Writing Process Blog Tour
Earlier this month, on the National Writers Union book forum, I wrote that that all blog tours seemed to be expensive scams. I was mistaken: Sue Katz author of Lillian’s Last Affair, available on Amazon, responded that she was participating in a writer-organized Writing Process Blog Tour that is no scam; nor does it involve money.
A week later, Leslie Brunetta, who’d been invited by Katz to post on this tour (Katz also invited prolific writer/editor/publisher, Ken Wachsberger) and Adina Schecter to join the tour.
I of course agreed: Leslie’s quirky, essays inspire me, especially the way they spin philosophical and scientific insights together via metaphors that charm and clarify. One essay led to a book, Spider Silk: Evolution and 400 Million Years of Spinning, Waiting, Snagging and Mating, co-authored by spider scientist Catherine L. Craig (Yale University Press).
So what am I working on?
I’m struggling right now to convey my experiences with and thoughts about anti-Semitic stereotypes. It will be the final piece for my third booklet of essays. I started the series started with What Was I Thinking? Reflecting on Everyday Racism (2009) and then What Was I Thinking: Digging Deeper into Everyday Racism (2012). They’re distributed by the racial justice book publisher, . www.cddbooks.com.Crandall Dostie and Douglass Books
Why do I write what I do?
Because I’m white. Because racism is a white problem. Because I grew up never talking about it, and not until the 1980s did I act to counter it.
My essay topics come out of the issues raised in the workshop I took and now co-lead in Cambridge (MA) called “White People Challenging Racism: Moving From Talk to Action.” The course galvanized me to action in every sphere of my life. It also made me look back at my life as a white person (“Growing Up Oblivious”), and explore my failures of mind, heart and deed, with angst laced with humor and, hopefully, insight.
How does my work differ from others in the genre?
My essays ponder more than probe. When a question nags at me, I write to resolve it. One essay is about “aha” moments, when I’ve caught myself stereotyping. Another admits to misreading my mother’s attitudes toward eugenics, race and foster care. A third tackles the question: why read slave narratives? Others are about anti-racist jargon, nosy questions, and the power of a stare. One asks a question I continue to struggle with: as I listen intensely to others’ experiences, how can I stay honest to my own, although possibly flawed, understanding of reality?
I’m inspired by writers like Lois Mark Stalvey, who back in 1970 wrote The Education of a WASP, and more recently by Peggy McIntosh (Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack); Mab Segrest, (Memoir of a Race Traitor); Tim Wise (White Like Me), and Bernestine Singley (When Race Becomes Real: Black and White Writers Confront Their Personal Histories); and most recently, by Debby Irving (Waking Up White) and Lee Mun Wah (Let’s Get Real: What People of Color Can’t Say & Whites Won’t Ask About Racism).
How does my writing process work?
My ideas most often come to me in the midst of everyday life: as I drive in traffic that’s going 20 mph over the speed limit, as I race around a court with my racquet, pursing a ball, or as I stare into space at a noisy café. I jot down my idea fragments, and when enough snippets accumulate around a particular topic, like iron filings to a magnet, I freewrite. Then quickly, before my penciled scribbles become unintelligible, I type out my gangly sentences, ironing them out as I go. Then I revise. But since, in my view, cut-and-paste editing doesn’t give an essay a chance to “regrow” and deepen, I try to type each draft from the start. I never know how an essay will end: I write to find out.
Now, I hand off this blog tour to two writers I want you to know about:
Lisa Braxton is a kindred essay writer. I met her at a Meet the Agent event that my National Writers Union Boston Chapter co-sponsored with the Women’s National Book Association, and saw that she writes the kind of relationship essays worthy of The New York Times’ Modern Love column. We swapped essays via email and liked our mutual no-nonsense feedback. We’ve continued to run our essays past each other, and offer submission ideas. You can read some of her essays and short stories at www.lisabraxton.org. On her blog, she shares writer’s life experiences (with embedded advice), from planning a book party, to being part of a book club, to holding a book signing, to promoting your work, to the importance having a writing space of your own. Thanks to Lisa, I’ve learned about the indie bookstore, Frugal Books in Roxbury.
Terry Farish writes fiction for adults, young adults, and children. Her most recent book, The Good Braider, is written in free verse and in the voice of a Sudanese girl, but reads like a dramatic novel. Terry, who is white, has a long-term relationship with the Sudanese community in Portland (ME), and bases her story on their oral histories. “The Sudanese don’t talk about trauma, but I was a witness to it, and wrote this girl’s story as a way to honor her life.” She also produced a bilingual folktale, The Story of a Pumpkin, with Nepali-speaking refugees from Bhutan, and her next book will be a picture book about a Dominican family. Her blog www.terryfarish.com shows her commitment to community. On it, she invites students to write “the next chapter” to The Good Braider. She recommends other writers of “verse novels.” She also writes for the social justice and children’s literature blog, www.thepiratetree.com.
Speaking of community, participating in the Writing Process Blog Tour has made me feel part of a community of writers willing to share what, why and how we write, in the spirit of “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.” I now pass that pleasure on to Lisa and to Terry.
Tags: adina schecter, Bernestine Single, blog tour, Debby Irving, essays, lee mun wah, leslie brunetta, lisa braxton, mab segrest, National Writers Union, peggy mcintosh, racism, stereotyies, sue katz, terry farish, tim wise, white privilege, Women's National Book Association, writing process