Book Writing Progress for my Memoir

So I started working on my book in July at the week before starting my class on cultural geography. During that 8-wk class I completed eight, 6-8pg papers for class, and for my book I completed the preface and the first100 pages. I also wrote and  queried seven literary agents and also worked on a proposal. Yes I've been busy but I'm also going on adrenaline.

Prior to a few months ago I didn't know that breaking into nonfiction publishing was so accessible. I didn't know that most nonfiction works are sold on proposal rather than a completed manuscript. In other words if you have a nonficition book idea you don't necessarily need to write the whole book before you try to sell it.  All you need to do is write a couple (1-3) sample chapters and a proposal. Once you have those you could technically approach a publisher without an agent and try to sell it to them, however that is not advised because once a publisher, or publishers pass on your work you've narrowed options for an agent. Secondly many reputable publishers don't accept submissions from unagented writers. Because of that I've been approaching agents with my query. The good thing about literary agents as opposed to screenwriting agents is that most, that I've come across, get back to you whether they're interested or not. Many times when I've queried screenwriting agents  I never heard anything from them.

So far I've gotten one rejection, and from the agent I most wanted to represent me but whatever. My classmate got 60 rejections before she found a publisher. I'm  certain I  won't get that many rejections 

Here's a list of resources I found helpful for book proposals and advice on narrative nonfiction or memoir.

The Art of Creative Nonfiction:Writing and Selling the Literature of Reality by Lee Gutkind

Formatting and Submitting Your Manuscript by Cynthia Laufenberg

How to write a book proposal by Michael Larsen

http://www.shunn.net/format/ (great for formatting questions)

Domestic violence relationships don't always include physical violence

We all think we have a very clear idea of what domestic violence is. We've seen the biopic about Tina Turner where Ike Turner beats the shit out of her. We've seen that one with Julia Roberts where her husband is so controlling that he makes her organize the canned facing forward an in alphabetical order and forces her to have sex with him. We all believe that domestic violence relationships are extreme cases like these, but they aren't, and many domestic violence relationships don't always involve physical violence at all or even physical violence on a regular basis. Many men who have murdered their wives never hit them beforehand. You see examples of this on a regular basis on TV shows like Dateline.

Domestic violence relationships involve men/batterers that are manipulative and contolling.

"As much as I thought I should leave him I felt I can't leave him, and not just because he had drilled into my head that leaving him was bad and I was a bad wife if I did, but that leaving him was wrong because it was my responsibility to take care of him. No matter what fucked up thing he did, leaving him--abandoning him, was as wrong a thing to do as abandoning my own child."

In many cases the control and manipulation isn't obvious. It is subtle. They just make you feel like a bad person or that you're doing a bad thing.

"He never explicitly told me I couldn't go anywhere, but let me know that doing too many things wasn't the right thing for a mother and wife to do. He'd say things like 'Come on man. How you gonna do all that? You got responsibilities You got a baby."
I knew it wasn't fair and I'd say "You have a baby too. You still do what you want."
He'd say. 'But you ain't me. Women can't be like men.'

"Of course I recognized the double standard but at the same time I had to admit that he was right. I do have responsibilities. I do have a baby. I can't take care of them and do other things too."

Batterers want to control your relationships with your friends and family. This may be subtle as well.

"He never explicitly told me that I couldn't talk to family and friends but made comments like 'Man every time you talk to your girlfriends or read a book you wanna come at my neck. Those people don't know me.' He made me feel like I was wrong for listening to what other people have to say about him and our relationship."
And he was right you know? They only know what I tell them. They don't know him like I do.

Batteres want to control your finances. This doesn't have to be as overt and obvious as not giving you any money. It can be that he lets you work but you have to use all of your money to pay the household bills while he does whatever he wants with his paycheck.

Batterers get intensely involved in new relationships quickly.

"I remember when we first met he talked about getting me pregnant. I did think it was way too soon to be talking about having a baby, but I was also kind of flattered that he wanted to have a baby with me...He wanted me to change my cell phone number so my exes couldn't call me. I told him that I wasn't talking to them anymore but he knew they still had my number and he didn't want them to be able to just call me."

