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Wednesday’s Word: On Vacation and Thinking of Cake.

Every Wednesday, on Writing Under Pressure, you’ll find a post based on Today’s Word (from Wordsmith.org). You can find past essays, poems, or flash fiction pieces under the Wednesday’s Word category on the sidebar to the right.

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This week, I’m out of town and mostly unplugged, so I’m taking a break from the usual Word of the Day challenge. But, I’m not ignoring my commitment to post a flash piece.

I dove head first into writing when I signed up for Ariel Gore’s online class over a year and a half ago. During her course, we began each week with a quick write assignment. We were given a prompt – a phrase, a photo, or just one word – and given a limit of seven minutes to free write.

Many of these quick writes, from myself as well as from other writers in class, ended up in an Anthology that we put together and published in July 2009: On the Fly: Stories in Eight Minutes of Less. It’s a great little book that illustrates the kind of powerful writing that can result from letting your mind go and your words fall onto paper.

Below is one of my pieces published in that anthology, one based on the word I pulled out from a word bag: cake. Enjoy, and at the end of this post, check out the links to other sites with word prompts or writing prompts.

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Cake. My Nemesis.

2003: Find out that my son has an egg allergy. Remember that chemistry was never my best subject, but realize the importance of eggs when it comes to making a birthday cake. Wonder how egg substitutes will work. Hold head high and promise to be the best mom ever and make the best birthday cakes of all time.

2004: First attempt at an egg-free birthday cake. Things fall apart. No worries – next year will be better.

2005: The dinosaur cake. Recipe calls for no eggs – perfect. Cake stands eight inches high. Okay, plenty of eats for everyone. Decorations, which play well with the overall monstrosity of cakeness, include small, plastic dinosaurs and palm trees. Dinosaurs are a big hit, but the cake is dry. Cut myself a huge piece and pretend it’s the best ever (then slam 8 ounces of water nonstop, to wash it down).

2006: Block out all memory of cake, too painful to report.

2007: The Transformer cake. Recipe from a box, which calls for three eggs. Proceed with caution. Find a bubbling concoction of baking powder, vinegar, and milk to substitute. Looks good out of the oven, crumbles during icing. Decorations include small Decepticon figure climbing up the corner of the cake that fell apart. No one seems to notice. Disaster averted, this year.

2008: Wave the white flag cake. Recipe from a box, three eggs. Whatever. Find a pre-made substitute that looks like a fine white powder and smells funny, but works better than bubbling concoction from past years. Decide to bake and keep cake in metal 9×13 pan (to make sure the sides hold together). Decorations include a variety of sugary goodness: icing, sprinkles, more icing, and interesting candles. Tape wrapping paper around the outside of the pan in hopes no one will think I’m lazy.

2009: Hear a remake of that old song, Someone left the cake out in the rain. Empathize with woman in song who can’t bear to do it again. Wonder why cake is such a big deal anyway.

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If you love writing prompts, here are a few sites to inspire your best ten minutes of writing:

Wordnik.com: This site offers a “word of the day” and a “random word” option. With “random word,” you can gamble for your word of choice: if you don’t like the first word, click “random” again. And, again. And, then twenty more times (I did when I tried it). But, eventually you’ll have to stop clicking and start writing.

Wordsmith.org: My usual favorite. There’s always a weekly theme and never a dull moment in word choice. Plus, there’s no “random” option. As my son says – in a mocking way at dinner sometimes – “You get what you get, and you don’t throw a fit.”

A recent post from Lisa Rivero, where she lists a host of links to writing prompts and writing exercises.

Take a peek at those sites and punch out your own flash fiction or quick write. Happy Writing!
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A Mother and A Writer

I love writing contests.

If I’m not using the opportunity to tighten up a old story, then I’m off creating something new.

And, once in a while, a contest sharpens my focus; it turns my perspective from outward to in. A contest I recently entered did exactly that. It gave me reason to examine – again – why I continue to write, despite the obstacles in life that could easily sway me.

In celebration of She Writes‘s first year anniversary, E. Victoria Flynn hosted a Mother Writing contest. We were asked to write, in 500 words or less, an essay on being a mother writer. The deadline for the contest came during the early days of summer vacation, and my first thought was: Mother Writer? Impossible. Still, I wrote.

Though I didn’t win the contest, I’ve posted my essay below. And, you can read the lovely winning Mother Writing essay by Diana Duke here.

Nothing was lost by thinking back on my Writerly beginnings: blogging about my children. From those short posts, I moved on to my first writing class, my first published piece, and my first attempts at writing fiction.

Thanks, Victoria, for hosting a contest that put Mother Writers in the limelight and gave me a reason to look inward for my own affirmation.

