Sandra Gail Lambert

My writing brain - on anxiety

Maybe I'm the only one.  Maybe other writers don't have twisted, folded all over and through itself anxiety. 

For instance - maybe they don't have a morning of writing where things went quite well, where the chapter hardly needed much revision at all and so they've moved way ahead of schedule on completing their novel, where all this smooshy feel good stuff is followed by full-body anxiety because they don't have any friggin' idea about what to write next, after the novel is done.  In fact, (they probably don't think) the best idea is to slow down, not to finish the book too soon, maybe ever. 

The Trouble With Jerry Lewis

 

Talk about Oscar Buzz - the action has already begun at the Academy and the Kodak Theatre.  I've been following the protests on Twitter.  And on the Trouble With Jerry website.  My favorite post so far was when they crashed an Oscar Party and some of the glameratti helped pass out fliers and confided that Jerry was an "ass." 

 

Daily read publishing world blogs

Here's a glimpse of my daily procrastinating life or my educating-myself-about-publishing life or my just-need-a-friendly-voice writing life.  The following are the web links I click on most days.  

New Pages - OMG - this is a fantastic resource for writers.  My deepest appreciation to everyone that devotes their time to its existence.

Bookends - A Literary Agency - these agents take shifts answering questions about queries, ranting, giving glimpses of an agent's point of view. 

Editorial Ass - The famed Moonrat, an anonymous book editor, makes me laugh on a regular basis.  And, like the best of the blogs, encourages a huge conversation about books. 

Tayari Jones - The author of Leaving Atlanta and The Untelling, offers one of the best writer blogs available - loads of links, community support, and all that it is that writer's do.

Swivet- Agent Colleen Lindsay's blog has practical info (Why I Rejected Your Query Letter), rants, Depends-necessary funny stuff - all in a queer friendly, genre friendly manner.  

Nathan Bransford - Another agent who makes me laugh. (Is there a theme going here?)  He has great contests. 

Booktour - Now this is the coolest site.  As an author I can post all my books, appearances, and where I'm based.  As a reader I can find out which authors are appearing when and where in my area.  Or if I want to set up an author reading I can see who lives in my area or who will be passing through. 

MediaBistro - basically a publishing gossip column.  Essential to every writer. 

 

Jami Attenberg and Lauren Groff

Tomorrow, Thursday, at 8pm, Jami Attenberg and Lauren Groff will be speaking at Goerings Bookstore here in Gainesville.  

Jami Attenberg is the author of Kept Man and Instant Love.  Jami has had a website since 1998 and is an advocate of independent and self publishing.  Her novel Instant Love was originally a zine series that she sold mostly through her website/blog. 

Lauren Groff is a Gainesville resident and New York Times bestselling author who is devoted to our local independent bookstores.  Her newest book is Delicate Edible Birds.

These two are bound to offer a evening of good writing, all sorts of options for publication, and encouragement.     

Stairs, stairs, more stairs - and stares

I need more adventure in my life.

 

Now, in my manual chair days, I did this.  Not the stairs part, but the flip over backwards for no good reason as I was crossing the Big Five Points intersection in downtown Atlanta. 

 

And this one makes me hold my breath, cover my eyes, and sweat.  It must be that flashback to when I had a pile of gear on my lap and didn't see that (just) one step in front of me.  I blithely cruised over it at full power chair speed.   

East Hope by Katherine Davis

 

Katherine Davis' new novel East Hope is out.  This is not the one she was in the midst of when we worked together at The Atlantic Center for the Arts, but the one before.  This is a disciplined writer.  And I learned a lot about plot (like that maybe it's important to have one) from her. 

So, Kitty - big congratulations! 

 

This wondrous new online world

This morning/last night, anyway, it was about 3am, I woke up in a too permanent way.  I adjusted the heat on my heated mattress pad.  I untangled the covers.  I tried a variety of positions.  I read, fell asleep mid-sentence, let the book drop, and was awake again.  I repeated this.  I repeated this.  Then I remembered my discovery of Academic Earth.  It has on-line lectures from all sorts of classes. 

So now I'm still tired and not sleeping, but I've listened to Amy Hungerford, a professor at Yale, lecture about "The American Novel Since 1945."  I cherry picked the session about Edward P. Jones' The Known World . (I read it last year.) It was so much fun.

The camera is set up right in the middle of things so it's as if I'm sitting there, half way up the auditorium, in the middle of an aisle staring at the cowlicks and uneven parts of the little student heads in front of me (which would never happen for me in real life.  I'd be on a far side, either right up front or all the way in the back).  Hungerford talked about theories of history and narrators and layers of knowledge.  It made me able to have names for things I aspire to do in the novel I'm working on - "walking into a memory," "replacing lost history," "language's power to make history."   

And when I fell asleep in class, there was no rapping of my fingers with a ruler. Here's a bit of it.