J. M. Levinton

Writers, Join Me at The Invisible Café

• July 03, 2017
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In Natalie Goldberg’s essay “Emergency Case,” from her book Wild Mind: Living the Writer’s Life, she arranged a time and place to meet a friend to write but didn’t want to know if her friend was going to show up. The point was, she herself would be there and writing. This essay stuck in my head for so long, I decided to do it with a twist.

Let’s meet at the Invisible Café for one hour and write. If you can’t make it, don’t tell me, I’ll be there and writing. I think Wednesdays are good but feel free to schedule another day. Time? I’m thinking 10 am this week. If you get there a little early (or late), that’s fine.

Where is it? It’s wherever you are. Can’t make that hour? Just try to make it that day, there will be writers flowing in and out at all hours. The chairs and couches are comfy (the chairs come in a wide range of styles) and the lighting is perfect. There’s only the barest hum of outside traffic and the waitstaff are patient and encouraging with their smiles as they serve you. (Don’t forget to tip nicely, they work hard.)

They’re open twenty-four hours a day. The ambiance at night is just as comfortable, but there’s also a spark of energy among the others sitting there that prevents me from falling asleep.

The important thing is that we’re meeting to write, surrounded by fellow writers.

Oh, and try the croissants.

Why Do We Write?

• March 13, 2017
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If there are a zillion writers, I’m sure there are a zillion answers to the question. I write because I get to play with the Universe. Create a universe. And it’s based on things I’ve experienced and seen and read and watched in other people. Because as far as I write against the grain, there are still inherent moments that come from the place of me.

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Writing Locations—Should You Have Been There First?

• February 20, 2017
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I’ve read books that were so elegantly crafted with a sense of place, I assumed the authors had traveled to those exotic locales. And then I’d read an interview where they’d say, “Nope, just did a lot of research.”

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Writers, Ditch This Word

• February 13, 2017
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I’m on Twitter and I keep seeing author bios that proudly state they’re aspiring writers.

Aspiring. What does that even mean?

The New Oxford American Dictionary defines aspiring as “directing one’s hopes or ambitions toward becoming a specified type of person: an aspiring artist.”

And this is why I have a problem with that word. If you write, you’re a writer. If you mean you’re not a writer until you’re a published writer, well, that’s something else entirely.

Are you serious about spending the time and energy and doing the work? Are you writing? Are you crafting stories? You’re a writer. And until you own that word, why should anyone believe you?

Aspiring sounds hopeful to some. Not to me. If you write and want to be taken seriously as a writer, knock that word off your bio. It takes courage but writing is not for the weak. Writers need to have thick skins and you might as well get in practice from the start.

You are a writer.

It’s something you work at, honing your craft, learning more every day. This doesn’t change whether you’ve written one book or a hundred.

You are a writer.

 

5 Steps to Deal with the Winter Blues

• January 30, 2017
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They’re the barest hint of shadow dogging your footsteps. They’re sneaky. Every year I’m warned about the winter blues and think they’re not near me and then suddenly, around mid to late January, realize they’ve been sticking to my side.

They’re a feeling of blah. Of no motivation. And it sucks.

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Writers, Back to Work!

• January 02, 2017
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The holidays tend to push everything out of the way. It happened to me. That’s okay. But the holidays are done, it’s a new year, and everything is bright and shiny.

So get to work!

What—it’s too cold out? Gloomy? Or you live where the sun is hot and you feel too sluggish?

I understand. I’m in the same situation. So this is what I did.

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World Party: Vegetarian Appetizers, Hors d’oeuvres and Party Plates, by Roberta Roberti

• December 05, 2016
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Full disclosure: I was the copy editor of this book. In case you think that makes me want to gush, think again. I had to look at each page with a critical eye. I could not allow myself to be swayed by the pretty pictures or charming anecdotes. Each recipe needed to be thought out and visualized. I’ve read too many cookbooks that omitted a step or even an ingredient. (One cookbook listed a recipe in its index and in one of its menus but left out the actual recipe.)

World Party was a pleasure. I learned food facts that were artfully interspersed with recipes, and was introduced to ingredients far outside my comfort zone. I bookmarked dishes to try and cautiously considered others. Roberta Roberti’s book showed me how deficient I am in the world’s cuisine. Here are a few of the recipes she gives and the country each is from:

Barbados

Black Bean Cakes with Mango-Peach Salsa

Ecuador

Morocho/Spiced Corn Drink

Ireland

Pub Ale Cheese Spread

Kenya

M’baazi/Coconut Beans

Norway

Lefse/Potato Crepes

Spain

Aceitunas Fritas/Fried Olives

Turkey

Piyaz/White Bean Salad

I hope you’ll take a look and try this cookbook for the simple pleasure of tempting one’s palate with flavors that might be familiar—or, more excitingly, are not.

