Tayari's Blog: June 2008
June 30, 2008
Heads Up For NJ Writers
I just went to the Mid Atlantic Arts Council Site and saw that we are two weeks away for the deadline for New Jersey State Grants for 
individual artists. Luckily, the application is low drama-- 10-15 page sample, basically. A couple of easy forms to fill out. I have been all over the website and I can't figure how much the grants are. Usually, they are for somewhere between $3,000- 7,000. That's a nice little chunk of change.
I would like everyone to google your state arts council and see when your deadline is. If you can, leave the info in comments for others folks' benefit.
If you know of other opportunities, let me know. I am so BUMMED that I missed the NEA deadline. Now I have to wait two more years!
Posted at 07:24 AM | ![[comments]](http://www.tayarijones.com/images/comments.gif){kind=small}
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June 29, 2008
This is "Classic"
Just when you thought there was nothing more to say about "street lit", Omar Tyree steps up to the plate. He likes to call his books "urban classics", though. (I don't know if you can declare your own work to be "classic", but I don't want to split hairs.)
So Mr. Tyree is calling it quits. Apparently, the market has gotten to raunchy for even him. Although he believes himself to be the founder of the genre, he says that the readership has failed to evolve. Apparently he tried to write a wee bit more seriously and the readers gave him no love. He says women readers wrote to him having tantrums because he is not as exciting a writer as Zane. (Entire article here.)
Here's a snippet:
That replacement of significant voice had nothing to do with the publishers preferring "street lit" over "responsible lit." It had all to do with an urban audience who preferred grit over polish. And that love for grit, crime, sex, broken hearts, drama, and other bullshit, reinforced the sales that I enjoyed for Diary of a Groupie in 2003, and What They Want in 2006. These were both books where I wrote about the subjects of sex, idolization, blackmail, and black women getting their fantasy freaks on, that urban readers had begun to love from my good friend Zane, and her various Sex Chronicles. Again, I can't knock a sister for expressing her inner freak. I would want a woman confident enough to show me what she got as well, just not on every other page.
As you all know, I am chillaxing in the Adirondacks, so I can't spend too much time thinking about this drama. But check it out. Tell me what you think in comments.
Posted at 03:13 PM | Comments (4)
Category:
The Writing Life
June 27, 2008
Row Row Row Your Boat!
15 artists,
6 canoes,
shenannigans ensued.
More photos, of course.
Posted at 06:25 PM | Comments (2)
Category:
Travels & Rambles
June 26, 2008
GOT TO BE THERE!
For Colored Girls.... back on broadway!
Posted at 09:29 AM | Comments (0)
Category:
Travels & Rambles
Love Is A Tiger
As I am plugging away at this book, I have been thinking a lot about love. Not the romance novel kind, but the solid kind. I wanted to write about love between a father and daughter. So I was writing corny scene after scene when the father makes all these loving gestures toward his daughter. I was writing stupid daddy’s girl crap. I am ashamed to admit it, but I even wrote a made-for-Hallmark scene when she learns to dance standing on his feet. Please forgive me.
So, I then decided to mine my autobiography. I’ve always felt close to my daddy, but when did I know that he loved me? I thought and thought and thought and I came up with this while taking a hike.
I know that what makes a scene work, what makes an emotional real is to tie it to hard experience. So here's mine:
When I was about four years old, I wanted a Tony The Tiger ink pen. (See, a writer even as a tot.) The deal was that I had to send in about four box tops and fill out a little cupon. Let me tell you, that was a lot of cereal. Finally, my packet was ready to go and we mailed it to the cereal people.
For weeks I stalked the mailman and my daddy was getting into the act, too. It was all Tony all the time. One day, daddy came into my room looking so sad. The mail had come and there was a postcard from the cereal people. There were no more Tony The Tiger ink pens. He explained to me what “while supplies last” meant. I can remember how distressed he was and to this day I can call up my distress and his distress. Then I thought, “this is what it means when he says he loves me.”
This story has a happy ending, one too convenient to go in my book, but the next day, there was an envelope in the mail. There must have been one ink pen left! I kept that pen with me for a long time.
June 25, 2008
Is this procrastination?
I made a Wordle of what I wrote today!
Posted at 09:47 AM | Comments (0)
Category:
The Writing Life
June 24, 2008
An Explanation and An Apology
Cross My Heart and Hope You Die (love the title!) is a forthcoming collection of personal essays about break up. When Michael Taeckens asked me to contribute, I jumped at the opportunity. For one, I am crazy about Michael and also the other contributors are so fabulous. Sadly, when it comes to break up stories, I’ve got lots of material. Jaw-dropping material. Don’t even get me started.
