the other mother - free writing workshop for moms

pro-cras-tin-a-tion

The thing is, I'm not usually a procrastinator. Sure, I look at that stack of laundry-to-be-folded and walk the other way; sure, my inbox looks like the beginnings of a very big, luscious bonfire, and sure, my kids aren't the only ones who have a hard time getting going in the morning, but when it comes to writing, I'm usually right ready when I have the writing time.

I always recommend scheduling the time--I write it in my Franklin Day Planner, to which I've become addicted since my working-in-an-office days. I am willing to sit in the quiet, thinking, giving myself permission to write notes before getting to the scene at hand, but today is different. All week I've used my sudden embarrassment of time to write. The kids are back at school; I have notes and plans and small scraps of paper with phrases that will start the important truths of this newest novel, and I've been using them. Until today.

Today, I want to go for a walk. Today, I miss our dog, who died last year. Today, my knitting looks ridiculously compelling, as if I could pick it up and finish my mother's birthday present, the huge sweater I'm making in bulky gold wool, the holiday gifts I feel compelled to begin ahead of time. I envy my friends who procrastinate by cleaning out closets, and THINK about cleaning out closets, but I'm just not getting to the writing.

I believe I know where I'm stuck: I suddenly have time, and intention, and prompt. I have clues about what I want to write, and there's a part of me that just doesn't want to write it. There's some bits of plot at the core I've been trying to write for years. They're painful, even if the story is ultimately a hopeful one. I have to get through the painful bits. I have to write them. So instead, I'm writing a blog post. But hopefully, it'll help anyone else who is procrastinating today.

Here's one self-imposed assignment I dig out whenever I hit this rare mood. Maybe it'll help you if you're stuck at the beginning, like I am. Maybe it'll help you if you're stuck in the middle, stuck near the end. Maybe it'll help if you haven't even started.

So here's your topic ...
Make a list: Things I Never Want to Write About

Give it a good 15 minutes, but probably the first few are the most important. They probably have to do with loss, and with love, and with fear, the biggies.

Then make another list: Things I Need to Write About

Take only 10 on this one. Then take a look at your lists. Is there any overlap? I will use mine to give myself writing prompts for this new novel for next week and beyond.

Even if the things I never want to write about are wretched, there's probably something good in there, and maybe I'll be able to exhaust them and move on to those I need. Or those I want. For now, another cup of coffee, and the lists themselves. Any writing counts.

You've come a long way, baby

So summer is winding down. Never mind that we haven't yet been to "our beach house" (a one-week rental, and believe me, I'm excited -- this year it's more than 400 square feet!), but back-to-school is a full-on event out there. A friend at the pool told me she spotted Thanksgiving items in the Rite-Aid. C'mon, folks, let's not skip the all-important DNA Day! Tolkien Reading Day! National Boss Day!

I ordered my daughter's school lunch for September online the other day. She has more lunch options than we ever did. Mostly, I ate pb&j, or a cheese sandwich, or the ever-weird (but delicious) pomegranate (now I know I was ahead of my time).

Once in a while we were allowed to order school lunch from the lunch ladies. It came in silver foil and smelled, inevitably, of cardboard, cabbage, and feet. Mmm. She gets to choose between yogurt bag, turkey sandwich, cheese sandwiches, and of course, hot things, every day. What I really longed for was the chocolate milk.

There's still time yet to enter the summer writing contest. If you do it by Labor Day, I promise not to put a turkey on the door until then.

Meanwhile, here's a topic for the waning days of summer:

Write about school lunch. Packing it, eating it, smelling it, wanting it, lacking it, buying it, hating it, loving it. Write for 8 minutes because it's the 8th month of the year.

Then come back in September, because it's time to get writing some more!

Sweeter than Tupelo Honey

sweet honey
image by mateusz atroszko

Some days we all need a little sweetness, a little honey, a little magic. Never mind the initial groans grownups make, this little book is lovely, full of imaginative language and dazzling drawings, and most of all, magic. My daughter is at the age of magic (not that it really ends, ever), and she gasped when she saw this.

"Oh, Mommy, it's the most beautiful book in the world!"

fairy foals

I haven't grown tired of reading it over and over (never mind that we have about a thousand other books in the rotation), and she says the fairy foals are in her dreams. It makes me think about believing, about when I was walking home from kindergarten, so, so hungry for a snack, and I believed myself when I decided I could eat imaginary chocolate pudding from my pocket. It wasn't imaginary, it was delicious. The grasshoppers spoke to me, the tree leaves had a language, I could fly. You remember it, too.

