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Feb29
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"God, I was so happy, seeing them like that, hearing the laughs and screams, seeing their grins flapping in the wind as they tore around the track. I had to wipe a tear from my eye before they could get off the ride and meet me across the street. Samantha had a huge smile on her face, and her eyes were the size of saucers." That’s a blog entry that Janice Erlbaum wrote in 2005 about her trip to Coney Island with a young runaway. Over the next few months, her troubled relationship with that teenager would change dramatically--an emotional process recorded in Erlbaum's new book, Have You Found Her. Today Erlbaum explains how her stories move from diary to blog to final memoir shape, giving us a glimpse--just like that video--behind her pages. Welcome to my deceptively simple feature, Five Easy Questions. In the spirit of Jack Nicholson’s mad piano player, I run a weekly set of quality conversations with writing pioneers—delivering some practical, unexpected advice about web writing. Jason Boog: On page 225, you have a great scene with Sam and your domestic partner at Coney Island--it's a gorgeous, kinetic scene. Could you just walk us through the process of writing that scene? How did you build it from memory and how did you edit it into this final shape?
Janice Erlbaum:
I originally wrote the Coney Island scene the day after it happened – it’s posted on my blog as an entry called “Coneyworld,” dated August 28, 2005. Continue reading...
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Feb29
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Happy Leap Year! We're sitting here with this extra day that we don't have every year. What are we supposed to do with it? Write. You have one extra day to finish your novel this year, so here are a...
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Feb28
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“That handwriting—careful, shaky, spiky, every letter distinct, straight up and down, like it took hours to etch, and that was with her good hand. The poem was about watching the stars fall from the back of a pickup truck, hitchhiking...
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Feb27
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"I was vindicated. I'd solved even more of the mystery--Nancy Drew and the Case of the Homeless Girl ... 'I'm glad I found out. Knowledge is power, right?' If I only knew what to do with all this power I...
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Feb26
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We were on CBS News today, and not because they found out about the bank we robbed to finance our freelance writing careers.If you follow that link, you can see that The Early Show used some of our six-word memoir...
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“I'm in Washington Square Park wishing I could write a poem, the poem that would help. Poetry doesn't help, money helps. I know I don't believe that. What to do. Observe, observe, observe. It is my new mission to lay...
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Can you spot a bad memoir from 100-yards away? If you are going to be a writer, you need to recognize your bad writing just as quickly your best writing. With that in mind, John Coyne reflects on years of...
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Feb25
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I'm setting a bad example. Over the weekend, I went to a quiet, hilarious dinner party with some close friends. Unfortunately, I’ve been swamped with projects and I didn’t write a single word about this minor, yet entertaining episode from...
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Feb22
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"The restaurant was reduced to a collection of inverted faces, of nudging and whispering as her laughter snowballed...she grabbed the bearded man's plate and smashed it over his head. Yolk slid down his face as he jumped out of the...
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How simple is it to write you novel on the clock? Pete from PeteLit breaks it down. It might seem simple or obvious, but this is the kind of dedication you need to finish that novel burning a hole on...
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Feb21
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That's author Felicia Sullivan reading from her new memoir, The Sky Isn't Visible from Here. While that spooky scene sounds perfectly rehearsed, Sullivan obsessed about the reading for days on her blog and in real life. Most writers are...
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Feb20
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Got a 75-word story to tell? I've got a writing contest for you. Over at LitPark, a McSweeney's writer reveals himself as the mysterious author who writes The Education of Oronte Churm. His interview features a short, short writing contest...
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"SLS is premised on the not-so-novel idea that one's writing can greatly benefit from the keen sense of temporary displacement created by an immersion in a thoroughly foreign culture and street vernacular; that one's removing himself/herself from the routine context...
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Feb19
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Stop telling yourself you can't write your novel because you have a dayjob. That's a video of our special guest Felicia Sullivan, explaining how she managed to write her new memoir The Sky Isn't Visible from Here while working a full-time....
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Sure the Internet makes news faster, but it can also make your journalism better. Over at Idea Lab, Paul Grabowicz (a journalism professor and investigative reporter) just wrote a fascinating essay about how traditional tools of investigative journalism--databases, collected information and...
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Right now, thousands of fledgling writers are staring at their mailboxes. They'll be making one of the hardest decisions of their lives--should I get a creative writing MFA?There is no easy answer, but I've made a hobby of asking published...
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Everybody talks about how great social networking is for writers, but very few people actually know how to make it work. Last week, Larry Smith (founder of Smith Magazine) and Rachel Fershleiser (senior editor at Smith) were my special guests,...
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Feb18
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"Sweaters, acrylic blankets, T-shirts, and dirty socks covered the floral couch. Cobalt glasses with scarlet lipstick prints, overflowing ashtrays bowls of rocks and a deck of playing cards were strewn over the glass coffee table ... Against one wall stood...
