Category: writer

food, friendship, happiness, writer

Step 341: The Simple Joy of Ramen

Christa Avampato

My friend, Michael, took me to Minca, a ramen restaurant on Friday night. Like so many wonderful traditions from other countries, we have twisted ramen into a cheap, nutritionless, freeze-dried meal encased in plastic on our grocery store shelves. It is the stuff of college student diets. In Japan and other parts of Asia, ramen is a sacred, beautiful, nutritious ritual. I could hardly believe how incredible I felt eating a piping hot bowl with a good friend. It was good for my soul.

Michael learned about Minca from Rameniac, a blogger who espouses his love for the delicious dish. Michael sent me a few links and closed out his email about it with such an elegant, thoughtful commentary: “Rameniac became so well-known after a few years that he started getting picked up by the LA Times. He works as a web developer by day, but because he can work essentially anywhere there is internet, he makes frequent excursions to Japan and a few other locations known for good noodles to gather field research. With cynicism and sensationalism selling so many books and magazines these days, it’s heartening to find someone who can derive so much joy from a bowl of soup.”

I couldn’t agree more. There’s so much beauty in simplicity. Give Rameniac a read, go grab a bowl, and enjoy!

Pictured above: a delicious bowl of ramen at Minca

choices, decision-making, literature, mentor, writer, writing

Step 236: Mentor: A Memoir

Christa Avampato

I went to The Half King (one of the last great New York literary bars) last night to hear the author Tom Grimes talk about his new book Mentor: A Memoir. The book discusses Grime’s relationship with Frank Conroy, his mentor and friend whom he met at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop when Grimes was a graduate student at Iowa. Grimes explained how the book came about from a magazine assignment gone wrong. An editor had asked him to write a piece on Conroy’s work and instead the piece morphed into an exploration of Grime’s mentor relationship with Conroy. While not what the magazine editor asked for, the editor encouraged him to keep going and 8 months later Grimes had a book he never intended to write.

Exceedingly gracious and humble, Grimes also read a passage from the book from his early writing career when he waited tables at a small restaurant in Key West, Florida. He had a several second encounter with Conroy when Conroy spoke on a panel about writing in Key West. Conroy brushed him aside as just another would-be writer wanting admission into Iowa. Because of his rude behavior, Grimes wrote him off until Conroy called him to offer admission and a scholarship to Iowa after Conroy read his application and sample manuscript.

Throughout the talk, Grimes offered advice and encouragement to the audience about publishing, the craft of writing, the struggles that every writer faces in finding their own voice. The advice that sticks with me the most is his most simple and straight-forward: don’t let other people talk you into giving up; only give up when you think you should. It’s good advice for anyone who’s doing something they’re passionate about – their art, a business idea, an education, a community project, even a relationship.

There will also be naysayers, and sometimes those naysayers will be people close to us who care about us and our future. They will tell us how to spend our time, what skills to work on, where to live, go to school, and whom to be with. Ultimately, the only opinion about our lives that really matters is ours because we’re the ones we have to wake up with everyday, no matter what. If you can’t live with yourself and your choices, then it really doesn’t matter if anyone else can. You only get one crack at being you – make sure it’s done on your terms.

The Half King has a great slate of events that happen every Monday night. Check out the schedule and sign up for their email at http://www.thehalfking.com/

failure, rejection, writer, writing

Step 227: Rejection is a Part of the Writing Life

Christa Avampato

I used to keep a file of rejection letters from companies where I applied for jobs. I may have them buried in a sealed box somewhere on the top shelf of my closet. I hope so – some day I want to make sure to go back and read them. Most of them were probably right to reject me. And those rejections didn’t get me down; they just made me work harder and that probably warrants a thank you note to each of them.

As a freelance writer, rejection is part of the path. In the end, I know I’m a better writer for all of the rejections I’ve received (and there have been many.) There’s no getting away from the occasional (or common) ding. A few days ago I received the latest in a long line, though I must admit it did have some interesting insights and a compliment thrown in at the end. It is in response to a piece I wrote on my recent jury duty service where I believe that the defendant was a victim of racial profiling, landing him with an unjust prison sentence. What strikes me as sad about the rejection letter is that the injustice that I discussed in the essay would be considered commonplace (and therefore acceptable) by anyone, most of all an editor of a highly respected publication.

