You need to be alive in order to make stuff

I wrote a post about writers and depression over at Babble. Here's an excerpt:

There has long been this notion that in order to be a writer or artist, you should also be an emotional car wreck. That–whether you struggle with addiction, depression, anxiety, psychosis, or a heady mélange of all of the above–your demons are somehow part and parcel of your identity as an Artist. With this in mind, too many talented writers and artists have gone and drank themselves to death or allowed their illnesses free reign, because it was more important to serve the Muse than live a rich, full, happy life, and there was certainly no way to do both.

This is a steaming pile of horseshit.

Come on over and tell me what you think, won't you? Thank you, I love you, more soon when I'm done wrapping these eleventy billion gifts.

I have a new blog!

I'm so excited about this one. When Catherine asked me to contribute something to this new thing at Babble she was doing, my first inclination was to decline, because I'm sort of done writing about parenting. I mean, I'm still going to talk about being a parent, but the "look at this cute thing my kid said" material is no longer mine to share. My last gig, they wanted me to do that and pretty much nothing but that, and I just--I can't, anymore. My son is almost 9 and he (rightly) wants his privacy. So there it is. Besides, what little we decide that I can share with you, I'm going to save for Finslippy. Finding anything to share with another parenting site would be challenging, to say the least.

But then we talked, and it turned out she didn't need me to share cute relatable Henry stories, after all. I could write about anything. I knew that I wanted to talk about writing, and fear. The fear that keeps us from doing the writing that (many of us) need to do to stay sane. I think about this stuff all the time, I've covered it before on this blog, Eden and I did a panel on the topic for the Mom 2.0 conference, and I still have things to say. So why not make it the subject of my blog?

So here it is. Write Anyway, my new blog, part of Babble Voices.  I'll be writing once a week, and I already have these two posts up: Who do I think I am?  and Why "Write anyway"? I hope you'll take a look.

Update on August 21, 2011 by Alice

Hello again! To those of you who have asked for information on the RSS feed, the URL is this:

http://blogs.babble.com/babble-voices/alice-bradley-write-anyway/feed/

Thanks, and I'm so glad you're as excited as I am!

It's here!

Our book is out in the world, as of yesterday. Our baby! Be gentle with it, friends and strangers!

I'm overwhelmed by all the positive feedback we've received so far. First of all, check out the glowing review in Kirkus Reviews. If there was one review I was anticipating with teensy morsel of dread, it was Kirkus. They don't pull any punches over there. And with humor, who knows? We could have caught a reviewer on a bad day. I've already written every scathing review in my mind. I could have handed one over for them to publish. But they liked it! They really liked it!

As nice as that was, it's the congratulations and kind words from fellow bloggers and Twitter friends that really mean a lot to both of us. Here's a rundown of some of the nice mentions we've received so far, and I'm sure I'm leaving someone out, so please forgive me, whoever you are, and know that this is just because I've had three cups of coffee and if you were to peer inside my brain you'd see a chipmunk riding a little stationery bike that's hooked up to a motor that's powering an electronic monkey playing a harpsichord. It's amazing I managed to dress myself this morning, much less string words together all sensible-like.

Maggie at Mighty Girl
Melissa at Suburban Bliss
Zan at A Cup of Tea and a Wheat Penny
Angela at Fluid Pudding
Angella at Dutch Blitz
Mir at Want Not
Megan at Not Martha
Amber at The Amber Show
Danielle at Knotty Yarn
Aimee at Greeblemonkey
Roxana at Everyday Treats
Liz and Kristen at Cool Mom Picks

And I didn't even list all of our tireless cheerleaders on Twitter and Facebook. I can't thank you all enough.

A bunch of the above bloggers are hosting giveaways (I believe Megan even has a gift basket to give away!), and I encourage you to visit their sites, but between you (my beloved reader) and me, if I had my heart's desire, all of you would buy a copy. Today, if possible. We want to generate as much excitement and buzz for the book as we can, and nothing raises the heart rates of our publisher like healthy initial sales.

