Kelly Hand's Blog

Henri Matisse, La liseuse en blanc et jaune

My last blog post was a contribution to a “writing process blog hop,” but the truth is I haven’t been writing much lately.  In part, that is because of my disenchantment with the experience of being a writer.  There is a big difference between writing and “being a writer.”  Working with words and crafting stories is a wonderful, solitary pleasure, yet ultimately most writers crave an audience.  And as I learned after publishing my novel Au Pair Report, audiences do not materialize like rabbits out of hats.

Knowing how important it is to “reach out” to strangers who may be willing to take a chance on an unknown book, I have immersed myself (albeit sporadically) in the world of social media over the past two years.  Connecting with readers and other writers has at times been a rewarding experience.  Through Twitter, Facebook, GoodReads, and SheWrites, I have gotten to know many talented and supportive writers.  We comment on each other’s blogs and share each other’s shares.  Some of these online acquaintances have gone on to read my book, and I have read some of theirs.  Building and maintaining such relationships is time-consuming, and social media crowds out time for writing fiction or anything other than the occasional blog post.  Yet what has bothered me more is the way it encroaches upon my reading time.

By reading time, I do not mean time spent perusing other authors’ blog posts or reading articles online with an eye toward tweeting a link along with a clever comment.  By reading time, I mean the time I spend away from my computer turning the pages of actual books—books chosen simply because they interest me and not out of self-interest or reciprocity (as in, I’ll read and review your book if you read and review mine).

It feels wrong that so much of my reading these days is mediated by screens.  I am always happier when I can focus on a book without getting distracted by the temptations of the Internet.  Although the Internet gives writers opportunities to market themselves, writers have to work harder than ever to capture the attention of readers because of the abundance of available content.  Unfortunately, for those of us who don’t have the luxury of being full-time writers, this often means staying up late and staring at a screen rather than winding down at night with a book.

Perhaps because I am a former medievalist, the word “worldliness” comes to mind because “being a writer” is a form of social engagement that alienates me from what one could consider the more “spiritual” mode of reading.  Although I am a committed secularist, reading is probably the closest I come to a spiritual practice.  Communing with a book is a solitary and meditative act, and often the stories we read invite self-reflection and a yearning for self-improvement.  Writing fiction has that potential for me also, but “being a writer” does not.

When I am playing the role of a writer reaching out to a potential audience, there is always some element of vanity in my actions—in spite of my desire for a genuine engagement with readers and other writers.  It is too easy to worry about what other people think and to focus on book reviews, blog stats, and other such indicators of a nascent reputation.  Author Kathleen Hale recently wrote a confessional piece about how a reviewer’s harsh comments led to her obsession with exposing the reviewer’s fabricated online identity. This is an extreme example of how unhealthy being a writer can become.  The backlash against Hale’s essay suggests that she may lose more readers than she will gain by sharing this story.

One could object that just as there is a difference between writing and “being a writer,” there is a difference between reading and “being a reader.”  The latter is especially true for book bloggers such as the one who wounded Hale’s vanity, for these bloggers construct online identities as readers.  Although I also blog about books sometimes, I do not feel the same disconnect between whatever online identity I have as a reader and the act of reading.

Having taken long breaks from writing in the past, I may not be one of those writers who absolutely must write, but I am a reader who absolutely must read.  Spending time with fiction is fundamental to my happiness, and while I sometimes think writing novels is not worth it if I have to exert so much energy to market them, the value of reading novels is something I never question.  My love for reading is what first brought me to writing, and it is what will bring me back.  For now, however, I’m focusing more on being a reader and less on being a writer.

Image by Karin Dalziel on Flickr

My friend and fellow writing group member, Kristin Battista-Frazee, author of the upcoming memoir The Pornographer’s Daughter, invited me to participate in a “blog hop.” If this conjures up visions of dancing around at a “sock hop,” then you’ve got the right attitude about reading and writing!

This is a fun way to learn about writers who are out there connecting with readers through blogs. I have had the pleasure of meeting many other authors—sometimes in person and sometimes online—and learning from their experiences with writing, publishing, and marketing their books. Below are my responses to several questions about my writing process, and if you follow the links back from my post to others, you will get a pretty good snapshot of what it means to be a writer today.

Two writers whose productivity and creativity have inspired me will be blogging about their writing processes in the coming weeks:

Deborah Brasket: Be sure to check Deborah Brasket’s website the week of June 16.  Deborah writes about nature and the creative arts, and the borders they share. Her adventures sailing around the world with her family years ago give her a unique perspective on the natural world. She is working on novels for adults and for middle grade readers.

Scott D. Southard: The week of June 23, you should visit the website of Scott Southard, a prolific novelist and blogger who also reviews books for a Michigan NPR radio affiliate, WKAR. His most recent novel is A Jane Austen Daydream, and his next novel, Permanent Spring Showers, will appear in October.

What are you working on?

My work-in-progress is a novel called The Wallpaper Lady. Using wallpaper as a metaphor for peeling away the layers of a crazy family history, I combine the story of a bipolar wallpaper hanger with images of the wild and wonderful wallpaper so popular during my 1970s childhood. You can read more about The Wallpaper Lady HERE.

I am also working on getting the word out about my first novel, Au Pair Report, which first came out as an ebook at the end of 2012 and came out in paperback this May. Like many writers, I am struggling to strike a balance between expanding the audience for an already published book and making progress with a current project.

How does your work differ from others of its genre?