I will post the essay on this blog as tomorrow’s entry because I think it deserves as wide a reach of audience as I can get for it, not for my sake but for the sake of the defendant in the trial. In the mean time, here’s the magazine editor’s response to my submission.

“Christa,

Thanks for the submission. I’m afraid this isn’t a good fit for us, though. Certainly an injustice seems to have occurred, and it seems sensible to lament it. But as lamentable as it is, the story here feels too commonplace to support an essay. That our codes of law have areas of absurdity, and that minority citizens are more vulnerable than privileged ones, are widely recognized facts. The case of Mr. Bond illustrates those facts, but an essay must do more than that to be compelling — whether by means of a counter-intuitive twist, an eccentric voice, or some other mechanism that either delivers us to a destination that’s different than we might have expected, or gets us there by an unexpected route.

You write well and clearly, and I would be more than happy to consider other submissions from you. I just don’t think this is the one for us.

Cordially…”

writer, writing

Step 141: Reasons for Writing

Christa Avampato

“You must trust and believe in people, or life becomes impossible.” ~ Anton Chekhov

I recently landed a freelance writing gig that caused my mind to reel in a very different direction. I will tell you the groovy circumstances of how it happened when the post goes live next week. For now, I’ll share how the conversation I had with the company’s founder started to change my outlook on my writing.

I spend a good deal of time writing about creativity, hope, and personal growth. Sometimes I struggle to sum it all up. I write about my life in New York, ‘Christa in New York’. When I put that down in writing, it sounds awkward to me. Too cliché, too flat.

The company founder I spoke to helped me articulate my writing purpose when he asked me to write about how to stay positive in a big company job with big company challenges. While the post focuses on career, the ideas it explains have broader applications within our lives. This blog really focuses on positive thinking – how to find it, get it, and keep it. Sure, I get discouraged from time to time. In some posts, you will see glimpses of that. Mostly, I write to celebrate and commemorate moments – this act makes the bad times bearable and the good times even more joyful.

Negativity exists in a lot of places, on a lot of faces, and within a lot blogs. Those blogs have their place and their followings, just not here on this site. I believe in full expression and experience, and I also believe that hard times, shortcomings, and failures offer us valuable opportunities to stop, listen, look, and examine our lives. They give us the gifts of faith, trust, and belief that together we can make everything better. I write to connect with people who hold this idea in their hearts and then take it out into the world, bravely and boldly.

blogging, writer, writing

Step 25: Writers Rising

Christa Avampato

I’ve always wanted to be part of a writers circle. When I first moved to New York 11 years ago, my friend, Neil, and I used to meet regularly to talk about our writing. We did okay, though our styles and genres were so different. I was interested in writing novels and essays and he wrote screenplays. At the time he was the only writer I knew, and vice versa, so we made it work. And then he moved to LA, in the era before cell phones were ubiquitous. Away went my writing circle of one.

Since Neil, I’ve considered joining a few other writing groups, though they didn’t have the right vibe. I felt like I was putting in more work than I was getting of value in return, and getting to the meetings was challenging with my schedule. So for several years now, I’ve just been writing on my own. Over the weekend, my friend, Kathy, asked me to join her online writers group, Writers Rising. I read through the site and quickly realized that this was exactly the kind of group I have always wanted to join. I accepted her invitation right away.

I like the easy flow of Writers Rising, the imagery it conjures up, and the variety of material that comes together when a group writes a blog together. I’m excited to get to know these other writers, to lift them up, and share in this wonderful process of creation. One tiny step toward my goal of working more with friends in the coming year. Thanks to my pal, Sharni, for introducing me to this wonderful group.

