Tag: books

Saturation Point: Instagram Posts That Have No Business Being Books

On By erintothemaxIn Random2 Comments

I’m quite active over on Goodreads, and am experimenting with bringing some of my book review stuff over here on this blog, too. Let me know if you like it, or if I’ve lost my whole mind. I’m also going to post this as a book review there.

I’ve reached saturation point with Instagram posts masquerading as whole-ass books. You know what I’m talking about, right? The endless self-help about setting boundaries, respecting your true inner-calling, and blah blah blah.

The discomfit has been rising in me for some time. Self-help used to be straight-forward hokey, like Susan Jeffers’ Feel the Fear … and Do It Anyway, which has a good message but also a whole lot of shameless copywriter tricks. You could see the exclamation points and know you were choking down a marketing platform, along with the timeless advice to get over yourself.

I’ve read many books of the Influencer Self-Help Variety before. It just so happened to be Pooja Lakshmin’s A Transformative Program for Redefining Wellness: Real Self-Care (Crystals, Cleanses, and Bubble Baths Not Included) that threw me over the edge. I feel bad about this, because in reading the book, I quickly come to like her as a person and more or less agree with her political inclinations.

And her basic point is spot-on:

“Self-care” as we know it is commodified and stupid (steamed vaginal eggs, anyone)? To retreat into floofy, femininey products or services for purchase won’t really get at the root causes of what you need. What you need is boundaries, girl! P.S. The world is an asshole to women. We’re expected to do everything, and enjoy putting others first. WTAF?

The problem is, the above can easily be accomplished in a short series of slides, or a quick video. Maybe an op-ed for those who hit it big time. And it is. All the time. By influencers. The author included. But the Penguin Life imprint slid in and decided to make this a pulp-and-cover thing, and got my library involved. Which is where I picked it up.

I have some regrets, because while Lakshmin’s basic message is sound, as a bound book it’s frustrating.

Instead of being straight-forward, hokey self-help, which back in the rugged, pre-social media days was at least honest about what it was doing (giving the author a platform for speaking engagements, where the money is!), it lulls into that luscious mix of glittering generalities and carefully negotiated vulnerability (with micro-doses of trauma dumping) that is associated with influencers. It speaks directly to you.

But also, it holds back. This is frustrating, because there is so much more that could be said. Lakshmin commits the error editor and author Susan Bell warns writers to stay away from–holding back your best material for another time. You’ve got to use your best material now. In this case, Lakshmin repeatedly alludes to having joined a female orgasm meditation cult because she bottomed out with stress, which ultimately wound up being the opposite of the real self-care she needed.

Holy batman, that’s such a good story! We could all learn something there! But instead of telling us that story, she alludes to it what feels like dozens times without ever trusting her readers enough to let us in. We receive an empty preach instead, with a small dose of “trust me, because I’ve been there.” Take us there, hon. We can handle it. We’d probably learn a lot.

Mostly, I found the book frustrating because it seemed an inevitable variant rejection of Lean In, and instead of getting interesting and embracing a dialectic, by which I mean resolving multiple seemingly opposing ideas to get at something deeper, it’s just backlash. In other words, instead of Sheryl Sandberg telling you to be the boss, whatever it takes, Lakshmin encourages you to tell off the boss, no matter how crummy that makes you feel, because you need to rest.

How do we get enough rest and build power? Seize power? How do we change the nature of power? Get comfy cozy with power? How can we do this when women are expected to do more, for less pay, or no pay, and 9/10 are not gonna simply ditch their family obligations? These are serious questions.

Too serious for an approach that mirrors content.

I’m Writing A Novel, For Real This Time

On By erintothemaxIn Commentary1 Comment

In my twenties, I quit my job several times to write a novel. The premise was: working was incompatible with writing a novel.

This assumption of needing to stop everything to write a novel is especially hilarious now. Fast forward to 45, when I’m writing a novel, for real this time. And leading a non-profit organization. And married with a school-age child. And providing elder care support as the only child of my lovely parents. And completing an MFA in creative writing. And chairing a board of directors. And volunteering with the school. And going to church. And running a few marathons a year.

Writing a novel while I’m doing an ungodly number of things is weird, but I’m actually doing it. I’ve puttered around the margins of this story for years, trying to write my way in. How many times have I started a new draft, a new outline? It was time that I needed. Because now, the real novel is on.

