Ashley Ream

It's Moving Day

author@ahream.com (ahream) — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 14:23:00 GMT

My loves, I started blogging here at Journalscape back in 2005. Much has changed. Most notably on the writing front is that "novelist" is no longer a childhood dream but a job title. That doesn't mean I'm blogging less. In fact, you'll probably hear from me more often. And if you're on Facebook or Twitter with me, well, there's no escape.

All these changes did mean getting my very own, big girl website. I've been copying and pasting all the same blog posts from there to here for sometime not wanting to inconvenience anyone used to coming here. But goodness, there's just so much to do now. And the website has so many more functions than poor little Journalscape.

So now is the time.

No more copy and paste.

I'll be posting all my musings exclusively on my own website. I hope you'll join me there. You can subscribe to the RSS feed with your feed reader, if you like. You can follow me on Twitter or Facebook to hear when I've posted, too.

In any case, it's time to pack up the boxes and turn in the keys. We're moving to the new neighborhood permanently. They're swell digs. There's already stuff there that's not here. Come check it out.

How to write a book when you're really, really busy

author@ahream.com (ahream) — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 09:53:00 GMT

I am, as my mother would say, "a busy little beaver." I write novels for HarperCollins, work full-time for a social and economic justice nonprofit, go to school at UCLA and run ultramarathons. I also sleep, eat, see my friends, post on Twitter and Facebook, blog, belong to a book club and watch a number of Mythbuster episodes.

One question comes up a lot, especially from other writers: "When do you write?"

The short answer to that is a good bit of the day on Sunday and most days after work. But what I think these folks mean is: "How do you write enough?" The answer to that is I plan. I have a spreadsheet. I tell people this. They don't believe me. So here it is for my current book-in-progress:

(It's probably worth noting here that I don't have children. If you have children, the idea that you could plan your work in a spreadsheet and have that resemble reality is probably hysterically funny. I have no idea how people with kids write books. You have to go ask one of them.)

When I start a new book, I sit down with my calendar and block off all the days when something out of my control will make it impossible for me to write that day. I don't kid myself. I take two days a week off to have a life. For me, that's Friday and Saturday. Friday, I'm at the day job, too, but mostly those are the days I intensively do all the other things that aren't writing. So now I know how many days I REALLY have in the next several months to work.

Then it's just math. Do I have a deadline? In this case, my agent wants me to have this sucker done by the end of the year. I've done this enough to know I like two editing passes, so I figure that in. How much time does that leave for a first draft? Divide probable word count by number of days to get words-per-day. In this case, it's 2,000. I ask myself "Is that reasonable for me?" In my case, it is. Your mileage may vary.

Then I stick to it. I rework only if something shocking happens in the manuscript. That happened in this book. I trashed 50 pages and a complete outline when I realized my main character needed to age 10 very important years. Sometimes I have to be flexible, but I don't allow myself to be lazy. There's just not enough time.

This book stuff is freakin' hard. This is how I get it done. Everyone does it differently. But we all do it for the same reason: We love it. We love it more than sleep and movies and happy hours. Being authors is integral to our personal identity, and we could more easily change our gender than change that fact.

Samuel Menashe 1925-2011

author@ahream.com (ahream) — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 09:52:00 GMT

Honored by Poetry magazine as a "Neglected Master," the poet Samuel Menashe died yesterday. This video, shot in the NYC apartment he lived in for 50 years, is a poem in itself, a small treasure box of words worth your 2 1/2 minutes.

A Week in Blessings

author@ahream.com (ahream) — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 18:50:00 GMT

Because it's too easy to forget the good stuff and remember the bad stuff, here's my list of blessings this week.

(New weekly feature! Assuming ya'll like it and participate. Yep, I'm talking to you, lurkers. I see you in my hit counts. Say "hi." I won't bite.)

I had Monday off.

I wore a sheer leopard blouse and felt sexy.

I had lunch with a new friend, and she'd heard of Silver Dollar City.

I found out my book is going to be a William Morrow book club pick.

I sat too long at a restaurant with my best pal just because we liked talking to each other.

My dad and my brother had a birthday.

I ran in the mountains.

I went to an outdoor theater in the woods, and the air smelled like conifers and leaf litter.

What were your blessings this week?

Want to read the first page?

author@ahream.com (ahream) — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 20:55:00 GMT

Want to read the first page of LOSING CLEMENTINE months before you can buy it? Click here.

A Writer's Wardrobe

author@ahream.com (ahream) — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 10:28:00 GMT

We authors are not, on the whole, the world's best dressed crowd. There is something about spending hours alone at a keyboard with the imaginary friends you never grew out of - that's what makes a writer, you know - that leads to a profusion of ill-fitting t-shirts and pants with elastic.

Many of us - moi included - have day jobs. It helps to circulate with the living. Personally, I work at a progressive nonprofit, which lends itself to a certain hipster/thrift store aesthetic. Given salaries at most nonprofits, it's important to embrace second-hand. And I have with my whole heart.

