Author Page: Do You "Like" Me? and Other Marketing Insanities

It's been a couple of weeks of in and out illness. A real doozy. Have you been there? Five of us smashed in a house, infecting and reinfecting each other, no matter how many times we wash our hands. In fact, right now I'm home with two sick boys watching reruns of MONK and PSYCH.

What does this have to do with the insanity of marketing? Well, I'll tell ya.

Saturday night I went to bed early with my feverish daughter, and was toolin' around Facebook when I decided to throw caution to the wind and create a more official "author" Facebook page. I already have a page for Edges, created over a year ago in the lead up to publication, watching way too closely for my mental health at the rate it's "likes" were ticking upward. I naively hoped that my book would take the world by storm - instead it's been a slow build.

Just the way our careers should be. Yet publication, and the need to be "liked" has been a challenge to my maturity. It makes me uncomfortable because I feel both needy and tacky. Dirty.

Although Facebook and other social media has been a good time and an incredible tool for creating community, I have often felt like a fifteen-year-old all over again - who doesn't experience a flush of excitement when a comment or a post garners fun or thoughtful interaction? And then the opposite - it's even easier on Facebook to compare our insides to other people's outsides and judge ourselves based on who "likes" us. Sometimes I just want to delete my accounts just so I can focus on my writing.

Yet I am an author, and need to use the tools at my disposal. I have to treat myself like a business, and the fact is that I wrote EDGES years ago. I have written two (as yet to be published) novels since then. I run an after-school creative writing program, I live and breathe writing. I need to have another page where I can post things that are not necessarily related to Edges. And Facebook makes it so darn easy!

My author page. I had 40 "likes" in the first half hour, 80 "likes" in the next half hour. All friends full of love and support. Phew!

The goal? To increase business, to reach more potential readers of my blog and my book(s).

So. The next few sentences are not going to be pretty - they're going to highlight an insecurity that I need to keep in check: I have to admit that I've been obsessively checking my page for new "likes". 145, 146, 147 . . . I have to seriously get over it. After all, I've been blogging regularly for two years now (oh! I missed my anniversary?!) and I "only" have 158 followers, yet I still write.

How many "likes" do I need? Will it ever be "enough"?

It's foolish to focus on that.

Writing is the way I process the world, and if I stop because I'm uncomfortable, because I'm not popular "enough" then I will be denying myself the key to my personal freedom.

Marketing is a tool to use and not be used by, but I like that my imperfections remind me of my vulnerability and my need for humility. It keeps me authentic. Don't you agree?

And yes, go "like" my page! And follow my blog! ;-)

Related articles

• How to get more Facebook likes for your fan page (marketing.yell.com)
• Eight ways to measure how effective your social media efforts are (marketing.yell.com)
• Facebook adds "People Reached" number to posts (marketing.yell.com)

Writing Behind Bars: Teens and Their Incarcerated Moms

Somehow, when I moved to Westchester a year and a half ago, I knew that I would wind up in the women’s prison. After all, it is barely a mile away.

My experiences with prisons are not numerous as far as experiences go. In my 20’s I was part of a Drama Therapy group that took a workshop of Romeo and Juliet to Riker’s Island. (Were we bold enough to do the fight scene? Yes! A plague o’ both your houses . . .) And later I worked on a locked psychiatric ward in a hospital in the Bronx. (Sure it was locked, but patients usually got released after three weeks.)

These experiences however, opened my eyes to the basic tenets of human rights and to the possibilities of rehabilitation: prisons house criminals. Criminals are human beings. Human beings have the capacity to both take responsibility for their mistakes and transform themselves for the better, to feel hope and joy.

When I became a full time writer and teacher, it was only a matter of time. Every time I drove past the prison, it called out to me:  You should do a writing workshop with teens and their incarcerated mothers!

Really?

Little did I know that it would be a process of over six months to get me in there, and today was the day. First: the proposal, then the paperwork, and the processing of said paperwork. Then last week: a TB test one day, and an orientation on another. (It was good to prepare me for the gravity of entering a prison, and the Grace that I feel upon leaving.)

I will be volunteering for the Teen Program. Once a month teens get to spend a weekend day with their mothers, arriving at 9AM and leaving at 3:15.

