It’s that time of year again. Specifically, the end of it. And it’s the time when we are supposed to reflect on all the things we haven’t accomplished (how depressing!), and resolve to accomplish in the forthcoming year.

I have discovered a way to make this process easy and painless. Hence, I encourage you to do two, and only two, things. Well, one really, but the first one relates to the second one, so here goes:

1.) Keep your resolutions manageable. How often have you heard that? And, of course, easier said than done. In my opinion, this adage applies mainly to things like dieting and exercise. For example, don’t say you’ll cut out all sweets when that’s your favorite food; instead say you’ll cut out chocolate on Tuesdays and Thursdays (to be replaced with sugar-free jello), and no cupcakes or cookies on Mondays and Wednesdays. Manageable right? Likewise don’t resolve to go to the gym every day, resolve to go three times a week. Unless of course there’s additional motivation, like the more often you go, the more likely you’ll meet that cute buff guy or girl of your dreams. Yes, 2010 is that year.

Okay, now, we’re getting closer to the nub of the matter, to the proverbial heart of this blog posting: (after all this is supposed to be about writing and being creative, not dieting and exercising). So forget everything I just said about dieting and exercise. I don’t care about that. I care about writing (and supposedly so do you).

2.) To keep your resolutions manageable, make only one New Year’s resolution. Only one. I know I said this was for writers only, but actually this is only for those writers who want to be successful, published, and gloriously wealthy. So if that’s not you, then stop right here. Read no further. I mean it. Don’t even peek.

As for the rest of you, repeat after me: I resolve to write for 15 minutes every day. That’s it. (And no, you can’t write for 30 minutes one day and skip the next.) For the most part you’ll be able to stick to this resolution, (No problem), but for those annoying hectic days, here are a few tips to help you squeeze 15 minutes of writing into your schedule: 1) Get up a little earlier (yawn, yawn) or go to bed a little later, 2) take a little extra time in the shower (great place to get ideas, first lines, last lines, etc), but then don’t forget to write them down, 3) take a little less time eating lunch and more time writing (that’s a two-fer: writing + weight reduction), 4) use a tape recorder (do they still exist?) or text yourself to record ideas while driving, (obviously don’t have an accident!) 5) eliminate coffee breaks. (That’s all I can think of right now. Add your tips, please!)

If you need additional motivation, here’s a surefire way to stick to your New Year’s resolution: deny yourself chocolate, sex, wine, etc until you’ve finished writing. It heightens the pleasure factor exponentially. I swear. My husband hates it, but my computer loves it.

The really great thing about this New Year’s resolution (well, besides getting huge satisfaction from all the writing you’re getting done) is: you will relieve yourself of guilt! Well, at least one. You won’t have to go to sleep, then wake up in the middle of the night thinking, “I can’t believe I didn’t write for 15 minutes today. I promised myself. God, I am such a loser. How can I expect to ever get published? Herta was right.” And so on. How much self-flagellation you do depends on how neurotic and guilt-ridden you tend to be. If you’re a writer, you fall into the top 10% of the world’s neurotic population. Did you know that? So, actually, if you’re thinking, heck I’m not that neurotic…I don’t feel that guilty…well then maybe you’re not really a writer after all, and you don’t have to write for 15 minutes, and you can just skip this blog altogether. In which case I say, Lucky YOU!

Happy New Year!

p.s. If you follow this advice, and by the end of 2010, those 15 minutes of writing each day added up to a novel, or 10 short stories, or a memoir, or a chapbook and the thing gets published, you owe me $100. Make check payable to: Herta Feely. My address is on my website.

My friend Charlie’s book offers a riveting story, the potential of which you can glimpse just from the title! : An Honorable German…even though the story is about a Nazi (”Max”) during World War II. Did honorable Germans actually exist? Was Max honorable? Or is the title ironic? Read it and find out. Then get back to me. Definitely an “honorable” debut novel. A memorable read, indeed!

Check out the book trailer here.

And it’s gotten great reviews from others, too:
-“Call it a sea story, a love story or a war story. By any description, An Honorable German is a thriller. The action is relentless and the characters unforgettable. Charles McCain’s account of life on the high seas is absolutely riveting. As a young naval officer who went to sea for four years fresh out of college, I guarantee it’s 100% authentic.”
John Gersuk, former Lieutenant, USN

_Says Nelson DeMille: An Honorable German is,  “A truly epic and stirring tale of war, love, and the sea.”

-”A first-class tale . . ., crackles with authenticity. I enjoyed it immensely!”—Christopher Reich, New York Times bestselling author of Rules of Vengeance

Here’s the link to Amazon, so you can see the rest of the views, read the synopsis, etc.

1. Everyone has a strong, unique voice.
2. Everyone is born with creative genius.

These affirmations are two of five “essential affirmations” suggested by Pat Schneider, a writing teacher/workshop leader with a unique and affirming approach.** For inspiration and “the guide that will beat the block, banish fear, and help create lasting work,” I highly recommend her book “Writing Alone and with others.”

A writing exercise recommended by her:

Write something that feels too huge, or too dangerous, to tell. Courage is not the special prerogative of those who have experienced some dramatic suffering.

In Japan, Schneider led a workshop and a young woman named C. Misa Sugiura wrote the following:

When I was little, people laughed at me and called me flatface. They pulled their eyes into slits and said, “Me Chinese!” and laughed.

