Prompt -- Mind Games

1.   There is a magic talisman that allows its keeper to read minds. It falls into the hands of an ambitious politician…

 MIND GAMES

The cat by the toaster purred so loudly that Marcie couldn’t think. Stirring her tea, she left the kitchen and stepped out onto hotel balcony, looking at the sunrise over the Hilton parking lot below. She might be in Indiana, or Illinois or Iowa … some “I” state, anyway. She’d lost track of all time or place on the campaign trail. Her family was far away, having breakfast in Kalamazoo, Mich., and the only constants in her life these days were her immediate staff and one spoiled Maine Coon cat.

Actually, Tom had wanted to join her on the campaign trail, but 3-year-old Tilly had been feverish, and her husband hated politics anyway. He’d wanted to take Tilly to his parents’ farm north of Detroit, but her campaign strategist loved the name Kalamazoo, its goofy, small-town vibe and worked it in whenever possible that Marcie’s family was at their home in Kalamazoo, Mich.

Tom had sent her a present, though. The package lay on the kitchen counter and she hadn’t seen it until she poured her tea. Tom loved old things; their Michigan home was overflowing with rickety furniture and faded photographs, none of the usual politician furnishings with the fresh flowers on the mantle. Their mantle was crowded with old clocks, each keeping slightly different time and ticking in its own flamboyant, stubborn way. Her aide Fred, the one who loved the name Kalamazoo, also loved the clocks.

“You don’t think it makes me look like a batty eccentric?” Marcie had asked. She was 43 now, and never would have asked that question even five years before. Women aged quickly in politics and the public would never believe the clocks were Tom’s.

“No, the clocks are good, they make you look warm and homey,” Fred said. “Clocks are big in Pottery Barn catalogs.”

Fred loved Pottery Barn catalogs; privately he wanted to make her the “Pottery Barn candidate” without anybody but the two of them actually saying it. Marcie was steeped in science, with degrees in chemistry and astronomy, and anything Pottery Barn, Fred felt, brought her down to earth.

Well, Marcie thought, then Fred will love Tom’s latest gift. It was a small clock on a golden chain, lovely, really, delicate. She could hear the soft ticking as she held small gold disc up to her ear, a low, motorized purr like the cat’s. She’d have to tuck it under her clothes so Fred wouldn’t see it. He’d either pronounce it all wrong and never allow her to wear it, or he’d love it and she’d never be able to take it off. A man of extremes, that was Fred.

She pulled her reading glasses out of her pocket, the ones she never could wear around Fred, and looked at the clock more closely. Odd. Instead of numbers, there were four arrows: up, down, left or right. Great, she thought. Only Tom would send me a clock that couldn’t tell the time. Since putting it on, though, she’d felt a low hum, almost like words she couldn’t quite hear. Then, one word rang out: her own name, and the phrase “… better be up.”

The knock on the door startled her so badly she dropped the clock on the balcony floor and hastily picked it up and strung it around the neck. It was Fred, of course, she knew his knock, and she hurried into the room and to the door, tucking the clock inside her Silk Blouse of the Day. Marcie wore nothing but suits and silk blouses these days; her staff delivered racks of them wherever they went, all with labeled boxes of shoes and accessories and whisper-thin stockings that kept that secret that her legs weren’t perfect.

“That damn cat needs to go,” she heard Fred say as she opened the door. Marcie was surprised, Fred never spoke to her in the morning without an elaborate greeting.

“What’s wrong with Mr. Boo Boo?” she asked. Tilly had named the cat, when they found it abandoned in their yard with a bleeding ear and nose, and they all just had to live with it now.

Fred looked startled. “Why, nothing. Good Morning, Dr. Powers and future Madam President.” That was how Fred always greeted Marcie. He believed in positive visualizing and beginning the day with the proper internal identity. “I mean, is the animal all right?”

