Category: Writing

Food, Mindfulness, Writing

Writing prompts change the world

Jen

A few years ago, I took a brief, but fantastic memoir writing course with poet and writing professor, Chloe Yelena Miller. It was in this course I was first introduced to the concept of writing from a prompt.

Wow, how I loved this exercise.

Not all writing prompts work for all people —  and it could be the ones that Chloe chose resonated with me personally — but, regardless, I had a lot a fun with them.

I wrote one piece about my childhood stuffed dog/bear, Floppy.

I wrote one piece about my ex-boyfriend’s family beach house.

I wrote another about a long-kept secret.

What exactly do I love about writing prompts? I’m not sure.

But I think it has to do with looking at life differently. From a different angle. Upside down. Inside out.

To see people and things in a way they’ve never been observed before. To imagine them in a purpose or a place they’re unused to.

Today, my writing prompt was Mr. Mushroom Butt.

mushroom butt

While slicing vegetables for my breakfast stir fry, I couldn’t help but notice the cute little butt in one of my deformed mushrooms.

In an instant, I could imagine the yellow peppers as arms and legs. And hurried to arrange them and photograph the scene before it disappeared from my imagination or I got too hungry not to eat it.

The Sad and Sorry End to Mushroom Butt was born from my breakfast.

A story was born …  a character, a fractured fairytale. And who knows what else? A film? A line of toys? A breakfast cereal?

One morning, I birthed Mushroom Butt . And now he exists.

This is what’s amazing about writing prompts.

And about writing.

This ability to birth something or someone anew.

There are writing prompts everywhere masquerading as boring nothingness.

But once you name them as writing prompts, someone or something exists where there was previously nothing and no one.

And the list of possibilities for their adventures becomes endless…

 

Work, Writing

My so-called writing life

Jen

The other day, I asked out loud on Facebook whether my friends thought that writers were born or made.

Most answered some version of “born, but….”

As in: Writers are born with the creative spark that’s a prerequisite to creative talent, but it’s a spark that requires not only nurturing, but also education, practice, and perfection in order to mature into talent, and then success.

Mostly, I’d agree.

I think about my own journey as a writer, and sometimes, admittedly, I even hiccup a little calling myself a writer at all.

When I think of myself as a writer, I still think of myself as the girl who wrote love poems in a small, tear-stained spiral bound notebook that I hid in the back of a drawer.

When I think of myself as a writer, I still think of the jittery young woman who spilled coffee on her pants on her way to her very first feature story interview for a newspaper article.

When I think of myself as a writer, I still think about blogging as playing for a minor league team, and published literary novels as the World Series.

I still think of myself as a novice, and sometimes as a would be somebody if only I had the time.

Then there are moments, hours, days even, when I catch a scent of my destiny and it smells like poetry and Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations and an antique oak writing desk facing a picture window.

The leaves casually drop from the trees as if there’s still time…

As if there’s only time.

…and words to discover.

Words slowly strung together like colored beads on a braided rope.

Letting Go, Love, Writing

Do I have the heart to be a writer?

Jen

Once upon a time, I wrote a blog about being a bitch.

For a short time, this blog was a platform for me to be brave, outspoken, and sometimes, blunt.

People often misinterpreted my curt style as angry judgment.

I can see how.

But in my heart, I was an activist.

I blogged because I cared. Pure and simple.

And I wanted other people to care like I did.

I felt empowered when I wrote. And when people agreed with my outrage, I knew my mission was an honorable one.

Until someone disagreed.

Until someone called me a whiner. A complainer. Took me down personally.

Then, I began to question myself.

I loved the chorus of agreement, but had a hard time stomaching the malcontents.

It will come as little surprise to any experienced blogger that my most popular post — one in which I go after Dr. Oz (stupid, stupid, never go after an Oprah protege) — was also the one that attracted the most negative attention, the most personal attacks.

It was the day after that post hit, I first questioned my fortitude.

fortitude

I did not question the strength of my writing. I questioned whether I was strong enough to be read.

To live as a writer who people read. And with whom people engaged…and criticized.

Did I have the stomach for success?

