s 2010 nonfiction contest was published, and the contest judge wrote something very nice about it. I received my first real review (thanks Ed Lin and Giant Robot!). For the anthology Wisdom Has a Voice, I wrote about my dear grandmother. For The Nervous Breakdown, I wrote about things I’ve found on the sidewalk.

July

I got some more Nervous Breakdown love. For the Frisky, I wrote that I’m neither a trophy nor a tiger. I started blogging a lot for work.

August

I kicked off my 12 months, 60 Rejections project (I’ve made 16 submissions and have had three rejections and one acceptance so far). At The Frisky, I wrote that I’m divorced, get over it. I won first place in Hyperink’s My Tiger Mom and Me contest, and was published in their anthology.

September

I wrote a shit ton for work, including words about work, words in fashion, pirate words, punctuation rules, and drinks: wine, tea, funny drink names, coffee, and beer.

October

For work, I wrote all about Halloween as well as Hangul Day, and started writing a bi-weekly series called Word Soup, in which I round up funny and interesting words from TV (and you know I watch a lot of TV!). I got invited to speak at the BlogHer Writers’ Conference and had a great time. I finished reading John Truby’s Anatomy of a Story, went through all the exercises, and planned my novel. I finished compiling and editing a book of essays to enter in a few contests (the essays are a mixture of stuff I’ve published and a couple of newish ones).

November

For work, I wrote about Saintly Words for All Saints’ Day; Words on Plot and Treason for Guy Fawkes’ Day; Palindromes and Other Word Play for 11/11/11; and turkey words for Thanksgiving. I decided to do NaNoWriMo differently this year, and while I didn’t complete it, I continued to work on my novel.

December

I continued to work on my novel, and submitted a story pitch, my first in months – yay!

Goals

My goals for writing are even shorter-term than for fitness. In general I want to work on my own writing every day, even if for a little bit, whether it’s my novel, my blog, a pitch, or a shorter piece. For a couple of months (which felt like several), I really neglected my own writing. What’s helping so far is writing before I turn on my computer. With my novel (for which I spent September and October planning out the characters and all the scenes), I’ve been handwriting a few scenes, then typing them up. When I type, I also edit and add.

My goals for my novel are day by day. For instance, today I want to hand write a few scenes. I usually need a little breather after I write a few scenes, to sort of let them clear from my head so that when I type them, I can see them with a fresh eye, so then I’ll work on something else the next day, either my blog or a pitch. This week I went to turn in another story pitch.

I don’t really have a drop dead date for when the novel should be done. Right now I’m just going day by day.

Other goals I’m keeping in the back of my mind are to catch up on my reading in The Nervous Breakdown, and to write an essay for January.

So no resolutions for me. No “From now on, I’m going to be X.” All I can ask of myself is to continue these small goals, which if you think about it, add up to bigger ones anyway.

writing — Comments Off
28
Nov 11

A Common History

I mentioned that part of my novel will be set in China in the 1930s and ’40s. While the book isn’t historical fiction, I still want it to be accurate (for instance, would it possible that the grandmother character would run into Japanese soldiers in her village?) and so I’ve been doing some research.

I’ve been using this timeline, which has been very helpful so far. The timeline mentions Iris Chang, the author of The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II.

Chang wrote the book at least partly inspired by her grandparents’ stories of having escaped the Nanjing Massacre. My grandparents weren’t in Nanjing at the time, but I grew up hearing about how my grandfather had been imprisoned by the Japanese, and that there were two kinds of people my grandmother hated: the Japanese and the Communists.

I remember when the book came out. I kept hearing that it was important but very hard to read. I think I glanced through it once, saw a couple of the pictures, and decided I couldn’t handle it.

Then several years later, Iris Chang killed herself.

It was November 2004, and I was going through my own shit at the time. It had been four months since my husband confessed to his affair; his mistress was six months pregnant. He had decided he wanted a hand in raising the child but still wanted to be married to me. Although I was miserable, I couldn’t let go. I was afraid to be alone again, afraid to tell my parents, and most of all, I couldn’t let the mistress win.

I remember thinking Iris Chang had it all. A loving husband, a child, a best-selling book. What possible reason would she have to commit suicide?

