Category: Blogging

Modern Warfare 3

Published on by mbcoudalLeave a comment

I hung my head, ashamed. I was not alone. Every parent at the Upper West Side Game Stop store was embarrassed to be there, ashamed to be buying the new Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.

I assume that’s what we, these pairs of parents and sons, were buying. The updated game was just released last week. How do I know this? I have no idea. It has simply seeped into our family culture.The posters with the dystopian world in the background and the gun-slinging hero in the foreground.

We, parents, have to be there to buy the game because it’s rated M for Mature. My 14-year old could not buy it without me, and he cuddled me as if he were a toddler, while we wanted in line for the purchase.

The cashier handed the mother in a business suit ahead of me the DVD X-Box game in the plastic bag.

“This is not mine,” she took the bag, like it was a dead mouse.

“It’s all yours,” she passed the bag to her son. He could barely suppress a smile. These teens and preteens get their way and they know it.

Why do I do this? I wondered. I am basically a pacifist. Maybe I let him have this game, because I want him to be happy, popular and a part of pop culture (UGH! I did just write that!). My son runs track, gets good grades, has the money ($65) to pay me back. Yet I am enabling an addictive activity. And I know it.

Yesterday he had three friends over and they had a great day. They played all day. They stopped to eat at Shake Shack; played a brief game of Apples to Apples; and watched Saturday Night Live; but otherwise, they were glued to the game.

The boys believe war gaming is useful because, my son tells me, “It develops hand-eye coordination and teaches about guns and modern-day battles.” Hmmmm. Doubtful.

My son’s friend’s dad, Daniel, told me he believes the boys talk about important things besides slaughtering one another while playing MW3. He said he’s overheard them talking about school, girls, and the Yankees. I don’t know. I only hear, “I need another kill” kind of thing.

If I didn’t have a 14-year old son, I would think parents, like me, who buy this kind of game for their sons are irresponsible. Wait, I still think that.

I want to write more on this, but I have to pry the boys off the XBox game (yes, one of the boys spent the night so they could play more) and get them ready for church. It’s a beautiful day in New York City and I don’t want them to miss it. There is a time for everything, a time for peace and a time for modern day warfare?

NaNoWriMo Progress

Published on by mbcoudal1 Comment

I’ve got 7,200 words and no plot going on my NaNoWriMo (national novel writing month) novel. To win I need to write 50,000 words by the last day of November.

In 2009, when I won NaNoWriMo (yes, that’s right, WON!), I wrote a young adult novel, but this one I classified as literary fiction. Yes, LITERARY fiction. Not, crappy, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants fiction.

Oh, wait, that is what I’m writing. I have no idea what is going to happen next. Let’s say a song about diamonds comes on the radio as I’m writing, I put a diamond in that scene.

On Sunday morning, I read a New York Times article about a drunk roller, a pickpocket who slices into a drunken and passed-out subway rider’s pocket with a straight edge razor. So I added a scene with a drunk roller.

My protagonist is a crazy, overworked mother of three, a writer, teacher and New Yorker with a benevolently neglectful husband and an active fantasy life. A stretch for me? Not really. As they say, Write what you know!

I wish I had time to write thousands of more words today. After all, it’s quantity, not quality that counts with NaNoWriMo, but I have to get to work. Two of my three children are home sick with a flu today.

Perhaps by tending to my real life, I will find some direction and plot points to share with my protagonist. And, in turn, by writing my novel, I will create a cycle of adventure and creativity in my real life. (This fits with my Rule Number 2: Escape through reading literary fiction.)

Why I Write

Published on by mbcoudal1 Comment

We do not write to be understood. We write to understand. – C.S. Lewis

This was one of the quotes from Writing for the Soul, a workshop led by Rev. Lynne Hinton in Albuquerque, New Mexico at the United Methodist Association of Communicators. She has written 14 novels. Yes, 14! Oh, to be so prolific.

Tomorrow, Nanowrimo starts so I’m hoping to write one more novel this month!