I wasn’t so sure.

I’m still not.

I write because I have to.  I will always write. It’s a necessity. I know that now after too long of not knowing.

But I don’t know if I can face the readers who think my writing is not a necessity. Not a gift. Not a meaningful addition to the world.

And there will be, of course, readers like that.

As there will be readers who will love almost everything I write.

As there will be readers who fall in between. Those who adore me when my words paint a lovely picture, but abandon me when they’re too controversial, too honest, too personal, too raw.

It’s the raw in me that often becomes my best writing. And it’s the raw in me –I know — that moves others, too. Moves them in multiple, unpredictable directions.

It’s this unpredictable, electric dance that made me fall in love with writing. And it’s this dance that terrifies me.

Why is it that nature bequeaths the sensitive artist with the compulsive desire to create and share?

And how are we to reconcile this?

How may we accept the words of our critics as open-minded as we expect them to receive ours?

hemingway

Letting Go, Relationships, Work, Writing

Things I learned by being someone else’s assistant

Jen

I don’t know a thing about kids these days. Specifically, the kids getting bachelor’s degrees next month.

I know a lot about little kids — the ones who still need their bottoms and their noses wiped — but not about the big ones. The ones half my age. The ones desperately looking for jobs.

Apparently, it’s a dangerous time to be a young, reasonably intelligent but inexperienced job seeker, which makes me confused and sad.

Confused because I don’t remember my generation having the wealth of opportunities dem gosh darn newspapers claim existed.

Back when I was 22 (in the mid 90s, thank you very much), I had to agree to be somebody’s slave for a year (aka unpaid internship), and if I was really good at my job, maybe (just maybe) they’d bring me on the next year as a research assistant making an annual salary high enough to pay for food, but not necessarily rent.

The good news is that my upper middle class parents could supplement my income.

The bad news is I wanted to be independent so badly I said, “No, thank you,” and found a house to rent on 14th and East Capitol Street in Washington, D.C.  2 miles from the closest Metro stop, but just around the corner from your neighborhood hungry drug dealer.

I’m sad, too, to read that kids these days are having a hard time finding work because looking back, the first three jobs I had out of college were the hardest, the lowest paying, but most certainly the richest in terms of life lessons. I am the hard-working, versatile, compassionate professional I am today thanks to my experiences working like a dog for people who treated me poorly or patiently, as I reacted and responded to their every whim.

It helped that I worked for an egomaniacal fanatic academic;

a visionary, but temperamental creative;

a brilliant, but misunderstood obsessive-compulsive who craved gourmet cheese.

brie

These mentors (yes, even the crazy ones mentored me) taught me not only how to edit like a perfectionist; how to lick envelopes so they closed fully; how to follow up on faxes three times to make sure they were received; they also taught me who to be so people want to work for you; as opposed to arriving one morning minus one assistant, but plus one carefully typed, and heavily proofread “Dear John” letter on your desk.

By being someone else’s assistant, I learned what Simon Sinek swears by:

“Those who lead inspire us… Whether they are individuals or organizations, we follow those who lead not because we have to but because we want to.”

Simon Sineky
Simon Sinek

Of the bosses that pushed me around — and all of them did, even the nice ones — I worked harder for the ones who treated me like a human being poised to be someone someday. Like a boss in the making. Like a grownup-to-be.

The man that finally promoted me from assistant to “coordinator” used to call me his “rising star.” And for this man, I worked hardest. To this day, more than a decade since I worked for him, I consider him my most inspiring and valuable mentor. If for nothing else than telling me, and telling others, I was a rising star.

He made me believe it.

And from his words, and his conviction, I rose.

It’s hard for me to believe or accept that there are no jobs out there for our young people. That there are no crazy, obsessive-compulsive pedantic workaholics seeking someone to read through and sort into color-coded folders 2,745 inbox emails; no minimum wage opportunities through which to prove how late you will stay in order to work your way up to a cubicle with three temporary walls instead of none.

I just don’t believe it.

If we aren’t going to give our young people today the chance to be someone else’s assistant, how will they ever learn to be grownups?