Well, I couldn’t even get myself started, even with such great material such as the boyfriend who snorted my diet pills when I was at work. (After years of on-and-off again, that was the last straw. Forget the pun.) I even had garden variety drama like the One Who Wouldn’t Commit. Or the one who was committed, but to somebody else. (That’s a heartbreaker. Funny. Tragic. And it involves AWP, a fake chinchilla coat, Rita Dove, a historic Baltimore blizzard, a boy named Sue, and a drink called a “Green Sneaker.” There’s even a coda. Yesterday, he had the nerve to try and add me as a friend on Facebook!) So there was no shortage of inspiration.
But I couldn’t write it. Not one of the stories. It seems I have a block against writing about people I know. Maybe this is why I am a fiction writer, rather than a memoirist. I felt like I was narc-ing on these men, although they are a loutish bunch and by and large deserve to be shamed in a public forum. But I just couldn’t do it. I can’t explain it even to myself. It’s not like I am too high-minded to explore the revenge angle. I sat at my computer and had no idea where to start. I don’t know how to write first person when it’s me. My mind was racing, full of ideas, and I couldn’t cough up a word past “I”.
So sorry, Michael. Cross my heart, I really wanted to participate. I guess I am just not cut out to tell the truth. Sigh.
Posted at 08:43 AM | Comments (3)
Category:
The Writing Life
Classified Ad
Writer visiting the Adirondacks seeks pen pal. (I promise to write you back!) Also, I am need of African-American hair products. Nothing fancy. Pink Oil will do. I used olive oil (swiped from the kitchen) in my hair to make cornrows, but these will come down in a week. Please don’t make me resort to Vaseline. No one within 100 miles has ever heard of Pink Oil, let alone Mimosa Hair Honey or Baby Buttercreme. Because we don’t have a UPS address, only a P.O. Box, I can’t order. Please email if you can help.
P.O. Box 109, Blue Mountain Lake, NY 12812
Posted at 08:36 AM | Comments (0)
Category:
Travels & Rambles
June 23, 2008
And Many More!
Happy Birthday To You
Happy Birthday To You
Happy Birthday Dear Mama
Happy Birthday To You!
Posted at 02:44 PM | Comments (3)
Category:
You Never Know How You'll Learn
Yesterday, I took a ride out in a canoe. I had seen people operate canoes on TV and I thought I knew what I was doing. I didn’t think myself to be a pro, but I thought I had the basic idea. I sat myself down and I rowed. My arms were killing me and I wasn’t getting anywhere. I think of myself a person in decent shape. I know I have upper body strength, but my canoe wasn’t really moving forward. Everyone else was speeding across the water, laughing, telling jokes. And I was struggling.
Today, I went back out thinking that I just needed to try harder and build up some endurance. Well, after about ten minutes I realized what I was doing wrong. I was sticking the oar in the water and pulling it with my arms. Looking at arms you can see they are teeny weeny muscles. What I should have done was used my arms to place the oar in the water and used my torso to pull. (I don’t know if I am doing a good job of explaining, but I could show you if we ever end up in a canoe together.) The point is that I was using bad form. I was trying as hard as I could, but I just wasn’t doing it right and wasn’t getting anywhere.
Now, let’s switch to my writing situation. I have this bright idea for my novel and I have been trying so hard to make it happen. I was letting my mind guide me. I was also getting myself all dialed up about the fact that I have come here to write and every second I am not writing is a second wasted. I got more focused. I cracked the whip on myself.
It was a bad idea. Just like the canoeing, it was bad form. I was trying to use the part of myself that reasons. I was also motivating myself with pressure and sprinkling in some guilt. I wasn’t tapping into my instincts. I wasn’t listening to myself. And I was getting nowhere. The reason I ended up in the canoe in the first place is that I wasn’t accomplishing anything with my writing and I was getting sort of bummed out about it.
And then, like that, on the water, it came to me.
I know this sounds sort of corny. But that’s exactly how it happened.
June 22, 2008
Blue Mountain Center Photo Collage
Click on the mosaic to see more photos!
Posted at 03:29 PM | Comments (1)
Category:
Travels & Rambles
June 21, 2008
ARRIVED!
It was a six hour drive, but I made it to the Blue Mountain Center. I am happy to report that the rusticness is more a motif than a living condition. Apparently, this place was built to be a golfing retreat for the super rich-- think Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, etc. The property now belongs to the Hochschild family. Adam Hochschild, author of the excellent King Leopold's Ghost, a long time activist and friend of the arts, decided to make it into a resting place for artists and activists.
