Hey there! Welcome to my Friday weekly recap, where I talk about how things are going…and if you want to, you can, too!
Here’s what happened this week…
I Started Teaching My Romance Writing Workshop!
Teaching is one of my very favorite things to do! This is a great group of writers and I loved hearing about their projects and plans.
I’m leading a “National Novel Writing Month Prep” session on Tuesday, October 24, so if you’re interested, check that out here! I did this last year and it was a lot of fun.
I Liked the 2004 Movie Garden State, and I Have a Lot of Thoughts!
I didn’t see this when it came out, even though it got fantastic reviews. Zach Braff wrote, directed, and starred in it. There were a couple of jarring poor choices I wished I could edit out, but many scenes were sweet, melancholy, quirky, and uplifting, with great performances from Braff, Natalie Portman, and the fantastic Peter Sarsgaard. Why didn’t Braff write, direct, and star in a slew of movies, I wonder?
Maybe it was because of those poor choices I mentioned…or maybe it was because a while later, there was a lot of disparaging of the so-called Manic Pixie Dream Girl archetype, which the Portman character supposedly embodies. There was this concern about female characters who only existed to uplift sullen males, but I always thought this critique was flawed. Embracing and sharing joy and freedom wherever you can is a creative and enlightened response to an often harsh world.
The Manic Pixie Dream Girl discourse in the late 00s quickly led to widespread bashing of quirky women, real and fictional, in general. Confusingly, this was followed by widespread bashing of “basic,” or not at all quirky, women in the 10s. A few years ago, Bo Burnham’s “White Woman’s Instagram” mocked women for sharing photos of nice things like novels, dogs, lattes, and snowfalls before magnanimously acknowledging that these women actually have meaningful lives. Thanks? It was especially weird coming from a guy whose Instagram is a poorly styled parade of ads and merch. If I had his resources, my Instagram would be a thing of beauty. The finest snowfalls and lattes in the land! 🙂 Anyway, three years prior, College Humor had a way funnier and thoroughly delightful take in “Defender of the Basic.”
The critiques of Manic Pixie Dream Girls, Basic Women, and so on raised the question of whether there was any acceptable way to be a woman. It all looked like a deep and abiding discomfort with women being happy, or even attempting to be happy, period. Things like this just make me all the more determined to be my quirky self and to do what makes me happy every day.
Even though I disliked Burnham’s Instagram piece, I loved his movie Eighth Grade. His comments on social media and the internet here are important and brilliant, and that leads me to my next topic…
I Pondered My Relationship With Twitter/X
I appreciate a lot of people on there, and many of my posts get a lot of traction, but the negativity on the platform has just gotten worse. I think social media is important to my writing career—I just shared social media post ideas for authors—and I’ll probably be on the Twitter/X app until it crashes and burns. But as I said in that post, social media shouldn’t get too overwhelming. I want to draw a big fat X across my terrible habit of checking in on Twitter as often as I do.
I Enjoyed Cozy Hangouts
One of my oldest friends was in town! Over breakfast at a local diner, we had a heartfelt talk about our past work at Hallmark Cards, our families, and the truly amazing idea she has for a book.
My parents came up to visit and we went out for a couple of meals with them and my brother. The big reason Mr. Donovan and I moved from L.A. to the Chicago area was to be closer to family.
I joined a women’s book club recently and the other night we had a non-bookish hangout, doing crafts and drinking hot drinks by the fire. How cozy is that? I loved it, because I’m still on a mission to make a lot of friends in the Chicago area.
I Started Labelling Myself “Author”
For the past year, when people have asked me, “What do you do?” I’ve said, “I’m a freelance book editor.” My husband and I run a book editing business, Lucky Author, and frankly, we need the work.
But this week when I was filling out forms at another dentist’s office, for “occupation,” I wrote, “author.” And when someone at the book club hangout asked what I do, I said, “I’m a novelist. I also do freelance book editing.”
It feels different to say “author” first! It feels amazing, in fact! I am more committed than ever before to my writing dreams, and I feel like big things could happen in the next few years. Watch this space. 🙂
How Was Your Week?
I’d love to hear all about what you’ve been up to or your thoughts about social media, making friends, or what you say when people ask, “What do you do?” And I hope you have a lovely fall weekend!
I loved Natalie Portman’s character in “Garden State”! She was quirky and fun and stole every scene she was in.
Right? I really loved her, too! She had been dealt a tough hand with the epilepsy, and she still found humor and fun wherever she could. Portman did an amazing job.
Thank you. A strong, thoughtful post:
On being an author: My first career involved extensive technical writing, so I was a serious writer, but I called myself an analyst. When I left the field and began writing fiction my wife started calling me a writer. I asked her to wait until I’d actually written something. After several of my short stories were published and my novel THE STARFLOWER was published, I began calling myself an author.