It’s said that Chang may have had bipolar disorder. She’d work at a frenzied pace for days, then crash for days. Right before she killed herself, she had a nervous breakdown. She had been up for three days straight and was hospitalized. She became very depressed and, it seemed, delusional. At the time she was working on a book about the Bataan Death March of World War II, and thought that the government was watching her, had something to do with her hospitalization, and was tampering with her mail. She had been given medication, but took it sporadically. She refused to believe that something was wrong with her. Her friend Paula Kamen wrote:

[Iris’s] current vaguely described problems were “external,” she kept repeating, a result of her controversial research. They weren’t a result of the “internal,” that is, they weren’t all in her head. I asked her about what others in her life thought about the cause of this apparent depression. She paused and said, “They think it’s internal.”

There’s still a stigma around mental illness in the Asian American community. Asians are generally less open emotionally (in my opinion), don’t want to share problems with strangers, and don’t want to admit to problems as this means losing face. Also, as the linked article says, “Asian immigrants who suffer from mental illness will assume it’s a physical ailment and consult a physician instead of a mental-health professional.” In the article about Chang, her mother says she was worried because her daughter never ate or slept very much, as though those were the causes of her mental illness, rather than symptoms. Still others blamed the disturbing subject matter of her book.

The news of Chang’s suicide hit my parents and their friends hard. Iris could have been any of their kids. She was Chinese American just like us. Her parents were just like my parents and their friends: they were born in China but had escaped to Taiwan in 1949 during the Communist Revolution, and then had come to the U.S. for grad school.

“Your daughter’s a writer too, right?” one of my parents’ friends said. “You should watch her carefully!”

I know this was only out of concern, but I was annoyed. While writers may be at greater risk for depression, that didn’t mean I was going to off myself. Again, people were ignoring or overlooking mental illness and focusing on external factors.

But I was annoyed for another reason. Nobody, save for a few close friends and my brother, knew about the shit that was going on in my life, and how I was struggling to hold it together day by day. I was proud of myself for holding it together, for going to work although I was mentally not there, for being “strong.”

Strong but miserable.

That stigma again.

I don’t know if I’ll be able to bring myself to read Chang’s book. It’s steeped in so much darkness, in many ways.

nanowrimo / writing — 3 Comments
26
Nov 11

Babbling about the novel

I have conceded that my NaNoWriMo novel is no longer so NaNo (or WriMo?). It’s still a novel, and one I intend to keep working on, but I won’t be hitting 50,000 words on November 30.

Where I am is at about 8,300 words after 26 days. Not that great but not bad either, especially considering I didn’t work on it every day and have been pretty busy at work, both with a sort of data driven project and writing a lot. But more important than finishing 8,300 words, I finished the first section which establishes:

the narrator’s weaknesses, desire, and need (always putting her mother’s happiness first)
her opponent (her domineering mother)
the inciting action (being found out by her fiance that she has lied to him in order to please her mother and his telling her needs some time apart)
this drives her to leave the first story world (New York City, a convenience and a prison) and enter the new story world (Berkeley and her recently passed grandmother’s house, which she has inherited), creating a fish out of water scenario.

Those of who haven’t read John Truby’s Anatomy of a Story may have no idea what I’m talking about. Therefore you should read his book (shameless Amazon Associates plug).

Following Truby’s steps and structure had really helped me focus this first section of the novel. I knew the purpose of each scene, and set up the narrator’s weaknesses which cause her fiance to reject her, sending her to her grandmother’s house. I wasn’t feeling around in the dark the way I usually do.

The next section is a bit scary.

For now, I’ve decided on two heroes, the narrator and her grandmother, and to switch back and forth between the two, which means switching back and forth in time. The idea is that the two story lines will culminate in significant ways as the narrator makes discoveries about her grandmother and other family members.

Why is this scary? One, I’ve been living with the narrator for a good month, and switching to her grandmother will be a challenge. Two, I’ll be writing about a world (1930s’ China) that I don’t know too much about it, outside of movies. Three, I’m worried that the grandmother sections will be more interesting than the present-day sections.

Years ago I wrote another novel that followed a similar structure: interweaving of a present day young Chinese American woman and her grandmother in her youth. I sent the novel to many agents, and several said that while the grandmother sections were fascinating, the present day sections were “flat.”

