The Family Room

Interview series on BabyCenter

Back in October, I started writing for BabyCenter, which is the leading Internet destination for parents. My job there is to contribute to their parenting blog, called Momformation, on the topic of behavior and development.

Naturally, I write quite a bit about autism.

One of things I'd always hoped to do was to start an interview series related to autism. Last week I published my first interview, with our very own Susan Senator!

This week's interview is with DJ Savarese, teenage writer with autism who is the subject of his father Ralph's book Reasonable People: A Memoir of Autism and Adoption. One of the many special things about this book is that DJ wrote the last chapter himself, and it offers a candid glimpse into what it's really like to be autistic, from the inside out.

I'll be continuing this series, and would love to hear your suggestions for others I should approach to interview. I have a few more in the pipeline, and more in mind.

Dear Diary

When I was about 11, someone gave me a diary. It was the usual sort for girls: some kind of pink pattern on the outside, a flimsy brass lock, gold-lined paper. I would shut myself in my room, put The Carpenters' Rainy Days and Mondays on the record-player, and set out to write My Thoughts and Feelings About Life. I did this religiously for about three days, but subsided after I realized that 1) I didn't feel comfortable expressing my deepest thoughts on paper; 2) I wasn't sure I knew what my deepest thoughts were anyway; 3) my second-deepest thoughts weren't really that interesting; and 4) someone might read it.

For the next decade or so, I shifted to poetry, adopting the style of whoever I happened to be reading at the time. The trajectory went something like this:

Ogden Nash ---> Homer ----> Sylvia Plath ---> Sylvia Plath ---> W.B. Yeats ---> John Ashbery ---> various French Surrealists filtered through bitter and pretentious older boyfriend...

Again, the life experience problem. I wasn't middle-aged and/or wry, blind, Greek, suicidal, Irish, French or an emigre. I had not lived in Europe. I had not seen wars, the Louvre, an orgy, death, or experienced a relationship lasting longer than a semester. Worst of all, I had no world-weariness (except the type affected by twenty-somethings who have seen Breathless and Jules and Jim too many times).

Then I discovered translation. The advantage was clear: I could do something creative without having actually to write anything original myself. Unfortunately, I didn't know Italian that well, and it's painstaking work. Finally I started working, and eventually gave up writing altogether. But I still thought of myself as a writer.

When I started this blog, I had no grand ambitions for it. Yes, I wanted to tell our story, connect with other people and preserve the thread of these experiences. But I didn't want it to be about Me and My Deep Thoughts, and I never really thought of it as writing per se.

I'm making a lot of resolutions this year. The obvious ones, yes. But I also resolve to let go of my ambivalence about Writing And What It All Means and just tell this story, wherever it takes us, whatever it says about us, however it may unfold.

Meme'd!

Thank you, oh mama of drama, for the tag. According to this particular meme, I am supposed to tell you five strengths related to my writing. I'm going to try to do this as a sort of automatic writing exercise, because if I think about it too much, I'll seize up like a pulled hamstring. So here goes:

1. That was a truly heinous simile up there in that last paragraph. I know that, and I apologize for it, but I have the moral courage to let it stand anyway. Ha!

2. I'm actually writing. Right now, as a matter of fact. After so many years of thinking that maybe I'd write something one of these days, I have finally figured out that I'm at my best when I write the way I actually think, as opposed to the way I think I should (think). Mistress of the obvious? Perhaps.

3. I'm a hella good speller. Just am, always was. I see the word, I remember it, the way I remember a face. A relatively useless skill, but I find it oddly satisfying.

4. I wish I could write an epistolary novel. That's not a strength, it's just a random fact.

5. Instinct. Not always good, but always mine.

I tag Mike, Jordan, and Kristina, because each of them brings something special to the party (no obligation, guys, honest).

Blogher07 Day 2: Book to Blog, and Back Again

I'm live-blogging this session for the benefit of my mom-blog-writer friends who I KNOW have a book in them--you know who you are. It's 10:15 on Saturday and I'm in a room with about 100 other women curious about how to turn their blogs into a book. The panelists are Denise Wakeman, founding member of The Blog Squad, writer and editor Ariel Meadow Stallings, Lifehacker founder Gina Trapani and ICM literary agent Kate Lee.

Kate represents a number of bloggers--she started out as an assistant trying to find clients, and through them, her niche. She began by contacting people she'd met online, and it spread virally at the beginning. She's looking for voice--unique and compelling voice. She's also looking for traffic, and, finally, ideas and concept--something fresh and new that hasn't been out there before.

So, how important is it to have a blog? Kate says "it's a no-brainer"--for marketing and for connecting directly with your audience. Most publishers want you to have a Web page so there are at least links to Amazon, B&N and Borders.

Ariel and Gina talked about how having a blog has helped them market their books. Gina included the traffic stats, etc in the book proposal. Lifehacker is a Gawker Media blog, so Gina had the ability to build traffic that way. "So I wasn't touched by God. I was touched by Nick Denton." She had a mention in the NYT the day her blog launched. Ariel's personal blog is Electrolicious, which inspired her first book Offbeat Bride: Taffeta-Free Alternatives for Independent Brides.

Another question: if your work is posted on a blog, is it considered previously published for the book trade? No, but you might just run into a problem of whether there's new material that's not freely available online. Gina said that she did run into that issue with her book--her publisher wanted exclusive content, so it was a "delicate dance" to work it all out.

What about book tours? Ariel calls it an "ego-crumbling" experience, since no one goes to a reading unless they already know who you are. So she did many readings to eight people, "seven of whom were my friends, and the other one was some homeless guy who just wandered in." So Ariel ended up doing her readings...in bars. Her advice? "Have your antidepressants in your pocket."

To find an agent: go to Everyone Who's Anyone in Publishing. And if there's a book you like, look at the acknowledgements--they always thank their literary agent. Another bit of advice: find an inexperienced literary agent. The experienced ones are good, sure, but the new ones NEED your book to make their own career. And publishers love to publish experts. But not just by friends: according to Kate Lee, "You need to be an expert in the larger sphere...try to establish yourself elsewhere."

Final words from Ellen Gerstein, Director of Marketing at Wiley Press: "Look at some publishing industry blogs. There are some great agent blogs, some great puslisher blogs." And "break out of your echo chamber. Think really hard about how you're going to appeal to a broader audience."

Oh and you would expect that lifehacking goddess Gina would turn her personal experience into something practical we can all use: she wrote the definitive piece on turning your blog into a book. Check it out, and good luck!