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The Whole of Me

Mother and Writer. There are days when, like opposing forces, these two sides of me sit miles apart. They each refuse to accept the presence of the other. When I turn to write, I feel the pull of my children; when I go back to my children, I feel an unyielding persuasion to write.

“What’s the point?” I ask myself, exhausted from the struggle of trying to keep both identities in balance. Still, despite my frustration, I refuse to give up on either: as a mother I can’t, as a writer I won’t.

In Negotiating with the Dead: A Writer on Writing, Margaret Atwood lists several reasons that answer the compelling question: why do it? The answers that resonate with me trace my own journey to becoming a Mother Writer.

“To set down the past before it is forgotten.”

As a new mother, I recorded details: of birth, the first day of school, and the first tooth lost. Details alone, though, never conveyed the rise and fall of my emotions. A date stamp would not remind me of the out of body experience I had when my daughter was born. A picture alone wouldn’t express my own anxieties about sending my son to school. And marking the day the tooth finally fell out wouldn’t hint at the number of days prior when repeated negotiations to “let mommy pull the tooth” failed.

I wove details into stories, so that I might remember the power behind each moment.

“To justify my own view of myself and my life, because I couldn’t be ‘a writer’ unless I actually did some writing.”

Writing about life with my children reignited my love of storytelling. I looked back at my stack of old journals and a well-worn spiral notebook filled – when I was fifteen years old – with stories of girl meets boy.

I always wanted to be a writer, and I realized that to become one meant I had to take action. So, I started a blog, I submitted stories to journals, I shared my secret with others. I became a Writer.

“To cope with my depression.”

Lord Byron said, “If I don’t write to empty my mind, I go mad.”

My bouts with depression, though never debilitating, distract me from life. Being a mother pulls me back into the moment. Writing helps me stay there.

“To bear witness….”

To bear witness to my children that in the midst of life, of being whoever we are that day – mother, daughter, wife, sister, friend – we do not have to suppress our creative selves. In fact, embracing my creativity enhances every aspect of my life.

I don’t earn money as a writer or a mother, but each of those daily experiences makes up the whole of who I am.

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*Atwood, Margaret. Negotiating with the Dead: A Writer on Writing. New York: Anchor Books, 2002, p. xx. Print.

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Submit, Submit, Submit

I’m heading into the heat of summer, but not because the mercury is rising.

With two young kids at home, my days quickly fill up with outside activities and play dates. Writing takes the back burner more often than not. So far, I’ve managed to get a little writing done here and there, but pulling all those bits and pieces together into a substantial story takes more time and energy than I have during daylight hours.

So, for a little motivation, I took some time this morning to research a few writing contests, as well as other places that accept either summer or year round submissions. If you, too, face crunched writing times and need one more reason to tighten up that story and practice the art of following guidelines and writing the cover letter, check out these magazines and sites.

If you’re feeling daring…Narrative Magazine is sponsoring their  Spring 2010 Story Contest. The submission fee is $20, the deadline July 31st, and submission guidelines are online (sim subs are okay). Narrative Magazine is a long shot for me, as they tend to publish works from established authors. But, then again, nothing is gained if I never try. I may be crying about that rejection notice later, but today I’m all about optimism.

Another great lit journal is American Short Fiction. American Short Fiction publishes established and lesser-known writers. They are open for submissions now, but they do offer a short story contest in the fall – rewrite and refine that winning story this summer and save it for September. Their fee for regular submissions is only $2, and they do accept simultaneous subs.

The Adirondack Review is hosting their Fulton Prize for Short Fiction. Their fee is $10, deadline July 31st, and sim subs are okay. The Adirondack Review is a quarterly online magazine and publish works from emerging writers.

Rosebud Magazine is a lit magazine edited by Roderick Clark, of Wisconsin. They only accept hard copy manuscripts for essays or fiction, but poetry can be submitted via email. Also, their reading fee is a mere $1. Rosebud was the first place I submitted any of my work, and I received one of the nicest rejection letters ever. Rosebud is not exclusive to publishing only established writers, in fact – to quote Mr. Clark’s Letter from the Editor:

Even in the most humble submissions, I see a hunger for expression in language, the desire to push words out and pull them in. In this new American voice which I find in every envelope I open is a hunger for a literary culture which is neither exclusive nor simplistic…[a] voice which has a genuine chance to evolve and improve itself on the basis of hearing and being heard. It is Rosebud’s purpose to respond to this need.

If you’re new to the art of submissions, Rosebud is a great place to start.

And, if these few literary journals and magazines don’t fit your tastes or your story, check out NewPages.com and Duotrope’s Digest. These two sites provide a long list of literary journals and magazines, complete with submission information. Duotrope’s Digest will even tell you – right in your search – if you’ll get paid for publication.

So, no more excuses (for you or me)! Get to writing, and submit those stories out into the world! To write is to take risks.
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