How will they ever learn who to trust and who not to? How to treat others? How to speak kindly? How it feels to finally receive acknowledgement, praise, a raise?

If we don’t maintain or create new entry-level positions for our young people, who will inspire them to action? To rise to the top in order to not be at the bottom anymore? To innovate something new to fix the stupid, old ways their bosses insist they follow religiously?

Our young people are our future.

And it’s our job to push them around,

so they will yearn to learn how to fly on their own.

Fly, and then lead.

Letting Go, Love, Mindfulness, Writing

I really, really don’t want a book deal

Jen

I really, really don’t want a book deal.

Just kidding.

Which blogger doesn’t want a book deal?

Put your hands down.

Stop pretending like you blog for the fun of it.

I say that all the time, too.

I don’t mean it.

Except for when I do.

Which is a lot of the time.

But then there’s the day when a mommy blogger I’ve never met gets a book deal and my eyes bug out and steam pours from both of my ears and my heart and belly both get stuck in my throat and deep inside I

SCREAM!!!!

…In my inside voice. The louder of the two.

Where’s my book deal?!?!?

And then my other inside voice answers back,

“What makes you think you’re getting a book deal?”

And the scream, now subdued says, “Well, you know. Someone should just discover me and fall in love with my writing and offer me lots of advance money (or at least plumb royalties) and beg me to write a book. A whole SERIES even.”

“Oh,” the peaceful, reasonable voice answers with subtle condescension. “I see.”

What she’s not saying (in her peaceful, reasonable tone) is:

Stop waiting around for someone to discover you.

Stop wanting what other people have.

Stop being regretful about what you think you should have done, but didn’t. What blog you should have kept up, but didn’t. What career you should have stuck with, but didn’t. What path you should have taken, but didn’t.

She’s only being a little bit judgy, just enough to quiet the screaming.

===

I have a colleague whose dad is a celebrity.

She hardly ever talks about said celebrity, except in the context of his dad-ness.

I’ve never asked her about this. Or what it’s like to be the daughter of someone so famous.

I imagine, though, her modesty has something to do with her relationship to him.

To her, he’s dad. It doesn’t matter how famous he is or becomes, his celebrity will always be secondary to her.

And I think in all the glorifying we do of celebrity — of book deals, of magazine covers, of awards and prizes and titles — we lose sight of celebrity’s secondary-ness, its subservience.

We lose sight of the inevitable real life behind the celebrity. Why?

Because save for the tabloid spreads, we hardly see the real life behind the celebrity.

The anxiety that comes the day after a book deal was signed.

The self doubt.

The need to please, to produce, to win.

To look good. To smell good.

To smile. To have a good hair day.

We hardly ever hear of their breast cancer scares, their hemorrhoids, their financial troubles, their soured friendships. Save for the celebrities who’ve publicly shared bits and pieces of their angst in well-placed magazine features, we hardly hear of their suffering.

And they all, certainly, suffer.

everyone

No matter how many times we read Everyone Poops, we still imagine that celebrities poop with greater ease, with more satisfaction, with softer toilet paper.

And maybe they do.

But, most likely they don’t.

And, as corny as it sounds, no matter how much we wish we were more famous, more successful, more educated, more experienced, we often fail to acknowledge or recognize how famous, successful, educated, and experienced we already are.

This is what I try to tell my screaming inside voice.

You are already famous.

Seriously, I can find at least three people who believe I’m famous (and yes, their last names are the same as mine.)

And I bet I could find someone out there who is not a blood relative that wishes they could have a job like mine, or a husband like mine, or write a blog like I do.

I am already famous.

Despite that: I still scream inside every now and again when somebody gets a book deal.

And I probably will until the day I finally accept that I am already famous enough.

The day I finally accept I am already famous, is the day I will finally achieve the pinnacle of my success.

Peace, love, and ease.

Behind all our secret or public clamoring for celebrity, what we really desire is peace, love and ease.

And that, my screaming inside voice, is better than a book deal.

Letting Go, Love, Mindfulness, Writing

And Yadda Yadda Yadda … I got nominated for an award

Jen

My first chain letter experience was during Freshman year of college.