I just put up my introductory post, Happy to Be Here, on Writers Rising. Hop over and check it out!

books, childhood, Christmas, dreams, gratitude, Randy Pausch, writer, writing

My Year of Hopefulness – Thanks for Making My Childhood Dream Come True

Christa Avampato

Last year I wrote a few posts about Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture. I first watched him give the Last Lecture on YouTube through tear-filled eyes and had to take myself for a long walk 3 months later when I read about his passing. His Last Lecture, devoted entirely to his pursuit of childhood dreams, reminded me of how important our earliest dreams are and how they shape us in adulthood. Randy Pausch reconfirmed my belief that childhood dreams, those daring, bold expressions of our deepest desire before we ever realize we have limitations, are some of the most valuable things we own. We should celebrate them and go for them with gusto, no matter what our age is.

This morning, I watched Lorelei, my two year old niece, open her gifts with wild abandon. She threw her head back and laughed with each one, regardless of how big or small it was. She liked the wrapping paper and boxes as much as the gifts inside. Watching her, I wondered how she would remember our Christmases together when she gets older. I want to do everything possible to make her childhood a blissfully happy period of her life, a time when great dreams were formed inside her beautiful heart.

Children change us, whether those children are our own, in our family, part of our friends’ families, or children we work with in our communities. We rediscover a sense of wonder and magic through their eyes, and Christmas magnifies that wonder. They use that same wonder about the world to formulate the ideas that will become their childhood dreams, and if we spend enough time with them we’ll find that they can help us formulate new dreams, too, while also reminding us of everything we dreamed of as children.

When I made up my list of childhood dreams, one of the big things I wanted to do was to be a published author. I thought that meant convincing a publisher that I was good enough for print. I never imagined there would be free (on-line) tools that would make this dream possible to achieve regardless of whether or not any publisher believed in me. I did spend a good amount of time worrying that no one would ever read what I wrote. In the past two and a half years writing this blog, I realized this incredible childhood dream with your help and support, and I wish I knew how to thank you all enough.

This Christmas, I am deeply grateful to all of you who have come to this blog to read about my journey. Your comments, emails, text messages, conversations, and face-to-face opinions and advice mean more to me than I could ever adequately explain. You made one of the great dreams of my life come true – you made me a writer. I hope you’ll stick with me, and that my writing will continue to be helpful to you. I hope we’ll be able to build some more dreams together. Wishing you a very Merry Christmas, this year and always.
The image above is not my own. It can be found here.
children, literature, writer, writing

My Year of Hopefulness – Where the Wild Things Are (and Were)

Christa Avampato

“One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.” ~ Andre Gide, Nobel laureate in literature

My sister, Weez, and her family are visiting me for a week. My brother-in-law, Kyle, is a painter and given the cold weather we’re having in New York City, this vacation is all about museums. For several weeks, he’s been scouting cultural websites to see what exhibits are currently open. One of the exhibits that caught his interest is at the Morgan Library, and includes original sketches, watercolors, and book notes from Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak. Being avid fans of children’s literature, we stopped in there today to have a look.

I have loved Where the Wild Things Are since I was little. I loved it because of its use of theatre and imagination. Max and his make-believe adventures made me believe that I could travel to distant and strange lands, too. Now as a writer, visiting this exhibit brought a whole new back story to the book. Originally the story was about wild horses, not the Wild Things we have come to know and love. Sendak abandoned the project for many years before completing it. During his first attempt he wrote that the story felt forced so he had to put it aside for now. He kept returning to it again and again to see if the story might flow more easily on another attempt. Eventually, he found an open door. My favorite margin note is “focus on Max.” Despite his mastery of storytelling, he had to deal with all of the same anxieties so many other writers deal with: not knowing what comes next, starting a story, dropping it, and picking it back up again at a more suitable time, and the feeling that his focus was sometimes a bit off.

As much as I love Sendak’s writing, his thoughts on his writing were even more interesting to me. The exhibit reaffirmed for me that writing is a physical workout in many respects. It’s something that must be practiced consistently, even when the writing doesn’t come easily. There will be periods of frustration when the words just don’t flow the way we’d like them to and that’s okay. Focus and commitment is something we must continually strive for, and some times we will need to write ourselves a prescription for them, a reminder of what’s really important. And that’s okay, too.

