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The Writing Life: Researching History

by Sherri Burr


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Researching people and events can be one of a writer’s greatest challenges. The further back you travel in time, the less likely you are to find people with direct connections to interview about the lives of particular individuals. Writers are thus left to forage out documentary information to compile their stories and analysis from multiple sources.

In 2015, I was blessed to receive a fellowship at Monticello, the home of President Thomas Jefferson, which is now run by a foundation dedicated to preserving his role in history. If Jefferson once owned 200 slaves who labored for his happiness, as he once proclaimed, his Monticello estate now employs 300 individuals who toil for his immortality. Fellows are provided housing on the grounds Jefferson once owned, and given a badge granting after-hours access to a shared office within the Jefferson Library.

After receiving a tour of the library I immediately researched their collection and found thirty books related to my topic on the Free Blacks of Virginia. My fellowship goal was to find enough material to support my book and the chapter I envisioned dedicating to Jefferson’s connections to Free Blacks.

What I knew before arriving at Monticello could be described in three general categories. First, as a lawyer Jefferson had represented individuals seeking freedom. Second, as someone who was frequently cash strapped, Jefferson had borrowed money from Free Blacks and some of his slaves. And third, he had formally or informally freed ten individuals either during his lifetime or by the codicil to his will, and that all of these individuals had connections to Sally Hemings. My goal was to document what I previously knew and create an analytic framework.

The documentation came more easily than expected as I listened to the full audiobook version of The Hemingses of Monticello by Annette Gordon-Reed. This Harvard professor had won a Pulitzer Prize for her exhaustive research about one family whose lives intersected with Jefferson in ways that were good and bad. Many times he repaid the money he borrowed from his Hemings slaves. And he informally freed two of Sally Hemings’ children, and then formally freed her last two sons and arranged for Sally to go live with them. The discussion of one freedom suit Jefferson lost as an attorney was illustrative of his personality because he then gave the client money, instead of collecting fees, and the client freed himself by running away.

Gordon-Reed’s book presented these issues so well that I decided to expand my topic. After talking to another Monticello fellow from The Netherlands, who was studying Jefferson’s intellectual life, I contemplated Jefferson’s cognitive dissonance about blacks, particularly how he said and wrote one thing (“slavery is an abomination”) while doing another (owning and purchasing slaves). I shared my idea with a Jefferson Librarian whose face dropped as I spoke. “We all know T.J. was wrong,” she said, and encouraged me to expand.

I visited the Library of Virginia in Richmond to peruse documents on microfiche, and the archives of Virginia State University in Petersburg. In between conducting this detailed study work, which involved long hours reviewing manuscripts in cursive writing, I toured Jamestown, Colonial Williamsburg, and the homes of Virginia presidents. It was the slavery tours at the homes of Presidents Madison and Monroe that led to the formation of another idea. I decided to expand the chapter originally planned to focus on Jefferson to include Washington, Madison, Monroe and John Tyler, all of whom were born and raised in Virginia.

Virginia gave our country five of its first ten presidents, all of whom had declared slavery evil while owning slaves. As I drove into the parking lot at Sherwood Forrest, the home of the country’s tenth president, John Tyler, I noticed my car was alone. An hour and forty-five minutes into the conversation with the guide, I asked if he had to prepare for his next tour and he replied, “That’s next week.” While Jefferson’s Monticello receives approximately 700,000 visitors a year, Tyler’s Sherwood Forest was explored by very few. It was then I realized that I had found a history topic to research and write about that was in less-charted territory.

I urge writers to think of researching history as the equivalent of working on a jigsaw puzzle with neither a picture nor boundary pieces. Begin with an idea of what the chapter or book might become. As you acquire more data, be open to expanding your idea until you find what finally clicks.


A Short and Happy Guide to Financial Well BeingSherri Burr is the Regents’ Professor of Law at the University of New Mexico School of Law where she teaches Entertainment Law, Intellectual Property Law, and Art Law. A graduate of Mount Holyoke College, Princeton University, and the Yale Law School, she has authored or co-authored 20 books, including A Short and Happy Guide to Financial Well-Being (West Academic, 2014). Sherri is a long-time member of SouthWest Writers as well as the New Mexico Press Women’s Association.




The Writing Life: Is Technology an Advance or a Hindrance?

by Sherri Burr


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In our advanced technological age, we are bombarded by the latest gadgets for everything from appliances to voice recording apps, all claiming to make lives more efficient. But do they?

This question occurred to me after two home appliances broke, and I replaced them with “high efficiency” models. The new washing machine included a sensing device that calculated the amount of water it needed. Since it had a glass top, I watched the machine twist the load back and forth before it turned on the water. Although I had piled in clothes to reach the top of the tub, the machine added water to fill only about a quarter of its capacity. Eighty minutes later a load was finished, yet several items had dry spots. A load of whites took two hours, and I tricked the machine into filling up the tub by first bleaching clothes in a bucket, which made them heavier.

My initial reaction was astonishment. The machine took nearly three times as long to wash loads, and it didn’t get them as clean as my 1989 Kenmore machine that went to washing machine heaven after three attempts to fix it failed to produce a functional apparatus. I questioned the term “high efficiency,” and realized it only referred to the machine’s miserly water use. When it came to electricity, my bill would go up because it now took nearly all day to wash four loads of laundry, instead of two hours. When I went back to the store, the clerk questioned whether I had loaded the machine correctly. I thought, given the cost, the machine should have loaded itself. I requested the store pick up the machine and return my money before purchasing a non-high efficiency machine that allowed me to set water levels, and clean loads in half the time.

