It's been a busy few months with up-to-full-time copywriting plus tutoring, and helping my partner, Kristen, edit her Master's thesis in Educational Technology, which she turned in this week!
This Winter we explored the wonderful world of food in our “Peanut Butter and
The Pen” curriculum. We practiced writing vivid descriptions of food, using
adjectives and active verbs, similes and metaphors. Students wrote stories, advertisements, warnings and odes, as well as a “Recipe of Me.” Read some of
our favorite excerpts from the session below!
From an experience trying a suspicious food for the first time:
Zenas and Alan
I thought frog legs were not good tasting but after I went to the same buffet for the second time, my mom urged me to eat the frog legs. To my surprise, the fried frog legs weren’t mushy. The fried frog legs were not that salty. It tasted a bit like chicken.
- Alan
Mushrooms have a mushy, gushy, slimy and nasty taste. I think they look cool, but taste gruesome. They should be against the law. They
have a frothy texture. I forever hate mushrooms. The first time I tried
them I feltsick!
- Sophia
From an exercise using similes, metaphors and/or personification to describe the following foods:
Nathaniel and Dominic
Chips taste like something from Yellowstone Park.
Corn on the cob tastes like little rubber tents filled with liquid.
Jello looks like a see-through jelly substance.
Bubble gum looks like cooked slime brains.
Barbeque ribs taste like the ribs of an alien animal with traditional smushed brain sauce.
- Nathaniel
From a prompt – A mad scientist invents a new glow-in-the-dark food using weird ingredients, and tries to get an unsuspecting kid to volunteer to eat it:
A mad scientist invents a glow in the dark food that contains globs of
chewed up liver, killer zombies and 18,000,000,000 glow worms.
- Dominic
From a prompt – Describe your breakfast this morning using all five of your five senses:
The fried eggs I had for breakfast were golden brown. Bubbles appeared
and instantly popped, creating a sizzling sound. Its aroma filled the air.
- Zenas
Once there was a vial. It lived happily with his test tube brothers. Then
one day there was a mad scientist and he poured a green liquid into the
vial and the vial turned evil. He poured himself into drinks and food. Then
one day he made the mistake of pouring himself into a rich person’s drink
and it was then that he met his enemy the antidote, who saw the person choking and went to the rescue. (To be continued…)
- Cody
Cody, Zenas, Sophia, Tiffany, Emma, Daniel
From a prompt –I discovered a new food: CHEESTERAMBOCCOLLI. What is it?
Cheesteramboccoli is cheese with broccoli. It looks like broccoli drizzled
with cheese. The broccoli is cooked with oil and fried, and the cheese is
melted.
- Emma
From an ode – a poetic form written either to praise or pay tribute to the subject of the poem (in this case, food):
Ode to Orange Chocolate Ganache
Spit out your orangey flavor
Give me thick, coarse dark chocolate
Don’t just leave me
I will always love your flavor
Now, you may leave me now
Wait! May I have another bite?
- Tiffany
From creating a food character (personifying food) and writing its story:
Patty Potato was doing nothing one night in her Potatomobile but licking
her pink hair. She then saw the potato signal and jumped into the potato
suit. She zoomed through the produce section and into the frozen aisle.
There, standing with stainless steel throwing sporks, was Annette Apple-
head. She hurled a spork at Patty but Patty dodged, and the spork hit
some microwave lasagna. When Patty turned around, Annette was gone.
She hopped in her vehicle and zoomed through the chips and bean dip
section. She got out of the mobile and searched the aisle. “Kieahh!!” came
a loud cry. Patty jerked her head towards the sound, just in time to see
Gabe Garbonzo bean leap on top of her. She shucked him off, and pushed
a secret button. A bowl appeared out of nowhere and cooked him!
(Continued…)
- Daniel
From a Recipe of Me – write ingredients that include characteristics about you, plus measurements and directions for preparing, cooking and serving:
Audrey
This great looking recipe is full of strange, awesome ingredients. After eating this you’ll jump as if you are doing gymnastics!
1. Add 20 teaspoons of kindness with 12 ounces of candy lover. Stir in 1 big bowl.
2. Blend 9 cups of shyness with 100 tablespoons of gymnast. Add a little less than ½ of a micropinch of kind sister. Put into 2nd bowl. Cook in pan until turned into cake.
