Christi Craig

May 20, 2015May 20, 2015

I’ve got all day to write…. Um, now what?

This is a magical time of year. I’m done with my day job for the summer, the kids are still in school for the next few weeks, and my calendar is more white space than blocks of color. Ah, free time. I should be a writing fool.

But last fall when I cleared my calendar for a month to finish the novel, I discovered that more time on my hands didn’t translate into more chapters on my hard drive. What happens to me when the calendar sits open for too long is that I fill it with coffee dates, that appointment with the dentist. I clean for the first time in, well…you don’t want to know. I spin, spin, spin until the clock winds down.

More time to write can be just as daunting as no time to write.

So, what to do this time when I’m gifted several days in a row with few, if any, of life’s obligations? Learn from experience and follow the advice of other writers who’ve also learned from experience.

Start with Steve Holt’s article in the most recent issue of Writers Digest. In “Take Your Writing Away,” Holt talks about physically getting away by planning your own writing retreat, which I have done before. But, his tips on making the most of your sacred writing time out of town work just as well when I need to stay close to home. Every inch of his article is worth reading, underlining, and quoting. Today, though, I’ll hit on three of his points that stand out to me most.

“Choose the location carefully.”

“…with as few distractions as possible,” he says. For me, that means leaving the house. I’ve talked before about my challenges with writing at home. While I can tackle some projects in tiny increments in between sideways glances at the dust building up in the corner of the dining room or the laundry growing cold on the couch, I am much more productive with one hour off-site at a busy coffee shop. Give me two hours and I can crank out a significant paragraph or two on the novel (I measure my progress in inches down the page) and do some revisions on a short essay. So, figure out where you write best, block out your calendar, and stake your claim at a table there for as often as you can during the days you have free.

“Be healthful.”

You know what else happens to me when I find time to write? I eat. At that happy, little coffee shop, I feel I must buy a big fat muffin or that huge chocolate chip cookie. It’s like a reflex. In taking up space, I think I should fill up my coffee cup at least twice. Even with creamer–wait, especially with creamer–I’m riding the low end of the “healthy” continuum. Be healthful. I’m still working on this, so if you see me standing at the counter about to place my order, push me in the direction of the fresh fruit or that cup of herbal tea.

“Reflect on your routine.”

Here Holt talks about writing after the fact on “how your schedule is flowing, how the accommodations are working out, notes about each writing session….” For me, this kind of writing happens before I open a draft: what day it is, where I am, how much time I have in front of me. These reflections are more like a release. I not only scratch out any frustrations I just walked away from but also any anxieties I have about delving into chapter 9 or 10 or that 400 word essay I really want to re-submit. But, I think Holt’s point and how I look at it are the same: clear your mind. Examine what works, what doesn’t, and what gets in the way of this writing session or the next.

If Holt’s article were online, I’d say bookmark it. As it is, you will need to get a copy of this month’s Writers Digest to read the article in full–worth every penny, as he also shares a daily schedule that balances writing with other activities, keeping the mind creatively engaged but not overwhelmed.

How do you schedule your free time?

May 13, 2015May 12, 2015

Q&A with Tara Ison, author of REELING THROUGH LIFE

I went away, to have adventures; I’d lived a sheltered, landlocked life, too, and maybe I needed that shock and grope we experience when stripped of our context. What the hell had I experienced? What real experience had I even seen?
~ from REELING THROUGH LIFE: HOW I LEARNED TO LIVE, LOVE AND DIE AT THE MOVIES

It’s the rush of A/C when you walk through the door, the expanse of the screen as it comes into view. Buttered popcorn, the angled seat, the thrill when the lights dim, the images and surround sound that immerse you in the lessons on life–real or imagined. The cinema. Where a great movie will tap into your fears, your hopes, your dreams, and leave you changed. Or, at least entertained.

In REELING THROUGH LIFE: HOW I LEARNED TO LIVE, LOVE, AND DIE AT THE MOVIES, Tara Ison explains that for her, though, movies represent much more than entertainment. Baptized in motion pictures at an early age, she began a relationship with movies that, as she says in her new memoir, “taught me how to light Sabbath candles, how to seduce someone with strawberries. Bulldoze my way past writer’s block. Go a little crazy.”

