Book giveaway: Becoming a Writer
To celebrate the end of May!
This marks the final day of my May challenge: to post every day as part of the WordCount Blogathon. I admit, there were times around May 18 when I really wasn’t sure I was going to make it. I’m glad I got to this point and grateful for the wonderful writers I’ve met this month. To celebrate, I’m giving away a copy of Dorothea Brande’s Becoming a Writer
In the reading list of The Artist’s Way
I mentioned Becoming a Writer earlier this month. What I didn’t mention was that I had accidentally ordered two copies during the winter, instead of just one. My ineptitude shocks even myself sometimes. Who knew clicking “1″ was so difficult?
That extra copy is going to go to a reader.
The Amazon.com Review
Even in 1934, Dorothea Brande knew that most writers didn’t need another book on “technique” — and this, before so many more would be published. No, she realized, as John Gardner notes in his foreword, “the root problems of the writer are personality problems,” and thus her wise book is designed to simply help you get over yourself and start writing, with techniques ranging from a simple declaration to write every day at a fixed time — no matter what — to exercises that come close to inventing the TM and self-actualization movements that would follow a few decades later.
Get over yourself and start writing: It’s like she’s speaking directly to me. Now she can speak to you too.
The nitty gritty.
You have until midnight ET on Saturday, 6/4, to enter. I will announce the winner one week from today on Tuesday, June 7.
We’re keeping this simple. Tell me about any embarrassing moment in your life in the comment section below. It’s only fair, now that I’ve shared so many of mine. This will get you into the drawing. (Mildly embarrassing will do. No need to humiliate yourself on my account.)
If you’d like to have a second chance in the drawing — totally optional, you understand — write on my Facebook wall. (If you’re not already a fan, you’ll need to become one first.) This will double your chances. I mean, I think it will. Remember, I couldn’t even click “1″ on the order page, so you’re not exactly dealing with a numbers whiz.
When do take either of these steps, please give me a valid way to contact you. Twitter handle, e-mail, etc. If your blog has a “contact me” tab, linking back to your blog works too.
Each participant will be assigned a number, and the winner will be chosen with a random drawing. If the winner doesn’t respond to my overtures of awesomeness within three days, a new name will be chosen at that time.
Although I’m celebrating the end of the blogathon, anyone can enter. Feel free to spread the word.
Thanks to everyone for a great month!
Tara, your blog has provided me with many laughs this month. I hope you continue to share your wit and perspective. Trying to isolate just one embarrassing moment from the pack is hard for me. At a part-time job in college, the executive director came to collect money for a fundraiser. I replied “How much do you want for it, Big Boy?” in front of a room full of people that he managed. It wasn’t until I saw everyone’s reaction that I realized I had just sexually harassed the big boss. I still blush thinking about it, and appreciate that he didn’t fire me on the spot because he knew that I was a stupid, mouthy 18-year-old.
When I was a new mom, I had trouble bridging between being a mom to a cat and to a human baby (I’ll just blame post partum brain). I kept saying things like my baby had a well check at the vet, and one day I got a baby sitter for my child’s doctor appointment and showed up without the baby. It took a few months, but my brain eventually got back to normal (I was mortified and had to change pediatricians).
Congratulations. Nice way to celebrate with a giveaway. An embarrassing moment? There have been so many. But the one that I’ll never forget was the time I peed my pants laughing so hard after something I said within earshot of my boyfriend. It was all in the timing. He laughed. I laughed. We were laughing so hard I started to pee in my skirt and couldn’t stop. I couldn’t! And then we started laughing harder about that. Oh, of course, he had just arrived to take me out for Valentine’s Day. I’m still dating him, and four years later, we can still laugh about that moment.
Oh, to contact me, my blog has my info on it if you scroll down a bit, scanning the right-hand side of the page. Please come find me there. I’ll be back to visit you now and then as well. It’s been a great run, and I’ll miss the constant action.
Tara, no embarrassing moment to share (at the moment!) but I wanted to tell you that I love the Facebook Like button at the bottom of your blog. I want one!! Is that embarrassing? How’d you add it? Did I already ask you this?
Sheila
Embarrassing moments in my life are abundant enough that we could create a reality show. Or a comic tragedy. Or my Facebook feed.
My favourite story, though, is embarrassment by association, usually from my youngest son. I had taken him, when he was about three years old, to a local store with many beautiful, breakable things. In the first minute of entering the store, he found a frisbee, which he then tossed with amazing grace through the store. You know how time slows down in dangerous or traumatic events? I can actually remember the sound of my own pulse in my ears as the frisbee sailed through rows of delicate knick-knacks and my distorted voice shouting out, “NOOOOOOOOOOO.”
It landed harmlessly on the floor.
I went to retrieve the frisbee and turned around to see him dumping an entire container of bouncy balls onto the floor.
