Kristin Bair O'Keeffe: Writer. Mom. Teacher. Traveler.

THIRSTY & Self-Promotion at the Shanghai International Literary Festival (ssshhh, secret revealed)

Last Saturday, March 7, I did a session at the Shanghai International Literary Festival about self-promotion and social networking for authors. It was a full house; I had a blast yakking about all the ways there are for writers to connect, share their work, learn about others' work, and open their writing worlds; and since the 7th, two audience members have friended me on Facebook and two others have made their maiden voyages on Twitter.

Success. People got it. Took my words to heart and reached out.

Now for the secret...one of the things I admitted during my session is that I've got a love/hate relationship with all this social networking and self-promotion stuff. 75% of the time, I love reaching out...chatting with readers and writers all over the world...sharing links to pertinent info (and links to irrelevant but fun info as well), and talking books. 25% of the time, I just want to be left alone in my 23rd floor apartment in Shanghai to write. I want to say, "Sssssshhhhh, I'm in writerhead" (or when I feel REALLY sick of it all, "PISS OFF!")...and then, yep, quietly face the page...alone.

Of course, I'm hesitant to admit this love/hate relationship out loud. We're really not supposed to. I'm pretty sure that's in a rule book somewhere.

But I've always hated rule books. And other people's rules. So there, I've said it. Out loud. Most of the time I love reaching out, but sometimes I hate it. Sometimes I feel completely smothered by all the contact.

What's the answer?

A small hut in Borneo? With no electricity and no Internet? 

Mmmmm, a lovely idea, but a tad unrealistic. (Besides...I know me. I'd get lonely and start saying things like, "Wow, I wish I could Twitter.")

So I've decided that balance is a more viable answer. I'm learning (slowly) how to manage my time on Twitter, Facebook, my blog, and the blogs of others. And I'm writing my own rulebook. Here's what I've got so far:

Rule #1: Admit when I'm burnt out & in need of a break.

Rule #2: When Rule #1 moves into play, take needed break (preferably before breakdown...break should not be ).

Rule #3: Do not turn on Internet when writing creative stuff--novel, memoir, etc.

Rule #4: Do not turn on Internet when writing creative stuff--novel, memoir, etc. (Some rules are worth repeating.)

Rule #5: Before shutting down at night, I must close all but seven tabs on Firefox (my blog, the THIRSTY website, Facebook, Twitter, Typepad, Constant Contact, and Google Reader). No more of this keeping 30 tabs open. Too much browsing. Too much reading. Too much, too much, too much.

Rule #6: Take 1 weekend day off every week. Completely. No work. No writing. No Tweeting. No Facebooking. In fact, except on special occasions, don't even turn on the computer. (This will be hard for me.)

So that's where I am. How about you and your relationship with all this stuff? Love? Hate? Some combo? And how do you manage it all? (suggestions welcome)

Shanghai International Literary Festival: Shameless Self-Promotion

Tomorrow (Sunday, March 7, 12:00) I'm giving a talk at the Shanghai International Literary Festival. If you're in Shanghai, come on down to M on the Bund...where all the cool, hip, smart, in-the-know readers/writers are hanging out.

Details?

Here ya go:

“Hi, My Name Is___”: Shameless Self-Promotion & The Art of Social Networking for Authors

Sunday, March 7 (12:00 - 1:00)

It used to be that an author could write a book, publish it, and then draw her curtains while a publicist promoted it to the reading world. Not so anymore. Today when an author gets a book contract, a publisher asks: Do you Twitter? Are you on Facebook? Do you have a newsletter? A website? A blog? How many hits do you get a month? And more. (Translation: How are you going to promote your book?) Come along for the ride as debut novelist & seasoned social media dame Kristin Bair O’Keeffe (Thirsty, Swallow Press, 2009) explores the art of shameless self-promotion and social networking…and shows you just how much fun it can be.

A Writer's Vacation: Can You Disconnect?

