Walking tall

My mother's always pestering me about my posture, and yeah, I do need to learn how to pull my shoulders back and push my sweater puppies out there. But today, whether you can tell by my outward appearance or not, I'm walking proud.

For the past few days, I've noticed that I have this new sensation -- the feeling that someday someone is going to walk down the same streets I do now, thinking "Rosella Eleanor LaFevre walked this pavement!"

Love Lesson No. 2: The Honeymooners

This is a series of lessons I've learned about love, arranged in no particular order. These lessons have been gleaned from personal experience, friends' stories, movies, books, magazine articles, etc. If you want to share a lesson you've learned about love, email me (rosellaeleanor@gmail.com).

The most popular post I've ever written here is "Phasin'," which has up to this very moment received 143 pageviews. In that post, I wrote about the honeymoon phase which is supposed to be the first 90 days of any relationship. Today, I still believe that the honeymoon phase does not have to end -- or it can, at least, last a much longer time than three months.

Chris and I, as of Valentine's Day one week ago, have been together eight months and it still feels like we're phasin'.

Protecting your writing

For over a year, I've covered the adjuncts' move to unionize for The Temple News. Two of the stories I've written about adjuncts were uploaded to a website called AdjunctNation.com without the permission of myself, my editors or the paper sponsor.

When I discovered that one of these stories had been made subscriber-only content with a false disclaimer that the compensation went directly to the writers, and that the other had no byline at all, I contacted a lawyer. While he couldn't represent my case because his firm only takes on businesses as clients, he offered some advice. While he said copyright usually lies with the writer from the moment a story is written, I probably had no case because I hadn't registered my work with a copyright office.

This happened about a month ago, and since then, the website has taken down the non-byline story (and hasn't paid me for my other story which remains online).

Today, I found an explanation of a writer's rights on the website of the American Society of Journalists and Authors. Because I don't want this to happen to anyone else (although I guess it is inevitable), I wanted to share this with you.

Wise Words: 'Puff up and bluff'

I've been a little nervous to pitch myself or my ideas to the media markets I want to see my byline in. But after reading the following advice from Laurel Touby, founder and senior vice president of mediabistro.com, I know I need to get over that.

"Sometimes you have to puff up and bluff about things. Too often, women feel as though they are not prepared for a task or an assignment and so they don't go after it. We expect that if we are great at what we do, someone will notice and offer us plum assignments. Well, that's not always the case. There are times when you have to say 'I can do that,' to a boss or potential employer and rise to the challenge. Don't be afraid. Guys do this all the time and get away with it!"

This advice is part of Jones New York's Little Black Book of Career Advice, a collection of wise words from lots of important women. It's a must-read!

Things we do that boys aren't supposed to see

When I'm alone, if even for just a few moments, I open the Photo Booth application on my MacBook. My face is one that looks different depending on the day, the way my hair falls, the lighting, the angle of the camera capturing it. For my own posterity, I sometimes like to take pictures, posing and puckering my lips, thereby creating a sort of growth chart of my good (and bad) looks. Some days I look older than others; some days I look cute and whimsical while on others I am serious and sad.

It's just something I do, but which Chris doesn't understand. He's finally caught me doing it, and I'm worried that him seeing this thing I'm embarrassed to do in front of anyone is the beginning of the end of our honeymoon phase.

Love Lesson No. 1: Vulnerability is important

This is a series of lessons I've learned about love, arranged in no particular order. These lessons have been gleaned from personal experience, friends' stories, movies, books, magazine articles, etc. If you want to share a lesson you've learned about love, email me (rosellaeleanor@gmail.com).

Scott Schuman, the Sartorialist, told New York magazine's Amy Larocca about how his fashion blogger girlfriend Garance Dore's fragility is becoming:

“I grew up reading designers’ ideas about women, like: She’s so strong, she rules the world, whatever. I wouldn’t want to be with a girl like that, who’s type A. Garance is smart, driven, all these great Corsican qualities of self-determination, but she’s totally fragile. Totally insecure. That’s a real human. That’s the whole package.”

It's very important, I believe, to be able to be fragile or vulnerable with our loves. No one can be type A, 100 percent of the time.

Improving my odds?

Yesterday, after a few months of writing disappointment after writing disappointment, the editor of Metropolis's VoxPop section bought an essay of mine.

If I've learned one thing about writing success, it's that there's really no way to guarantee it.

Literary magazines, for instance, tell you to read the submission guidelines and back issues so you can see what kind of fiction they publish. There usually is no connective tissue between the stories a magazine publishes. It seems to me that it is simply what they like when they read it, and the moods of editors -- like all other people -- can change twelve times a day.