Unreal.
And yet, in the middle of this mayhem, with Christmas carols playing over the speakers and lights twinkling throughout the store, there was still a sense of expectation, of joy and anticipation. A sense of community. While I was busy cleaning up the crazy mess my youngest, my baby, had left in his wake, he had moved over to look with awe at a beautiful creche. It was one of those lovely nativity scenes that are so detailed and perfect that you think you’re looking at a living scene in miniature. My son was standing with a family—parents and two beautiful little girls with blond, curled hair and ironed dresses. My son—nicknamed Captain Chaos—was almost enveloped by this family who looked at him sweetly as he came to stand with them and gaze upon the tiny Virgin Mary, Joseph and Baby Jesus. I was moved by this sight, religious mutt that I am, and stopped to take it all in. And then my baby, my angel, my cherub, looked up at me with his gorgeous little face and said, “What the hell is that?”
In the late summer of ‘76, my wife and I and our two little girls, Marie,4 and Aly,2 were picking up some items at a local convenience store. It was close to 10 o’clock in the evening and had been a long day,so we were all tired. Now, Marie was very outspoken, even at the tender age of 4 and had a real zest for life. Aly was more reserved. (They are much the same today)
In those days there was a tv show that had the catch phrase “evidently, it stinks.” I don’t remember exactly what show it was but it was something the kids watched frequently.
There were only five other people in the store,besides us. Two teenage checkout girls, the fifty something sternfaced manager and two elderly ladies.
My wife,myself and Aly were in the aisle closest to the checkout while Marie was abusing all the bread products, one row over.
The entire store was quiet except for the low hum of the lights and food coolers.
From the next row and for no earthly reason that, to this day, I can explain. At the top of her lungs and with perfect pitch and enunciation,this beautiful,blonde haired,green eyed little angel sang:”EVIDENTLY…….MY BUTT STIIIINKS!” Yes,she carried out stinks like she was on stage at the MET.
All of the following happened within three minutes, although it seemed like an hour. My wife and I stood there,frozen in place,looking at each other in horror. I remember hearing the two teens start to giggle and then from further away the manager began to chuckle. I started running for the next aisle,thinking “please,God,let me get to her before she goes to the next verse.”As I rounded the corner by the dairy case,I saw one of the old ladies,eyes wide open and four fingers pressed over her open mouth,staring at Marie,who by this time,was thankfully only humming. I was trying to be stern but even before I got to her,I was starting to laugh. By the time I reached her and about to explain the downside of bathroom humor,my eyes were swimming in tears and I was incapable of human speech. All I could do was pick her up walk as calmly as I could to the checkout,where my wife and Aly were. My wife was as bad or worse off than I. Being an excellant mother, she was now sure that everyone was questioning our parenting methods, not to mention,oh my God,our hygene practices. No one made eye contact. Everyone was trying to hold it in and nobody could. The young lady tried to tell us the total of our bill “it comes to thirteen…sob…ninety..five…snort!” Marie was oblivious to it all and kept looking at everyone as if we’d all lost our minds.
I finally paid, got the change and got the hell out of there.
I remember pulling out of the parking lot and glancing back into the store. One girl was slumped over the counter, shaking, and the other was just smiling as she watched us leave.
We did our late night shopping on the other side of town for a few weeks.
I am full of embarrassing moments, but the one that stands out the most was when I was out shopping with friends and my skirt got stuck in the back of my panties – classic case of embarrassment!
I know it is pretty simple, but it has caused me grief and issues for years!
Yeah, I don’t think I can pick just one thing. You know you’ve embarrassed yourself too damn much when “doing a Tracy” has multiple meanings, excluding the risque one.
Because I’m pretty shy (usually) I might have fewer moments of embarrassment than some. But this one is a doozy.
About a month ago, a work friend lost her husband, after a very long illness.
A week or so ago, we were talking. We have “ranted” to each other time and again, so out of habit I started to complain about my husband and our fighting over the TV at night.
And then I caught myself.
Tara- congratulations on finishing the blogathon- I’m so glad I’ve ‘met your blog’- and I look forward to keeping up with it. I will leave the embarrassing moments to others- so far I’ve enjoyed the comments
Great ending to a great blogathon!
Ah, many an embarrassing moment in my 40 years, I tell you! A favorite was when I was teaching English in Japan and was giving a farewell speech to the entire high school where I’d been teaching for a month. (Picture a h.s. gymnasium, packed with about 1200 Japanese teens.) The principal called me to the stage and I promptly fell up the stairs, staggering to the microphone, barely avoiding landing on my face in front of my students. Silence. Then one student yelled, “We love you, Elizabeth!” and they all cheered. Pretty great finale!
Thanks for sharing yourself and the laughs this month, Tara!