What I’m hoping is that the narrator’s story is compelling enough, if not as compelling as her grandmother’s, and that the direct connection between the two stories will make the pay-off between the two interesting and satisfying.

Hopefully.

nanowrimo / writing — 3 Comments
04
Nov 11

NaNoWriMo: Day 4 + Premise

*Sigh.*

So it’s day four of NaNoWriMo and how many words have I gotten down?

845.

I should have 6,668 by the end of the day today.

Ha! I don’t even have a one day minimum (1,667).

I have plenty of excuses. I’m writing a lot for work now, and on those writing days, I find it very hard to write for myself too. After more than four hours of writing, I’m pretty much burned out.

Don’t get me wrong: I love getting paid to write, and writing about really fun and interesting stuff. (A few examples: zombies, coffee, pirates, and saints.) But writing is writing, and once my writing energy is spent, there’s not much else I can do.

Another excuse: after spending these past few months planning my novel, I’m afraid that what I’m writing down sucks. When I didn’t have a plan, I could just keep going. I was planning as I went along. But while the planning should make the writing easier, at the same time I feel extra pressure: now it HAS to be good because I did all these months of pre-work! I have to keep reminding myself that this is just a draft and it doesn’t have to be perfect.

I also don’t have to necessarily meet the 50,000 word goal by the end of this month. The point is to get a draft done, and if it takes two or three months, that’s okay. As long as I keep doing a little every week. In fact, I may switch from a word count goal to a scene count goal. So in terms of scenes, I have one done, which is still pathetic, but number of scenes seems a little more doable than number of words.

Premise

I thought it would be fun to share the premise of my novel. John Truby defines a premise as “your entire story condensed to a single line.” For example, the premise for The Godfather is “The youngest son of a Mafia family take revenge on the men who shot his father and becomes the new Godfather.” For Moonstruck it’s “While her fiance visits his mother in Italy, a woman falls in love with the man’s brother.” And Star Wars: “When a princess falls into mortal danger, a young man uses his skills as a fighter to save her and defeat the evil forces of a galactic empire.”

Basically the premise shows the hero, an inciting event, some action, and a change. For my book it’s (so far):

A timid Chinese American woman learns to stand up to her domineering mother when she starts a dumpling business using the secret recipes she’s inherited from her grandmother.

And the first line of my book?

Serendipity’s mother was pressuring her again about the wedding.

Stay tuned for more next week (hopefully)!

nanowrimo / writing — 5 Comments
31
Oct 11

Doing NaNoWriMo different this year

I’ve done NaNoWriMo four times, which for I have three failed novels (the fourth time I “cheated” and revised/rewrote my memoir). By “failed” I don’t mean I didn’t reach the 50,000 word goal. I did, more so in a couple of cases. I mean the novels suck. One petered out, another is boring as shit, and the third makes no sense at all.

I assumed it was the pressure of writing a novel in a month that was to blame. Or I went off in the wrong direction and couldn’t find my back. But now I’m suspecting it was something else.

Lack of planning.

I’ve already mentioned that the most I do in terms of planning a novel is write up a character list and a series of events. In fact, I thought even that was too much. I’ve always been under the impression that too much planning and structure would staunch the creative flow, that I should just “start writing” and see where the story took me.

Bullshit.

This year I took a few months to actually plan my novel. MB recommended John Truby’s book Anatomy of Story, which has been really helpful. It gives you a step by step in terms of structuring a story – from the premise, to a character web, to the story world, to the scene weave – and TONS of examples illustrating the points.

Basically, every scene, character, and symbol has to be integral to the premise, moral problem, and hero. I’ve always had the problem of creating random characters and scenes without much thought. Basically I throw everything against the wall and see what sticks. In a short piece, I think that’s okay. But in a book-length piece, it’s much harder to do, and undo.

Does this mean I’ll definitely have a successful novel? I don’t know, but I do feel excited to see if all this planning pans out.

family / friends / new york / travel / writing — 7 Comments
26
Oct 11

NYC, BlogHer Writers’ Conference, NJ

Behind in my blog posts as usual!

I had a great time in New York and at the BlogHer Writers’ Conference, despite some wicked insomnia and coming down with a cold.

