famous.jpgAriel Gore rocks. She is one of the funniest, smartest and hippest writers alive. And she has managed to get her words in print and her name in lights repeated times, and she’s so far from dead.

Ariel Gore was one of the first editors who ever published my work. She was only about nineteen or twenty years old and our kids were in the same preschool. She asked if I wanted to submit something for her college “senior project” which turned out to be a zine, which turned out to be the very first issue of Hip Mama, and as they say, the rest is history.

I have a real weakness for books about writing which manage to do a good job of immersing one in the writing mindset without actually writing anything. Ariel’s latest book, How To Become a Famous Writer Before You’re Dead, is one of the most entertaining and also brutally truthful books about writing that I have ever read.

Browsing through this book today made me chuckle a lot but it also made me bow my head in humility because I had to repeatedly remind myself that while Ariel was being a single teen mom on welfare, she managed to publish this zine and then FIVE OTHER BOOKS while I was a married thirtysomething mom with childcare and a room of my own, and I managed to publish, well, one. Yes, it is truly humbling, but it also fills me with inspiration and new determination to NOT put writing at the bottom of my to-do list.

The sections are organized thusly:

  • Give Yourself a Lit Star Makeover
  • Master Your Craft
  • Publish Before You’re Ready
  • Play with the Big Dogs
  • Become a Brazen Self-Promoter

All of it is invaluable advice, told in a manner that is both tough and tender. The first bit of advice, which is fairly universally told and yet not universally followed, is, of course: “Write.” It also includes fabulous interviews with great writers who have been there, and just a ton of great ideas and many, many opportunities to be spurred on.

Everybody knows it because Virginia Woolf said it: you need money and a room of your own if you’re going to write. But I’ve written five books, edited three anthologies, published hundreds of articles and short stories, and put out thirty-five issues of my zine without either one. If I’d waited for money and a room, I’d still be an unpublished welfare mom — except they would have cut my welfare off by now. It might be nice to have money and a room (or it might be suicidally depressing – who knows?) but all you really need is a blank page, a pen, and a little bit of time.

She goes on, of course, with concrete details and bright responses to people who moan, “But I don’t enough have time.” I should know. I am one of those people. But the book managed to kick me in the butt, just when I needed it most.

Thanks, Ariel.