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Feb15
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"[I went] begging my way into the homes, offices, favorite cafes, and bars of dozens of people who have been doing this for a while ... One of the many inspiring things about this business is that if you’re someone...
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Got a second? Why not publish your next story?Last weekend I took my Flip videocamera to a book party, and shot a little video project to make my interview feature more exciting. That little camera is changing the way I...
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Feb14
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As my Valentine's Day gift to you, I retrieved an old interview from the dusty archives of The Publishing Spot. Way back in 2006, I interviewed Sam Douglas--an associate editor at Picador.Picador has published critically acclaimed novels like Paul Auster's...
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That web video shows just a few of the happy contributors to the six-word memoir anthology. Writing anthologies and contests are tricky business. Editors comb through vast amounts of submissions, and it's hard to know what they are thinking. Most...
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Feb13
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Over the last 24-hours, we went from bitter cold to slush to cold rain in New York City. Who can write with weather like that? For today's writing wisdom, I went to sunny California, where the LA Times Jacket Copy...
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"We were struck by the openness of the memoirists--and by their desire to share even more of their lives with perfect strangers. People sent us pictures of the adorable children they'd just admitted, in six words, they regretted having. One...
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Feb12
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I just wanted to say welcome to all the Galleycat readers coming through today. It's always cool to meet new people, and this site is only as strong as its readers. Please stay for awhile, and leave your suggestions/special requests/questions...
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Shooting that video at the six-word memoir party, I realized that there's nothing better than making friends with a writer. You end up with somebody to talk about books with, to edit your writing with, and help you find new...
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Don't be scared to write about sex! To help us all, I went to the expert to help us become more comfortable writing about all things sensual. Rachel Kramer Bussel wrote the excellent Lusty Lady sex column at the Village...
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Last week novelist Tony D'Souza stopped by to discuss his new book, The Konkans. This former Peace Corps volunteer and freelance writer has made two visits to The Publishing Spot, and delivered epic essay answers every time. Every week I...
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Feb11
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That's some video I shot over the weekend, just for you. I've been in a cheery mood ever since the Smith Magazine book release party on Saturday. I met people from New Orleans, Los Angeles, and, as my friend observed,...
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How do you get your readers to interact with your writing? That's the 21st Century problem that all fledgling authors face. To help us answer that question, I brought in the experts.This week Larry Smith (founder of Smith Magazine) and...
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Feb 8
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"The harijans up top [of the bus], who neither got to see that girl's incredible breasts, nor understand why they were flying through the air as the driver slammed the brakes at the edge of the ravine, which the bus...
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Feb 7
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Most people are scared to death of talking in public. By the law averages and the fact that lots of shy people to end up writing, most writers are even more scared of reading in public. A couple weeks ago,...
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"I was a creature set among them from the magical world of television. Even after a year, children would sit in a group on the dirt of my courtyard to watch me do the simplest things as though watching television...
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Feb 6
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Okay. So maybe there's not one site that can do all those things, but that would be pretty sweet. Luckily I found four different sites where you can do all that and more... Start by going to Reporterist, a brand...
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Too many fledgling writers treat agents like fairy godmothers, expecting them to change pumpkin novels into princes. That desperation allows too many swindling faux-agents to flourish. Today novelist Tony D'Souza will tell you exactly how an agent can help you...
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Feb 5
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The other day, I was telling my journalism class about the old radio show, I Was a Communist for the FBI. This program juiced up the adventures of Matthew Cvetic, an undercover agent who infiltrated the Communist Party headquarters in...
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"The Peace Corps had constructed a mock Indian village [in Wisconsin], replete with shanties and stocked with educated Indian functionaries they had hired and flown over from Delhi to play the role of the poor and underserved. Acting the part...
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Feb 4
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Two stories caught my eye this busy Monday. Take them home with you and think deeply. But not too deeply. And when you finish thinking about it, check out my brand spanking new interview with novelist Tony D'Souza.First of all,...
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"Maxwell Street at that time was an open-air bazaar of second-hand electronics, knockoff designer shoes, food stalls, junk, and trinkets to rival any great market in the Third World, and the vendors and shoppers came from every corner of it....
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Feb 2
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As everybody, including myself, shuffles off for some weekend Superbowl viewing, I'd like to send you a couple links that will keep you thinking about writing even as the high (dare I say, novelistic) drama of two youthful-looking quarterbacks battling...
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Feb 1
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"I want to feel like we are our own entity, existing in a private universe that nothing and no one else can pierce. That life is all about looking at her, in her, nothing more, nothing less. Without makeup, she...
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What should a book trailer look like?Galleycat has an excellent essay about it here, giving a smart critique of a mystery book trailer by novelist Matt Beynon Rees. I appreciated the fun that this writer had with his video. If you...
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