I come in late this morning having learned last week that I can only bring my ID and my car keys with me. I have been invited to have lunch with the inmates and their kids before starting the program.

I am unfazed when an officer goes through my coat pockets and my boots before I can go through the metal detector. Now I know how many gates there are before I can even be considered in the prison proper: I must go into the first building and pass the first guard. In the second building there are three officers to show my ID to. I get stamped. I must show my stamp at the next portal, and then go through three gates, each one closing before another one opens. I have to walk about fifty yards to get to the administrative building where I go through everything again. An escort is called. There is another gate, and finally I am in the Visiting Room.

There I meet my volunteer coordinator (also a close friend) who introduces me to the participating teens and their moms. My skin prickles with the sheer emotional intensity and energy in the room: There are so many stories here embodied in fifteen inmates and their nineteen kids. There were twelve boys and seven girls, ranging in age from fourteen to seventeen.

We are eating at tables in the Visiting Room right outside of the Children’s Center: the only place filled with color and light. There are big windows looking into a room filled with games, toys and art work. Outside and above the doors is a mural painted with the words: Joy is unbreakable: therefore it’s safe with children. Tears sting my eyes. Joy in prison? Those two words don’t seem to go together, and yet today, they do.

I tentatively eat my turkey sandwich as I sit with the inmates and their kids. I almost feel as if I am an imposition on this sacred family time, yet it is more the women who talk to each other. The boys are all strapping young men, the girls seem grown up. What can I really offer them?

After we eat, we adjourn back into the Children’s Center and mothers and their children are either wrapped up in cuddles, or mothers are grooming their boys’ hair. I have a lump in my throat watching this, watching these intimate moments that must be done in public, and must be done only once a month.

Isn’t it enough that they are together? Shouldn’t I just leave them alone? I remind myself that I am offering another way to connect with each other through writing stories together, and maybe, just possibly, showing the kids that writing is a powerful tool. That writing stories can give then the freedom and control that they otherwise don’t have.

“Who doesn’t like writing?” I start out asking, and half of the group raises their hands. I am not daunted by this - the daunting thing is worrying whether they will accept what I have to offer.

I pass out notebooks to each person and explain that they are going to be constantly writing for half an hour, and that they’ll be trading back and forth, writing two (or more) stories together. Incredulous looks.

The kids can bring the notebooks home, or keep them in the Children's Center for the next time they come.

I ask them to write down the same first line: I put the suitcase on the chair . . . and explain that I will be guiding them by talking about elements of story and throwing out quirky suggestions while they pass their notebooks back and forth with each other, culminating in collaborative works.

One boy doesn’t want to do it. He doesn’t even want to take the notebook. He says it would be a waste of paper. I give it to him anyway.

Although there is tension at first because it;s new and strange, I hear them relax into giggles as I throw out loony examples and they become more and more engaged with their stories, with each other, as they learn new things about each other.

“Do we have to share?” I am asked during the writing.

“I’d love it if you did, but you don’t have to. It can be just between you and your mom.”

They end up all eager to share in some shape or form - it is thrilling. One woman starts off sharing a brilliantly executed fantasy that she co-wrote with her son.

Then one teenage boy wants to titillate us with all of the inappropriate behavior he put into his story, and his mother is embarrassed, telling him not to share it.  I tell her that nothing is going to shock me and I know that reading his words aloud will give him more of a sense of the seriousness of what he’s written. It does just that - after he reads, all silliness is wiped away when I simply tell him that there are at least ten stories in there and I challenge him to use writing as a tool for exploring what he really thinks about all of these things. (Things that he’s probably witnessed and needs to make sense of.)

I am moved when three more teens volunteer to share with the group, and then even more moved when others want me to read their stories quietly, and give them feedback.

Particularly amazing is the boy who didn’t want the notebook at all. He can’t contain his need to have me read his words. He hands me his book while others are sharing and asks me to read it to myself. I have to wait until everyone has shared out loud and I’ve given my feedback, I can feel his eyes on me.

When I finally get to it, I am amazed: the-boy-who-doesn’t-like-to-write wrote the beginning of a thriller in two pages: he captures the rising tension of the scene and has me on the edge of his seat.

