Blisscraft Life With Christina Katz

Looking forward to seeing everyone at AWP 2012 in my old stomping grounds, Chicago, Illinois!

Here’s the details of our panel:

R175. The Tech-Empowered Writer: Embrace New Media, Experiment, and Earn
(Christina Katz, Jane Friedman, Seth Harwood, Robert Lee Brewer)
Boulevard Room A,B,C, Hilton Chicago, 2nd Floor
What can a professor, a journalist, a novelist, and a poet teach you about new media? Using real-life examples from our own experience and that of other tech-savvy writers, we’ll construct a composite of how working writers use technology to invest in their careers, experiment and launch new works, and grow their income opportunities. Whether you need a day job, a part-time job, or just enough gigs to pay a few bills, there have never been so many ways for tech-savvy writers to earn.

Come back to this blog on Thursday, March 1st for some great examples of writers who are using technology to grow and empower their careers.

Be sure to visit blogs by @JaneFriedman, @sethharwood, and @RobertLeeBrewer.

Follow them on Twitter, so you won’t miss their conference and tech-related tweets.

Follow @Porter_Anderson for continuous tweets on the entire conference.

Thanks to all the folks who make AWP possible. See you in Chicago, writers!

In every household over dinner tonight, all over the world, I hope that the conversation will turn to a very serious subject:

Why are so many women in attendance at the Academy Awards last night starving themselves?

Are their families blind to this? Where are the people who love these women?

Because the camera is supposed to add ten-fifteen pounds. If that’s the case, then these women must look like Holocaust survivors in-person.

When my daughter was just seven years old and in second grade, she began noticing that her friends are thinner than she is. And so the conversation began in our house.

It goes something like this.

Mom, how come I’m not as thin as my friends? I’m fat. I don’t want to be fat. I want to be skinny like my friends!

Answer: Some women are lean and some women are curvy, but it’s never healthy to be too thin or to diet just for the sake of becoming skinny.

Answer: It’s never a good idea to try and change your appearance to please others. It doesn’t matter what your friends look like, it’s much more important to love and accept yourself for who you are.

Answer: You and your friends have different body types, and they are going to change even more over the next few years, and none of them are going to look exactly alike, nor do they look alike now.

It’s never a good idea to impress upon a young girl that she is not thin enough to be acceptable or to make her afraid of becoming fat.

The only sensible reason to try and change your body is for health reasons and then the only acceptable approach is to eat better and exercise more in a moderate, gradual way without shaming or pressure.

My daughter is curvy. I am curvy. Maybe you are curvy, too.

I am putting out a call tonight. We all need to have to have conversations with our daughters and tell them that they way those women looked at the Academy Awards is NOT a healthy choice. And we need to pressure the media and the industry authorities and actresses themselves to take responsibility for the horrifying examples that they are setting for the daughters of the world.

It’s up to us to help our daughters understand that the healthy choice is to be more tolerant and accepting of what our bodies want to look like and less tolerant of unacceptable — and unsustainable — images of women.

These women look like they are going to die from starving themselves. I sincerely hope that this does not turn out to be the case.

But those Academy-award nominated actresses are putting our daughters at risk. And it is inexcusable as an example, whether they are sick or not.

And anyone in the industry who is putting pressure on them to starve themselves for success is guilty of injuring the world’s daughters, period.

I hope every mother in America will talk to her daughter tonight. And tell her, you NEVER have to look like that to be loved.

And then hug her and love her exactly the way she is. And ask her to do the same with herself.

And if you have an eating disorder or weight obsession, I hope you will seek help for your sake and for all of our daughters’ sakes.

Please copy and paste this meme into your blog so long as you link here. Or blog a response and link back to this post. And then talk to your daughters and report about the results online. Enough is enough!

We can change our daughters’ futures by raising our own awareness about self-abuse among women and talking openly and honestly about how to love and accept ourselves instead of further dis-empowering and abusing our bodies.

…unless you want to make a lasting negative first impression.

