Write Away Day Two Review

With world-class writing coach, Adair Lara

Want to keep writing after Write Away?

Hi Campers!

You all SO have the idea! You know, many of these topical pieces can be faxed off to the OP-Ed page of your nearest paper and have a good chance of getting in. Do it, just so you can say you did. Getting work in print means sending stuff to them. kle618, you have to publish your comparison of the Ag Olympics -- with the cow-pie throwing and all. Granny Gladys, you too. And Lafaymom. In fact, most of you. I will append some information about publishing at the end here.

See you tomorrow, you brilliant peeps!
Adair

LeeAnna kept me amused all through her piece on a cousin on the NRA board, and Charlton Heston's "moving on to the big shootin' range in the sky." Jenn2008 makes me want to hear an update about going out to protest the Olympic torch: "Our country thinks that *certain* communist countries are EVIL but it's all kisses and hugs for China." (Bring more of yourself in though, if you can, or it's pure opinion.) Snuff, I liked where you were going.

Sometimes you knock out a draft of a piece and it comes out perfectly, as in my opinion it did for christyintexas yesterday. She sees that a performer is coming to town,
"After the initial shock, my first thought was that he was certainly scraping the bottom of the barrel coming to this one light town -- two if you count the flashing light coming off the main highway." And offers us a memory of when she literally ran into him. Even works her long-married parents into it. Nice, christyintexas. Send it off to the paper today (or maybe after you go see the performance.)

AnitaP gives us a quick snapshot of an event she did not attend -- the Olympic torch -- and shows us that you can write a very lively comic paragraph just from thinking about it.

RobinWolaner gives us a memory of the tech bubble burst that plummeted a lot of people to earth, and how the media might have been less gleeful (they had stuck to newspaper and magazines and kept their jobs) and more sensitive to people who lost their houses as well as their jobs. "Hopefully the reporters, after years of layoffs and grim economics of old-media businesses, will be more understanding as we head into another."
Any personal angle on this, RobinWolaner? Know anybody who made the shift from print to web, later, in second tech boom?

TraumaGoddess shared a poignant what-if about a close friend who went another way. So human to ask ourselves: if I had done this, or that, could it have come out differently.

Otter wrote a fictional piece, that, while a bit confusing in places (as a quarter-hour draft of anything will tend to be) has great promise, showing a woman trying hard to eliminate time spent at a hated mother's funeral. Notice the good use of example, and the touch of humor despite the subject: "I had very carefully planned my visit to avoid this circumstance -- screening telephone messages from hospice workers, volunteering for critical projects at work, exposing myself to strangers who appeared to have the flu, everything possible to not be at her bedside."

marilyndevine demonstrates the perfect use of a topical hook in going from an obit on the demise of a school uniform manufacturer to a fashion view of her own hated school uniforms, beginning with those at Our Lady Queen of Martyrs: "Kathy Smith chose skirts so tight and short that even the pre-pubescent boys in fifth grade followed her with hungry, confused, eyes."

Then it?s on to Marian High, where "the lovely, camel-colored blazers and beige plaid skirts they'd enticed us" were scrapped in favor of "hideously bright, royal blue blazers you could spot ten blocks away." Then she switches to a public school for her senior year. Does her sartorial happiness quotient go up? You must read.

Anne Gordon stretches the connection from the death of Bob Marley's mother to her own life about as far as it can be stretched, but you know, she pulls it off. There are many great lines, including saying that while Mrs. Marley "was known for her mean mango pudding and her warm smile," Anne Gordon's Jamaican friend's granny "had a warm smile and was mean as an electric eel." Read the great quotes from Marley's mother.

Lafaymom has the best first sentence of the bunch: "Today's paper has an article titled 'Defending Yourself'; I turned around and punched the pillow sitting on the couch. How can they write that crap!"

Here's the rest -- you gotta read it: "I spent my entire youth going to class after class learning how to defend myself and the first fricken time someone comes up to me carrying a pocket knife and tells me to, give him everything. I just can't believe it. What was wrong with me that I couldn't do the "upward thrust" and run? Now, now I wake up in the middle of the damn night sweating. I am afraid to go down River Ave because that is where it happened right outside the coffee shop on the corner. The street light was out that night and I didn't see him come out of the shadows, damn it I was listening to my Ipod, but I should have been ready. I studied for 15 years... what the hell good did it do me?"

Lafaymom, this is a natural-born essay. You should write it and publish it.


lostmutt gave us a lovely sad, very nicely written account of visiting a sick friend.
I particularly like the quiet matter-of-factness of the sentences: "My friend was lying on a bed, slightly elevated, both arms loaded with plastic lines attached to drips on either side of her. She had an oxygen tube tucked into her nostrils. The TV was on and loud, but the whole room was loud with noise for some reason. Above it all, my friend rhythmically voiced her pain in breath-like syllables."