I’ve written hundreds of pages, and write four a day on average. Every day. No matter what. I have an outline I’m more than halfway through, and am 136 pages into the draft that is actually going to be the real first draft, the serious first draft. The first time I ran a marathon I started tearing up around mile 24 because I realized I was far enough to actually finish. I have reached this feeling with this novel. I trust it. I will finish this first serious draft.

How is this possible? Especially given the number of commitments I’ve listed above?

Here’s my secret: Writing my novel is actually the most relaxing thing I do.

It’s gotten to the point where I’m in out-of-body mode when I’m writing my novel. I just zone out and let ‘er rip on the page.

Perhaps I have reached the maturity to write in flow (I am a merciless self-editor) because I have finally come to accept the real thing they teach you in MFA programs. Everything you write is only going to be rewritten. Again. Again. And again. And just when you think you’re about done, someone new will tell you to take it from the top once more in this new way that requires more work, more time. (The never-ending workshops of the MFA are their own topic, but I will note with envy the wise words of one of my favorite colleagues in my program: “I hate these people.”)

I have an Oura ring, which is constantly mad at me, in its polite Finnish way. I have learned: My body is showing a physiological stress response pretty much all the time. For example: Folding laundry is especially rough on my stress levels, apparently. But this is not addressable. I am a mom. I am always folding laundry. This fact is only made worse by the fact that I’m a distance runner. Talk about heart rate. (In an amusing paradox, whereas my husband very much wants his Apple Watch to track every bit of exercise he does for tracking purposes, I sometimes take my ring off for a long run so it won’t dock my readiness scores for the next few days.)

The amazing thing is the proof of my novel love is in my pulse. Short of sleep, there is no time my body is more relaxed than when I am writing my novel. Interestingly, this doesn’t apply to other times I am writing (creatively or professionally) or working at the same computer and desk. But if my vanilla novel-writing candle is lit, and I’ve got my coffee cup beside me, and the for-real first draft is open, it’s on.

And this is how I know that I’m writing a novel for real this time. That I’ll actually finish. That it doesn’t matter if I have a million other things going on. Because writing the novel has become the best part of my day, and I miss it when I’m not doing it. I want to be in that seat even when the scene is sputtering. The novel is not an aspiration, a chore, or even an end. The process has become the point.

As with running, when I’m writing the novel I am free. In a trance. Who cares if it’s any good? I don’t think I’ve done anything as beneficial for my mental and physical health in years.

“Every Artistic Intervention Is A Political Act” – Junot Diaz

On By erintothemaxIn Commentary1 Comment

Junot Diaz spoke at the Arlington Public Library last night. Even the overflow room was standing room only. It was worth every swollen ankle moment for my pregnant body.

For those of you who don’t know Diaz, he wrote The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, one of my favorite recent novels. Junot Diaz deserves his Pulitzer Prize so bad it makes you want to cry with enthusiastic happiness, like on the level if Miss America were crowned on live television and responded with: “But I’m smart. When are you going to give a shit about that?”

Junot Diaz

While not surprising, it was still delightful to discover that he grew up reading feminist, women of color novelists. Throughout his talk he slammed white patriarchal supremacy, telling us that culture tries to make artists and writers and everyone as white, male and straight as it can, with a message that if you do this, you will be loved. He talked about having his students at MIT look through The New York Times bestseller list one year and identify that an author of color was in the bestseller list only one out of 52 weeks. He spoke defiantly against rampant discrimination directed toward the Latino community, including the pressure to not speak Spanish.

He also spoke a great deal about the unquestioned status of capitalism in our society, and how it appears to be infecting children to the point that they display the pressure to specialize early in life. I enjoyed his comments about capitalism and art, in particular his view that writers and artists shouldn’t expect their art to “do something” (such as make money, or make other people happy), because we must create for the future and not the now. In other words Junot Diaz is a flaming anti-racist, feminist, unabashedly progressive, rebel artist dude. Which makes me want to read more of his books.

He’s brilliant and chill at the same time. I loved his self-deprecating, though not self-apologizing, style. One of my favorite quotes from the evening arose from a question as to why he named the title of one book, Drown, differently in the English and Spanish versions. He chalked it up to being stupid and in his 20s. Summing it up, he said: “It’s like you always have these great ideas as an artist, and then you execute, and then it’s super ass.”