Wanted: Time to Write

Clocks

Today, you’ll find me over at Heather Cashman’s blog, Better Off Read, talking about time and where to find it.

…[T]ime remains a mystery. I can’t figure out how to tame it, so I try to tackle it — stretch it out or squeeze it in or steal a little of it here and there. When I started up my blog a few years ago, I knew time would be my biggest challenge, so I titled my blog “Writing Under Pressure,” as a reminder to myself of what I was up against, and as a battle cry.
Read more….

It’s funny how the writing world works (hello, alliteration). Just as soon as I sat down to put my thoughts on paper, Twitter went all a flutter with links to posts on other writers searching for time, too.

Do a quick search using “find time to write” on Twitter and…No, wait. Don’t. You should be writing. That’s the whole point of my guest post on Better Off Read. So, when you’re done writing for the day, jump back over here and pretend I’m your Twitter feed:

  • From @NataliaSylv: My results from last week’s #writing experiment: How Much Time Do We Really Need to Write? http://ow.ly/6gSDf #amwriting >> Where Natalia reveals what happens when you devote an entire day to writing. A whole day folks.
  • From @elizabethscraig: Tips for making time for your #writing: http://bit.ly/nS5adm >> Where Mary Carroll Moore guides you through an exercise in assessing your needs and making changes.
  • From @annerallen: Why the Rush to Publish? wp.me/p1cBdi-2l from Nina Badzin >> @NinaBadzin has written several posts on managing Twitter (while not letting it run your life). This post from Nina suggests that Twitter might not be problem after all (ouch).
  • From @LisaRomeo: Getting ready to kick a few you-know-whats next week when *I Should Be Writing* Boot Camp begins. bit.ly/nbeigJ #writing #writer >> Lisa Romeo offers an online class where she (and I quote) will “help you: create the time to write…develop and maintain regular writing routines, deal with writing obstacles….” Bingo.

Time is money, folks, or at least a lot like money. You spend what you earn. So, hop on over to Heather’s blog and tell us how you tackle time.

*photo credit: blue2likeyou on flickr.com

Sometimes the words are just meant for me.

I’ve been sitting and studying the potential of this post for the last two hours. I had all sorts of ideas, inspired by an essay I read from Nathan Evans at Hippocampus Magazine.

You should read it.

He talks about first kisses, and the unexpected effects. And, deep in the middle of his essay is a message about the sweet taste of love.

I thought I’d write about my unexpected firsts, about how love came up on me all quiet and sneaky. And how it still comes, in waves.

But the lines read unfinished.
And raw.
And were maybe a study, in events, meant only for me.

You know?

Sometimes when we write, it’s because we have to see the words fall onto the screen, or onto the paper, in a comprehensible way so that our mind really gets it — whatever “it” is, that critical message we’ve been missing for weeks or months on end.

So, the early drafts of this post were an exercise in listening and understanding, and what the last two hours of writing yielded was a gift: that often, the quiet and profound revelations in life show up in unexpected places, even (and especially) when I’m not paying attention.

Where did your writing take you this week?

Blogs become books. Can a memoir become a sitcom?

Moving to the other side of the cash wrap…felt as disorienting to me as Alice might have felt when she slipped through the mirror into Wonderland, landing unawares in…a world populated by Mad Hatters, rushing rabbits, chatty chess pieces, and enormous mushrooms. ~ Caitlin Kelly in MALLED

Behind the scenes. That’s where Caitlin Kelly takes readers in her memoir Malled: My Unintentional Career in Retail (out April 14, 2011 from Portfolio). Today, I’m hosting Caitlin here to talk about her journey from an essay in the New York Times, to a memoir, to contract talks with CBS.

From Caitlin’s bio:

The book combines her personal story of moving into low-wage customer service at 50; others, mid-career and mid-recession, taking these jobs and a detailed, national analysis of this $4 trillion industry.

A regular contributor to The New York Times since 1990, Kelly has written for USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Glamour, More, and other publications in Canada and Europe. A former reporter for the New York Daily News, Toronto Globe and Mail and Montreal Gazette, she is the winner of a Canadian National Magazine Award (humor), and five journalism fellowships. Born and raised in Canada, she has lived in the U.S. since 1988, and has also lived in England, France and Mexico.