I share this story to challenge writers to question whether the new technology in their lives is an advance or a hindrance. Are we better off interviewing subjects and typing our notes on our laptop at the same time? Are we better off interviewing subjects and exclusively using our iPhone’s or iPad’s Siri to record the notes?

As someone who has used technology to her detriment in interviews, I submit that both questions must be answered with “no.” I interviewed someone and placed my “iDevice” on the table to record the conversation, while I actively listened and took notes on a paper pad. Thank goodness I did the latter because Siri recorded gibberish. I learned the hard way with voice-recognition software that if it doesn’t recognize the nuances in a person’s speech patterns, it may not accurately translate the person’s sentences.

The other problem I’ve found with recording devices is that subjects are intimidated by them. After getting nothing from a former bachelor from the television show The Bachelor, I put away the recording device. He immediately started talking. Since I didn’t want to interrupt the flow of the conversation, I just actively listened. The minute we finished, I ran to my car and wrote everything I could remember. I went to bed that night thinking I had nonsense, but awoke the next morning with a complete story organized in my head. My subconscious had sorted out the text while I slept.

In a law class simulation, I asked four students to role play as clients and lawyers. In the first group, the lawyer wanted to use his iPad to take notes. As the interview progressed, he didn’t use his iPad once. Rather, he focused on the client’s pre-interview sheet to ask questions. Because he was reading from the sheet, he didn’t observe his client. In the second demonstration, the law student used no electronic device and, even though he had the pre-interview sheet, he focused on talking and listening to the client. The second interview was more effective.

My final technology concern focuses on studies demonstrating that students who type their lecture notes on computers produce more complete notes but do not processes the material as well and do worse on exams. Other studies have proven that reading material on electronic devices leads to less recall of the material learned.

Thus, before you ditch your paper products in favor of electronics, think about whether they will advance or hinder the cause of obtaining effective interviews and learning material. Those who feel they are listened to will tell more. Look directly at interviewees, and actively tune your ears to capture all that you can from them.


A Short and Happy Guide to Financial Well BeingSherri Burr is the Regents’ Professor of Law at the University of New Mexico School of Law where she teaches Entertainment Law, Intellectual Property Law, and Art Law. A graduate of Mount Holyoke College, Princeton University, and the Yale Law School, she has authored or co-authored 20 books, including A Short and Happy Guide to Financial Well-Being (West Academic, 2014). Sherri is also a long-time member of SouthWest Writers and a regular contributor to the organization’s newsletter SouthWest Sage.




The Writing Life: Wandering Off the Beaten Path with Annie Leibovitz

by Sherri Burr


SherriBurrFor creative types, there is often a tension between concentrating energy to become known for a particular type of work, and wandering off that path to create something new and different. This tension confronted Annie Leibovitz, who is famous for her unique portrait photography such as that of a naked Demi Moore sporting a sizable baby bump, a naked Whoopi Goldberg immersed in a bathtub of milk, and a naked John Lennon with his arms wrapped around his wife Yoko Ono, taken just hours before he was assassinated. Leibovitz owed Random House a fourth work under her four-book contract when she came up with the idea to photograph objects of dead creative types rather than the people themselves. The results were on display at the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe in 2013, and can be found in the book Pilgrimage.

On a press walk through the O’Keeffe Museum in February 2013, Leibovitz discussed what drew her to photograph particular objects, such as Georgia O’Keeffe’s bed, her pastels in a drawer, or the door in the adobe wall of her Abiquiu, New Mexico home. Leibovitz considers O’Keeffe to be a great American artist. “We think we know who she is and we don’t,” she said. When she saw the pastels in the drawer, Leibovitz thought, “It’s all the colors in her landscapes.”

Leibovitz also photographed the bed of psychiatrist Sigmund Freud, the desk of author Virginia Woolf, the nightdress of poet Emily Dickinson, and the television of Elvis Presley. This TV is notable because it has a hole in it. Leibovitz explained that during her second trip to Graceland, she was given a tour of the basement containing items Elvis never threw away. The Graceland staff informed her that every time Robert Goulet came on the air, Elvis would pick up a gun and shoot the television. Because Leibovitz photographed this object, we learned something novel about one of the most examined musicians of our times. About Graceland, she said, “The second time I went I felt it was just a house, when you ignore the red carpets and the velvet ropes.”

There was another reason to explore another trail. “Forty years in the magazine world wears you down,” Leibovitz said. “Pilgrimage presented an opportunity to do something different.”

At Niagara Falls, Leibovitz observed her young children staring at a horizon, as if they were mesmerized. She walked to the location, stood behind them, and took the picture. “As a photographer, a lot of times I have to work to get the picture. This time my children saw the picture first.”

“Walden Pond was about an idea, not a place,” Leibovitz informed us as we stood by her picture of Henry David Thoreau’s bed. “He walked to town every day. It’s about being out in nature.” Thoreau first published Walden; or Life in the Woods in 1854 to explore experiences gained from the two years, two months, and two days he spent living on the shores of Walden Pond. Of her depiction of Thoreau’s bed, Leibovitz says, “It’s not a photograph, it’s a document.”