“He’s fine.” Marcie turned her back and tucked her reading glasses into her “man bag” like a guilty child. She was forbidden to wear anything with pockets or carry a purse. Items in pockets created bulges and purses were too “Queen Elizabeth.” Nothing like comparisons to an 80-year-old great-grandma to make you feel good about yourself. She was only 43 for chrissake. Anyway, that meant her personal aides had to carry a small briefcase around for her constant access, like walking purse holders, except it couldn’t be a purse because all her aides were men. So Fred had procured a small but manly bag that aides took turns carrying. Marcie called it her man bag and she knew that her aides played constant games to determine the loser who had to carry it.

“Why do you always have to have that damn bag?” Fred asked.

“What?” Marcy spun and stared at her aide. This was very strange behavior from Fred. He never swore and now twice in five minutes? Was he going senile like those sweet little old ladies with dementia who started cursing like sailors? Fred was 55, thin and slightly grizzled and got to wear his reading glasses in a jacket pocket like a normal person. Marcie sometimes called him her Cassius, with his lean and hungry look.

“I need this bag,” she snapped.

“Of course you do, Dr. Powers,” Fred said. The funniest look came over his face and he shook his head.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“Tip-top,” he said, pulling out his phone. “It’s 6:43.”

That meant nothing to Marcie, who never knew where she was going or what she was doing or when she needed to be there. Fred had arranged her wakeup call, and she always popped up right away, no matter how tired she was, so she would have a minute or two to herself before the day began. She zipped up the bag and handed it to Fred.

“Shit, I have to carry this,” he said, which was true, it was just them and Mr. Boo Boo.

“Well, you won’t let me carry anything,” Marcie pointed out, shrugging on her jacket and buttoning it up. Fred was apparently cracking under the strain and she decided to play along. She actually liked the swearing, it reminded her of Tom. Of course, Fred looked nothing like Tom, who’d been a football quarterback in college and still maintained his broad, intimidating figure. Plus, Tom had never worn that startled deer look that Fred was wearing now. Her aide opened his mouth, shut it again, and meekly took the bag.

“Donor breakfast with entrepreneur Vinlas Morgan at 7; meet and greet with Girl Scout president at 7:30, staff meeting at 7:45, photo op with celebrity chef Colette Caramel at 8:15 …”

“Why are you telling me this?” Marcie asked as she crossed to pet Mr. Boo Boo goodbye. She never liked knowing her schedule ahead of time; it was too depressing. She and her staff went over the day’s, week’s and month’s priorities every evening and the schedule reflected that. The schedule was the execution and she didn’t need the execution in her head.

“Telling you what, doctor?” Fred asked, hitching the bag on his shoulder and opening the door for her.

“I don’t need to know what I’m doing at 8:15, she said.”

“I didn’t say anything,” Fred protested.

“But you …” Now Marcie opened her mouth and closed it again. She was still hearing the schedule in her mind, in Fred’s voice, on a relentless loop: “luncheon with Indiana Patriots for Safe Streets at noon, national security briefing at 12:45 …” but Fred’s mouth wasn’t moving, he was just looking at her with concern now, as the voice churned on. “Stop it!” she snapped at him.

“Doctor?” He stared at her baffled, the droning schedule suddenly halted. “Are you all right?”

His mouth definitely moved that time. “I’m fine,” she said carefully, watching him closely.

He nodded and turned to lead her down the hall and she could hear, muted now, the schedule starting up again: “Presentation of donor campaign pins at 3:05 …”

She followed, her head spinning. He wasn’t saying the schedule out loud, but it was his voice. “Fred?” she asked.

He turned and looked at her calmly, mouth closed, but she clearly heard his voice say, “What the hell is it now?”

“What were you thinking about just now?”

“Great, you sound like my goddamn wife,” said his voice, but his mouth didn’t move. Then it did. “Just running through today’s schedule, Dr. Powers.”

“You were thinking about my schedule,” she said.

He nodded. “Of course,” he answered and turned to walk again. “Crazy bitch this morning.”