I will take more pictures soon, but here is my room/work area. Pretty sweet, huh.
The people here are really cool. Many of non fiction writers working on books about social justice. There's a film maker, several painters, and a couple of poets. The food is yummy, but since one of my goals is getting in shape while I am here, I wil avoid the cookie 
table. (Homemade!)
There is a tour of the grounds this afternoon and I wil try and get some shots so you can see how beautiful it is up here.
(You can click on the pictures to make them bigger.)
Posted at 09:01 AM | Comments (0)
Category:
Travels & Rambles
June 18, 2008
Fabulous Things Are Happening
to members of our blog community:
Got good news? I want to know about it!
Posted at 09:28 AM | Comments (2)
Category:
Travels & Rambles
Getting Ready For The Wild Blue Yonder
Well, we are at the end of the countdown to Blue Mountain. I'll be heading out on Friday morning. As you can imagine, I am goodbye-ing like a 19-year old exchange students. Also, I am packing my things. Although I am staying for a full month, it took me only about 35 minutes to pack. (For contrast: I spend a couple of days packing for AWP, which lasts only three days.)
The best thing about the colony life is that I am free of most of the trappings of real life. Fashion is meaningless. Hair? Bring on the bandanna. Shoes? Rubber soles every day.
I am looking forward to the simple life, although Blue Mountain seems to be a bit more rustic than MacDowell, where I spent last summer. I was so psyched to be accepted that I didn't look closely at the welcome materials. Last night, I was sitting up in bed, perusing the literature when I ran across this:
"Shopping here is very limited, and it is difficult to get things like ... printer cartridges and special food items." I almost choked on my Ben and Jerry's. If a place is so remote that you can't get a HP printer cartridge, this is going to be a challenge.
But this is the thing that is going to show me what I am made of: "Cell phones are prohibited." Gulp. There will be Internet and a payphone situation. But still. I luurve my blackberry. Here is an essay saying how great it is to be without your cell phone for a month.
While I am away, I'll be blogging less. I am thinking 2-3 times a week. I will post pictures. (People say the place is gorgeous. And although I am a indoorsy kind of woman, I plan to try my hand at canoeing.)
I have a lot of work to do this summer. I let myself get so sidetracked this year and I kind of lost my way. Maybe it will be good to be out in the middle of nowhere having to confront the page. I go on a retreat every summer but this is the first time where I have felt like I really really need it.
Wish me luck.
Posted at 09:02 AM | Comments (2)
Category:
Travels & Rambles
June 16, 2008
Hottest Link Bucket!
ballot that doesn't include Clarence Haynes (pictured on the right)is totally corrupt!**update** It has come to my attention that I didn't read the fine print for the competition. I don't care. Clarence gets my vote, irregardless.Posted at 07:54 PM | Comments (0)
Category:
Travels & Rambles
Artists In The Workforce
Maybe you've aleady seen this, but the NEA has just released a comprehensive report on artists in the workplace. (Full 150-page report here, NYT highlights here.) I honestly don't know what to make of it. Here are some of the big points.
For some reason, the NEA makes this report sound like good news, but for me, it's making me want to get back in bed.
Posted at 01:14 PM | Comments (0)
Category:
Current Events
June 12, 2008
Making it Happen
So, as promised, I went to a coffee shop and Ribe Tuchus(ed). Before I left, I wasted a lot of time gathering my belongings.Crisis#1-- I couldn't find my pen.I tore up the apartmemt looking for it until I got over myself and just grabbed a cheap pilot pen. After that I fretted that maybe the coffee shop was overly airconditioned. I should wear a sweatshirt. But it's so hot in New Jersey right now... You get the idea. I was finding reasons not to work. I finally dragged my raggedy self to my favorite local cafe. At first it was weird. I sat at the little table with a cup of decaf, pulled out my paper and pen, and just sat there. I looked around. I tried to rope innocent people into conversations. Then I wrote my name a few times, practicing new signature options. After that, I wrote a strange sentence: "Every disaster begins with an idea." I am not even sure if this is true, but I rolled with it and just continued to write. Who knows if the three or so handwritten pages I ended up with are decent from a craft standpoint? The point is that I wrote them and felt good writing them. I could almost feel the rust flaking off my brain as I scribbled away. It was so good. I almost cried.
Ribe Tuchus
I will admit that I haven't been the most creative person lately. I wouldn't say that I have writers block. But I have some sort of problem. I feel like I have a million things to do, that I am taking care of so many folks, that I cannot get my mind on my own work.