So here's your topic:

Write about magic, when you believed.

It doesn't have to be corny; it shouldn't be cynical, it should be summer cicadas and the hissing of deep green lawns. Write for seven summer minutes.

And don't forget the contest. I've set a deadline: the end of summer. Labor Day. Sure, that's loads of time, but if you hone and post your paragraphs now you can feel as though you've accomplished one summer goal already.

Happy sprinkler weather!

Contest! Brought to you by the letter P

bird of paradise (Strelitzia)

School's almost out, the cocoons have hatched into moths and butterflies, the air conditioners hum and the grass sings with insects that will live very short, lovely lives.

Time for a little contest.

It's little because you only have to write two paragraphs. I'll give you a topic, and you can write for as long as you want (or 23 minutes, if you need a limit), but then take your work off into the outside world and hone two paragraphs for me, make them your best.

The winner gets:

• a) the honor of being the first ever Moms Who Write Summer Contest winner
• b) a fabulous car magnet featuring The Other Mother book jacket, so you'll always know which minivan is yours in the parking lot and
• c) an adorable little box of chocolates.

It isn't huge, but it's good. 4 runners-up get car magnets and can call themselves runners-up in any desired social event.

Take your new status to the Hamptons! Or the Shore! Or the Cape! Or the backyard sprinkler! Fire hydrant! If there's enough interest, I'll send out five fridge magnets as well, but mostly I'm hoping to get your best paragraphs. Don't be shy. Write, hone, post. The closing date is TBA.

Enough details. Now more details:

Yesterday my daughter and I were talking about the plum tree, about how for one week we get an explosion of fragrant flowers, then the next week a plethora of pink petal precipitation, and then, which is now, some perfect purple plums. Sure, they're ornamental, but we've used them as a sort of snack since we had a Persian babysitter who ate them by the bushel, and told us, "If I don't come to work tomorrow, they weren't good to eat." She came back. If you're out there now, Nooshin, we're thinking of you!

So summer means perfect purple plums around here. When I lived in San Diego it meant Santa Anas blustering the night-blooming jasmine and the hot dry wind making your throat ache for the east. June Gloom. In San Francisco the single bird of paradise plant bloomed in the tiny little space between our earthquake shack and the apartment building next door. One square foot of dirt enclosed by walls and a bird of paradise perched there.

This week's writing topic: What is June for you? Write your June, perfect plums or terrible rains. Then post your two paragraphs. Have at it. If you have been lurking, this is the time to post!

Oh, Italia!

ravioli gnudi burro salviac parmigiano
image credit: trozbo : cc-2.0-nc-sa

I've never been to Italy, but I was recently invited to a fantastic event hosted by Kim Orlando of Traveling Mom.com, Beth Feldman of RoleMommy.com, and Andrea Sertoli at Select Italy, his Soho loft/cooking school. First, let me say it was like entering a geode; from Bowery and a nondescript entryway and elevator to an open-armed loft filled with lovely company, extraordinary good will and hospitality, a vast square table that seated about 30 of us, and exquisite food.

I learned to make a little edible cheese basket for salads (we all did; some of the women writers dancing more fervently than others to cool the cheese/polenta mixture in the pan), red snapper baked in foil, and the adorably-named gnudi, pasta sans pasta--just the filling (oh, the filling!) piped out of pastry sleeves, then boiled, then baked.

Yum! Yum! Not just the food, but the conversation. I knew one woman there when I arrived (though it turns out I knew some from cyberspace...or they knew me, and then meeting them in all three dimensions was a joy), and a whole roomful when I left.

I wish I was having a catered affair so I could hire the charming Andrea Tiberi (it was a night of several Andreas), but if you live in the Tri-state area, I highly recommend that you do. I was also very tempted by all the Select Italy tours--making frescos with your family! Driving a Ferrari on the Italian roads! (okay, maybe not that one, though it looked scenic) Hiking in the Italian Alps! Definitely on my someday to do list.

Meanwhile...

This week's writing topic: Write about a place you've never been. Write for twenty minutes. As a bonus topic, make a list of trips you've taken--disastrous, fabulous, enchanting, nauseating...choose one to write about for another twenty.