I didn’t know my face was flat so I went home and looked in the mirror to see, but all I saw was my face. It wasn’t flat, was it?

And I wasn’t Chinese, but I looked in the mirror anyway and my eyes looked like eyes. Didn’t they?

So I went to school and said, “I’m Japanese and my face is like yours, isn’t it?

And they said, No. It isn’t! It’s flat like a pancake. Me Japanese pancake-face! And they laughed.

And I went home again and I looked in the mirror and I cried because they were right.

Sugiura attended elementary school in America where she was ridiculed by her classmates. This piece, about personal shame and internalizing the taunts of others as true, is something many of us experience; it can take courage to write something so personal. And yet, hers is not a complaint, instead, as Schneider writes, “Misa reveals the mind of the child: she does not analyze, interpret, or argue. And it works!”

So now, you take a turn writing “something that feels huge, or too dangerous to tell.” Dig deep, be daring. Once you are finished, don’t judge it. Let it stand as is. It’s your voice telling some piece of your own story. If you’d like a comment about what worked or was beautiful or what touched me (no critique, only affirmation of your creative voice), send it to me. If it’s too deeply personal to submit as a blog comment, use my e-mail: herta@starpower.net. Good luck!

An Ode to English Plurals*

We’ll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes,
But the plural of ox becomes oxen, not oxes.
One fowl is a goose, but two are called geese,
Yet the plural of moose should never be meese.
You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice,
Yet the plural of house is houses, not hice.

If the plural of man is always called men,
Why shouldn’t the plural of pan be called pen?
If I speak of my foot and show you my feet,
And I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?
If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth,
Why shouldn’t the plural of booth be called beeth?

Then one may be that, and three would be those,
Yet hat in the plural would never be hose,
And the plural of cat is cats, not cose.
We speak of a brother and also of brethren,
But though we say mother, we never say methren.
Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
But imagine the feminine: she, shis and shim!

Let’s face it – English is a crazy language.
There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger;
neither apple nor pine in pineapple.
English muffins weren’t invented in England.
We take English for granted, but if we explore its paradoxes,
we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square,
and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

And why is it that writers write but fingers don’t fing,
grocers don’t groce and hammers don’t ham?
Doesn’t it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend.
If you have a bunch of odds and ends and
get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?

If teachers taught, why didn’t preachers praught?
If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?
Sometimes I think all the folks who grew up speaking English
should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane.

In what other language do people recite at a play and play at a recital?
We ship by truck but send cargo by ship.
We have noses that run and feet that smell.
We park in a driveway and drive in a parkway.
And how can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same,
while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language
in which your house can burn up as it burns down,
in which you fill in a form by filling it out, and
in which an alarm goes off by going on.

And in closing, if Father is Pop, how come Mother’s not Mop?

*thanks to Dick Morrison, a member of FBB, who forwarded this to language lovers.

How Majestic!

Lesson: Look beneath the surface. Who would have thought that fresh-faced Tiger Woods had such a juicy private life? Not me.

I abhor our obsession with celebrity ogling…following every headline, watching every new snippet, hearing the anchors and reporters examining every facet of every new revelation, and of course the more salacious the better! Right? Well, hate to admit it, but I too am fascinated by this turn of events in the life of Tiger (what a great name!), the world class golfing Wunderkind!

I would never have guessed that our hero Tiger was only human… Big A on your forehead, big guy.

Inquiring minds want to know: One transgression or three? Maybe more? How many pesos are going to his wife? To his lovers? What’s going on behind the curtains of that beleaguered mansion? Wife smashing in the windows of his car with a golf club? Ooh, yes, I would have.

What say you? Are you intrigued? Be honest!

I’m enjoying taking a turn at writing the behind-the-scenes action/dialogue between Tiger and his shapely blond wife! Join me. Write a scene, a bit of dialogue between the two. Make it angry, make it real, make it up! That’s what people do when writing memoir.

Send it in!

In the Sunday Washington Post Outlook section there is an interesting article on memoir by Jonathon Yardley, titled “Shelve them under navel-gazing.” More on that article tomorrow, but you can pretty much deduce his opinion and slant on the topic by the headline. (Definitely worth a read.)

I have written numerous memoir pieces, three of which have been published in literary magazines, and as a result have accumulated some insight into the subject. There are several questions you should pose before getting started:

1)       Why am I writing this? (why are you?)

2)       Should I be writing this? (worried about offending someone?)

3)       Am I a good enough writer?

4)       Will it be published?

I would suggest that if you have a strong need to write about your life, you should. However, if you write a memoir with the primary goal of getting published, you might reconsider. Writing it and getting published are two separate things. The first you have control over, the second far less so, unless you opt to self-publish. You should write for the sake of writing (I know you’ve heard this a zillion times, well maybe not a zillion, but you know what I mean). Let me add that getting short pieces published is far easier than a book length memoir, and this might be a way to begin.

Here’s what renowned author Barbara Kingsolver has to say: “Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. Don’t try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It’s the one and only thing you have to offer.”

And I would add: don’t worry about getting published, that’s beside the point, and will come in due time, if it comes at all.

Let me know why you want to write a memoir and the focus of the piece or book, and I’ll give you a few things to think about.