For Tara Ison, “the movie theatre has been a classroom.”

I’m thrilled to host Tara Ison today, as she talks about her memoir, movies, and writing.

There’s also a giveaway! Drop your name in the comments by Tuesday, May 19th, for a chance to win a copy of REELING THROUGH LIFE, where you’ll read (among other topics) about romance, religion, and Mrs. Robinson.

CC: Your parents began taking you to movies at a very young age. And, not just Disney or G-rated shows, but movies like One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Taxi Driver (at twelve!). I saw Clockwork Orange at the naive age of sixteen and–holy cow–that was of my own accord (and I wasn’t remotely prepared). Was there ever a conversation with your parents later on about growing up under the glow of mature cinema?

TI: Funny you mention A Clockwork Orange – a recent episode of Louie had Louis CK very upset when he found out his teen daughter had watched that at a sleepover! And he tries to explain to his daughter why he feels it was inappropriate at her age, and she just laughs it off.

When I was young my parents didn’t really “debrief” with me after watching these movies – and I wish they had. I think some discussion about my experience of such films – was I confused? frightened? disturbed? – would have helped me process my feelings, given me more context, allowed me to work through and express my thoughts. I asked my father about a year ago, while I was working on this book, if he and my mother ever worried or wondered about the effect on me of such “mature cinema,” as you say, and he was quite surprised by the question – he said No, it never occurred to either of them to wonder about that.

I do think some of their attitude had to do with the times. We’re talking about the late 60s and early 70s, and my parents were part of a far more permissive culture – no rules, no boundaries (or very few!). I’m sure they just thought they were being wonderfully open-minded – and hey, it was also a stunning and revolutionary era of cinema. They probably felt they were exposing me to an important art form….

And I also have to say that I’m glad they erred on the side of “exposing” me to film, books, art, culture – they took me to the theatre, to concerts, encouraged my reading anything I wanted. I do believe that was far more valuable for me than if they had limited my experience – in hindsight, I’m very grateful to them.

CC: In your book, you talk about your experience with movies in the same way other people might discuss religion–as a means to measure ourselves, our success, our level of “normalcy.” Now that you’ve written this book on how art and life come together with such effect, do you still view movies with the same intensity or need?

TI: I do feel the same need, the same desire to immerse myself in story – to escape, be entertained, be illuminated, be able to see myself and my own experience reflected back to me. That need is part of our DNA as humans, and I don’t ever want to lose the joy or richness of that experience.

But I also think – or I’d like to think – I’m a little more aware of the effect, or possible influence, at this point in my life. Especially having written the book – I have more context now for those “life lessons” (how to be a Jew, a drunk, a writer, how to die with style or deal with illness, how to go crazy, how to love, how to have sex…), and I can reflect upon the images or models we’re given with the benefit of actual life experience. I’m more able to sort through where/when I’m measuring myself against a cultural or cinematic “model” vs. what actually feels authentic.

CC: What is your all-time favorite movie that you would watch again and again and why?

TI: I don’t know if this my “all-time favorite” (I don’t think I have one – there are far too many to appreciate…), but I do wish I’d spent some time discussing Paper Moon – that film had a huge impact on me, and I’ll never tire of watching it. It could have fit very nicely in the “How to be Lolita” chapter – I’m the exact same age as Tatum O’Neal, and here is a little girl who has no interest in being pretty or cute or precociously/flirtatiously bratty, she isn’t sexualized at all, she’s smart and independent, and relies on her wits and her own judgment. I can’t think of another little girl character who is granted such agency, is allowed to self-determine and self-define herself with as much equity as the grownup characters surrounding her. Sure, yes, she’s a con artist…but that character is quite a role model, in many ways!

CC: What are you reading these days?

TI: A lot of student work! I’m just finishing up the spring semester, so looking forward to making progress on my summer reading list – looking forward to: Life Drawing, by Robin Black, Gangsterland, by Tod Goldberg, A Solemn Pleasure, by Melissa Pritchard, Scrapper, by Matt Bell, The Daughters, by Adrienne Celt, just to name a few.

