I’m Taking the Leap

Posted on February 29, 2012 by JoannK

Credit: Flickr Commons. Young girl jumping on trampoline, 1952. (State Library and Archives of Florida)

What better day to share the news than Leap Day?

I’m doing it, dear readers. I’m taking the leap, and taking time to focus full-time on my writing. That means working on the books (Yes, now plural. What can I say? Ideas abound.) And it means returning to the writing world as a freelancer. It’s a scary thing, leaving behind a steady paycheck and the good friends I’ve made in my 9-to-5. In fact, I had to call my mom yesterday for a little reassurance. (And by the way, her first order of business: “Whatsamattah? Why no fly in embers lately?” Sorry Mom. I’ve been a little distracted from the blog, tending to some major life decisions.)

I can hear you, my concerned writing friends: Freelancing!? Don’t do it! I know. But here’s the thing: I have to give it a shot. (And then in about a year or so you can tell me, I told you so.) Being away from writing since I left newspapers more than three years ago has been one of the hardest chapters for me, professionally. I had never realized how much I identified as a reporter, as a writer — until I suddenly wasn’t. I missed being immersed in words and ideas. I missed telling the stories I wanted to tell. And so I took to this blog, and took to writing a novel (and then personal essays and family stories) in the early mornings, in the evenings, on the weekends. And I felt home again. Except for the fact that I was never home.

It’s a scary decision. New York City needs another freelance writer, as my dad would say, “like a hole in the head.” But it feels right. So, I’m doing it. I’m taking the leap. And I take *comfort knowing that my mom, who worries about everything, is actually not worried in the least about this. So, here we go. It’s about to get really interesting.

(*For the record, I also take comfort knowing that you, dear husband, are cheering me on.)

The History of Poland in 10 Minutes

Posted on January 31, 2012 by JoannK

If you came to my apartment and perused my book shelves, you’d think I was an expert in Polish history. There are tomes on Pope John Paul II, books of translated works by Polish poets and novelists, thick volumes on culture and history. Most of them were purchased in the name of research for the novel. Some of them read, yes. But many cracked open and quickly abandoned. History has never been my strong suit. Something about all those dates and battles and border changes and treaty names. If there’s not a strong narrative with pretty sentences and dialogue involved, my eyes glaze over. Enter the video above, a digital CliffsNotes on the history of Poland. Watch it and fake your way through expertise (Teutonic Order! Winged Hussars! Decisive victory!) the next time Polish history comes up in cocktail conversation. Because, you know. It does.

Fotografia Friday: Family Photos as Wedding Décor

Posted on January 27, 2012 by JoannK

It’s Friday. Let’s look at pretty pictures.

As long as I can remember, I’ve been drawn to old family photos. Black-and-white and sepia, the more stone-faced and stiff the subjects, the better. They don’t even have to be photos of my own family. I’ll devour them all the same. Because there’s something mesmerizing about old-timey snapshots, something that utterly fascinates me about holding in your hands a specific moment in someone’s life, frozen right there in a single frame for the studying and dissecting. These people staring out from the photo, what were they thinking when it was snapped? What life worry or woe was weighing heavy on their shoulders at precisely that moment? And why that blouse with those shoes?

It’s easy to romanticize the past, especially a past you were never a part of (a point that Woody Allen drives home so well in Midnight in Paris). And I consciously try to avoid falling into that trap. But for me, growing up, I can remember kneeling on the floor in front of my mother’s bedroom closet for long stretches, rifling through shoeboxes and old albums, studying the photographs as if they were clues to the past. I felt like there were so many stories I didn’t know, and the fact that I’d probably never know them, and never really know what it was like to live in that moment in time caused my 9-year-old self a ridiculous amount of anxiety. I should have been off playing with my Twirly Curls Barbie. Instead, I just sat there, moping in my sepia-toned melancholy.

My fascination with old photos, with family characters and stories, continues. I look to them often for writing inspiration for the novel. At our wedding just a few months ago, I wanted to incorporate them into the décor. Here are some lovely shots by the talented Ellie Mo to show you how we did it. Design was by Jes Gordon.

Above, my mother’s aunt and cousin. Continue reading →

Lewis Black on Writing and Blogging

Posted on January 17, 2012 by JoannK

I think Lewis Black is pretty brilliant; he’s raised the rant to a higher art form, and his cultural and political observations are spot-on. I found this clip of him expounding on an unexpected subject: writing. “You either write or you don’t write,” he says, “and if you want to write you sit down and start writing. That’s what a writer is, even if you’re not writing anything of importance.” Pretty straightforward advice of the get-your-butt-in-the-chair variety, which I’m always a fan of.