He is beaming. In the sharing, in the bringing to light, we have found our common humanity, no matter what his circumstances, what crime his mother has committed. For a moment, we have found unbreakable joy.

Behind Bars

I don’t bring much with me when I walk into prison for the first time. Just my phone and my car keys.


“Do you have a cell phone?” The officer asks me. She has warm skin the color of ebony and lips painted the brightest of pinks. When I show it to her, she just wags her finger and smiles.


I back away. “I’ll go put it in the car.” I am sheepish: of course I can’t have a cell phone in a maximum security correctional facility.


When I come back, she points me through another door, where I step outside and into another building. Inside this room is a metal detector, and beside it a table with bins for personal belongings.


“My name is Léna Roy, and I’m here to get a TB test for Volunteer Services?” I make it a question: I want to be polite.


The officer, another woman with an Trinidadian accent takes my ID, looks through her paperwork and gets on the phone. I will need an escort once I am in the prison. She stamps my right hand - it leaves no mark. I take off my coat, shoes and everything in my pockets - the two throat lozenges I had brought with me are confiscated - evidently they could be a disguise for drugs. Anything is possible.


Another volunteer comes in and goes through the same process. I introduce myself to her and my smile broadens when she says that she is a “Cuddler”, meaning that she comes one morning a week for a few hours to cuddle the inmates’ babies while their mothers engage in the programs offered at the prison - both work and educational.


I will be volunteering at the Children’s Center too, I tell my companion. “I’ll be leading a creative writing workshop once a month when the teenage kids are visiting their moms.”


This kindly lady doesn’t raise an eyebrow, even though I do. My plan is to get these mom’s and kids writing stories together - will it work?


I go through a cubicle where I show my ID again and pass my hand under an ultra violet light where I can now see the mark on my skin. Another gate. Once it closes, I am allowed to press a button for another gate to open. Three more gates after that, I am back out in the fresh air and walk up to the administration building, where I have to show my ID again and wait for an escort.


Now I am in the prison. It has taken more than half an hour. My escort, a large man in his late 50’s arrives to take me to the medical office in another building. He seems comfortable in his own skin, and I can tell that he likes his job.


850 prisoners, 670 staff, 300 volunteers. The prisoners all wear an olive green uniform; not the bright orange I am expecting.


Most of the women here are mothers, and somehow they have ended up in a maximum security prison. They themselves are responsible for that, yet many can be rehabilitated, can change, can become part of a healthy community.


(There was a beautiful article in the New York Times magazine last weekend about Judy Clark, who has served 30 years of a 75 year sentence so far. A harsh sentence, mainly because of her defiant theatrics in the courtroom and her unwillingness to accept responsibility for her behavior at that time. Judy Clark, who over time has changed.)


I am in the medical room. I can’t help but think of the first job I had as a Drama Therapist in 1995 on a locked psychiatric ward in a hospital in the Bronx, and another TB test. I was scared. The bureaucracy was daunting. Yet, because of my belief in the resiliency of the human spirit, my work wasn’t a waste of time. My job was to guide my patients to tell a story, through art, drama, writing. To inspire the self-healing process.


So many of us need to change the story that we tell ourselves, especially if it is a negative message that keeps repeating itself. Our creativity gets us looking at things from a new perspective.

Many of these women need to change the story they tell about themselves - or if they can’t, then at least their children can have that chance. 


I come out of my trance as my skin gets injected with the serum to test for tuberculosis.

There but for the Grace of God go I . . .


Gratitude floods through me as I am allowed to leave the final silver mesh wire gate. I feel my breath deepen, and my muscles relax.


Escape.


I will be back on this weekend, armed with enthusiasm, compassion and Grace.

Related articles

• Judith Clark has changed. When will the US prison system? (guardian.co.uk)
• A Call for Prison Reform (prisonuncensored.wordpress.com)

MLK and My Sobriety: For Realz?

Yes Virginia, for realz.

Last Friday my status on Facebook just said: eighteen years. Those who know me personally and read this blog knew what that means: I celebrated eighteen years of continuous sobriety. I celebrated by going out to dinner with some of the women who have been on this journey with me. I don't white-knuckle it and go it alone - I need that kind of community, just as I need other kinds of community too.

We all need community, we need each other. We all have our demons and our issues; we all want to both understand and be understood. We all have our humanity in common, no matter our race, gender, sexuality or religion.