World Party: Vegetarian Appetizers, Hors d”oeuvres and Party Plates

 

When You Need It to Be Creepy – Guest Post Carrie Vaccaro Nelkin

• October 24, 2016
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With Halloween coming up, who else to write a spooky post but a horror writer? Luckily, Carrie Vaccaro Nelkin, author of Snare, graciously agreed to offer her thoughts. Enjoy!

When You Need It to Be Creepy

 

Last night, flashlight in hand, I took our puppy Boomer for a walk. It was perfect Halloween weather, sharp and chill, with an edge of Something Wicked This Way Comes. Little yellow leaves blew across our path, pursued by the unseen. The ping! of acorns falling ricocheted everywhere in the dark. And the faulty aerator light in a nearby pond pulsed like a malignant sea creature.

To tell you the truth, I was relieved.

You see, the month leading to Halloween has always been magical for me. Why wouldn’t it be, for a writer of horror and other shadowy things? The fake cobwebs in bushes, the small ghosties fluttering from branches, the pumpkins with their evil grins—what’s not to love?

But it hadn’t been so this year. Don’t know why. Maybe a bunch of stresses were catching up. I was starting to get worried. After all, the Season of the Witch usually provides me with inspiration that lingers through the bleak winter. Did this mean I’d spend the next five or so cold gray months feeling like a flat landscape?

When my nephews were very young, my husband and I accompanied them on their trick-or-treating. There were a lot of kids in the neighborhood, and people really got into decorating for Halloween. One house I’ll never forget had a long, winding driveway and a wooden bench set near it with jack-o’-lanterns, large spiders in fake webs, and a stuffed ghoul. But the ghoul stirred when you walked by. And it was a human stir that made you realize someone had been sitting there the whole time, watching, waiting, patiently stalking disbelief.

Thank goodness I found no such ghoul last night—it’s not quite Halloween yet and that would have been a little too weird even for me. But he came to mind in the gusty dark, as did memories of holding my nephews’ hands as they tried to understand what was real and what wasn’t. The fact that I was at last tingly watching Boomer sniff and jump at things I couldn’t see or hear made me feel all is well again. So did Cthulhu throbbing in the pond.

May your Halloween, dear friends, be filled with wonder and delicious shivers.

 

You can find Carrie at www.cvnelkin.com, on Twitter at @cvnelkin, and on Facebook (Carrie Vaccaro Nelkin, Author)

 

The Strange Side of the Writing Life

• October 17, 2016
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Author Carmel Berman Reingold told me this story years ago: She ran into a friend one day and they chatted a bit before the friend said, “Are you still writing?”

Carmel smiled sweetly and (thinking of her many magazine articles and books) replied, “Yes, I am.”

“Oh, that’s good,” the friend chirped. “As long as you’re keeping busy.”

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5 Authors Who Love Going Indie

• October 10, 2016
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Smoke: Tales Between Dark and Light

 

Carrie Vaccaro Nelkin

 

There’s a long, respected history of indie filmmakers and indie musicians. Now indie authors, too, can play with concepts that are on the edge. I love the ability to be a hybrid author—to traditionally publish some things while stretching into what is sometimes less-charted territory with other pieces. Indie entrepreneurship allows a collaboration that’s not always available otherwise. Our Penhead anthologies, Smoke and Hunger, arose from that kind of creative centrifuge.

 

J. M. Levinton

 

For me, there are two kinds of time to being an indie author. The first is obvious—my timeline is my own. How long it takes me to write and edit and work with the people to create a cover and paperback formatting—all this happens when I’m ready to do it. But the other kind of time, the time I’m saving, is the speed with which I publish. I don’t need to wait to find an agent or publisher and then wait a year or more before my book goes public. That freedom is what I love about being an indie author.

 

R.G. Emanuelle

 

There are advantages to being published traditionally, and having worked with several different houses, I know what those advantages are. But being an indie author gives you the freedom of doing what you feel is right for your book. I’m not impossible to please, but I do have strong feelings about things like layout, cover design, release dates, etc. As an indie author, I can make those decisions and work at my own pace to reach those goals. And, ultimately, I reap the majority of the rewards for my hard work.

 

Anne E. Wagenbrenner

 

I never set out to be an indie author. My vision was to travel the traditional route: traditional agent, traditional publisher. And, as a new author, I’m still trying to attain that. But I’m often tempted to ditch the whole traditional thing and go totally indie. The reason is this, and only this: Artistic freedom.

 

Arielle Prose

 

What I like about being an indie author is that you don’t have to answer to anyone but yourself—and maybe to your writer’s group if you have one, which can be an advantage to an indie writer. It’s an added bonus if you have a writer’s group that you trust. There are pros and cons to indie publishing, (read my fellow Penheads’ comments), but the element of trust is essential. And you don’t always have that with a publisher of your work, especially when you’re starting out. To me the biggest advantage to having a publisher rather than being a publisher is that the publisher already has an audience for you, presumably, whereas being an indie you have to do all the work of finding that audience.

 

Why do you love going indie?