Daily affirmations of a word mercenary
Book Category
Seal Press published my memoir/handbook, Offbeat Bride: Taffeta-Free Alternatives for Independent Brides, in January 2007. This category tracks my progress, all the way back to when I was still trying to figure out what the hell the book was about. If you’re interested in the book, you should probably just check out the book blog.
So, it’s summer, which means that the kids are back at it at The Columbia Publishing Course. When I retured from Phoenix Fest, I had several emails from a couple CPC students who are in the throws of CPC’s book workshop, wherein students create faux publishing houses and crank out book proposals. Remember when I did that in 2001? The weird thing is, my faux book idea was almost picked up, so while the whole process is very faux, there’s some possibilities lurking around the edges.
Anyway, it appears that I’ve been recommended to one of the faux publishing houses as an author for one of their faux books, and they were even so kind as to write a faux pitch for the faux book I could write for the faux publishing house! In some ways, this faux pitch is better than the real one I’m working on. Take a look…
Columbia Publishing Course
Editorial Description Sheet
Publishing House: BoldFace Books
Title: The Bride Wore a Hula Hoop
Subtitle/Sell Line: Reflections on Life, Love, and Modern American Culture
Author: Ariel Meadow Stallings
Hook: A countercultural goddess explores marriage and personal identity in this fresh, humorous memoir.
Description: Ariel Meadow Stallings would be the average twenty-something woman planning her upcoming nuptials: picking up a marriage license, choosing rings with her fiancé, arranging a reception…if the average twenty-something woman was determined to wear a bustier and lime-green skirt for her wedding gown, that is.
A self-described “word mercenary†who is fascinated by pop culture even as she gravitates towards the underground, Stallings examines the lead-up to her wedding and, in turn, what it means to be young in America today. With her trademark zesty and tart sense of humor, she scrutinizes the struggles faced by many young women. Stallings is hard at work forging her own individual future while trying to balance the demands of the present: “Unable (or unwilling) to escape my parents’ worldview, I approach each community with both idealism and cynicism, ultimately finding pieces of myself and my family hidden throughout the contemporary Left Coast landscape.†From the vegan cookbooks on her Amazon.com wedding registry to questioning what is means to be a “bride,†Stallings deftly combines valuable thoughts for relevant issues for young women with a sharp eye for the humorous details in this crazy countercultural life.
Smart, funny, and sexy, tapped into the immediacy of our culture but wrestling with the past, Stallings offers a fresh view of modern life in America. Part wedding diary, part cultural memoir, The Bride Wore a Hula Hoop will have you laughing and groaning at the same time, but is irresistible either way.
Author bio: Ariel Meadow Stallings is an award-winning copywriter for The Seattle Times, a columnist for Hatch Magazine, and a freelance writer. Stallings is also the co-founder and editor of hooping.org, a website devoted to the sport of hula-hooping, and runs her popular blog, electrolicious.com. She lives in Seattle, WA with her husband.
Format: Paperback
Retail Price: 13.95
Trim size: 5 x 8 Illustrations: None
Pages: 256 pp.
Other Special Features: None
Category: Memoir/General Interest
Royalty Advance: $10,000 [ha! that'd be nice]
First Print Run: 5000
Royalty Rates: Standard paperback (7.5%)
This was a segment from my book proposal, but due to a restructuring it doesn’t fit any more. So I’m sharing it here.
I had a glimpse into the creation of popular culture, and I saw first hand the lack of reality in what we see and what we think we want. I got right into the thick of the wanting. And it made me want a little less.
Spring of 2001 I attended Gathering of the Tribes, which brought together underground rave organizers and community members from up and down the West Coast. I attended as the editor of Lotus Magazine, filling dual roles as reporter and community activist.
At the conference I met the founder of a harm reduction organization that was building a popular and successful national drug education network. The founder told me that he’d been in contact with some MTV-affiliated filmmakers who were making a documentary about Ecstasy. They were looking for a couple people to demonstrate the responsible, adult use of the drug.
“Would you be interested?” he’d asked me. I said that I was, in part because there was a cute friend involved. Cue the lights, I’ve got my hair gel applied and was ready for my close up.
A month or two later, MTV flew me to San Francisco to be a part of the filming of the documentary. By the time I arrived, the film crew had already been in town for a day, and the “plot” of the documentary was already well under way.