Who better to thank for this reminder than Dr. Martin Luther King?

As I take a moment to celebrate him,  I am put in mind of a particular Martin Luther King Day, fourteen years ago. I was working on a dual diagnosis unit in San Francisco. In many of the psychotherapy groups I was leading that day, we discussed Dr. King's famous I Have a Dream speech. 

I will never forget one gentleman in particular, who spoke about the impact Dr, King had had on his life and his future sobriety. This man was in his mid-30's, African-American, astoundingly intelligent, but his brain had been hit with severe depression and alcoholism. He wanted to stay sober because of Dr. King's words. He yearned for faith because of Dr. King's legacy.

He quoted Dr. King: "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." 

His eyes glistening with tears, he went on to say: "Alcoholism and mental illness is another form of oppression." His voice was a slow, deep baritone. He had been taking his medication, wasn't drinking and was starting to feel better. Heads nodded, and all faces turned toward him. (Which in itself was a miracle - one of my therapeutic goals with several "clients" was eye contact in a group setting.)

He stopped, looking to me for assurance. I smiled, encouraging him. He was able to connect Dr. King's messages of non-violence, faith and dreams of equality to his own hopes for sobriety. He was able to strike a chord with his fellow group members talking about MLK's message in a way that I, as a young white girl wasn't able to.

He struck a chord with me too, and now MLK is indelibly a part of my sobriety.

Abstinence isn't for everybody, but it is for me, because I recognize that I have the dis-ease of alcoholism. It is a dis-ease of body, mind and spirit. It almost killed me.

It doesn't mean that I'm a lower form of human, that I can't handle my liquor, that one drink is too much for me because I don't know when to stop - and nor does it mean I'm a higher form of human, that I have transcended the need for spirits. (I haven't - I need an ever-evolving  relationship with a Higher Power - I just don't pretend that I can heal myself or my stress with alcohol anymore.)

It means I get to be human, I get to live. And I get to share myself with you.

Thank you Dr. King: your reach is wider than you ever knew.

In BeTWEEN Book Clubs and Open Mic Events

Oh yes, I am playing with words on this rainy morning, before I get ready to train into the city with Judy Blundell for a meta lunch with writers Rebecca Stead, Deborah Heiligman, Carolyn Mackler, Rachel Vail, Elizabeth Winthrop and Jeanne Betancourt. At Henry's - my grandmother's favorite restaurant.

(What happens at lunch, stays at lunch!)

And I am inbetween book clubs and Open Mics - last Sunday we hosted an Open Mic for my Writopia kids in Larchmont and packed The Voracious Reader to the gills, and last night we had our InBeTWEEN Book Club at the Bedford Hills Free Library, where we discussed this month's pic, A Mango Shaped Space by Wendy Mass.

Later in the month there will be another Open Mic (at the Mt. Kisco Library), and there will be the first meeting of our new book club that my friend Erika insisted we start. (Since we both, you know, like to read and stuff.) We will be reading and discussing Swamplandia (Karen Russell) with four other people. (If you want to read it too, we can start a discussion on here!)

And in February, I have been invited to one of Wetchester's longest running book clubs, comprised of TEACHERS to discuss Edges.

Our InbeTWEEN Book Club members, ranging in age from 11 to 13, (okay, I'm almost 44, but I can pretend, can't I?) all thoroughly enjoyed the book.

From Booklist: For 13-year-old Mia Winchell, the world has always been filled with a wonderful, if sometimes dizzying, sensory onslaught--numbers, letters, words, and sounds all cause her to see a distinct array of colors. She keeps her unusual condition a secret until eighth grade, but then her color visions make math and Spanish impossibly confusing, and she must go to her parents and a doctor for help. However, this is more than a docu-novel. Mass beautifully integrates information about synesthesia with Mia's coming-of-age story, which includes her break with her best friend and her grief over her grandfather's death. The episode where Mia fabricates an illness to try out acupuncture for the color visions it produces is marvelously done, showing Mia's eagerness for new experiences even as it describes a synesthete's vision.

