Sticking my neck out

The BlogHer conference at the Hilton on 6th Avenue and 53rd Street is just one week away.

I’m going.

I was crushed when I was wait-listed to be a volunteer and elated when a spot opened up.

I’ll be working at the registration desk on both Friday and Saturday mornings.

BlogHer is huge. BlogHer is fun. Everyone at BlogHer will be about three decades younger than me.

I’m totally intimidated by the whole BlogHer thing–since I am an Internet Dunderhead–but also excited to learn as much as I can, meet people, network, and better understand the role of social media in a writer’s life.

I’m taking two children on this trip: Etani, who’s 6 years old, and Baby Leone, who will be 9 months old next week.

I want to make the most of the conference, so I’ve been asking for advice.

My friend Meagan Francis, who knows everything about the Internet and technology (and owns both a Macbook Air and an iPad, which proves that she’s a techno-guru) had this advice:

1) Before you go write down the names/twitter accounts/email addresses of some people you really want to meet and then get in touch with them while you’re there to make sure it happens. It’s a HUGE conference and you’ll never see half the people you want to unless you make a real effort.

2) Definitely bring business cards

3) Bring a cute outfit because people get decked out at the parties. But don’t sweat it TOO much.

4) Bring a notebook or laptop so you can take notes during sessions and write down the names of interesting blogs

Meagan, who’s been to three other BlogHer conferences, swears there’s no way to do it wrong.

But there is one thing I am going to try NOT to do at the conference.

I am going to skip the swag.

This advice comes from writer Laura Vanderkam. I’m reading her new book, 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think, and I noticed she mentioned you should NEVER take conference swag in the book.

I asked her why and she wrote this blog post, Conference Bound? Skip the Swag, about it.

The gist of it is this:

Swag weighs you down.

Browsing the “free” stuff takes time away from networking and other more valuable conference endeavors.

Swag takes up space in your suitcase and once you get it home you end up throwing it away anyway. How many tote bags can one person use?

I’m convinced.

I don’t want the swag.

I’m actually troubled by some of the sponsors to this conference–big corporations that are hurting the environment, brainwashing Americans to do things their way even when their way is harmful, and trying to put smaller, more wholesome companies out of business.

When I saw some of the sponsors my heart sank. Maybe not taking the swag can be one small way of saying no to corporate America, freebies that are anything but free, and undisclosed advertising on blogs…

In the interest of full disclosure: Laura sent me a free copy of her book to read (which I’m doing) and review (which I’m planning to do once I finish it).

I’m always so impressed with the blog, The Frugal Kiwi, which has tips about making your own laundry detergent, composting, using cast iron pans, and more. There you’ll also find bawdy humor, incredible felting creations, and advice about organizing spices.

Though I warned her that only about five people read this writerly blog, Melanie McMinn, is a great believer in quality over quantity in many aspects of her life. Today I’m excited that McMinn, the author of Frugal Kiwi and a professional copywriter, generously shares a bit of her history, wit and insight with us.

JM: How long have you been a writer and what got you started?

MM: Like many writers, I loved the written word from a young age. My first published work (complete with age appropriate drawings) was a story they ran in the local newspaper, The Mountain Press in Gatlinburg,TN, when I was five years old. I’m sure Mum has a copy of it somewhere…

As far as professional writing goes, I got into it after becoming hugely dissatisfied with my work in the health care sector in my early 30s. I went to an Occupational Psychologist and took a whole raft of tests to help figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up. Writing came up in several forms.

I’d never thought about freelance writing as an option, but after reading a whole stack books on commercial freelancing like The Well-Fed Writer by Peter Bowerman and learned how to write queries for magazines from The Renegade Writer by Linda Formichelli and Diana Burrell, I had enough information to get an article published in a trade magazine for expats working in New Zealand in the health care sector and another published in a glossy, but now defunct New Zealand focused travel magazine.