My cute friend and his polyamorous girlfriend assumed pseudonyms, and played the part of affluent San Francisco professionals who occasionally used Ecstasy. The truth, however, was that these two both worked for the harm reduction organization and did drugs whenever they pleased. Their non-profit wages don’t go very far in San Francisco, and apparently the film crew was unimpressed by my friends’ small Oakland apartment. Filming arrangements were made with a retired dot-com friend who had an expansive house in The City.
By the time I joined the documentary, my friend and his girlfriend were clearly under a lot of stress. They’d been filming all day and were starting to feel the weight of staying in character. The girlfriend stood, chopping vegetables and trying to pretend like the dotcom retiree’s kitchen was hers, even though she wasn’t sure which pots were in which cabinets. Not much off-the-cuff banter here: conversation was carefully thought-out, in an effort to convey Ecstasy use in the best, most responsible light.
I found the situation odd and uncomfortable. I had to remember to call my friend and his girlfriend by their pseudonyms, and interacting with them on screen felt about as natural an improv theater exercise. “YES, and! Ecstasy is also bla bla bla.”
The filmmakers had decided that it was more important for me to use my real name and job title for clout. Already unsure about the ramifications of on-screen intoxication, once the decision was made to use my real name, I realized that my role was going to be as the sober friend.
My big MTV debut, and I was the sober third wheel with blue dreadlocks. In New Kids terms, I was to be the Danny Wood of the show. The awkward one that no one remembers.
I stayed out of the way for most of the evening. It’s never that much fun to hang out with high people when you’re sober — even when your high friends aren’t mugging for the rolling cameras. I made a few brief appearances, including one where I sat cross-legged on the living room floor and talked about why I wasn’t doing Ecstasy.
“I’ve found that using Ecstasy too often gives diminishing emotional returns,” I lectured. “The more often you do it, the less often you get much out of it. Therefore, [pause to look around earnestly at the gathered sitcom family including Gramma Whimple and Mrs. Pool] I’m not doing Ecstasy tonight.” Needless to say, I ended up on the cutting room floor. Needless to say, I preferred it that way.
If you watch the documentary, you see me smoking a cigarette on a roof, and dancing at a street fair. You also see two very good friends of mine playing the roles of people they aren’t. I agree whole-heartedly with the reasons they chose to play the roles. The cultural landscape is desperate for a few examples of responsible adults who can use drugs recreationally and NOT become crack whores. But having seen first hand just how clouded even documentaries are by the agendas of those involved, my love affair with popular culture became much more difficult.
I realize I’ve been rather quiet of late, so here’s a quick hit of what’s going on:
1. The summer doldrums approacheth
Already, you might ask? It’s not even solstice! But this happens to me every year, and it’s already starting to feel familiar. Spring is my time of mad-dash socializing and plan-making and seasonal spasticity. Summer rolls around and suddenly I’m in a stupor. Nothing’s bad, but nothing’s especially super duper. It’s amotivational. And it’s already happening. Communication languishes. My eyes droop. Is it September yet?
2. Invitations arrived
Our wedding invitations and matching stickers arrived yesterday. In a display of perfect irony, the invites include a glaring typo lovingly handcrafted by yours truly, the professional fucking writer. Luckily, I can cover it up with a sticker, but I just know that some well-intentioned guest is going to get all har-har-har on me and ask where they can “get more lots info.” THE AGONY!
3. Movie spree
Andreas and I have been on a commercial blockbuster marathon lately. Only matinees, so don’t start thinking we’re TOTAL tools — we pay only $6, instead of the customary $9. First it was Shrek 2 (favorite moment, predictably? Sir Justin). Then it was The Day After Tomorrow (entertaining, in part because the dialogue was so bad that we giggled through the whole flick). Today it was the first showing of Harry Potter, which was really good. Best part? The new location of Hogwarts. Also: the direction.
4. My book
I’m afraid I may be driving my lit agent insane. What the fuck is this goddamn book about, anyway? One friend suggested a weekend retreat to meditate and muse on it, but since the book is sort of my life story, that feels so self-indulgent (I must retreat from the world so that I can be undistracted from my navel-gazing auto-absorption) that even a narcissistic blogger like me feels weird about it. That said: I clearly need to do some workshopping on the idea. If you were going to read a book by me, what would you want it to be about?
