Archive for Around the Web
One Reason Why I Titled the Book “Bystander”
Category: Around the Web, Bullying, Bystander / Tags: Bystander Preller, Gloria Steinem, James Preller, quote, Whenever one person stands up and says
Writers: Stop Whining, Please
I have to get something off my chest.
A writer I know posted on Facebook that he’d just completed another novel. He described the process of writing just one book as “painful” and “basically torture.”
He compared it to childbirth. That’s the kind of pain he experiences.
Then a bunch of other authors chimed in about how their books were — wait for it — like their children.
And I have to say this, because it struck a nerve in me: I don’t find any of this remotely true. In fact, I find it embarrassing. Lacking in perspective. And, okay, I’ll say it: pretentious.
Torture? Really?
Why do it then? Go drive a bus, work as a nurse, become a clerk in a crowded office.
Is the job really so hard? Making up stories? I’m typing this from my office, sitting on a soft chair, listening to music. That’s where I work. Not in a coal mine. Not at Walmart for minimum wage. Not in the hills of Afghanistan. I’m sitting at home, typing.
I’m lucky as hell. And every day — every single day — I know that’s true. There are thousands of good, talented people who would LOVE to earn a living this way. Writing a book? People dream about getting published, wish for it, strive for it.
We have no right to complain. None.
Torture? Get a grip.
Of course, my attitude is not popular and I’m usually smart enough to keep my mouth shut. I just bite my tongue and taste the warm blood in my mouth. I think to myself about my three living, breathing children — how amazing they are, the surprising things to do, their complicated feelings and incredible potential — and I have to say that not one of my books is remotely like my children. It’s just a tired, dead cliche that gets used over and over (and over, and over) again, by folks who professionally are supposed to reach for higher than the standard cliche.
Oh well.
Another writer I know recently complained on Facebook about how hard it is to name characters. She probably wanted sympathy. It can be lonely writing a book. You can be filled with doubt, uncertainty. It’s not always easy.
Oh, the agony, the torture. This is so hard I might have to go upstairs to make a cup of tea and gaze out the window for an hour. Just to calm down. Maybe eat a snack. Sally, Jack, Tim? Mitali, Miranda, Scott? The pain, the pain!
I know I can’t say any of this without insulting a bunch of authors, many of them accomplished, award-winning writers. Perhaps my own meager work hasn’t been torturous enough? My wife is a midwife. She works so hard. Lisa gets calls through the night, labors with patients for hours, goes sleepless for 36-hour stretches. These are life and death situations, sometimes involving the deepest sorrows.
“Honey, get the water board, I’m ready to revise!”
Poor me! This awful burden of talent I’m forced to carry!
While I was stewing these past couple of days, feeling alienated and repulsed, I came across a blog post by one of my favorite current writers, Joe Posnanski. He reposted an old entry about his greatest day in sportswriting. You should click here, it’s a pretty terrific piece.
Be warned though, Joe tends to blog at length, as if he’s having too much fun to stop. Toward the end of this enjoyable story, he makes a little turn and — eureka, there it was — the exact words I needed to find. Somebody on this planet, a writer I respect, coming at this issue from a shared perspective. It’s why we read, you know. Sometimes writers can articulate something that strikes us as exactly right, hard and shining and true. A real thing.
Joe Posnanski wrote:
“People often ask me how I handle writer’s block — well knock on wood, thank my lucky stars, I’ve never had it. My thought about writer’s block is basically that my Dad worked in a factory almost his whole life, and he never had ‘factory block.’ Sometimes the words don’t come as easily as others, but you do what you have to do.”
That is, you go to work.
And you don’t complain about it. Or whine in public. Or compare it to freaking torture. You try to remember that you are extraordinarily fortunate to have this great gift of a career. We get paid to write books.
Be grateful. And shut up.
OVERHEARD: “I guess science is my favorite class — I just wish it wasn’t so serious.”
Lisa had asked Maggie, grade 6, about her classes and received the above reply. Which at first struck me as a hilarious thing to say about science. It was like saying, I don’t know, math should be funnier. Social studies, sillier!
But then I realized she might be onto something. When we think of our science teachers, most of them are dry, dull, strict. This is science, this is important: this is serious business!
And in fairness, it often is, kids can get hurt, things might explode.
But then there are those rare science teachers — and scientists like Bill Nye, on television — who bring the joy of discovery into the process. Or should I say, keep the joy. The wonder.
They find the fun and the funny. Like a child with a new toy, figuring out what makes it go. Discovering the awesomeness of it all.
On Facebook I “liked” a site called, “I Love F***ing Science.” I’ve always regretted the F***ing in that title because it makes it harder for me to share with others, especially anyone who might read my books.
This post reflects a few things I’ve picked up from there, and other places.