A professor told me and my classmates that the only way to guarantee we get accepted is to keep submitting. Even that advice seems false to me. I've sent out stories to over 65 markets in the past two months and of the roughly 25-30 responses I've received, only one was an acceptance. And that was a shocker because the story was one of the few that I didn't consider very good.

While it frustrates me that there really is no way to improve my odds, I'm praying that my luck grows and that I start receiving more acceptances.

image via weheartit

Tips for a stellar journalism resume

My resume is my badge of honor. I'm constantly updating the thing, and I love any opportunity to show it off -- although I've never had a resume T-shirt. I've had a few questions from other journalism students about how to put together a resume. Here, I'll provide you with 8 tips for a stellar resume.

In my book, great reading inspires great writing

Last night, my little writer's group met. I say little because we're averaging at four writers per biweekly meeting. One of the members of the group, an adjunct professor I've interviewed for adjunct news stories and with whom I studied creative writing last semester, shared a 25-page story that just seemed to move me.

On first read the ending left me unsure of my feelings, but after skimming it during our discussion I realized how much I truly liked the character and how much I loved the story.

It was simply inspiring to feel that way, and I must say that the nights I spend surrounded by writers are some of the most inspirational I've experienced.

Who do you think you are?

"Why do you as a white person get to decide what people spend money on?" Gangly Girl said in response to one student's statement that money reparations paid to black Americans would be a radical idea because who knows what they'd spend it on.

Not thirty seconds before, she said, "They could spend it on sneakers."

Gangly Girl, who the hell do you think you are? You're really starting to piss me off.

Romantic words we have trouble saying

I want to grow old loving you. 

This was the sentiment of one of the more romantic Valentine's Day cards I saw at Rite-Aid yesterday. I wanted to buy it because I do feel that way about my boyfriend. Feeling this way and saying it out loud (or even in a card) are very different concepts.

Most girls, I think, myself included, are scared to actually share these words with our boyfriends. What if he thinks I'm crazy? Or, What if he doesn't feel the same way? Many of these are the same doubts that arise when we consider saying those three words, "I love you."

And certainly, our parents would think we're crazy. Who could know that they would want something for the rest of their lives? Sure, our perspectives will change over time.

V-Day: A Retrospective

It's my first Valentine's Day with a special someone -- my darling Chris -- and I've got a night class. Pssh! After years of fantasizing about having a boyfriend on V-Day and one year of supposedly being over the idea, I've got my wish and we're doing nothing.

But I don't want to complain. I've done my fair share of that over the years...

Playing devil's advocate

It's terribly awkward being a white kid in a race class. Everything you say can and will be used against you. I've been afraid to blog about this for the very reason that I'm beginning to fear speaking in class: that I be made to feel like a big bigot.

When I opened my mouth to offer an opinion of the implementation of guilt in teaching children about slavery and racism, I was attacked both times by some gangly white girl who works at the coffee shop and dresses like a hipster. What her beef with me was, I'll never quite know.

After reading Joe Feagin's book The White Racial Frame: Centuries of Racial Framing and Counter-Framing, our class was discussing counter-frames and news ways to counter the white racial frame -- the way American society rationalizes the systemic racism against black people.

I offered up my opinion that in teaching children about slavery and racism, invoking guilt can sometimes lead to resentment. Every year in school I learned about slavery and racism and every year I was made to feel like it was my fault an entire group of people had been oppressed for centuries prior to my birth. Over time, this has led to my feeling resentful. Why should I feel guilty for something I, nor my ancestors, had any part of? Furthermore, where was Feagin's mention of reverse prejudice, which I've seen in action.

Gangly Girl with her shorn black hair and blue leggings-as-pants attacked me for my mention of reverse prejudice. Then the conversation moved on.

Journalism Success: Tips for students

On Friday, Lena Chen posted an interview with freelance writer Caroline Kinneberg, which I guest edited, on her blog the ch!cktionary. This came as the result of contacting Lena to say I'd read an essay she wrote for Glamour magazine and how much I loved her website.

So far, I think I've been pretty successful as a writer. I have over 50 clips in my portfolio; I have written a two columns, covered a beat, written reviews of everything from film to literature, and blogged about relationships. Sure, I'm having trouble breaking into the big glossies -- Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan, and ELLE are magazines I would love to write for -- but most people do and I'm not out of college yet. The one thing I can say, however, is that I have a resume to rival most college juniors and I'm pretty proud.

Lately, I've writen articles for College Magazine's Career/Success section, and I've writen about my journalism experiences on this blog for a while. I'm going to start doing so more regularly.