1. Never curse copiously and needlessly. It makes you seem like a twelve-year-old boy trying trying to impress all the other 12-year-old boys.

2. Never publicly disrespect a person who is widely respected and who has worked hard and long for that respect. Unless you hope to never inspire any respect for your own work.

3. Never walk away from a bully. Always stand up to a bully, even if only momentarily. If we don’t, soon the Internet will be crawling with bullies. On the Internet, a bully is a person who puts down others or treats others disrespectfully for their own glory.

4. Never be presumptuous with a person you are conversing with on social media. Use formality and formal channels when formality is expected. Don’t badger people. If you need more of a person’s time, seek a formal arrangement.

5. Never think that standing up to a bully makes you a bully. It doesn’t. It makes you brave. It lets a bully know that he or she may not walk all over you.

6. Never tolerate behavior online that you would not tolerate in your own living room. Set your following/unfollowing, friending/unfriending dials accordingly.

7. Never think: all people are good/kind/helpful or any other such nonsense. Most people are good/kind/helpful but a small percentage truly seem bent on getting in their own way and everyone else’s. Avoid such people.

8. Never think your job in platform-building is to create a holier image of yourself. It’s not. If your platform is going to last, you’re going to need to be a real, fallible person. Try to be one with a low tolerance for baloney because there is plenty of it to go around. You are going to have to say no to quite a bit of baloney over the years.

9. Never befriend people who act crazy online. Ask, would I want this person in my living room? If the answer is no, then don’t be online friends either. Every time you friend or follow folks, it’s like a vote. Don’t vote for people who act crazy or bully others.

10. Finally, never think that social networking replaces cultivating a real life. It doesn’t. Social networking compliments and expands your real life. Unplug once and a while to make sure your real life is not getting neglected.

Try to remember that everything you say and do on social media is being recorded permanently. If you make a mistake, correct it. If you are not sure what you are doing, get informed.

There’s no need to be fearful about using social media. But there are a hundred reasons to use it wisely rather than recklessly.

I have a lot of essays that I would like to write and I have been thinking that this might be a good year to write them. But you know how busy I can get and how I  love to keep all my plates spinning, spinning, spinning.

So I was thrilled (and a little intimidated) when Robert Lee Brewer asked me to write an essay for his Life-Changing Moments Series.

I was thrilled because I am a person who needs a deadline. But I was nervous because my readers do not know much about my personal history.

Life. It’s a pretty long story, right? Where to start?

Robert helped me by asking for something specific: a life-changing moment. This is one of mine. I went straight to the top of my life-changing moment list.

I’d love to hear your response to my first essay attempt in a very long time.

Thanks for reading. I know you have to keep your plates spinning, too. 🙂

Like most people, I have had many life-changing moments. But probably the biggest was the time I was not sure I could go on living. My despair wasn’t sparked by the loss of a job, a dramatic breakup, or a major humiliation, although, I’ve had my fair share of those. My life-changing moment occurred in a high-rise apartment building community room in Chicago in the fall of 1996, where I was attending a small, all-day meditation workshop.

Read the rest over at Robert Lee Brewer’s My Name Is Not Bob blog…

I’ve already discussed that writing is like sex. That’s really just standard creativity talk. Sex and creativity have a lot in common. Not much we can do about it.

However, if you want to have a successful, long-term writing career, than the relationship between you and your work is going to look a lot more like marriage than anything else.

Because marriage isn’t just about love; it’s also about partnership and commitment.

It’s about being in for the long haul, allying complimentary energies, and upholding a long-term relationship based on mutual love and respect.

Some people think marriage is hard. Some people say that it’s work. Others have been burned by marriage or disappointed in love. I realize that this is not an analogy that is going to work perfectly for everyone.

But when I think about serious, committed writing for the long-haul, I can’t help but think of marriage.

Love. Loyalty. Mutual respect. Long-term commitment. That’s what your writing career wants from you. So you’d better get ready to propose if you haven’t already. And after that, you’ll need to figure out how the art of your mutual commitment works.