It’s so easy to think that genius in any form belongs to the few, the gifted. Realizing that people whom I admire so much, such as Sendak, are just ordinary people like me reminds me that there is a little genius in all of us. Within everyone’s imaginations, there is a brilliant story, our own Where the Wild Things Are, that is brewing. The land of the Wild Things is always right here beside us. To get it down, we just need to commit to showing up at our computers or at our notebooks with a wide open heart, a good set of ears, and an abundance of patience and determination in equal amounts.

The image above is an illustration by Sendak from Where the Wild Things Are

art, free, museum, nature, writer, writing

My Year of Hopefulness – The Life We Receive Without Asking

Christa Avampato

“Our plans are nothing compared to what the world so willingly gives us.” ~ Margaret Wheatley

“Never tell everything at once.” ~ Ken Venturi, American former professional golfer

On Saturday evening, I headed across Central Park toward the Metropolitan Museum of Art. As I crossed the park, I passed between the southern border of the Great Lawn and Belvedere Castle. It’s one of my favorite little pieces of New York City. There’s some sort of happy air that exists in that little triangle; it’s impossible to resist smiling there. I always feel romance and unending possibility as I traverse that ground. It was late afternoon so the sun was just streaming over Belvedere, the clover and honeysuckle filled the air with a perfume that I wish could be bottled, and there was a soft breeze. For those few moments, everything felt perfect.

On Friday and Saturday nights the Met is open until 9:00pm so I wanted to take advantage of the extended hours. I checked in on my friends Vermeer and Rodin, stopped by to visit the empires of Northern Mesopotamia, and spent some time among the folk artists of Oceania. It’s almost inconceivable how lucky we are to be able to walk among so many priceless pieces of art at a moment’s notice.

At the Met I was on a little bit of a mission. I’ve been working on some children’s fiction over the last few weeks. Every day that I sit with my characters, they tell me something new about themselves. In a way, creating characters is like getting to know a new friend. I uncover little pieces about them over time, just by sitting with them and letting them tell me their story. Every day I’m reminded of Julia Cameron’s book The Artist’s Way, when she says “Art is not about thinking something up. It is the opposite — getting something down.” While I have a general map for the story, the characters themselves are just letting me tag along on their journey. The characters themselves will provide a far richer, more intriguing story than I could ever plan. That’s the great joy and magic of writing.

As I was wondering through the Greek and Roman Galleries, the art of Cyprus, and the rooms full of knights in shining armor, a lot of ideas were drifting in and out of my mind. I dutifully wrote them all down – bits of dialogue and thoughts and twists and turns in the plot. After recording them all, I stopped to wonder if they made sense. And then I realized the characters I’m writing about can actually do anything they want. Writing fiction is a little daunting for this very reason – all of a sudden the possibilities are wide-open. When you’re just getting something down, there are no more limitations. Writing fiction may present our one and only opportunity for complete and total freedom.

While I went through Central Park and to the Met to accomplish something specific, I found something far greater in both places than I had intended. These experiences reminded me that the world has great plans for us, far greater plans that we have for ourselves. And while not having control may at first seem frightening, in many ways it’s as freeing as writing fiction. Unexpected, incredible circumstances, people, places, and opportunities are going to appear in our lives through no effort of our own. All we need to do to receive them is to show up with an open heart, an accepting mind, and the willingness to listen. If we can do this, the magic that is all around us becomes an unlimited and constant presence in our lives.

apartment, home, peace, writer, writing

My Year of Hopefulness – Writing Peace

Christa Avampato

“We cast a shadow on something wherever we stand. Choose a place…and stand in it for all you are worth, facing the sunshine.” ~E.M.