“Fred!” she cried, outraged. Her aide turned and stared at her. “Did you call me …” She stopped. Of course he hadn’t. In the 20 years they’d known each other, he’d never sworn in her presence. Either he was cracking up or she was.

“Dr. Powers?” he asked.

“Nothing, go ahead,” she said, purposefully slowing her pace. The droning schedule resumed, but she noticed that the further Fred strode down the hall, the man bag bouncing, the softer the voice grew.

Then she heard another voice, behind her, a deeper voice:

“STARGAZER approaching elevator, clean sweep, only IRONMAN ahead …”

Marcie turned to see her Secret Service agent, Dan, looming up behind her. Usually he was a silent, bulky presence with empty eyes, why was he muttering under his breath all of a sudden?

“IRONMAN?” she asked him. “Is that Fred?”

“Yes ma’am,” Dan said crisply.

“It must be the muscles,” she said mischievously. Fred’s scrawny arms had no muscles to speak of.

“Golf, ma’am,” Dan said.

Ah, that made sense. Fred was an obsessive golf player, always jamming with other aides about nine-irons and drivers and titanium clubheads. A clever Secret Service name, and likely a gentle dig, too.

IRONMAN was waiting at the elevator. “Christ, it’s almost 7,” he said. “She must be there precisely on the dot, not early – she must be in control – but not late, he’ll take exception.”

“Who?” Marcie asked.

“Vinlas Morgan, founder of Planful.com. He’s considering a big contribution, but wants to hear your stance on net neutrality and the level of regulation in the web service economy.”

The elevator door opened and Marcie, Fred and Dan slipped inside. Dan was counting, low, under his breath. Why was he doing that? But she couldn’t ask, because Fred was still talking about Morgan.

“What’s Planter.com?” she asked

“Come on, get it into your head,” Fred said. “Planful.com provides time management experts to plan your day for you, set priorities and …”

Marcie blinked. Something was definitely up with Fred. He was never rude.

The elevator door opened to a gaggle of reporters and Marcie staggered back, overwhelmed by the screaming voices in her head.

Goals and Priorities and Bears, Oh My!

“Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work.” Peter Drucker

The first thing when starting a new endeavor is to set goals and priorities. Now that I’m actually sitting in this space, with the freeway humming outside my window and Snapple chilling in the fridge, I have to think about what I want to accomplish here. I can't just sit at the desk and mutter dementedly. I can do that at home.


Here are some neat thoughts on the importance of planning.

MY WRITING GOALS

STEP A
List your top priorities for the coming quarter. What three things to you want to have accomplished three months from now? Is there a conference you want to present at? A proposal you want to win? A deal you want to close?

Name those three accomplishments and list them as your priority this week.

I have three major goals for the next five months, which will take me through the rest of this quarter and through the second quarter. My writing year begins Jan. 1, so the first half ends June 30.  You could argue that June will be kind of a wash, since I’ll be traveling so much, but I can still work on my writing priorities even if I’m spending little time in the studio.

My three major goals for first half 2015 are blogging, memoir and short pieces/stories.


GOAL ONE: Blogging

Post in my Stealth Life blog, Killer Robots blog and California Dreaming blog at least three times a week. I hope to do it every day, but let’s start with three days a week.

GOAL TWO: Memoir

Finish this memoir by June 30. No matter how ridiculous, out-of-date and Frankenstein’s Monster this memoir turns out to be, I will NOT go through another summer without finishing it.

GOAL THREE: Short pieces/stories

I can’t commit to writing another novel until I finish that damn memoir (see above), but I want to keep my fiction muscle working. So I will write short writing prompts and stories. I can work on my mind-reading politician story, but only as a daily writing prompt.

STEP B
List three tangible steps you can take on each top priority to move it toward completion.
If your thoughts run toward the mathematical, you’ll know that having three tasks for three priorities means that you’ve just created nine separate goals for each week. That could sound as if you’re creating work for yourself rather than lessening it. But there’s a reason we’re breaking work down this way, which you will see in section #3.