Other signs you may be in a domestic violence relationship:

If your man has negative feelings about women. If he believes that women who get hit by men deserve it because they're always provoking men, always crossing the line. If he blames you as the reason he had to hit you because you just wouldn't shut up, wouldn't leave it alone. (For example if he says stuff like, "You knew I never cheated on you but you just wouldn't let it go, just kept coming at me, kept violating me and checking my phone , going through my stuff...)

If he hates women who always talk about how bad men are, like Beyonce for example. In other words if he feels that women who criticize men need to shut up.

If he defends men who cheat on their wife or girlfriend believing that woman had to have done something to make him do it. (If he defended Tiger Woods and called Elin a gold digger who deserved it.)

If he cheats on you, denies it, and then makes you think you're crazy for asking or believing he would ever do such a thing, and then intimidates or threatens you from bringing up the issue again.

If he blames everybody else for his own problems and doesn't take responsibility for anything in his life.

If you recognize any of these symptoms in your man he may be more than just an asshole. You may indeed be in a domestic violence relationship.

Not all batterers are the boogey man. They aren't all inherently bad men. They aren't all doing what they do out of spite or intentionally.They are men we all know and love--our brothers, sons, and husbands, and in many cases they are simply repeating behaviors or reacting to experiences they themselves experienced in their childhood. Nonetheless, regardless of why they do what they do, their actions are still unacceptable.

The question of what to do next isn't easy. You may want to leave and in fact family and friends might be telling you need to leave or even that you are stupid for staying, however leaving poses real risk. The majority of women who experience physical domestic violence, or those that are ultimately murdered, are women who have separated from or have divorced their batterer.

If you believe you may be in a domestic violence relationship seek out help and support before you do anything and understand that if you do decide to stay it does not mean that you are stupid or that you can't leave in the future. On average it takes a woman six attempts to finally get out of her domestic violence relationship.
http://www.thehotline.org/

I guess you might be wondering why I am including this in a blog about writing but the truth is that we all have our obstacles to success.

I'm Writing A Book

So in addition to going to grad school, raising a toddler and a teenager, and going through a divorce, I'm also writing a book. It's an auto-ethnography (which is a combination of narrative with reflective analysis) which happens to coincide with the goals of my graduate program. The working title is, In Pursuit of the Good Life: A Poor Girl's Quest for the American Dream. What I just realized this morning is that as frank and honest as I am, I probably won't be able to talk about key parts of my life in as much detail as I like, specifically my experience in the Disney Screenwriting Fellowship, because of the exhaustive confidentiality clause I had to sign when I began working there. I've got to go through my things and find my copy of the contract. I know I can't talk specifics but hopefully I can talk about the two most influential experiences I had while there...I'll probably have to consult a lawyer before I show the book to anyone. What an expensive pain!

What I wanted to say to all you aspiring writers out there, screenwriters and otherwise, is that if you want to be a writer you just have to do it. You just have to pick up a pen and paper, or in this day and age, put your finger to the keyboard and start. You can't wait for perfect circumstances or even good circumstances. You can't wait until you have the money to quit your job, or until you're on vacation from your job, or until the kids grow up or go to school. Sometimes I have to write with Nick Jr. in the background, or the baby interrupting me to play, or even sitting on my lap.

Right now I'm completely broke. I have no money in the bank, no job, no income, very little credit, but this is the exact same financial situation I was in before I won the Disney Screenwriting Fellowship, and so I trust and believe that history will repeat itself. I'm not going to worry. I'm going to write. And I will keep you posted on what outcome the universe has in store for me this time.

Struggling to be a writer

So I've been struggling to be a writer, to be a paid writer that is, but am I a writer? Can I call myself a writer? In class we've been discussing how socially constructed we all are which got me to thinking can you really call yourself a writer with no public validation? In other words are you a writer if you have no audience, if no one ever reads your words? It's kind of like that age old riddle, If a tree falls in the woods but no one's around to hear it, does it make a sound? I say yes, but it doesn't matter.

Here's a copy of my forum post from class addressing this issue.

“Although we struggle for rights over our own bodies, the very bodies for which we struggle are not quite ever only our own. The body has invariably its public dimension. Constituted as a social phenomenon in the public sphere, my body is and is not mine. Given over from the start to the world of others it bears their imprint, is formed within the crucible of social life…”  (26) In essence Butler* is pointing out that yes we are individuals with autonomous, natures, inclinations, and belief systems, but even more so we are public entities, very much socially constructed, and exist within social networks, and to deny this aspect of ourselves and our existence is to misunderstand how influential society, community, culture are on us.