The travel magazine gave me my first taste of the highs and lows of working with glossies. It was intoxicating seeing my name and writing on that shiny page with beautiful photographs. It was frustrating and upsetting to learn the realities of getting PAID. It took nearly a year.

Since then my writing work has focused on copywriting for businesses. It’s less glamorous, but I’m more likely to be paid in a semi-timely manner.

JM: I’m constantly amazed by the depth and breath of the posts on The Frugal Kiwi. How did you get the idea for this blog?

MM: I cooked up the idea for The Frugal Kiwi as I was convalescing from my stroke. I was looking for crafts that I could do to help keep my mind off of the pain, but that wouldn’t cost me ANYTHING. I decided to turn old sheets into a rug and in learning how to do that I ran across the blog Little House in the Suburbs. It’s written by a couple of friends and they post on crafts, self-sufficiency, and many things I’m interested in. I’d never come across anything like it before and I was enchanted.

I decided I should start a New Zealand focused blog that was similar in content and The Frugal Kiwi was born. Plus, I’ve got such a monkey brain that I’d never be able to keep a blog on just one subject!

JM: Speaking of the stroke, you suffered from it since we’ve known each other. I’ve never heard of anyone having a stroke so young. Can you share with us what happened? Is a stroke at that age more common than most people think?

MM: One day last April I was driving down the road and I got a blazing migraine-level headache—weird since I always wake up with migraines when I have them. The symptoms were different than a normal migraine for me, I had no light sensitivity, it was centered in the middle of my head instead of behind my right eye and the nausea was overwhelming. Thinking it was an atypical migraine, I decided to ride it out for a few of days, the normal time span of a migraine for me.

It didn’t go away.

I went to my GP who sent me to the ER where I was told I was just dehydrated and had a migraine.

I had to go back to the ER the next day, as things were worse.

The ER docs gave me nasty looks, told me again that it was just a migraine, and said they would do a CT but that “You’re 36, so it won’t show anything, not at your age.”

It showed something. I had a bleed into a cyst I didn’t know I had in my pituitary gland. Since then I’ve had constant pain, aphasia (word-finding problems), which is no easy row to hoe for a writer, and haven’t been able to work normally for the past 15 months.

I’ve had several people contact me to say they had strokes at early ages, so it is probably more common than we think. The week before my stroke, I met a young woman who was 19 who’d just had one and I thought how terrible that must be.

The doctors have no idea why I had the stroke or what caused it. I have no family history to explain it and no risk symptoms. They told me it was idiopathic aka “just one of those things”. So I’m doing the best I can to live with “one of those things” not knowing how long the pain will persist and whether I could have another bleed any moment.

JM: You’re originally from the South but you live in New Zealand of all places. When did you move there and why?

MM: Only a true geek would feel that their life is bound up with a fantasy world, but it happened to me. The first Lord of the Rings movie, The Fellowship of the Ring, was the last movie I saw with my soon-to-be ex-husband. I saw The Two Towers post-separation with friends and was reminded of how beautiful New Zealand is. I fell in love with the lush greenness and stunning vistas of New Zealand and I knew I had to see NZ for myself.

Knowing that people in health care were in demand Down Under, I applied for a position at one of New Zealand’s District Health Boards and got the job.

The last LoTR movie, The Return of the King, premiered not long after I moved to Auckland in 2003. It was the first movie I saw with Terry, a fabulous Kiwi bloke, and we’ve been together ever since- nearly seven years now.

In addition to being seduced by New Zealand’s beauty, I was sick of working for a fixed salary based on 40 hours of work but being forced into 50 and 60 hours of work every week as an Audiologist. That wasn’t the kind of life I wanted. New Zealanders place much more emphasis on work/life balance and it isn’t just lip service. They mean it.

JM: Do you have advice for Americans who are considering expatriating?