Blogging three times a week
- Write life blog post for Stealth Life, then revamp it for California Dreaming
- Write writing blog post for Stealth Life, then maybe revamp it for Killer Robots
- Always look for art to accompany it

Finish Memoir
- read through current draft
- plan out how will structure rest of memoir
- read Anne Lamott’s “picture frame” advice when you get scared and try to write a little piece at a time.

Write short pieces/stories
- write at least 1,000 words every day
- Flag prompts that could be developed further
- Write and edit short stories



STEP C
Commit at least two hours on studio days and one hour on newsroom days to your priorities. Newsroom days should at minimum include a 1,000-word writing prompt. If you have time left over, write a blog post, edit a story or do a one-inch picture frame on memoir. 


STEP D
Ask yourself at the start of your writing time, “How will I accomplish this?” Take the direct and precise action that will achieve your goal.

Be specific in your tasks. Rather than “work on funding for next year’s workshop,” instead, work out the steps you need to take to get funding, such as finding sponsors and getting a grant.

Tasks include scheduling a meeting with best sponsorship lead, telling him or her the latest good news about your project, with a request for a meeting; specifying the sponsorship you’re seeking in writing; and completing at least one section of the grant proposal.

Each phone call you make, each page of the proposal you’ve written, is a strike-through on your long list of tasks—a list that is now becoming shorter.

We Have a Writing Studio!

Yes, it's true.  For years my writing space has been a card table in the corner of my bedroom and I thought the only way to change that was to get a bigger apartment. But  San Francisco has overtaken New York as the most expensive housing rental market, with one bedrooms averaging more than $3,000 a month. That means my family and I will stay in our tiny, rent-controlled space at two-thirds the market rate.

For months my writing partner and I have been meeting in cafes twice a week to write, which has worked well enough (it has kept us writing regularly), but it started to pall. I couldn't afford $8 sandwiches and $3 cups of tea, and often we were shoehorned around a tiny desk with our open laptops shoved back-to-back like two warriors surrounded by a ring of enemies. Then I got a $70 parking ticket for exceeding the two-hour limit, which really frosted my flakes.

So Writing Partner and I started talking about getting our own space, a place where we could commute to like a job. Away from the distractions of home or loud cell-phone talkers and coffee-grinders, we would be more productive. Unfortunately the co-working spaces in San Francisco cater to the tech entrepreneur crowd. These "disrupters" apparently require exposed brick, giant whiteboards, hardwood floors, wired conference rooms, micro-roasted coffee and investors on parade to execute their strategies. All that synergy doesn't come cheap, and at $500 a month for a single lousy desk, such places were way out of our price range.

But my Muse was looking out for me. Maybe she was sick of being squashed into a corner table at Starbucks, too. I found a place on Craigslist, a little painting/office space for $500 a month. It was a wretched little garrett with a single, ground-level window, but we saw the potential. We could paint over the black ceilings and walls, hide that nasty cinderblock corner, cover the pitted concrete floor. Which is exactly what we did, and now we have a tiny studio that I'm beginning to love dearly.

So, here I am: Saturday, February 21, 2015, at 4:15 p.m., typing this in my studio. I’ve had writing spaces before, occasionally whole rooms, but I never had a place outside my home that was just for writing. I feel like I’m starting a new job, which, in effect, was exactly what I was going for. Get in the car or on the bus, travel to the studio, work, then come home. I’ve never had such a clear delineation between writing and home life. I can hear the low, steady hum of the freeway, occasional chatter outside on the street, but I can’t see anything but a patch of blue sky through the white latticework.

It also helps that this place is way cute now. When picking the colors, we wanted bright and energetic rather than subdued and tasteful. This is a creative space, not a serious study. It has a purple door, blue-and-white-striped walls and a pale green panel. Writing Partner has added a gauzy white curtain with drawings of birds and three potted plants. We each have our individual corner.

My corner is pretty sparse for now, which is okay. Just a card table, a chair inherited from the studio’s previous inhabitants and some files in a plastic box. I'm a little underwater with the money right now and I don’t need to spend a bunch. Maybe in a few weeks I can buy a desk. This chair is surprisingly comfortable.

