Cordula Volkening, in memoriam

A dear friend passed away a week ago.

She was an artist, a mother and a free spirit.

She leaves two children, ages 13 and 16.

The brain cancer that killed her unleashed an incredible outpouring of creativity. She painted dozens of beautiful pictures, three of which are now hanging in my living room, in the year and a half betweeen her diagnosis and her death. One of her art shows was called "In my wild brave heart," a quote from a Rilke poem.

Her heart was indeed wild and brave. She lived her life with tremendous passion and she faced her death with enormous dignity. I hope when my time comes I can be that brave and true.

Antibiotics

Over the weekend, my younger son's face swelled up on one side. He looked the way kids used to look when they got the mumps, before there was a vaccine.

He was in so much pain he was crying. We called the dentist, who put him on an antibiotic. Within two hours, the swelling and pain were mostly gone.

I don't know how anybody ever survived before modern medicine.

The College Tour

This week I am on a college tour for my son, a junior in high school.

Since I never went on a college tour, I'm kind of excited about it. When I went to college, I applied to one school, got in, and never visited until I showed up to move into my dorm. It worked out just fine.

So it could be fun to see different campuses and see how things have changed.

On the other hand, it's a drag. It's expensive. It's a time-sucker. And you can bet my 11-year-old will not really have a good time, but we had to drag him along, poor thing.

A bunch of parents have told me sometimes you get to a college and your kid won't even get out of the car because he can tell just by sitting in the parking lot that he doesn't want to go there.

I hope that doesn't happen to us.

How to write and sell a book

On average now once a week someone asks me advice about writing a book, finding an agent or selling a book. This week so far three people have asked me for advice.

If as many people would buy my book, as ask me for advice on writing a book, I'd be selling a lot of copies. Of course that is one of the problems with this world - many people want to write books, but many people do not want to read books. Tens of thousands of new books are published each year and many of them are on the remainder pile within a couple of months.

But I'm not here to soapbox about that. I'm here to say what it is I tell people who ask me for advice. This way, next time I am asked, I can simply send a link to this blog post.

So - here are the answers to the questions I am usually asked:

Q: How do you find time to write books with a job and two kids?
A: Some people keep journals, some people write every day. I don't. I write in spurts. For my first book, I took a month off from work because I had a lot of compensation time built up, and I wrote about half the book in that time, going back through notes I had taken on events and elaborating on those notes for the book.

For my last book, I spent a few weekends - 12-hour days - in a quiet office with no distractions, without my family, without the Internet, and then when my younger son was away at camp, I worked every night for two weeks, about six hours nonstop at each sitting. I can write thousands of words this way, in one sitting. A 250-page book is about 100,000 words, so it adds up fast.

If I have a thought or a nugget that could be the seed for a passage or a chapter, but I don't have time to spin it out at that moment, I jot it down fast and email it to myself. I create a folder in my email to save those notes so I can find them later. You also need an outline, at least for nonfiction. The outline keeps you going, and that way you can write parts of chapters out of order if you're stuck.

I did not write any of my books before I had a contract and an advance from a publisher. A deadline and money are powerful motivators. Usually you get some of the money when you sign the contract and the rest when you hand in the manuscript.

Q: How do you find an agent? Who is your agent?
A: Most authors who are not famous, thank their agents in writing, in their books, in a note in front of the book, or in acknowledgements in back of the book. Find books like the book you want to write, and figure out who agented them. You can find my agent in the acknowledgements of all my books.

If the author of a book you like did not thank the agent in the book, you can research the names of agents who sold books in recent years on Publisher's Lunch/Publisher's Deluxe. You have to pay $20 a month to subscribe to this Web site but you can cancel any time, and it's worth it. Just reading its daily emailed newsletter will tell you a lot about what types of books are selling, who's selling them and which publishers are buying them, and how much they're paying. There is an archive so you can research past deals. You'll also get a sense through this newsletter of what publishers take books without agents. There aren't too many, but there are a few.

There is no point in querying an agent who does not sell the type of book you are writing.

A very useful book is "Jeff Herman's Guide to Book Publishers, Editors & Literary Agents."

I have not, and would not, pay an agent to read a manuscript. Agents take a fee, usually 15 percent, of the advance, after the book idea is sold.

Q: What is the process for selling a book?
A: I don't know anything about fiction. For nonfiction, here's how it has worked for me.

I did not write any of my three books before selling them. I wrote a proposal and a sample chapter, but not the entire book, and I got contracts on the basis of my proposals. An agent uses the proposal to sell the concept. After I had a contract, then I wrote the book. To me, it seemed like a waste of time to write a book if I wasn't sure I could sell it. In fact, the one time that I wrote half of a book before I had a contract, the agent was not able to sell it, and I felt very sad afterwards that I had wasted months of effort for nothing.