But next comes a line where he loses me. “And that doesn’t mean blogging,” he says. “…I don’t care, it doesn’t count.” While it’s a good line, I disagree. My own writing dried up in the years since I had a reliable platform through which to write (newspapers), and the daily deadlines that squeezed words out of me whether my “muse” was in the mood or not. I forced myself at times to get to the library and work on the novel, but with no one to be accountable to, no editors waiting for me to file or colleagues to talk through trouble spots with, it was easy to throw my arms up many days and say, “what for?” Add that I had allowed my confidence in writing — the only thing I ever felt really good at — to be eroded by a person who regularly called my abilities into question, and I thought my days of making pretty (or funny or insightful) sentences were over.

Enter blogging. For just a few short months I’ve been at this Flies in My Amber business, and I feel at home again. It’s like I’ve had laryngitis for three years and suddenly — hey, what the? — my voice is back! I can understand why Lewis Black and a host of other naysayers think blogging is a self-indulgent pursuit and “doesn’t count” as writing. But for me, blogging has given me the space to write, literally and figuratively. It’s given me a sense of accountability, a place to hash out my thoughts and rediscover the stories of my childhood and the characters of my life that I may want to expand on in future projects. It almost doesn’t matter if anyone is reading (please keep reading). Or if people come to this blog by and large with search terms like “nude babes at solair recreation league” and “Polish girls in pantyhose.” Blogging has reconnected me to my writing and helped me find my confidence again. And it’s given me a lot more hope for the future than I’ve had in years.

It’s Sunday: Did You go to Church?

Posted on January 8, 2012 by JoannK

Yeah, me neither. But let’s not go there. Kind of a sore subject for my parents. (My mom: “Priest had beautiful homily today. Too bad you weren’t there to hear it.”)

Just because I don’t go to Mass doesn’t mean I don’t find comfort in churches or in the religious imagery of my childhood. Catholicism is strongly intertwined with Polish culture, and hence, the novel I’m working on. So, on this Sunday I give you this picture of Holy Cross Church in Bogdanowice, the village in Poland that my mother is from, and the inspiration for the setting of the novel I’m writing.

Back in the Saddle: This Manuscript Totally Doesn’t Suck!

Posted on January 6, 2012 by JoannK

At the news bureau where I got my start at the Hartford Courant, they used to clip the day’s stories written by the reporters in our department and post them to a board near the office’s front entrance. Kind of like a proud Mama Courant hanging her children’s messy art projects on the refrigerator for all to see. But each day I had a story that ran, I hustled past the bulletin board averting my eyes. I was so critical of my writing, terrified I had made an error or written a clumsy lede that I couldn’t even bear to look at the clipping, couldn’t acknowledge its existence, let alone read it.

That’s just how I’ve been these last few months I’ve had to put aside the actual writing of the book. Wedding planning, then said wedding, then the holidays put my writing schedule on the back burner. With so much distance, I was afraid to pick up my chapters and read them, afraid to reacquaint myself with the story and its characters and my prose. What if it sucked? And what business did I have writing a novel, anyway?

Last night I finally confronted my fears, went to the NYU library (go Violets!) and sat down to read the first chunk of the manuscript. I had envisioned it would be much like the way I watch horror movies: through slightly parted fingers, squinching my eyes closed every few minutes. I’m happy to report it was a much more pleasant experience than expected. Not exactly the feel good movie of the year. But totally not a slasher flick, either. Bottom line: It doesn’t suck. Lumpy clay on the page that needs some molding, yes. A touch bucolic for my taste, sure. But there’s absolutely a story there, and I’m happy to be getting back to the business of telling it. Here we go…

You Say Resolutions, I Say Goals: Writing in 2012

Posted on January 2, 2012 by JoannK

I don’t do New Year’s resolutions. Promising to make major life changes beginning on an arbitrary calendar date? That’s a set up for failure.

But there is something nice about taking this time of year to reflect on where you’ve been, show a little gratitude and fine-tune where needed to keep on the right path. I’ve used this long holiday weekend to do just that, and to ask myself some important questions that have helped me recommit to, and refocus, my writing goals. (Totally not the same as resolutions. Says who? Says me.)

Among the questions were these two that I came across in some old journals. At two very different points in my life, two different mentors suggested I ask myself:

If you could do anything in life, and it was guaranteed that you would not fail, what would it be?

Imagine yourself five years from now, and you haven’t taken the steps to fulfill your greatest desire. How would that feel? Now how would it feel if you had taken action, and you succeeded?