Hey, vwomack, talk about burying the lead! You GOTTA start with this great hook, not stick it down five paragraphs! Then you come back and give the back story on your own cooking bona-fides. "When I opened the paper this morning, here's this story: seems that there are four finalists from my hometown of Atlanta in the Pillsbury Bake-Off contest for the first time ever. Wow! Our town...according to their profiles, they're all about my age. One of them is even a native -- how rare is that? If one of them wins, they get a million dollars, which would go to charity and their grandchildren's' college funds."

There's some funny snarky stuff about what those finalists are cooking. "Every one of my grandmothers, great-grandmothers, grand aunts and aunts are turning over in their graves, even those who haven't died yet..."

Honorable Mentions

sqldave once again dashes off a fluent tale, full of just the right details (except for telling us if he got to keep any of the money). Extra points for Baby Doc and drug running. Need to bring it back to himself, lessons learned, etc., at the end.

Hermia gets one for her funny riff on some imaginary adventures with Prince Charlie. You absolutely have to read it. Promise me you will. Here?s an example:
"I spent a summer in London as an au-pair back then. Once I got to know everyone, and got the program down, it wasn't so bad. Five 'o clock was time for Mum to have her sherry (tea is for fools really). And no, I could not walk around just wearing a thong, even if that is OK back home. As for Mr. Dad, whatever his name was, even when he was around, he did not register on the Geiger counter. Once I stopped dunking my toast in the morning tea (no sherry in the morning that would be too grand), we got on swimmingly."

Kle618 has got to send out this piece on Idaho's Ag Olympics. Talk about a good hook for a piece! "One dismayed sportswoman insisted that all of the competitors pick the pies up with their bare hands because she had to and "it is only fair," she was quoted as saying. "You do have to be careful which one you choose," she said, "some are softer than others."

Kristin Seeman gave us an amazingly complete and moving piece that ties in nicely with the demonstrations in San Francisco yesterday: "When we crossed the Golden Gate Bridge, we were a fairly ragged group. The Soviets wore shoes that were in shreds, and American walkers passed on their old Tevas to grateful Soviet feet.

"On the Bridge itself, we were required to furl our Stars and Stripes and our Soviet Hammer and Sickle because, we were told, "they will distract the drivers". As with the Burmese protest this morning, we had a mounted police escort on motorcycles, who joked and took photos with us when we reached the city side of the bridge.

"While we were on the Bridge, one of our Soviets escaped the watchful eye of the Soviet minders and ran off and got married to an American school teacher who was with us. We all cheered when we heard. Another Soviet used the time to go to the dentist. Mostly, though, all five hundred of us marched, and it was just fun."

All of the honorable mentions would have been natural winners on another day, but you were all so stunningly good, and I must grade on a curve.

Writeaway Winner of the Day for Wednesday, April 9

It must go to the incomparable, the exquisitely funny Granny Gladys, for her piece about a lake drying up in Atlanta and the treasure buried under it. Here's a sample: "Everybody who lived in them hills had a treasure hid at the bottom of the Lake.
My great-grandma hid the family silver and a pot of gold coins under the barn when the Yankees was a'comin'. Them Yankees burned the barn, so nobody knew where the money was any more. Then they put in the Lake, so the money ended up somewhere in it.
Ever' one of the families from that [part of the hills hid something from the Yankees that never got found again.

"My Grandpaw took his Coca-Cola stock that he bought from Asa Candler himself and buried them certificates in a strongbox under the smokehouse when the Great Depression come up. Come a tornado, and the smokehouse blew away and Grandpaw died and the Lake come in, so that strongbox is still there under the Lake. No telling what it's worth.

"While the papers and the Governor are raising Cain about the drought, I'm just waiting for the Lake to get dry enough to get out there with my grand-nephew's metal detector and hunt for all them buried treasures."

Below are some notes on publishing, drawn from my not-yet-published writing book, "Naked, Drunk, And Writing."

Local Newspapers
Newspapers are a good bet for first-person essays because they're generalists -- they appeal to everybody and cover a wide range of subjects. These days you can find first-person essays on feature pages, on Op-Ed pages (which means opposite of the editorial page) and in many special sections.

Start by sending work out to local publications, not overlooking the free ones, the neighborhood shopping guides, anything. Pay no attention at first to if you are paid or how much -- that all comes later.

