This Was The Week in Words

Happy Friday everyone! Hope we make it through the weekend, what with the crazy 'Supermoon' that we're supposed to get tomorrow. Really, I think we've all had enough natural disasters for one week, but more on that in a sec.

This week in words, The Washington Post apologized and suspended its Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Sari Horwitz for plagiarizing stories from the Arizona Republic. Horwitz also issued her own apology. Sorry, lady. Deadlines are no excuse for stealing other people's words.  Meanwhile, over at The New York Times, the newspaper finally unveiled plans for its online paywall. It sounds overly-complicated, but Gawker's Hamilton Nolan sums it up nicely:

"For those of you inclined to bitch about paying to read NYT stories online: stop bitching. The fact is the paper needs the money. All papers need the money. In retrospect, it was a strategic mistake for newspapers to put their content online for free. Charging for online access is the way of the future. Get used to it. If you're going to pay to read journalism on the internet, you might as well pay for good journalism."

But the week's biggest words-related controversy came from comedian Gilbert Gottfried, who tweeted when he should have kept his quack shut. Gottfried was fired from his gig as the voice of the Aflac duck after posting a slew of really tasteless jokes on his Twitter feed about the earthquake and tsunami in Japan over the weekend. He has since apologized, and removed the jokes from his Twitter feed. But they're everywhere. Nothing really dies on the Internet. (Sari Horwitz, are you paying attention?) It turns out that Aflac insures a substantial number of properties in the disaster zone. Gottfried -- whose entire act is based on tasteless jokes, that's his thing -- was not the only one to say insensitive things (Rush Limbaugh, 50 Cent, we're looking at you), he's just the only one to have lost work over it. Honestly, I think Limbaugh's comments were far worse... because he was being completely serious. An actor who lost his gig as a Geico spokesperson after criticizing the Tea Party had an interesting take on the situation. 

The sex jokes, in particular, were baaad. But I'll I'll admit, I laughed at a couple of Gottfried's other jokes. (Personal favorite: "What do Japanese Jews like to eat? Hebrew National Tsunami.") That's a great bit of word play, and would be funny -- if hundreds of thousands of people had not just died or had their lives destroyed by an earthquake, a tsunami and now, multiple nuclear reactor meltdowns!! The torrent of news has been oh-so-heartbreakingly sad and terrifying. It would be nice to find something funny in it. Since there's not much, I'll take that silly Hebrew National Tsunami punchline. And then I'll take a cue from the Geico guy. Instead of tweeting jokes, or telling everyone how very-very-outraged I am, I'll do something more productive, like text 90999 to the American Red Cross to donate $10 to the relief effort, or make another donation to reputable agencies that are helping. Hope you will too.

Finally, tomorrow is also the Jewish celebration of Purim, which, from what I understand, is a lot like Mardi Gras, but without the beads and boobs. So enjoy life this weekend. Hug your kids (I'll be hugging mine.) Between the radiation clouds, California falling into the ocean and that crazy, crazy moon, we might not even make it to Monday.

The 1% Solution

In the recent The Feedback Loop post, Anonymous "JZ" mentioned that getting feedback on her personal writing was scary for her, especially since she wanted to write a semi-autobiographical novel based on her experiences.

At about the same time, I heard about a relatively new writer who -- after finishing a novel he had spent months writing -- was considering completely gutting his story. The reason: he thought of the main character as an extension of himself... and no one who read the story thought the main character was a likeable person.

Now, every writer has the prerogative to change their story to suit whatever objective they want to achieve. But this writer, until he got that feedback, was relatively happy with the story. It was solid. The events unfolded in a way that made sense. The characters were consistent. But the main character's behavior was morally questionable -- his deception and manipulation of his wife was the driving force of the story. And this writer had invested a good deal of himself into this character. As a result, when faced with feedback that called his character "a bad guy," the writer heard judgment not of the character, but of the story and -- by extension -- himself.

I used to fall into that trap myself. I had gotten better over the years, but it wasn't until I started taking the improv classes (new session started last week - yay!) that I really got it. You are not your characters. On stage, the audience is not laughing at you. They know nothing about you. They are laughing at the character you've created through the silly actions you take.

It is the same in writing. Readers aren't judging you. Ninety-nine percent of the time, they know nothing about you (except what you choose to tell them.) They're judging the character you've created.