Here's what's in a proposal: An anecdotal lead that flows into a summary and description of what the book is about, as a sort of advertisement for the book, its concept and content; who you are and why you are the best person to write the book; who will buy the book and how it can be marketed; a list of other books that are like your book, to show that books like this will sell, but at the same time, an explanation of why your book is slightly different from all these other books, and maybe better; an outline, which includes a very brief description of each chapter; a sample chapter - not necessarily the first chapter, but the best chapter; and an author bio. Length: 15 pages, maybe another 15 for the chapter. If you have published other things, include some clips or reviews.

To query an agent, write a one-page letter that summarizes the proposal: Describe the book, describe yourself, explain why you are qualified to write this book, explain who will buy this book and why you think it could be a hit. Ask for permission to send the proposal.

You should do research on 20 to 50 books that are like your book. Use Amazon to query subjects that are like your subject. Go to a big bookstore and look at all of the books on the shelves where you imagine your book would be. Read as many of them as you can. Immerse yourself in the genre; educate yourself. Then figure out five or 10 that are most like your book, and research who agented them, who published them. Now you're ready to write your proposal, find your agent and proceed on your way.

Q: What about self-publishing?
A: Unless you are writing a family memoir just for your own family, or a book of poems and recipes just for yourself and your immediate family, I don't see the point of self-publishing. To me it is pure vanity. If no agent will take your book, or if an agent will take it but no publisher will, maybe it's time to start with a new subject. Many famous writers experienced multiple rejections before hitting on a winner.

But maybe you think you can sell your book on your own. Maybe you have a built-in client base because of your job or profession. Maybe it's a niche subject on a disease or a neighborhood, but you know there are hundreds, maybe thousands of people whom you can find through some organization or store, who will buy the book. Maybe you want to go around the country with boxes selling books and making change for $20 bills. Bless you! There is a book called "Self-Publishing For Dummies," and that will tell you everything you need to know.

In my experience, writing a book is easy compared to selling it. But that's a whole nother topic of conversation that I don't want to get into here. Thanks for listening to all of this, and good luck.

The dark side of 472 Facebook friends

I first joined Facebook a couple of years ago basically to spy on my teenager. He refused to friend me, and told me "Facebook is for teenagers."

I got over it, and decided to find my own friends. Colleagues from around the world, neighbors, cousins, high school classmates. It was really fun for awhile and I became quite addicted.

But lately Facebook has lost its charm. A friend at work said it jumped the shark when everyone started posting "25 Things About Me" notes. Some of those 25 things were things I didn't want to know about some of those people.

Then I tried to get into Twitter. But most of it is so banal. At least Facebook postings were clever, witty, word plays (often, anyway). Twitter is what people are doing, what they heard, videos and blog postings and ads they want me to see. I don't care about that; I want to be entertained. But no matter how I edited my Twitter list, it never seemed that entertaining.

And somehow as I followed Facebook through two generations of changes in the homepage, and kept adding more friends, I lost track of lots of them. No matter how I edited my status feed, it never seemed to have what I wanted in it.

The boundaries melted, too many random people, too many people whose names pop up and I'm like, HUH? Who is that? Too many messages to answer.

So now I'm giving up, at least for awhile. I'm taking a leave of absence from Facebook.

And maybe it'll free up so much time I'll actually get the damn taxes done.

Zen and the art of motherhood maintenance

I was relating a story to some colleagues the other day in which one of my children told me a convoluted tale involving some of his fellow students, a teacher and a controversy over homework. It's so convoluted that it would be pointless to share the details here.

My point in bringing it up is that my reaction to this incident was to simply state my basic values and rules, and then let it go. I personally would rather have a child get a zero on an assignment than stay up all night completing it, end up in tears because of it, copy the assignment from someone else, lie about it, have a nervous breakdown over it, or any other number of possible outcomes besides completing it in a reasonable period of time, with a reasonable amount of effort.

Basically, if you screw up somehow in doing the work, then you gotta live with the consequences. And if you did your best but you still fall short, well, at least you did your best.

In my mind, though, the most important thing is: To thine own self be true.

Did you behave honorably? If you did, then that's good enough for me.

My colleagues labeled this approach 'zen mothering' and maybe it is.

I don't particularly consider myself a zen person. I am quite neurotic and can get really worked up about stupid things.

But I also know that for me personally, the key to a good night's sleep is knowing that I did what I could, given available resources, to get a job done, and that I endeavored to avoid harming anyone else.