It involved underwear.

You remember chain letters pre-internet, right? You received an invitation in the mail (usually handwritten on notebook paper) and were invited to participate in a “totally super-fun project.”

The deets on the one I said Yes to?

Send a pair of sexy underwear to a stranger — a girl whose name was written at the bottom of a list sent to you by a girlfriend. Then you were asked to invite 5 or 10 more girls to join the super-fun, and within six weeks you’d get 30 or so pairs of new sexy underwear in the mail.

Back then, I was actually spending some of my discretionary funds at Victoria’s Secret, so this proposition seemed like a good idea.

Lo and behold, I ended up with 30 or so new pairs of sexy underwear.

Really.

Or course, sexy is a very subjective term.

And lace irritates my thighs.

But, it was, at the very least, really fun to get packages Freshman year of college and it was a hoot to open up the padded manila envelope and be surprised by the contents.

liebsterThe Liebster Award process is a little bit like a chain letter: Someone chooses you. You feel acknowledged…a part of something.

If you choose to accept, you’re required to do something that takes a little time and effort. But you do so with the hopes that your small time and effort will reap rewards for many.

Thanks Miss Corinne, for the letter in the mail. Now I get to prepare the virtual padded manilla envelope of love.

Here are the instructions and the contents.

Instructions:

I answer 11 questions Miss Corinne provided. I add 11 random facts about myself. Then I create 11 questions for my nominees to answer. Then I link to my nominees’ blogs. Who will I nominate? Blogs I think deserve more attention. Bloggers who are writing mindfully. Bloggers who are trying to create community. Bloggers who make me laugh, think, or smile hopefully. Blogs that I think are poised to make an impact on other people’s lives as long as they’re read. Here goes:

Questions I Was Asked To Answer:

Do you think social media and communicating online is helping/hurting human connection?

Overall, I think it’s helping human connection. Personally, it’s my mission to use social media for good — to make people think twice; to make connections that make a difference, both to me and others. But in some smalls ways, as referenced to in a recent study linking Facebook to depression, we’re suffering a little too as a result of social media. We compare our lives to others. We don’t let go of old pain, old baggage. We sometimes learn about tragedies we’d be better off not knowing.

What does “being green” mean to you?

Five years ago, I would never have called myself “green.” In fact, I would have gone as far as saying, “I’m not green. I’m healthy. There’s a difference.” But there is no difference, and that’s what more people need to understand. I understand now that what I do for my or my family’s health will be pointless and useless if I do not also act for the sake of our environment. We can’t have one without the other. So for me, “being green” means understanding that the health of the planet is related to my own health; and vice versa. If health matters so much to me (and it does), I need to do what I can on an individual level to stop hurting the planet (make better choices) and on a community level, to inspire and educate my friends and neighbors to make more conscious lifestyle choices.  Specifically, lately for me that looks like: recycling more, buying less, and in general redefining the word “trash.” Stopping to think before I throw something in a trash can. Walking more, driving less. Living closer to the land, appreciating it, caring for it, and teaching my children to do the same. And not in a Farmer Brown sorta way — not yet. In a “I’m still figuring this out” sorta way.

Do you do any gardening (indoor/outdoor, rural/urban)?

We have a backyard vegetable garden and an herb garden. If I can do it, anyone can. We also live on a kibbutz. I count that as gardening — anyone who lives in constant cow stink gets extra points.

You get to fly anywhere for free – where do you go and why?

Hawaii. I’ve always wanted to go … surf, climb mountains, dip my toe in a volcano.

You get a large sum of money, but have to give it to one charity – who do you give it to?

I’m a rule bender. I’d create my own charity — it’d be dedicated solely to finding a cure for food allergies (and a little bit of lobbying). It’s beyond ridiculous that with all our medical technology that we have not yet found a cure for food allergies.

You get a large sum of money, but have to spend it on yourself – what do you buy?