The New Yorker: A BOOK IN YOU.
Article about an assistant at a NY literary agency who seems to be semi-specializing in representing bloggers. Not, by the way, my agency.
Grinding Ice
2
Mar
2004
In: Book
I’m at the hard part of my book proposal. The part where I have first drafts of all six sample chapters, and now I have to revise them. Extensively. Imagine two glaciers colliding, and that’s about the sound and speed of this part of the process for me. Lots of grinding and crunching and the squeals of rock hard ice compressing. And that’s just to get to the place where I feel like I can sit down and do anything!
At times I think inebriation would help (certainly it’s a time-honored practice of writers everywhere, and one I’ve used with marked success in the past), but that only works for the composition component. The editing part needs coherency and cohesion and clarity.
Sometimes I think I’m not supposed to do this right now, but if not now, then when? Boulders of insecurity roll around in my head, and I find wonderful ways to distract myself from the noise.
I was sitting at Cafe Ladro revising one of the chapters for my book proposal. It was the essay that would be Chapter 1, the one about HOME. Long story, it’s a chapter about finding places to fit in and safely take a shit without feeling guilty for the smell.
I’m sitting at the little cafe bar, and every now and then I turned a glazed-over eye to the window for some peoplewatching (witnessed the desperation of Seattle, where a woman will wear flip-flops if it’s 50 degrees out). I can see the Sunday paper framed by the newspaper box on the sidewalk. The lead headline says “DREAM HOMES: A WINDOW INTO HOW WE’VE CHANGED.”
Syncronicity pleases the poet in me.
Here’s a little peek at some writing I’ve been working on for the book proposal.
…We are absolutely full of shit when we go on like this, and we both know it. My academic posturings simply don’t hold up. I can list as many culture critique missives as I want. The truth remains that my first arena concert was New Kids on the Block.
My best friend, Suzna, and I convinced her bemused professor mother to drive us an hour south of the Island to the show at the Tacoma Dome. While Suzna’s mother waited in the car for three hours (no doubt wondering what she did wrong), Suzna and I crawled directly into the belly of the boy band, teenie bopper pop beast, ignoring the curled smoky exhalations of plastic-wrapped taste manufacturing and merchandise tie-ins.
At 13, we were already far too old for the concert. We found ourselves surrounded by screaming 11-year-old girls who seemed to be speaking a different language. (Don’t be fooled: the two years between 11 and 13 constitute an age difference that spans great yawning canyons of physio-emotional development — for God sake, we’d gotten our periods. We swore constantly. We has long theological discussions about prolapsed rectums. By puberty standards, we might have well have been cashing in our 401ks, we were so on top of our teenager shit.)
Our disdain for the girls around us was interrupted by a 10 year old who leaned over and asked, “Who are your favorites?”
Suzna and I were only vaguely familiar with the members of the band, but we knew hair color and their names. “Uh, Jon,” I said, carefully adhering to my middle school trend of crushing on boys who were the most boring, so that I could project all my wildest fantasies on them. Susannah picked Joey, the youngest member.
Our answers seemed to please the girl. “I like Donnie,” she informed us down her nose. “He’s the bad boy.”
The lights went down, the karaoke track cued up, and the boys came out and danced and sang into their microphones. Within minutes, Suzna and I found ourselves screaming for our favorites, even bickering over who looked cuter. Despite being only superficially familiar with the band when we entered the arena, by the concert intermission, we were howling the names of our NKOTB boyfriends at the top of our lungs, and dancing awkwardly around our plastic arena seats. I was doing my trademark 1988 move called The Squidly Diddly, and it involved holding my legs together, bending my elbows outward and snapping my fingers — a strange imitation of the dance my father does when he bends his arms out, smiles broadly, and wiggles his pointed index fingers as he trots in circles.
(Excuse me for a moment while I get lost on the dark dance floor of the father/daughter prom, caught in the swirl of middle aged men and their awkward pubescent girls. The prom where fathers and daughters awkwardly poke their elbows out and celebrate their dinnertime coup of mocking their wife and mother about calling “The State” to turn her in — a cruel joke, in light of family history. Ah, the father/daughter prom, where no threatening evil hormone-addled young men are allowed to tread. The father/daughter prom, where generations of Oedipal issues are dashed by a shared giggle over mom’s ugly new perm. Where every table features napkins from lunch bags, each with a handwritten note and a squiggly-mouthed smiley face. Best imaginary prom ever.)
