Five Paragraphs

October 12, 2011

Stay Friends, Critique Well

It’s not every day that a friend trusts you enough to send you some of their writing for review. If you’ve been put in this privileged position, congratulations – you’ve earned a deep level of trust. Now don’t mess it up!

On first read you’ll most likely get distracted by where your thoughts and feelings are different than the thoughts and feelings of the author. Keep those to yourself. Now, read through a second time to find the parts where there’s a dissipation of difference – where they made a connection with you – and highlight those parts instead. The challenge for the writer is admitting where she’s just like everyone else.

When you start your critique, note the greatest strength first. You’ll want to tell the writer that you see their creative voice so that they trust you when you tell them what’s not working – in the next step. But we’re not just buttering up – we use what we’re good at to compensate for what we struggle with the most.

Next up, be specific about when are where you felt confused when you were reading. Pull out a part, extrapolate for the writer and see if you’re right. The writer will have to refine in order to say what they really mean, even if they slay you with curses under their breath a few times first.

If you think the work needs restructuring, ask questions that will help the writer rethink how they’ve presented material – instead of suggesting specific structural changes. Unless the writer has asked for specific structural changes that is. If that’s the case suggest a few possible ways of approaching the structure instead of explaining what you would do.

Your written response is only your first step. Your writer will likely not want to make the changes you suggest, especially if you’re right on. Offer to read the next version and follow-up till you get the next draft.

Now you’re friends for life.

1 comment

October 11, 2011

Today’s News

Gerard spends Sunday evenings in the tub. The length of time he spends in the bath is equal to the length of time that has passed since he last enjoyed his work: a long time. Tonight, just when he’s lowered himself down into the hot water, complete with bubbles and a glass of port by his side, the phone rings.

Darn it, he thinks, lunging himself back out of the tub with a sigh, the water shallowing out beneath him. By the second ring he wraps a fluffy white towel around his waist and tucks a corner into the top. In three ring he’s bounding toward the phone, leaving wet spots in the shape of feet trailing behind him.

The interruption bothered him less than the listening of his voice on the machine echo through the house when he was in fact at home. You’ve reached the Darkly’s, please leave a message beep. Gerard, Gerard dear are you home, was usually the sound of the voice that followed.

Yahello, he says before the sixth ring.

Mr Gerard Darkly, says a low but robotic sounding voice at the other end of the line.

Speaking, says Gerard.

I’m calling from the St. Methodist Manner hospital. We received a patient to our ER unit tonight at 8:32pm – Jake Darkly. Is this your son?

What happens now is a jumble of things: Notes on the location, instructions on which door to enter through, the name of a doctor. Repeating the details back to the voice on the phone and then hanging up with a beep with receiver nestled back into the cradle. In the next moment he feels an urgency to call out for his wife, for what seems like the first time in years.

2 comments

October 7, 2011

Warning, Fiction tk

I started fiveparagraphs so that I could publish an idea every day. It turns out that it’s hard to do writing when you don’t know exactly what you’re writing about. You spend lots of time reading other people’s blogs about writing and do little writing of your own.

At some point I will transition the writing here to fiction writing. But I’ll keep writing about the craft of writing. And the craft of making things in general – like great installation based performance work.

There are lots of blogs dedicated to the craft of making things though. So in order to offer something different, I’ll write about the cast of characters that sometimes speak up if I wake up early in the morning. When they are unhappy I’ll try to quell their fears, put them at ease on the page and deliver them to you.

I’ll also read or listen to a piece of fiction, a poem and an essay every day; as prescribed by Ray Bradbury. Live in the library, he says. And also: if you complain about how hard it is to write, than do something else.

If you stay with me, I’ll be happy. If I lose you, I understand. But when you’re still here I’m looking to know, with each post whether you think:

Good for you, who cares, save it for therapy?
OR
Fun, thanks, I feel better now and not in a misery loves company kind of way.

Voting functionality to come.

Today’s Ray:
Playboy Interview: Steven Jobs (1985) From Longform

Audio file of Flannery O’Connor reading A Good Man is Hard to Find

The Journey – By Mary Oliver

Leave a comment

October 5, 2011

When you became who you are today

Mattie’s house was better than mine for one simple reason; she had a pool. As adopted summertime family kids, we had our own towels from the house that we’d pin up to dry between the two trees. We’d get beat at Marco polo by the three girls of the house who were on the swim team. When we’d plug our noses and crouch down to see who could stay under the water longest, I’d win.

