I write because I need to. Everything that is necessary for me to do this I somehow make happen because I have no choice. If I don’t write, something inside of me becomes very upset and this is not a good thing for me, my skin, the universe.
But sometimes just having everything you need in place can jumpstart your process and here are a few suggestions:
You may need a space that you can collect your thoughts and focus on your writing. If you have a busy life, and who doesn’t? – this may seem like a mission impossible thing. Take a look at The Writers Room, an urban writing colony located in a bright airy loft with partitioned writing desks, a library, comfy chairs and community of literary spirits in the heart of Greenwich Village.
People write for different reasons. Once I figured out why I write for you it transformed what I took away from each day, each conversation, each unexpected story. Suddenly, I had so much stuff to write about and not enough time to write. Why can’t I ever win?
Still can’t get going? OK, time to throw down your glove and take a writing challenge. Maybe you are one of those people who has to lose weight or write a novel in the public eye so that your journey is fueled by group competition, one upmanship, humiliation and accountability. Some sites even ask you to name an organization you absolutely detest as the recipient of a donation from you if you don’t meet your goal. Talk about incentive.
What you can look forward to
I have done all three of the above and what is working for me consistently are writing challenges. I am inspired by doing them and by people who do them. Last winter I decided to do five posts a week until I had 100 posts. The interesting thing that happened was that this rate of blogging became so second nature that before I knew it I had 200 posts. The challenge grows as my blogging skills grow.
Here are the results of two bloggers I greatly admire, Kivi Leroux Miller and Katya Andresen. They both shared a blogging challenge and the learnings from Kivi’s blogging experiment and Katya’s 100 posts are worth checking out.
I was at the NTen Nonprofit Technology Conference in Washington DC and I raised my hand when someone asked if there were any executive directors in the room. It seems that one of the hot topics going around the sessions was how to bring the message back home to the decision makers back at the ranch and get them on board to tech up. There were a quite a few hands that went up so that’s a good sign.
Me, I am a bit of a nonprofit ninja when it comes to taking the unexpected or unprecedented road as the Executive Director of the Queens Council on the Arts. I am all about failing, risk, and cheerfully working with the unknown. Takes a little getting used to but it is definitely better than standing still.
Mediocrity terrifies me.
Remember the shoes?
When you are in a hotel with 2,000 wired, linked, tweeted, blogged and followed people, you need a good pair of shoes.
I have to be honest, I am exhausted.
Can I tap as fast as I can blink? Does it count if you just talk to someone? I am hoping to find my friend Beth at some point this weekend; I was actually hoping I would naturally run into her over the course of the weekend but I gave up and sent her an email. We were actually in the same space at one point, I was in the front of the room and she was in the back, and we missed each other. Clearly, there was only one way to address this: new running shoes.
Got them down the street from the conference to dash around the Washington Hilton at the speed of well, technology.
Got myself into the Don’t Get Lost on the Cutting Room Floor session bright and early Saturday morning which was presented by the good folks at See3. Geared for beginners like me, they went over simple systems for compiling, organizing, tagging and archiving media.
When you are living on the edge, balance is in your DNA.
If it isn’t, it damn well better be in your Wheaties. Lucky me, I found myself with a bunch of balance seekers and four fabulous women eager to hang this upside down like a pinata and swing a bat at it.
When your soul is lifted by the musical sounds of a symphony orchestra, do you ever think about what it takes to house a performance?
When you see dancers leap across the stage, do you wonder how many steps it takes to bring that moment alive?
I joined a group of concerned grantmakers to talk about that all too rare commodity in New York City – space.
Many thanks to Rohit Burman and Karen Rosa, Co-Chairs of the New York Grantmakers in the Arts and to Susan Feder and Kerry McCarthy for organizing and hosting this gathering at the New York Community Trust.
Some say, that the “sharp downturn in New York City’s real estate market presents a unique opportunity to address the serious space needs of the city’s artists, arts groups and creative entrepreneurs” (Time to be Creative, a report from the Center for an Urban Future funded by the Rockefeller Foundation).
Some noteworthy case studies:
Eugenie Cowan
Eugenie Cowan and David Johnston of Exploring the Metropolis, Inc. suggested that there are many existing spaces throughout the city in schools, universities, community and senior centers precluding the need to build more spaces. Of particular interest to me, being a Queens girl, was their residency program for composers – one at Flushing Town Hall and one at a senior center in Corona.
Leah Krauss from the Mertz Gilmore Foundation described a project at Fourth Arts Block run by the amazing Tamara Greenfield where they identified 21 spaces that, with a little TLC and spot grants, could become suitable dance spaces. And funders could really contribute to the success of a project like this by creating a rent subsidy fund.
I always loved listening to classical music on the radio as a kid but now that I know Graham Parker actually pairs Emmanuel Ax with live chickens in the Greene Space over at WQXR, I am tuning in for good. I am intrigued by the image of “terrestrial signals” shrinkwrapping the globe, especially in China where he says there are thousands of children studying classical music but without music to listen to.
Katy Clark of the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, spoke of the construction of the DiMenna Center, a place for many of the City’s music groups to rehearse. Eugenie pointed out that this achievement was an outcome of many factors, a strong money raising board, a capital reserve, careful research and deep community collaborations.
Which, in a tidy little trio, sums up the direction of the morning’s conversation.
Capitalization, collaboration and community.
Get more Wow!
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Everytime I allow myself the sinful luxury of feeling sorry for myself because of a hard day putting out fires, putting up with an endless stream of problems and feeling fat,
- the universe chuckles knowingly and slips me a cookie.
It is a great thrill to be able to share with you the video, Spindle 7, created as part of my project of the same name that took me back and forth on the #7 train with my spindles and wool in 2008, meeting people and teaching spinning between Main Street in Flushing (Queens) and Times Square in Manhattan.
While the project itself lasted most of a year, the video was made over the course of three intense days of filming and riding the train with intrepid cameraperson, Marcia Connolly. She did not allow oncoming trains, urine puddles or irate commuters get in the way of the perfect shot. It was edited into a cogent whole by the sensitive and deft hand of Susan Forste. She also conducted the interview that provided the voice over you hear for much of the film.
Spindle 7 was made possible with funds from the Decentralization Program, a regrant program of the New York State Council on the Arts, administered by the Queens Council on the Arts.
Many thanks to both Marcia and Susan for their efforts, as well as to the all the spinners who participated in the project and talked to me about their lives, and to the riders of the #7 train who put up with that crazy lady and her spindle.
Click on the link above to see the 7 minute film.
With warmest regards,
Robyn
I am proud to say Robyn is a Queens artist and her project was supported by a grant from the Queens Council on the Arts. My mother-in-law, Mildred Phyllis Krakauer, would have added,
Geh verdreh zich dein kopf (Yiddish for “go spin your own head”)
Go ahead, take a bite!
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photo by Morten Brunbjerg
I write for love and money. It is my everyday passion. What's yours? 