Despite Suzna and I not much liking NKOTB when we went to the show, we went to feel a part of something — and we were not disappointed. There in the arena, faces lit by the swirling stage lights and strobes during “Hanging Tough,” my best friend and I found pieces of ourselves in everyone else. Who cared if our affections were genuine. We were tapping into a culturally accepted form of young female lust, and it was intoxicating.
We certainly weren’t tapping into anything at home — being a fan of pop music in grunge-era Seattle was a culture crime of the highest degree. But Suzna and I weren’t looking to be cool with our local peers — we wanted meta-peers. We were looking to commune with the nation, coming together in debates over who was better: the cute one or the sensitive one. We escaped our alienation and found that for that 90 minutes when we were screaming the names of boys we didn’t know, there was a sense of being tapped in. A jolt of cultural currency that tingled in places we were just learning to identify.
Oh boy, I am just getting all sorts of shit done.
I’ve completed 49 pages of writing for my book proposal. Supposedly I should have 50-100 pages of sample book to submit with the proposal itself, so I’m very close to being done. This exercise has been very good for me. Granted, it’s been like pulling teeth out of my ass, but the harder the work the more obvious it is that you need the practice.
Also, I’ve got a dozen Warmies ready for Rummage tomorrow. I’ve been trying to figure out how many pairs I should bring. I waffle between thinking people might actually like them and total insecurity — “Maybe I’ll sell two pairs. I shouldn’t overstock. What if someone walks up and says, “Hey, these are just cut up sweaters! You are a crafting phony! HEY EVERYONE: FAKE CRAFTS OVER HERE!” I definitly don’t want to be overstocked when the mocking begins. But how much would it suck to sell out? Better overstocked and well-prepared than understocked and mocked? I can’t decide. For now I’ve got a dozen 14 pairs. I think that’s enough. Can you hear the fretting from there? *twitch*
BUT! I developed a new kind of Warmies. Sort of Japanese-style. Everyone seems so into the stripes, and I think the solids are kind of cooler…but no one believes me. Therefore, in the name of bells & whistles, I’ve added ribbon-ties to all my solid colored Warmies. Witness!
[Wiping Fingers]
22
Jan
2004
In: Book
10 pages of book just fell out of my fingers. I like that feeling, but why does it seem so out of my control? I’ve built my career about being able to turn my writing on and off like a vibrator; being able to write about any topic on command. “Oh, telecom training courses? [clack-clack-clack, ctrl-p] Here you go! Oh, colocation web hosting? [clack-clack-clack, send] Done! Oh, urine testing kits for women with osteoporosis?* [clack-clack-clack] Check, please!”
And yet here I am, trying to tell a story I not only know really well, but one that I’ve told a million times in a million different ways. It’s my damn story! So why does it feel like writing it is totally hit and miss? I like to think I have more of a grasp on my own process, but clearly I have no fucking clue. It sort of hurts to be so typical.
*Totally not making up the urine testing kits.
I am finishing up my book proposal today. You would think that all my years as a copywriter would have prepared me well for selling my ideas, but I’m still finding it a major challege to write about myself in third person. Unable (or unwilling) to escape her parents’ worldview, Ariel approaches each community with both idealism and cynicism, ultimately finding pieces of herself and her family hidden through-out the contemporary Left Coast landscape.
Writing a book proposal is akin to composing a personals ad for my brain. Ariel has ideas she’d like to share about culture and our search for community. ISO editor who isn’t afraid to dish out the constructive criticism and preferrably has good hair and dry sense of humor. If you are Geoff Kloske or just wish you were, please call! Also: bonus points for familiarity with weirdos. Ariel also likes her kung-fu Elvis action figure and walking on the beach.
I’m reminded though of this quote from Super Hero Blessings, sent to me by Paisley:
All of this waiting to feel ready, inspired, strong enough, smart enough. Maybe the writing of the book is in the end what will make us feel ready to write the book, and the blessing of others will make us feel blessed ourselves.
Oh wait. Did I ever actually mention that I’ve got an opportunity that’s encouraging me to move ahead with the first steps of writing a book? All very tentative, but the baby steps are being taken thanks to an old CPC classmate. Perhaps Columbia Publishing Course will pay off some day.