My house, in comparison, was much quieter. I spent time at my desk looking through prom magazines, evaluating dresses, while on the phone with girlfriends with their own line. My first boyfriend, in the third grade, told me that I should be a psychologist because I was so good at listening.

As a younger girl, I was serious about dress up. Every morning I’d wake up with a story in my head that I wanted to tell. My mom dedicated a small room to props and costumes I’d use to make myself a part of the action.

There’s still a small kid in me that wants to be the star without too much competition. In the world of personality tests, I think I’m an ENFP. But there are skills involved in taking on extroversion that I’m not sure I’ve completely developed.

When I took the Myers Briggs the first time though, after I left my last start-up job, my result was different: INFP. Now I wonder, was the “E” just suppressed and the “I” overemphasized in the years that I became a good kid? Or am I just looking for more E because I want to learn to synchronize swim.

Leave a comment

October 4, 2011

Cool Down, Let Go

In college some friends and I got pulled over for driving around with a busted tail light. “Here, hold this,” said a girl sitting next to me in the back seat of the car, as she handed me a small bunched up bundle wrapped in plastic. Then I let go of her as my friend.

Picture me standing in front of you now, squeezing two hot rocks in the palm of my hands. Ouch, I tell you, I’m in pain. Of course you’re in pain, you say: those rocks you’re holding onto are burning your skin.

I could just put the rocks down, right? Just open up my hands and let them fall to the ground. But how will I know I’m there unless I’m holding onto something that hurts?

If my hands are open and free I’ll think – now I’m not enough. Oh, what’s this here, I’ll say, as I pick up another round black smooth object from the ground? Nice, I’ll think. Heavy. Perfect for holding onto.

I want to be someone who knows a hot rock when I see one. I want to learn to take a look at that hot rock and say – oh you’re hot! And then I want to keep walking.

Leave a comment

September 28, 2011

Life, Temporary?

Today’s project of fancy is: Tina Roth Eisenberg’s tatt.ly, a site that sells kid friendly temporary tattoos for design interested adults. Click around and take your pick: four Popsicles, one half eaten? Small rainbow made to fit on your fingertip? Or, my favorite, a “late” watch – designed as a band that wraps around the wrist – available in multiple colors.

From the looks of it, Tina started by making something that she’d like to buy. Then she asked other people to design more of the same. Last up she set up a nice and simple way for people to buy some for themselves.

The process may not have actually been that easy. There may have been arguments between designers, e-commerce scams, profile troubles and even shipping and handling mishaps. But from what I can tell from the site’s simplicity – there wasn’t much room left for failure.

Part of the magic could be Tina’s already active group of designy friends. She’s not only the creator of Tatt.ly – but also of Creative Mornings, known by designy people as a meeting worth waking up for. Her design studio, studiomates, is based in dumbo and houses a collective of create young people.

Is seems that she’s recently left her client design work behind to develop more of her own products – including TeuxDeux – a friendly looking, free, web based to-do app – with an add on iphone app. What’s more fun than making lists, I ask you? Trying it out is next up on mine.

Leave a comment

September 24, 2011

I’m not scared, are you scared?

There’s no reason to make websites for “men” or for “women” anymore. We used to think advertising was demographically driven, but data from social media has proven us wrong. The best bet to get more women readers is to talk about gender.

The only purpose in making a women’s site is to make fun of what people think of as women sites. We do that as a hook, and then we turn around and write whatever we want. Be careful, we’re tricky like that.

Babies will work too, but not as well. Women take about 15 years of their life to have babies and another sixty to do everything else. We can talk about how to get babies till the end of time but unless you have them or are thinking about having them, babies are boring.

Gender is what we do with our outsides selves to communicate messages about what our internal self wants and needs. We want – love, acceptance, belonging – are eternal longings so we’ll keep changing in our pursuit. All of us use gender, but Lady Gaga does it best.

Print whatever sports and entertainment pieces you want. You can even talk about picking up girls. But if you’re really interested in getting our attention, you’d give yourselves a healthy little self analysis in the process.

Leave a comment

September 22, 2011

Grantland – For Guys with Half a Brain

But just because you’re guys doesn’t mean you don’t also find yourselves curious, to the point of obsession, about Ryan Gosling’s white satin Scorpion jacket in Drive. It’s not like you have anything to hide just because you stay up late at night wondering about the inspiration for the design, the number of jackets used throughout film and whether or not you’ll be able to buy a version for yourself soon. So, if there’s nowhere else that will print smart sports and entertainment commentary for you, you just have to go do it yourselves.

