Why We Write

Posted on | January 9, 2012 | 3 Comments

Ask any writer why he or she writes and you are likely to get the answer, “Because I have to.”  You’d probably get this answer from a bestselling author who’s on deadline to deliver her next manuscript. And you’d probably get the same answer from an unpublished teenager who taps away at a computer in her parents’ basement. One makes money from writing, the other doesn’t. At least not yet. So money doesn’t explain the need they both feel to write.  I recently read an article by Ann Lamott that, for me, explains this need. She says,

There is nothing you can buy, achieve, own, or rent that can fill up that hunger inside for a sense of fulfillment and wonder. But the good news is that creative expression, whether that means writing, dancing, bird-watching, or cooking, can give a person almost everything that he or she has been searching for: enlivenment, peace, meaning, and the incalculable wealth of time spent quietly in beauty. 

Lamott then goes on to deliver the bad news: you have to make time to do this. It’s not easy. Not when a baby is crying, meals need to be made, and there’s a job to be done–one that pays the bills, if your writing doesn’t.

It’s not gender specific, either, this constant challenge to justify the time and space, physically and mentally, to write.  Both men and women struggle to balance writing with the rest of their lives.  I cracked up at this statement from David Cameron in Talking Writing:

I have a job, a wife, kids. Establishing space to write feels less like a regimented discipline and more like a search for illicit sex: Just get it when you can.

I can relate. My fantasies have nothing to do with handsome strangers and everything to do with holing up with my Macbook for a couple of hours at a library table or a corner of my favorite coffeeshop.

As if to prove my point about just how difficult it is to find time and space to write, my 6-month-old son, while I was typing this blog post, grabbed my water glass from the coffee table and spilled it.  Writing time over. For now.

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So Much to Celebrate

Posted on | December 31, 2011 | 2 Comments

On New Year’s Eves past, I’ve stood with my toes in the sand on a Mexican beach, danced on a ballroom floor in San Francisco, bummed a seldom cigarette at a Chicago bar, cozied up with Fat Tires and football in a Colorado condo, and waved my arms on many a curbside, shivering and looking for elusive empty cabs.

This year, I’ll be all of two blocks away from home, celebrating with close friends and a tribe of tots aged 3 months to 3 years. The gathering will be modest, but never have I had so much to celebrate in bidding farewell to a year. In 2011, I finished a novel, landed a great new job, and, best of all, became a momma. I’ll likely be wearing jeans, a sweater, and Smartwool socks, but if my clothing matched my mood, I’d be wearing something standout and short, like one of these little numbers.

Dresses by 12th St. by Cynthia Vincent from ShopTwigs.com, IRO from Net-A-Porter.com, Robert Rodriguez from TheOutnet.com.  Bags by AnyaHindmarch from MyWardrobe.com, Lanvin from Net-a-Porter, DVF from Matches

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A spicy recipe for the solstice

Posted on | December 21, 2011 | 1 Comment

The winter solstice is upon us, but before we can look forward to incremental surges of sunshine, we first need to get through the darkest day of the year. If you need a recipe for comfort food to ease the way, chef Dani Lind has a recipe for sweet potato and black bean chili in the winter issue of Edible Madison magazine that might help.

Cover photo by Jim Klousia

The recipe goes along with an article I wrote on how local potters are organizing grassroots events to fight hunger by donating their artwork.  The sweet potato chili recipe was served at one of such events. Besides being delicious, the recipe is healthy, too. Perhaps I’ll whip up a batch and try to counteract the massive amounts of homemade fudge, cookies, and holiday cocktails I’ve been consuming. If only chocolate were a vegetable. Sigh.

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A very vintage holiday

Posted on | December 19, 2011 | 1 Comment

The holidays are a nostalgic time, so vintage touches fit right in with the spirit of the season. Some of my favorite tree trimmings are beaded bell ornaments made by my grandmother, and mod foil balls I picked out from a dime store when I was a kid. Nearly everyone in my dad’s family has a light-up ceramic tree like the one shown here. Starting in the late 50s, you could buy molds for them, and they were a popular craft item.

Even the littlest member of the family will be in on the vintage theme this year. My 5-month-old son will be wearing the 1970s toy soldier romper shown above. I found it at a thrift store earlier this year, before he was born. It’s cold in Wisconsin, but don’t worry. He’ll be wearing a long-sleeved onesie underneath it, with knee socks, some warm booties, and a hand-knit white sweater that he got as a baby gift.

Do you have a favorite holiday heirloom or vintage item that you cherish year after year?

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Blogs to Books

Posted on | December 12, 2011 | 8 Comments

Yep, I’m that person. The person who buys books for everyone on her holiday list. What to get Dad who returns nearly everything I buy him? Books. What to get my nephew whose Japanamation jargon resembles a foreign language? Books. And what to get my niece who, like me when I was a kid, aspires to be a writer? Why, blank books, of course.

