New Address!

First off, thanks so much to all of you who have followed and supported Write Present. If you'd like to continue in my blog-o-sphere, please visit my updated site:

August McLaughlin's Blog

I look forward to sharing and connecting with you soon!

All my best,

August

Pretty Songs and Dresses

I had an experience yesterday that drew me back to high school. (Yep, one of those...) After opening night of the fall musical, during which I made a wrong dance move and twirled myself off stage, a friend rushed up to me and the rest of the cast. “Oh my god. You were awesome!” she said to a fellow cast member. “And, um, wow... You...looked cool in your costume,” she said to me. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve laughed about the experience, after the initial embarrassment wore off.

So yesterday, in response to reading my cookbook proposal, an editor said, “Well, I looked at your proposal and your website. You have a great singing voice.” (She was referencing my YouTube video featuring one of my songs.)

I nearly burst out laughing as I envisioned myself twirling again off stage in that ever-so-cool costume...

She went on to point out my strengths and the proposal's prominent flaws. Granted, it's but one person's opinion. And I sincerely I take no offense. To be honest, I was relieved that she wasn’t gung-ho, ‘let’s get started,’ seeing as my heart is in my fiction, as is, it seems, my agent’s.

On a positive note, the editor did compliment the short story I wrote, which serves as the cookbook’s preface. I suppose I can take that as an affirmation that I’m on the proper path.

Writing Cave

Time and conversation with loved ones is a prime cure for loneliness unless you are a writer. Don’t get me wrong—I savor and rely upon such connectedness as much as anyone. But investing too much time and energy into non-writing pursuits feels to me like being in the wrong relationship. (If you feel lonelier with him or her, it’s time to get out...)

And since gone are the days when writers simply wrote (unless you're fabulously wealthy or care little about those trivial things...rent, shelter and the like), the passionate ones create and prioritize time in our own "caves" -- places with little distraction, carved out of our ever-hectic, fast paced lives. My friend Darin is a talented writer by night and a physician by day. Ernessa T. Carter, author of "32 Candles," wrote her first novel by writing for 30 minutes every day and working 40-plus hours per week at a radio station. We all have the same amount of time each day and night to do with what we wish. Yes, we have obligations and responsibilities...but some of the most important ones are to ourselves.



"Of course, when one is faced with a canvas, one is no longer alone, and the sense of solitude diminishes. This can be an agreeable passage of time. In fact, solitude then becomes a kind of companion." Pierre Alechinsky