Butler says we are physically dependent and physically vulnerable to one another. I had an aha moment as I realized the “truth” of Butler’s claims when as I was contemplating my career as a “writer.” I generally label myself as an “aspiring” writer and I do that because until I am “successful” society says that I am not really a writer. But it is not only society who believes that. I have bought into this as well. I can try to be autonomous in this situation and call myself and see myself as a writer despite the fact that the public has not yet made me successful (i.e, the public has not supported me enough to make a living off my talents as a writer), but there is little satisfaction in that. To be an artist is to have some public recognition and validation of that fact. Without it you’re just a wannabe.

But the case of artists aren’t so cut and dry as public recognition and validation. What about those artists who spent their whole lives working on their craft but did not receive acclaim for their talent until after their deaths? But I guess even in this case it is society who ultimately decided, albeit late, that the artist in question was indeed a legitimate talent.
*Butler, Judith. “Beside Oneself: On the Limits of Sexual Autonomy.”  Undoing Gender. New

York & London: Routledge. 2004. 17-39 Print.

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My Original Pilot is a Finalist in A Screenplay competition

My original Pilot, The Moorish American, is a finalist in the Shoott in Philadelphia screenplay competition!SIP I would love to win this and get to go back home for a visit. I haven't seen family in soo long. I wrote this script last year but didn't do anything with it until this year. I just finished writing a paper, an auto-ethnography for class about my Moorish American heritage so I feel like I'm really close to this project. I know so much more about the history of the creation of the Moorish Science Temple that I would love to work into a series, but at this point in my caeer the chances of it ever getting picked up are pretty slim. However, if it wins the competition I will have a new surge of interest in my writing. You never know what can happen. If Nickelodeon notifies me next month that I am also a finalist for their fellowship I will be over the moon (for lack of a better metaphor.)

This just goes to show you that it's worth it to make moves out of faith and not fear. In my case separating from my husband whose negative energy was blocking my blessings. The night before I got word that I was a finalist I was completely stressed out. I had checked my bank account which only had $500 in it. Now that's not bad if it didn't have to last until September when I get my next refund check from school, and if it didn't have to support myself and my two sons. Financially things are pretty precarious but hopefully this news is just the beginning of more blessings that are coming my way.

Oprah Show Finale Part 1

The Oprah  Show Finale Part 1, May 25, 2011

If you know me, you know I’m a serious Oprah admirer. I decided to transcribe The Oprah Show Finale, or as she puts it, her love letter to her viewers, because as someone struggling with my “life’s purpose” I found it to be very, inspiring, comforting, and insightful. I had so many aha moments listening to her speak and so I wanted to have a permanent record of it for myself, that I can always refer back to in my time of need and because when I learn or find something that helps me I pass it on so it can help someone else. So here it is for all of you, Oprah fan or otherwise.

“25 years, and I’m still saying thank you America, thank you so much. There are no words to match this moment. Every word I’ve ever spoken from this stage, of the Oprah Show for four-thousand, five-hundred, and now sixty-one days of my life is what this moment is all about. Yesterday, you heard the legendary Aretha Franklin sing what has really been a constant, in the theme song of my life, Amazing Grace, and how truly amazing it is, this journey that you and I have shared together. I mean really people, (laughter) when I arrived in Chicago from Baltimore where I co-hosted my first talk show with Richard Sher, who’s here today. Richard? (Richard waves in the audience. Audience Applause) I was uh (Applause) I was…I was just happy to get the job. And as you can see from uh my first day on AM Chicago at WLS,

(clip of first day at AM Chicago)

 I had no publicist, no publicist advising me, no stylist. There was no hair and make-up team. Just a jerry curl and a bad fur coat.  When I came here I was about to turn 30-years-old. I didn’t have a vision for uh, or a lot of great expectations. Stedman talked about vision all the time but, (Cut to Stedman in the audience) I didn’t have one, honey, when I came here. I just wanted to do a good job, and cause no harm. I was soo happy to get the job, I forgot to ask Dennis Swanson who hired me, do y’all have an audience? Will there be an audience because in Baltimore uh, we had an audience. It was just about 24 people, so I came here expecting that I’d have a t least the same. That first day was a shock to me: there was no audience!