One of my favorite blogs, Style Maniac, recently teamed up with independent bookseller Books & Books of Westhampton Beach, NY, to launch a month-long celebration of the art of giving and receiving books. The Blogs to Books challenge invited readers to choose one book and one recipient to give it to, whether that person be a family member, friend, or stranger.  The givers were then invited to share their experiences online, and Books & Books compiled an in-store display of favorite books chosen by bloggers who participated in the program.

Blogs to Books display at Books & Books, Westhampton Beach. Image by Denise Berthiaume.

Since I love to read, and love to support other writers, I took the challenge and gave a copy of the The Paris Wife, by Paula McLain, to my mom. The novel is about Ernest and Hadley Hemingway and the Lost Generation of writers and artists in 1920′s Paris. I thought my mom would enjoy it  because she’s a very creative person and a long-time lover of art. When I was a kid, she volunteered in her free time to teach art appreciation at my school (we called her the “Picture Lady”). My Catholic grade school didn’t have the funds to pay someone to teach art history, so my mom took it upon herself. At the time, I thought it was super embarrassing when she would stand in front of the classroom and show us slides of Renaissance and Impressionist paintings on an overhead projector. She once even dressed up as Vincent VanGogh. Now, as a working mom myself, I know just how little free time she must have had in those days, so I am touched that she would spend it with my class to share her love and knowledge of art.

Have you recently shared a book with a loved one? Will you be giving books as holiday gifts? If so, leave a comment and share. I’m always looking for titles to add to my ever-growing “to read” list.

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Literary Looks: The Great Gatsby

Posted on | November 30, 2011 | 2 Comments

There are people who live in my head. I’ve collected them over time, over thousands of pages read everywhere: on subway seats, in library cubicles, under the covers, over the moon. The best of these people are realer to me, and more enduring, than many flesh and blood faces that pass through my days. Characters they are not. Rather, they are icons.

This second installment in my collection of “Literary Looks” is inspired by one of such paper icons: Daisy Buchanan of The Great Gatsby.

Daisy. The socialite. The cynicist. The girl with “the voice full of money.” Her style represents all the hope and flash and fleetingness of youth. But underneath the felt cloche hat, behind the mink stole, is the emptiness of broken promises, the sad realization that the most a woman of her class and time can aspire to is to be a “beautiful little fool.”

Lucky us: we have more options.  From our post-feminist perch, we can pity Daisy, maybe even judge her. But we can still admire her style, no?

Clockwise from top: Cloche hat from The Village Hat Shop, dress by Calvin Klein Collection, Fascination Evening Bag from Rochambeau, Hearted Mary Janes from Anthropologie, art deco jewelry by Lulu Frost.

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A Mad Holiday

Posted on | November 21, 2011 | 1 Comment

A Mad Men party  hosted by ReThreads, my favorite vintage store? Yes, please! You can bet I’ll be going to this. Good think I saved my cat-eye glasses and 60s shift from my Mad Men birthday party last year…

MAD MEN HOLIDAY SOIREE

“It’s December 17, 1962 and you work for Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. This is your office holiday party. Break out your swankiest 60s garb and head down to Madison’s oldest and classiest theatre for an unforgettable night of style, sophistication, and pure fantasy. We’re doing this party up right.”

Expect the following:

• Martinis & Fancy Vintage Cocktails
• White Tablecloths
• Red Carpet
• Coat Check
• Complimentary hors d’oeuvres
• Mad Men-era Music

Image and details via MajesticMadison.com

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Hot Toddy Time

Posted on | October 25, 2011 | 1 Comment

HOT TODDIES

• 6 cups apple cider
• 6 TB butter, softened
• 1 teaspoon allspice
• 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 6 whole cinnamon sticks
• 6 shots bourbon whiskey or spiced rum
• whipping cream
• pumpkin pie spice

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a fall scene worthy of poetry

Posted on | October 5, 2011 | No Comments

Wisconsin River, Oct. 5, 2011

Go, sit upon the lofty hill,
And turn your eyes around,
Where waving woods and waters wild
Do hymn an autumn sound.
The summer sun is faint on them –
The summer flowers depart –
Sit still — as all transform’d to stone,
Except your musing heart.

From “The Autumn,” Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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Literary Looks: The Sun Also Rises

Posted on | September 28, 2011 | 4 Comments

Lately, I’ve been feasting on a lot of good reads. To celebrate, I’m compiling the first of a series of literary looks inspired by books and writers. My book club recently finished The Paris Wife by Paula McLain. It’s a well-researched, fictional account of Hemingway’s relationship with his first wife, Hadley, told from her point of view. During their 5-year marriage, Hemingway wrote and sold his first novel, The Sun Also Rises (1926), which is set in Pamplona among the bullfights and running of the bulls during the Feast of San Fermin. Remembering that novel got me thinking about Spanish style, and prompted this literary look, which would be perfect for watching the festivities in Pamplona from the safety of a balcony, with a cool glass of sangria in hand.

Clockwise, from top left: Balenciaga sunglasses, Rebecca Taylor dress, Chloe Marci hobo bag, Vince Camuto Catey sandals, vintage black lace scarf.

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