No really, what is The Moth?

"The Moth, a not-for-profit storytelling organization, was founded in New York in 1997 by poet and novelist George Dawes Green, who wanted to recreate in New York the feeling of sultry summer evenings on his native St. Simon's Island, Georgia, where he and a small circle of friends would gather to spin spellbinding tales on his friend Wanda's porch. After moving to New York, George missed the sense of connection he had felt sharing stories with his friends back home, and he decided to invite a few friends over to his New York apartment to tell and hear stories. Thus the first "Moth" evening took place in his living room. Word of these captivating story nights quickly spread, and The Moth moved to bigger venues in New York. Today, The Moth conducts six ongoing programs and has brought more than 2,000 live stories to over 60,000 audience members."  -The Moth Website 

A few links to get your creative juices flowing with pen & paper....write on!

20 Ways to Keep Your Writing Inspiration and Creativity High

The Imagination Prompt Generator

Using An Idea Box to Generate Short Story Ideas

The Hall:  Writing Advice, Tips, Tricks, Inspiration and more

37 Sources of Inspiration

31 Ways to Find Inspiration for Your Writing

...on a great site called Write to Done 

The Los Angeles Times' 13th Annual Festival of Books is coming April 26-27, 2008.  Plan your weekend as an attendee or sign up to volunteer...either way take advantage of this gathering of more than 450 authors and 300 exhibitors. 

The inspiring and delightful Kristen Fischer.  I am so honored to be in her book Creatively Self-Employed:  How Writers and Artists Deal With Career Ups and Downs.  Kristen's Creatively Self Employed website and blog are both filled to the brim with advice, tips, resources, links and other inspiring and helpful bits & pieces.  She's a GIVER!

[January 25, 2008 Interview]  

Happy New Year Kristen...It looks like you are off to a great start!  Tell us about your new book - what is it about and when can we get our hands on it?
Happy New Year, Christine! My new book, Ramen Noodles, Rent and Resumes: An After-College Guide to Life, will be out this spring. I am so excited. It’s a bit different in topic than the first, but certainly a useful book for 20-somethings. I’ve always enjoyed being in my 20s and this is my last year as a 20-something—so I figured I’d wrap up a decade with a book.

Your first book was self-published, and your upcoming book was picked up by another publisher—talk about the pros and cons of each of these experiences.
When I was working to get Creatively Self-Employed: How Writers and Artists Deal with Career Ups and Downs with a publisher or agent, I had submitted another “fluke idea” to another publisher. Super College LLC was looking to expand its line of college-related reference books into more real-world applications. They loved my idea, and boom—there was my first book contract. I had been trying to promote my book idea for so long that when the college book was accepted, it just seemed so ironic.

CSE wasn’t getting much love at the time, so I had decided to self-publish it. I was already finishing that up when the new book contract came along. But there were a few months overlapped when I was writing two books. Honestly, I still don’t know how on earth I did it. Two books at one time. It was like being told I was having twins—a double blessing!

Honestly, I never wanted to self-publish CSE. I really wanted a publisher who would at least open up more promotion avenues. But I wholeheartedly trust God that CSE was supposed to happen as it did—a self-published effort. I’m open to it getting picked up by a publisher, but I’m okay if it doesn’t. It’s certainly opened doors for me and provided valuable insight for all who are courageous enough to read it! I would like to write another book on the topic some time in the future. Right now, I’m not writing any books and it’s very weird, I have to say!

In addition to writing wonderful books, what else do you do?
I’m a copywriter and editor. So my typical day is working up some content for a website or a brochure. I write resumes, too. Most of my work isn’t writing—it’s marketing. Staying afloat as a freelancer is tough so I am always interacting with others (mostly over the Web) to build my little empire.

What was your inspiration for Creative Self Employment?
I had actually been working on a memoir during my early 20s and I was so sick of it. I wanted to write about what I knew. At the time I was working the 5 p.m. to 1 p.m. shift as a copy editor at a newspaper on a part-time basis while I was building my business. I knew that being creatively self-employed was so hard. I knew a lot about dealing with it, so that’s when I decided it would be easy to write the book since the topic was so innate to me.

I think it is incredibly important for us creatively self employed people to have practical tools that keep us focused on the business side of our work as well.  What piece of advice would you give to help a right-brained individual strengthen their left-brained skills?
Keep marketing! I am recently coming out of a little slump because I was so busy working for a few major clients that I didn’t come up for air. When you lose a regular gig as a freelancer, it can hit you like a million bricks. I always want to make sure I have enough work so if I lost a huge client, I would still land on my feet.

By marketing, I mean getting out there. Approaching businesses with your service. Sending out resumes. Networking. Sending out a direct mail piece. All of those things you were taught to do. Devote time to marketing—your leads will reappear when you least expect it, and probably need it most!

How did you go from an environmental science degree to copywriting?
That’s a good question. I always say that I didn’t want to be in the mud. But that’s true!

When I graduated college, all of the jobs were for techs, which is why I flocked to being a journalist. I was a strong writer, and had a few people take a chance on me. Even though I did “use” my degree for two years in the environmental industry, it was as a communications consultant—so I was still writing. After that, I knew that I was meant to write—and that I still didn’t want to get dirty doing field work!

