Category: Musings

Friday Goodness

Just wanted to share some highlights of this week since I don’t always spout happy happy.

1. Was interviewed for Christine the Teen Librarian’s blog AND she did a very lovely review of INCONVENIENT as well. AND, she’s a Jersey girl. Go Jersey! Check out the review here and interview here.

2. Talked to a writer friend about writing, careers, how out of the loop I am on gossip (!), and how to put the fun back into writing. We talked for 3 hours!! In the end, I felt less like a depressed, anxious, downer and more like a typical writer (uh, which means anxious, depressed, and down, BUT I knew I wasn’t the only writer who felt like this). Yay for solidarity! And contemp lit! And cool people who get it!

3. Last night, I went to the launch of Hawthorne High School’s literary magazine at the great indie bookstore Well Read. Earlier in the year, me, Shari Maurer, and Don Smith had done workshops with these teens about various writing elements and also judged a writing contest. These kids were truly inspiring and reminded me of my early writing years–where it was just me and many writing notebooks and journals, writing poetry and short stories. What’s more, they were so so good, and I was so impressed by what they produced.

4. And I’m getting more ideas for my new YA which is always good!


Happy New Year…and stuff

I’m back from my unannounced blog hiatus with words of wisdom and epiphanies to expound. As I’ve said before, I don’t do New Year’s resolutions because I think the whole concept sets people up for failure. Like you may decide, “My resolution is to exercise 4 days a week.” Awesome. But life happens and you miss a day and then you think, “Well, I missed a day. What’s the point now? May as well have cake.” And there you go–failure. So I don’t make them. Or at least I don’t call them resolutions. I call them goals. Because you can’t fail at your goals. You can keep going after a goal. I started by writing a bunch of goals but I realized they could really be summed up in two big ones. Below are my two for 2011 and beyond (because they are something I work on continuously). What are you yours?

Focus on the positives.

This is something I’ve been working on for years and still have not achieved. It’s too easy to let someone’s negativity weigh me down, and that’s killer–especially in this business. So, instead of focusing on the bookstore who told me he will not stock my book because he only stocks books people are interested in reading (some people are so warm and fuzzy, you just want to hug them, right?), I’ll focus on the awesome places who give me a chance like:

1. This fantastic new bookstore that opened in Hawthorne, NJ. It’s called Well Read and the owner, Bill, and I are working on a program called The Visiting Writer Series where authors will come in and do workshops with high school students. The bookstore is what I envision bookstores to be. It’s super spacious but cozy and there’s coffee, cookies, and wonderful places to sit and read. AND, he sells new and used books. I’ve been dying for a store that sold used books to open up in this area for ages.

Another indie in Tenafly, NJ, called Acorns Bookshop. This store is so charming. You truly need to check it out if you’re in the area. Walking in, reminded me of entering a story book land. And I feel so lucky that the owner is hosting a signing for me this weekend (Saturday, Jan. 8, 12 pm). And she let me run with it and was open to all ideas I had, which is more than I imagined.

The B&N in Paramus, NJ, that has been extremely encouraging and even has my books facing out on the shelves! That gesture alone is worth mentioning because, um, how do people buy new author’s books if they don’t know they’re there?

The Books-A-Million in Paramus, NJ, (obviously, Paramus is just awesome) which brought me in to sign books on a great busy day in 2010 and invited me to come back and sign more in the next few months.

Bookstores supporting new authors is fantastic and I’m so thankful for that!

2. The wonderful schools–holla at Stratford High School, Jonathan Dayton High School, and Tenafly High School–which have been so receptive and supportive of the arts and promoting their students’ passion for writing. Thank you for letting me into your classrooms and allowing me to work with such amazingly talented students. The students’ skills and maturity and their knowledge of what they want to do with their lives truly impressed me. I certainly was not at that place in high school or some of college for that matter. 🙂

3. My sister–who talks about me and my book every chance she gets. Reading IS the best medicine, she tells her patients. Ok, no she doesn’t really say that, but she’s been fantastic about getting me contacts and publicizing my events.

4. My in-laws who mention their book to their friends and their friends who are working to get my name out and give me contacts, my parents who do the same, my husband who I unfairly go off on sometimes but who I realized this weekend is really proud of me and is just looking out for me and wants me to be happy

5. All the fabulous libraries and librarians, especially Kate at Fair Lawn Public Library, who have my book and who have been interested in reading it for their teen book clubs