She paid homage to Ansel Adams by traveling to Yosemite to recreate one of his famous photographs. “To get the picture,” she said, “I had to push back about forty people.” Additionally, she visited Adams’ darkroom that had been turned into a wine cellar. She removed all the wine bottles before capturing the darkroom as it once existed.

The exhibition featured framed photographs shot using digital equipment. “I think digital is closer to how we see color,” she said. “We all see color differently. You’re still doing the work that Ansel did in the darkroom when you’re sitting in front of a computer.” She adds, “One of the reasons I’m interested in landscapes is because they present true color. What’s interesting about digital is that it has more detail.”

Leibovitz’s exhibition (and book), also contained photographs of the hat and gloves Lincoln wore the night he was assassinated. Being in the presence of these objects was “very powerful,” she said.

After departing the O’Keeffe Museum, the exhibition made two more stops before concluding its tour at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum and Library in Springfield, Illinois in 2014.

“When you do something new, you don’t know how it’s going to be. I wanted to know if I could find my own way. You have to feed your heart and your soul,” said Leibovitz.

The exhibit was, and Pilgrimage still is, an inspiration to all of us who feel it’s time to innovate.


A Short and Happy Guide to Financial Well BeingSherri Burr is the Regents’ Professor of Law at the University of New Mexico School of Law where she teaches Entertainment Law, Intellectual Property Law, and Art Law. A graduate of Mount Holyoke College, Princeton University, and the Yale Law School, she has authored or co-authored 20 books, including A Short and Happy Guide to Financial Well-Being (West Academic, 2014). Sherri is also a long-time member of SouthWest Writers and a regular contributor to the organization’s newsletter SouthWest Sage.


This article was originally published in the May 2013 issue of SouthWest Sage and is reprinted here by permission of the author.




Writer’s Remorse

by Olive Balla


Olive Balla245It’s a cousin to Buyer’s Remorse, which my friend and constant companion Google defines as an emotional response to a purchase. Feelings like regret, fear, depression, or anxiety. You know—the letdown that grabs the buyer by the throat immediately after he’s spent a pile of money on something he just knew he wanted more than anything.

But the feelings accompanying what I’ve dubbed Writer’s Remorse go beyond those just mentioned. Although depression is definitely part of it, the feeling is more of—as Peggy Lee crooned in the golden oldie of the same name—Is that all there is?

Regardless of what it’s called, I’ve been suffering from it.

After working for six years on my novel—six years, during which I thought about it constantly, jotted down snippets of overheard conversations to pepper into the dialogue, basically lived, breathed, and showered with it—the thing is suddenly finished. I’ve polished, rewritten, edited, and re-edited, and then found a beta reader who was a professional editor in a past life. It’s the best I can do.

But just as with the sudden cessation of any other perpetual activity, the completion of my novel left a void. I just didn’t know what to do with myself.

So I checked in with my online chat group of writers. I told them of the unexpected feelings of loss that have accompanied my novel’s completion. I poured out all my writer angst, certain that what I was going through was an anomaly. And a little fearful for my sanity. (Okay, maybe a bit melodramatic, but I was concerned.) I wondered if Stephen King had ever struggled with letting go of one of his twisted babies.

The responses that came pouring in from my colleagues boosted my morale. One savvy writer said that I have a case of what is basically empty-nest syndrome. She said I’m missing my characters. That they became an integral part of my life, and now I’m grieving their loss. And that feels about right.

Having raised three actual children, I must admit that the feelings I was experiencing were akin to those of giving birth, raising the child, and then watching her walk away to seek her fortune in the world without so much as a backward glance. The whole process was accompanied with the bittersweet knowledge that it’s all part of the beat of life—that once you’ve done your job, your services will no longer be required.

After all, I spent over half a decade scheduling my life around my writing time. I’d waken early, hurry to eat breakfast, and then happily lock myself away into my writing space—what author Elizabeth Sims calls getting into garret mode. I closed myself off to the here-and-now, completely immersed myself in a different dimension, and then for the next couple of hours I alternately dug through the darkness and marveled at the brilliant nobility of our human nature.

And then I was stricken with an energy-sucking ennui. I walked aimlessly around the house in search of something—I didn’t know quite what. Judging by the way my husband took to surreptitiously watching me out of the corner of his eye, I suspected my behavior verged on something clinical.

So I again approached my writer friends—much cheaper and less time consuming than therapy.

Within minutes, commiserations flew back across the ether and into my waiting arms. I wasn’t alone. Other writers had suffered the same feelings.

Several of them told me to get back on the horse and start another novel. Others said I should take a break and do something totally un-writer-like for several weeks before rolling up my sleeves and giving myself over to the birthing pangs of a new story.

I decided to do both. First, with unwavering determination, I powered down every piece of computer hardware in my house that could even remotely be used for word processing. And then, with an unexpected sense of freedom, I accompanied my husband on a road trip to Mount Rushmore.

The glorious scenery that flew past our car windows, the rest stops where I overheard people speaking about everything from ingrown toenails to saving wild horses, all sparked dozens of ideas, which I verbalized into the tiny digital recorder I’d snuck into my bag. I know, I know, I cheated. But the change of scenery was like a cool drink of water on my parched writer’s tongue, and I was overcome with a renewed joy in my chosen field of endeavor.

Once home, I replayed and then transcribed my recorded observations and comments. What if… and Yes, and then… cavorted and tumbled elbows over arse through my electrified imagination. I made more notes.