(CLIP of the first show)

There I am in uh, my best uh Anne Klein velour outfit. (Audience laughs) Yeah. My first guests were a few Chicago football players, New Years Day 1984. There we are trying to make chili with no stove, no heat, and no you. I needed people. I needed to have you to gage how things were going during the show, if you were responding, if you were laughing, if you were tracking with me. So after the first show we put some folding chairs uh, in the audience. We brought in the staff, (CLIP)  look-a-there, pitiful. Secretaries, anybody we could find in the building and filled in the rest with people off the street that we bribed with donuts and coffee. We’d say “Come in. you want to get warm?” Well from day one Chicago, you took me in,-into your living rooms, into your kitchens and your dens-and you spread the word to your friends. I heard you sayin “Have y’all you seen that black girl on TV named Oprah?” The first week we went National I remember I got a letter from a woman named Carrie in Ann Arbor Michigan. And Carrie said “Oprah watching you be yourself makes me want to be more of myself.”  That was and still remains one of the nicest things I ever heard. What Carrie felt is what I wanted for every, single, one of you. I wanted to encourage you to be more of yourself, just as you all encouraged me and you cheered me on and occasionally complained about my outfits,

(CLIP OF Oprah in bad outfits)

 my big hair,

(clip of Oprah’s big hair)

Whoa! and earrings the size of napkins.

(CLIP OF OPRAH’s Big earrings)

 I now see you had every reason to but at the time you couldn’t tell me nothin. I thought I was stylin pretty cute. But soon after I started the show something shifted for me. It really did. I started this show as a job and was very happy to get the job but it was not long before I understood there was something else going on here, more than just job satisfaction. Something in me, connected with each of you, in a way that allowed me to see myself in you, and you in me. I listened and grew and I know you grew along with me. Sometimes I was the teacher, and more often you taught me. It is no coincidence that I always wanted to be a teacher, and I ended up in the world’s biggest classroom, and this my friends will be our last class from this stage. So today there will be no guests; there will be no makeovers, no surprises-really no surprises. (Surprise overload from United Center) You will not be getting a car or a tree. This last hour is really about me saying thank you. It is my love letter to you. I want to leave you all with the lessons that have been the anchor for my life and the ones I hold most precious. Every day that I stood here I knew that this was exactly where I was supposed to be. And there was many a day, Stedman can tell you, like so many of you, I came to work bone tired, and I often joked with my make-up team “My face is still in Cleveland y’all. Can you get it to Chicago by 9 o’clock?” But I showed up because I knew that you were waiting. You were waiting for whatever we had to offer and that is why I never missed a day in 25 years, because you were here. (Applause) And because, and because, this is what I was called to do. What I know for sure from this experience with you is that we are all called. Everybody has a calling  and your real job in life is to figure out what that is and get about the business of doing it. Every time we have seen a person on this stage who is a success in their life, they spoke of the joy, they spoke of the “juice,” that they received from doing what they believed they were meant to be doing. We saw it in volunteers who rocked abandoned baby’s in Atlanta. We saw it with pie ladies, those lovely pie ladies from Cape Cod making those delicious pot pies. And we saw it even with prisoners, training puppies behind bars to be adopted by our wounded soldiers. Many of those inmates, for the first time, got to experience what it meant to love and be loved and it took a dog to do it. We saw it every time Tina Turner, Celine, Bocelli, or Lady Gaga, lit up the stage with their passion. Because that is what a calling is. It lights you up and it lets you know that you are exactly where you’re supposed to be, doing exactly what you’re supposed to be doing, and that is what I want for all of you. And hope that you will take from the show to live from the heart of yourself. You have to make a living, I understand that, but you also have to know what sparks the light in you, so that you in your own way can illuminate the world. You know when I started, not even I imagined that this the show would have the depth and the reach that you all have given it. It has been a privilege for me to speak to you here, in this studio, in this country, and in a hundred and fifty countries around the world. On this platform that is the Oprah Winfrey Show, you let me into your homes to talk to you every day. This is what you allowed me to do and I thank you for that. But what I want you to know as this show ends each one of you has your own platform. Do not let the trappings here fool you. Mine is a stage in a studio. Yours is wherever you are, with your own reach, however small, or however large, that reach is, maybe it’s 20 people, maybe it’s 30 people, 40 people, your family, your friends, your neighbors, your classmates, your classroom, your co-workers. Wherever you are that is your platform, your stage, your circle of influence. That is your talk show, and that is where your power lies. In every way, in every day, you are showing people exactly who you are. You are letting your light speak for you. And when you do that you will receive in direct proportion to how you give, in whatever platform you have. Of course the circumstances are all different for all of us, but the power, I know, is the same. You can help somebody, you can listen, you can forgive, you can heal. You have the power to change somebody’s life. Look around and you’ll see. You may not have to look any further than your own family, or maybe even your own self. The power is the same. Everybody has a calling. Mine aligned with my profession, my job, but not everybody gets paid for it, but everybody gets called.  It may be your skill at listening, your talent for nurturing and mothering. Do not get it confused. It does not have to be some high falutin something or something that makes you famous; we’re all confused about fame versus service in this country. One of my favorite stories is Marcia Kilgore who founded the successful Bliss spa. She was here years ago and, and, I remember going to her spa and getting a beautiful facial from her, so great. And I stood up on the table and said “This is the best facial I ever had” and she said “That’s because extractions, popping zits, are my passion.” My great wish for all of you who have allowed me to honor my calling through this show is that you carry whatever you’re supposed to be doing , carry that forward and don’t waste any more time. Start embracing the life that is calling you and use your life to serve the world.