RELAX AND BE HAPPY FOR SUCCESSES

This one is very hard for me. I don’t relax very well. I used to before I had my son, but not now. Any “relaxing” time I have, is time I spend working on book promo or writing another book. If I truly relax, then I feel guilty that I’m not working. I can’t watch TV like a normal person (which annoys my hubby to no end). I’ll watch with one eye and flip through computer sites with the other. It’s a problem. But something my husband said the other day struck a chord. I was asking him about my career plan and how he thinks things are going, and he said, “I didn’t think it would be like this.” So, in my head I started to get annoyed and decided that he didn’t believe in what I was doing and more stuff like this (meanwhile, he wasn’t saying anything to the contrary so of course I got more annoyed). Then, days later, when we were discussing my desire to teach college (someday very soon hopefully), he said: “If you did that, you’d have another focus. You wouldn’t be obsessing over this book as much. You’d just be happy it was published and looking to your next one and it wouldn’t be EVERYTHING.” So then I hit rewind and thought about the earlier thing he said about it not being like this and realized that he wasn’t being unsupportive. That statement was about how I was feeling. (So, after 7 years of marriage, I’m finally realizing how my hubby communicates and what he means. Well, it’s better than after 20).

Anyway, he’s right. This should be good. I should be happy. Reviews have been good. And I have a book out. That’s pretty cool. So I’m going to really try to just be happy and obsess less. Notice I didn’t say not obsess at all. I mean who are we kidding, that would just not be possible. As my agent pointed out, if I spent my obsessing time on writing, imagine how productive I would be!

Well, I’m off to run on the treadmill. Another goal. Happy 2011!





Deep Thoughts From Yom Kippur

Yom Kippur was this past weekend. For those who don’t know about this Jewish holiday, it’s a time to reflect on the past year, atone for mistakes, and make plans to be a better person in the year ahead. And to make it all more meaningful, you fast and go to synagogue. I’ll be honest. In past years, I reflected a lot. I reflected about how the day before, I had some yummy coffee and a bagel. While I sat in synagogue in the morning, I reflected on the pasta I had for dinner and whether there was any more in the fridge. After synagogue, I thought about how I really needed to focus on changes I could make in my life, how I’d be more spiritual and attend more religious services and–gosh, they always have such delicious pastries after those services and to-die-for Challah and I really hope someone brings that chocolate babka when we break the fast, and–what was I thinking about?

However, this year was different. I did think about coffee because how can you not? But I actually took stock of what I have and what I should be thankful for and what the year ahead holds and how important it is to be positive about the good things we have. I was out for a walk with a friend of mine after my last supper (for the next 24 hours anyway), and we were talking about some issues we have with self-esteem and why we feel the way we do, and I shared some writing things that had been going on last week (that were out of my control), and the conversation went in another direction and to our kids and bad tv and so on. At one point, though, she said, “It’s amazing, isn’t it? You must be so excited. Your book will be out in almost a month and you’re accomplishing what you said you would, what you set out to do. It’s so inspirational to me. You must be so proud.” And I had to think about it. Think about it?! The high school and college me and even the before agent me would have slapped me. And had this been a friend all this stuff was happening to, I would have said, “My gosh, you are amazing. That’s so fantastic!” But to me, I had to stop and think.

And I realized how ridiculous my attitude is and how it’s necessary to change it. I have a lot: a great husband, the opportunity to stay home with my beyond awesome three old boy, a great family who lives super close, a house, and now a book coming out. I’m not going to be all Pollyanna because that’s so not me. But I do need to take stock more, appreciate what I have. And I’m happy to say, I did that all Yom Kippur. I thought of coffee three times, but other than that, I had fun playing with my kid and cats and making fun of my hubby who acted as if he was dying of starvation and giving my head a break from all writing angst.

That night, after Yom Kippur ended, I did catch up on e-mails and plan a bit of my writing schedule for the week, but I was calmer. I think I’ll take stock weekly now–with a strong cup of coffee by my side.

This Crazy Thing Called Life

I know I haven’t posted in over a week so just wanted to update everyone on the Life and Times of Margie G.

So, about two weeks ago, we noticed a leak coming from our ceiling. Was it the AC, the roof, the house fan? What a fun mystery to solve! (Not!) Our landscapers thought they saw a hole in our roof, but the guy I was trying to talk to spoke Spanish and while I took Spanish for five years and knew it well enough to find my friend’s missing umbrella on a college spring break trip to Cancun, years of no use, left me speaking a dialect that was far from Spanish. Therefore, I am not convinced we really understood each other and he knew what I was asking. I think I gave him a good laugh, though.

Anyway, the roofers came and while they found a few tiny spaces that required patches, they found no hole. The ceiling continued to leak. Our carpets continued to get wet. The house began to smell. A lot. Now, those of you with toddlers, know that the house can be filled with a number of smells at any given time so for a while it wasn’t obvious why the house smelled. However, after emptying the trash a number of times and making sure no traces of poopy pull ups remained, the house still stunk.

We called the AC people. They said our AC pan (or something like that) was rusted out. The whole system needed to be replaced. They asked why we were still running the AC. Didn’t we know that’s why it was still leaking? Um, no. And then they said, “Well, the damage is already done so you may as well run it if you need to.” Uh, ok.