But I still didn’t have the heart to begin a new novel. At least, not until this morning.

Today I awakened to my Protagonist’s index finger tapping me on the forehead. She was yammering away about a woman who just moved from South Dakota and into the house across the street.

“She’s having trouble sleeping because of weird noises coming from her basement,” said my Protagonist around a mouthful of leftover welcome-to-the-neighborhood brownies.

“Aha,” I said. “Weird noises coming from her basement? That’s good. Then what if…”

And we’re off.


AnArmAndALeg72Olive Balla, author of suspense novel An Arm and a Leg, is mother of 3, grandmother to 13, great-grandmother of 4, a retired educator, and part-time professional musician. Having been everything from secretary at a used car dealership, a university student, and a high school Spanish teacher, Balla states her characters are, in part, amalgamations of people she’s met. Living with her husband Victor in the Albuquerque area, she spends her spare time in a small woodworking shop designing and building everything from breadboxes and wine racks, to a porch bench. Visit her website at omballa.com.


This article was originally published in the March 2014 issue of SouthWest Sage and is reprinted here by permission of the author.




The Writing Life: Juggling Priorities

by Sherri Burr


SherriBurr

Recently, I read T.D. Jakes’ book Instinct and was startled by the chapter on juggling priorities. The author discussed juggling as “giving each object just enough of a push so that all items remain suspended and none falls out of sequence.” I thought of my efforts to make time for my writing life while working full time, attending to family obligations, volunteering to help others, practicing a healthy lifestyle, and looking after my home. In short, like the readers of this column, I have a lot of balls in the air.

As writers, we type stories, edit material, shepherd work through the publishing process, market and promote the work. Depending on how many projects writers have on their desks, they could be juggling all of these. Each takes time, and yet are required to manage a successful writing career.

Writers need sustained work time. Scheduling thirty, sixty, or ninety-minute blocks to put words on paper can be helpful. If I get on a roll, I hit the timer to add another block. When I have a passion project, I can’t wait to read and write about my subject.

So how does one decide to accept other opportunities that take time away from writing and other necessary priorities related to family, work, and home? Do you say “Yes” and add another item to juggle? How do you know when your schedule has reached its saturation point?

I know I have reached schedule saturation when even the thought of taking on another commitment causes stress. Ultimately we have to say “No” to people when a “Yes” could bring all the balls crashing down.

Adding one more meeting means less time to write, and the occasion divides the day. This can lead to missed deadlines and the inability to do any work at all because of the feeling of being overwhelmed.

Within two months this year, I received four offers to join not-for-profit boards. One group met twice a month and that was a non-starter. As I contemplated another offer from a board that met once a month, I looked at my calendar and noticed that their board meeting date conflicted with a previous obligation. Even though the group offered to move the time of their meeting, I just couldn’t see how I could add another monthly commitment to my calendar. For a third board, the executive director said they met bi-monthly and communicated by email in between. That felt worse as I often struggle to read all the email that currently descends into my box. One recruiter mentioned the seriousness of the board work. As the guardian of a brother in a coma, I already make solemn decisions. Just the mere mention of the word ‘serious’ made me want to run.

I finally decided to decline all four board offers until I finished other volunteer projects or freed up time from my university job.

I believe there has to be a good reason to nod an acceptance.

I recommend writers consider saying “Yes” to those offers that bring joy, pleasure, and peace into your life. Writers must intersperse fun activities between obligations. Fun activities and passion projects feed your soul. They make life pleasurable so you can endure the serious and take delight from the prestigious.

For example, after taking several sets of golf lessons, I finally play with enough confidence to make it enjoyable. Fortunately in New Mexico many golf courses substantially discount their fees to encourage late afternoon play. With over 300 sunny days a year, I have become enthralled by the mountain views and gorgeous New Mexico skies. If given a choice between attending additional meetings and playing golf several times a week, guess which one I’ll choose.

At the end of each day, I review what I did that was gratifying. Did I type pages for my next book? Did I help someone? Did I golf in a nice surrounding? Did I see a comedy movie or watch a fascinating television show like How to Get Away with Murder?

There are things that we have to do, and then there are those we want to do. A balanced life requires juggling between both sets of undertakings. So off I go. Today’s writing is done and nine holes are calling my name.


A Short and Happy Guide to Financial Well BeingSherri Burr is the Regents’ Professor of Law at the University of New Mexico School of Law where she teaches Entertainment Law, Intellectual Property Law, and Art Law. A graduate of Mount Holyoke College, Princeton University, and the Yale Law School, she has authored or co-authored 20 books, including A Short and Happy Guide to Financial Well-Being (West Academic, 2014). Sherri is also a long-time member of SouthWest Writers and a regular contributor to the organization’s newsletter SouthWest Sage.


This article was originally published in the December 2014 issue of SouthWest Sage and is reprinted here by permission of the author.