Oprah Show Finale Part 2

Oprah Show Finale Part 2

"I’m still feeling all that love from the last two days where my team put on the surprise of a lifetime for me. I still can’t get over how they did it. You know they rehearsed in only one day? Yeah, they are amazing. Everybody keeps asking me if I was surprised. (CLIPS of Oprah at her farewell celebration.) Did you see my face? Good gosh am I surprised? The only thing I kind of suspected was Maya Angelou because I called her the day before and I said “Where are you?” and she said (Oprah in Maya Angelou’s voice) “Somewhere,(audience laughter) but I will be home tomorrow.” so that kind of tipped me off. Maya Angelou, wisdom keeper, doesn’t know where she is? I have to tell you that United Center experience was a love intervention on steroids for me. It is uh the same love I felt reading your messages on Oprah.com over the last weeks. The same love I felt from you all for 25 years. I read this post a few days ago. It was really like a love note to me. It said (from lapau123) “Sweet sweet Oprah, I didn’t know I had a light in me until you told me it was there.” So lapau123 posted May 13^th, 10:40pm.  This last show is my thank you. It’s a love-letter to you and to all of you viewers who have posted messages, who wrote letters back in the day when we still used stamps, remember? Uh, that’s how long we’ve been together. To all you tweeters, to all you facebookers, and especially to those of you who never owned a computer but you turned on your tv set everyday and watched. There isn’t a surprise left to do. I was saying earlier, “not a thing we could think of to put under your seat.” So I wanted to spend this last hour telling you what you have meant in my life, what we’ve learned together in this classroom called the Oprah Winfrey Show. It has been the greatest gift you all could have given me. Each show teaching me, growing me forward, helping me understand the common connection in our human experience. Time and again the theme that kept showing itself in our early years on the show was people making bad choices. I look back at those tapes I can’t believe that I did it. People were making bad choices and then blaming everybody but themselves for the state of their lives. We started to learn by watching learn by watching others, how self-destructive that really was. the beginning of reality tv folks. Glad we grew out of that. When you know better you do better, right? And here’s what I learned from all of that, besides not to do that anymore. Nobody but you is responsible for your own life. It doesn’t matter what your momma did, doesn’t matter what your daddy didn’t do. You are responsible for your life. And what is your life? What is all life? What is every flower, every rock, every tree, every human being? Energy; and you are responsible for the energy that you create for yourself and you are responsible for the energy that you bring to others.  One of the best examples of this Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor who was on the show talking about her book, My stroke of insight. She was a 37-year-old Harvard educated brain scientist who suffered a massive stroke in the left part of her brain. She couldn’t speak or remember her own mother, but when doctors and nurses walked into her room she knew from the right brain who was on her side. She could feel their energy.

(Cut to: interview with Dr. Taylor, 2008)

Oprah: Okay so this was the thing that changed me. You said in the book that, “I’m in here come get me.”