In Rev. Hinton’s workshop, we began with free writing à la Julia Cameron’s admonition in The Artist’s Way to write three morning pages — which I have been practicing for about 15 years. Every morning, I hand write three pages of brain drain. But give me free rein later in the day to tap into my unconscious and I’m, oh so happy.

Lynne gave us an exercise where we chose random words, picked like wild flowers from our unconscious, to add to word prompts, like these (but not these, exactly!):

Diamond _____

Shelter _____

Instant _____

Prayer _____

Barcelona _____

Boo _____

Avoid _____

Teacup _____

Angel _____

School _____

Write _____

Create _____

Ocean _____

Sun _____

Venice _____

June ____

Moon _____

You get the idea. We wrote our own couple of dozen words down the page on the blank lines. From our written words or the provided prompts, we made sentences on bits of paper. Then we shuffled our sentences and wrote them down in a poem format.

How fun! Our internal censor didn’t even know we were writing a poem, we were just playing around! Writing is play!

It’s impossible — at least, for me — to attend a writing workshop and not make new friends. I find the adage so true —  A stranger (or a fellow writer) is just a friend I haven’t met yet.

Often in writing workshops, my friends and I drop into such a deep level of sharing that we cry when we hear each other’s work. I felt this way hearing the poems of my fellow writers, Jessica Connor, Beth Buchanan, Kerry Wood and Isaac Broune. I was blown away as they unearthed playful and meaningful poetry from their unconscious.

I am so grateful for the wisdom of fellow writers, writing teachers and my own ability to tap into my unconscious on a regular basis. Going a little crazy in my writing keeps me sane!

Getting the most out of writing conferences

Published on by mbcoudal2 Comments
Gill and Coudal at the National Arts Club

Yesterday I was studying memoir with the International Women’s Writing Guild at the National Arts Club. It was a great group of women in New York’s most beautiful brownstone.

This morning I was journaling about how much I love writing conferences and being in community with other writers. I also love Twitter chats around the hashtags #blogchat and #wjchat (web journalist).

Writing is a solitary endeavor so communing with other writers online or in person inspires and energizes me. I fill my soul with other writers’ stories and feel less lonely and more courageous when I return to my writer’s desk to write my own story.

Here is advice on attending writing conferences:

  • Sit in the front, pay attention
  • When a volunteer is called for, raise your hand
  • When a question is called for, have one ready
  • Make one friend
  • Tweet one quote from the speaker
  • Tell someone about your big secret project
  • Share the struggle, share the joy — be honest

I mostly took my own advice:

  • I sat in the back, but I paid attention
  • When a volunteer was called for, I read something funny about marriage and work being overrated (got some nice laughs)
  • I made a friend who is heading to Abu Dhabi to report from a falconer conference
  • I tweeted, “Writers make the invisible visible” -Eunice Scarfe #iwwg
  • I told Judith Glynn about my secret project
I love IWWG women’s writing workshops because, beyond the juicy substantive information, i.e., Eunice shared a ton of unknown delicious memoirs, there is always depth, laughter and understanding among women writers.

The International Women’s Writing Guild is a fabulous group that has empowered me as a writer, by giving me mentors and a sense of belonging.

My Country Song

Published on by mbcoudalLeave a comment

At our lunch time creative writing workshop, Dan Licardo, an awesome musician and novelist, talked about songwriting.

He said a song can include rhyme. The message of a song can be more direct and easily understood than other types of writing. So I tried my hand at songwriting on my lunch hour. Here’s how my song went:

creative commons
Your face reminded me of the sun
Bright and sweet and always on the run
You run so fast, you run so far
You run and steal my Chevy car
I called my daddy, I called the cop
But they couldn’t find you
Not even in the hills of Vermont

I took my gun, I went on the run
I run down to the Virginia-ay shore
And there I found you with a two-bit whore

She had her legs and arms around my baby
I squinted my eye, I pulled the trigger
But you said, “Honey, Honey, I mean maybe?
Give me ‘nother chance?”