This is a tough question to answer because my work does not fit neatly into any of the typical genres such as romance, mystery, etc. The label that seems most accurate is “contemporary women’s fiction,” yet I know there are men who enjoyed my first novel, Au Pair Report. I think that will be even truer of The Wallpaper Lady. Just as women read books with male protagonists, men should read books with female protagonists, so I’m deeply ambivalent about claiming the label of “women’s fiction,” yet also realize it is a category that may help me to attract the most likely readers of my novels: women.

Similar to many other books that would also fall in the category of women’s fiction, my novels explore how mothers influence daughters, but they focus in particular on the legacy of maternal mental illness. There is an increasing amount of fiction about bipolar disorder, so what’s unique about mine? It just so happens that so far my novels have also provided a glimpse into two unusual jobs, as their protagonists are a counselor for au pairs and host families and a wallpaper hanger. I think my fiction will always be somewhat preoccupied with how people make a living because the need to work is something most people share.

Why do you write what you do?

One reason I write what I do is that fiction is a way for me to process and make sense of what happens in the world around me. To some extent, incorporating fragments of my personal history into a fictional framework is also a form of therapy for me. I can’t afford to pay a psychologist or psychoanalyst to listen to me for an hour a week or more, so maybe writing fiction will be cost-effective even if I never do get rich from it.

Creative work also has its own rewards, and just as reading a lot of fiction has made me a better writer, writing novels has made me a better reader. I earned a PhD in English literature because it seemed like a good way to spend my life reading and writing, but after choosing not to pursue an academic career, I realized that reading and writing “on the side” provide me with more creative freedom.

How does your writing process work?

One significant disadvantage of writing “on the side” is that I have to give priority to my “real job.” I also have children to raise, and many other practical demands of life interfere with my desire to write. However, I have been working from home on a less than full time basis for almost a decade now and have a flexible schedule.

My most productive writing time is late at night when everyone in my house is asleep, but sometimes I take time during the day to write, especially if a deadline is looming. I prefer to write polished prose rather than the sort of “shitty first drafts” Anne Lamott advocated in Bird by Bird, but my meticulous approach often slows me down. It took me a whole “practice novel” ( completed and revised over the course of many years, but never published) to learn that no matter how polished my prose may be, revision is always essential—not just at the level of individual sentences, but also at the structural level.

Over the past several years, I have met regularly with a writing group, and sharing my work with those fellow writers, who have become good friends, has taught me a lot about the needs and interests of readers. I welcome honest feedback from all my readers, whether via social media, book reviews, blog comments, or a real live conversation.  Reach out for books–and to their authors!

Photo by LInda Rae Duchaine on Flickr.

If you know a few tweens or teens, then you must be aware that “awesome” is the adjective of choice for expressing approval among young people. Almost anything can be awesome, including food, weather, music, teachers, pets, and even parents.  I just got a Mother’s Day card from my nine-year-old proclaiming “You are awesome MOMMY!” and I’m sure many other moms received similar accolades to their “awesomeness.”

Of course, it’s not just tweens and teens who use and overuse this adjective and its noun variant. For many of the perky, young teachers at my daughter’s charter school, “awesome” is the verbal equivalent of a gold star: an all-purpose word for praising students’ work and behavior.

When an anthropologist friend of mine described a group of her former undergraduate students as awesome on Facebook, I had to come to terms with how popular the word has become with my own generation. My friend admitted to me that this was her way of appealing to her audience, using language meaningful to them, but for many people my age (over 40, that is), the use of this word is less self-conscious.

The Evolution of “Awesome”

As was the case with “cool” decades ago, words often travel up through the generations until older and older people begin to use them.  At the same time, as young people age, they hold onto familiar vocabulary. Someday, we may have a bunch of centenarians wishing each other “an awesome 10oth birthday.”

A recent headline in the “Style” section of The Washington Post, “Haim’s Unapologetic Awesomeness,” made it clear the word has achieved some journalistic legitimacy (the alternative headline for the online version of the article is “Haim is Both Goofy and Awesome at 9:30 Club“).  In this glowing review of the band Haim’s performance at DC’s 9:30 club, Ashley Fetters described how the three Haim sisters who make up the core of the band threw their “long hair around so violently and awesomely that Robert Plant could have taken some pointers.”

In her review, Ashley Fetters lends to the word “awesome” a strong association with feminine power that made me wonder how soon we would see this sort of vocabulary in front page or “section A” articles of the Post. We may just be a year or two away from reading about “Hillary Clinton’s Unapologetic Awesomeness.”

Let’s just stop and focus on the traditional meaning of the word “awesome.”  The Oxford English Dictionary defines it as: “Extremely impressive or daunting; inspiring great admiration, apprehension, or fear.”  Examples include “the awesome power of the atomic bomb” and “The awesome majesty and power of these mountains is breathtaking.”

Photo by Emergency Brake on Flickr.

Ashley Fetters may be in awe of the Haim sisters’ hair and stage presence, but clearly her use of the word “awesome” strips out apprehension and fear.  OED offers up “Extremely good; excellent” as a secondary definition, labeling it as “informal.”  American culture is indeed becoming more and more informal, but we are also experiencing some adjective inflation when it comes to expressing our enthusiasm.

Blogger Brian D. Buckley has declared that “awesome is dead” and proposes “28 Words to Use Instead of Awesome,” starting with “outstanding” and “astounding” and ending with “kickass” and “legendary.” There are many more we could add to the list, including many that I use regularly with a degree of self-consciousness. Sometimes I tell someone it was wonderful meeting her or him, and realize that word has lost its power, too. The same is true of many of the words on Buckley’s list.

My Issues with Enthusiasm

Since I am writing this on Mother’s Day, I want to tell you about my mom and adjectives.  When eating, she always declared food “luscious” or “scrumptious.” One time, we bought some chicken wrapped in foil, and before she opened it, she said “This looks delicious.”  It’s not that she thought the foil would be tasty; instead, this was her way of bonding through an exuberant appreciation of the moment.