For the last eight days, I was in Borneo...breathing in this:

And sinking into that:

And taking in lots of this, too:

Now keep in mind that for weeks before we left Shanghai, I'd planned to work during our vacation. I'd planned to Tweet, Facebook, blog, continue to connect, and yep, even get some work done on the session I'm doing at the Shanghai Literary Festival this weekend.

But, alas, I forgot to take my travel adapter along, and believe it or not, the resort did not have an adapter that fit the three-pronged plug of my computer cord.

The result? I couldn't work.

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT??????????

Nope, I couldn't work.

This was, at first, panic-inducing. "What do you mean I can't work? I have to work." My stomach coiled up in knots.

But after a few days of this:

 

And that:

I realized how much I needed NOT to work. Since the launch of THIRSTY back in October, I've been moving at lightning speed. Brain in overdrive. Body in overdrive. Soul in overdrive.

I needed to disconnect, and I'm pretty sure the great gods of travel adapters knew this and conspired to leave me, truly, wireless.

What happened?

I quieted down inside. That idgy feeling in my belly of "I'm not doing enough to get the word out about THIRSTY" and "How do I get THIRSTY to more readers?" went away. I relaxed. I chilled out. I played. I got centered.

And then?

The same thing that always happens when I allow myself some breathing room happened: I started to write in my head.

Tra-la-la. I was writing in my head. Waking from gorgeous, wacky, wonderful dreams with full sentences and scenes. Staring at the ocean and learning something new about the characters in my second novel.

It was glorious.

Now that I'm back in Shanghai, I'm trying to hold onto that feeling. That tra-la-la-ing. And the wisdom of knowing that I when I push a little less, more happens.

Flow.

Women Rock Wednesday: Sara Teasdale (American Poet)

When I was young--really young, like 11 or 12--I discovered a volume of Sara Teasdale's poetry at the Bethel Park Public Library. Gosh, I loved those poems...so much that I read them over and over and over again. Out loud, to myself, to the tree in the backyard, to my best friend. I even copied them by hand in my journal.

Teasdale was this cool woman & amazing poet who wrote all about love and longing, romance, kissing and moons, being misunderstood, girlhood, womanhood...all the right stuff for a middle-school girl hitting puberty.

At that point in my life, I already knew I was a writer so for a while Teasdale served as a guide, a guru, but mostly she was the first female poet I'd heard of who wasn't Emily Dickinson (though I loved her, too). I needed her...a woman poet who wasn't afraid to express herself.

"Feel!" she shouted in her quiet, 19th-century way.

One of my favorites?

Here ya go...

Advice to a Girl

No one worth possessing
Can be quite possessed;
Lay that on your heart,
My young angry dear;
This truth, this hard and precious stone,
Lay it on your hot cheek,
Let it hide your tear.
Hold it like a crystal
When you are alone
And gaze in the depths of the icy stone.
Long, look long and you will be blessed:
No one worth possessing
Can be quite possessed.

Project Kindle, Post #6 (The FINAL Episode)

This...is...it. 

Do I love my Kindle? Can I read books on my Kindle?

Watch and see.

Women Rock Wednesday: Kathryn Stockett, Author of "THE HELP" (Have you read it?)

This week, author Kathryn Stockett rocks my Wednesday.

According to my Kindle, I'm 29% of the way through Stockett's first novel THE HELP. Yes, yes, I know it's dangerous to tout a novel too loudly before being 100% of the way through, but even if the rest of THE HELP turns out to be the worst drivel ever written (and of course, it wont'),this book deserves to be touted.

Kathryn Stockett has wowed me...with a story that winds tighter and tighter the further I read, with three female characters who make me cringe and laugh out loud at the same time, and with language and images that stick with me.

Listen to this...