As a bonus, Caitlin is giving away a signed copy of her memoir. At the end of her guest post, leave a comment to be entered into the drawing for a copy of Malled. Random.org will choose the winner on Tuesday, September 6th, at high noon.

 Welcome, Caitlin Kelly

If you’d told me that taking a low-wage job folding T-shirts in a suburban mall would lead to negotiating a contract with CBS on my birthday for a possible sitcom based on my life, I’d have laughed hysterically.

But that’s exactly what’s happened to me since Sept. 25, 2007 when I was hired to work as a part-time sales associate for The North Face at an upscale mall in White Plains, NY. I hadn’t worked a low-wage job since high school, was 50 and heading into a recession.

My own story quickly became just one of many in this ongoing recession. In February 2009, I published an essay in The New York Times business section explaining how moving from journalism – my only industry since graduating college in 1979 – to retail had turned out, then, to be a good choice for me. I liked the clarity of retail’s reported numbers: how much I sold per hour, my average daily sale, what percentage of my merchandise was later returned. In journalism, publishing and blogging, all judgments of value are totally subjective.

By June 2009, I had found an agent who felt confident we could find a publisher to take my memoir of working in the nation’s third-largest industry and single greatest source of new jobs. It wasn’t quite as quick and easy as we’d hoped, with 25 rejections before Portfolio, the business imprint of Penguin, bought it in September 2009.

I continued working in the store for another three months, taking many more notes than before, gathering as much detail, color, anecdote and dialogue as possible. No one at the company knew I was writing a book, and it felt strange to be writing things down while standing at the cash wrap.

I quit the job December 18, 2009 and began to write full-time. By June I was done, although revisions and some restructuring were necessary. Because retail is ever-changing, I read the business press every day, adding as necessary to keep the manuscript timely and up-to-date.

“Malled: My Unintentional Career in Retail” was published April 14, 2011 and received a terrific amount of national attention, with reviews and features in People, Marie-Claire, USA Today, The New York Times, Financial Times and Entertainment Weekly. I also appeared on NPR’s Diane Rehm Show (2 million listeners), Marketplace and The Brian Lehrer Show.

Emails soon started showing up from major entertainment companies expressing interest in it as a vehicle for film or television. I thought they were hoaxes! But by June 6, 2011, my birthday, we had an offer from CBS to option “Malled” as a possible sitcom. They have since commissioned a script. The next steps, I hope, are a pilot and a series; if so, I’m signed on as a story consultant for a few years.

This fairly quick journey from a Times essay to a book to a possible television show is a combination of factors: timing, luck, story, competition, voice and a tough agent. There have only been three other books I’m aware of now on the market that really describe in real time what it’s like to lose a good job, move down the economic ladder and tell the truth about how it feels. I was fortunate enough to find a good agent and an enthusiastic publisher. The book is written as a memoir, but it’s not just my story. I knew from the start that my story alone was insufficient, so it also includes dozens of original interviews with other sales associates nationwide, senior retail executives, Wall Street analysts and others.

One way I managed to get the book produced fairly quickly was – as I also did with my first book, “Blown Away: American Women and Guns” – by hiring researchers. They conducted some of my interviews and gathered statistics.

In the past few weeks, I’ve spoken as the closing keynote at a retail conference in Minneapolis, celebrated the sale of “Malled” to China, where it will be translated, and chatted with the veteran screenwriter who’s now creating his characters, one of them based on me.

It’s all a little surreal, kind of exciting and a lot more fun than folding T-shirts.

~

Entertainment Weekly calls [Malled] “an excellent memoir” and USA Today says “Malled is a bargain, even at full price. Kelly is a first-rate researcher and storyteller.” Original interviews include consultant Paco Underhill, retailer Jack Mitchell and Costco CFO Richard Galanti.

Read more on Caitlin Kelly by visiting her website and her blog, Also, check out another book by Kelly, Blown Away, on American women and guns. Don’t forget to leave a comment, as well, for a chance to win a copy of her memoir.