Because after you commit, you two are going to be stuck with each other. Every day. For better or for worse. In sickness and in health. For the rest of your life. As long as you both shall…succeed, I hope.

What do you think? Are you married to your writing career or not?

~ Photo by hjrosasq

Next Round of Classes Begins a Week From Wednesday!

Many of you know that I am a writing career coach. The reason that my advice is often more informed than most is that I draw from personal experience, research and interviews, and ten years of working with real live writers.

Therefore instead of serving up a bunch of generic information or borrowed knowledge, I offer a depth of insight and awareness that really only comes with time and experience.

I don’t give my advice and time away for free often. Although I do have structured ways that I give, for example through the Northwest Author Series and formal class scholarships.

The bottom line is that I prioritize my paid work and I coach my writers to do the same. There is a very good reason that my students are not the muck-slingers of Twitter or the folks who spend all day chatting on Facebook. It’s because they are busy working and getting paid to work. They are busy growing solid, lasting writing careers.

If you would like to be one of them, I am offering four upcoming six-week classes:

Writing & Publishing the Short Stuff LINK and Discover Your Specialty & Launch Your Platform LINK begin on February 22nd.

Pitching Practice LINK and 60 Ways To Flex Your Content and Prosper in Your Niche LINK begin February 23rd.

The next Micro-publishing For Mom Writers Class begins April 12th LINK. The class is already starting to fill up and space is limited. April will also be the last time that this and all of these classes are offered at the current prices.

Training groups don’t start up until August LINK, but keep in mind that classes are prerequisites to advancing up the ranks of my coaching groups. So please plan to take classes before you aspire to join one of my Dream Teams.

AWP in Chicago, Here I Come!

I will be traveling to Chicago in the beginning of MARCH to moderate a panel on The Tech-Empowered Writer: Embrace New Media, Experiment, and Earn with Jane Friedman, Robert Lee Brewer, and Seth Harwood. We are going to have some serious fun at this panel. I hope we will see you there, if you are attending AWP. Our panel is Thursday, March 1st from 1:30 – 2:45 pm in Boulevard Room A,B,C, Hilton Chicago, 2nd Floor. Please come up and say hello afterwards if you will be attending.

Because I have some extra time available while I am in Chicago, I am offering low-cost, one-on-one power up your platform consults. These prices are reduced even further for former students to the point of being ridiculously cheap. Not sure if I will ever offer these again, so if you live in the Chicago area and you would like to have a one-hour discussion about how identify your platform dynamic and use it to take your career to the next level, please email me at christina at christina katz dot com. You do not have to be a registered attendee of AWP to meet with me.

Hope to have a chance to brainstorm with you in the Windy City!

Speaking of the Windy City…I have an essay that will appear online this week and the setting of the story is in Chicago. More on that tomorrow! Have a great week!

Lots of good things are happening, and as I try to constantly remind my students, sometimes growth brings challenges that you would not expect.

We might have a tendency to think that good things happen to good people, and that of course, when good things happen to these good people, their lives are perfect and wonderful all of the time, even though our lives rarely seem that way.

And, of course, that’s total bunk. Good things happen mostly for folks who have worked hard for them. And even when one or two good things happen, it does not make your whole life perfect. In fact, it’s actually more like the opposite. Growth is messy. Stretching yourself is also bumpy. And even once you have accomplished several major successes, you’re life does not just magically become perfect.

I think this pretty much sums up my school year, thus far. Good things are happening. And perhaps this is also why I have so many challenges at the moment and have had so many challenges since September.

Challenge #1: The Screen on my Primary Mac is Going Out

I always knew this day would come. But it’s still never fun when you realize that you have to take what you want to preserve and get the heck off the laptop that is falling apart underneath your still tapping fingers. This computer is like an extension of my brain. So what am I supposed to do, relocate my brain? Apparently so.