My mom also used such adjectives as “fabulous” and “fantastic” on a regular basis to describe almost anything. Her gushing was funny and endearing, and I miss it now that she’s gone. Still, remembering her immoderate use of adjectives makes it harder for me to wield such expressions of enthusiasm.

Years ago when I was teaching an introductory composition and literature course for college freshmen, a couple of students complained in end-of-semester evaluations that I was not enthusiastic enough. These comments were from students who obviously had no interest in the readings. Apparently, it was my job to convey infectious enthusiasm that would win them over. We live in a culture of entertainers and cheerleaders, and my students might have wanted me to persuade them of the awesomeness of the course readings, but perhaps they also wanted me to reward them with gold stars for their own awesomeness.

Is Everything Awesome?

Photo by Miguel Vaca on Flickr.

I see the American obsession with enthusiasm as a sign of collective insecurity. Maybe this is why we try so hard to document all the positive aspects of our lives–through photos, social media, etc.–and so few of the negative aspects.

I saw The Lego Movie about a month ago with my daughter, and its catchy theme song, “Everything is Awesome” often pops into my head when I see or hear the word “awesome.”

 

Everything is awesome.

Everything is cool

when you’re part of a team.

Everything is awesome

when you’re living out a dream.

As this YouTube clip demonstrates, the song first appears in a scene when the film’s insecure hero, Emmet, is trying too hard to fit in. Although it sounds like a bubble gum pop song, it is in fact a critique of the conformist desire to feel good about a consumer culture that discourages independent thought and action.

We know everything is not awesome, but we are part of a team as fellow English speakers. I hope to do my part to rein in adjective inflation—living out my dream of making words matter. And I hope you will do your part by using the word “awesome” only when you really mean it–when you are truly in awe of someone or something!

Author Danielle Evans visits the Student Parent Book Club at Columbia Heights Education Campus in Washington, DC. Photo by Ariel Martino.

About a year ago, in my blog post, “Five Things My Book Club Taught Me About How Real Readers Read,” I shared memories of a book club experience from many years ago. What I learned from reading novels with a group of female friends is that readers crave a connection with the stories they read–and with the writers who craft those stories. Readers are naturally curious about the lives of authors and about how they incorporate truth into fiction.

Now, as a volunteer for PEN/Faulkner Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to the promotion of literature, I am in another book club–this time with a group of teen moms who are students at a high school in my neighborhood. These young women, ranging in age from 15 to 18, are participants in the New Heights program, which provides services and workshops to expectant and parenting students in seventeen DC schools.  They attend classes while their children, infants to two-year-olds, spend the school day in an on-site child care facility. One of the many great things about our book club, which is part of PEN/Faulkner’s Writers in Schools program, is that we get to meet the authors whose books we read.

We have met Danielle Evans, author of the short story collection Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self, and Lulu Delacre, author and illustrator of the children’s picture book, How Far Do You Love Me?  Now we are reading The Color of My Soul and we are already beginning to think of questions we want to ask its author, Melanie S. Hatter.  Above all, we want to ask that universal question: How much of this story is your story?

A few weeks ago, I wrote for the DC education policy blog, Greater Greater Education, about how  our Student Parent Book Club benefits children by nurturing a love of reading in their parents. Kids who grow up surrounded by good books and with parents who read on their own–and not just to their children–are more likely to become strong readers themselves.

Since the advent of the No Child Left Behind act, educators have been fixated on literacy.  Bringing writers into schools helps to remind us that we need literature–that is, stories–as much as we need literacy.

READ: How do you get parents to read to their kids? Get them to love reading.

Watercolor Portrait of Jane Austen commissioned after the author’s death by her nephew Rev. James Edward Austen-Leigh and based on an earlier portrait by her sister Cassandra.

Jane Austen is exactly the sort of author I had in mind when I wrote my blog post, “Five Things My Book Club Taught Me about How Real Readers Read.”  In outlining how real readers break the rules of literary criticism, I first highlighted the compelling desire to read literature through a biographical lens.  Armed with a little information about an author’s life, it is inevitable that we begin to make connections between the author’s experiences and his or her fiction.  Even if we know few details about the author’s life, we may make assumptions about biographical influence.  For example, in the case of Jane Austen, it is easy to imagine her living her life in the genteel world of country estates and carefully calculated marriage prospects because so much of her fiction focuses on that world.

In his novel, A Jane Austen Daydream, Scott D. Southard explores the question of whether Austen, known to have remained single until her death, ever found true love.  I read this out of curiosity, piqued in part by my familiarity with Southard’s blog.  What I appreciate about Southard is his ability to reveal his anxieties and self-doubt about writing, parenthood, and a variety of other topics in a way that few male writers do.  He is a quintessential “nice guy” with a genuine passion for his craft.  However, the literary snob and recovering academic in me questioned his “credentials” for writing such a book, perhaps in part because his blog is more likely to focus on contemporary or twentieth century fiction than on early nineteenth century classics, but also because it often focuses (prolifically and intelligently) on pop cultural phenomena: television shows, video games, and music—almost always unfamiliar to me.

At first, I felt myself resisting Southard’s approximation of early nineteenth century dialogue between Jane Austen and her contemporaries, but then I relaxed and began to enjoy the story.  He brought Jane to life as a prankster who enjoys shocking many of her straighter-laced family members.  As his fictional representation of Austen’s life and sprightly personality engaged me more, I became increasingly curious about the factual details of her life—in spite of Southard’s insistence that his novel is a work of imagination rather than historical fiction.

