Today’s advice for us writers comes from an author interview right here at Rust Belt Girl:
The most obvious—but truest—advice is to read and write all the time.
–David Giffels, award-winning Ohio author of several books including his latest memoir, released Jan. 2, Furnishing Eternity.
Happy 2018! In honor of the new year, I’m beginning a new category here at Rust Belt Girl, “writerly advice.” Some entries will be not-so-sage advice offered by me (my days teaching English 101 should have taught me something!); some entries will feature advice from the experts. All will give me–and hopefully you, too–a little motivation to keep up fighting the good fight (i.e. writing the good write).
Today’s advice:
Show, with deftly-inserted bits of “tell.”
–Rebecca (Rust Belt writer)
Who doesn’t love a “Top” list?
Top 3. Top 10. Top 100. We attach ourselves to the superlative and feel tops–if only for a moment. And that almighty numeral: even an English major gets to feel like a statistician.
So, without further ado…
A Rust Belt Girl Top 3 (according to you)
with related recommended viewing for the new year:
Number 3: A blog is born, my first-ever post, covered my rationale for starting this blog. (Among my reasons: an online search for “female and Rust Belt” turned up rust-colored ladies’ belts for sale by JCPenny.) For those of you who made it to post two, thank you!
Number 2: Life in Lima and more–from Intensity Without Mastery’s Michelle Cole (along with the second installment) featured a collaboration with the photographer and blogger with an honest eye for life and art in the Rust Belt. (Bonus points for pronouncing “Lima” correctly!) Look for more collaborations in the blogosphere in 2018.
(And, drum roll, please…)
Number 1: The big kahuna, the winner of the most views goes to my Interview with award-winning Akron, Ohio, author and journalist David Giffels, who answered all of my pressing questions about his books–including Furnishing Eternity coming out January 2–along with his teaching, his hometown, and even Lebron. Be on the lookout for another conversation right here with David on his latest memoir early in the new year.
Until then, may your days be merry and bright and your New Year’s celebrations be tops…
Happy 2018!
~ Rebecca
“On the fifth day of Christmas, my true self gave to me…one healthy kick in the pants.”
Is that right? Are we already on the fifth day? I’m still languishing in a sugar cookie stupor. Still digging out from leftover potatoes au gratin. Still trying to convince my family of the legitimacy of stale crackers and cheese rinds as a basic food group.
Sure, I will disconnect the sugar IV, menu plan, and get back to the proper care and feeding of my brood. I might even exercise. I will resolve! But it’ll probably be next month–which is next year.
In the meandering meantime, I will look back on the 2017 fun we’ve had here at Rust Belt Girl, you and me, thanks to inspiration from my native Rust Belt and its storytellers keeping it real.
Sing along to the tune of “The Twelve Days of Christmas” if you like.
In my first month of blogging, my Rust Belt gave to me
a blog borne from necessity (I didn’t say the cadence would be right)
Dreaming of sand and surf–on the Great Lakes. Where else? Doesn’t this look fun?
I never win.
Raffles, bingo, coin flips–the universe generally tilts away from me.
So, I was surprised and honored to be nominated by Riya at High Noon Journal earlier this month for the Blogger Recognition Award!
Riya is a fairly new blogger charting the course of her life as a twenty-something. I admire her for detailing her journey as a young woman, currently living in China, far from her native India. Riya talks about her upbringing, what spirituality means to her, how to live a good life, and just what good luck is. With luck, we will be seeing much more from her in the coming year.
For my part, I feel lucky that Riya stumbled upon my blog. Thank you, Riya! Read more
I was sixteen before I knew a dad who didn’t drive a pickup truck.
Of course, this speaks as much to my limited teenage powers of observation as it does to my rural Ohio upbringing. Still…
My dad’s life was–and is–in his truck. A dad without a truck? How else would one: haul his 84 Lumber finds to turn the attic into proper living quarters; bring home fresh-split logs–and the log-splitter–to stoke the wood stove in winter; tow a rotted shell of a boat to be restored from the ribs up–in the workshop designed and built yourself?
In my eyes, my dad was the original DIY-er, before that catchy name was put to skillful industriousness, craftsmanship, and thrift.
As such…reading award-winning Akron, Ohio, author David Giffels’ memoir All the Way Home: Building a Family in a Falling-Down House felt like going home. Cursory jacket copy summary:
With their infant son in tow, David Giffels and his wife comb the environs of Akron, Ohio, in search of just the right house for their burgeoning family…until they spot a beautiful, decaying Gilded Age mansion. A former rubber industry executive’s domain, the once grand residence lacks functional plumbing and electricity, leaks rain like a cartoon shack, and is infested with all manner of wildlife. But for a young man at a coming-of-age crossroads–“suspended between a perpetual youth and an inevitable adulthood”–the challenge is exactly the allure.
