NaNoWriMo Snacks: Dream Journaling for Busy People

The women in my writing group are all who I want to be when I grow up.

They dress appropriately for the weather. They cook and eat wholesome organic meals. They seem to understand that when going to writing group, it's generally useful to bring a writing utensil. They keep dream journals.

NaNoWriMo Snacks: More Lessons From Marina

I waxed all poetic about my love for Marina Abramovic's artist manifesto a couple of days ago.

Then I got sick. I'm still sick. I'm hungry. I'm cold. All I want to do is take a bath and watch Investigation Discovery shows, but I skipped yesterday's post, so here I am today. I'm not my best self, but I am here. Present.

Marina Abramovic's 2010 show consisted of her sitting for 16 hours in an Eames-inspired chair of glowing wood. Across from her sat another chair, also Eames-inspired, of equally glowing wood, and in that chair sat whoever wanted to, for as long as they wanted to. (Don't get me wrong. They filtered out the freaks. There was an aspiring performance artist that tried to take her clothes off before sitting down and the MoMa security guards put a stop to that real quick.)

NaNoWriMo Snacks: Gleanings From Marina Abramović

Performance artist Marina Abramovic has always fascinated me. I've never had the pleasure of viewing her work in person. (My New York life was far too crammed to get to the museums more than half an hour before closing, what with drinking to excess and loathing myself all the time.) What I know of her I know from various videos and interviews, and, most recently, the eponymous documentary chronicling her 2010 retrospective, The Artist is Present. 

What can a performance artist teach us about writing? More specifically, what the fuck can a performance artist teach us about surviving in the trenches of NaNoWriMo?

Quite a bit, as it turns out. Much like her work, Marina's manifesto is simple and radical. So much so, in fact, that I'm still mulling over the first precept.

NaNoWriMo Snacks: What To Do When You Want To Give Up

Crippling self-doubt seems to go part and parcel with NaNoWriMo.

The I'm not good enoughs have been plaguing me this week, and it sucks. There are a bevy of awesome pep talks by notable writers that you can read for encouragement, but sometimes these kind words cause insecurity to take a turn toward the bitter.

"Sure," we think, "easy for Aimee Bender to say. How nice for you, Dave Eggers! But I'm not good enough."

You know what? You're probably not.