CC: As a writer, what piece of advice you turn to often?

TI: Well, to quote from the movies…from the film Julia, when Julia says to childhood friend Lillian Hellman:

Julia: Work hard. Take chances. Be very bold.

I should probably have that tattooed on myself somewhere…

And also from Julia – when Lillian Hellman is complaining about how hard it is to write, and her lover Dashiell Hammet says to her:

Dashiell: Well, if you really can’t write, maybe you should go find a job. Be a waitress. Nobody’ll miss you. If you’re going to cry about it, go stand on a rock. Don’t do it around me. If you can’t write here, go someplace else. Give it up. Work in a drugstore. Be a coalminer. Only just don’t cry about it.

Which I love. Basically: So, it’s hard, yeah. Get over it. Nobody cares. Stop whining. Give it up, or get back to work!

Tara Ison is author of the novels The List (Scribner), A Child out of Alcatraz (Faber & Faber, Inc.), a Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and Rockaway (Counterpoint/Soft Skull Press), which was featured as one of the “Best Books of Summer” in O, The Oprah Magazine, July 2013. Ball, a short story collection will be released this Fall from Counterpoint/Soft Skull Press. More detail can be found at www.taraison.com and www.softskullpress.com.

REMEMBER: leave your name in the comments for a chance to win a copy of REELING THROUGH LIFE!

May 6, 2015May 4, 2015

Guest Post: Mel Miskimen on Things We keep

Last week I finished teaching my Flash Nonfiction course. When I planned the prompts and the assignments, I hadn’t intended to focus on any one theme, but synchronicity often plays a hand in writing. During the four weeks–at different times and under different prompts–each student wrote on things we keep: a box of written confessions, a ball of string, a pencil from years ago unused but somehow symbolic.

Mel Miskimen, my guest today, writes about things she keeps: messages from her mother. Not of the written kind, though. Something even better.

Messages from Mom

Officially my mother had nothing terminal. She had a heart condition that she took pills for. She didn’t have Alzheimer’s, just dementia. Just? According to my WebMD degree, I diagnosed her with Failure To Thrive – impaired physical function, malnutrition, depression, and cognitive impairment. Check. Check. Check and double check.

I hadn’t planned on having a vocal record of her decline, but . . . funny how that worked out. Prior to her hospitalization, I could count on coming home to fourteen messages on my machine, ten from her. I kept some of my mother’s voice messages and made them into a playlist on iTunes. I play them whenever I need . . . you know, something.

I listen to The Cake after a big family get-together, first thing in the morning, when I sit down to write at my computer because that’s the time she would have called and interrupted my writing mojo. It’s an uptempo number. She’s snappy. Sounds like one of those octogenarians who travel in groups and spend hours rehearsing their South Pacific number for the Senior Center Showcase.

Monday. 9:18 a.m.
Hi, Melly, this is mother . . . I just wanted to call and tell you what a great time we had yesterday–it was very special–and the cake was dee-licious! Buh Bye!

I recorded this in August for a co-mingling of my birthday and my father’s when I tackled the time-consuming Sunshine Cake recipe handed down from my grandmother, that my mother used to make but because she hadn’t the stamina to fold the egg whites into the batter, instead of being light and airy, her Sunshine Cakes were dense and stormy.

And then, a couple weeks later, I mentioned to her that I needed help putting in a zipper in my son’s very expensive, low mileage, winter jacket. I really didn’t need help, I just thought it would be something to keep her brain cells chugging along. Putting a zipper in a winter jacket in August was not high on my list of priorities. My mother had a different list and it was all about The Zipper.

Thursday. 10:42 a.m.
Hi, Melly, it’s your Mom . . . come to me–uh–come over here tomorrow and pick me up . . . I’ll show you how to do that zipper! Bye.

Friday. 5:46 p.m.
Hi, Melly, it’s your mother . . . just wondering if you got that zipper in . . . if not . . . I’ll come tomorrow . . . and help you with it. Bye.

Saturday. 12:28 p.m.
Did you get that zipper in? >sigh< Um . . . Call me back, uh . . . when you get a minute . . . Bye.