MM: Living in another country can be the adventure of a lifetime or a complaint-filled grind that never ends. Do your research. Find a country that prioritizes what you value most. I looked at Australia and New Zealand. Australia is much more like the States. People work like fiends; shop like fiends; consume like fiends. They just do it with kangaroos and koalas nearby. Plus there is a shocking amount of racism in Australia that is extremely ugly. Having lived in the South I didn’t need a new dose of that.

New Zealand is more like the UK in temperament. Things are calmer, more reasonable, quieter and less consumption driven. Even in Auckland, the biggest city in NZ, malls close at 5:00 p.m. on most days of the week. Yes, the mall. Closed. 5:00 p.m. They stay open until 9:00 p.m. on Thursday and Friday, but not Saturday.

Plus the entire country shuts down for several weeks between Christmas and the middle of January. The whole country takes those few weeks off to go on holiday and spend time with family.Unless you’re in a tourist area, good luck getting any restaurant food better than McDonald’s for those weeks. Auckland empties out and becomes a ghost town. It is astounding to watch.

We have a government department that pays out for any accidents that taxpayers subsidize which makes it practically impossible to sue anyone. Imagine a whole country without constant litigation, where people are expected to use common sense, where you can’t get rich on the back of some accident and a huge lawsuit. How could that NOT be a better place to live?

These things drew me to NZ along with the fact that there is more stunning scenery in tiny NZ than all of Australia. But other people might be drawn to the international level shopping of Sydney or the unbelievably good food in Melbourne, the warmer temperatures and more familiar approach to life in Australia.

Thinking about what is truly important to you and matching that with a new culture is key in becoming a happy expat.

JM: What is the single most interesting thing about living in New Zealand?

MM: Kiwis THRIVE on not being Number One in everything.

You can see that with the hugely popular and self-deprecating Flight of the Conchords band/ HBO show. They bill themselves as “the almost award-winning fourth-most-popular folk duo in New Zealand.”

There are ads for candy bars here celebrating that they are the third most popular candy bar. Kiwis punch well above their collective weight in many ways, but know that being #1 isn’t the only thing worth having. I love that.

I was tickled at the recent local World Cup headlines that touted the NZ team as “undefeated.” All their games ended in draws, so they were undefeated, technically. But it isn’t the sort of headline you’d get in the States for a team that won zero games in an international competition.

I love living in a country that celebrates getting out there and having a go.

JM: Your felting projects on your blog are so impressive. Where did you learn to do that kind of needlework?

MM: I was taught to do traditional needlework as a small child, but my felting is self-taught with help from craft books and online tutorials for the basics.

After learning the basics, I just went with the flow. Only my off-the-wall brain would think to spend two weeks poking a pile of wool fibres with a barbed needle to create a saucy modern interpretation of a Sphinx.

I started felting after seeing some beautiful felted soaps at a market I couldn’t justify spending money on post-stroke. Now I show people how to make their own at home.

JM: How does being crafty inspire you to write?

MM: I think that people have been bamboozled into learned helplessness and they believe it when they are told that everything must be purchased to be worth having and that no normal person can make things anyway.

I hope that writing about some of my crafts and artwork encourages people to give making thing with their own hands a try. Plus, I get to show off!

JM: My all-time favorite recipe on Frugal Kiwi is your homemade detergent. When did you start making laundry detergent from scratch?

MM: I started making my own laundry detergent back in September with that very post. It was the first of several investigations and experiments in making household goods that people normally buy without even thinking twice.

JM: What else do you make from scratch that other people may not?

MM: I’ve now made my own soap, shampoo, toothpaste, deodorant, mascara and bread. Maybe the bread isn’t so odd, but it was a big one for me. Yeast is like magic!

JM: What are your top three recommendations for how to save money?

MM: My first recommendation is incredibly obvious, but very few people do it. Don’t go to shops or spend your time looking at catalogs. You can’t feel like you need something that you’ve never seen. If you don’t know it exists, you won’t want to buy it.