At my local library, I found Paula Byrne’s unconventional biography, The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things.  This hardcover volume became my “at home” book while A Jane Austen Daydream was the ebook I carried around on my Kindle.  Reading the books simultaneously gave me plenty of opportunities to notice that Byrne’s biographical narrative was as much a work of the imagination as Southard’s novel.  Byrne draws upon references to various objects owned by Jane Austen—such as a  card of lace and a portable writing desk—as well as items that evoke her world—for example, a painting of a “bathing machine” used to roll ladies into the ocean so they could enter without displaying themselves immodestly.  She uses clues from Austen’s letters or from other historical evidence to give life to these objects and to tell a story about the author and her family members, who surprise us by coming off as less straight-laced than Scott Southard (or I) imagined them.  But is this truly the “real Jane Austen”?  Of course not, for Byrne takes liberties in building her elaborate arguments just as Southard does in constructing his narrative.

Both books remind us of the many ways Jane Austen prioritized her writing over the economic security that a loveless marriage might have offered her.  Byrne argues that remaining single was Austen’s most effective strategy for realizing her full potential as a writer—which marriage and especially motherhood could jeopardize—while Southard imagines Austen as a principled romantic holding out for a soul-mate.  One lovely surprise about A Jane Austen Daydream is that Southard manages to imagine his way into the story in the form of a character who shares his name, and we can surmise that he identifies with Austen’s struggles to establish herself as an author.  Byrne also documents how precarious the path to publication was for Austen, who had to pay (with the help of her brother Henry) for the printing of her first published novel, Sense and Sensibility.  Having encountered her fair share of rejection in previous years, she was as determined to get her book out there to readers as today’s self-published authors are.  It was an investment that paid off, especially for all of us who have had the pleasure of reading her novels.

I concluded that both Southard’s and Byrne’s books were literary daydreams—daydreams of two distinct varieties, appealing for different reasons.  Best of all, they inspired me to dream my way back to what I consider the Real Jane Austen: that is, her novels.  I am now reading Northanger Abbey, enjoying it far more than I had the first time I read it because both Southard and Byrne highlighted Austen’s mischievous sense of humor.  The rich variety of historical sources Byrne incorporates in her characterization of Austen will undoubtedly enhance all my future re-readings, but I give credit to Southard for inspiring me to learn more about Jane Austen—and to return with new curiosity and enthusiasm to her novels, which keep surprising me with their cleverness and emotional substance.

Halloween candy haul photo courtesy of Kristin Battista-Frazee

Well, I do have a love/hate relationship with Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, but otherwise that pile of candy loot my kids gathered last night is pretty detestable.  Why do I hate candy—or, more specifically, Halloween candy?  Let me count the ways (and if you get bored, jump ahead to the poll at the bottom) . . .

Candy is sugar at its worst.  You should know that I’m not an anti-sugar zealot.  In spite of mounting evidence that sugar is in effect a poison, I do have a certain fondness for sweets.  In fact, I am somewhat addicted to dark chocolate, which exists in its own special category, distinct from that of “candy.”  With its lower sugar content, anti-oxidant properties, and fewer artificial additives (at least in the kind I prefer, the Icelandic  brand Sirius’s 70% cocoa bars), it seems more like “real food” and less like a conspiracy to rot our teeth and turn us into diabetics.   Maybe I’m being unfair to the humble varieties of candy kids scoop up at Halloween, but most of the packages list sugar as the first ingredient instead of chocolate or anything else.  Let’s just be thankful the poison comes in small doses, but the waste of paper is a problem.

If you’re serious about chocolate, try Icelandic Sirius brand 70% cocoa chocolate. (They’re not paying me to promote their brand, but they should.)

Candy just isn’t as much of a treat as it’s supposed to be.  My kids agree with me on this.  My older daughter just commented the other day that she doesn’t care so much about Halloween candy and prefers baked goods; she and her friend came home early with a small haul.  The younger one only stayed out as long as she did because her friend was determined to get as much candy as possible, and she was in it for the social experience.  We have all heard about how many decades ago, trick or treating involved gathering up baked goods from one’s neighbors.  By the time I started trick or treating in the 70s, people had become paranoid about razor blades in cookies and other unpackaged items.  This is unfortunate because most kids do absorb baked goods, especially homemade ones, more easily. Even if butter, eggs, and flour get a bad rap for various reasons, they help to gird our systems for the onslaught of sugar that can make all-sugar treats or cheap milk chocolate a recipe for crankiness.
I hate negotiations about candy.  In spite of my kids’ ranking of candy fairly low on the scale of treats, they still want to eat it.  Having it around the house introduces conflict that would otherwise be absent.  The kids know the candy is there, so they constantly ask if they can have a piece.  We usually allow them to eat several pieces the first night and then a piece a day until they forget about the stash—until they suddenly remember again.  This approach may sound manageable except that I don’t really want my kids eating a piece of junky candy each day.  But what else are we supposed to do with it? Eventually, we end up throwing some of the candy away.  Although my kids do not gather as much in the first place as many other kids, they still have far more than any kid needs.
Halloween is too focused on the candy.  I saw a lot of kids out there tonight who were not wearing anything that could pass for a costume.  They seemed to be pounding the pavement with a determination that suggested candy collecting was a job rather than a fun activity. That doesn’t surprise me because part of the fun is dressing up.  I realize it takes time, money, and/or creativity to come up with costumes, but going trick or treating without a costume sends the message that Halloween really is about the candy.  In my walkable urban neighborhood, a few streets attract large numbers of children from all over the city.  Many residents take pride in their spooky décor and hang out on porches with friends to pass out candy while imbibing their own favorite poisons.   It’s just too bad that candy is the organizing principle for what is otherwise a wonderful manifestation of community.
My favorite Halloweens have not revolved around candy.  When our kids were too young to know what trick or treating is, we attended some fabulous Halloween parties hosted by the most creative family we know.  The routine was to gather at their house in costume, socialize, eat, and set out for a parade in the direction of Dupont Circle.  The hosts wore homemade papier-mâché masks and sometimes stilts, and there were enough real musicians to establish a beat for the rest of us to accompany with various instruments and noisemakers.  The kids loved it, and the people we encountered along the way enjoyed the spectacle.  After this amazing family moved to the West Coast, some of us tried to do something similar, but didn’t manage to pull it off without their creative spirit as the driving force.  More recently, we also enjoyed the creativity of some hilarious drag musicals staged by residents of a neighboring street.  The best one lampooned the 2008 presidential election, but their version of The Sound of Music and a show with a “British Invasion” theme (featuring the Beatles, the Royal Family, and the Spice Girls, among others) were also standouts.  Too bad Hobart Street didn’t come through this year.  Maybe I don’t have a right to complain if I am not doing my part to make Halloween better, but maybe I just don’t hate candy enough to direct my creativity away from writing and toward Halloween revelry. 

