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Remington Roundup: #Love, #Truth, & a #VeryLargeCat

Woman at typewriter March brings new snow to Wisconsin, a driveway to be shoveled, and (so) a reason for me to get out there in boots and exercise. To warm us up during this final stretch of winter, the March Roundup brings links to love, truth, and a very large cat.

Meow.

#Love

ml-300x211For years, the New York Times has been running a wonderful column on the “joys and tribulations of love.” Now, you can hear actors read chosen essays from the column in a weekly podcast series of Modern Love.

“I have always loved falling.”
~Natalie Lindeman

Here’s a link to the podcast episode of Dakota Fanning reading “The Plunge” by Natalie Lindeman (who, by the way, was seventeen when she was published in Modern Love!).

#Truth

Ellen Urbani, author of LANDFALL (read her Q&A here), has an amazing essay on The Rumpus, “There Is No Such Thing as a True Story,” in which she says “Perspective is a fickle beast, and memory is an unreliable traveling companion through the years.”

“So tell me the truth,” he says. “The whole truth! Don’t leave anything out.”

“Why do you want to know this truth?” I ask.

“Because knowing the truth is the only way to figure out who is lying.”

She writes about the two sides to a story and the strange workings of memory. Go read this if you and someone you know have very different perspectives on a shared experience.

A #VeryLargeCat

I’m cheating here a little with this part of the March roundup, as I’m highlighting a book in print rather than an essay or article online. But if you have kids or you’ve read Katherine Applegate’s THE ONE AND ONLY IVAN (or if you’re keen on cats), you’ll love Applegate’s newest book, CRENSHAW. Crenshaw is a cat. A very big cat. And that’s not the only odd bit about him.

1384631a39c39f20c1f737b5d6ed667cI noticed several weird things about the surfboarding cat. Thing number one: He was a surfboarding cat. Thing number two: He was wearing a T-shirt. It said CAT’S RULE, DOGS DROOL. Thing number three: He was holding a closed umbrella, like he was worried about getting wet. Which, when you think about it, is kind of not the point of surfing.

The cover alone draws me in, and the story is so sweet. I’m reading it with my daughter right now and had to stop myself from turning pages the other evening, it being a school night and all, but I could have swallowed it up in one sitting.

What are you loving this month?

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Dog-Eared Pages on First Drafts

cron“But remember, there’s a huge difference between ‘trying hard’ (which you want to do) and ‘trying to make it perfect from the first word on’ (which is impossible and just might shut you down). The goal [with first drafts] isn’t beautiful writing; it’s to come as close as you can to identifying the underlying story you’re trying to tell.”
~ Lisa Cron in WIRED FOR STORY

Join the conversation (today is the last day to sign up).

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More Fun Than Facebooking Alone

Facebook has its pros and cons. I love all the images people post, the links to news I would otherwise miss. I don’t mind the dogs and cats and memes.

black-and-white-art-berlin-germanyBut it isn’t long before I am drawn into the endless feed and am lost in something like a nail-art video. Me, anything but manicured, sighing wistfully over the shiny faces of Frankenstein and his bride on perfect acrylic canvas.

I can’t help myself. That’s the con.

One aspect of Facebook I really appreciate, though, is the ability to save links & videos I don’t have time for right away (because I am busy watching nail art). One click and those posts are filed away in a select column, so that later on I don’t spend hours fishing through every friend’s status to uncover them again.

Of course, my “saved links” feed has become dangerously full. So today, I’m posting a few of bookmarked favorites because 1) I can’t stand the idea of a good article sitting unattended and 2) sharing is more fun than Facebooking alone.

1. Dinty W. Moore’s My Favorite Essay to Teach: Debra Marquart’s “Hochzeit” on Assay: a Journal of Nonfiction Studies:

Screenshot 2015-10-20 20.17.53“[W]hat I find most fascinating about this 560-word masterpiece is how Marquart captures the very young Debra’s point-of-view. Not just the traditional way, letting us into her thoughts, but even the visuals. We see the wedding the way a child might see it, sitting on the floor, eye-level with the hems and cuffs of the grown-ups. And the character details are based in the reality of childhood….”

Moore includes a link to Marquart’s essay online and highlights a few short passages. But he also gives a brief lesson on one of the aspects of great flash nonfiction: the focus on details.

2. Heather Havrilesky’s Ask Polly: Should I Just Give Up on My Writing? Maybe you saw this one, but it’s worth a second study:

Screenshot 2015-10-20 20.23.40“We wake up very early in the morning, before the sun comes up, and we say to the world: I AM OLD AND I AM A NOBODY AND I LOVE WHAT I DO. You will be just like me someday. If you’re lucky.”

I read this just before I got my copy of Elizabeth Gilbert’s new book, BIG MAGIC, and these two things in tandem were exactly what I needed to lift my writing spirits.

3. From Good Housekeeping: This Incredible Archive Lets You See Depression-Era Photos of Your County.

Screenshot 2015-10-20 20.26.31“all of those images are searchable and sortable online through Photogrammar thanks to Yale. Want to see what New York City looked like during the 1930s? No problem. Curious about your hometown? Hunt away. You can even search by keywords, like ‘boys playing cards’ or ‘woman cleaning.'”

Now this is definitely more fun than Facebooking and perfect for writers of historical fiction.

4. Easy Microwave Fudge. Fine, so artsy manicured nails aren’t the only auto-play video over which I find myself lingering….

What have you bookmarked lately?