I can’t tell you the last time I went to a mall so I want nothing there. But I do pine for a cool bread bin I saw online a couple of months ago. I’ve lived all my life happily without a bread bin. Obviously I don’t NEED one. But it calls to me now that I’ve seen the darned thing.

Next, if you do decide you really, really want something, wait for it. I generally have a three day rule. Most things I forget about or decide I don’t really need within three days. The ones that linger in my mind I’m more likely to invest in or at least find a cheaper alternative form.

Finally, make what you can for yourself and don’t assume it is all too hard to do. As you’ve learned with the laundry detergent, it is cheap, easy and actually faster to make than it would be to go and buy at the grocery store. With 10 minutes of work for 110 loads of laundry, you are saving time AND money by making it. You’ll grow in self-confidence and find that there is great pleasure to be had in being more self-sufficient.

JM: Anything else you want to add about writing, life, or saving money that I haven’t asked you already?

MM: I’m not the first to say it, but having a significant illness changes the focus of life for good and for ill. While I still have pain every day, I probably would never have started the Frugal Kiwi, learned how to felt or created my own household products without the stroke. I don’t know where life will take me next, but I know it will be a different and more rich in experience than if I’d never had my wee brain explosion.

My New York Times travel piece, in the HEADS UP section, will appear in tomorrow’s print version of the newspaper but is already available on-line.

To read it, click here: “Shakespeare, and Good Eats in Oregon.”

In it I mention the following restaurants:

Blue, Greek on Granite (the newest joint in town, serving upscale Greek food)

The Loft (an intimate French bistro with an American flare)

the new small plates café at Chateaulin (one of Ashland’s oldest restaurants)

Sesame (Asian fusion palate-pleasing food)

For more restaurant reviews, each with a grade, I wrote this much longer piece in the Oregonian, “Putting Ashland Restaurants to the Taste Test.“

For writers who haven’t yet published a book, the idea of selling a contract to a publisher sounds better than a mind-blowing orgasm.

But selling the book (Step #1) and then writing the book (Step #2) are just the beginning.

As the publishing world gets more competitive and the bookshelves more crowded with well written compelling books, writers themselves need to get out there and promote their books once they are published.

Actually, book promotion needs to start before the book is published. Which means, for most of us, it needs to start before the book is written. Which feels a little schizophrenic because how can you promote a book that you haven’t actually written?

I can’t answer that.

But I can say that one of the best things we can do as writers is support each other and help each other promote books. There are a lot of ways to do this.

Two of my favorites:

#1: BUY A COPY OF YOUR FRIEND’S BOOK: As my friend Max said as he was paying for a copy of Slaves in Algiers, the classroom edition of an 18th century play that I co-edited years ago (yep, Max is a good friend), friends BUY each other’s books.

#2: ASK YOUR LOCAL LIBRARY TO BUY A COPY OF YOUR FRIEND’S BOOK: Anyone with a library card can request and acquisition. All you do is fill out a little slip of paper. Most libraries are more than happy to fulfill these requests.

I know this sounds small and simple but if you have a new book coming out and all of your friends and family buy it and request a library to buy it, you’ve just sold as many as 1,000 advanced copies (depending on how many friends you have.)

Alisa Bowman, who is an amazing writer and blogger and the collaborator on many bestsellers, has a book coming out soon. It’s called PROJECT HAPPILY EVER AFTER: SAVING YOUR MARRIAGE WHEN THE FAIRYTALE FALTERS and it’s about how she went from planning her husband’s funeral (she hated him that much) to being in a loving, fulfilling relationship.

I just pre-ordered it from Amazon.com.

Alisa has good ideas about so many things, from how to groom your nether parts (yep, she talks about hair, down there) to how to help your friends promote their books.

Here are some of Alisa Bowman’s best book promo techniques for writers whose friends are coming out with books:

* If you are in a book club, pick it as a monthly read. That would be beyond awesome.

* If you are on bookmovement.com, review it there.