Also, as a local writer approaching a local publication, you have an advantage. Many a successful career has started with selling small items to a weekly shopper, or, as I did, sending little pieces to the Sunday paper. Lately many of my students have been selling pieces to the San Francisco Chronicle's Home & Garden section -- not a glamorous outlet, possibly, but one that has the biggest freelance budget in the paper and runs a lot of first-person pieces -- and to the "My Word" section in the Sunday Chronicle magazine, which runs personal essays on all sorts of topics, from bad hair to discovering Indian bones in the back yard.

Smaller local papers use essays, too, and often set them up nicely on a page by themselves. The Noe Valley Voice in San Francisco, for example, has a Last Page section that invites local freelancers to subject work.

Magazines
Magazines pay much better than newspapers, but they're harder to break into. Newspapers are aimed at everybody, but most of the 19,000 mainstream magazines are narrowly targeted. Each magazine's demographics are different.

Ladies Home Journal readers are 38 to 42 years old. More is more writerly and upmarket. It targets women over 40. I sold a piece to them called "The Reluctant Grandma" and another on how in middle age we bristly daughters start to take it easy on our poor (but maddening) mothers. The Redbook reader is college-educated, married, and anywhere from late 20s to early 40s. Cosmopolitan is aimed at college students. I sold something like 24 pieces to its now-defunct "On My Mind" section and not once did I mention my children, or say anything that made it obvious that many winters had passed since I walked onto the SF state campus. With another click of the keys I transformed my husband Bill back into my boyfriend. Hybrid Mom is for mothers who work -- it's not about parenting, though it sounds as if it is.

The best way to tell the audience for a magazine is to look at the ads. Advertisers don't throw their money around -- they know exactly who buys the magazine. If you look in a magazine and don't see advertisements for diapers, send your piece on hiring that undercaffeinated princess for your three-year-old's party somewhere else.

But most of them use essays. Redbook runs first-person essays about dramatic or pivotal moments in a woman's life. McCall's likes essays on things that are always present in your life but you never hear about--like a piece on the flags people fly outside their houses. Sunset magazine, for western readers, is always looking for a new angle on a familiar place or a great weekend piece. Jane Magazine, for 20-somethings, likes emergent trends, and publishes personal essays in the back section called "Back Stories." It's open to men and women in their twenties, with a "you won't believe what happened to me" slant.

Seasonal
Seasonal topics are almost as good as topical ones. If you're writing about a family dinner, why not make it Thanksgiving? Publish your piece about your mother's breast cancer in October, which is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Six years after her father's death, my student Lolly Winston starts a piece in the Safeway grocery story, pretending not to notice the racks of Father's Day cards. My student Pat Milton published "Stalking the Winter Coat" in the Chronicle in April. That's late for winter coats, but she fixed that by putting in that she bought the coat in an end-of-season sale.

Local
Local publications want local pieces (and local writers, too). If they're tearing down historic houses to build a mall and you once lived in one of them, bingo. My student Margee Robinson, who lives in San Francisco, just sold a piece on earthquake preparedness to the San Francisco Chronicle Home and Garden section. She sent it in just before the 100th anniversary of the quake in San Francisco, so it was both topical and local.

Another variation of using a local hook is to send the piece to the region where it happened. Kathleen's piece about a fellow worker killed in a volcano in Hawaii was published in the op-ed page of the Honolulu Star.

Refer to the local places in the piece: "At Yoshi's the other night..." or "I was walking on one of the Mount Diablo trails..."

Be aware of what they've already run.

Writers' Resources

All the information you need is on the Internet -- writers' guidelines, media kits, editorial calendars.

General interest national publications:
The New York Times: Sunday Magazine: "Lives"; Sunday "Styles" section: "Modern Love"
The Christian Science Monitor: Home Forum
Newsweek: "My Turn"
Oprah's O
Real Simple
http://www.freelancewriting.com/guidelines/pages/Literary/
http://www.woodenhorsepub.com/

Great updates on the magazine freelancing scene
http://www.writerswrite.com/writersguidelines/
http://www.firstwriter.com/
http://www.thenextbigwriter.com/
http://www.newsjobs.net/
http://www.pw.org (Poets & Writers online resource--they have the classified listings that they have in their magazine, plus grants and contests)
writersweekly.com and inside.com
www.refdesk.com (good one)
www.copyeditors.com
literaryagents.com
findarticles.com
Absolutewrite.com
Mediabistro.com
Momwriters.com
Poynter Online (www.poynter.org)
Firstwriter.com
Freelancewriting.com (source to paying magazine markets)
Publishers Lunch (www.publishersmarketplace.com)
Getitwritten.com
writersmarket.com (highly worth subscribing)
Commonties.com (publishes personal stories)

Congratulations, all!
Adair