It's the judgment of that pesky 1 % writers fear most. These are the people who do know you, who may know the origins of  a specific character, scene or idea . You fear what they'll think of you. ("He'll think I'm a pervert for writing that sex scene.") You fear they won't like what you have to say. ("That's not how it really happened. She's lying.") At it's core, the fear of the 1% comes down to: if they don't like some part of my story, then they don't like some part of me.


All stories -- fiction and non-fiction  -- come from something that is part of the writer. It's truth as you see it. Characters inspired by real people, and plot lines inspired by life events, are part of that. But in a story, the characters you create and the life events you choose to use should only appear in a story for one reason: to serve the telling of your story -- the "truth" that you want to tell.

Writers can't control how readers will judge their story. All writers can do is tell their stories honestly, truthfully, to the best of their ability. Most of the time, the 1% of feedback you fear hearing the most is going to come from people who know you best, or at least understand and care about what you are trying to accomplish with your story. They will know the difference between you and a character, because they know you.

When a story contains truth -- especially a hard truth -- your 1% readers, 99% of the time, will respond not with anger, but with love. They will like you more, understand you more than they did before. And so will the other 99%.

This Was The Week In Words

Breaking news... (because I just heard about it this morning): Funny Or Die, the website founded by Will Ferrell and Adam McKay and known for its viral comedy videos, announced this week that it is launching its own book imprint, Funny Or Die Books. They say their business model will be to take ideas from authors, polish them, then sell to publishers with the backing of the Funny or Die brand. I have mixed feelings about this news. It's great that there's a new publishing imprint out there for up-and-coming writers, but it sounds to me like they're using the Internet's 'site aggregator' model of publishing by taking other writers' work and making it their own -- appropriating the writer's work in the process. Writers need to learn how to build ourselves as our own brand (sounds like a WordNerdGirl post topic we should cover.) What do you think? Funny Or Die Books: Good or Bad? Comment below.

Related to that, is this really an "accidentally beautiful" photo of printers' ink dumped on a highway, or really a metaphor for the newspaper industry?  I got a big laugh out of these headlines -- all grouped together on Yahoo News this morning. It looked like the web equivalent of a supermarket tabloid rack:

• Will March 19 'Supermoon' Trigger Natural Disasters?
• Zombie Ants Fall Victim to Mind Control Fungus
• Photos of Hitler's Wife Stirs the Web

And try as I might, it was impossible to avoid the fallout news generated by last week's meltdown of He-Who-I-Will-Not-Name-because-I'm-tired-of-hearing-about-it-and-more-headlines-just-contribute-to-the-ongoing-displays-of-coked-out-narcissism, but I must say I enjoyed Jon Cryer's appearance on Ellen earlier this week, as well as his admission on Conan O'Brien's show yesterday that he is, indeed, a troll. That may be true, but he'll always be Duckie to me.

Finally, water, water is everywhere as the Philadelphia/South Jersey area deals with widespread flooding from last night's rain, and Japan, Hawaii and the West Coast of the U.S. is reeling from an 8.9 earthquake and resulting tsunami. Forget next week's Supermoon, today is the day we should really be worried about, as the natural disaster is still unfolding. Sending good thoughts and whatever help we can to the victims half a world away. 

This Was The Week in Words: Inaugural Edition

Welcome to the inaugural edition of This Was The Week in Words, a recap of news, events and words that (usually) crazy people said during the past week...

• Melissa Leo made Oscar history when she dropped the first-ever f-bomb during her Best Supporting Actress acceptance speech. Surprised it took this long for that to happen.
• Bristol friggin' Palin signed a book deal to "write" her "memoirs." Hoping she has a bestseller, and that she's setting aside the money for all the therapy her kid will need.
• The Washington Post featured a very entertaining story about sign-language interpreters who sign music lyrics to concert audiences. Felt a little sorry for the woman tasked with translating Lady Gaga -- and I now have "disco stick" seared forever into my brain.
• Gave a half-hearted, "Yay," for free speech when the Supreme Court upheld the First Amendment rights of the Westboro Baptist Church to act like hateful, ignorant puke-faces at funerals.
• Speaking of, the week really belonged to the Lord Voldemort of celebrities. In less than a week, He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named-Here redefined the word "winning" -- and oh so many other things -- after he napalmed, well, everything in his life, as well the lives of his family, his friends, his fans, and everyone who was lost their jobs along with him when CBS canceled his top-rated (that I will never understand) sitcom. Funny or Die sums up the whole tragicomic mess as well as anyone. If you see Martin Sheen, give the poor man a hug for me.

