There’s a ballpark near our house, and if you go early enough on weekdays, you can bend the rules a little.
My boys ride their bikes to every exit and shut the gates.
Then we let our dogs run at full speed. We give Jack a head start because Steve, our greyhound, is super fast.
We drink our coffee while they’re running. This little guy needs no cup of coffee in the morning, though he could use a comb.
Then we’re off to school and work, and the dogs have the house to themselves. Life is good.
*
I want to end with some announcements: In September, you met my friend, Pierre Berg, who at age 83 gave LitPark his first-ever interview about his time as a prisoner at Auschwitz. I’m very happy to announce that Pierre has a book deal for his memoir, and you can find the details over at Publishers Marketplace. He’s also had a number of editors from literary magazines step forward with offers to excerpt it. I’m so unbelievably happy for Pierre and grateful for all of you who helped make this happen. Thank you!
There’s also good news for all three of LitPark’s monthly column writers, past and present: Pasha Malla has a collection and a novel coming out with House of Anansi, Frank Daniels had his novel picked up by HarperPerennial, and the remarkable Lance Reynald finished his manuscript.
Lance’s novel is called POP SALVATION, and Alexander Chee and I were lucky enough to read it right out of the gates. I can tell you it’s brave and tender and heartbreaking and sexy and brilliant. If you are a publisher, editor or agent and want to read a copy, just contact him here. Or you can track him down live at the Wordstock Festival this weekend. Lance is one of the greatest souls I know, and I’m so awfully proud of him.
*
Feel like adopting a greyhound?
*
It was so great reading your answers to Monday’s Question of the Week. I liked having a peek at everyone on a normal day – a peek into the fridge, the drive to work, the walk to the park with your dog. Loved your stories! Thank you to Pia Ehrhardt for being my guest this week and for writing a book I enjoyed so much. And thanks to all of you who linked to LitPark this week: Bob Martin Art, Emerging Writers, Official Gaiman LiveJournal, City of Walls, Pia’s Nest, SmokeLong Quarterly News, Myfanwy Collins, Dzanc Books, Daryl Ebneezra Kadabra, and Zoetrope. I appreciate those links!
P.S. You know I often link my number one blog stop, Tommy Kane. But if you have time, make sure you also check out his wife, Yun, who’s on flickr. Okay, have a great weekend, everyone!
{ 65 comments… read them below or add one }
thanks for the props Wondertwin!
I’ll be the guy walking around looking ridiculously happy as I love this town and this festival.
something like this:
and really… if you’re within driving distance or have a ton of frequent flyer miles saved up you really should be here Saturday and Sunday… Well on it’s way to picking up the steam to be the premier event for the LitWits! http://wordstockfestival.com
just look at that lineup!!
Ok, I hear some booming music outside my hotel door…
time to go be social.
anyone on the floor at the festival this weekend, say “HI” I totally don’t bite.
xo. LR
oooops….
how does that photo thingy work, again??
and where is my edit key?
and you have no idea how much joy Pierre’s news brings me…
I can’t think of anyone more deserving. Thank you to everyone that knew exactly what to do with that story…
and Shout-Outs to Frank and Pasha!!!
Here’s a little fix-it help for Sir Lance
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v683/latte2x/Photo167.jpg
Thanks for an exceptionally inspring week in the Park!
err… inspiring
I love the doggie pix, Suse. Dogs are kinda like our kids–we do okay until we have them. Once we get used to them laying across our cold feet while we sit at the computer agonizing over our prose like Pia described, or nosing our hands from the keyboard when they know we need a break, we can’t imagine life without them.
I’m thrilled to hear of Pierre’s pub deal. This is one of the things that makes LitPark such a great place–connecting people in this dot-to-dot world. Here’s hoping for a smooth ride to publication for Lance as well.
Wonderful week at Litpark, Susan! It’s great to hear about Pierre’s book, it’s always good to know that good and interesting authors get published.
Oh, yes: since this week I have a job! woohoo! It’s not wonderful, but it’s a start and that’s what counts, I guess. And since I don’t yet have anything to do and just sit in front of a cmputer for 8 hours it means I’ve found time to start typing my novel. Which is still not finished yet because one chapter just won’t let itself be written and I need to figure out why.
Damn. I wish I’d known about Wordstock earlier. I might’ve tried to get the ex to take the kids for one weekend so I could make the drive down. Looks like a great event.
I am so happy that Pierre found a deal for his book (one more for the reading pile).
Congratulations to all for achievements, and thank you Susan for yet another lovely week in LitPark.