The Writing Life: In Defiance of the Norm

by Olive Balla


Olive Balla245Here’s the commonly accepted drill in the quest for publication:

  • Take a few creative writing classes.
  • Buy a library full of treatises on how to write the great American novel.
  • Write a great 60,000-word to 100,000-word story that’s equal parts plot- and character-driven.
  • Re-write and edit.
  • Give your novel a unique and intriguing title.
  • Develop an impressively bulging platform on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and any other of the hundreds of social networking sites you can access.
  • Re-write and edit again.
  • Create, pay someone else to create, or have your nephew create a brilliant website upon which you regularly write witty and pithy blog posts.
  • Take a class on guerilla marketing strategies, since you’ll be required to market your own book.
  • Re-write and edit some more.
  • Brush up on the art of contract negotiations, or hire a literary attorney to represent you in negotiations with Big Publishing.
  • Craft a succinct yet compelling Query, Synopsis, and Pitch.
  • Re-write and edit yet again.
  • Find the one-in-a-thousand agent who represents your genre, and more importantly, who is willing to be queried by the as-yet-unpublished.
  • Be prepared to give copies of your book to bloggers, Goodreads reviewers, and friends and family.
  • Eschew indie or self-publishing as the last resort of those lost souls doomed to forever wander in the wilderness of literary untouchables.

But wait. Apparently the wonderful world of technology is in the process of rendering all the above so much balderdash.

Ever heard of Hugh Howey? According to Forbes, thousands of copies of this 37-year-old man’s science fiction novel are selling on two continents at this very moment. How did he do it?

Howey carefully and slavishly stuck to the accepted blueprint for publishing success, right? Wrong. Howey’s path to household word-dom bears little resemblance to the standardized version drilled into our heads by agents, authors of publishing how-to books, and guest speakers at writers’ conferences.

Well then, Howey certainly must have spent at least 10,000 hours honing his writing skills—the number of hours Dr. Anders Ericsson’s research on expertise indicates is necessary to become really good at anything. (That would be 1,250 eight-hour days doing nothing but writing.) Wrong again. Evidently, Mr. Howey spent most of his years adventuring on his boat, rather than practicing his writing.

So how did Hugh Howey attain his position in the rarefied stratum of Consistent Best Sellers? Let’s compare and contrast, as my college English professor used to say, the universally accepted means to achieve publication with Howey’s path—the path currently being sneered at by the mentally-concretized literati:

  1. Howey must have given his novel a brilliant title, right? Um, no. He named his series Wool. Could have just as easily been Cotton or Crepe for all the excitement his title elicits.
  2. He must have a ponderous platform, with thousands of Twitter and Facebook followers. No again. At the time of the Forbes article, he didn’t even have a website or blog. Instead, his time and creative energies were fully focused on writing his novels.
  3. He must at least be a radio or television star with untold numbers of fans avidly awaiting his book. Wrong. Until he published his own book on Amazon, his name was basically known only to friends and family.
  4. Once Howey self-published, no self-respecting Big Publisher or agent would look twice at him. Wrong yet again. Not only has he been picked up by Simon & Schuster, but he’s now dickering for movie and television series rights—both foreign and domestic.

Howey’s self-published success is most assuredly not the norm. And although his prose is top-notch, there are lots of self-published novels that, even to my bourgeois palate, seem less than stellar. In fact, there are some offerings out there that scream “first draft.” (Even at that, many of them are bestsellers—go figure.)

The point is that the times they are a-changing. Remember that old story about the buggy whip manufacturer who adamantly refused to change with the times? The company’s upper management asserted that the automobile was just a meteoric fad. And the same was said about computers.

We writers are faced with the same kind of choice. We can either take the standard, recommended path to publication (and I’m not denigrating that), or we can throw ourselves headlong into the mega-trend that’s building momentum in ePublishing and self-publishing.

In a conference I recently attended we were given the chance to question a panel made up of four literary agents (one from Santa Fe, three from New York), and an ePublishing guru. An attendee asked the panel what her chances of attracting an agent would be if she first chose to go the self-published route. The agents semi-sternly admonished her against taking the self-pub road less traveled. But the ePublisher expounded on the joys of doing your own thing, at your own pace, and reaping all your rewards as opposed to sharing with Big Pub and an agent. While even the ePublisher warned against using a vanity press, every other do-it-yourself avenue seems to be fair game.

My caveat: make sure your novel is as polished, edited, and tight as you can make it before sending it to the printers or out into the ether. Unlike with software and hi-tech gadgets that are commonly marketed before being completely debugged, the public will not help you clean up your novel. They’ll find someone else’s story to read, and word-of-mouth can torpedo your lazy booty right out of the water.

So, you can work for months or years on a novel, and then wait more months or years while trying to find an agent who may or may not be able to sell your “baby,” or you can do it all yourself.

It boils down to how ready and willing you are to take a chance. Roulette anyone?


AnArmAndALeg72Olive Balla, author of suspense novel An Arm and a Leg, is mother of 3, grandmother to 13, great-grandmother of 4, a retired educator, and part-time professional musician. Having been everything from secretary at a used car dealership, a university student, and a high school Spanish teacher, Balla states her characters are, in part, amalgamations of people she’s met. Living with her husband Victor in the Albuquerque area, she spends her spare time in a small woodworking shop designing and building everything from breadboxes and wine racks, to a porch bench. Visit her website at omballa.com.


This article was originally published in the January 2014 issue of SouthWest Sage and is reprinted here by permission of the author.




The Writing Life: Finding the Fight and the Fun in Your Work

by Sherri Burr


SherriBurr

Recently, fortune blessed me with the opportunity to watch live tennis at a high-level tournament in Ohio. As I observed tennis star Serena Williams fight back after losing the first set to win the next two sets and claim the match, I thought about how much we writers can learn from her determination to succeed.