The tried-and-true tropes of female coming-of-age couldn’t be more different than those Giffels explores in this man vs. house tale. But in the reading of this heartfelt and oftentimes harrowing (as in Giffels hanging upside down out a second-story window to paint exterior trim) memoir, I completely understood his feeling compelled–even obsessed–to DIY.
Even if you’ve never been there, you’ve heard enough to know the American Midwest isn’t sexy. I’m hardly the first Midwest native to admit to being from a Regular ‘Ol American Place.
The Midwest is “flyover country”–its detractors call it–between the glittering East Coast and shining West Coast. Yep, no matter how many Northeast Ohio boosters try, most of the U.S. will never be convinced of the beauty that is the “North Coast.” And that’s okay.
But…the insult that really stings: “Ohio is flat.”
It stings–not just because it’s a blanket generalization and untrue of my rolling Ohio hometown. (In fact, it stings more than memories of the same thing being said about my 6th grade chest–and that stung.)
It stings because flat is sameness. And don’t we (even States–if States had egos) want to feel special, unique, memorable: the opposite of same, boring, forgettable?
I am more than a home state booster; I’m a home state narcissist. You see, I picked up Jo Ann Beard’s novel, IN ZANESVILLE (pub. 2011), thinking it was set in Zanesville, Ohio.
It’s not. It’s set in Zanesville, Illinois, which, I sheepishly admit, is pretty much the same. In fact, it’s the sameness, the universality of the experiences of the novel’s fourteen-year-old narrator, that makes this novel so special–and yet relate-able to any reader who is or was ever a girl. And that’s about half the world. Read more
By Frank Bures Photo by Garrett MacLean When Richard Florida’s new book came out earlier this year, I saw some of the reviews and was intrigued. It was called The New Urban Crisis: How Our Cities Are Increasing Inequality, Deepening Segregation, and Failing the Middle Class — and What We Can Do About It. I…
Rust Belt Girl here with regret that I can’t devote more time to a proper post. However, this article from Belt Mag got me thinking…and regretting.
I regret that I’m not more of a real do-er, a maker of things–vital things. I’m the daughter of a (retired) draftsman, whose structural engineering projects studded (or, rather, supported) the built Cleveland landscape of the 70s, 80s, and 90s. Buildings didn’t fall down around us like so many toppled snowmen–because of my dad. My brother is an accomplished marine engineer who designs hulking I-don’t-know-whats–ferries, yes, ferries, among other projects necessary for human progress. My (oh so young) sister works at the same engineering firm, and while she doesn’t design and build, herself, she knows the field, trods the landscape in steel-toed boots, and has mastered the language. That girl can talk “longshoreman” with the best of them.
I talk about…mostly…talk. I am a member of the Creative Class (or creative class).
I am a purveyor–sometimes even a perverter–of words. Marketing and communications work doesn’t feel so much like doing, perhaps because I enjoy it. But it’s also far removed from the making of things–like buildings or boats. I conduct a lot of interviews for my job; I learn about students inventing new kinds of batteries and solar cells–the technology of tomorrow–and I compile the ideas, synthesize, organize. And, yes, sometimes I create…a line or phrase or word that feels new.
But mostly, I work in an infrastructure of words that relies on a real infrastructure–of made things.
So, New Year’s resolution time: my work won’t change, and I don’t have engineering chops. But, I can do more than report. This year I do more do-ing–at least on my own time.
I start with my village, which sits on a river and creeks that are being choked by some invasive species I can’t name (because I haven’t conducted that interview yet). This spring, I will don boots and tromp in the muck. I will test the murky water. I will pick up trash.
Yes, creating is important. But, I think it’s clear the creative class can’t solve all our cities’ problems. I will still write, building worlds from my mind and the doings of others. But I will do, too.
How about you? (Dr. Seuss rhyming moment, sorry!)
Have a resolution to share?
Rust Belt Girl here, reblogging this wonderful essay that tries to answer the question: What does it mean to be a Midwesterner? Hope you enjoy it as much as I did. ~ Rebecca
Some places have easy-to-describe landscapes: Southeastern California is hot and dry. Southern Mississippi is swampy and green. Culture is something else, though — even though the Midwest’s flatness seems to define it, people mistakenly conflate its geography with its culture, which eludes easy description.
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