"The houses all be small, but every front yard's different--some scrubby and grassless like a baldheaded old man." (Kindle location 363-64)

"There are ten rooms downstairs and one with a stuffed grizzly bear that looks like it ate up the last maid and is biding for the next one." (Kindle location 679-80)

"If I'd played Mammy [in "Gone With the Wind"], I'd of told Scarlet to stick those green draperies up her white little pooper." (Kindle location 1022-23)

See what I mean? I'm laughing out loud all over again just typing up the quotes.

Have you read THE HELP? What do you think?

Travel Tuesday: Writing the Far-Flung Life (Me + New Place = ?)

Okay, all you far-flung writers, need a jumping off point for a new essay? Here goes:

When you:

• are transplanted in a new country
• are launched out of your comfort zone
• are separated from those you love by expansive oceans and thousands of miles
• are incapable of communicating with those around you because you don't speak the language
• spend minutes/hours/days pantomiming even the simplest nouns (and feel like a cross between an intrepid explorer and a complete ass every time you do it)
• struggle to interpret new cultural cues

you inevitably ask the question...

Me + (New Place) = ?

You can't help it. It's human nature. We're driven to define ourselves in relation to our surroundings. Especially those of us who are writers.

The first time I asked myself this question was back in October 2006, about six months after I'd moved from the United States to Shanghai, China. I was back in the U.S. on my first trip home and was feeling completely overwhelmed by the number of choices I faced in the cereal aisle at the grocery store and a number of other things. I wrote about it here (at my old blog).

Since then, I've mulled over this very question again and again...verbally and in my head...but I haven't yet (re-)tackled it on the page. It's time...I feel it coming. The distillation of who I am in China.

And you? Have you tackled this question in your writing?

Me + (New Place) = ?

If not, give it a shot. It has all the makings of a great essay.

If so, what was your answer?

Project Kindle, Post #5 (...Ah, Competition)

Can a writer/book lover read books on a Kindle...and enjoy it? That's what I'm trying to figure out. Every Friday, I post a vlog (video blog) right here about my Kindle experiences during the week.

This week?

Note-taking on the Kindle, and of course...the new competition. Enter...iPad.

Women Rock Wednesday: Eve Ensler (Who's Your Hero?)

Eve Ensler makes me stand up & cheer.

Do you know her? Of her?

She's this amazingly energetic, creative force who advocates all over the world for an end to violence against women & girls. She's a visionary who empowers other people with her actions, choices, and relentless campaigning. She says the word vagina (out loud! in public! on tv!) without flinching. She says the word cunt as if it's not poisonous. Didn't I tell you? This woman kicks ass!

(See what I mean? Standing up and cheering already...let me continue.)

Ensler is the brilliant playwright who wrote and created THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES, this crazily honest, heartbreaking, make-you-wince-and-laugh-out-loud-at-the-same-time play about women's sexuality. (If you haven't seen it / heard of it / read it, check your local listings for an upcoming performance; it's performed every year between February 1 and April 1 in communities all over the world.)

Here's a peek at Eve & glamorous pals getting ready for the 10th anniversary performance of THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES. One of the things I love is that although Ensler's life is so wrapped up in dealing with violence against women & girls, she is bubbly and light. Yes, she can be sharp, direct, and serious, but she isn't swallowed by the sadness she encounters. Instead she counters it (and all the forces that create & support it) with her unflagging determination and belief in all things woman. Watch...you'll see what I mean.

I could go on and on about Ensler (and here's one more link for you), but instead I want to know, What woman makes you stand up and cheer? Why?

* * *

*Ensler's new book I Am an Emotional Creature: The Secret Life of Girls Around the World will be released on February 9, 2010. It's a collection of over 30 fictional monologues of girls all over the world (including a Masai girl from Kenya unwilling to endure female genital mutilation; a Bulgarian sex slave, no more than fifteen, a Chinese factory worker making Barbies).

Project Kindle, Post #4 (...Getting Dangerously Close to Love)

Wow...I didn't know I could do THAT with my Kindle!!!! Watch out...I'm dangerously close to falling in love.