Just as tennis players face the constant threat of losing points, games, sets and matches, we writers often confront rejection. Author Gregg Levoy (This Business of Writing) once told a SouthWest Writers audience that if you are not constantly receiving rejection letters, you are operating too far into your comfort zone. I initially thought this harsh as no one wants to receive rejection letters. But his larger point resonated. If you constantly put out work that gets accepted, perhaps you are not challenging yourself to go to the next level. Are there higher levels of publications that you have not submitted to for fear of rejection? This is like the tennis player who only plays players who are worse than they are. Where’s the test? Where’s the opportunity?

By daring ourselves to query top book and magazine publishers, we increase our risk of rejection but we potentially set ourselves up for great rewards. Tennis players know that if they want to win the big tournaments, the Grand Slam events, they have to constantly improve their games. This requires honest assessments of weaknesses and strengths. Do they have an accurate serve, which allows them to claim free points? Or a weak serve that leads to double faults? Do they have a lightning-accurate forehand, or one that constantly sails long? Is their backhand hit with power, or does it soft-land on the other side of the net and permit the opponent to hit a punishing return?

For writers, do we write articles with humor, or do our attempts fall flat? To predict an audience’s reaction requires test driving the material. This is where critique groups that require writers to read their submissions can be absolutely critical to writer success. As you deliver your words out loud, you can obtain an instant reaction as to whether the material is hitting the intended emotional cues. If your critique group members react by laughing out loud or crying, then you know you are hitting the right level. If there is no reaction, then you know you have to go back to the drawing board.

This is why I prefer critique groups whose members read the material compared to those who pre-send the material by email and then discuss it when the group meets. In the former, you can instantly see the reaction. In the latter, the person might tell you they found something funny but you won’t know how funny. Were they falling out of their seat with laughter or did a bemused look cross their brow?

Similarly in tennis, a speed gun measures the serve. Players don’t have to guess how fast a serve was, they know. After Croatian player Marin Cilic won the 2014 US Open, he was interviewed about his suspension for four months during 2013 for having a banned substance in his urine tests. Cilic used the time to practice his serve and to work on finding the enjoyment in his game. Others might have spent the four months in “woe is me” mode. Instead, Cilic used it as an opportunity to improve.

When life gives an opportunity to remove ourselves from the normal and reassess, take it as a golden opportunity to improve. Examine weaknesses and strengths. Find the fun in your work. That’s where long-run success lies. That’s where the willingness to fight in difficult moments arises. At the Ohio tournament, Serena Williams battled from a set down to win the semi-final match against Caroline Wozniacki. She won her next match in straight sets and the U.S. Open for the sixth time by beating the same opponent in the finals. Williams took note of her earlier struggles and improved her game.

For writers, progress can come from reading and writing daily, as well as signing up for writing courses. When writing is fun, abandoning your life’s work never enters your mind. You commit to fight until the last letter is struck on your keyboard. Writers don’t retire; the ideas keep flowing until they take their last breath. Challenge yourself to submit to different publishers. The successes may surprise and amaze you.


A Short and Happy Guide to Financial Well BeingSherri Burr is the Regents’ Professor of Law at the University of New Mexico School of Law where she teaches Entertainment Law, Intellectual Property Law, and Art Law. A graduate of Mount Holyoke College, Princeton University, and the Yale Law School, she has authored or co-authored 20 books, including A Short and Happy Guide to Financial Well-Being (West Academic, 2014). Sherri is also a long-time member of SouthWest Writers and a regular contributor to the organization’s newsletter SouthWest Sage.


This article was originally published in the October 2014 issue of SouthWest Sage and is reprinted here by permission of the author.




The Writing Life: The Good Fight

by Olive Balla


Olive Balla245

The current economy has become a tough sparring partner for those of us who dream of seeing our stories in print. Many budding writers, after having been rejected for the umpteenth time, are tempted to crawl off into a corner and lick their wounds while hugging their latest manuscript to their bosoms. After finally getting a bellyful of rejection, a friend of mine—a published playwright with two sold and performed plays under her belt—has permanently packed away her storytelling persona. That’s not only sad, but it’s a loss to our culture.

It’s not that I can’t relate to my friend. I can.

More than one agent has responded to my email query with words decrying harsh fiscal realities and suggesting my story might be marketable in less turbulent times. One soft-hearted agent actually apologized for turning me down. She offered words of comfort, saying her refusal did not mean my writing was not good; in fact, she’d spent a great deal of time in making her decision, but she could only accept authors who were a “surefire” sell.

So, where does that leave those of us who are not of the J.K. Rowling ilk? What are the options available to those of us who would be thrilled just to have our work out there, and hopefully, being read—even if our readership might not number in the tens of thousands? The good news is that there are still some avenues open to today’s writers.

Many authors are opting to self-publish, shouldering the task of marketing their own books. This approach can not only cost a great deal of the author’s up-front money, but is heavily contingent upon the amount of time the author is willing, or able, to put into selling herself.

Other writers have put their stories online, selling them for 99 cents a pop as Ebooks. This tactic has potential, especially when there are so many folks willing to risk 99 cents on a virtual book rather than spend eight dollars for a paperback.

Some shop their books to small publishing houses in hopes that having one published book will lead to heightened marketability for the next. But a small publisher often does not pay an advance, much less an advance for future books. I know one writer who was thrilled to have her first book published by a small house, but had to start all over again when the publisher went bankrupt.