Just trying to bring the fun, Maggie. I’m glad you like science.
Some Random Kid’s Petition: “Support a Jigsaw Jones movie!”
There’s a kid somewhere in America named Daniel Van Ness. I don’t know him from a hole in the head. But on November 7th, Daniel started a very important petition:
Please have the 20th Century Fox company make a new movie called ‘The Case of Hermie the Missing Hamster: A Jigsaw Jones Mystery’ starring Bryan Suchey as Jigsaw Jones, Sierra Jade Gerban as Mila Yeh, Ethan Scheid as Ralphie Jordan, Yara Shahidi as Danika Starling, Charlene Geisler as Lucy Hiller, Michael May as Joey Pignattano, Alan Aisenberg as Charlie “Bigs” Maloney, Ingrid Rubio as Miss Gleason, Jeff Daniels as Mr. Copabianco, Noah Ryan Scott as Jaspar “Stringbean” Noonan, Rachael Harris as Mrs. Jones, Steve Zahn as Mr. Jones, Steve Martin as Principal Rogers, Devon Tucker as Billy, 1 of Jigsaw’s older brothers, Zachary Gordon as Daniel, another 1 of Jigsaw’s older brothers, Robert Capron as Nick, another 1 of Jigsaw’s older brothers, Oliver (puppy dog actor) as Rags, Jigsaw’s puppy dog, Parris Mosteller as Bobby Solofsky, Preston Bailey as Timothy “Wingnut” O’brien, Selena Gomez as Hillary, Jigsaw’s older sister, Dakota Fanning as Kimmy Lewis and Elle Fanning as Kayla Lewis.
Daniel Van Ness, if you are out there, I just want to say . . . THANK YOU FOR BEING THE COOLEST KID ON THE PLANET! Seriously, nice job. I appreciate it.
People, we must get behind this. Daniel’s expressed goal is a modest 18 signatures. I signed it the other day, so now Daniel has 5. So, um, top of my head, that means he only needs 13 more signatures. One of them should be YOURS!
Come on, folks, click the link, sign the petition, spread the word, and make this brilliant young man’s dream come true!
By the way, I love Daniel’s cast suggestions:
Bryan Suchey as JIGSAW: 
Sierra Jade Gerban as MILA: 
And Steve Martin as PRINCIPAL ROGERS: 
Daniel did not suggest a director, but the choice is obvious:
No one else can be trusted. The job must go to Martin Scorsese!
UPDATE, 11/14, 8:27 AM: Currently at 19 signatures. Thanks, everybody. I’d type more but I think I should sit by the phone. I’m expecting a call from Hollywood!
My New Mets Blog: 2 Guys Talking Mets Baseball
I have a friend whose mother is a huge fan of the New York Mets. Sadly, she’s been losing the battle with Alzheimer’s, can no longer live on her own, and often doesn’t even recognize the face of her own son. This is familiar territory for people my age. We’re watching our parents get old, get sick, get terribly confused, and pass from our lives.
Anyway, my buddy tells me, “You know what’s funny? She still asks about the Mets. She may have forgotten most of her life, but there’s some part of her that still knows the Mets are important.”
And I get that, I get it completely. For starters, my mother is the same way. And I’m the same way, because I’m my mother’s son. In 1969, at age 8, I attended Game 5 of the 1969 World Series — the day the Mets won it all in that miracle year. It remains a central, vivid, defining event for me, a North Star in the constellation of my life.
As I posted on our Mets blog yesterday, I even remember going into school the next day with a knot in my stomach, fearful of my poor excuse for an absence. I missed school for a baseball game? I didn’t think that would fly.
“The following day in class I tried to appear as sickly as possible. But unbeknownst to me, my mother had sent in a note explaining my truancy. Mrs. Thompson came to me and said, “I heard you were at the baseball game!” I confessed that, alas, it was true, figuring myself for a dead man. But to my relief, Mrs. Thompson smiled wide and told me that I was a lucky fellow. And I was lucky, even I knew as much, but I had never expected a teacher to realize it, too. It’s like when you are a kid and ASTONISHED to see a teacher at, say, the supermarket. You’re like, “You’re a human being? That eats . . . food?!” You just didn’t see them as people, exactly. That’s how I felt about Mrs. Thompson. I never figured her for a fan.
The simple truth is, I’m still a huge Mets fan and, down to my bones, “a baseball guy.” Which is a long way of telling you that I’ve cooked up a new side project, a blog about the New York Mets. I’m partnering it with my friend, Michael, mentioned above. It’s called 2 Guys Talking Mets Baseball.
If you’re a fan, come on by and check us out.
What’s that great quote from Jim Bouton?
“You spend a good piece of your life gripping a baseball
and in the end it turns out
that it was the other way around all the time.”