Challenge #2: My Husband is Producing another Show with over Sixty Kids

This show is definitely running more smoothly than the last show, which some of you may remember was Les Mis. This time it’s Fiddler on the Roof and Samantha is playing the role of Bielke, Tevye and Golda’s youngest daughter. The show is really coming together but everyone, especially my husband, who has been working 12 hour days six days a week for six weeks. But the show must go on. And so it shall. Here’s a media photo:

Challenge #3: My Book is Getting Rave Reviews

This probably seems like a fairly strange challenge. But don’t forget that I have classes to teach, students to coach, articles, curriculum, and columns to write, conferences to attend, a husband to help with a show that has over sixty kids in it, and now a dying computer.

I could really use is some help getting the word out about The Writer’s Workout because the book is getting better reviews than I even expected (I poured my guts into this book, as many of you already know).

Meanwhile, here’s the feedback I’m receiving so far:

It’s a masterpiece. (Thank you! What a compliment. This remark has come from several sources now, and I never take it for granted.)

I can’t read the whole thing because it gives me so many great ideas I have to stop reading and work. (Exactly what I was hoping! This book is meant to be a tool for your career growth.)

It keeps me up at night and gets me going when I am stuck. (Again, exactly what I was hoping.)

You can read more rave reviews on Amazon. A steady stream of reviews is pouring in.

There is so much more I want to do with readers of this book, so if you do not have a copy of the book yet, please order yours today.

Spring is the first season in The Writer’s Workout. And guess what season is coming? Spring!

Baseball players don’t skip spring training just because they already know how to play baseball. And your writing career will similarly benefit from reading The Writer’s Workout, which was written explicitly to help you navigate these changing times in the industry.

Thanks for letting me know that you got your copy! And stay tuned. I’ll get on top of everything again soon. Spring is good like that.

It does not need to be x-rated. Heck your actual story can be rated G.

I want you to court your writing, so it will court you back.

Your creative process should be intense, deep, pleasurable, and exhilarating.

You should surrender to your work so that it can take you to places where you have never been before.

This might all sound a little scary. You might be afraid of the intensity of what I am suggesting.

You might find it hard to just let yourself go a little…or even a lot.

It might be hard to let your work consume you instead of you controlling it. But why not give it a try?

Surrender. I want you to write what wants to be written rather than what you want to write. At least once in a while.

I want you to be a little more playful, risky, and adventurous in your writing.

I want you to amaze yourself. I want you to let go and have fun.

I want your writing to be so enjoyable sometimes that you break out of the little prisons you didn’t know you had created for yourself.

You don’t have to do this in public. It might be kind of gross if you did.

And I am not literally talking about combining sex and writing…but to each her own.

I am just saying that maybe this comparison is worth thinking about.

And just to make sure that the responses in my blog stay clean, I’m closing comments to this post.

Talk amongst yourselves! And have a great weekend.

Denise Rovira Hazlett for the WPSS Writer Mama Scholarship

&

Valerie Willman for the DYS-LYP Writer Mama Scholarship

Hearty congratulations, Denise & Valerie!

I look forward to working with both of you in classes in a couple weeks.

Thanks to EVERYONE who applied! Choosing scholarship recipients is  extremely difficult because I always receive so many applications from worthy writers. And this time around was no exception.

Watch this blog, christinakatz.com and/or subscribe to The Prosperous Writer e-zine for all the details on future offers. I’m very happy to be able to grant one scholarship for each of these classes each time I offer the class.

If you have not checked out my classes, you can learn more on the “Register” page. I am still accepting students for the February 22nd Writing & Publishing the Short Stuff class and the Discover Your Specialty & Launch Your Platform class.

I am also still accepting students for the February 23rd Pitching Practice: Writer Six Queries in Six Weeks class and the 60 Ways To Flex Your Content & Prosper in Your Niche class.

Classes will fill up, so don’t wait! Space is limited.

Also please keep in mind, if you hope to participate in the August – December  2012 Dream Team (my training group for mom writers), you need to complete Writing & Publishing the Short Stuff class. If you have, I hope you will join us! More info on Dream Teams here.

Congratulations again, Denise and Valerie. I look forward to working with you!