The Feedback Loop

Last week, Salon posted a good Q&A with comedian Michael Showalter about his new memoir, "Mr. Funnypants." One quote of his, in particular, jumped out at me...

"I didn't perform any of it (his book's comedy material) in front of an audience, which is one of the more interesting and terrifying things about writing a book. You really have no idea whether or not what you're writing is funny. In stand-up and sketch comedy, you know right away and you can make your changes accordingly."

I smiled the first time I read that, because I can relate -- especially now that I've made the conscious decision to write more humor. It's a frustrating thing writing the funny for print. You have no way of knowing for certain if what you're writing is getting the laugh until it's read or published. I often crave that immediate feedback. When you can tell a joke or perform a sketch, if the intended gag is met with audience silence, that will usually tell you everything you need to know.

Every writer -- regardless of their experience, or what they're writing -- carries a tiny bit of anxiety, questioning, "Is what I'm writing going to get the reaction I want?"

• Will my memo convince the boss to start production on my product?
• Will my legal brief sway the judge?
• Will readers get turned on by my steamy romance story?
• Will my headline generate page views on the website?
• Will the studio buy my screenplay?

That's why it's so important to seek out -- and listen to -- feedback on your work. The "seeking out" is relatively easy: go to writing classes and workshops, open mike (mic?) nights, track the web hits counter, track your book sales, watch your Facebook friends hit the "Like" button, ask a colleague, seek out the advice of a mentor.

Experienced writers can get in their own way, tuning out help because they think they know what they’re doing – even when they don’t. New writers, because they lack confidence, tend to "over-listen." Regardless of where the feedback is coming from, they make every change suggested, and question their own instincts. They don’t stop to ask, "What is this person's motivation?" Sometimes, you have to consider that the person giving feedback has his or her own agenda.

This happened to me early in my career. For a (thankfully) short time, I wrote for a newspaper where one of the editors actually had the balls to circulate a memo that showed examples of how to not write stories. Every single ‘don’t write like this’ example quoted from stories with my byline.

Still relatively new and unsure of myself (despite a couple of years and awards already under my belt), I felt humiliated and took it to heart, because this guy was an editor with more experience. It wasn’t until later that it occurred to me:

• The stories were all good enough to publish in the first place.
• None of my other editors had complained before (or since).
• I never asked for his opinion. No one did.
• His memo did not offer constructive criticism -- helpful suggestions that would be instructive to everyone who saw it for how to make our writing better.
• He may have been purposely sabotaging me, trying to push me out of the job.

 While at the time, I was floored (and – surprise, surprise – quit very soon after) I eventually came to realize that this guy, even though he was an editor and had more experience than me, was your basic, run-of-the-mill d-bag asshole. He had his own agenda for telling me and everyone in the office I didn’t know what I was doing. Helpful instruction was not part of that agenda. This was feedback that could be rejected.

Now, this is the exception, I believe, not the rule. Most often, if you ask for, or are offered, feedback -- especially from other writers – people genuinely want to do right by you. But sometimes the feedback is misguided. Occasionally, it can be damaging. It takes experience to learn how to sort through it all. This is by no means complete, but here is a list of questions to ask yourself to help tell the difference.

Advice from a Do-Write, or a D-Bag?

• Why is this person giving the advice? Did I ask, or was it offered?
• Does this person have expertise in your area of writing?
• Is this person giving you their honest, fair assessment?
• Does the feedback talk to you in terms of what works and what doesn't in your writing? (As opposed to what is "good" or "bad" about your writing. "Good" and "bad" are subjective. What "works" is something that can be quantified and/or explained.)
• Is the person asking questions about what you were trying to accomplish?
• What's in it for this person if he/she is offering to help me?
• Is this person only focused on what they didn't like, or what was "wrong" with the writing? Can he/she point to what you wrote that was right.

I'd love to hear about how others get feedback, and when you can tell if that feedback is good. Post in the comments.

Referenced link: Salon: Michael Showalter interview

A Wordier, Nerdier New Day

Your Friendly Neighborhood WordNerdGirl has been rather dormant, being neither wordy nor nerdy the last few weeks. That's partly because I've been working my girlie butt off (there are a couple of links below to some of my most recent feature stories in SJ Magazine -- just a couple of the recent writing and editing gigs that have kept me busy.)