So, it’s summer, which means that the kids are back at it at The Columbia Publishing Course. When I retured from Phoenix Fest, I had several emails from a couple CPC students who are in the throws of CPC’s book workshop, wherein students create faux publishing houses and crank out book proposals. Remember when I did that in 2001? The weird thing is, my faux book idea was almost picked up, so while the whole process is very faux, there’s some possibilities lurking around the edges.
Anyway, it appears that I’ve been recommended to one of the faux publishing houses as an author for one of their faux books, and they were even so kind as to write a faux pitch for the faux book I could write for the faux publishing house! In some ways, this faux pitch is better than the real one I’m working on. Take a look…
Columbia Publishing Course
Editorial Description Sheet
Publishing House: BoldFace Books
Title: The Bride Wore a Hula Hoop
Subtitle/Sell Line: Reflections on Life, Love, and Modern American Culture
Author: Ariel Meadow Stallings
Hook: A countercultural goddess explores marriage and personal identity in this fresh, humorous memoir.
Description: Ariel Meadow Stallings would be the average twenty-something woman planning her upcoming nuptials: picking up a marriage license, choosing rings with her fiancé, arranging a reception…if the average twenty-something woman was determined to wear a bustier and lime-green skirt for her wedding gown, that is.
A self-described “word mercenary†who is fascinated by pop culture even as she gravitates towards the underground, Stallings examines the lead-up to her wedding and, in turn, what it means to be young in America today. With her trademark zesty and tart sense of humor, she scrutinizes the struggles faced by many young women. Stallings is hard at work forging her own individual future while trying to balance the demands of the present: “Unable (or unwilling) to escape my parents’ worldview, I approach each community with both idealism and cynicism, ultimately finding pieces of myself and my family hidden throughout the contemporary Left Coast landscape.†From the vegan cookbooks on her Amazon.com wedding registry to questioning what is means to be a “bride,†Stallings deftly combines valuable thoughts for relevant issues for young women with a sharp eye for the humorous details in this crazy countercultural life.
Smart, funny, and sexy, tapped into the immediacy of our culture but wrestling with the past, Stallings offers a fresh view of modern life in America. Part wedding diary, part cultural memoir, The Bride Wore a Hula Hoop will have you laughing and groaning at the same time, but is irresistible either way.
Author bio: Ariel Meadow Stallings is an award-winning copywriter for The Seattle Times, a columnist for Hatch Magazine, and a freelance writer. Stallings is also the co-founder and editor of hooping.org, a website devoted to the sport of hula-hooping, and runs her popular blog, electrolicious.com. She lives in Seattle, WA with her husband.
Format: Paperback
Retail Price: 13.95
Trim size: 5 x 8 Illustrations: None
Pages: 256 pp.
Other Special Features: None
Category: Memoir/General Interest
Royalty Advance: $10,000 [ha! that'd be nice]
First Print Run: 5000
Royalty Rates: Standard paperback (7.5%)
This was a segment from my book proposal, but due to a restructuring it doesn’t fit any more. So I’m sharing it here.
I had a glimpse into the creation of popular culture, and I saw first hand the lack of reality in what we see and what we think we want. I got right into the thick of the wanting. And it made me want a little less.
Spring of 2001 I attended Gathering of the Tribes, which brought together underground rave organizers and community members from up and down the West Coast. I attended as the editor of Lotus Magazine, filling dual roles as reporter and community activist.
At the conference I met the founder of a harm reduction organization that was building a popular and successful national drug education network. The founder told me that he’d been in contact with some MTV-affiliated filmmakers who were making a documentary about Ecstasy. They were looking for a couple people to demonstrate the responsible, adult use of the drug.
“Would you be interested?” he’d asked me. I said that I was, in part because there was a cute friend involved. Cue the lights, I’ve got my hair gel applied and was ready for my close up.
A month or two later, MTV flew me to San Francisco to be a part of the filming of the documentary. By the time I arrived, the film crew had already been in town for a day, and the “plot” of the documentary was already well under way.
My cute friend and his polyamorous girlfriend assumed pseudonyms, and played the part of affluent San Francisco professionals who occasionally used Ecstasy. The truth, however, was that these two both worked for the harm reduction organization and did drugs whenever they pleased. Their non-profit wages don’t go very far in San Francisco, and apparently the film crew was unimpressed by my friends’ small Oakland apartment. Filming arrangements were made with a retired dot-com friend who had an expansive house in The City.