Oh, wow, I love waking up to all this great news. I just learned about Frank this week myself and I’m so thrilled for him! His road to publication is incredible – if you don’t already know it he’s got the whole story on his MySpace site. And Pierre! My eyes filled with tears just now reading that. Congratulations! Lance…just a matter of time and good luck on the Nano. Are you and Kim and Nathalie having as much an excruciating time as I am? Arghh.. I just hit 10,000 words this morning – I’m over 3,000 words behind so you know what I’ll be doing all day today. The hardest part is not taking the time to keep going back and re-reading and editing. Every time I post an excerpt on Nano I can’t help myself and then I find an error and I have to go in and fix it…takes forever for the site to load…and I could have written another 500 words in the meantime. Bah!
Susan, as usual, a great wrap-up and a gut wrenching You Tube.
And best of all, I was thrilled to see Pia get so many comments on Wednesday and such well deserved praise.
Just crossed the 10K mark yesterday as well. I, too, found myself editing like a fiend and getting all kinds of procrastinating done, while disgusing it as “work”.
So I decided that even though there’s this massive time crunch, and a whole new format, I still should maintain my usual ‘vomit draft’ routine. I allow myself 30 minutes before the work session to edit. That way, it’s not verboten, it satisfies my inner perfectionist, and actually lets me remember where my babies were and what mischief they were up to, and then the next blank page isn’t lonely for long.
I also change my excerpts daily, not add to, but change entirely. You miss a day, it’s gone. That daily deadline encourages me to get new stuff written and ‘out there’ into the big scary world.
Are we all NaNoWriMasochists?
P.S. I’m so impressed with Natalie! She’s a speed demon!
Oh how wonderful about Pierre! I loved that interview and was pulling for him. And cannot wait to hold his book in my hands.
Your dog film made me cry. What sweet, lovable things. If I didn’t have my hands in too many causes now, I would get all fired up and go to Long Island and protest!
Loved the week. Pia is so wise and such a generous person. So good to read her.
Take care!
Oh…I didn’t think of that. I just keep adding though I keep changing what I’ve added. Your method makes more sense.
But common sense was never one of my strong points and what am I doing procrastinating here when I should be writing?
Hey, thanks to everyone at Lit Park who voted for me in the Best of Blog Awards and to Sue for linking the “voting booth”. They announced the winners last night and I came in at 4th place!
Hooray for Pierre! What a fabulous gift for a life lived with such fervor.
I love your dogs, Susan. They look quite stately, even as they run amok.
As for Pop Salvation, I have read it twice now, and have stayed awake all night with pages scattered on my bed both times. Working in the business, I don’t often read without a red pen in my mind, and yet Salvation made me forget not only my red pen, but feel things I hadn’t felt in years.
I could write review after review and still never touch the surface.
xoxj
Congrats to everyone. This week was pretty amazing over here! And Susan, no rock star needs a comb ever. Just saying…
Thanks for another great week, Susan, and what GREAT news too!
Thank you too, Pia. You positively influenced the piece I was writing this week with what you shared.
Have fun this weekend, buddy!
I also started turning off the word-count option until I’m done for the day. (I was making myself NUTS by updating my word count every five minutes.)
Thanks to you, Susan, for your great energy and positive embrace. Huge congratulations to Pierre and also to Pasha and Frank and Lance.
Jessica
But you’re doing great too!
Well done!
We are indeed masochists, that’s for sure. Ink addicts, the lot of us.
Good idea about changing the excerpt. Mine is more of a teaser…
I am putting the whole story on a dedicated Live Journal so those of my friends who are interested can read it.
Ho boy, are you brave!
Thanks right back atcha, cutie.
I got your note. Thank you, and phew. x
If it was uniformly messy, I wouldn’t have such a problem. It’s the I-slept-on-it-wet look that drives me nuts. My kids don’t even THINK of combing their hair unless I remind them.
I’m smiling so big. Thanks, you. xo
Thank you so much for watching the little film.
Here, let me link Frank’s MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/nfrankdaniels
And you, Robin, be good to yourself. Order in, open some wine. You have way to much to celebrate to worry about word counts and such.
I’ve never written that much in that short a time period, ever. Hot shot.
Okay, double hot shot.
4th is good! And now you share an award with Neil, who also won!
I’m happy, too! This business can be such a long, hard road, and so I take the celebrations very seriously.
I hope you guys saw Tommy Kane as Gilligan. Is he too cute, or what?
http://tommykane.blogspot.com/2007/11/halloween-party.html
What’s the job, Silvia?