Day of the Dead altar by Michael William Parker Stainback in honor of his mother Suzanne

As you can see, my attitude toward Halloween candy reveals some ambivalence about Halloween itself.  After returning from trick or treating, I took a look at Facebook.  There were lots of adorable photos with kids in creative costumes and some images of impressive candy hauls (including the one featured here courtesy of Kristin Battista-Frazee), but the most exciting thing I encountered was a Day of the Dead photo gallery.  My friend Michael Parker Stainback has lived in Mexico City for several years and has embraced the culture wholeheartedly.  He lost his mother this past year and created a beautiful Day of the Dead altar that captures her spirit perfectly.  Although the Day of the Dead and Halloween share a preoccupation with the mysteries of the afterlife, the Mexican holiday’s emphasis on connecting with one’s lost loved ones is more meaningful and symbolically rich than our flirtations with the macabre.  There were plenty of zombies and skeletons walking around my neighborhood last night, and some of their costumes were imaginative, but the decorative candy skulls on my friend’s altar to his mother made me think our culture needs a more positive means of engaging with the concept of death.  Maybe I will suggest to my kids that we offer up their candy to our ancestors. After all, the dead don’t need to worry about sugar lows or cavities, and we can hardly blame them for getting a little cranky now and then.

Take Our Poll

Would you rather buy a house with an in-law suite or an au pair suite?  Whether or not you have a mother-in-law or an au pair living with you, I’m guessing the au pair suite somehow sounds more appealing to you.  Real estate agents owe a debt of gratitude to au pairs for providing them with a better way to market the basement living spaces common in the eastern half of the United States.

Even if you have wonderful in-laws who defy all the stereotypes, and even if you can’t wait for them to move in with you, you may imagine an au pair suite as a more luxurious space.  That’s because if you don’t think about it too carefully, having an au pair sounds like a luxury.  For some, the term may invoke some kind of lurid French maid fantasy, but for others the fantasy it invokes is one of on call in-home child care.  An au pair is not supposed to be a maid, but she can take care of and clean up after your child, and she can double as a chauffeur and laundress for the children.  Doesn’t that sound luxurious?  Au pairs are an affordable child care option, especially for families with multiple children, and the flexibility truly comes in handy for school-aged children whose schedules are peppered with vacations and “teacher professional days.”  But if this luxury is a stretch for your budget or your living space, proceed with caution.

If you’re thinking of hosting an au pair in your basement, then you should make sure the space is worthy of the name “au pair suite.”  Ask yourself if you would be willing to live down there—or if you would have been willing when you were younger.  Would the space be nice enough to rent out?  It should be a finished basement, but also a sufficiently insulated, heated, and ventilated basement.

When I was a counselor for au pairs, there were a few who complained about their basement rooms being too cold, too smelly, too buggy, or just too depressing.  My job was to make sure families complied with Department of State rules about having a functional window, a lockable door, and a smoke detector on the same level.  Beyond those basic rules, there were lots of “gray areas” about what was acceptable and what was not.  When there was a choice between an upstairs room and a basement space, I encouraged families to let the au pair choose.  In some cases, I told families their basement space was not suitable for an au pair.  Another part of my job was mediating conflicts.  Some matches ended because the au pairs felt that their inadequate basement living spaces were a reflection of how their families undervalued them.

Some au pairs love having the basement to themselves, especially if it’s a nice one and if it allows them to invite friends over more comfortably.  They may appreciate having a quiet place to sleep in on weekend mornings or even a kitchen and living room to themselves.  However, other au pairs, including some of the sweetest au pairs I have ever met, feel that being in the basement sends the message that they are not a part of the family.  You should ask yourself if you can embrace the whole package of hosting an au pair, which includes establishing a genuine relationship with a young person from another country.  Sharing your home can sometimes be challenging for those who cherish the privacy and intimacy of family life.

The ideal of being “part of the family” is problematic, for it can set unreasonable expectations and lead to disappointment for either side.  Nonetheless, if you care about your children, you must care about your caregiver. An au pair year is supposed to be a cultural exchange experience rather than a mere job.  As a host parent, you live the paradox of being a cultural ambassador within your own home.  Your au pair may see your behavior as typical of all Americans, so if your actions seem stingy or cold to her, then she is bound to share those impressions with her compatriots.  If your au pair is truly unhappy, you may find yourself in a “rematch” situation, which is hard on host families, au pairs, and children.  However, many au pairs tolerate unpleasant situations because they perceive that host families have more power in the relationship since au pairs have to go home at their own expense if they can’t find a new family during the rematch process.