Was she sitting at her kitchen table, staring out the window, fingering her doilies, waiting, waiting, waiting for me to ring her on the zipper hotline? Why had I been avoiding her calls? Because . . . I was a teensy weensy bit annoyed. Didn’t she have anything better to do than obsess over a damn zipper? Which made me feel guilty because . . . she’s my mother, and someday she might not be here, and then I’d feel even more guilt.

A month later, following her first hospital-rehab stint – she had fallen – tests revealed a shrinking brain due to . . . they couldn’t say. All our brains were shrinking, they said. Such a comfort.

I had come over to spend the afternoon with her and when I walked into the kitchen, she was sitting on the pad of her walker, near the same table that she showed me how to bake, roll out pie dough and cut out a skirt on the bias. She looked dried up, hollow. I was afraid to give her a hug. I didn’t want to break her. The house had that smell that no amount of Glade plug-ins could cover up and that’s when I sort of knew, on a gut level that she was dying. I told her I was worried that she had given up. She assured me she was just tired. The next day she called and left a message. There was a noticeable change in the quality of her voice, a smallness, a slight hoarse vibrato, but still traces of her old self.

Monday. 10:14 a.m.
Hi Melly . . . it’s your mom . . . I’m doing much better today.
Uh . . . I got up . . . I ate my breakfast and . . . I just–I’m doing better. So . . . you don’t have to worry about me–if you were going to worry! . . . don’t worry about me. Bye. Bye.

She had given me the okay not to worry about her but . . . still, I worried about me . . . whether or not I was emotionally prepared for what would happen next.

Wednesday. 2:57 p.m.
Melly, I need your HELP! I bought some stockings for myself . . . those stretch ones, you know? and I can’t get them on my feet . . .they’re too tight . . .we bought a small . . . too small, then we bought a medium, too small, we bought a–we didn’t buy a large–but your father is so impatient, just now he said,’To hell with it! You’re not wearing them!’ So here I am . . . sitting with these things half on and half off . . . call me back . . . please?

Wow. So much packed into a few minutes. My father’s fear-based frustrations, me being her number two go-to person. Helping her get into those compression stockings was – remember that episode of Seinfeld, when Kramer needed Jerry’s help getting into skinny jeans and the more Jerry pulled, the more Kramer slid off the sofa? Yeah, like that.

Her calls dwindled. I missed coming home to her voice messages. I asked her why she didn’t call. “I don’t call?” she said. She went into the hospital right after Easter for surgery to alleviate fluid build up around her shrinking brain. And, it went well. The doctors said we shouldn’t expect a miracle.

Monday. 9:28 p.m.
Melly . . . Where IS your father?!

Boom. No, sing-songy ‘it’s me, your mother,’ no small talk. Her voice was strong. Forceful. Very commanding. Almost demanding.

He said he was coming to pick me up!

I almost start to feel bad for my father, about the dressing down she’s going to give him the next day when he comes to visit her, and then she went off an a riff that I did not expect.

I’m at the airport! Waiting! >click<

The nurses all said it was the drugs and the shock of surgery, but . . . a couple days later guess what? she took her one way flight to the after life, so . . . my opinion . . . I think she was at the airport. Waiting.

Hi, Mom! It’s Mel. Um . . . just calling to say I miss you . . . but, I get it, I know you are in a better place and all, but still . . .oh, and guess what? . . . I finally got around to putting in that zipper. It only took three years! So, come winter, your grandson will be warm. So, don’t worry . . . if you were going to worry . . . don’t worry. Bye!

Mel Miskimen is a regular contributor for More Magazine. She is also a contributing writer for the Huffington Post 50/50. Her break-through essay? I’m Changing My Underpants and the Economy. She’s the past recipient of the Wisconsin Regional Writers award for humor.

Mel lives in a drafty, 120 year old empty nest with her husband of 30 plus years and a black labrador named – the first dog allowed on the furniture, because “That is what happens when the kids leave.” She has written a second book – The Seamus Sessions – a heartwarming, inspiring story of grappling with loss, finding hope and healing with the help of a badly behaved labrador. Visit her website or follow her on Twitter.