If that's zen, then OK, I guess I am zen.

Maybe my next book should be 'Zen and the Art of Motherhood Maintenance.'

The party's over

My husband and I noticed a few years ago that when you are at a dinner party in Manhattan, one of the first things everyone talks about is real estate. But when people run out of things to talk about, they start talking about where they were on 9/11.

And we decided that when that happens, the party's over.

It's really astonishing how often this happens. I suppose it is a symptom of a really pervasive problem, that we were all so deeply scarred by the events of this day that whenever we are given a chance to just empty our minds, it all comes down to that: Where we were on Sept. 11th, 2001.

For the most part, these stories are banal, and I include my own stories in that category. Unless you lost someone that day, what is there to say, really? And not surprisingly, I have found that the people who lost someone that day never want to talk about it.

So tonight we were eating dinner at someone's house and a 9/11 story did get told. After a few minutes, I realized that I didn't want to leave yet, but I couldn't stop thinking, "The party's over! Someone's telling a 9/11 story!"

So I did what might have been a rude thing, but I couldn't help it. I explained our little rule and asked the person to stop telling the story. It worked, seemed fine, we moved the conversation along, and stayed for another half-hour. Person who was telling the story, please forgive me if you're reading this! I just couldn't help it!

The author's life

So today I got in the New York Post without getting arrested or having a wardrobe malfunction: http://tinyurl.com/b4pmu6. The writer liked my book and wrote a very nice article about it. Thank you, Jennifer Shaw! I am so grateful!

And now if someone would just tell me how to convince 20,000 more people to buy my book, I'd sure be grateful.

Thank you and goodnight.

free time

i can't remember the last time i had nothing to do.

I can't remember the last time anyone I know had nothing to do.

Life has become one long to-do list and I can't figure out how it happened.

If it wasn't this way, would I be lonely and bored? Or would I feel relaxed and happy?

Even the kids have too much to do. Especially the kids. I'm starting to think homework is training for how annoying their lives are going to be when they grow up.

Surely it doesn't have to be this way but I can't figure out how to stop it.

Snow day

Today in New York City we had a snow day. We almost never have snow days so it was a special treat. The best thing was, even the teenagers went to the park to play in the snow.

It's so great when kids find something fun to do that doesn't have a screen, batteries or ear buds.

First Mugging essay at NYTimes.com's Motherlode blog

Lisa Belkin at the NY Times was kind enough to ask me to do a guest blog for her Motherlode column, which many parents are quite devoted to. I wrote about 'First Mugging' as an urban rite of passage for kids who grow up in the city, and I also mentioned that I'd take that over the suburbs with their teenage drivers and ticks any day.
http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/19/raising-kids-in-the-city-or-the-suburbs/?hp

The post has generated a ton of comments - 149 at last count - and it's interesting to read them.

Most of them debate whether it is better to raise kids in the city or the suburbs, which is fine - we make our choices for whatever reasons and obviously we think we've made the right choice or we'd move, right?

But I was a bit puzzled by two types of other comments. One seemed to think I made up this stuff about fear of ticks. I assure you I did not.

My sister lives on Long Island and had Lyme disease. When I visit my college roommate in Rockland County, she always tells us to check for ticks when we go in her house. One friend at work had Lyme disease; she lives in New Jersey. Another lives in Connecticut and says she pulls ticks off her and her kids all the time. My neighbor's dog got bitten by a tick on an excursion to the 'burbs and actually died.

So anyway, just for the record, my fear of ticks is not hypothetical, in case anyone was wondering.

The other thing that has generated a lot of postings is questioning how common it is for kids to get mugged. I did not research police statistics for this story. I only know that among the teenage boys that I know in middle-class Brooklyn - admittedly a small unrepresentative sample - it seems like many of them get jumped (i.e., punched, assaulted or beaten in some way on the street) or robbed of some item - whether it's a cell phone or an iPod or a Gameboy - between 5th grade and high school. And by the way, I bet that 90 percent of those incidents do not get reported to the cops.

Many posters proudly stated, "I have lived in NYC all my life and never been mugged!" Well actually that is true for me also. But I have certainly been a victim of many, many crimes, and that was my larger point in the story - that if you live here long enough, someone is going to smash your car window, break into your apartment, steal your bike ... or mug your kid. And that it is one of the tradeoffs you make living in the city, and of course you hope that no one is ever seriously hurt.

I'll end by restating something I said in the story. If you are a New Yorker and you get called for jury duty, at some point they ask, "Has anyone here been a victim of a crime?" I have never been in a jury pool where every single person didn't raise their hand. This does not make me want to live in Larchmont. It merely makes me feel at one with my fellow New Yorkers. And the point of my story was simply that kids who grow up here get that, and they are OK with it.

