apricot blossoms

How I Found My Agent (and a Few Tips in That Regard)

by with 6 Comments PublishingWriting
[caption id="attachment_1810" align="alignleft" width="300"]apricot blossoms Apricot blossoms[/caption] Now that I have a book coming out, a lot of people want to know how I found my agent. The cheeky version of the story is that it took me almost ten years to write the book and only a week to find an agent. The less-cheeky version is that I worked pretty hard for a very long time, then experienced some great good luck. Here is the long version: ...

Our Year in Reading 2014

by with 2 Comments Book ReviewJapanNon-fictionReadingWriting
[caption id="attachment_1723" align="alignleft" width="190"] A long, mesmerizing read about a really dysfunctional society.[/caption] This was the year of long books for me and my spouse. Dan read Don Quixote and The Brothers Karamazov. I read The Goldfinch and The Tale of Genji. Needless to say -- but I'll say it anyway -- those books not originally written in English, we read in translation. In fact, most of Dan's reading for the year was work in translation. I actually attempted to read Genji in a modern Japanese version, an attempt that lasted two hours and one paragraph. This year my family did a new thing, which was reading a summer book that all four of us agreed to read. We selected One Hundred Years of Solitude. It was, needless to say -- but I'll say it anyway -- an inspired choice, and a fitting tribute to the author, who died in April. Another new thing: I'm giving Goodreads a try. ...

Twelve Highly Subjective Tips about Applying for Writing Residencies & Grants

by with 7 Comments Writing
Over the last four years, I’ve had the privilege of serving as a first-round reader of applications for a couple of organizations that award writing residencies or grants. I’m always amazed by the quality of the applications I read and overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of strong applications. Sometimes I’m so bowled over by an application that later, if I learn the applicant was awarded the coveted residency or grant, I feel almost as excited as I would were I getting the prize. Sadly, of course, the process of reading and evaluating applications means saying “no” far more often than “yes”. A few years ago I started jotting down notes about things I kept seeing that edged applications into the “no” pile. ...
AWP 2014

Magic and the Intellect: A Remarkable Occurrence at AWP 2014

by with 25 Comments DisasterWriting
AWP 2014So for the first time, I’m attending AWP, the annual conference of the Association of Writers & Writing Programs. I wasn’t planning to blog about the experience at all. But something extraordinary went down this morning at a panel called “Magic and the Intellect.” What follows isn’t an objective “report” of what happened. A lot of other people were there, and each would have a different telling. This one’s mine. ...

On Completing a Draft of My Manuscript

by with 18 Comments ExerciseLapérousePublishingWriting
[caption id="attachment_1437" align="alignleft" width="191"] One page of my manuscript[/caption] This summer, I finally finally finally finished a draft of my novel. It took eight-and-a-half years to complete. Longer—more than a decade—if you count from when I first got the idea for the book, which was before I left San Francisco, which was in 2002. But let’s not go that far back. I was still in my thirties then, for God’s sake. ...

10 Questions About My Book: A Next Big Thing Blog Hop Posting

by with 17 Comments Writing
My friend, writer and fellow (sister?) Hedgebrook alum Christine Lee Zilka, tagged me this week to talk about my current writing project as part of a “Next Big Thing” blog hop. I don’t ordinarily go for these “I'll-link-to-your-blog-if-you-link-to-mine” arrangements, but this one, which involves answering ten specific questions about a current or next project, actually looked fun. And Christine's quite engaging post, with its great photo of her door-o'-color-coded-post-its, inspired me to give it a try. ...

On Writing Slowly

by with 15 Comments LapérousePublishingWriting
[caption id="attachment_972" align="alignright" width="300"] Slow writer[/caption] I’m an incredibly slow writer. How slow? Well, there was five minutes of keyboard silence between the completion of that first sentence (“I’m an incredibly slow writer.”) and the arrival of the second one (“How slow?”). And that’s fast for me. Now you know why I blog so seldom. (Another break while I check my dictionary to see if one blogs seldom or seldomly. Turns out “seldom” is both adverb and adjective. How nice to have that question settled. Another minute while I meditate on that and on the always reliable pleasures of the dictionary.) This slow thinking coupled with obsessiveness is also why, after seven years of not-exactly-unrelenting-but-pretty-sustained work, my book manuscript is only now crawling toward completion. Then there’s the research. ...
My husband and me in Kyoto (Jan. 1988)

On Being Mistaken for the Other Japanese-American Writer in Town: Not the Rant You’re Expecting

by with 13 Comments IdentityJapanTeachingWriting
The other day I ran into an acquaintance in town. We don’t know each other well and hadn’t seen each other in several months, so I reminded her of my name. “Yes, of course!” she said. “Didn’t your book just come out?” I laughed. “No, not yet.” And then it clicked. “You’re thinking of Brenda Nakamoto,” I said. “Oh, you’re right!” she said. We both laughed, then shared a few pleasantries before going our separate ways. I know people who would have been offended by this encounter. There goes another white person thinking all Asians look alike and are interchangeable, etc. ...

Spring Rain

by with One Comment GardeningGeneralRainWriting
[caption id="attachment_477" align="alignleft" width="300"] lime green raincoat[/caption] It’s another stormy morning in northern California. A friend calls at 8:30. Weather is the only thing we’re ever at odds about. She loves the Central Valley’s hot, dry summers. I do not. I like the rainy season, the rainier the better. “Reality check,” she says. “Do you still prefer this to a week of 100-degree weather?” “Oh, yes,” I say. I tell her about our sunroom, which has been leaking for two years. “But other than that, I love it.” “I just don’t get it,” she says, but she still loves me. That’s true friendship, right there. ...