yuvi zalkow - novelist, failed writer, schmo

I intended this video to be about the way I once organized my whole submission plan for magazines. I had this fancy pants spreadsheet characterizing my every step. But a few minutes into making this video, I realized how much I have changed over the years. Now there’s a wife. There are kids. I don’t have time to fetishize the process. But it’s more than that. I also see how we writers are so compelled to obsess over the accolades we think we deserve before fully maturing our writing chops. And so this video turned into a talk about the need to write. To write a lot.

Without doing a lick of research (or even bothering to read his book), I swiped Malcolm Gladwell’s notion that it takes 10,000 hours to master a particular craft. (Don’t quote me on this!) I just love the idea of that number because it is a damn big number. And I think it is roughly true. It takes a long time for most of us mortals to get good at writing.

And so here is my not-entirely-educated take on it:

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I’m a coward. When faced with a big project – something time consuming, something that will require sacrifices to be made – my instinct is to run away. Fast. No looking back. For that reason, it took me a long time to come around to the point where I (somewhat) enjoy the challenge of a big project. I’m talking about something like writing a novel or being in a long-term relationship. These are things that require work. Day after day. Month after month. Year after year.

The funny thing is that a key method I use to confront these big projects is so simple, so low-tech (so cheap in therapy costs!) that it almost seems like it’s cheating. And here it is:

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Here I tackle a burden that plagues many households every week. I’m talking about the burden of The New Yorker magazine. And the guilt associated with not reading them as thoroughly as you should.

NOTE: No New Yorkers were harmed in the making of this video.

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I’ve begun dabbling in the world of stop-motion animation. What does this mean? This means that I wait for my toddler to take a nap and then I frantically begin playing with his stuffed animals.

My excuse this time for playing with his toys is that I want to talk about writing groups. I’ve been in plenty of writing groups and here is my take on what makes an (in)effective writing group:

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So I’ve finally put together a presentation describing how I make my presentations. It’s a pretty geeky little video that focuses on the tools that I use. I’ve honestly stumbled my way into this video-making process, so it is definitely flawed…

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There’s a saying in the presentation world: “once you need your wife to film you naked for a presentation, you’ve gotten too desperate.” OK. That’s not really a saying… But it should be.

In any case, I hope you find some of this presentation useful. I took the tremendous risk of getting my wife to film me naked for this video (which is risky for both my presentation gig and my marriage) because I wanted to show you many of the ways I try to get a fresh look at my own writing. Let’s see if it pays off…

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Here is my video about failure. I talk about my love affair with failure and how it serves me as a writer. I also reveal a bit too much about my psychoses. And I talk about martinis.

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This is my video tribute to a great talk at SXSW in 2009 between John Gruber and Merlin Mann about obsession and voice. Here is how it has affected me as a neurotic novelist.

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Yuvi’s novel will be available on August 14 and can be pre-ordered today:

• at Amazon.com
• at your local independent bookstore via IndieBound
• at Powell’s Books
• at Barnes & Noble
• from some guy named Billy who hangs out behind the 7-Eleven

Here is the semi-authorized trailer (which includes the creepy author pantsless):

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Here is a video tribute to an incredible 1985 essay about writing and the need for durability by Ted Solotaroff. I apologize in advance for the comparison of the writing life to a bad game of Frogger.

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