Then, the insurance sent someone to assess the damage. They told us something was growing. They covered the whole place in plastic wrap while wearing protective space outfits. Took off a part of our ceiling in the rec room (that part was fine by me because I always hated that ceiling anyway–it has that bumpy popcorn like look), stripped the carpets. Of course there was no air by this point anymore. We had to leave our house. Moved in with my parents. Luckily, Little Guy turned 3 last Saturday so he had a whole bunch of new toys to play with while at my parents’ house.

Eventually, the mold (or whatever it was) was killed and the AC was fixed. But that was all finally finished just yesterday so we’re still at my parents and hoping to move back tomorrow. Hubby was at our place tonight taking out staples from the floor and loose nails and sharp things and putting furniture back.

I was supposed to be finishing copy edits and working on other projects but that hasn’t happened so back to all that by Friday. A few pluses of this whole experience (aside from the loss of that yucky ceiling):

1. Being back at my parents’ house has been nice. We all have gotten more tolerant of each other as we’ve grown older and their advice bothers me far less than it did when I was a teen. I was even able to tell my dad when to back off (very nicely of course) and he didn’t get all huffy.

2. LG has been sleeping much better here. Don’t know what that’s about, but I’ll take it.

3. Speaking of sleeping, the little bed LG sleeps in is upstairs and there’s a pull out in that room but too small for Hubby and me to sleep in comfortably so Hubby has been sleeping downstairs on a big pull out and LG and I have been in a room upstairs. Can I just say I totally get the two bed thing? I think people have two beds to hold a marriage together. No wonder all those couples in those ’50s sitcoms were so happy! I was able to fall asleep without anyone’s snoring leaving me tossing and turning and since LG comes into our bed in the middle of the night and proceeds to toss and turn, kicking us with his feet and draping his legs over Hubby’s face and mine, just him and me in the bed let both of us sleep. I wouldn’t want separate bedrooms on a permanent bases, but I think when Hubby and I need extra sleep our pull out couch will be getting some use. 🙂


How Margie Got Her Groove Back (of the writing kind, that is)

Up until three weeks ago, it seemed that I had completely forgotten my writing process. I had thought I just wrote–nothing more. Sure, I got an idea first and voices and characters, but after that? Just sat and wrote. It wasn’t until I began writing daily (as part of a writing challenge known as YA Frenzy) that I remembered how books come together for me.

How could I not have known, you ask? Well, I wrote INCONVENIENT more than three years ago. I did MANY revisions on it–most done while caring for my son who was an infant at the time. If you are or were a new mama, those early months are a BLUR. I remember writing the book, the feelings I felt when writing it. The process? Not so much.

It’s funny, too, because I have written about the writing process (in the abstract), answered questions about how I write, but none of that sparked any memories. And then I started working consistently on the MG. I wanted to meet daily word count so if I was stuck on a scene, I wrote other scenes in my head. I focused on the plot points I saw vividly–no matter where they fell in the book. Out of order was fine. As I wrote more of the scenes that jumped out at me, I got ideas for the scenes I had trouble with and went back to do those. And then something amazing happened. The book just came together! I began to cut/paste the later scenes to where they would fit chronologically and now the novel is pretty much in order. Then, I wrote a short outline of the chapters I have coming up. It’s at this point that I realized this is exactly how I wrote INCONVENIENT.

Now, I’m close to finishing the first draft of the MG, which is a huge accomplishment because I had this fear/stuckedness/anxiety that I wouldn’t be able to write another book after INC. Every time I began something new, I’d write twenty or so pages and then get bored or just not know how to proceed. Now, I know I can do it. And what made this even better was that I now know why my YA WIP–my CONTRACTED WIP, that’s due in November–was not working. Once I’m done with my MG, I’ll go back to that and work on it in the same way. One scene at a time, random order, putting together the parts of the puzzle that I see clearly.

That’s how I do real puzzles, by the way. Do the corners first? Nope, not for me. I put together the pieces in whatever order I want. If I see a picture, that’s what gets done first. On a playdate once, I was helping my son put together a puzzle, and a mom just stared at what I was doing. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you you’re supposed to do the edges first?” she asked. “Don’t remember,” I said. “But what does it matter if it gets you to the same place?”


Guest Blogging

Thanks for stopping by! Today, I got the chance to guest blog on the fantastic blog of Jessica Leader (www.jessicaleader.com), author of NICE AND MEAN (Simon and Schuster, June 8, 2010). The post is all about mean girls and lessons learned (well, it’s not that profound). Read it, comment, share your own mean girl stories. Check it out  http://jessicaleader.com/blog/2010/04/mean-girl-syndrome. Unfortunately, our blogs seem to be having issues with one another so you’ll have to cut/paste the address, rather than click on it, to see the entry.