I’m seeing red,
And that floozy in the motel room
She got up and fled
But you lay there all weak and sad and mad
Like the moon, behind a cloud,
You went all bad

Honey, you went bad on me
Now I’m going bad on you
Because there’s just some things
My man ain’t supposed to do
The first is steal my Chevrolet car

That’s the first step you took 
just a little too far
The second is you left me all alone
With the babies and the dishes
You think you really flown?

Ha, you ain’t seen nothing
Sniveling on that bed
Pale and begging and, oh so red

Caught red-handed, I put down my gun
I take my car keys, then take your clothes
Just for fun

Don’t come back like the morning sun
Don’t come back when you’re broke
‘Cause my babies need a pappy
Not a two-bit joke

Plus I’m a little honey 
who needs a little bit a love
So I got me an ad on Craigslist
Gonna find some new sun shining from above

So that’s the woman’s part of my song. And then the man’s part comes in:

In the field there was a daisy
But you only saw me like I’m crazy
Yes, honey, I did you wrong
I took up with a honey on the wrong side of town

But you knew I loved the nightlife
I loved the song and the show
I told you that when we married, oh so long ago

When the babies started coming
And you just wouldn’t stop
I tried to re-enlist in the Army
And head back to Iraq

But they didn’t take me
You know I loved your hair, long and red
And I’m sorry that you caught me
With your sister in that cheap motel bed.

We thought we were done for
But you spared me and that debt I will repay
Just one more thing
Can you send me some bail money?
And then I’ll be on my way

Haiku

Published on by mbcoudal1 Comment
Hope

In the creative writing workshop I taught yesterday, we wrote haiku. This traditional Japanese poetry looks surprisingly simple — seven syllables, then five, then seven. But we found it challenging, a habit of writing we are unused to.

I told the class to think of the poem’s structure like the cage around a songbird. You have to confine your poem, your bird, your meaning, within the frame. Within the constraint, the songbird can sing freely. And then the poem can flow like a song, traveling far from its cage.

I gave us about 10 minutes to write our haiku.  Here are a few of mine.

I have been teary
Hoping to be understood
Fearful of shadows

Somehow I miss you
Your crazy way of kissing
I live on longing

Need to swim far out
Farther than you can catch me
Splashing, laughing, far

Working Moms Love Business Travel

Published on by mbcoudalLeave a comment

At least this mom does. I love to travel for work, not having to cook, clean up, wake anyone, or remind anyone to go to bed.

I do worry about the kids. And yesterday, I got a call from the school nurse that one of my darlings was crying, feeling overwhelmed by school work, dad’s illness, and maybe, I think, missing me a little.

I thought, Dangit, I stayed away so long. (Been gone from Sat. to Thurs.) I am heading to the airport in a few minutes and once I get home, I will try to put the house back in order. And if there are tears, I can dry them. And I do feel fully restored to do the job of mothering, working, and writing after work travel.

I was at a retreat center for work, I love that I go to retreat centers, like Life Enrichment Center in Fruitland Park, Florida and next week, Stony Point, in Stony Point, New York.

I love that work travel is a retreat. And that at the back end, I got to sneak in a visit with my family in Sarasota. Life is good.

Read a lot!

Published on by mbcoudalLeave a comment

Even more than writing, I love to read. And I love talking about books. At last night’s book club we discussed Freedom by Jonathan Franzen. Only two of us finished the book. (Yes, I was one of the two! And it was a loooooooooong novel.)

I found it compelling. I identified with every one of the f’ed up characters. I didn’t like that I saw myself in the depressed women. The character Patty was trying to be proactive. Still, she was reactive, self-defeating and messed up. She should’ve been in a book club. Reading helps.

We vote on the next month’s selection. In last night’s final voting, The Beautiful and Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald was tied with my pick (and my mother’s recommendation), A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan. I was disappointed that in the final round, the classic won.

Today, it dawned on me: I can read whatever I want, even books not picked by my book club. That’s what it means to be a grown-up. I like that part of adulthood. I can be proactive, not reactive. I am more than a character in a novel (or a writer of a blog.)