(Also I find this particular website to have very inspiring moments. Scroll down and click on Stella. She's a fetus, and yet, I still aspire to have her wardrobe.)

Thrifting is shopping with attitude. It's gorilla shopping. It's the sort of shopping that requires a working knowledge of The Art of War and a great deal of patience. Fortunately, there is an excellent second-hand shop down the street from me. (Don't think I didn't notice that when I was apartment hunting.)

There are days when going there is painful and useless. ("Who owned these clothes? A bunch of WRITERS? I sincerely hope they never left the house.") And there are days like yesterday when someone who is exactly your size and who has exactly your taste but just a little bit better DIED. They died and left all their clothes in this shop for you to find. ("May they rest in peace. Also, SCORE.")

It's important to prepare yourself. Things could get...aggressive.

Scenario:

You see that green military jacket with the awesome matching belt. It's your size. You can tell from three aisles over. Out of the corner of your eye you spot another thrifter. Same body type. Her eyes have strayed from the orange flats you already tried on and discarded. Her eyes alight on the green jacket. You look at her. She looks at you. And the only question, my friend, is who has sharper teeth.

I have an excellent dentist.

I also have a spiffy new-to-me green military jacket.

I'm still alone typing to my imaginary friends, but I look much better now.

Saturday in L.A.

author@ahream.com (ahream) — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 17:50:00 GMT

On my walk to local independent bookstore (Skylight Books), I passed:

1. A bride and groom emerging from a church all tuxes and gowns and the guests showering them - and consequently me - with a shower of bubbles.

2. An advertisement for a roommate - vegan only

3. A movie being filmed with half a dozen star trailers

4. The Church of Scientology

5. A Masonic lodge

All in 15 minutes.

This is what my book looks like

author@ahream.com (ahream) — Sat, 9 Jul 2011 15:15:00 GMT

My baby...er, book...has a cover. This is it. It is the most beautiful baby...er, book...that has ever been. (Yes, it is.)

The Spider Has Knees

author@ahream.com (ahream) — Fri, 8 Jul 2011 20:15:00 GMT

There is a spider living in the light fixture that hangs over my assigned parking space. The garage was built for midgets or possibly as a catacombs, which means the spider is a mere two feet above my head. It's the sort of spider that should have its own National Geographic special on PBS. It's white, which is somehow worse, and - I am not making this up - legs and all is the size of my palm. It's so big that it has knees where its legs articulate.

Did you hear that, internet? The motherfucking spider has KNEES.

Every morning when I go out to my car, it hangs just over my head while I race to throw my crap into the backseat and climb inside before it drops down and sinks its fangs into my neck like something out of True Blood.

This has been going on for two weeks. TWO WEEKS. I keep thinking the damn thing has to die soon. I mean, really, how long can the life span of the Man-Eating Super-Fanged Knee Spider be? It's obviously a mutant Man-Eating Super-Fanged Knee Spider. Grown in a lab. By an evil genius. Who is also an alien. All of which means it's going to live up there threatening my life for YEARS.

I may have to move.

Yoga for the Civics-Challenged

author@ahream.com (ahream) — Mon, 4 Jul 2011 20:50:00 GMT

The word she was looking for was "self-evident."

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal..." and so on and so forth. No one held these truths to be sacred or special or far out. They held them to be self-evident. I'm sorry to belabor the point, but if you're going to stand up and give a speech implying that your yoga class is in some way akin to declaring independence from England, you should get the quote right. You should also know this is not the opening line. I know I'm being picky again, but the declaration actually begins by discussing the dissolution of political bands, which is, after all, the point of the thing.

Also, you're an idiot.

I'm sorry to be so harsh. It's unlike me. But seriously? You're teaching a yoga class. From looking around me, the only independence anyone there was declaring was an independence from personal grooming.

It was my own fault. I have a particular yoga studio I always go to. It specializes in working with runners and triathletes and such. That changes things. It's really more like having a group physical therapy appointment. We're all in training for something, and we've all hurt something. We are the walking wounded. No one chants. Ever.

But you have to mix it up, right? There was this other studio near me and they had this special and...and...and...

I was first in the class. I sat down on my mat in front of the door and watched the other students file in. I had only one thought. "These are not my people." I sometimes feel this way in Berkeley. There's too much granola and karma-worry. It makes me snarky. It's not my best side. I'm working on it.

I'm almost certain the woman beside me was wearing her pajamas. She definitely had not combed her hair. Someone else bent over in short shorts and shoved her butt in my face. Someone else had rolled in patchouli, which smells like butts, so at least we had a theme.

After we had that five minute lecture that left me weeping for civics education in this country, I was asked to choose my intention for the class and then chant. The teacher suggested my intention might be that I wanted to be one with my breath cycle. I was pretty sure my intention was to strengthen the stabilizer muscles around my right knee.

It's hard to chant for that.