We were all fascinated by synesthesia, and most of us wouldn't mind having that special condition ourselves! I couldn't help but see a correlation to addiction, especially in the acupuncture scene where she goes because she heard that it can enhance her experience of colors. For an adult reading this, we see Mia go on a hallucinogenic trip. The boy she meets on-line, another synesthete, hints that alcohol and kissing can enhance the colors as well.

If I were Mia, I would probably be doing anything to enhance my colors, but that's me. It would have been a very slippery slope indeed.

Striving for Excellence

As a writing teacher and mentor, part of my job is helping kids get ready to submit their work for - you got it - public scrutiny, either in the form of a reading, publishing in a literary journal or for an award.

I have to practice what I preach as well - having goals inspires us to write at our highest level, and more importantly, to complete projects.

It is both rewarding and inspiring to help them strive toward excellence.

Tomorrow is the deadline for my Westchester Writopia kids in grades 7 through 12 to submit to the prestigious Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. I have nine students submitting work, and all are worthy, in my humble opinion, of some kind of recognition. (In the last three years, Writopians have won the most awards out of any group of kids.)

Yet it doesn't always happen, does it? We don't always get rewarded or recognized for our efforts. Last year I had two students submitting, both in the same age group and category. Both are excellent writers: yet only one of them was awarded a gold key.

(I think there might be a chance that I was more disappointed than she was.)

I want my students to feel empowered by their writing and their voice in the world. And they do! They are.

So I'm anxious, excited, proud: if some of them don't win, so be it. All of us suffer some slings and arrows for our art, and we keep on trucking, keep refining, keep practicing. And we learn that any art form is subjective. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder - yet we have to be in it to win it, and to feel strongly about our right to be in the game. (Or at least fake it!) You all know very well that this is something I myself struggle with. (Why wasn't Writopia around when I was a kid?)

This month, Writopia Lab in Westchester will be hosting two Open Mic events, to celebrate the students who have finished pieces this past fall. The first one will be at our beloved bookstore in Larchmont, The Voracious Reader this Sunday, January 8th from 2PM - 3:30PM. The second one will be on January 20th at the Mt. Kisco Library, from 5PM - 6:30PM.

If you live in the Westchester area, please come and support these wonderful emerging writers and let them know that they are all winners. (And if you know of a child who loves to write, this is an Open Mic, so they are welcome to come and participate in these events.)

Have a Writing New Year!

Before 2011 goes to sleep (forever), does it need to do anything else? Has there been anything left undone? Is there anything I need to do quickly, before 2012 begins? (Besides clean the bathrooms, one last time . . .)

It is the end of the winter solstice period, of the darkest nights of the year where we set our hearts, homes and lives ablaze with light to keep our spirits high. And we have one more celebration for the coming of light and the New Year.

2011 was our first full year living in Northern Westchester, and has most certainly been life on life's terms, yet we absolutely have no regrets and are thrilled with our choice in moving here.

We splurged on a Disney family vacation last February. We saw two big storms and experienced lengthy power outages. My kids turned 11, 9 and 6 and have pushed the boundaries beyond what they thought was possible in academics, swimming, football, music, reading. My husband revealed himself as a chef, I revealed myself as a competent driver. Writopia turned into an almost-sustainable business, with the addition of Larchmont this summer, and I have been working steadily since then.

I have written much, whilst I have had multiple frustrations with the publishing industry, leading me to wonder why I even bother. But I somehow always come back around to bothering: I write because it's worth doing. I believe in the power of words and that everybody has the right to write, to develop their voice and sense of self.

I have continued to blog in an effort to share my authenticity and not my "platform" - I do not want to be a persona - writing is thinking, and I have explored my thoughts here with you. I will continue to do so.


2012 will bring more resolve, more work, more writing. I will celebrate the 50th anniversary of A Wrinkle in Time and I'll get another book submission-ready. My kids will turn 12, 10 and 7.  I'll take the 12 year old with me to Mobile, Alabama in early March where I will speak and lead workshops on the craft of writing. My husband will renovate all of the bathrooms *and my website* and my godson James will be born.  (In the next three weeks!)

Tonight we have another family coming over to celebrate with us: dinner, games, and a children's candle ceremony. We will honor the lights in ourselves and each other, honor the past and the future, so that we can stay in the present.

(Okay, was that shmaltzy enough for you?)

Happy New Year! xoxox