By the time I joined the documentary, my friend and his girlfriend were clearly under a lot of stress. They’d been filming all day and were starting to feel the weight of staying in character. The girlfriend stood, chopping vegetables and trying to pretend like the dotcom retiree’s kitchen was hers, even though she wasn’t sure which pots were in which cabinets. Not much off-the-cuff banter here: conversation was carefully thought-out, in an effort to convey Ecstasy use in the best, most responsible light.
I found the situation odd and uncomfortable. I had to remember to call my friend and his girlfriend by their pseudonyms, and interacting with them on screen felt about as natural an improv theater exercise. “YES, and! Ecstasy is also bla bla bla.”
The filmmakers had decided that it was more important for me to use my real name and job title for clout. Already unsure about the ramifications of on-screen intoxication, once the decision was made to use my real name, I realized that my role was going to be as the sober friend.
My big MTV debut, and I was the sober third wheel with blue dreadlocks. In New Kids terms, I was to be the Danny Wood of the show. The awkward one that no one remembers.
I stayed out of the way for most of the evening. It’s never that much fun to hang out with high people when you’re sober — even when your high friends aren’t mugging for the rolling cameras. I made a few brief appearances, including one where I sat cross-legged on the living room floor and talked about why I wasn’t doing Ecstasy.
“I’ve found that using Ecstasy too often gives diminishing emotional returns,” I lectured. “The more often you do it, the less often you get much out of it. Therefore, [pause to look around earnestly at the gathered sitcom family including Gramma Whimple and Mrs. Pool] I’m not doing Ecstasy tonight.” Needless to say, I ended up on the cutting room floor. Needless to say, I preferred it that way.
If you watch the documentary, you see me smoking a cigarette on a roof, and dancing at a street fair. You also see two very good friends of mine playing the roles of people they aren’t. I agree whole-heartedly with the reasons they chose to play the roles. The cultural landscape is desperate for a few examples of responsible adults who can use drugs recreationally and NOT become crack whores. But having seen first hand just how clouded even documentaries are by the agendas of those involved, my love affair with popular culture became much more difficult.
I realize I’ve been rather quiet of late, so here’s a quick hit of what’s going on:
1. The summer doldrums approacheth
Already, you might ask? It’s not even solstice! But this happens to me every year, and it’s already starting to feel familiar. Spring is my time of mad-dash socializing and plan-making and seasonal spasticity. Summer rolls around and suddenly I’m in a stupor. Nothing’s bad, but nothing’s especially super duper. It’s amotivational. And it’s already happening. Communication languishes. My eyes droop. Is it September yet?
2. Invitations arrived
Our wedding invitations and matching stickers arrived yesterday. In a display of perfect irony, the invites include a glaring typo lovingly handcrafted by yours truly, the professional fucking writer. Luckily, I can cover it up with a sticker, but I just know that some well-intentioned guest is going to get all har-har-har on me and ask where they can “get more lots info.” THE AGONY!
3. Movie spree
Andreas and I have been on a commercial blockbuster marathon lately. Only matinees, so don’t start thinking we’re TOTAL tools — we pay only $6, instead of the customary $9. First it was Shrek 2 (favorite moment, predictably? Sir Justin). Then it was The Day After Tomorrow (entertaining, in part because the dialogue was so bad that we giggled through the whole flick). Today it was the first showing of Harry Potter, which was really good. Best part? The new location of Hogwarts. Also: the direction.
4. My book
I’m afraid I may be driving my lit agent insane. What the fuck is this goddamn book about, anyway? One friend suggested a weekend retreat to meditate and muse on it, but since the book is sort of my life story, that feels so self-indulgent (I must retreat from the world so that I can be undistracted from my navel-gazing auto-absorption) that even a narcissistic blogger like me feels weird about it. That said: I clearly need to do some workshopping on the idea. If you were going to read a book by me, what would you want it to be about?
The New Yorker: A BOOK IN YOU.
Article about an assistant at a NY literary agency who seems to be semi-specializing in representing bloggers. Not, by the way, my agency.