* Tell a couple friends about it. Even strangers you meet, say, on a bus while you happen to be reading the book and they ask you what it is about. Word of mouth promotion is actually the most important sales tool there is.

* Blog about it. Tell other bloggers about it.

* Quote me if you are writing about marriage, sex, post partum depression, wishing husbands dead, bikini waxes, vow renewing, unemployed husbands, unemployed husbands who spend your second honey moon savings on ski trips they take without you, wishing you could have an affair, dry spells, …. I am the ultimate real woman source who is wiling to dish about all of the things no one will talk about and then even have my entire family pose for a photo!

* Write reviews for Amazon.com. Important. Especially because you are all writers and will say things that probably will entice to buy.

* When the trailer comes out (I did a neat trailer… filmed in a cemetery with me talking about how I planned his funeral), please FB or tweet it if you are comfortable doing that. Totally will help.

* Let me know about media ops, even if you think I’ve already seen them. Because sometimes I’m overwhelmed and even tho I get HARO I sometimes don’t read or read too late.

* Tell me that it’s not a stupid book when I’m crying because someone commented on amazon that it’s a stupid book (most important thing you can do!).

* Suggest marketing strategies to me, even if you think I might have already thought about them. Because maybe I haven’t.

Effective book promotion is all about brainstorming.

What other ideas do you have to help yourself and your friends get the word out about their books?

I was recently quoted in Southwest’s Spirit Magazine.

The subject: Baby tears.

You can download a PDF of the article, “The Numbers: Babies Don’t Tear Up Until They’re Three Months Old.“

I have a new article, just published in the Oregonian, that puts several new Ashland restaurants to the taste test.

This was a fun one to research!

I reviewed seven restaurants that have opened in Ashland in the last year and a half. These include:

The Loft, an American brasserie

Chateaulin’s new small plates café, in what used to be its specialty food shop

Blue: Greek on Granite, an upscale Greek restaurant right downtown

Hana Sushi, a very reasonably priced sushi joint on the Plaza

Noble Coffee Roasters, serving up the best expresso this side of the Mississippi

Red Hibiscus, a Hawaiian fusion joint

and Sesame, an Asian fusion restaurant across from Lithia Park

Read the article on-line, “Putting Ashland Restaurants to the Taste Test.”

My friend Marina mentioned that she learned this theory at a presentation at the ASJA conference last year.

Think of being a writer as being like a prehistoric human. You’re a hunter and gatherer. You subsist on berries and nuts, grazing as you move from place to place. But the big prize, the real treat, is the mastodon.

Only catching a mastodon isn’t easy. It takes time. It takes cooperation. It takes persistence.

Writing is like that: the lower paying jobs, or just the easy stuff (the editor who comes to you with an assignment, the company you’ve been working for for several years) is the low-hanging fruit. It’s the nuts and berries. Delicious, yes. Nutritious, sure. But what you really want is the mastodon.

The mastodon is the Big Assignment. Maybe it’s the book you’ve always wanted to write. Maybe it’s the 10,000-word narrative nonfiction piece. It could even be the 500-word piece in the Big Name Publication.

I know where I’m getting my nuts and berries. And I know where the mastodon is. I’m sharpening my spears. I’m ready to hunt this mastodon. And I really want to catch him.

What about your writing work? Are you picking nuts and berries or are you hunting a mastodon?

I had two long features due last week, one for Oregon Business Magazine and one for Mothering magazine, and spoke to both of my editors about them today on the phone.

I’m so grateful for good editing and good editors. I think the editing stage makes such a big difference — converting an okay or just good article into something really worth reading.

It’s also helpful to talk about the content with an editor, to discuss how your ideas are coming across and how they might be perceived by readers. This is especially important if the topic is controversial, as one of these two articles is.

Not to blow my own horn or anything but I’m a good editor — I can re-organize someone else’s writing, spot the clichés, smooth out the prose, and help the writer craft what he or she wants to say.