Dr. Taylor: I’m in here come find me. 

Oprah: I’m in here come find me. And you were more perceptive than you had ever been in your life cause you could feel the energy that everybody brought you, brought to you. And one of the things that you said that really changed me was “I wanted people to be responsible for the energy they brought to me.”

Dr. Taylor: That’s right. Take responsibility for the energy you bring.

Oprah: Energy they brought to me.

Dr. Taylor: Yes absolutely because that’s all I could perceive. I was in the present moment and that’s all I could perceive and if I had a doctor come in and just kind of talk to my mother or talk to my friends or just go about without me, not even bother to make eye contact or try to connect to me and show me that they value me and that they value the connection then I’m not going to show up.

Oprah: Right.

Dr. Taylor: So I needed that.

BACK TO SHOW

“Dr. Taylor sent me a sign that I have hanging in my make-up room today. It says “Please take responsibility for the energy you bring into this space.”  And I ask for the same thing in my home and at my companies. Thank you Dr. Taylor for that simple, but powerful lesson. All life is energy and we are transmitting it at every moment. We are all little beaming little signals like radio frequencies and the world is responding in kind. Remember physics class? Remember physics class? Did you pay attention, (Audience laughter) to Newton’s third law of motion? Let me tell you, that thing is real. Says For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. That is the abiding law that I live by, articulated by perfection by Ms. Ceile in The Color Purple when she finally gets the courage to leave her abusive husband Mister.

(Cut to scene from the Color Purple)

Albert (Mister): I shoulda locked you up and just let you out for work.

Celie Johnson: The jail you planned for me is the one you gonna rot in.

Shug Avery: Celie get in the car. Get in the car.

Albert: knock you out

Celie Johnson: Everything you done to me, already done to you.

BACK TO SHOW

 “That is it. Everything you done to me, already done to you. It is the golden rule to the tenth power. Do unto others as you would have them do unto to you. It’s already done. All the energy that you spend trying to hurt someone else, that energy will turn around and slap you in the face. The same thing is true of love. What I know is, is that the energy that I’ve put out everyday, with the best of intention, that it would reach you where you really live, in the heart of yourself, has come back to me from all of you in full force. So that’s what we’ve learned on this show. You are responsible for your life and when you get that, everything changes my friends. So don’t wait for somebody else to fix you, to save you or complete you; Jerry Maguire was just a movie. No one completes you. We have seen it with guest after guest. When you get that, you are responsible for your life, you, get, free. When I started this show, it was a revelation to all of us how much dysfunction there was in people’s lives. I grew up with Leave it to Beaver and Andy Griffith and I thought everybody’s family life was like that even though I knew mine was not. Well this show, and our guests, began to paint a different picture, allowed us to drop the veil on all the pretense and do exactly what we envisioned, in that first show. To let people know that you are not alone.

(OPRAH TALKS OVER CLIP OF a mother lying across the bed crying with her young daughter.)  

"One of the most poignant moments I remember was in one of the first shows we did about alcoholism. We moved in with a family for a week. The mother felt her husband had a drinking problem and it was destroying the family. What moved me the most was this moment right here, in that show, where the mother is being consoled by her three-year-old daughter. That to me was the real picture of what alcoholism does to a family. And that was just the beginning. People started coming on this show saying things they couldn’t say to their own family members.

(CUT TO: Montage of flashbacks)

Woman 1993: I’m proud to say that I am a recovering alcoholic and I, I had to swallow a lot of false pride about even saying that…

Woman 1988: My name is Wanita and I want to tell my friends and family that I’m gay…

Woman 1995: Here I am over weight. I do not feel comfortable about my body…

Woman 1997: I have advanced AIDS so I probably will die from this disease…

Woman 1991:…Raped me lots of times between the ages of 6 and 9 and….

Woman 1991: I decided to come forward at the risk of my life.

Man 2009: I hit her more than once. You know there was a second occasion. There was a third. I didn’t know how to verbally converse with my wife without putting her down and beating her up verbally. Do I think it’s a cycle that can be stopped? Yeah.

Oprah: Yeah

Woman 2004: I saw  that show and I um, called my doctor, and I said I am a drug addict. I am addicted to, this is what I’m taking, and  um I need help.

BACK TO SHOW

 “Little by little we started to release the shame.”