Thai chili sauce

The other night I made steak in a marinade of ginger, garlic, soy sauce and Thai chili sauce. My teenage son liked it, but he asked me, "Didn't you use a different Thai chili sauce last time you made something like this?"

Um, I had, yes. About three months ago. And as he duly noted, the other Thai chili sauce was sweeter than this one.

But can I just say that I am amazed that a kid can have a memory for Thai chili sauce that allows him to distinguish between two types, each of which he has only tasted once, three months apart?

When I was his age, I liked ... Yodels. And I thought putting soy sauce on broccoli was really exotic.

And the only place you could get Thai chili sauce was in Thailand.

And I had never met anyone who had been there, and didn't imagine that I ever would.

When I was his age, it was a big deal taking the subway from Manhattan to the Bronx, for God's sake.

And it sort of still is.

Tears over a game

Most of the time I couldn't care less about sports. Never played it, don't understand it, never really cared much about any team. In fact, I usually find it downright boring unless my own kids are playing, and even then, I just have a hard time paying attention and understanding what's happening.

But this past weekend something happened to me. I felt like crying after my son's team lost a basketball playoff game. First time in my life that happened to me. It was weird, feeling emotion about sports.

First quarter, looked like they were outmatched. Second and third quarters, they did great and pulled ahead. Fourth quarter, it was tied. They went into overtime. My son fouled out. The other team scored four points and won.

A lot of the kids were crying. Often when kids cry after losing, I want to say, "Get a grip! It's just a game!"

But this time I wanted to cry too, I guess because it seemed like they were going to win, and it felt so tragic that they ended up losing.

After the game, I heard the referee say, "It's good when they cry!"

"Why is it good when they cry?" I asked, feeling like crying myself.

"Because it means they really wanted to win!" he said.

Right. I guess that's why I felt that way - I REALLY wanted them to win. And I felt really sad for all of us when they didn't.

Do my children hate me?

Someone asked at my reading last week if my children hate me for writing this book.

They claim not to.

My older son says he trusts me not to have embarrassed him; his friends think it's cool; and he reminded me that when I first got my advance, I went to the Nintendo store, stood on line for two hours and bought him and his brother a Wii. :)

Also - I gave them nicknames in the book. Not that it's foolproof, but it is different than using their names. And I tried hard to write the book from my perspective, and not pretend to know what is going on in their heads.

Finally - sadly, 21st century kids just don't think books are that important. TV shows, maybe, movies maybe. But not books. And who can blame them, given the rate at which books are remaindered. It makes me sad, since books are so very important to me. But I see why they feel that way.

Why I'm only doing two bookstore events

I had a reading at Barnes & Noble in my neighborhood last week. I am really grateful to all the friends, coworkers and neighbors who came out to see me. It's only easy - and maybe even only possible - to make these readings work when you can feel the love.

I only have one other reading - Feb. 24th out on Long Island at a great local bookstore called Book Revue in Huntington. It'll be Mardi Gras that night, and we'll have some fun stuff for a little party.

Couple people have asked why I am not doing more readings. Well, I did a lot of readings for my other books and realized that No. 1, you really don't sell many books at readings, even when you get a good crowd. No. 2, they are a lot of work to publicize, and they're best done where you have a built-in base, like your own hometown or nearby.

I also had two really awful experiences - one on Long Island at a senior citizens event where apparently many people had hearing problems and couldn't hear me. They kept interrupting my talk to say things like, "Speak up!" "We can't hear you!" "Can you talk louder, honey?" Afterwards many of them took the time to personally complain to me about the same thing.

The other awful memory was driving 300 miles to Rochester, N.Y., to talk at a bookstore, only to arrive just as a lake-effect blizzard began. Three people showed up. One was on crutches so I sent her home immediately. I later got completely lost in the snow, couldn't see out the car window, couldn't find my hotel, took the wrong exit on the highway ... etc. Kept thinking I would die in a blizzard in Rochester for nothing. So, that's why I'm only doing two bookstore appearances this time. But I'm hoping quality over quantity is a good thing.

Reading at Barnes & Noble

I'm reading from "13 Is the New 18" on Thur., Feb. 5, at 7:30 p.m. at the Barnes & Noble in Park Slope, Brooklyn, at Seventh Ave and Sixth St. (F train to Seventh Ave.)

The event is a benefit for Beacon High School, so any book you buy in the store, not just my book, counts. Just make sure you say 'bookfair' at the register.