So, it feels like a new job, and in a way it is. I have hired myself to be writer. Here is my office. How do I begin?

We'll see.

How I Started Chapter Five by Freaking Out

I need to write Chapter 5: Recessions I Have Known, but I'm scared. I’ve done everything but write in the last 40 minutes. I’ve posted on Facebook, changed my Apple password, bought a Seal album, helped Benny create a birthday card. And now I'm at my desk again. It's scary.

Who does stuff like this? Who sets their lives against the economy, who strings together the major events of their lives using recessions like fat beads on a string that winds and knots? I’m going to tangle this up.

I’m feeling some pressure. I want to send this out in September. Chapter Five was supposed to be a light revision and now it's a whole new chapter, possibly one of the most important chapters in the book.

 I’m trying to remember everything; the events, the memories, the history, the personalities. I’m having trouble focusing. I'm hyperventilating. It’s 10:52 and I’ve done nothing. I can’t stop thinking about the other things I need to do. I’m in a panic. How do I start a chapter about recessions? I'm in a panic. 

I'm in a panic.

Panic: a a sudden sensation of fear so strong as to dominate or prevent reason, replacing it with anxiety. A Greek word from the shepherd god Pan, who liked to frighten goats and sheep.

It’s also an old-fashioned word for a financial crisis, like the panics of 1857, 1873 and 1907. All triggered by worries over gold, silver or copper. Panic. All the goats and sheep scattered.

I'm trying to write about the 1973-75 recession. But it wasn't a recession, it was a Panic. 

Yay! I'm on my way! An hour later, I'm still typing madly.

There's got to be an easier way to do this.

Beaten and battered, but still fighting.

Journalism and publishing are two very different industries, and the differences go far beyond the whole double-spacing-after-a-period thing.

Journalists work in a fast-paced environment and our jargon reflects this: scoops, headlines, cutlines, pull quotes, banners, leads (or leads), deadlines ... see all those verbs? We scoop, we cut, we pull, we lead and then we drop dead.

If journalism’s time reference is quick and human, publishing’s time frame is more … geologic. An epoch can give way to an era between a book’s conception and publication. At last month’s Pacific Northwest Writers Association’s conference, we were “authors” not “reporters” who wrote “manuscripts” not “copy” to be “published” not “printed.” The jargon was more sedate: advance, slush, pitch, royalty, galley.

But despite these differences, the two industries face similar challenges these days, a clash between the old and the new, as traditional professionals fight to be heard above online newcomers. In journalism, these newcomers are called bloggers or “citizen journalists,” the latter embraced by online newspapers as a cheaper, faster way to get content.  In publishing, those new guys and gals are self-published authors.

In traditional journalism not so long ago, a story was pitched to an editor, the editor followed up on the story’s progress,  the story was submitted and edited, then copy edited, then proofed. Then and only then did the story go public. Errors and typos still slipped through, but the process worked to create the most professional result possible. Ideally, the finished result would be a professionally produced work, the product of a group collaboration, not one single mind, no matter how talented.

Similarly in publishing, for a book to hit the shelves, the writer pitches an agent who sells the project to a publisher. A whole table of people vet this acquisition: editors, marketers, production staff, publicists … they all have to sign off on it. Again, the final product, while not perfect, is professionally produced, the result of a group of talented minds.

Furthermore, both journalists and book writers have a formal apprenticeship, years of writing before you get the plum assignments or the book contracts.

The Internet has changed all this, of course. Now traditional newspaper writers compete with bloggers and “citizen journalists.” Traditional book authors compete with self-published authors. These nontraditional writers often display great creativity and talent and are formidable competitors not to be underestimated.

But with the barriers to entry in both industries partly dismantled, readers are flooded with books and articles in various stages of professional development. It can be difficult for readers to distinguish between a professionally sourced news story and an amateur blog post. Book readers surfing on Amazon’s wave of titles may lump together the professionally agented, edited, marketed and designed books and their self-published counterparts.