One thing for sure, the art of writing has metamorphosed into a completely different creature from what it was 50 years ago. Or perhaps the art itself has not changed so much as has its audience. People whose lives are scheduled in five-minute increments simply don’t have the time, or the patience, to slog through an initial ten pages of description before getting to the meat of a story. For those of us who feel it necessary to bring the reader up to speed on characters and their pre-story lives, this presents a challenge. At what point in the story should we describe our protagonist’s physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional attributes? How much detail should we offer about the setting?

Having spent hundreds of dollars on how-to writing books, I’ve found one golden thread that connects them all: if I want my fiction to be published, I must adopt a marketable style of writing and I must know my audience.

But isn’t writing merely to sell prostituting the craft? That depends upon one’s perspective, as well as one’s goals. Every writer comes to a fork in the path and must make a choice: she can stubbornly stick to her style and be satisfied with the superlatives offered by friends and family; or she can sharpen her technique so that complete strangers will not only want to read her stories, but will pay to do so.

As for me, my storyteller’s head may be bloodied, but remains unbowed. To give energy to the thought of hanging up my writer’s crop and jodhpurs is anathema to me. Because the escapism of fiction brought me through a difficult stretch in my life, I will continue to find time to close out the rest of the world and catapult my senses into other times, other places, and other dimensions. I will continue tweaking, refining, and querying. I will continue to pay my subscriptions to various writers’ magazines, I will enter writing contests, and I will continue to connect with other writers at meetings and conferences. But most importantly, to paraphrase Winston Churchill: I will never, never, never give up.


AnArmAndALeg72Olive Balla, author of suspense novel An Arm and a Leg, is mother of 3, grandmother to 13, great-grandmother of 4, a retired educator, and part-time professional musician. Having been everything from secretary at a used car dealership, a university student, and a high school Spanish teacher, Balla states her characters are, in part, amalgamations of people she’s met. Living with her husband Victor in the Albuquerque area, she spends her spare time in a small woodworking shop designing and building everything from breadboxes and wine racks, to a porch bench. Visit her website at omballa.com.


This article was originally published in the June 2011 issue of SouthWest Sage and is reprinted here by permission of the author.




The Writing Life: On Searching for Purpose

by Bentley Clark


Out of Ones Head1

I have a confession to make: I don’t know what to write. Now, I don’t mean that I don’t know what to write for this column—although that is a monthly challenge and the source of much teeth gnashing. And I don’t mean that I have writer’s block—although I have been suffering from an extended period of creative constipation. I mean that I don’t know what to write. I have not found my artistic direction or purpose. I am unable to say, “I am a [insert genre here] writer” or “I write [insert form here]” or “I write about [insert insightful thematic topic here].”

In spite of attending conferences and workshops, reading periodicals and following blogs, and in spite of dabbling in several forms and genres, I have yet to experience the creative epiphany to spark my inner artistic tinderbox. The problem isn’t really that I am not drawn to a single genre or form, for all of this literary exposure, but that I am drawn to them all. I want to write scholarly articles for literary journals. I want to write whimsical flash fiction, thrilling short stories and mysterious novels. Oh, turn me loose on screenwriting and see what I can do!

So how to go about reining in this scattershot enthusiasm to focus enough to get myself some artistic direction? To date, I have tried the following:

1. Write what you know. If you’ve met me, you know that the thing I know best of all, my one true love and my arch nemesis, is food. And tea—sweet nectar of the caffeine gods. And yet, I would still rather eat than write about eating and cook rather than write about cooking. Don’t get me wrong, food is art, but I’m not sure that writing about it is my artistic purpose.

2. Find a platform. If a platform communicates your expertise to others, I have to ask “what am I an expert in?” Again… food. Well, that and having no siblings. So, clearly, these two things should be the foundation of my platform. They should be my purpose and direction, right? And yet, being an expert in a thing doesn’t make it your artistic purpose. Maybe my purpose is a genre or topic that I haven’t even tried writing yet. If that’s the case, then platform goes right out the window.

3. Reflect on prior successes. There have been periods in my life when I was prolific and confident. When I was able to strap a muzzle on my inner editor and just keep my head down and write. I wrote well and was proud of it. Shoot, I even won an award now and then. But looking to those times to find direction and purpose for my writing now—and for the future—invites terrifying questions that breed a certain artistic paralysis. Can I write like that again? Are my best days behind me? Best not to look back, really. Better to keep my nose to the grindstone and other platitudes.

There is a mystery and an alchemy to knowing what you are meant to write. I had a friend once tell me that she found her purpose while gently swaying in a hammock in the midsummer gloaming. Absently stroking her cat and nursing a mint julep, she merely conjured it from the magnolia pollen and sunset lithium.

Nah. Not really. But it does seem to be that easy for some, doesn’t it? That their personal identity and artistic purpose are synonymous. That they embody their purpose. I count amongst these purpose-embodiers my Facebook friends: the horror novelist, the science fiction screenwriter, and the contemporary poet. They all seem to have had that hammock-at-the-gloaming epiphany.

But for most of us, it seems more accurate to say that we stumble, drunken-college-student-esque, into our artistic purpose. During lunch at a UNM Department of Continuing Education Start to Sales Conference, my table mates all told stories about how they began writing one thing—a memoir, a travelogue, a textbook—only to discover that they were not, in fact, writing a memoir, travelogue or textbook. And it was the new thing, the thing they hadn’t started out writing that became their passion and defined their purpose. Perhaps that is all purpose-finding is: serendipity.