And if you feel like sharing, that is, about a nonfictional trip, go visit Traveling Mom. You might just publish an essay with her, and inspire (or warn!) the rest of us. Happy Spring, writers on and all!

Lost, Found, Mother's Day

Oh yes indeedy, Mother's Day is coming up. Of course, I highly recommend The Other Mother as a gift. And, if you email me at ggross@gwendolengross.com I will send you a handy signed bookplate "to Elizabeth's Mom," etc.

If your mom likes a good read and already has TOM, check out the lovely Allison Winn Scotch's freshly out in paperback The Department of Lost and Found. It's touching and warm and wonderful, and Allison herself seems to be, too. She has a very writer-friendly blog, Ask Allison, with all kinds of insider advice on writing, especially for magazines, but fiction as well. She's a writer's writer, as they say. Pick up her book today, if not for Mom, for yourself!

If Mom's nuts about knitting (how did this happen? I'm nuts about knitting. Next comes knit-lit, as my husband says, or, if you're joking about skeins, knit-wit. Oh dear.) and your budget's a bit bigger, how about stopping by here?

Or if you're in northern NJ, I just went to the most amazing yarn store on my way back from a book group: The Stitchery. OMG, the colors! The kind and helpful staff!

That's this week's writing topic after all: A letter to Mom, trying your very best to write specific details--and not the usual ones, either--the you-changed-my-diaper ones. The conversation about worms, the letting me pick out anything in the toystore (I chose Misty of Chincoteague the plastic horse model) after the pet catfish died, if you can remember them. Spend 18 minutes. I can't wait to read them!

This week's writing topic: A letter to Mom, trying your very best to write specific details--and not the usual ones, either--the you-changed-my-diaper ones. The conversation about worms, the letting me pick out anything in the toystore (I chose Misty of Chincoteague the plastic horse model) after the pet catfish died, if you can remember them. Spend 18 minutes. I can't wait to read them!

Boiled peanuts

It's hilarious, actually, if you say it over and over. Maybe even if you say it once. We went to visit Mom in Florida, northern Florida, so far north it's almost Georgia and you can get boiled peanuts and honeybells at a roadside stand.

Live oaks, Spanish moss, saltmarsh and egrets. I walked on the beach too much and my ankle ached but I loved it. This was the kite trip--I got one for each kid and they took them out on the beach (my husband, too) and flew the rainbows up over the sand.

I don't know about y'all, but I've been able to work only if I make shorter deadlines for myself. Maybe it's the lack of sunlight, but I need to feel accomplishment after, say, 10 pages. After, say, three loads of laundry. After, say, six emails and a single page of writing. It works, though, the small deadlines. It keeps me going while March marches in and there's still snow on the ground. Speaking of which...

This week's writing topic: Do some small ritual of writing (invent one if you don't have one--I don't) like touching the silver elephant (Ganesh?) you wear around your neck or turning once clockwise or looking out the window for a full thirty seconds. Then write, for 11 minutes, about melting.

I owe some comments,

but fresh from a mom writers panel event at the White Plains Library with Jane Green, Pamela Dorman, and Role Mommy Beth Feldman (if you were there, thank you for coming, and for the fabulous questions!) I wanted to offer up a fresh topic.

I've been thinking about wishes, about how they change over time, about how close they can be to prayer, how selfish, how light.

So here's your writing topic. Take a piece of paper and draw a line down the middle. Using your dominant hand (say, right if you're a righty) make a list of wishes on the corresponding (in this case right) side.

Then put the pen in your nondominant hand and write on the other side. Make a list of secret wishes. This could be in code if it's easier to admit to them that way (of course, they can all belong to a character anyway!).

Now choose one wish from each column and start to write. Don't forget the sounds, textures, taste of it all. Write for nine minutes.

I hope your wishes smell like just peeled oranges.

3 Tips for ankle surgery recovery

Hello, hello! I feel like I've been away forever. On the plus side, I have a new talar dome (well, slightly used, but still) and I can now lurch around in a delightful and only sometimes painful manner. Actually, that's pretty much the whole minus of it, too.

Thank you all for the well-wishes -- and hope your holidays were full of festivity, joy, and kindness. Oh, and writing. But if you haven't written yet, I'll give you a topic at the end of this post.

Some great news about The Other Mother: A Novel. New Jersey Star-Ledger columnist Maureen Berzok has listed The Other Mother as one of the Best Jersey Books of 2007, sharing the honors with:

• The Last Three Miles: Politics, Murder, and the Construction of America's First Superhighway by Steven Hart,
• The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz,
• and Exit Ghost by Philip Roth.