The night before I left on Thursday, I just could not sleep, probably because I was anxious about making my 8:15 AM flight, and ended up getting about three hours. As I made my way to the taxi stand in front of a nearby hotel, the thought of taking a cab to the BART, then taking the BART to the airport, then getting on an air shuttle, just made me even more exhausted. I opted for a cab all the way to SFO, and because it was so early, didn’t hit any traffic and got there in plenty of time.

There seemed to be a lot of activity around security, but we got through the line very fast! It helped that the TSA agents were actually lively and alert, unlike other agents I’ve experienced. I had enough time to lounge over coffee and a bagel, but not too much time to feel bored.

I was excited to have an aisle seat, even if it was in the very last row, since I go to the bathroom A LOT. The problem was my seat was right next to the bathroom, which meant people were constantly waiting in line right next to me. Mostly they were okay, except for the lady who kept leaning her whole body against my seat, the stewardness who every time she pushed out the cart, SLAMMED it into my seat without apology, and an old guy who leaned his arm on my head.

I tapped him. “Excuse me,” I said. “Do you mind?”

“Sorry!” he said.

I thought that was the end of it, but after I closed my eyes (yes, after), he said to me, “You’re in a bad seat! I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s bumped you.”

In that case, you don’t need to apologize at all!

The flight felt fast. Despite getting almost no sleep, I couldn’t sleep, and worked on my writing instead. Got quite a bit done! From the airport, I took the train into the city, then schlepped through Penn Station during, unfortunately, rush hour. (Never doing that again.) Grabbed a cab to YP’s place, changed clothes, inhaled some yummy cheese and crackers that he had so considerately set out, and then we were off to a concert at the Brooklyn Museum.

I had never heard of Somi (though that’s not saying much), but absolutely loved her. She was jazzy and soulful with an African tinge. Very relaxing and mellow. Xanax for the soul, YP calls her music. Afterward we had South African food. I had bobotie for the first time, and it was YUM! In fact, I could eat some right now.

Despite being so tired, I couldn’t sleep that night for the life of me, probably partly because of the time difference, being in a new place, and being a bit nervous about speaking the next day. I kept using the bathroom, and thought I’d wake YP for sure, especially when I knocked the remote control to the floor, but he slept like the dead. I finally drifted off around 5 AM, and got about four hours of sleep. Oy.

I wanted to go to the whole conference, but because of my sleep troubles, didn’t make it in till the lunchtime session. I chatted with the people at my table, jotted down a whole bunch of ideas for what to say during my panel, and ate some very tasty cheese ravioli. There were some agent mentoring sessions after lunch, but because I was a day late and a dollar short, I didn’t sign up in time, and they were full. Instead I took that opportunity to buy a sweater since the conference rooms were so cold.

Then finally it was my session!

I was pretty nervous even though there were three other people on my panel, and I was talking about stuff that I know. I’ve always had a fear of public speaking, made worse at my old job when I was often made to present on stuff I wasn’t too familiar with. I’ve presented many many times, and it never got easier. Out of a dozen presentations, there are probably two I’d say were successful, one because it was the second time in a row I was giving it (and I was distracted by food poisoning), the other because my piece was so short.

But of course the panel went fine! I talked about my stuff, answered some questions, and networked a little afterward. It was great fun and exposure, and I’d totally do it again.

Here’s the video but I think you have to pay for it.

I got back to YP’s place before he did. It was great to kick back and relax in front of the TV. When he returned, we headed out for dinner. I said I was in the mood for something cheesy, which quickly morphed into “Mediterranean.” We checked out a couple of places but they were pretty pricey. We opted for a Thai place we like instead. Having had nothing since my ravioli, I was starved and inhaled an entire platter of pad thai.

Afterward, we checked out the High Line, which I’ve never been to before. It was fun! I can see it being a great place to hang out in warm weather. Then, because I was so pooped, we headed back to YP’s place, had tea, and watched TV. Yay!

Thanks to YP, I now have a new TV addiction: Revenge. Damn it’s good! We watched two espisodes, and later that weekend at my parents’, I watched the rest on Hulu. I’m trying to get MB to catch up so that we can start watching it together.

That night I was so congested, I took a Benadryl and slept like a frigging rock.