I don’t mind sounding preachy when a vulnerable young woman’s happiness (and by extension, the happiness of the children in her charge) is at stake. If you want to host a sweet au pair, then you must in all matters—and not just in the matter of the au pair suite—follow the “spirit” of the law (i.e. the Department of State regulations) and not just the “letter.”

If you enjoyed reading this blog post, take a look at my novel, Au Pair Report.

Have you noticed how, in some books, things just come too easily for fictional characters?  Whether it’s sudden wealth, a good catch of a husband, or an amazing job, we get some gratification from watching protagonists get lucky. And maybe it gives us some hope that we will get lucky someday, too.

The protagonist of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s recent novel  Americanah is Ifemelu, a Nigerian woman who comes to the U.S. for several years and then returns to her hometown of Lagos.  Although she initially experiences economic challenges typical to new immigrants, she eventually finds success as a blogger.  After quitting the stable job that had helped her to secure permanent residency, she begins blogging about her perceptions of African Americans and American culture from the perspective of an African immigrant.  The posts on her blog, Raceteenth, or Various Observations about American Blacks (Those Formerly Known as Negroes) by a Non-American Black, are witty and insightful.  With what seems like no promotional effort on her part, she gains a large following and eventually enough income to support herself through her blog and the attention it brings her.

This photo of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie demonstrates one of the other fascinating themes of her novel: the beauty of hair that is braided rather than straightened into submission.

For those of us who struggle to get the word out about our writing—enhancing our online presence through the use of social media and hoping the readers we do reach will “share” links to our work—Ifemelu’s success seems pretty miraculous.  Readers make donations via her blog, which also generates advertising revenue, and she becomes a sought after speaker and, finally, a fellow at an academic institute at Princeton.  Do you know any bloggers who have achieved such significant financial benefits and prestige?  I know there are some who manage to make a living by blogging, but they probably represent something less than one percent of bloggers.  This is one of those fantasies most of us can only experience vicariously, and it has little basis in reality.

This “decoy blog” that appears on Adichie’s website looks a lot like how she describes the second blog of her character Ifemelu.

Supposedly much of the material for this book was taken from Adichie’s experiences as a new immigrant to the U.S., where she has achieved success as a writer—and the honor of being chosen for the prestigious and lucrative Macarthur Foundation fellowship—but as far as I know she has not blogged.  Interestingly, on her website, there is a “blog” menu tab that brings us to a page with the heading “The Small Redemptions of Lagos.”   There are no actual blog entries on the page, but this is the title of a blog her character Ifemelu starts when she returns to Lagos and begins sharing her perspective as a returnee from abroad.  It features a photo of an old house similar to the one Ifemelu finds next door to her new home in Lagos—and then uses for her new blog.  “The Small Redemptions of Lagos” was also a temporary title for Americanah.  This is a sort of decoy blog, and I can’t wait to see if Adichie ever does begin to blog in earnest.  The sample posts she includes in her novel are fun to read, and because of her pre-existing reputation as a novelist—and a TED Talk star whose talk, “The Danger of a Single Story” has been viewed almost five million times—an Adichie blog has the potential to attract even more attention than Ifemelu’s blog.

Of course, bloggers should be aware that they are unlikely to make a living at blogging.  Even Ifemelu never had this expectation, but she did “get lucky.”  And for writers who use blogs to attract readers to their books, it’s important to realize that the books matter more than the blogs.  After all, we may enjoy reading blogs, but they do not stay with us and shape our imaginative lives the way books do.  The movie Julie & Julia is the best popular example of a blogger fantasy narrative.  Julie Powell probably did manage to make a living from her blog after it was turned into a book and then a film, but I doubt her book will have much staying power over time—partly because it is a series of blog posts (and apparently her second book didn’t succeed with readers or critics).

As much as I enjoy blogging, I would rather make a living from writing novels than from blogging, and obviously Adichie feels the same way.  I envy her success far more than I envy Ifemelu’s success, and this is mainly because Americanah has a lot more to offer than any blog post could.  My own blog post is a roundabout way of saying you should read this novel.  Ifemelu’s blog posts are a nice little bonus, but the narrative structure that supports them is the real treat.

Remember those times when you were young and single and you had such high expectations for New Year’s Eve?  Or maybe you’re still young and single, and you know there’s a certain amount of pressure to have a great time not just on New Year’s Eve but also on every weekend evening.  That’s the kind of pressure I feel now as a mother of two children slogging my way through the latter part of another hot and humid DC summer (yes, DC people, I know the weather has been merciful this week, but it’s the exception to the general rule).   Summer is supposed to be fun and carefree, and somehow my role as a parent is to deliver up a lifetime full of wonderful memories, yet real life often gets in the way.

Am I just imagining this pressure?  Perhaps, but people send emails with comments such as “have a great summer” or “hope your summer is going well,” and I don’t think anyone has ever told me to “have a great winter.”  Nobody ever says “hope your spring is going well” nor does anyone have high expectations of fall.  Perhaps such comments come our way because there are some people we see regularly during the school year whom we see less often in the summer, but they have more to do with the distinctness of summer as a time when our lifestyles and preoccupations are supposed to be fundamentally different.  Considering that most parents continue to work during the summer, the expectations for non-stop fun and leisure are not entirely realistic, but we are still supposed to be purveyors of fun for the kids if not for ourselves.