Concerning: “It all looked like a deep and abiding discomfort with women being happy, or even attempting to be happy, period.” I think this is less an attack on women than it is on anyone being happy. Misery loves company, hates happiness, and loves to attack. So depressed men and women wish others to be depressed, and the depressed feel uplifted relatively when that happens. I believe men shake this off easier than women. There is also a general attitude that pessimism is a sign of intelligence—we know how bad the world is because of our deeper understanding—and optimism indicates cluelessness. The well-tested fact that optimists succeed far more often is rejected as delusional.
Hi Keith! Insightful thoughts here! Congratulations on the transition from technical to creative writing, and on your published short stories and The Starflower! That is awesome. I’ve published novels before, but it’s still new for me to put the “author” first. 😀
I think you make a good point about attacks on happy people in general! And yes, if you’re happy, people often assume you’re less intelligent. I also think people assume that if you’re happy, you must not have any problems, which is so ridiculous. You can have problems and still choose to be happy.
Insightful post here! Have a great weekend!
Yes to all that, Keith. As a self-described optimist, I am aware of having to weather the slings and arrows of less joyfully inclined people from time to time – but I’m an optimist, so I don’t take it too personally! Enlightenment and Optimism don’t have to exist on separate planes.
This week I released a brand new essay on lore in fantasy fiction. What it is, why it’s important and how it improves a reader’s experience. I also examined the ways that writers can build their world’s lore. I’m really proud of it!
https://carolynmcbrideauthor.substack.com/p/words-for-wednesday-lore
I also started teaching myself how to make book-trailer style videos to accompany my short fiction!
Carolyn, thanks for sharing the essay! Bookmarking for when I’m done with my meetings today. That sounds so good!
You’ve reminded me how much I love book trailers. I’ve always had other people do them. How are you learning to do it?? I have a Skillshare subscription, so I should probably see if they have anything about it!
Right now, Bryn, I’m just scouring YouTube for videos that’ll teach me how to do it. I have no other resources, so I use what I’ve got. shrug Hope you like the essay!
Well, that does make sense! Honestly, I think one can learn anything from YouTube! 🙂
Oh gosh Garden State! Loved that scene by the fireplace! Good for you for joining a book club! (How did you find it?!)
YES, I loved that scene! I found the book club through Meetup.com. Those groups are hit and miss, in my experience (I suppose like a dating app, haha), but I really like this group. 🙂
Hi, I’m a little confused. I sent you a couple of emails a while ago to which I never got a response. I assumed you were done posting and done with this site. Then suddenly I started getting a lot of posts?
Hi Colleen! Sorry—I was confused by the email. I’ve never stopped posting on this blog. Are you asking because you want to be unsubscribed from the notifications? If you would like to unsubscribe and you aren’t seeing the “unsubscribe” button, let me know and I will take you off the list. 🙂 Have a great weekend!
Actually I was asking because I sent another email wondering if you were available for editing and teaching services, and I never got a response. When I also stopped getting blog posts, I thought maybe you’d stopped all of it due to illness or some other reason. Are you still doing the editing/teaching? Please advise. Thank you, Colleen
Hi Colleen! I am definitely still editing. I’m sorry for the confusion. You can check out our editing website, lucky author.com, and email us at luckyauthor1@gmail.com. We’ll get back to you directly!
I’m still enjoying my interactions on X but so many great people left that it makes me sad. I never turn on notifications, so you might want to try this to stay off it more.
Naomi—exactly, so many good people have left! It makes me sad, too. That’s good advice about keeping notifications turned off! But it’s more a matter of me turning off my own urge to check in 😀 Have a great weekend!
It’s hard to completely let go of X, not because it’s an addiction, but there are some things I do (interactions) which can only be done there. Things for gig work. Fortunately, my timeline doesn’t have a lot of the hate and ugly stuff, so unless I look into trending items, I manage to not have to deal with that stuff.
In most places I do identify my job as an author and a writer, but not on legal forms because of stuff my tax guy advises.
Oh my gosh, yes—gig work is exactly one of the reasons I’m still active on there! And obviously, there are still a LOT of cool people (like you!) I just need to stop getting so engrossed. 🙂 Sounds like you do a great job of that! Ah yeah, that makes sense about the tax guy 🙂
I Started Labelling Myself “Author” — Honestly, for years I’ve only thought of you as “author” first, but also editor! I think I might know what held you back, bc I relate so much. I haven’t published a thing yet… because I’m afraid I’m just not worthy. (Trying really hard to move past that; maybe 2024 will be my year.) I came here looking for your Nano prep (even though I’m late–story of my life) and, anyway, happy sweatering & good NaNoing!