Wahoo!!! Thank you Ms. Berzok, for placing me in such esteemed company.

The Other Mother is also one of Role Mommy's favorite books of 2007. If you're near White Plains, NY on January 23rd, you can come to the White Plains Public Library to meet me, as well as Pamela Dorman and Jane Green, at the Role Mommy Books and Authors We Love event. I can't wait! I might even been lurching a bit more smoothly by then!

So, here are the three tips for ankle surgery recovery as promised:

1. Become completely obsessed with knitting.

I'll try to post some pictures. I've made 3 hats, 6 scarves, two cable couture bags. Let's just say knitting keeps me thinking about things other than pain, and it feels productive, even if, as my husband pointed out, my kids look like people whose mother has a little too much yarn on her hands.

Check out Loopsknitting. Shelley has a gorgeous store, gorgeous site, and Loops Scoop, with free patterns and ideas; I won a kit for the cable couture bag, which is what got me back on the knitwagon...), a sweater, several purses to felt (once I can get down to the laundry again), a wrap, two stuffed animals...I'm done bragging.

2. Ask your surgeon to lend (or rent?) you a Roll-A-Bout.

You put your knee on this sort of modified skateboard with brakes and wheel around when you need one free arm (not so easy with crutches).

3. Get dressed every day.

Even if wonderful friends and relations have taken over the driving/cooking/and other items on the endless parenting list. It just feels better, even if it takes a few hours to get pants over your cast.

So, here's the writing topic.

Make a list of three tips:

• three tips for surviving divorce
• three tips for shovelling your driveway (don't use a leafblower on snow, for example)
• three tips for avoiding writing
• three tips for feeding a picky eater.

After you have your list, take it from there. You know how it goes: don't think, just keep the pen moving. You can do this: write for 7 minutes. That's all. It takes longer for me to get a sock on my left foot.

Come write, one and all! It can be a New Year's Revolution: write every day. Welcome back!

filling the feeders, setting the jam

Not that I'm doing the latter. And I think it's putting up the jam, which is beautiful. Anyone know the correct idioms here?

Okay, so what I'm really doing is packing up a little backpack as if I were going on an expedition (expotition, said Pooh), but in fact (dental floss, notebook, eyedrops, pens, knitting project, etc) I'm getting ready to have ankle surgery.

All this is to say I might not be posting as frequently as I might like for a little bit, though I imagine after about two days I'll be very, very weary of recovery time. Knitting seems appealing, but so does not showing up for the bone graft and ligament reattachment bit.

Hey, that's not entirely unlike knitting. So I'm going to give you three writing practice tips, spontaneous in nature and not necessarily directly related to writing practice, but yes, to the practice of writing.

Then I'll give you three topics, just in case it takes me three weeks to come back. Post, though, tell your friends; I'll come back and drink up your words.

Three writing practice tips:

1. Fall in love with revision.
   It's your chance to reinvent the universe. And if you want to publish, you'll be asked to revise; it's best to enjoy it as much as you can.
2. Don't worry about what other people will think.
   In fact, don't worry at all. If you don't suck the marrow out of your material, it'll be dry bones. Worry, editing, vetting is for later (see number 1).
3. Write as much and as often as you can.
   Don't save yourself, your ideas, for writing. I'm a firm believer in writing practice (as codified by such greats as Natalie Goldberg). I also have written at least 400 extra pages for at least of my novels. They live in purgatory files on my computer, and I'm not sorry I wrote them, or that I had to cut them. They helped me find what I really wanted to say.

And, here are the three writing practice topics:

1. Write about family photos.
   You can even use one if you like, or find someone's online, someone you don't know. Write for 8 minutes.
2. Write about being out of breath.
   Start by going into the sensory--the squeeze of empty lungs, the rasp of cold air in the throat, the slowing of blood beats in the ears, etc...Then, give us a why (in labor, running away from a bear, trying to get back into shape, fell off the tire swing, etc). Write for 12 minutes.
3. Open your purse or desk drawer.
   Take out three items, and start writing about one or more. Where did they come from? Why do you have them? What if you lost them? Bottlecaps, the travel clock your aunt gave you, an unopened letter from your last boyfriend...Write for 11 minutes.

Be well, everyone!