What form is fun supposed to take?  For most working parents, summer camp is an inevitable element in the fun formula.  And this is where things get decidedly un-fun for parents.  My kids have each gone to a few different camps this summer, and each time a new camp begins, we must figure out a new routine.  I often find myself staying up late on the Sunday night before a new camp, printing out directions to a place I’ve never been and then discovering some odd requirement–such as the need to bring in a second pair of brand new shoes to keep a gym floor in pristine shape.  The camps that appeal to my kids are invariably farther away than their schools, and often the camp day is shorter than the school day, so this sometimes means complicated carpool arrangements or fewer work hours for me.  I work part-time from home and have a flexible schedule, but this situation requires me to work more at night.  Obviously, it’s a bigger challenge for parents who work full-time in an office environment.  Most camps have before and after-care, but that just adds to the high cost of summer.  And then there are those final “showcases” or “visiting days,” when camps invite parents to see how much fun their kids are having–occasionally right in the middle of the day, when it’s maximally inconvenient.  Sometimes, we are supposed to add to the final day fun by sending in sweets.  Last Thursday, I baked cookies with my daughter for her camp celebration the following day, and then had to cope with her horrible mood Friday night.  She had brought her lunch home uneaten because the counselors had the bright idea of giving the kids all the celebratory sweets before getting any real food into them (obviously, they don’t have kids).  Isn’t there such a thing as too much fun–or at least too much sugar?

Even the busiest parents are supposed to make time for family fun.  We belong to a pool, and many working parents pack up the whole family each evening after work, camp, etc. and eat dinner by the pool.  I appreciate having a regular outlet for fun, but lately the kids have been too worn out from camp to want to head there in the late afternoon or evening.  When we made it to the pool on a recent weekend, lightning struck about ten minutes after the kids jumped in the pool and we had to clear the grounds immediately.   We know we don’t go to our pool often enough to make the membership a great deal, but I don’t want to turn it into an obligation either.  I grew up in Los Angeles’s San Fernando Valley with a pool in my backyard, and somehow once kids got past the age when they wanted to swim all the time, nobody seemed to feel guilty about not using their pools that cost so many thousands of dollars to build.  So, why is it that I feel guilty about not getting our money’s worth from our pool membership?  This is just one more example of how summer fun can feel like a burden.

This wouldn’t be a worthy anti-summer rant without mentioning what is probably the source of the greatest pressure: vacations!  Am I starting to sound like whiny Andy Rooney?  Remember him from 60 Minutes–the guy who complained about one thing, which led to another thing to complain about, which led to another?  Well, summer’s like that.  I’m thinking about how people ask each other about their summer plans, and share lists of various summer camps their kids are attending, but somewhere in everyone’s schedule, there is supposed to be a vacation.  This is probably a sore point for me because I would love the sort of old-fashioned vacation that involves spending the whole summer in a little cottage by the ocean.  Somehow, I have the twisted idea that this sort of extended vacation was possible in the past for middle class families–back when dads stayed in the city and took the train out on weekends while moms set up housekeeping in a community full of other children ready to roam free with theirs.  Was this something that really existed for many people or was it the bastion of privilege that it is now?

Here’s my literary fantasy cottage, where I’d love to spend the whole summer frolicking and writing . . .

Nowadays, most people take summer vacations of shorter duration–at least one week, often two weeks, and for teachers and lucky people with better vacation time arrangements, it may be three weeks or more. The destinations vary widely.  Some families jet off to a new foreign locale every summer while others return to the same beach house year after year.  Both of these options appeal to me, but that is not how we have spent our summer vacations.  Because we have extended family on the West Coast, we have spent our last three summer vacations visiting.  Such trips are fun, and we know how important it is for the kids to spend time with their cousins and grandparents, but  it’s probably fair to say this is lower case fun rather than FUN. Does FUN have to be the kind of trip that yields lots of great Facebook photos and a sense of longing or envy in others?  For some, that may be Hawaii, while for others that may be the Tuscan countryside or an Outer Banks beach house with an ocean view pool.  I try not to spend too much time fantasizing about where I’d like to go, but confess to feeling twinges of envy when I hear about the FUN some parents have when they pack the kids off to sleep-away camps or to stay with relatives for weeks at a time.  For now our kids prefer the comforts of home, and I have never heard them complain that we don’t go anywhere exciting during the summer.

While it would be lovely to have the extra vacation time and spare cash for wonderful vacation adventures, I realize that we do have plenty of fun each summer. I’m just not positive there is anything distinctly summery about it.  Much of the fun we have in the summer is pretty much the same as the fun we have during the rest of the year.  We enjoy some nice meals with friends who tell fun stories and make us laugh, but this happens in the fall, winter, and spring also.  We make it to some of DC’s cultural venues, but again those are things we can do at any time of the year.  The kids get to play with their friends–just as they do throughout the year.  And they get some time to watch movies or engage with technology, things that inspire stinginess in me at any time of the year since my own belief is that reading is a much better use of everyone’s time during any season.  And the kids do get a little more time to read during the summer since they don’t have homework.  After we return from wherever we do travel, we are delighted to spend time again with our adorable kitties, whose daily fun we enjoy vicariously.

Is summer worth it?  I don’t really know because we don’t have a choice.  Summer comes and we must adapt.  However, I am grateful that my younger daughter, an active and energetic nine year old who gets bored easily, attends a charter school with a modified year-round schedule and a short, seven week summer.  My older daughter has a more traditional schedule with a full three months of vacation. We have all heard about how old-fashioned long summer vacations accommodated the needs of agricultural families who brought in the harvest with the help of all family members.  Nowadays, parents can pay for the privilege of sending their kids to “farm camp,” but long school breaks are more of a burden than a benefit to working parents.   Yet what I cherish most about summer takes me back to this agricultural mode of existence.  My favorite things have nothing to do with vacations or swimming pools or any of that.  It’s the tomatoes–and the peaches, too–for they offer up the sort of summer fun or pleasure that no other season can deliver.  I must remember that they are the reason for the very notion of summer fun, at least insofar as their cultivators had a dependence on child labor.  Now, as our children “labor” at their day camps, I wonder how we can regain the sense of purpose there once was surrounding summer vacations.