The next morning was very leisurely for me although YP had busines to TCO. We grabbed some breakfast at Cafe Habana, then I headed back to pack and relax at YP’s while he ran off to run errands. Then it was time for me to go!

The 1 train was conveniently right nearby so I just hopped that up to Penn Station, which wasn’t too crazy. I even got a window seat on the train. Before I knew it, I was in NJ and at my parents, where I had my mother’s excellent chicken soup and dumplings for lunch, took a walk on the road behind their house, and did some work. Then dinner, many episodes of Revenge, and sleep sleep sleep!

The next day was pretty much the same thing except:

That damned dog.

Yes, I was taking a walk, minding my own business, when I heard a loud growl and turned to see a dog tearing across a yard, barreling straight at me.

“Whoa!” I cried, and just started running. There’s no way I can outrun this dog! I thought, and imagined it sinking its teeth into my ankle. But after I ran past the yard, I turned to see the dog trotting away, doo-doo-doo, like, Yay, I did my job!

Fuck you, dog. And your owner too.

I told my parents about it, and my dad said he experienced the same thing a couple of years ago, that the dog must belong to one of their friends, because usually there’s another dog who ignores him.

Either way, I was so freaked out, I took the long back, walking at least a mile out of my way. For most of the way, there was a sidewalk so that made thing easy. Only at the very end I had to walk through people’s front yards to avoid the road, and that was when ANOTHER dog growled and chased me.

Well, I didn’t actually see it. All I heard was the slap of a dog door and a growl, and then I ran.

Freaking A.

Anyway, aside from being chased by dogs, I had a relaxing time at my parents’ house. I managed to get some writing done, to catch up on everything I could possibly want to on Hulu (The New Girl has totally sucked me in), and ate some yummy food. And this time my mother didn’t bother me too much about getting married, just:

Mom: Did you guys talk again about getting married?
Me: No, because neither of us want to.

Two days and two nights were just enough at my parents’. I had a mid-afternoon flight on Monday which was very easy to get to, but felt like it took forever. It’s a mind fuck to see “Depart at 3:30” and “Arrive at 6:30.” With the time difference, the flight is six hours, but I kept thinking three.

MB met me at the airport, yay! We hopped the air shuttle, then the BART (so disgusting), and finally a cab. Then I was home home home!

I’m not travling again for a very long time.

writing — 5 Comments
06
Oct 11

Writing update: BlogHer Writers’ Conference, wordy posts, learning how to write

On October 21, I’ll be speaking on a panel for the BlogHer Writers’ Conference in New York City. That’s right, I’m heading back to New York just a month after my trip. But of course I couldn’t pass up this opportunity.

The panel I’ll be participating on is called Alternative Publishing Models: It’s Not Only about the Printed Hardback, and I’ll be talking about my experiences self-publishing my book, as well as other ways besides print of getting published (eg, one’s own blog, guest blogging, online magazines, sites like The Nervous Breakdown, etc.).

If you’re going to the conference, let me know! I’d love to meet up.

In terms of actual writing, for the past month or so I’ve mostly been writing for work.

For Labor Day, I wrote about work words, and for Fashion Week, fashion words. For Talk Like a Pirate Day, I wrote about yo-ho-ho words, and for National Punctuation Day, I wrote about how punctuation rules. We declared the last week of September “Drinks Weeks” – because of National Coffee Day on 9/29 and the end of National Bourbon Heritage Month and Oktoberfest – and I wrote all about different kinds of beverages: wine, tea, funny drink names, coffee, and beer. This week we kicked off Halloween with some werewolf words.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I’ve been reading, at MB’s suggestion, John Truby’s The Anatomy of a Story: 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller. It’s been very helpful and has made me realize that all this time, I’ve had no idea how to structure a story, whether a novel, memoir, or short story, and that I’ve been winging it my entire writing career. As a result, sometimes I write good stuff, and sometimes I write crap, which is true for anyone, but I’ve had no idea why. If something is shitty, I just rewrite and rewrite it till it gets good, without taking concrete steps.

More cases in point: besides my Young Adult novel, I’ve never successfully finished a novel. I’ve completed two novels, in that there was a beginning, middle, and end, but they didn’t quite work. I’ve done three NaNoWriMo’s, and while I wrote 50,000 words for each, none of those novels were successful. Recently, I started a new novel but got stuck at 30 pages.