Luckily I was educated in the 1980s-era school of Richard Pryor films (Brewster’s Millions, The Toy) so I could easily spend lots of money on myself without thinking too hard. I wouldn’t buy a baseball team or a live human toy. But I’d start by hiring a stylist. She’d help me buy a new fashionable wardrobe.  I’d pay lots of extraordinary service providers to service me: health coach, cook, massage therapist, personal yoga instructor, life coach, hypnotherapist, dream coach, writing coach. Then, since it’s a “large sum of money” (which in my mind means GAJILLIONS) I would quit “working” and start “healing.” Solving the problems I feel like I can’t solve right now because money is an object.

Favorite movie and why?

If I have to choose one, it’s The Princess Bride.  It’s storytelling perfection with a moving soundtrack by Mark Knopfler.

What guilty pleasure song/album can be found in your iTunes or movie in your DVD collection?

Yeah, I don’t have ITunes which might explain why my guilty pleasure is Barry Manilow. Enough said.

Favorite artwork and why?

Cheesy answer, but authentic: My 6 year old son’s.

mommy and oliver meditating

And my husband’s:

jen bug

Best advice you ever got?

This is where I wish I had a personal film flashback function – so I could tell you exactly what was said, by whom and when. But I don’t. I’d say I am most grateful to my friend Devora for suggesting I take a weekend self-development course called The Landmark Forum. It put me on the path that I am on now. And I guess if I were to go backward even more, I would thank my son’s first pediatrician Dr. Keith Dverin for “advising me” to be friends with Devora.

What has inspired you lately?

My surroundings as seen through the filters of instagram. I feel as if I can finally show others what I see in my mind’s eye. Mostly the sky. Cloud formations. Unusual trees. Unusual people.

11 Random Facts About Me

1. I grew up addicted to All My Children. I could tell you story lines and characters from the late 1970s. And when I was in college, my mom won for us a visit to the set in New York City. It was awesome. (Tad Martin was dreamy. And we got to see a young Sarah Michelle Gellar, before she was Buffy, rehearse a scene over and over again.)

2. I never really cared for Sarah Michelle Gellar’s acting on AMC, but nonetheless quickly became addicted to Buffy the Vampire Slayer soon after its debut. My first “blogging” gig (paid!) was for a site called The WB Scoop. My job was to blog about Buffy episodes. The site is long gone but some entries are archived here. I actually had a bit of peanut gallery.

3. I have a brother who is 2 years younger than me and one who is 12 years younger than me.

4. I have very vivid dreams … every night.

5. Sometimes my dreams come true, but usually only the boring ones.

6. I am a science fiction nerd. In addition to All My Children, I grew up on the original Star Trek. I hated “Trouble with Tribbles,” but loved the episodes where they go back in time.

7. I lived in NoHo when I was in my twenties and right before it was super chic.

8. I used to see celebrities all the time walking up and down the street. I once semi-stalked Jared Leto by following him into Dean & DeLuca; I also sat next to Matt Dillon in a bar and — on a dare — touched his butt.

9. I wish I was two inches taller than I am.

10. I was a White House intern.

11. My favorite ice cream flavor is Java Chip.

11 Questions for My Liebster Nominees

1. What does mindful living mean to you?

2. How do you deal with people in your life you think “bring you down?”

3. Do you believe in reincarnation?

4. Do you think world civilization is doomed or on the path to enlightenment?

5. Name one person who changed your life forever (first name okay) and why.

6. Name one person whose life you changed forever (first name okay) and why.

7. If you could have one super power what would it be?

8. What’s your earliest memory of your parents?

9. How is the town where you live now different from where you grew up?

10. How are you making the world a better place?

11. What’s usually the last thing you do before you fall asleep?

And finally, the moment you have all been waiting for! The Nominees:

Exploring Mindfulness and Reality Beyond

New Day New Lesson

Counting Ducks

Dr. Susan Rubin

Generation X-pired

Lizreal Update

From America to Australia and back again

Clothilda Jamcracker

The Kasdan Family Blog

The JackB

Triumph Wellness

Nominees … don’t forget. In order to play, you need to choose your own nominees and paste the Leibster ribbon on your blog post. Nominees are supposed to have less than 200 followers — smallish, less well-known blogs. My nominees range from smallish to medium. I have no idea how many followers you really have but I do know I want more people to follow you!