3. Last, add caramel to 1st bowl and make frosting out of it. Drench the frosting over cake and… EAT!!!
I recently completed another 8-week after-school creative writing session for 4th and 5th graders. Peanut Butter & The Pen, a food writing class with the organization Take My Word For It, culminated in another fabulous reading at our local independent bookstore. The kids wrote about food they love and hate -- commercials for food, imaginary food, and personifying food by creating food characters. Their writing excerpts, including stories, odes and recipes gone awry, will soon be added to the Take My Word For It blogand Facebook page. Meanwhile, here's a preview of some of their best work, taken from a writing exercise using similes and metaphors to describe the following types of food: "Chips taste like rotten twigs snapping between your teeth."
"Chocolate melting cake is sweet and a bit salty at the same time with a hint of mint. It tastes like chocolate clouds."
"Bubble gum is as greasy as my mom's frying pan and as soft as a pillow."
"Barbeque ribs taste like the ribs of an alien animal with traditional mushed brain sauce."
"Mushrooms have a mushy, slimy and nasty taste. They have a frothy texture."
"Macaroni and cheese is so slimy and gooey that you think it's worms slithering in your mouth."
"The salt [on chips] looks like sparkling snow."
"It would be a white chocolate ganache with a citrus glow in the dark extract that would look pink under dark light."
"Chips: as crunchy and hard as iron mixed with diamonds."
"Chips: crunchy like beetles getting crushed. Corn on the cob: rubbery like a trampoline." And, here's a surprising blog post titled "6 Ways to Raise a Writer: Easy things all parents can do to help their kids express themselves with the written word" -- refreshing for its atypical writing advice! Happy writing.
Frances Lefkowitz, author of To Have Not, says she had no qualms writing her book, a memoir about growing up poor in 1970s San Francisco, until it was going to be published.
"Writing a memoir and publishing a memoir are two different things. You have to save consideration for others [whom you're writing about] before the end--not while you're writing."
The award-winning writer, editor and book reviewer was February's featured speaker at the Writers Forum, where she brought her own Q & A based on prior questions audiences have asked "or should have asked."
Addressing the writing process, she assured it's okay at first not to know what you're writing about, as the topic will reveal itself. She suggested starting with a scene, a physical description of the concrete world. Then 'what did you see?' leads to what was said, how you felt, etc.
"A first draft is like having a conversation with yourself. Don't censor or over-think it," she warned.
It's writing contest time in the literary world. Or, at least in my case, finding out I didn't win a writing contest. Sure, it's a long shot submitting that essay or story you've revised and revised for a needle-in-a-haystack chance at prize money and publication (although submitting last year to South Loop Review: Nonfiction + Art did result in the latter--to be printed in the Fall 2013 issue--a long, but worth-it wait akin to the yearlong process of book publication).
The recent rejection to which I am referring is the first annual Sycamore Review Wabash Nonfiction Prize, selected by guest judge Mary Karr (poet and author of The Liars' Club, Cherry and Lit):
"Congratulations to our winners and finalists, and thank you to all who submitted. We received an astounding 326 submissions in this first year, and many more poignant, moving submissions than we have room to mention. Our editorial staff enjoyed reading the work of so many talented writers."
Alas, I'm gearing up again, considering which of my personal essays from my thesis collection to submit, and where. Competing against literature and writing professors with published books and other credits in their bios can be intimidating at best, discouraging at worst. But, for me, I think it's less about keeping an eye on the prize as it is just getting a piece dressed and out the door. Sometimes a contest deadline provides the motivation I need to do just that.
There's also something intentional about the process. Browsing literary journals online, reading submission guidelines, revisiting my own work and taking it seriously enough to try -- all make the effort worthwhile. Even the submission fees (usually hovering around $13-15) are a worthy investment, as they go toward a yearlong subscription -- often 1-2 volumes per year. When I recently received the latest South Loop Review, a sizable book full of innovative work I'm thrilled to soon add my name to, the price was a small one to pay.
Finally, in terms of considering whether or not your own work is ready for the submission process, here's some advice straight from the source -- a blog entry, "What Captivates Us," by Sycamore Review's nonfiction editor, Shavonne Clarke:
When I read through Sycamore’s nonfiction submission pile, those pieces that grip me most seem almost self-aware in this way. Either they have excised those dull bits from their memories, or they have transformed them into something fascinating. They are full of tension. What will happen, I wonder, but of course, everything in an essay has already happened. This is where an essay becomes masterful: what has happened in the past becomes, for the reader, the present. As with a good short story or novel, these essays are capable of transporting me. There is a journey to be made, a path to be forged, and all of it matters because I imagine that the writer is still grappling with it now, today, this very moment. These memories are still breathing, creating a narrative that will bring us to a new place, to an insight into our condition.