Should be a lot of fun. Louise Crawford, who writes "Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn" http://www.otbkb.com and the Smartmom column for the Brooklyn paper, will be introducing me. I am a huge fan of Louise's. In the book, I quote from one of her columns: Her son, in elementary school, gets one of those writing assignments that all little boys hate -- "Write about a memory."

"But I don't have any memories!" he says.

Bless the little boys, for they live in the moment.

Hair

Last week I taped a segment of one of the network morning shows. I won't say which one just yet. till it airs, for fear of jinxing things.

I purposely went and got my hair cut a few days before, just for the show.

When you go on TV, they send you into a room with the touch-up ladies, and they always put a ton of makeup on, which always makes me feel like a ghoul, but OK. And they always have someone redo your hair too.

So the hair lady first tries to straighten my hair, which has never been done yet. Finally she gave up, but not after saying, "Been awhile since you cut your hair, huh?"

Um, actually I cut it three days ago but thanks for the insult!

Super Bowl dip

There are only two things about the Super Bowl that matter to me.

The half-time show, which I always love.

And onion soup mix chip dip, which I always make.

Most 21st century children have never had this dip, so they think you are the most marvelous magical being in all the world because you can rip open an envelope of salt and chemicals and stir it into a container of sour cream.

Maybe I'll serve Yodels for the Oscars.

The mysteries of teenagers

Today I got my third note in a row from a family where the teenager has grabbed my book and finds it funny and the mother can't get it back to read it.

This is completely unexpected.

I honestly never imagined teenagers would be my audience.

I think they must be as curious about how we view them as we are about how they view us.

Kind of like when you go to the zoo and look through the glass at the monkeys and they're looking right back.

Only I'm not sure who the monkeys are in this case.

New glasses

Whenever I get new glasses, which is not very often of course, it takes about 3 months before looking in the mirror is not a bizarre experience. Why is that.

Why I love the paper

Today among the many things that gave me tremendous happiness in The New York Times were:

Reading Bono's take on why Frank Sinatra is the greatest.

Reading the obit of one of the commanders at the Battle of the Bulge. Not happy that the guy died, of course, but happy that the history is being recounted. My dad was there, in the snow, with thousands of other soldiers, and their commanders refused the Nazis' demand to surrender despite the terrible odds. They prevailed, and their bravery and endurance was remarkable.

Reading the deconstruction of the phony letter to the editor from the not-mayor of Paris.

Reading the (presumably true) letter to the editor from the lawyer for Watergate's Deep Throat.

Why do I love these things? Let me count the ways.

Because they are obscure, but meaningful to me in very personal and strange ways. It confirms my sense that so many tiny things in our experiences are connected to other things - the two degrees of separation theory.

Because they are interesting and unusual and tell me things about the world that I didn't know.

Because they are amusing or sad or profound or touching or enlightening.

Because they take me out of myself.

I am so glad that when I wake up every morning, I can take three steps and find the paper on my door. I don't mind paying for it; it's worth every penny. How sad that mine is a 20th century attachment. Read the paper, people! And be willing to pay for it.

Survival in times of change

Today I recalled the wisdom of a long-ago colleague.

If you're worried about survival, step on your eyeglasses and pick up a broom.

'Nuff said.

The local stores

I want to support the local stores. I really do.

I understand that my neighborhood would suck if there were only chain stores, or no stores.

But why can't the local stores behave like businesses instead of like someone's weird hobby?

I ordered a captain's bed from a local store on Dec 17. They said it would be ready in five days. OK, I know there were holidays. But I didn't get it until Jan. 3, and that was after they promised to deliver Dec. 31 and Jan. 2 but didn't.

I ordered business cards and postcards from the local copy shop. The sign in the window clearly says, "NEXT DAY BUSINESS CARDS." I ordered these business cards Dec. 21. They're still not ready.

I brought a TV into a local store that allegedly fixes TVs. (I know, I know, why even go down that road in this day and age??? I get what I deserve.) I brought it in Dec. 28. I stopped in a week later. They couldn't even tell me if they were going to be able to repair it, no less what it would cost.

I went on the Web site for my local bookstore - now granted this was a few months ago, but still. It clearly said that you could email them a list of books you wanted, they would order the books and tell you when they arrived. I emailed my list. No one ever called. Two weeks later, I called them. Oh, they said, they no longer do that. It hadn't worked out, and they didn't have time to take the offer down from the Web site.

Ladies and gentlemen, these are the things that drive me to order stuff from Amazon. Really, can you blame me? I love my local stores, I want to support them, but they don't really seem to want my business.

Math

My 5th grader is doing his math homework.

He needs help, but it's too hard for me.

Totally pathetic. That's what I am.