Congrats to completing another blogathon, Tara!
Since I want a chance at the giveaway, I’ll let you in on one that made me cringe then and makes me laugh now. Setting: The husband and I were just starting to court each other. We’re playing air hockey. I’m wearing a top in which the front is two different pieces of silk fabric sewn on the diagonal.
Let’s just say I’m a wild player who really gets into playing. We stop. I go to the bathroom. I’m getting looks as I walk there, which I figure is from making a spectacle of myself while I was playing. La, la, la…do the bathroom thing. Wash the hands. Look in the mirror. The diagonal seam of my top has somehow ripped apart and my naked boobs are dangling for all to see!
Hey Tara, congratulations on completing the blogathon. I had no doubt in my mind that you could do it because this is your second time around and also because you are able to find ways to get a post up even on days when you have little time or energy to write, like when you posted the photo of the bread and such and how can anyone forget your launch of the Fake it Fridays…..those are just the tip of the iceberg when showing how you make something out of nothing.
As for embarrassing moments, I have experienced a few but the most recent that comes to mind was when I was at a nightclub accompanied by three other women (one of which, a long-time “friend”…you’ll find out why I put that in quotes as you read further), dancing, talking to guys and taking photos all night and it wasn’t until I woke up to shower the next morning that I realized that I had red lipstick on my teeth…..you’d think that out of three people, at least one of them would’ve told me, right? That still irks me to this day, since I now don’t like most of the photos that we took that night.
Once before, I was riding on a train listening to music on my MP3 player, suddenly felt some brisk strokes over my upper back and shoulder and turned to find an unknown lady wiping something off of my shirt. When I took my earphones off, she told me that there was a fly or something that must have landed on my shirt…she tried to get my attention but since I had the earphones on, I didn’t notice her saying “excuse me” and such.
I find it rather odd and a sort-of disgrace that strangers seem more concerned with letting me know about something that isn’t right moreso than friends and acquaintances.
It’s just common decency….Tara, we’ve never even met in person but I feel like we know each other now, so if I ever saw you in real life and noticed you had lipstick on your teeth, I would surely let you know about it so you don’t walk around looking like you were drinking Kool-Aid or eating cherries or something
OMG, Tanya and Andy FTW. And very well told.
Yeah, it’s hard to pick just one… so I’ll just pick the most recent. I borrowed my boyfriend’s shorts so we could bike to a nearby farmer’s market. The shorts were missing a top button, but who cared? We were hungry, and the market was closing in 45 minutes.
It was a beautiful day, and so warm that I shrugged off the sleeves of the flannel overshirt I had also borrowed. Instead of have them flap about and possibly get caught on something, I stuffed them into the top of the shorts. I could hear my boyfriend grumbling about how that wasn’t a great idea, but who cared? It was a beautiful day, and I was hungry.
We got to the farmer’s market, parked our bikes, and began wandering around. I was inquiring about some vegan lemon bars when I noticed my shorts were halfway unzipped, and because they were too big, riding quite low; and because I’d been busy stuffing things into them, my tank top was no longer covering the top like it would usually. I quickly turned away to fix the situation, while the man who had been waxing eloquent about the lemon bars politely averted his eyes. There was an awkward moment.
“The lemon bars often have that effect on people,” he said finally, and we both had a good laugh. Thank goodness for people with a sense of humor!
SO many embarassing moments, but the one that popped into my mind was the time I was commuting on the El to my downtown Chicago job (pre-kids, so I can’t even blame Mommy brain). I see a guy on the train REALLY staring at me. I look down, and my button down shirt is NOT buttoned (except the last two). Thankfully I had a bra on! I was mortified and got off at the next stop (it wasn’t my stop).
A giveaway is such a fun way to celebrate our May! I’ll be following and continue to enjoy your blog!
Well, the time at the authors’ signing area at Library Conference where I went on and on about how much I loved this particular author’s previous book while she signed the new one for me…and it was someone else’s book that I was raving about! The authors’ names were nothing alike, and the book titles were marginally similar if you paraphrased them instead of remembering them.
I can remember soooo much about books’ plots and characters and themes, but sometimes remembering the right title & author just doesn’t happen. Guess that’s why I’m blogging them now – it’ll all be written down with those lovely labels/tags (“that red one about the ship and the girl and the world…”)
Keep having fun blogging, so we can keep having fun reading it!
**Katy
Blogathon2011 alumna
Recommending YA books beyond the bestsellers at http://BooksYALove.blogspot.com
Follow me on Twitter @BooksYALove
Aaaand, that’s the game, folks!
Thanks for making me feel better with your embarrassing stories. I’ll announce the winner on Tuesday.
[...] follows is a comment left on a recent post by an “Andy Farmer.” It was kind of him to use a pseudonym, and to give me one as well, [...]