With more than 13 years of experience as an acquiring editor in traditional publishing--most recently as Executive Editor of independent and feminist Seal Press--Warner has accumulated a wealth of knowledge about the process of getting a book from inception to shelf. The author of What's Your Book: A Step-by-Step Guide to Get You from Inspiration to Published Author, published by her ownShe Writes Press,says the greatest hurdle to writing tends to be oneself.
"Almost everyone struggles in some capacity with mindset," says Warner, who now helps writers at her company, Warner Coaching. She claims that 50% of the challenge of writing is the craft. The remaining half is the psychology of it, citing that nasty inner critic who often gets in the way.
Book chapters like "Anyone Can Do It" and "Challenging Your Mindset" are designed to address the latter. Others, like "The Almighty Author Platform" and "Your Publishing Plan," provide writers with a road map to making their work public.
Warner says there are "platform writers" (those driven to be published) and "passion writers" (those for whom writing is a precious baby), but either way one needs to value one's writing to get it into readers' hands. Keeping a writing schedule and a sense of accountability (whether blogging for a readership or checking in with a writing buddy) help maintain a structure all writers need.
The path to publication (as well as maintaining a platform via social media) were topics the audience asked about more than the writing process. Warner, who left traditional publishing after feeling worn out from "the sky is falling mentality of the industry," says even at Seal Press only a fraction of their front-list books made it to bookstores. However, as a coach she's an equal advocate for either route, with 80% of her clients still aiming for the traditional path.
"The playing field is much more level than it's ever been," says Warner, who notes that many wonder why they'd want to give a publisher 93% of the profits when they can make more self-publishing, which no longer carries the same stigma it once did.
In an industry where a book is returned to the publisher if it doesn't sell for a couple of months, and where the success of a book's sales depend largely on reviews and publicity rather than its quality alone, self-publishing is an increasingly popular option. She says royalty reports are depressing; you're lucky if you earn out your advance.
Ranging from Create Space to Balboa Press to her very own She Writes Press (where if you invest the $5,000 needed to sell 500 copies you'll break even), the self-publishing options are vast. Warner calls She Writes Press a "hybrid publisher"--author-subsidized publishing based on a traditional press model, which includes book distribution. She also recommends Lightning Source for professional quality print-on-demand books where you become your own publisher.
You just have to know how to market it.
As if the process of writing and publishing a book isn't enough to navigate, one must also develop an author platform--essential for publicizing your work in a climate of shrinking marketing budgets.
"If you want to be published traditionally--and even if self-published--you really need to embrace social media," claims Warner, who got comfortable reading her work aloud and creating video clips on YouTube, like the one below. She even hired someone to turn her book into a series of Twitter posts.
The good news, she says, is it's not too late any point in your career to start. Create a fan page on Facebook where you can post on your writing themes (historical fiction, romance, etc.). Start a blog on a free site like Wordpress or blogger and build your readership with consistent posts (at least once a month). Get your own Wordpress URL for an author website (only $7-15 per year; just don't search for the name unless you intend to buy it, as others can see your search and take it so you have to buy it back at a high cost).
For a more in-depth look, join Left Coast Writers Monday, March 4, for a panel on self-publishing!
Here's a long overdue post from a talk in September by Claudia Sternbach, Editor in Chief at Memoir Journal. The guest speaker at Left Coast Writers, a monthly literary salon hosted by Book Passage bookstore in Marin, Sternbach was a columnist and feature writer for 15 years before she became an editor at the literary journal.
Learning the ropes in her new position at age 59, she says overseeing the journal, formerly called Memoir (and), felt like having a second child: 'Is it getting out of control? Is it behaving?' she'd wonder as she lay awake at night, worrying.
Memoir: Prose, Poetry, Photography and More... publishes both established and emerging writers twice a year, but Sternbach's goal is to double that number. The journal now receives 6,000 submissions a year (!) with room for only 12 in what she calls a "slim collection." Publishing monthly would be ideal, she says, but they'd need enough subscriptions to defray the cost. So, subscribe! (Recent past issues included interviews with renowned writers Cheryl Strayed and Pam Houston -- both whom I've blogged about.)
The author of Now Breathe and Reading Lips: A Memoir of Kisses, Sternbachtakes issue with those who claim that although you may have a story, it may not be worth writing.
Based on the belief that "everyone has a story to tell," the journal hosts the (In)Visible Memoirs Project, a grant-funded program of workshops in the SF Bay Area that, according to the website:
nurtures, publishes, and circulates memoirs that are too often excluded from dominant literary discourses. Our focus is on communities traditionally underserved by literary programming and underrepresented in contemporary literature. We recognize that the exclusion of so many voices from literary programming limits our understanding of the world in which we live and deprives us all.