But let’s get one thing as clear as the shape of Elvis Presley’s pompadour – you’re making a guys site. So you’re not going to spend precious dude-filled hours considering whether there should be more than two women on your staff of twenty-six columnists. There’s room for more women writers but why go on an internet bender trying to find them when you already know enough guys that write well. Besides, women write about women things, and it’s not your job to put men in the kitchen wearing aprons and high heels.

You know you’ve lucked out big time by getting Molly Lambert, former editor of thisrecording.com and author of the widely passed along piece on How To Be A Woman In A Boys Club, to play on your team. Who cares if her current stories finger Cindy Crawford as the model of vanity or sends us off to “go home and make love to your man” after watching Sade’s performance at the Staples Center? She’s just Molly being Molly, writing about whatever it is Molly wants to write about, just like any of you on staff do over at Grantland.

Because really. Do guys actually care about what it’s like to be a woman? And you’re not just talking about menstruation, child care or buying the right sized bra – but the extra work we do to confront people’s messed up ideas about what it means to be a women, each and every day? You don’t even need to answer that. You’re just guys, being guys. Hangin’ out. Writing.

Another time though, when your current New Yorker look starts to feel limiting, you’ll hire a female designer. You’ll all go out to lunch and she’ll start talking about her homeschooling hairdresser who left her gambling husband to take her kids on a year long trip to walk across America. You’ll all have a good laugh and a short convo about your own family dysfunctions and your back to the farm dreams. Then you’ll go back to the office and you’ll recruit like mad.

Leave a comment

September 20, 2011

The Working Life

I’ve spent five years managing web projects for other people and another six managing work for myself. Both are difficult paths: The self-employed route requires so much DIY chutzpa that it becomes difficult to focus on what it is that you do best. But having someone else direct your work often means putting aside your priorities and doing your best to understand someone else’s motivations.

It’s hard to feel like you’re getting anywhere when you’re the boss of yourself. There can be so many accomplishments but there’s not much moving up. There are few people other people to direct (unless you get funding) and there are a limited amount of projects you can take on and be involved with at any one time. There’s lots of doing without concrete results and a constant nagging feeling that you may just not be good enough.

There’s nobody else there to tell you to come home after school when all of your other friends are out playing with other friends. Nobody’s going to remind you that the extra coffee break means fifteen last minutes spent researching or editing except you. And there’s no job title to reaffirm your role.

Making time to think about what you’re doing before you start doing becomes more important. Keeping yourself accountable to your long term plans becomes essential. You become a living breathing work in progress and your life and work fuse together in an almost unrecognizable way.

Yet there are countless blogs and books about creating your own path because making your own mistakes can be so rewarding. When you’re on your own and you mess up, you can just pick yourself back up and try again. Because even when things get bad, you’re probably not going to fire yourself.

Leave a comment

September 19, 2011

Have Guts, Show Yourself

If you’ve ever taken a writing workshop you’ll know it’s like having strangers tear your ego apart. And by ego I mean that thing that you carry around with you like a heavy cloak on your arm – ready to duck behind at any moment. Or maybe it’s over your shoulders, like mine is – hiding most of what I think of as unbearable for others to see.

The first fifteen pages I submitted was what I thought of as writing. There were complicated phrases and long passages – all of which added up to a few moody characters that I had become attached to over time. Once I showed them to my fellow workshop participants, I thought differently.

Getting ripped up by a bunch of strangers is as difficult as it sounds. Still, after the first critique I felt exhilarated. I had shown some people I didn’t know more than I had shown some people I had known my whole life. I owed them a revision, one that made the best use of their comments – or I’d be stuck with some shredded up pieces of wool standing in for a shawl covering well into the winter

So I spent a week or two replacing most of what I thought was good about my writing with new writing. Instead of being writerly I tried being readerly – talking more to myself and the people in my workshop – then some wide audience I hoped would someday read a book that wasn’t even written. The results were much better.

I am starting to see that writing is a constant practice of removing everything you thought was worthwhile and revealing everything you’re sure is not. People liked the writing better because my desire to show myself came through. But now that I have this new outer layer that’s silky and flowery, with a nice neckline and a modest waist, can’t I just stay covered?

Leave a comment

Follow “Five Paragraphs”