Five Minutes

Published on by mbcoudal2 Comments

For the last couple of weeks, every night some time between eight and nine, I’ve been sitting down one-on-one with my kids just to listen to them. The first night, it was amazing. Each of my daughters opened up with floodgates of emotions. We cried together.

We bonded. Then the timer went off. “Our five minutes is up!” We wiped away our tears and hugged. We moved on.

While the girls have embraced the attention, my 14 year-old son just lay there, refusing to talk. “We talk all the time. Why do we have to do this? Did you read this in some book?”

In fact, I did. The book is What Did I Just Say by Denis Donovan and Deborah McIntyre. “The Five Minutes” is a tool to get parent-child conversations beyond nagging, logistics, correcting, ya know, the ways parents usually talk to and at kids.

As our five-minute sessions have worn on, the girls have begun to use the time to lobby me for what they want — a new backpack or a trip to Maine. I don’t think that’s the point. They can talk about anything and that’s what they choose?

I believe in small solutions to big problems. A small group of people can change the world. A small amount of time can make a big difference on a project. A one-day-at-a-time attitude can get you through a lifetime of worry. I’m going to keep at it. Like blogging, it only takes a few minutes, yet it clarifies my thoughts.

I love the useful nuggets found in self-help books. I read that self-help books are just as effective as therapy. They’re cheaper; you don’t have to schedule them; and they provide tools for better living. Sure, I’m an intellectual and I love to make fun of how-to books (Do What You Love and the Money Will Follow? No, I do it for money and the love will follow).

Turning my attention, even briefly, to my kids’ agendas instead of my own is very relaxing and informative. The Five Minutes is not a cure-all. But it’s an active way to be present and to let my kids know I care and I’m there. I’m listening.

My Salon

Published on by mbcoudalLeave a comment

I never asked what all these commenters thought. I never really asked what anyone thought except for the writers in Joanna’s and Charles’s classes, where I had workshopped the story.

And yes, I wanted to know what an editor thought.

I’d sent the story to the Salon editor late Wednesday, thanks to the query challenge from Robert Lillegard. (See the comments at: http://gettingmyessayspublished.wordpress.com/2011/08/30/the-westport-workshops/)

SH replied on Thursday over my lunch hour. I got her email while sitting in the hairdresser’s chair. She said my story “had potential.”

Nice! A new hair cut and a potential piece at the best literary and intellectual site online.

SH asked if I’d intended to publish under a pseudonym. No. She’d begun a line edit. She had legitimate questions about chronology and adding a “message moment.” That is, a moment to give the experience a meaning, an Aha! She was right.

I worked on the story; she worked on it. In a few hours, we were done. But commenters don’t take hours, months, years to write their comments. They dash them off.

I was surprised by the comments. At seven am, on Friday, I read the first seven. Then I stopped reading. I have very little experience with negative comments. The people who’ve commented on my blogs may spin out their own thoughts, but they don’t rip me.

I asked a couple of people what the comments said. My aunt (Ellen Wade Beals) emailed me; she said some of the comments were funny, some complimentary, and some snarky. One friend told me a lot of the commenters are commenting on each other’s comments. I didn’t need to go there. (And my sister emailed me with one direct message: don’t comment back!)

My only experience with negative comments was long ago on my article in the New York Times City section in the form of a letter to the editor. It was from an ASPCA representative quibbling with the way I’d represented their agency in my funny essay about the squirrel trapped in my airshaft. Fair enough.

At that time I took pride in the ASPCA’s letter to the editor. Aha! A letter to the editor meant my NYTimes story hit a nerve or was controversial. And now, I’m trying to take pride in the comments (that I’m not reading) on my Salon.com story. It’s a badge of courage to be criticized, commented on, and then survive (to blog about it.)

My cousin Susan Elster Jones sent me an amazing email last night. She said, One of my best professors once told me that the work isn’t really finished until you share it. And the more uncomfortable that feels-probably means the work is really strong. Thank you for sharing!

So, go ahead, comment away. Sure, I’m feeling defensive, sensitive, uncomfortable, but also proud, strong, happy. Uncomfortable.