Night of Writing Dangerously sponsorship goal met!

Hooray,

I raised my $200 for the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo)’s Night of Writing Dangerously, and I’ve booked my ticket to San Francisco for November 22. G-d bless SouthWest airlines – el cheapo dealo. I really wanted to fly Virgin America but their prices were high-in-the-sky. So bye-bye Virgin, for now at least.

Great thanks to my mum (aw shucks), Tania Hershman, James Tumminia, Eddie and Melissa Rabin, Etan Lerner (well his parents Paul and Michelle), Fred Kramer, and Susan Meadows for raising the funds for the Office of Letters and Light. You all rock! And thanks to Lisa Alcalay Klug for offering to host me in SF.

My mum was visiting from Israel in November last year and we went to San Francisco for a few days and I came down with the world’s worst flu – but NOT H1N1 (it hadn’t occurred yet). So it will be great to spend a day in SF and do all the things I didn’t get to do last time (after the six hours of writing for NaNoWriMo), because I was stuck in my hotel room bed.

Of course, this does mean I DO have to write my 50,000 words in one month, and I’ve still yet to come up with a concrete idea. Oh well, I have a couple of weeks. I’ve been checking out all the NaNoWriMo posts on Twitter and it’s all a little daunting. There’s almost 40,000 people signed up for NaNoWriMo and it makes you realise how many writers are actually out there – a lot! It’s also fun to know that others will attempt this deranged, insane, activity.

In the meantime, I’m working on three separate stories. Just sent to my editor an article on an Israeli fashion designer in LA who almost lost her hand in a car accident as a teenager and still is managing to pursue her dream. Pretty inspiring stuff. And I just interviewed a former Israeli soccer player who is now the hair extension guru to Hollywood stars (Zohan, anyone?). And I spoke with Hilary Helstein about her moving documentary As Seen Through These Eyes – a decades in the making film about Holocaust survivors who documented their experiences through their art. Narrated by Maya Angelou it’s extraordinary. If you’re in LA – go see it!

All three articles will be written, and up in in the coming weeks – will keep you posted on the links. And of course there is more wonderful work up at Scribblers on the Roof. Go check it out.

I’ve been nominated for a Kreativ Blogger award!

KREATIV BLOGGER AWARD RULES:

• 1. Thank the person who nominated you for this award.
• 2. Copy the logo and place it on your blog.
• 3. Link to the person who nominated you for this award.
• 4. Name 7 things about yourself that people might find interesting.
• 5. Nominate 7 Kreativ Bloggers.
• 6. Post links to the 7 blogs you nominate.
• 7. Leave a comment on each of the blogs letting them know they have been nominated.

Oh my goodness!

I am honoured, flattered, and quite honestly tickled pink to have been nominated for a Kreativ Blogger award by the incomparable Val Russell. I’d like to thank my parents, without whom I’d never have been born…

No. Seriously. This is quite extraordinary. I’m not sure how/if one wins these things, but who cares? Val is an amazing writer, who right now is taking a hiatus from blogging, but I’m hoping that her nomination will see her back dipping into the old inkwell.

Oh dear – seven things about myself? And they have to be interesting??? Okay, here goes nothing:

• I have free-fallen off an eight-foot oil drum (stupid drama school trust exercise)
• I have lived in four countries, own three passports and have an accent with an identity crisis
• Al Qaeda tried to kill me in Kenya and almost succeeded.
• I had planned to attend (or at least apply) to the MFA in Creative Writing at Antioch University in Los Angeles. The money was to have come from a great job I took in early 2009 – I worked like crazy and was owed $30,000 and guess how much they paid me? ZIP. There goes my tuition money… And I can’t afford to sue them! Please send donations… 🙂
• I am double-jointed and most of the bones in my body crack
• When  I was 9, I caught my left foot in a Ferris wheel at the school fete, thereby effectively ending my ballet career, and causing my dad to note that it was the school “fete worse than death”
• I will need someone else’s kidney one day – but not today.

My 7 Kreativ Blogger nominees. Drumroll please…

Meredith Resnick: Creator of The Writer’s Inner Journey. She’s smart, erudite and has some fantastic interviews and real insights into the deep, dark, soul of writers.

Rachel Resnick: No relation to Meredith (as far as I know). Blogs at Rachelville. My brilliant creative writing teacher. She’s sassy, sexy, raw, emotional and talks about all that crazy shit that goes on in writers’ lives. Hey, the woman has written two amazing books – Go West Young F*cked up Chick and Love Junkie. Rachel rocks. Plain and simple.

Tania Hershman: Blogging at Tania Writes, she and I go way back, to when she used to act in my plays in Jerusalem. She found her true fiction writing voice a few years ago and has published her first collection of short stories – The White Road. Her writing is always exciting, unpredictable and a delight to read. Plus, she’s the world’s greatest supporter of short story writers everywhere  and even created a website  – The Short Review – dedicated to the craft. Oh, and did I mention she’s a lovely person??

Debra L Schubert: I only recently discovered this gem of a novelist, and she’s incredibly generous about sharing ideas, tips, and thought-provoking insights into the writing life. Plus she blogs under the title Write on Target. You gotta love her for that alone.

Steve Berer: Yes, finally, a man! His blog Shivvetee is an extraordinary site dedicated to Jewish poetry. He’s also a good friend, a soft-spoken, gentle man whose emotions and thoughts run deep, and it’s clearly reflected in his writing and his love of Jewish texts.

Jane Boursaw: See Jane Clack is smart, sassy, funny and delicious. If you want to know anything about anything on television, then go play in Jane’s brilliant playground. She’s the writing teacher you’d have wanted in high school, because she lets you know that writing can be fun! Oh, and this is just one of her myriad writing sites.

Martha Frankel: A memoir writer – just published her first – Hats and Eyeglasses. She’s entertaining, thought-provoking and best of all is the world’s greatest cure-all for writer’s block. She’s like the ever ready bunny. Keeps on keeping on.