Back when I was an undergraduate trying to become fluent in French, I spent a summer working on an organic farm in the Tarn region of southern France.  That was hard work in hot weather, and although we did take a break in the hottest part of the afternoon, the house was no air conditioned oasis.  In fact, remembering my work there makes the burden of summer fun seem light in comparison to weeding prickly fields and shoveling fresh manure.   So now that I’ve had my chance to rant, I’ll just try to enjoy my peaches and tomatoes and look forward to the autumn, hoping that my children have enough good memories to sustain them until next year’s round of summer fun.

Fifi as Mother Nature, Kinetic Sculpture Race, May 4, 2013, Baltimore, MD

Like thousands of other people, this past Saturday, I cheered on participants in Baltimore’s 15th annual Kinetic Sculpture Race.  This is truly a wacky and wonderful event, and it contributes to Baltimore’s image as a place full of fun and quirky people (see the films of John Waters for more evidence).  Here’s a quick description from the race’s website:

“Kinetic Sculptures are amphibious, human powered works of art custom built for the race. Each May, the American Visionary Art Museum (AVAM) hosts the East Coast Kinetic Sculpture Race Championship on the shore of Baltimore’s Inner Harbor in central Maryland.  The eight-hour race covers 15 miles—mostly on pavement, but also including a trip into the Chesapeake Bay and through mud and sand.”

The people who make this race such an amazing spectacle each year have a lot to teach us—everyone, but here I’m focusing on writers and readers—about creativity, stamina, and teamwork.  We may laugh as we cheer on “Team Fifi,” a group of bicyclists propelling an enormous pink poodle whose “fur” consists of hundreds of yards of tulle (that’s tutu fabric for those who aren’t textile-savvy), but we can learn some serious life lessons from watching such a phenomenon.

Go Ask Alice

1)    Don’t be afraid to make a fool of yourself!  Kinetic Sculpture Racers wear ridiculous costumes and do ridiculous things, but the risks they take make the event a showcase for creativity and ingenuity.  Writers sometimes feel like fools for writing a novel or publishing independently, especially if they are not reaping any financial rewards from their efforts.  Were the pilots of “Go Ask Alice” having such worries as they pedaled through the streets of Baltimore–and later through water, sand, and mud–in their enormous blue caterpillar?  They are in it for the fun rather than the money, and making it through the muck is part of the game.  Writing may feel like a silly thing for grownups to do, but grownups need creative outlets.  The question is whether we can amuse or enlighten others in the process—and laugh at ourselves along the way.  Readers will forgive (or enjoy) our foolishness if they find something that captures their imaginations or their sympathies.

Desdemona Duck

2)    Packaging matters, but so does engineering!  There are plenty of kinetic sculptures that look great, but have inadequate underlying structures.  On Saturday, “Desdemona Duck,” which began to fall apart as soon as it got rolling, was the perfect example of that.  Later, it fell over on its side as soon as it got into the water at Canton Waterfront Park.  With the enthusiastic support of the cheering crowd, they ultimately made it through the water and the rest of the race. The lesson here for writers is that if your packaging is good, you may find plenty of fans and actual readers (not always the same), but isn’t it even better if our narratives truck along smoothly and stay afloat (ideally, without bad clichés like these)?  Many kinetic sculpture racers come back year after year, perfecting their structures as they learn from experience.  As writers, we can do that by revising our current projects (something I am doing now) and applying the design principles we have learned to future projects.  Readers can help us by letting us know what works and what doesn’t work, and you can alert us when the whole structure is tipping over or when our narratives need more momentum.

OK Go Team

3)    Power through the obstacles, and get help when you need it!  The kinetic sculpture race is full of excitement and entertainment, but it is especially inspiring to see teams go through the obstacle course at Patterson Park.  Each sculpture has to make it through a sand pit and a mud pit.  While the goal is to make it with locomotion contained within the sculpture (usually several bicyclists), many teams also rely on others to push them through.  A sculpture needs a lot of momentum to make it through the mud pit at the top of a hill, and few of the teams are able to do it without assistance.  Because most of the sculptures are powered by teams of cyclists, the race highlights the value of teamwork, yet it also emphasizes that teams need help of various kinds.  For kinetic sculpture racers, that may mean team members who stand in the mud pit and push the sculpture up the hill—sometimes falling into the pit as they do so.  All writers can benefit from having the literary equivalent of a “mud pit crew.”

Although writing itself tends to be a solitary activity rather than a team sport, there is a strong social dimension to everything that surrounds the writing process.  We need the support of other writers—whether in writing groups or in online forums—and we need the help of editors and other professionals pivotal to the publishing process, but most of all we need readers.  Readers can help push us through the mire by remembering writers are people, too.  We are human and we therefore create imperfect narratives, but we can make them better if we hear from you.

You Have Your Own Kinetic Potential  Whether you are a writer or “just” a reader, engage with literature by writing book reviews, commenting on blog posts, and sharing your opinions via social media.  I have found it inspirational to have both friends and strangers cheer me on in my endeavors.  The rise of Internet culture and the transformation of the publishing industry have empowered readers to be more than just passive consumers of culture, so if you value books, then embrace your kinetic potential.