You can create something amazing and spend your whole life hoping to get it into the right hands. The great thing about the internet is you can cut that process way down. There are many many people here who are not standing up to take credit for what happened to Pierre’s book, but I know who they are and I am very grateful and moved by each and every one.
That is the cutest. I tried to upload some of his Portland photos last night and I couldn’t get them to post here. (I need some tools, Terry!)
You’re next!
But I bite.
Hi Dave!
Dear Susan, I’ve been silently enjoying your blog — thanks for wrapping up the week on a high note. btw, on halloween, Tom came home on the subway through Port Authority dressed as Gilligan — what a hoot.
By popular demand from friends and family, I will post pix of our new bklyn apt. once it is presentable.
Yun
Yun, I’m so glad you’re here! Whenever I think of you, I think of candy corn, which I almost sent as a housewarming gift, but I went with a book. You should get it today. It’s probably soaking wet.
xo
that is so sweet of you! we will let u know when it arrives — we will surely cherish it.
Yun
Hee. Cherish might be going overboard. You’ll see. It’s a very useful-ish thing from the remainders bin.
Last night, we watched A Hard Day’s Night (plotless Beatles movie), and I was surprised. I had to re-think my who’s-your-favorite and who’s-the-cutest Beatle thing, because the answer is so way way Ringo, and who’d've thunk it? Anyway, there’s a great NPR story today (with photos) of one of those other Beatles, taken not long before Lennon’s murder. Here’s the link:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16145480&ft=1&f=1032
I just love that you have a dog named Steve…
it’s most certainly Ringo!
I think time has certainly proven that one out….
even in the cartoons…it’s Ringo…
plus, come on… no better name, really.
It’s madness, sheer madness. But I have plenty of that commodity.
Norman Mailer died today. I wonder if the amazing Jim Nichols would like to come here and say anything about him? Jim wrote a collection of stories called SLOW MONKEYS, which I tinkered with a little bit and Norman Mailer blurbed quite nicely.
http://www.publishersmarketplace.com/members/jimnicol/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Mailer
Hey, let’s have a field report from the giddy one in Portland!
And if you run out of sheer madness, you can always borrow from Aurelio!
Steve’s an awesome dog, and he gets along great with our children, Spot and Fluffy.
maybe this will work…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_irOWlAOcI
LANCE. THAT. IS. COOL.
Can you stalk famous writers and get them to look into your laptop screen???!
Have a great great time today, and then report back!
xo
which ones are the famous ones?
will try to do an end of day rap…
but right now I think I need a snack and a nap.
but, I have so many things to tell all of you about!
xo.
psssst …Terry, can I embed these videos, or non?
lets see….
and if not…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-go3zswc_CY
one day down…
sounds like fun.
L.O.V.I.N.G. Reynald’s Rap Live! (The Tour!)
Me, too!
Hey, Alicia. Welcome!
Hey, you. Sorry to be so absent yesterday. I had a huge writing day. And then I went to Mr. H’s gig, where, among other things, I dodged pick-up artists. Also, the music was great.
Absolutely great to see video of you falling in love with this town! Next year, I’m going for sure. And just for the rest of you, Lance and I have been discussing hosting a LitPark Prom at next year’s Wordstock!
I’m out all day today. Mr. H has given me the day to write because I finally tamed this horse, and now I’m going to see what I can do with it. I’ll check in, hopefully, before I head to soccer.
xo
Robin! What is your link for NaNo?
You are not supposed to do any editing now. Leave it for December.
I am having a blast.
Right here: http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user/21333 rel=”nofollow”>My Nano Train Wreck by Robin Slick.
Read it and weep. Literally.
On second thought, don’t. Oy. The first draft from hell.
But yeah, want to friend me over there?
Okay, that link didn’t work. So how about if I try it this way:
http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user/21333
Funny enough it did show on the email notification I got…
Weird.
I “buddied” you. Erotic Fiction! Hot shot! I wish I could really write that.
I have this idea for a weird story that involves some sex and because of it I am really going into the story backwards. Funny since I quite enjoy reading erotica.
It just looks so “bleah” when I try to put it on paper.
How great Steve must feel running just for the sake of running. And how lucky your sweet boys are to see his grace and speed. (That nap on your chair looks nice too.)
Congratulations to Pierre, Pasha, Frank and Lance on their good book news!
I had the priv of meeting Mr. Mailer two years ago. I was invited to read at a literary conference where he was the guest of honor. He was such a witty man with a very dry sense of humor.