For the record, I tried. I was, after all, a Girl Scout. Scouts try.

Then she asked me to make the sound of the ocean in the back of my throat. And that's really when I checked out. I decided to change my intention to "at least I'll get a blog post out of it." That really helped when I had to hop like a bunny and pretend I was a multi-armed Hindu god. Not, fortunately, at the same time.

My knee was not helped. I hope my blog was. If so, I pray that it is self-evident.

Ommmm.

Eau de Water Buffalo

author@ahream.com (ahream) — Sat, 2 Jul 2011 11:16:00 GMT

My car is making me smell. I explained this to Elvis, my "personal service representative," at the dealership this morning.

He had the nerve to ask, "Intermittently?" and then write it down on the sheet. "Customer reports that 2000 Accord produces body odor."

And no, not intermittently. All week long. All week long, I have smelled like a zoo animal, and I don't care if Secret is strong enough for a man, it is not strong enough for a zoo animal.

It's approximately 7,000 degrees this weekend in Southern California, and my car's air conditioning chose this week to die. This week when I couldn't take it in until the weekend. This week when I had places to be and people to see. This week when it sat baking in the sun, waiting to wrap its stifling arms around me and squeeze the putrid sweat from my every pore.

I started sitting farther away from people. I carried a little perfume spritzer in my briefcase. But let me say, when you have begun to bear an olfactory resemblance to an aging water buffalo, vanilla musk is not going to help you out. It's just not.

Let's hope Elvis can do something about this. My friendships might depend on it.

Website Updates (New stuff!)

author@ahream.com (ahream) — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 16:17:00 GMT

My website has been moved to the cloud. I have only a vague understanding of what that means, but People Who Are Smarter Than Me say my site will run much faster now. (I was on a shared server before, which meant that someone else getting a lot of traffic made my site drag. Many years out of high school and popular people still ruin everything.)

While People Who Are Smarter Than Me upgraded the tech-y stuff, I upgraded some of the content. You'll find an updated bio, FAQ, press and books section, as well as a special page for book clubs. (I love book clubs so much.)

If you happen to wander over and find a typo or something else embarrassing, drop me a line and let me know. Website errors are like having your skirt tucked up into your pantyhose. You really, really want someone to SAY something.

C-A-K-E

author@ahream.com (ahream) — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 20:37:00 GMT

My husband is an awesome baker, kind of pro-am. But I was feeling pretty "meh" about a birthday cake for my upcoming day o' birth. I could get behind the candles and the wishing and a piece of cake, but then you just have this sad, half-eaten thing around the house for the next week and a half slowly drying out and/or growing mold until someone finally throws it away.

Then I saw THIS.

I squealed.

It was undignified.

BUT OMG IT'S A GIANT SNOWBALL CAKE SOMEBODY HOLD ME. I haven't had a Snowball since I was 10. My grandmother would buy them for me. No one else would. I don't know why, but it was probably related to my mother's no-carnival-rides-rule somehow. Most things were. (Mom never trusted carnies.)

So it turns out, it's the dinner I don't care about on my birthday. I just want martinis and cake. SNOWBALL CAKE. YES.

______

Technical note: This post is only available here (not on my website) for the time being because the website is undergoing some behind the scenes maintenance that, let's face it, I don't really understand.

This is how crime writers do it

author@ahream.com (ahream) — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 20:29:00 GMT

Sure, I could write a whole post about the bad-ass California Crime Writers Conference I attended this weekend (and also helped organize). I could post photos of friends in mildly disreputable poses - including one of me looking ridiculous. (Sometimes when a camera comes out, it's like half my face develops a palsy.) I could do that. Or I could just link to Eric Stone's blog where he did all that for me.

Where do your ideas come from?

author@ahream.com (ahream) — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 18:47:00 GMT

I finally know how to answer that question.

I spent the weekend at the California Crime Writers Conference, an event I've helped organize for the past several years. Today's keynote speaker was SJ Rozan, a woman who is not only an incredible writer but a genuinely kind soul. Yesterday, she gave me a present.

She didn't know she gave me a present, mind you. It didn't come wrapped, but nonetheless, I am going to pack it in my purse for every upcoming speaking engagement, workshop and interview. She put into words where my ideas - and the ideas of most writers - come from.

I have never - not once - been able to answer that question to anyone's satisfaction, including my own. Ideas just come. Not all at once but a steady stream that I can access at all but the worst times. Let me tell ya, no reader wants to hear that ideas don't come that they just are - except maybe Buddhist readers. And potheads. The potheads really seem to get that.

SJ, however, put it into words the rest of us can appreciate. What she said is true for me. It's true for a lot of writers I know. Your mileage may vary.

She said (and I'm paraphrasing):

Stories live in the same subconscious part of our brains responsible for our dreams. Writers are the people with the ability to access the subconscious with our conscious minds.

Yes. Yes, that's it exactly.

Thank you, SJ.