I won't try to give you the hard sell, here, but I do want to say that this is a humor book, not a pregnancy or parenting guide, and therefore is appropriate for any adult with an appreciation of our kind of humor. It's great for a shower gift, but it's not only for pregnant women. No more so than the Daily Show would only be appropriate for pundits to watch.

The list price is $14.99, and it's available for much less at several sites. Where can you buy it, you may ask? Why, here! And here! And also here! And don't forget here! (The destination for that first link, incidentally, is selling our book at half the list price. I am just saying. For informational purposes.)

I'll be updating this site with more information, including our upcoming tour dates, very soon. (And I will also be updating it with non-book things, when my life resumes something approaching normalcy. Or, at least, you know, what it was.)

Writing more in less time

Thanks to Windows Phone 7 for sponsoring this post. See the end of the post for details on a Windows Phone 7 giveaway.

Windows asked me to write about doing more with less, so last night I decided that instead of making chocolate chip cookies, I'd simply shovel chocolate chips in my mouth. That's less, after all. That didn't quite satisfy, however, even after I let the chips sit in there for a while and melt. I considered adding some butter, but that seemed like too much work, frankly.

Then I realized I really like peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies so I shoveled some peanut butter in my maw as well. And what do you know? That was better than some stupid cookies. Better = MORE!

A quiet voice in the back of my sugar-addled mind told me that I was possibly not quite getting the concept of doing more with less, so I stopped to consider how the concept applied to my life. Then I fell asleep. But this morning I woke up, as one does, and my first thought was, "I have a half-hour to write this post." My second thought was, "Thank GOD." Because a small window of time is the only way I can get any writing done. And I do believe that's doing more with less, Windows! BLAMMO!

There is nothing that will murder any chance of productivity for me like waking up to an obligation-free, unscheduled day. Henry's going straight to a playdate after school and won't be home until 6, I have a slow work week, and I'm out of errands to run? Well, I tell myself, that means I have hours in which to consort with the muse, obviously! I'll sit down at my computer and oh, the places my mind will go! I have all the time in the world to write the best blog post ever written. No--five of the best blog posts ever written. Or I'll finally finish that novel I began in 1996. Hell, I can do all of these things. I have all the time in the world!

But when I sit down at my computer with all that emptiness stretching ahead of me, panic sets in. That's a lot of time. I need to get a lot done, in that much time. And it better be good, too, because I have no reason to phone it in. I have time. Time means quality. If I write something terrible, that means I'm a terrible writer. Crap. I'm hungry.

So I decide to make breakfast. And since I have all these hours ahead of me, I have time to make myself a real breakfast. No need for a bowl of cereal, like some rushed breakfast-eating chump. But before I do that, I should check Twitter and see what's going on. Oh, look, someone linked to a funny video! Thank goodness I have time to watch it, as I have so very much time. And look, there are all these related, also funny videos! I never noticed how many videos there are of kitty cats flushing toilets. Those are always fun. I normally don't have time to watch those, as I'm rushing about.

Then I look up and it's eight hours later and Henry is home from his playdate and I'm still in my bathrobe.

I am convinced, after all these years, that the two most useful tools in my writing arsenal are: 1) limited time and 2) low expectations. If I have four hours to write, I will expect greatness, or at least quality, and my chattering brain will be consumed with what "quality" means and whether or not I'm approaching it, and as a result I'll avoid work. I'll dawdle and daydream and check my email like it's the only thing keeping me alive. If I have an hour, however, I don't have time for these shenanigans. I have to focus. If I have a half-hour, my fingers better keep moving around that keyboard and words had better be appearing on screen, or I'm screwed.

Even when I have only fifteen minutes, I can get some quality work done. If I can sit down and still the endless chatter in my brain, when those fifteen minutes are up, I find that I've made more progress on a project than I had all week. Because I don't expect much from fifteen minutes. All I expect is a few paragraphs, and maybe to have gained some momentum. And sometimes that's all I need.

So hey, if you want a Windows Phone 7 of your very own, you can win one right here! To enter, leave a comment of 25 words or more about how you do more when you have less time. You've got until November 29 (midnight PT) and you can enter once a day. On the 29th, I'll pick a winner using random.org and post it here. Here are the official, long-winded rules about this contest.