But it’s really hard to edit your own words and I find that something will niggle me about a story I submit but I won’t be able to figure out what’s wrong with it.

Which makes me even more grateful to be working with perceptive and skilled editors who help me bring my writing to the next level.

Leaving tomorrow for three days in Astoria, Oregon to photograph and write about the soon-to-be-opening Oregon Film Museum.

Astoria is quite a haul for us but it’s such a nice town (I was there last when I was writing a long travel piece for family.com about the Oregon Coast) that I’ve decided we should all go.

We rented “The Goonies” in anticipation of this trip. The kids enjoyed it. I found the movie a bit silly. But apparently hundreds of “Goonie” fans make a pilgrimage to Astoria each year…

I have an essay in the April/May issue of Fit Pregnancy magazine that I wrote in tandem with a gorgeous photograph of a grandma, mom, and toddler. The essay is just 500 words–a musing on how becoming a mother helps you come to terms with your own mom.

I received a letter, dated April 12, from an upset reader of the magazine who lives in the Bronx. Since I have not asked her permission, I will not include her name in this post.

Here’s what she wrote:

I was enjoying the April/May 2010 issue of Fit Pregnancy until I reached your article “A Mother is Born.” I cannot understand how someone like yourself can be so insensitive to adoptive mothers, as you were in your article. I quote, “…your mom rushed back to work after you were born–like mine did–…and you were secretly sure you were adopted.”

How dare you insinuate adoptive mothers are “relieved” to go back to work and leave their babies. It is obvious you were scarred by the fact that your biological mother left you and went back to work. This does not give you the right to insult adoptive mothers and children.

As an adoptive mother of four children, I take the offense personally. Adoptive and biological parents do the best they can for their children alike. To make a statement like you did is purely offensive and hurtful. I believe you owe all adoptive mothers a sincere public apology, however, this may not alleviate the harm you have already done. Young pregnant girls who are considering adoption could have been reading your article and influenced by your statement.

I am also very upset at Fit Pregnancy for publishing this article with this statement. I hope they will screen their articles in the future, and, as a respected and educated person who writes publishes [sic] in varied venues, I hope you will choose you [sic] words more carefully in the future. I guess neither one of you thought someone who wasn’t pregnant (an adoptive mother) would be reading your article. Shame on you both.

Ouch. The essay I wrote clearly hit a nerve with this reader.

I feel sad that the essay made her so upset and that she felt so offended reading it. And sorry, too, that this is such an emotional issue for her and that she felt the magazine (and me in particular) is insensitive to adoptive mothers.

It’s probably worth noting that the editor-in-chief of the magazine, Peg Moline, is herself adopted and had nothing but sympathy for adoptive mothers and adopted children.

But that may be beside the point. Here’s my explanation about the essay: I did wish I were adopted when I was a small child. I fantasized about having a different mother out there somewhere — a mother who paid attention to me and cared for me. I wanted to be adopted not because I understood anything about adoption but because that would help, in my very young mind anyway, explain why my mother was so distant and distracted. In a lot of ways, I had a very painful childhood. My mother, whom I adore and admire, was mostly absent. I was a latch key kid and my brother and I almost always came home to an empty house. We had nannies who cared for us growing up, as well as a very loving and involved father. As a child, I idealized young mothers who spent time with their children. I used to fantasize that my preschool teacher, the one with the long brown hair and the glasses, was my real mom.

That desire to be adopted came from a place of pain about my own mother not from any negative associations with adoptive parents. I am truly sorry that I hurt this reader’s feelings. I think adopting children is one of the kindest most selfless and most important things a person can do. I have always wanted to adopt and I hope someday to have the privilege of doing so. I didn’t mean to insinuate anything bad about adoptive mothers, or about working mothers for that matter. I just meant to share the pain of my childhood with other readers.

So, to the reader in the Bronx who was so upset by my story: Please accept my most sincere apology. It was not my intention to hurt an adoptive mother’s feelings. I am so sorry I offended you.