Write-A-Thon

"A writer's job is to show up at the page"

With the generous support of 10 family and friends, I participated Saturday in The New York City Writers Coalition annual Write-A-Thon. The NYCWC runs free writing programs throughout New York City, serving everyone from the elderly to niche communities to the underprivileged and regular folk (ha!) like me to the homeless too. 

What the Write-A-Thon was like:
More than fifty people came together at the charming library of the General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen in Midtown to, as the ad said, "Write Your A** Off!" 

To register, you needed to raise at least $150 (with you I raised over $575), which means they raised in a one day event about $34,000! That's $10,000 more than last year.  The top fundraisers did $2,800, $2,500 and $1,800. I won a prize including a subscription to the Bellevue Literary Review and gift pack from Month of the Novel with a mug that says "Can't Talk; Novelling."

What I liked:
The Write-A-Thon had a loose structure, but you could ignore it or follow it as much you wanted. It was set up so you could write at tables with paper or laptop from 10:30-6PM and come and go as you like. Fluid, like writing.

If you got stuck, though, you could visit the "Prompt" table and pull out of an envelope a prompt to get you going. I was working on a short story based on the Sleep Study I did last month and wasn't stuck but curious. So I went up to the table and grabbed a few prompts:

• "Think of an addiction you or your character has"
  
• "Write a letter by someone from the inside of a burning building"
  
• (On the paper is a Walt Whitman poem called Miracles) "Now write about a miracle."
  
• "Draw a quick outline of your body and put an X at every scar site. Now write about how you got one of those scars or how a character got scarred."
  

Throughout the day, there were free hour-and-half writing workshops for which you could register led by a facilitator from NYCWC. At lunch, Pulitzer finalist Colson Whitehead (for John Henry; he also wrote several other books and has written for the NYT Op-Ed) gave a talk about his insights on the craft, advice for writers, and his personal story and starting at the Village Voice.

I took at 2PM workshop which was, naturally, 7 other women and me (actually the whole day's participants was a mix of races and ages but about 75% women). 

The leader gave us two writing assignments with 15 minutes of writing based on a prompt and then whoever wanted to could read theirs aloud and others could say (only) positive things. This was interesting to me since my undergrad workshops at Cornell were pretty ruthless critiques. But they explained today that since it's just 15 minutes of writing being shared, it's not enough for serious criticism and people should just say what they liked or what stayed with them.

I dreaded the other writers sharing, worried most would be quite amateur but was struck by how sophisticated and compelling everyone's off-the-cuff writing was. Witty, funny, emotional, surprising endings. I can see why people love workshops so much when they're very good. My leader Alex found me at the coffee table afterwards and chatted a bit about the workshops she runs for the elderly (which sound terrific). What I learned when we said goodbye however was this: She just quit her job in advertising (where she's been a copywriter and a brand planner) to go to a MFA program in creative writing at Sarah Lawrence.  (I'll just end with that optimistic thought.)

Thanks again for the support, and I'll let you know when next year is in case you want to come and write with me!

Waiting for Squirrel

Ezra's chief nemesis is Squirrel, the furry beady little creature who jumps from tree to tree outside Ezra's deck and threatens his turf. Sometimes, he even dares to brazenly run right across the iron deck fence only yards from the apartment door. 

When Ezra spots Squirrel, he goes absolutely bananas, jumping hard against the glass deck door and if it's open, running out to the deck to bark him away.

Ezra also spots Squirrel (he thinks there's only one) out on the street in the front of the house.  He occasionally chases after him and once or twice, he got frighteningly close.

I shudder if Ezra ever got his paws and mouth on Squirrel. I don't care about the spiry rat, but I do worry about what his claws could do to the pup. 

may is not flowers

Staples customer service has already written me back, sending me a link to their green customer service procedures. Very nice except it still doesn't explain why the 100% recyled paper is buried down in the basement.

I have bigger issues to contend with:

1/ the sleep saga continues - went to the top oral/apnea specialist in the city today and being fitted with a mouthpiece to sleep with. apparently, all is to be blamed on my orthodonist from childhood, when my jaw was pushed back. i guess my dad bartering law work for orthidonture wasn't such a good idea.

2/the city is announcing single-stream recycling (no longer have to separate) but I'm the only one apparently who gets why this is such a breakthrough. People seem more interested in vista/mac nonsense when this is something that actually affects most folk.

3/iron man was great

4/report grades are silly

i have never been good at these things so it's important that i continue to make fun of them. of course, if i did well in them, i wouldn't make fun of them but there ya go...

5/linked in

i just hate it. i closed my network. i just can't handle the exposure. go ahead, parasites, link in to me. it will get you no where. 

Yeah, they got that (if you can find it)

Adopting the green bug is harder than it seems.

I go to Staples to buy 100% recycled paper for our home printer, and I have to walk past reams and reams of earth-killing wasteful non-recyclable paper and then go downstairs to hunt for the green stuff. There's a small row of it, which I proudly buy

At the cashier, I gently ask the cashier if they couldn't make it more prominent but he ignores me. (This is only worse than a cashier uptown at a deli I frequent who didn't know the Olympic Games were coming to China this summer)

After Twittering about it, I realize that Twittering is just venting and I can do much more by writing to Staples about it. You can too. Ask them to make the 100% recyclable paper more prominent. They should be leading the effort, not just making token effort.