When Life Changes in a Heartbeat - February 2011 issue of SJ Magazine

Cuts to the Bone - January 2011 issue of SJ Magazine


But I also had to take some time to reflect, ruminate and plan for the ever-changing future. In the next few weeks, I'd like to tackle writing issues that are not only of interest to me, but also to you, my loyal fan base of not-quite-a-dozen readers, with regular features that include a focus on the many different types of writing out there -- everything from screenwriting to PR to comedy to ad copy to videogames to fiction to essays to trade magazines to... you get the idea. Writing and publishing news, advice, problem-solving, interviews with other writers, and sales and marketing strategies for freelancers are just some of the features I'd like to see posted here -- items that are useful and interesting to writers, veterans and newbies alike, no matter what they write.

It may be overly-ambitious, but hey -- I gotta be me.


In the meantime, let me know what YOU, as a writer, want to know more about. Leave comments below or email wordnerdgirl@comcast.net. Tell me what you want to read about, what you write about, and what would help you.

Unfinished Business

Everyone makes a big deal out of New Year Resolutions. They're meaningless. Most people don't follow through on their January 1st declarations. More often than not, by January 2nd, the personal resolve fades. Really, if you were serious about what you said you wanted to do, you'd be doing it already.

That's why I purposely waited until now to blog in the New Year -- January 2nd --to talk about follow-through, both in writing and in life.

I have stored, on multiple hard-drives and in boxes, the beginnings of many fiction stories, both short and novel-length. All of them were abandoned, for one reason or another. With some, I just had no idea where to take the story. Others were left unfinished because other priorities took over -- be it my kids, my family, an editing or writing gig, blogging, or hanging out and talking with my friends. But really, they were excuses. I managed to write and edit other things -- jokes, essays, feature stories and blog posts -- but I always had a reason to not get back to my stories.

Honestly, I'd often struggle with the fiction once I got past my beginning. I got to the point where I hated what I was writing and found the story draining. I'm very good at deconstructing a fiction story, finding the problems and solutions for other people. But for some reason, constructing the fiction just ain't in me.

I used to promise myself that, one day, I'd buckle down, eliminate the distractions and finish those stories. And this is the point where most writers would declare their New Year's resolution to get those stories finished, write X number of pages per day, and complete their Great American Novel. But I'm not going to do that.

I'm leaving those stories abandoned. I'm letting them go.

Because really, if I was serious about what I said I wanted to do, I'd be doing it already.


Back in October, I read a post on the Advanced Riskology blog that really stuck with me, especially the opening section:

"Every decision you make is life or death. Every single one leads to one result or the other -- even the seemingly insignificant ones. When you decide to do something you love, you choose to live. When you decide to do something you don't, you choose to die, it really is that simple."

Personally, last year was -- for lack of a more poetic term -- a crap-tacular disaster for me. Among other things, my grand, years-in-the-making career plans to -- finally -- write fiction in a graduate school creative writing program went down in flames, and for a very long time after that happened, it felt like my dreams had died. I have been, to a certain extent, mourning that loss over the last six months.

The one bright spot has been launching my WordNerdGirl business, because I do love making things funny, writing essays and feature stories, writing this blog and editing stories and scripts for other people. LOVE IT. I've had a chance to work on projects I never would have tackled years ago.

Also, I've been taking improv classes (not -- it should be noted -- fiction writing classes, which I could have easily done). Initially, I did it to blow off steam and forget about my life aboard the Titanic. But learning how to perform and be funny on stage has done wonders for my writing. I'm exploring things I had always told myself I could never do. It's been challenging, but it also has been the thing that's made me feel alive, when so much else in my life has -- for lack of a more poetic term -- sucked.

It is January 2, 2011 and I am not a fiction writer. It is not something I love to do. It's something I always wanted to do. It is something I used to love to do, years ago, when I was a different person. And it's something I always thought I should be able to do. But I don't love it. So I'm letting it go.

I write almost every day. I am a funny writer, an essay writer, a script writer, a news and features writer, a kick-ass story editor and script doctor, and I am a WordNerdGirl blogger. But I am not a fiction writer.

Sometimes, I think, it takes coming face to face with what you are not to help you figure out what you are. It really is that simple.

If yesterday, you resolved to write more, submit your unpublished stories, or start a blog, it doesn't really matter. The real question is, what are you going to do today, January 2nd? And March 14th? And July 5th?  Writers write. If you are not writing on this day, or that day -- for whatever the reason -- then you are not a writer that day. And that's okay too.

My 2011 wish for everyone -- writers and not-writers alike -- is that you try new things, every day, figure out who you are not, and become who you are.

Happy New Year.

Referenced link: Advanced Riskology: Every Decision is Life or Death