Here's an excerpt from one participant, which I just love (for its irony and economical language):
"But I have one big problem: Language. I only said, "Good morning" and, "Good bye," but he gave me the job. Janitor, you know, easy job, sweep and mop."
- Eduardo Riviera
The Fortune Society, Long Island City, NY (Volume 6: I Carry With Me)
Memoir Journal's submission period is open now until noon on Feb. 16. Unlike most literary journals with an online submissions manager, there is no reading fee. Considering your stiff competition, make sure your subject matter - and style -- is original.
Sternbach says they're inundated with essays about cancer, bad breakups and being on the brink of a nervous breakdown -- and some submissions treat an editor like a sounding board or a therapist.
"It isn't always about chasing the publication dream, but getting it down on paper," she says, acknowledging that the act of writing can no doubt be cathartic.
Keep in mind that if your writing still expresses "a lot of angst," your work may not be ready for publication. If unsure, you can get a critique of your writing for a reasonable fee (ranging from $30-100 for 1,000-10,000 words of prose and $50-100 for 5-10 pages of poetry).
I think this past month is the longest hiatus I've taken from blogging as I adjust my writerly wings and perform the juggling act of several new jobs. Among them is teaching another creative writing class through "Take My Word For It!" to 4th and 5th graders after school. You can view student excerpts read at the fall bookstore finale here.
The program director tried out a few prompts on some of us teachers as she was piloting an online creative writing class for teens. Most of my time is consumed with copywriting tours these days, so finding these exercises on my computer inspires me to bring back some of that creative juice into my hours, as I hope it does for you!
Here's a video of spoken word poet, Sarah Kay, performing “A Love Letter." Her project was to write a series of love letters
between inanimate objects, using personification. In this piece she has
composed a love letter from a toothbrush to a bicycle tire.
Listen to her piece, followed by my own, and then try your hand at it. (Comments welcome!)
Yesterday was my final day as a freelance corespondent for the Press Democrat -- the largest newspaper in Sonoma County. I'm happy to state that I didn't renew my contract due to too much work on my plate; I needed to pare it down for the new year. I won't miss the lengthy hours searching for subjects, transcribing interviews and painstakingly cutting and shaping. I will miss my byline:
By NICOLE R. ZIMMERMAN / Cotati and Rohnert Park Correspondent
Starting in June as a backup correspondent writing occasional features, I was offered a position as Cotati/Penngrove correspondent in September. After several weeks pleasing my editor, I accepted the Rohnert Park position as well. For three months I posted short articles several times per week on both Wordpress sites in addition to compiling a weekly calendar plus the centerpiece (800-word human interest feature for the Sunday Towns print section).
The best part of my job was getting away from my desk and into my community to meet all of the wonderful people making this place what it is. I liked looking for the story in an interview, compiling news posts, making contact. Under the mentorship of my editor, Linda Castrone (who early on wrote, "Your reporting and writing skills are spot on!"), I'm sure my skills have improved even more. There's just nothing like practice, and writing to deadline! Here's my photo from the webpage:
WRITER SPOTLIGHT
Nicole Zimmerman is our Rohnert Park, Cotati and Penngrove correspondent.
Following are some of the "centerpiece" features, followed by "briefs," that went to print in the Sunday Towns section and/or online at the Press Democrat. (Forgive the weird formatting):
Host families share more than holiday traditions Thursday, December 20th, 2012
Each holiday season, Jeanine and Leo Antone of Rohnert Park share a typical Christmas dinner with their family... But the meal, along with most holiday traditions, is nothing typical for their principal guest. Megumi Tateyama is a Japanese student the Antones have hosted in their home since mid-October.
University of San Francisco commencement, Dec. 14, 2012
There's something to be said for traditional ceremonies. Walking into the stately cathedral at USF Friday afternoon with others in my cohort, wearing the Master's robes and accepting my diploma (the real one was mailed earlier that week) was an important rite of passage. There have been several in this process--from receiving my acceptance letter almost three years ago to finishing my coursework in May and turning in the final revision of my thesis manuscript in mid-August.
The latter experience was rather anti-climactic, although my partner Kristen celebrated my success in spades. Now graduation and the conferment of a graduate degree--my MFA in Writing--feels official. And how sweet it was to see my 9-year-old niece, Brooke, waving her hand-drawn "congratulations" banner, as I exited the church. She's an awesome combination of creative, smart, clever and sweet and I can't wait to see who she grows up to become. I'm sure someday I'll be waving my own banner as she wears the cap!
