I’ve begun dabbling in the world in 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:
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.
I have two short videos for you this time. First of all, I made a book trailer for the novel that I was struggling to sell. Instead of talking about the high points, it emphasizes all the rejections. It requires just one minute of your life! Check it out before you get too annoyed with me and my gratuitous and ineffective use of exclamation marks! (WARNING: This one minute video has two occurrences of a neurotic Jew in his underwear.)
And related to this trailer, I created another “I’m a Failed Writer” episode, this time about the balance between the writing and the marketing of the writing, where I tell my own story about re-balancing things to de-emphasize the marketing and focus again on the writing.
This is a 20-minute presentation I gave during my MFA senior lecture at Antioch University. I originally created it as a coping mechanism for stage fright, but I’ve gotten feedback from people who attended the lecture or watched it online that they found it useful when thinking about their own process of writing, submitting, getting rejected, and eventually getting published. So let me know what you think…