Grinding Ice
2 Mar 2004 In: BookI’m at the hard part of my book proposal. The part where I have first drafts of all six sample chapters, and now I have to revise them. Extensively. Imagine two glaciers colliding, and that’s about the sound and speed of this part of the process for me. Lots of grinding and crunching and the squeals of rock hard ice compressing. And that’s just to get to the place where I feel like I can sit down and do anything!
At times I think inebriation would help (certainly it’s a time-honored practice of writers everywhere, and one I’ve used with marked success in the past), but that only works for the composition component. The editing part needs coherency and cohesion and clarity.
Sometimes I think I’m not supposed to do this right now, but if not now, then when? Boulders of insecurity roll around in my head, and I find wonderful ways to distract myself from the noise.
I was sitting at Cafe Ladro revising one of the chapters for my book proposal. It was the essay that would be Chapter 1, the one about HOME. Long story, it’s a chapter about finding places to fit in and safely take a shit without feeling guilty for the smell.
I’m sitting at the little cafe bar, and every now and then I turned a glazed-over eye to the window for some peoplewatching (witnessed the desperation of Seattle, where a woman will wear flip-flops if it’s 50 degrees out). I can see the Sunday paper framed by the newspaper box on the sidewalk. The lead headline says “DREAM HOMES: A WINDOW INTO HOW WE’VE CHANGED.”
Syncronicity pleases the poet in me.
Here’s a little peek at some writing I’ve been working on for the book proposal.
…We are absolutely full of shit when we go on like this, and we both know it. My academic posturings simply don’t hold up. I can list as many culture critique missives as I want. The truth remains that my first arena concert was New Kids on the Block.
My best friend, Suzna, and I convinced her bemused professor mother to drive us an hour south of the Island to the show at the Tacoma Dome. While Suzna’s mother waited in the car for three hours (no doubt wondering what she did wrong), Suzna and I crawled directly into the belly of the boy band, teenie bopper pop beast, ignoring the curled smoky exhalations of plastic-wrapped taste manufacturing and merchandise tie-ins.
At 13, we were already far too old for the concert. We found ourselves surrounded by screaming 11-year-old girls who seemed to be speaking a different language. (Don’t be fooled: the two years between 11 and 13 constitute an age difference that spans great yawning canyons of physio-emotional development — for God sake, we’d gotten our periods. We swore constantly. We has long theological discussions about prolapsed rectums. By puberty standards, we might have well have been cashing in our 401ks, we were so on top of our teenager shit.)
Our disdain for the girls around us was interrupted by a 10 year old who leaned over and asked, “Who are your favorites?”
Suzna and I were only vaguely familiar with the members of the band, but we knew hair color and their names. “Uh, Jon,” I said, carefully adhering to my middle school trend of crushing on boys who were the most boring, so that I could project all my wildest fantasies on them. Susannah picked Joey, the youngest member.
Our answers seemed to please the girl. “I like Donnie,” she informed us down her nose. “He’s the bad boy.”
The lights went down, the karaoke track cued up, and the boys came out and danced and sang into their microphones. Within minutes, Suzna and I found ourselves screaming for our favorites, even bickering over who looked cuter. Despite being only superficially familiar with the band when we entered the arena, by the concert intermission, we were howling the names of our NKOTB boyfriends at the top of our lungs, and dancing awkwardly around our plastic arena seats. I was doing my trademark 1988 move called The Squidly Diddly, and it involved holding my legs together, bending my elbows outward and snapping my fingers — a strange imitation of the dance my father does when he bends his arms out, smiles broadly, and wiggles his pointed index fingers as he trots in circles.
(Excuse me for a moment while I get lost on the dark dance floor of the father/daughter prom, caught in the swirl of middle aged men and their awkward pubescent girls. The prom where fathers and daughters awkwardly poke their elbows out and celebrate their dinnertime coup of mocking their wife and mother about calling “The State” to turn her in — a cruel joke, in light of family history. Ah, the father/daughter prom, where no threatening evil hormone-addled young men are allowed to tread. The father/daughter prom, where generations of Oedipal issues are dashed by a shared giggle over mom’s ugly new perm. Where every table features napkins from lunch bags, each with a handwritten note and a squiggly-mouthed smiley face. Best imaginary prom ever.)