That’s because I’ve been doing it wrong all this time.

John Truby (who I keep wanting to call “John Storey”) basically says that a mistake a lot of writers make is that they have a vague premise, a hero, and then without much else planning, they just start writing. I’m guilty of this. The most I do is make a character list with general descriptions, and map out the story events. That’s it. According to Truby’s book, I’ve left out about a billion other things, such as:

The Seven Key Steps of Story Structure, which consists of the hero’s:

Weakness and need (both psychological – only hurting the hero – and moral, hurting others)
Desire (differs from the “need,” which the hero usually doesn’t know till after their revelation)
Opponent
Plan
Battle

Character Web, basically how the different characters relate to the hero, and their desires, weaknesses, etc. I’ve been guilty of creating characters willy nilly without thinking much about how they relate to the hero.

Moral Argument. All the characters, not just the hero, act upon this moral argument.

Story World. This could be in nature (a mountain, a river, the ocean, space) or manmade (the warm house, the terrifying house, a city, a building). The point is the events should occur within that story world. If you have more than one, you most likely have a “fish out of water” scenario (which my book will have) and you don’t want to spend too much time in the first world. There’s more about the story world being a manifestation of the hero’s needs, weaknesses, and desires.

Last night I watched American Horror Story for the first time. In between having the shit scared out of me, I kept thinking about how the house is a “terrifying house,” using Truby’s vernacular, and how it’s manifesting the family’s fears and troubles in a cool and disturbing way. Then the other night, I tried watching Terra Nova (emphasis on tried), and I kept rolling my eyes when each character just happened upon a love interest.

“It’s dumb because it’s random,” I told MB, “and not organic to the story.”

The love interests in, say, Buffy the Vampire Slayer arose organically from the story. Buffy doesn’t fall in love with some random guy but Angel, a vampire with a soul who later tragically loses his soul.

Anyway, I’m only about halfway through the book, and what I wrote about is just the tip of the iceberg. What I’m sort of ticked off about is that I didn’t learn this stuff in writing school. Sure, people would talk vaguely about the “dramatic arc” and being “organic” to the story, but they didn’t say how to do it. It was implied that either you knew how or you didn’t, and the only way to learn was to read “great” books and stories, and keep writing. Of course you should do both those things, but I would have loved to have had a class on purely story structure too.

what i've been watching / writing — 1 Comment
04
Sep 11

Stand By Me: The movie that changed my life too

Twenty-five years ago this weekend, I saw Stand By Me for the first time. On his blog, Wil Wheaton wrote about how the movie changed his life. No doubt. He went from regular kid to movie star appearing on-Good-Morning-America, to Wesley Crusher, to nerd god. Albeit to a lesser degree, it changed my life too.

I was 14, and ninth grade was starting the following week. I was already nervous about it. I’ve written about it before: my friends were blossoming, and I wasn’t. My hair was either too short or went every which way, I still had braces, and till recently, glasses too. I had gained weight that year, and all of my pants were too tight. Conversely, none of my tops were baggy enough, at least not by ’80s’ standards. The night before the first day of school, I spent a lot of time stretching out a sweater vest, to its ruination.

I had a heavy fantasy life, in which I imagined myself a movie star – more specifically a triple threat: actor, singer, and dancer. I had different parents (neither of whom was Chinese), a slew of brothers and sisters, a movie star boyfriend.

I was talking less and less with my friends. Partly I was insecure, and partly it seemed their conversations seemed entirely taken up with wry comments. Once at a sleepover, I tried to talk to them about what it was like to be the only Chinese kid for miles around. Elaine, who had a grandmother who was half-Native American, tried to understand.

“Someone told me once that was awful,” she said. “But I don’t mind.”

“Don’t mind?!” I cried. I would have been proud to have Native American blood. Meanwhile, my other friend Elise rolled around bored on the floor.

But when Elaine and my other friend Susan invited me along to Stand By Me, I said sure. I wanted to see the movie, and what else did I have to do?