At the PNWA conference,  I repeatedly heard speakers say today’s books have to “break through the noise.” I hear this phrase in online journalism too. So the question for both journalists and book writers becomes, how do we uphold the traditional standards of  our industry while still innovating and accepting change?

One thing is for sure, looking down our noses at self-published authors and citizen journalists may make us feel better but won’t help anyone. My newspaper recently wrote about San Francisco International Airport’s crackdown on those newfangled ridesharing companies. In an effort to protect the taxi drivers who take passengers to and from the airport, SFO has conducted citizen’s arrests of Lyft and Uber drivers for trespassing.

Well, as a taxi passenger who has waited an hour for a taxi, endured baffling, circuitous routes to my destination or has had to scrape up cash because the taxi driver’s credit card reader was mysteriously broken, I say the traditional taxi industry in San Francisco has left a gaping customer service hole large enough to drive a gleaming, black Uber car through. Ridesharing companies are filling a need, or they wouldn’t be so successful, and taxi companies ignore this at their peril.

Traditional journalists and book writers can’t be like those taxi drivers. We can’t close ranks against the newcomers. They are now part of our culture and our dialogue. I believe in traditional publishing; I choose to prepare my memoir for agents. But I believe in self-publishing too, although it is not for me.

There is one word I don’t hear much of in either the journalism or publishing industries, probably because it was so self-evident. That word is “risk.” My newspaper is currently making enormous changes and taking huge risks. Publishers take big risks every time they acquire a book.

Bloggers, citizen journalists and self-published authors are considered the risk takers these days. But as bookstores and newspaper stands close every day while my own articles and book manuscript inch along the longer path to readers, today’s traditional journalists and book authors remain the biggest risk takers of all.

PNWA Conference: Killer Robot tips

Well, I'm back from the Pacific Northwest Writers Association conference in Seattle. I've been to exactly one writer's conference now in my adult life, so of course that makes me an expert.

So here are the Killer Robot's Top 10 Tips to a Successful Writing Conference:

1. Fly in the night before the event begins.

Everybody is boring the first two hours after they get off the plane. I could immediately spot the folks who flew in Thursday morning, staggering around all haggard in wrinkled clothes. I met a nice man that day with an undoubtedly fascinating novel, but he'll forever live in my mind as "The Guy Who Spent 40 Minutes on the Tarmac."

2. Want to make friends? Drop your registration packet while standing in line for pitch session registration. With any luck, you'll scatter the detritus at the feet of the host organization's president. It worked for me, although I lost two pens and an event ticket.

3. Don't wear a bright color or a vivid pattern on the first day. I met a woman who's writing a paranormal romance with pirates. Unfortunately, she was wearing a lurid orange shirt on the first day and I never caught her name or memorized her features. I never found her again.

4. For the love of God, figure out what to do with your business cards. First I had a special pocket, then I tried a special baggie, then I wrapped a rubber band around them. Finally I used my brain and stuffed a bunch into my name badge — problem solved. Then I could look on smugly while new friends ransacked their pockets and bags looking for cards to give me.

5. Linger after sessions. This is how I nabbed three of the four agents I pitched before my official pitching session. It's slightly more dignified than pouncing on agents on the elevator or in the bar. Plus you get to eavesdrop on the people in line in front of you.

6. This is a trick from my days covering board meetings as a reporter:

Draw a little map of panel participants first thing. That way, when the Question and Answer starts, you know who said what.

7. Never abandon a muffin to get to a session on time. You’ll end up surreptitiously crunching peanut M&Ms from the bottom of your purse at 8 in the morning just to survive the 90-minute session. Crinkly candy wrappers can be very loud in a hushed conference room.

8. Crash different genres at the Writer’s Café, where there’s a Memoir table, a Romance table, a Literary Fiction table, etc. I always like to know what’s going on in the galaxy at the Science Fiction table. Gene manipulation and artificial intelligence are apparently very hot this year.