Despite Suzna and I not much liking NKOTB when we went to the show, we went to feel a part of something — and we were not disappointed. There in the arena, faces lit by the swirling stage lights and strobes during “Hanging Tough,” my best friend and I found pieces of ourselves in everyone else. Who cared if our affections were genuine. We were tapping into a culturally accepted form of young female lust, and it was intoxicating.
We certainly weren’t tapping into anything at home — being a fan of pop music in grunge-era Seattle was a culture crime of the highest degree. But Suzna and I weren’t looking to be cool with our local peers — we wanted meta-peers. We were looking to commune with the nation, coming together in debates over who was better: the cute one or the sensitive one. We escaped our alienation and found that for that 90 minutes when we were screaming the names of boys we didn’t know, there was a sense of being tapped in. A jolt of cultural currency that tingled in places we were just learning to identify.
Oh boy, I am just getting all sorts of shit done.
I’ve completed 49 pages of writing for my book proposal. Supposedly I should have 50-100 pages of sample book to submit with the proposal itself, so I’m very close to being done. This exercise has been very good for me. Granted, it’s been like pulling teeth out of my ass, but the harder the work the more obvious it is that you need the practice.
Also, I’ve got a dozen Warmies ready for Rummage tomorrow. I’ve been trying to figure out how many pairs I should bring. I waffle between thinking people might actually like them and total insecurity — “Maybe I’ll sell two pairs. I shouldn’t overstock. What if someone walks up and says, “Hey, these are just cut up sweaters! You are a crafting phony! HEY EVERYONE: FAKE CRAFTS OVER HERE!” I definitly don’t want to be overstocked when the mocking begins. But how much would it suck to sell out? Better overstocked and well-prepared than understocked and mocked? I can’t decide. For now I’ve got a dozen 14 pairs. I think that’s enough. Can you hear the fretting from there? *twitch*
BUT! I developed a new kind of Warmies. Sort of Japanese-style. Everyone seems so into the stripes, and I think the solids are kind of cooler…but no one believes me. Therefore, in the name of bells & whistles, I’ve added ribbon-ties to all my solid colored Warmies. Witness!
[Wiping Fingers]
22 Jan 2004 In: Book10 pages of book just fell out of my fingers. I like that feeling, but why does it seem so out of my control? I’ve built my career about being able to turn my writing on and off like a vibrator; being able to write about any topic on command. “Oh, telecom training courses? [clack-clack-clack, ctrl-p] Here you go! Oh, colocation web hosting? [clack-clack-clack, send] Done! Oh, urine testing kits for women with osteoporosis?* [clack-clack-clack] Check, please!”
And yet here I am, trying to tell a story I not only know really well, but one that I’ve told a million times in a million different ways. It’s my damn story! So why does it feel like writing it is totally hit and miss? I like to think I have more of a grasp on my own process, but clearly I have no fucking clue. It sort of hurts to be so typical.
*Totally not making up the urine testing kits.
I am finishing up my book proposal today. You would think that all my years as a copywriter would have prepared me well for selling my ideas, but I’m still finding it a major challege to write about myself in third person. Unable (or unwilling) to escape her parents’ worldview, Ariel approaches each community with both idealism and cynicism, ultimately finding pieces of herself and her family hidden through-out the contemporary Left Coast landscape.
Writing a book proposal is akin to composing a personals ad for my brain. Ariel has ideas she’d like to share about culture and our search for community. ISO editor who isn’t afraid to dish out the constructive criticism and preferrably has good hair and dry sense of humor. If you are Geoff Kloske or just wish you were, please call! Also: bonus points for familiarity with weirdos. Ariel also likes her kung-fu Elvis action figure and walking on the beach.
I’m reminded though of this quote from Super Hero Blessings, sent to me by Paisley:
All of this waiting to feel ready, inspired, strong enough, smart enough. Maybe the writing of the book is in the end what will make us feel ready to write the book, and the blessing of others will make us feel blessed ourselves.
Oh wait. Did I ever actually mention that I’ve got an opportunity that’s encouraging me to move ahead with the first steps of writing a book? All very tentative, but the baby steps are being taken thanks to an old CPC classmate. Perhaps Columbia Publishing Course will pay off some day.
Hey there. I'm Ariel Meadow Stallings, a native Seattleite who's written my way up and down the Left Coast. Electrolicious is where I post daily randomata, but I also write for a living. My first book, Offbeat Bride, was published last year.
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