It's time to break out the secret weapon: Ribe Tuchus. Apparently, this is Yiddish for "rub your bottom on the chair." In other words, just go sit down and write. No blackberry, no computer, no nothing. Just me, sitting in an empty room-- or at a coffee shop-- paper, pen, and my ideas. For one hour. No getting up. No refills on the java. I have done this in the past when I have managed to become estranged from my own project.
I'll check in before bedtime and let you know how it works.
June 10, 2008
Long Form Links
realized what would have made it a really good book. The anger of that realization haunted me. I said I would never go back on that hamster wheel."Posted at 01:29 PM | Comments (3)
Category:
Travels & Rambles
June 09, 2008
The Name Game
Ladylee emailed me the other day asking about a post in which I mocked myself for naming the characters in my very first story "Angelique" and "Mignon." What are the rules for naming characters?
Well, everyone knows the basics-- you can't have several characters in a story who have almost the same name. Jon, Jonathan, Jim, and Jack cannot co-exist. The other guidelines are harder to put your finger on. I made fun of the names "Angelique" and "Mignon" because those names really identified me as a teenaged writer, givng characters names I thought were cool or pretty, rather than names the characters would actually have if they were real people.
Rather than give a list of Dos Don'ts, I will just explain how I went about naming the main characters in my first novel, Leaving Atlanta.
June 06, 2008
Where There's Franco, There's Fun
After I bought my favorite painting, "The Goya Gown" from Franco 
Mondini Ruiz last month, I have declared myself to be his biggest fan. I declared it really loud, actually, at the Smithsonian's George Gustav Heye Center. Franco was participating in a show called "Remix: New Modernities in a Post Indian World." It may seem odd to get really loud in a museum, especially a swanky NY museum, but Franco has a way of making anything seem appropriate.
The other artists in the show were milling around, looking serious and stormy in thier black clothing while Franco was working the crowd saying "I'll make you a deal!" I bought the sculpture pictured here. It's called IDOL Gossip. Get it? I think I am going to take it to work and display it there.
If Franco is every showing in your town, you have to go. It will be an experience, I promise.
And speaking of The Goya Gown, I think it would make a lovely book cover. Franco does, too.
Posted at 11:04 AM | Comments (0)
Category:
Living For The City
June 05, 2008
Love Jones
Posted at 02:14 PM | Comments (1)
Category:
Current Events
Thomas Glave in NYC
Last night I had the pleasure of meeting Thomas Glave at his reading at St. Marks in Manhattan. Thomas read from his open letter to the Prime Minister of Jamaica in response to his homophobia. Then he read a short story in the tradition of James Baldwin's "Going To Meet the Man" only the speaker is a woman and the topic is hair. He wrapped it up with an essay about the challenges of sharing the realities of his life with his straight friends.
After the reading, I got to chat for a while. So smart, so charming, so critical. Everything I love in a writer.
Links:
Posted at 12:55 PM | Comments (0)
Category:
Living For The City
Totally Strung Out
I'll admit it. I am hopelessly addicted to caffeine. I read this gloom & doom article about the effects of coffee on the human body. I was hoping to be scared straight, but instead I kept thinking "mmmm.. latte!" So, I am back on the bean. And I'm not sorry.
I can't even remember why I decided to let go of coffee in the first place. What made me think that was a good idea???
Posted at 12:15 PM | Comments (2)
Category:
June 04, 2008
Be The Flower
My horoscope today was so lovely, that I had to share it. Also, it gives me a chance to post the photos I took this weekend at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardrens.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21):
"Take time to stop and smell the flowers," says an old homily. Albert Hoffman, the Swiss scientist who discovered LSD and lived to age 102, had a different approach. "Take the time to stop and be the flowers," he said. That's my advice to you, Sagittarius. Don't just set aside a few stolen moments to sniff the snapdragons, taste the rain, chase the wind, watch the hummingbirds, and listen to a friend. Use your imagination to actually BE the snapdragons and rain and wind and hummingbirds and friend. It's time to not just behold the Other, but to become the Other.
Posted at 09:11 AM | Comments (2)
Category:
Travels & Rambles
Moving On, Or Not.
Erika blogged a couple of days ago about letting go of her first novel. She wrote it, tried to publish it, and finally just put it aside to work on something else. I've written here about a novel I wrote when I was twenty-three or so. My dad sent it to me last week and I haven't had the heart to open the box and look at it. The question I want to think about today is how do you know when to let a project go.
It's tricky. Any person who has completed a novel, or even a short story, has has moments when you thought the story was hopeless, that you should just chuck it and try something else. Part of writing good is to also write really bad.