9. The plot of your book should be a closely guarded secret. Plots take forever to spin out, and pretty soon people’s eyes start glazing over. If you start describing the climax of your book, and a certain person named Christine goes off to get another drink and look at the appetizer menu and she gets back and you’re still in the climax, it’s time to tighten up your book pitch.

10. If an agent you’ve pitched says “Fine, send me something” or better yet, gives you his or her card, this is your cue to disappear. I’d read this advice already from the fabulous Anne Mini, but that didn’t stop me from babbling some more to the first agent I pitched. Some people just can’t take yes for an answer!

Pretty Nervous Writing Aardvarks Speak Out!

Now that I'm back from Europe and life has settle down somewhat, it's time to think about my next trip: The PNWA Writers Conference in Seattle on July 25-28. That unpronounceable acronym, by the way, stands for the Pacific Northwest Writers Association. I call them the Pretty Nervous Writing Aardvarks so I can keep the letters in the right order.

I hadn't planned to attend the conference; it seemed like an indulgence so soon after Europe. But on Memorial Day I received a call from the Writing Aardvarks: My unfinished memoir, Too Small to Succeed, is a finalist in the Nonfiction/Memoir category. The PNWA lady (I was so amazed I now can't remember her name or hardly any other word in the phone conversation other than "finalist") asked me if I was attending the conference in July. Well, I am now, I wanted to stay, but mustered my manners and said I would very much like to attend.

So now I'm going, and I haven't been to a writing conference since I was 10, when I won a school writing contest with a poem about World War II. It went like this:

That crazy Hitler, he started a war,

and I have no doubt that there will be more. 

They won't be by him, because he is dead,

but from my point of view he had rocks in his head.

The poem went on for pages, I'm sorry to say, and my mother actually sent me a copy recently. Well, Benny liked it, anyway.

Anyway, this means that Too Small to Succeed is no longer just a Weird Little Project on the Side. I wrote the first two chapters in 2010 and then dropped it for two years, picking it up again last year. I kept working on it even after rejoining the Business Times in January and it's passed the 30,000-word mark now.

To help things along last summer, I joined a local memoir group. You know you're in a heavy crowd when your recession memoir tracing the country's financial collapse is the most lighthearted of the group. The other writers' topics ranged from sex cults to the Holocaust, much to the disturbance of other patrons at the Berkeley cafe where we met. The memoir group's leader ran a tight ship, necessitating a constant stream of emails and long phone calls about my writing purpose after I missed a few meetings.

So I ditched the memoir group, but I still needed feedback, so I entered the memoir's first 27 pages in the Writing Aardvark's literary contest, lured by the promise of detailed critiques from two judges.

Be careful what you wish for, for now my finalist status, the critiques and my preparations for the conference are making me self-conscious. Yesterday I read my 11 chapters for the first time in over a month, and while they hold up all right, writing new stuff has been difficult. I spent six hours writing yesterday, muttering at my laptop while Benny watched Sponge Bob and read his Percy Jackson books, hoping that eventually I'd produce something that wasn't terrible.

The results are not great: Chapter 12 is about September 2007, a month full of adjustments to our new apartment, my new editing job and Benny's new preschool, not to mention a horrifying pile of bills that added up to more than Ron's monthly take-home pay. Shiver. Throw in a Sept. 17 deadline to write 24 Latino Business Awards profiles in my spare time and this chapter makes me want to crawl under the dining room table with the cat. Not so funny. I'm having difficulty maintaining the amused detachment of earlier chapters. That humorous tone the judges liked so much is nowhere in evidence in Chapter 12, so now I must decide whether I've lost my voice or whether the story has simply shifted in a new direction.

This, of course, has happened before and as Stephen King says, sometimes writing feels like you're just shoveling shit from a sitting position. You just have to have faith that something good is buried in there, and if there isn't, that what you're shoveling will eventually lead to something good. In times like these, any encouragement helps and so thank you again, Pretty Nervous Writing Aardvarks.