What do you love most about being creatively self-employed?
I love doing things during the day. If I’m out between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., I am always thinking of my days stuck in a cubicle. That makes me feel so grateful just to be out in the middle of the day. I mostly like to be able to go get tea, drive to the beach or workout during the day. It still fascinates me that all the world is at work and I am living the dream, yanno?

What inspires you most?
Honestly? Blogs like yours. I am very much into design and find anything visual a pleasure. Seeing others’ lives through blogs is very inspiring. I also love to keep up with the creatives that were featured in the book. Hearing about somebody getting a huge job for a major company or hosting their own art show is inspiring. In fact, when Claudine Hellmuth was on Martha Stewart’s show a few months back, I was bragging about her like she was my kid. And tearing up when she was on TV. I was so happy for her and so honored she was in my book.

When I’m non-hermitlike and leave the house, the beach always inspires me. I can return there time after time and I find it a constant inspiration in a busy world. It helps me connect spiritually.

Thank you again for “chatting” with me for Sparkletopia, and good luck with the finishing touches of your next book!
It is being printed as I type!

Thanks so much for having me! I adore your new blog!

Anne Lamott & Elizabeth Gilbert will be speaking together Friday, March 28 at UCLA.  Click here for more information.

I learned of Dave Eggers when his first book A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius hit the shelves and I saw him speak at UC Santa Barbara a few years ago. I will be totally honest and say I have not been a devoted reader of all of the books he has had published since then, but I have instead been following his career path in a scattered, yet still devoted, kind of way. What inspires me most about Dave Eggers is the fact that he isn't content to simply write beautiful (and astoundingly popular) books, but that he explores and encourages creativity in unusual and quirky ways.

He recently opened the latest arm of his non-profit organization 826 Valencia here in Los Angeles - 826LA - which is "dedicated to supporting students...with their writing skills and helping teachers get their students excited about the literary arts." He began this venture in San Francisco and opened a Pirate Supply Store to help support the organization. He has written novels and essays and published journals, all with a unique perspective of the world and sense of humor, and has used his passion and success to make a huge difference for kids all over the country. Yeah Dave Eggers!!

The Elements of Style is "one of the most influential and best-known prescriptive treatments of English grammar and usage in the United States," [Wikipedia].  My high school journalism teacher gave me a copy of this book when I graduated, and I am now enjoying the illustrated version of this book.

"Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts." -William Strunk, Jr., author of The Elements of Style 

"The first trick, the one I am practicing now, is to just start where you are.  It's a luxury to be in the mood to write.  It's a blessing but it's not a necessity.  Writing is like breathing, it's possible to learn to do it well, but the point is to do it no matter what."  -Julia Cameron, The Right to Write:  An Invitation and Initiation into the Writing Life 

Interested in her workshops?  Visit CreativeLife Workshops for more information.

"The very first thing I tell my new students on the first day of a workshop is that good writing is about telling the truth."  -Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird:  Some Instructions on Writing and Life

Read more about her work here and here. 

I took a quick journey around Google and here are a few things I found:

Writing.com:  "An online community for writers and readers of all skill levels."  

Writing. org:  "Advice for Freelance Writers"

About.com - Fiction Writing:  "Start Writing Now"

WritingFix.com:  "Home of Interactive Writing Prompts"

Writer's Write:  "Your one-stop resource for information about books, writing and publishing" 

...and one more link to Kristen Fischer - her list of writing resources, which is much more comprehensive than mine! 

I also loved Ten Tips for Writing a Blog Post.

I will be interviewing the divine Kristen Fischer soon for Sparkletopia, but in the meantime, take a peek at her book Creatively Self-Employed:  How Writers and Artists Deal with Career Ups and Downs. 

Take a writing class from the comfort of your own keyboard at Writers.com.  Get going! 

Patry Francis, the author of The Liar's Diary, has a wonderful blog I've enjoyed for a very long time called Simply Wait.  From her latest entry:

"When you come right down to it, is there another reason to begin this epic struggle with self, with words, with blank pages and empty screens? If we truly wrote "for ourselves" as so many writers say with understandable defensiveness, why move beyond the safety of our private journals? Why post on a blog, or god forbid, seek publication--subjecting ourselves to the crazy-making mix of rejection, elation, despair, intoxicating praise and bitter criticism ? Why invest so muc time and hope if we didn't believe we had a story to tell that someone--maybe just one person--really needed to hear? Why do it, if not to share, as Pullman said, our love for this startling and wondrous world we find ourselves in, and the even more startling goodness that the people in it often rise to exhibit."

Say it with me:  WOW. 

"Writing is solitary, obsessive, and prickly, and that makes literary friendships all the sweeter. Here is a new series that celebrates affection and loyalty between solitudes."

Garrison Keillor hosts this series of conversations between American writers whose work shapes their friendships and vice versa.  Get a glimpse of what happens when writers become friends by listening to Literary Friendships.

It's all about WRITING today, starting with a wonderful list of writing tips from the lovely Michelle over at Tangled Wings.