Forester, A Room with a View Yesterday I read a post on Theatre Folk that talks about how the physical place where a writer is located effects the quality of the writing. So often, we think writing is some elusive, muse-like magic that just shows up when it’s good and ready. I’m still waiting for my muse to walk through the door, so I figured that while I’m waiting I should follow the advice of E.M. Forester and hang out in the sunshine.

Right now as I’m writing this post, sunshine is streaming through my living room window, dappling the keyboard. My apartment faces into the courtyard (which sounds lavish, but I can assure you it’s not) so I can see the goings on of all my neighbors if they’re at their windows. This also means I avoid a great majority of the street noise, though because I’m on a higher floor, I also get the sunlight. It’s a win-win for me and my writing. There are some trees and butterflies outside right now. The blue sky is swirled with clouds and the breeze in gently blowing. It’s a peaceful kind of place.

By my desk I keep three things taped to the wall. One is a card with the quote from Thomas Jefferson, “The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.” The art of brevity and good editing. The second is a card that has my 2009 to-do list. I wrote it up in December of 2008 and so far, I’m doing pretty well. I’m actually on track to complete all 10 by the end of the year. They are things I am really interested in, and just needed to dedicate the time to them. For example, I wanted to cook more, get a new apartment, and expand the reach of my writing. Done, done, and done. The third thing is a card with a simple quote by John F. Kennedy: “Peace is a daily, a weekly, a monthly process.”

I used to think that peace was a destination. An achievement. Since I was a teenager, I made one simple wish on birthdays, when I’d see the first star at night, whenever I’d blow an eyelash from my fingertip. I just wanted to feel at peace. Sounds like such an easy thing to have. Just stop worrying and feeling anxious and scared and stressed, right? Right. And all of that was very hard for me. Much harder than I wanted it to be so in addition to feeling all of these things I also felt frustrated. Where was that damn peace of mind hiding?

Now I know that peace wasn’t hiding at all. In order to access it, I had to go out into the world and live. Peace doesn’t have a permanent place at all. It’s an active, living, breathing way of life that moves with us, within us. It’s accessible at any and every moment. And just because we feel it at this moment, doesn’t mean it will be readily apparent the next. It is a state of mind that we must continually commit to, and share with others. And eventually, it just becomes a part of us. We will, with time, patience, and practice, be a living vessel for peace, and I hope my writing takes on that form as well. Though to tell you the truth, sunshine on my keyboard certainly helps.

The photo above is the view from my desk in my living room, where I do most of my writing. If you look closely you can see my reflection in the bottom left corner, snapping the photo.

career, writer, writing

My Year of Hopefulness – Our Defining Value

Christa Avampato

“You could argue that every profession has its defining value. For carpenters, it might be accuracy: a carpenter who isn’t accurate shouldn’t be a carpenter. For diplomats, it might be loyalty: they can lie and spy and cheat and pull all sorts of dirty tricks, and as long as they are loyal to their government, they are doing their job. For journalists, the defining value is honesty–the attempt to tell the truth. That is our primary purpose. All that we do–all that is said about us–must flow from the single source of truth-telling.” ~ Nick Davies in Flat Earth News

My friend, Jamie, sent this quote to me today. His professor, Andy Gelman, posted it on his blog. It got me thinking about how this applies not only to professions, but to our lives in general and who we are, what we stand for. Many people are defined by their jobs. One side effect of this tough economy is that many people who have lost their jobs (and in some cases lost their entire industry) are being forced to reconsider who they are when their jobs are peeled away.

When I was a kid, I loved Mr. Rogers. My favorite part of the show was the very beginning when he would come into his house, take off his dress shoes, and put on his sneakers – signaling that he had left the outside world and his job behind. The fun was about to begin the moment he put on his sneakers.

I live this kind of life, too. The moment I leave my office and hop onto the subway to zip home, I take off my work title and become a writer – exactly what I am at my core. I write almost every day and collect quotes, magazine articles, books, and experiences that all get rolled into my material. They are the stories and activities that comprise my life. And my one truth that I’m living is to be helpful – to write something that makes a difference, that gives someone some inspiration, gets them through the day with a little wider smile and a little more hope for tomorrow.