And who doesn't love the rush of starting something new? I have had many students who are great at beginnings. They get through a first draft, or even a second, with lots of energy and heart. But after they see all the work left to do, they wither. Then, they think up a new project and they are again buzzing with energy. At the end of the term, they have a folder full of terrific starts.
So how can you tell the difference? What are the right reasons to let a project go. How do you know that you just aren't scared or lazy? Again, it's tricky.
The first rule is that the decision to let go has to be your own. I was urged with both my novels to scrap the project. Why didn't I listen? I knew that I wasn't done with the novels. I couldn't say for sure that they were publishable. I couldn't say for sure that they were any good. All I knew was that I wasn't finished.
The second rule is that the decision to keep going has to be your own. Erika writes about her efforts to revise the manuscript in order to work with an agent. After a while, it can start to feel like you are writing the book that the agent/editor/professor wants you to write. You then have to ask yourself if you are still looking at this book as a work of art, or are you trying to make it into something that can sell or something that will win approval from some outside person. When you get there, let it go.
The third rule is to know when the project is keeping you from growing. Scary cautionary tale. I know a writer who finished a novel and sent it to agents, editors, contests. He got nibbles, but no bites, and lots of advice. He took chapters out, put chapters in, added characters, took them out. You get the idea. Seven years later, he finally found a publisher for it. Hurrah, right? Well, sort of.
In the time that he spent meddling with a manuscript that was a fine effort for a first timer, many of his peers had published two books by then and had moved to different career-levels. What he ended up with was an okay novel, a lukewarm debut. He could have put the first one in a drawer, and used all that energy (and postage!) writing a second, better book, and he could have had a much stronger debut.
It's hard to walk away from a project you have spent so much time working on. It's kind of like romance. Haven't you been in a situation where you've said "I've invested two years in this relationship!" as a reason not to move on. And weren't your friends saying "Cut bait! Cut bait!". It's a balancing act. You have to simultaneously trust your own instincts, but also know that you may not be in a position to be objective. A paradox, I know. But that's just kind of how it is.
June 03, 2008
Tuesday Reads
I am weaning myself from coffee and lack the energy to properly get out of bed, let alone blog any original content. Meanwhile, here is a sampling from the blogs of the caffeinated.
Posted at 02:48 PM | Comments (0)
Category:
Travels & Rambles
June 01, 2008
Karen Salyer McElmurray Gets Real
Due to a completely out-of-character bout of insomnia, I am up at 
1:30am surfing the web. I ran across this really interesting interview with Karen Sayler McElmurray. I have read her excellent memoir, Surrendered Child, and I know Karen personally. I was really struck by the honesty of this interview. She doesn't have her game face on. No publicist is over her shoulder reminding her to stick with the script. Karen looks at each of the question and pulls the answers from her gut. She talks about everything from her process to her juggling teaching and writing to the monsters at Kirkus who accused her of "womb gazing" to how it felt when the child she gave up for adoption found her via google. This interview captures what I like best about Karen's work. She is not afraid to open a vein on the page. Or maybe she is afraid, but she does it anyway.
Here is an excerpt:
Q: Edmund Wilson, in The Wound and the Bow, uses the image of "a wound that won't heal" as the reason for why writers write. Do you agree with his assessment?A: I do believe that certain images, certain concerns, appear in an artist’s work—again and again, perhaps until they are understood. Once, at another writing retreat, I met a painter who, in every painting, depicted a man in a black trench coat who she said was her father. The image was small or large or sometimes concealed in other images, but always present. In my own work, I’ve again and again written about what I’ll called “the missing,” or loss. In my novel, Strange Birds in the Tree of Heaven, part of the story is about a woman who, during the Great Depression, runs away to be a dance instructor for a traveling road show sponsored by the WPA. She leaves her daughter behind and thus begins the consequences of several generations affected by loss. That mother who relinquishes a child was the real story of my own life, told “slant” in fiction. My memoir takes on this subject directly by telling firsthand the story of a birthmother. And I’ve now written another novel, tentatively called Black Dog, which is in part about the loss of a son to a Marine Helicopter accident during the time of the 1987 Harmonic Convergence.
Will such images persist in my work? I cannot predict this. But I do know that exploring the unhealed wound, the relinquished child, has meant a great deal of healing for me. When the memoir was first “ready” to enter the public eye, my birth son found me on a website that discussed the book. He contacted me. We talk. We visit. Does this mean healing in the word, or does that wound remain, part of what made me, and thus made the work?