So, I will continue to proactively stumble towards my purpose. But, just in case my purpose is in search of me as well, I’ll hang my hammock at the corner where serendipity and epiphany intersect.


BentleyClark125Bentley Clark thinks her artistic purpose may have run away from home. If you happen to find it wandering the streets, alone and bewildered, please leave a comment.


This article was originally published in the June 2012 issue of SouthWest Sage and is reprinted here by permission of the author.


Image “Out Of One’s Head, Relax The Brain” courtesy of thaikrit / FreeDigitalPhotos.net




Writing In No Time

by Chris Eboch


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So many things demand our time—job, spouse, children, volunteer work, housework. It’s tempting to say, I’ll write during vacation, or when the kids are back in school, or when the kids leave home, or when I retire ….

Yet if you want to be a writer, you must find time to write.

Becoming a writer requires commitment. If you don’t take your work seriously, your family and friends certainly won’t either. The new year is traditionally a time for resolutions, so make one for your writing self. Let people know how important writing is to you. Insist that writing time is your time, and you must not be disturbed. Carve out a few hours each week. Then close the door and ignore your phone and e-mail, or take your laptop to the library.

Finding even a few hours may seem hopeless when you have young children. Louise Spiegler, author of middle grade novel The Amethyst Road, says, “It is impossible for me to write with my kids awake and active. I either tried to get both kids to nap at the same time or I spent my non-existent savings on two hours of babysitting.”

Try trading babysitting with other writing parents. Or start a play group/writers group: the kids play, the parents write or critique.

Molly Blaisdell, author of the picture book Rembrandt and the Boy Who Drew Dogs: A story about Rembrandt van Rijn, and mother of four, found another creative way to keep her kids busy. “I kept all the special toys in my office. When I wanted to work on a scene, I’d pull down that box and say, “This is quiet time for special toys.’” It would always be good for about half an hour and sometime would go for two hours.”

No Use for a Muse

When your writing time is limited, you can’t afford to waste a moment. After having a baby, Michele Corriel, author of Weird Rocks says, “I still managed to get up before my daughter and cram in even half an hour. The problem with a shorter amount of time is you really have to switch it on.”

Successful writers agree: no waiting for the right mood. Spiegler says, “As soon as the kids were asleep or safely dropped off, I would sit down and start working—no waiting for inspiration.”

The most productive writers work anywhere and everywhere. Jean Daigenau says, “I take advantage of the few minutes of downtime I have at school or home—while I’m eating lunch or supervising the homework group at our after-school latchkey program or soaking in the bathtub.”

If you can’t do serious writing in five-minute bursts, use the time in other ways. Daigenau suggests, “Get it written on the computer and then use those few minutes here and there to revise.”

Christine Liu Perkins, author of At Home in Her Tomb: Lady Dai and the Ancient Chinese Treasures of Mawangdui comments, “When I’m constantly being interrupted, chauffeuring, or sitting in waiting rooms, I brainstorm and pre-write. Wherever I am, I focus on a specific problem for that short session. What points do I want to include in this article? What happens next in the story?”

Compromise

The best organized life can sometimes just get too full. Spiegler, who also teaches college now, cautions against buying into the super-woman myth. “It is almost impossible for me to work at a demanding job and take care of kids and write regularly. The only way I can write is to be teaching something familiar that I can spend less prep time on.”

You can’t do it all, so decide what’s most important. Then look for areas to cut back. Reduce your work hours, or cut commute time with a job closer to home. Commute by bus and write as you ride. Arrange car pools or play dates for your kids. Dictate into a tape recorder as you walk for exercise. Let the housework slide, and make quick meals. Cut back on email, web surfing or TV. Try keeping a journal of your activities for a week to find out just how much time you waste.

Put your family to work as well. Train your kids (or spouse) to do housework and some of the cooking—they’ll learn important skills while you get free time!

When a real crisis intrudes—sick kids, ailing parents, a job change or divorce—you may need to take time off from writing. Just don’t let it drag on forever. Plan how you’ll handle the crisis, and schedule a time to return to writing. In the meantime, read writing magazines or books for a few minutes each week to keep your focus.

How about your time? Where does writing fit in your life?

Decide, and make a commitment to your work. Then repeat this mantra: I am a writer, and writers write.


BanditsPeak150Chris Eboch writes fiction and nonfiction for all ages. In Bandits Peak, a teenage boy meets strangers hiding on the mountains and gets drawn into their crimes, until he risks his life to expose them. The Eyes of Pharaoh is an action-packed mystery set in ancient Egypt. The Genie’s Gift is an Arabian Nights-inspired fantasy adventure. In The Well of Sacrifice, a Mayan girl in ninth-century Guatemala rebels against the High Priest who sacrifices anyone challenging his power. Her writing craft books include You Can Write for Children: How to Write Great Stories, Articles, and Books for Kids and Teenagers and Advanced Plotting.

Learn more at www.chriseboch.com or her Amazon page, or check out her writing tips at her Write Like a Pro! blog. Sign up for her Workshop newsletter for classes and critique offers.

Chris also writes novels of suspense and romance for adults under the name Kris Bock; read excerpts at www.krisbock.com.


This article was originally published in the January 2011 issue of SouthWest Sage and is reprinted here by permission of the author.




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