I'm not sure how many journalism students read my blog, but here are my tips for getting those internships and other writing opportunities. Some of this I know from experience and the rest is what I wish I'd thought to do.

1. Maintain a blog.
I started blogging here before I finished high school and have continued to write about various topics here. One mistake I continue to make and which you should learn from is not posting regularly enough. It's definitely a good idea to plan out an editorial schedule. Also, you'd do well to focus on a specific subject or small range of subjects. Or, you should cover a wider range of topics with the same tone and perspective carried through, which is more the approach I've taken.

2. Build a blogging network.
Reach out to other bloggers who cover a similar topic or use the same tone/perspective. Link up and offer them the chance to write a guest post or ask to interview them. Either way, when you give them space in your corner of the World Wide Web, they'll link back to your blog on their own and their readers will likely become your readers. If nothing more, comment on other blogs and include a link to your own -- just be sure you're contributing something unique to the discussion. This is something I'm only beginning to do, but which I believe can never be done too early.

The condensed soup method of writing

Just read Kelly Klepfer's interview with novelist Connie May Fowler, whose most recent book How Clarissa Burden Learned to Fly was published by Central Grand Publishing in 2010, on Novel Journey. who revealed that she wrote this most recent novel first in a condensed 50-page version and then she expanded it. 

"I think fear prompted me to write How Clarissa Burden Learned to Fly in 50 pages," Fowler told Klepfer. " I feel if I can simply get it on the page, even in condensed form, I can then go it and turn it into a novel and not an abridged version."

I wonder how many other authors write this way.

What is good writing?

I've heard this question posed many times and I've heard several attempts at an answer to it. Some focus mostly on the technical aspects when talking of "good writing." Others speak more about the storytelling -- these are the elements of plot, character, message or theme, etc.

A good writer is someone who can mix both technical expertise and engaging storytelling and get it down on a page, I'd say. But even this is open to interpretation.

What is makes writing technically good? I wince every time I see "had"s and "will be"s. I cringe when I read the phrase "beginning to." And please, dear God, get your verbs right! Avoid clinical words like "displayed," I would tell you.

Then there's J.K. Rowling who uses plenty of helping verbs and has made more money than I can bear to think about. People love the Harry Potter series and while I admit that she's a fantastic storyteller, I can't bear to read the books because I think she's awful, technically.

"There are rules for good writing," Susan Cheever writes in Louisa May Alcott: A Personal Biography. She doesn't, sadly, list them.

What do you think the rules of good writing are?

On truth in fiction

Emily Dickinson's house in Amherst, Mass.

Over at Beth Kephart Books, the Dangerous Neighbors author posed the question "Truth or Fiction: Does It Matter When The Lines Get Blurred?"

For me, this is a particularly interesting question to consider, as my "fiction" is generally infused with a lot of "truth." Particularly seeing as I'm working on a new novel -- finally! -- which is the product of my experiences, those of friends, and fiction. A compost project, really. It took me a year and half since writing my last novel to come up with an idea I felt confident in.

And while Chris has said to me that he's a better fiction writer because he's much more imaginative -- which is true; he can come with anything -- I don't think that being as strongly inspired by real life makes me a bad writer. The fact of the matter is, like Kephart wrote, "The only interesting life, on the page, is the shaped life, the contemplated one, the one sifted for meaning and insight."

To be able to combine real life experiences with fictional elements in a way that gives them shape makes me, I think, at least a good fiction writer. I hope that I'm great, but I'll leave that up to the public to decide.

The hunter and the hunted

Reading Susan Cheever's Louisa May Alcott: A Personal Biography, I came upon this quote:

"If marriage is a woman's goal, her primary job is to make herself attractive to men. A look at clothes and advice we give young girls makes it clear that attracting a man who will be a provider is still one of the major jobs a young woman has in our culture. We give them Barbie dolls and makeup. We tell them to be calm and quiet and to remember that men are predatory hunters so that successful women must pretend to be tantalizing, elusive prey."

This is all quite true, unfortunately. My question, however, is how much of this, the seemingly unidirectional aim of young women toward marriage (or just a relationship) is a natural inclination? Is it a lingering survival instinct? And is there anything wrong with a young woman wanting simply to get married and have babies?

I'm not talking about myself, but I've heard a few girls say that her goal was to set up her life for a husband and children. My gut reaction is Oh my goodness, what's wrong with her? Although I do look forward to that part of my life, I also really want to achieve things like getting a book published and getting articles accepted at national women's magazines. Some of the girls I've known who have said such things about their life goals seem to have very few other passions.