They’re powerful questions that help shake off the cobwebs and realign your goals. Here’s to a productive 2012!

Writing Anka: Old Photos Inspire Novel Characters

Posted on December 29, 2011 by JoannK

This photo of my mother (first row, left) is the inspiration for Anka, the main character in my novel.

Meet Anka. She’s a 12-year-old growing up in a small village in 1950s Poland, and she’s the main character in the novel I’m writing. She also happens to look a lot like my mother. That’s because the character is based on her (albeit loosely), and the village in which her story unfolds looks and feels a whole heck of a lot like Bogdanowice, also where my mother grew up.

But this isn’t my mother’s story (which I have to keep reminding her every time she proudly tells people, “My daughter is writing a book about me.”) I didn’t want the responsibility of historical fact, didn’t want to be married to family stories as my mother recalls them. I wanted to start from a place I knew well, from characters and people I had met in my life and could draw upon, and then be given free reign to play, explore and tell tall tales. The photo above is perhaps my strongest inspiration. It’s a photo of my mother in grade school. She’s the one on the left in the front row. I’ve been drawn to it since I first saw it – to the little girl in the photo who seems to know some things that we don’t, who looks a little too world-weary for her age and ready to discover something more. It’s from this photo, and others like it from my mom’s early years, that I draw Anka.

Photo of Evelyn Nesbit by Rudolf Eickerman, published in The Metropolitan Magazine, September 1903. From the Photographic History Collection, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institute.

Whether discovered in family albums or through Google images, I find old photographs are a great help in crafting characters. And I’m not alone. I just recently read that writer Lucy Maud Montgomery did the same, finding inspiration in magazines photographs. She clipped this one of Evelyn Nesbit from The Metropolitan Magazine, hung it up in her writing room and used it as the model for the main character in the literary classic, Anne of Green Gables. I love that. I never read the books, but was a huge fan of the movie series as a kid, sneak-watching it on PBS when I was supposed to be doing my Saturday chores. I had been thinking of finally reading the books, since the texture and tone of my novel feels similar to Anne’s story, when I stumbled on this tidbit. Now I most certainly will. Anne of Green Gables, Anka of Bogdanowice. Love it.

Writing Inspiration…Courtesy of YouTube

Posted on December 7, 2011 by JoannK

My mother tells stories of how, growing up, my grandmother would keep her in line with the threat that, if she didn’t behave, my grandmother would let the gypsies that came through their Polish village take her away in the middle of the night. While it seemed a simple disciplinary tactic on my grandmother’s end, for my mom, it provoked panic at every snapped branch, every gust of wind against the window at night. To her, the prospect of being taken away was very real. Or so I imagine when I try to put myself in my mother’s place as I continue to write a character based (loosely, loosely!) on her.

In the writing, just as I conjure the panic at every nighttime noise, I need to imagine the time and texture I know only from stories and photographs. Just as I’ve been known to use Google images to draw inspiration, YouTube has come in handy of late. I stumbled on this eerie, but very lovely clip that I can’t help but watch over and over. As the YouTube description states, it might be a romanticized look at Roma in 1960s Poland, but it’s captivating nonetheless.

All I Want for Christmas is Time to Write

Posted on November 28, 2011 by JoannK

Closed Looking at my calendar from now until New Year’s, I feel like I might as well hang a sign on my writing desk: Closed: See you in 2012 (Hopefully).

It’s crazy, and crazy-making, how quickly social obligations and holiday preparations can fill up all the blank spaces in the week normally reserved for writing. What’s causing even more writing angst is that more permanent changes are coming to my schedule – changes that will ax entire writing days that have been so valuable to me, and yielded so much productivity. To put it mildly, I’m freaking out.

I’m still trying to wrap my brain around this new schedule and figure out how I’m going to stay committed to my writing in the face of it. Is it a test to see just how dedicated I am to putting words on a page, how much I want it? Is it a blessing in disguise that will make me that more disciplined and sacred about my writing time? Are these pointless questions without real answers that I’m just asking myself to feel better?

Possibly yes, to all. In pondering these questions and drawing up a new writing strategy, I’ve found this blog post by Rachelle Gardner, on the subject of crafting a holiday writing plan, helpful. Good tips on setting realistic goals and carving out writing time. As for me, for now I’m approaching the holiday season much as the dieting gurus advise approaching your waistline this time of year: I’m not looking to drop 20 chapters of writing in the next few weeks, just aiming for maintenance and looking to get through the holidays without abandoning my goals.