What unfolded on the screen wasn’t just a great story and great acting, but a friendship and friends I coveted. I didn’t want to sit around watching MTV, painting my nails, and analyzing clothes and boys. (Most likely, my friends did talk about deeper things, but I had so isolated myself, I didn’t know. I kept away from them, and in turn they kept away from me.) I wanted a life and death friendship, someone to share dark secrets with, and who’d share them with me. I wanted to traipse through the woods and have an adventure, not go to the mall again, where the boys’ heads turned, though never for me. I wanted to be a writer like Gordy. I wanted a best friend like Chris, even to lose him later, to lose him too soon.

On the car ride back home, my head churned. My friends talked about how hot Keifer Sutherland was.

That year began my obsession with all things Stand By Me. I read, and re-read, the novella the movie was based on, Stephen King’s The Body, which changed my life again. I wanted to write like that, full of voice, not just tell a story. And I tried that summer. I basically wrote about my life, and how unhappy I was, but it didn’t go much further than that.

I bought the soundtrack on cassette tape and listened to it, especially the title track, over and over.

That March when Stand By Me was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay, I got so excited during the Oscars broadcast, I jumped up and down and squealed involuntarily.

I started watching Star Trek: The Next Generation mostly because Wil Wheaton was in it. And then I decided it was a pretty good show too.

I developed a wicked crush on River Phoenix. I pored over the issue of Seventeen magazine with him on the cover, and the photo shoot of him and Meredith Salinger, both in the terrible A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon. I didn’t care that it was terrible. I watched it, when it came on cable, over and over.

I tried to watch every single thing River was in. The Explorers. Some dumb TV movie. That time he was on Family Ties (so was Wil Wheaton once). Little Nikita. The Mosquito Coast. Running On Empty. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (River playing a young Harrison Ford, who played his father in The Mosquito Coast?! squeee!!!). Dogfight. I Love You to Death.

By then we had moved to a new town, and life was somewhat better. I fit in better with the nerdy Asian crowd. I was better off with just a few friends and not a huge group. As the new kid, being solitary was okay. I continued to write.

My Own Private Idaho was the last movie I saw with him. I was a sophomore going to college in New York City. I was still writing.

Two years later, on Halloween day, River Phoenix died. I remember very clearly: I was home for the weekend, and watching TV. I perked up when I heard something about River Phoenix, and then was shocked to hear about his death.

I’m sure it’s already been written, probably by Wheaton himself, how strangely parallel the lives of River and Wheaton and their characters are. Wheaton became a writer, just like Gordy. River died young. It’s very strange to think that River Phoenix, if he were alive now, would be over 40.

All of this makes me want to watch Stand By Me again, which I haven’t seen in many years, and to reread The Body. Maybe they will remind me again why I became a writer. Maybe they’ll inspire me in the same way.

goals / travel / writing — 2 Comments
03
Sep 11

Writing update + travel

Another round of writing updates!

The My Tiger Mom and Me e-book anthology is now available! It includes my essay, “Striving for Imperfection,” which won first place in Hyperink‘s contest.

The paperback version of another anthology, Wisdom Has a Voice, is also now available. It includes my essay, “Puo-puo,” and is also available for the Kindle.

For work I wrote about SAT words, and the three Rs, reading, ‘riting, and ‘rithmetic.

As for my 12 Months, 60 Rejections projects, I haven’t received any more rejections so far, but I’ve submitted two more pieces. My next goal is to submit a book of essays before my trip to New York in a couple of weeks. The good thing is the contest accepts essays that have been published individually, just not as a whole book. So I have a lot of essays to choose from. The problem is they’re not all wonderful. Now begins the process of editing and possibly having to write another essay to reach the 150 page minimum requirement.

What’s that? Oh yeah, I’m going to New York soon. I’m really looking forward to it – seeing friends, eating at favorite restaurants (if they’re still around), and hanging out at my parents’ house in New Jersey and chowing down on my mom’s good food. We’ll also probably shop (no tax on clothes!) and raid the stuff we left behind for anything we might need.

We’re flying Virgin, which I’m psyched about. I usually use Expedia, which has all of my preferences, but this time I tried Orbitz, which neglected to assign us seats. I realized this only recently and guess what: only middle seats were left.

Wah-wah-waaaah.

That will suck for MB since he’s tall, and it will suck for the person next to me because I get up to go the bathroom so much. Ah well.

Angela Tung Oversharing on the internet since 2005.