Welcome to Writing Group (A Syllabus)

A. What is writing?

• Writing is just putting words on the page or the computer.
• Any time you are putting words on the page or the computer, you are writing.
• Writing makes an idea into something physical, something you can see and/or hold in your hand.

B. Writing makes your life better

• Writing is time that’s spent on you.
• You can communicate with yourself in the future and in the past.
• It helps you to remember things that happened, or things you want to make happen.
• Writing can be therapeutic, but it doesn’t have to be.
• You can communicate with more people by writing than by speaking.
• It helps when seeking employment.

How do you think writing could help you?

C. Tools for writing

1. Pen and paper or computer

• When you’re writing, you have to actually put words onto paper, or into a document or email. Otherwise, it’s just “thinking about writing.”
• It has to be something you can read later on.

2. Time

• Writing takes time!
• You can’t write while you do other things (like talk or watch TV).
• You can listen to music while you write, but you can’t write while listening to music – the minute you take your main focus off writing, it doesn’t work.
• Even writing for five or ten minutes is a big accomplishment.

3. Privacy

• If you feel like somebody is going to read your writing and you don’t want them to, it will make it very hard to write.
• If you feel like you will be judged for what you write, or for not being the best writer in the world, it will be hard to write.
• You don’t have to write for an audience. You can write just for yourself, and you don’t have to share it with ANYBODY.

What else do you need for writing?

D. Rules of writing

1. Don’t worry about spelling or grammar. Spelling and grammar do not count in creative writing.

• Most people are not good at spelling and grammar.
• You can always fix those things later, or ask someone for help.

2. Originality counts. Good storytelling counts. Being real about your emotions counts.

• When you read something, you will like it more if it’s something you didn’t read before, if it’s not too long or boring, and if it makes you feel what the writer was feeling.

3. Anything you write is better than writing nothing.

• Even writing for five or ten minutes a week is better than not writing at all.
• It’s like those TV commercials for exercise equipment – get results in just minutes a day! Except with writing, it’s actually true.

4. The more you do it, the easier it gets.

(Well, it’s still hard, but you get used to it.)

Exercises

Write a letter to a friend. The friend can be somebody you haven’t spoken to in years. The friend can be dead. You do not have to send your letter. In fact, it’s probably better if you don’t.

Write down an important conversation from your life. What did you say? What did the other person or people say? How did it make you feel? What other details about place, time, and setting can you remember?

Write something on the subject of "The first time I ever..."

Remember

1. Write it down so you have it for later.

2. Something is better than nothing.

3. You don't ever have to show your writing to anybody. You never have to publish anything. As long as you write, you are a writer. So keep writing.

The...Bilge Show?

The Bilge Show, Episode 7 - watch more funny videos

The Bilge Show sells out! Bill and Janice get picked up by the Hooray Network, given a reality TV show, and turned into giant a-holes. Bigger a-holes than before, even. If the price of fame is your soul, then we overpaid. Enjoy!

I will love you for a long time

The communal office where I work is on the third floor of a three-story building on a bustling commercial cross street in the Village. On the first floor is a nondescript retail store; a few doors down is a Caribbean fast food place; a few doors further down are a liquor store and a store that sells wigs. You can buy guitars on this block, and jeans, and giant 14-carat gold earrings shaped like hearts. And right downstairs from my office, you can buy sex.

It started out as a nail salon, the business on the second floor. First it was empty, then there were a few weeks of sawing and banging and general disruption while they put in the waxing rooms and redid the floors. Then it was open for business, with a sign out front promising cheap mani-pedis and chair massages, and a quartet of Asian women sitting around the mostly empty salon, waiting for the rare customer to come in and select a bottle of polish from the rainbow rack on the wall.

The salon wasn’t doing so well, it was clear. There were already six or seven nail salons in a two-block radius, and this one was tucked on the second floor, where it attracted few passersby. I considered a chair massage a few times, walking past the salon on my way out of the office, shoulders tight from hunching over my laptop, but never spared the time. Most days, I’d peek in as I passed and see the manicurists reading, or staring out the windows, stone-faced. It seemed obvious that the salon would soon close.

Which it did, for a few weeks, while there was a short recurrence of the banging and sawing. And then it reopened, without the sign out front, without the massage chairs or nailpolish racks. And I started to see them, especially in the evening hours – men, climbing the stairs to the second floor, where they were greeted at the door by a younger version of the manicurists and quickly escorted inside, past the glass front door with its new plastic sheathing shielding the inside from view. 

So maybe the men were getting pedicures, right? Right. It would be sexist of me to assume otherwise, and racist, too – just because the salon was full of young women from Asia didn’t mean there was anything untoward going on inside. And then I saw the ad in the back of New York magazine, the ad promising “table showers” and “erotic massage,” the ad with the topless giggling girl.

And the men keep coming. They’re rarer during the day, when I tend to be around, but you’ll still see them – Hasidim, with their long black coats that guarantee them G-d’s favor; bald guys with goatees and slitted eyes who take the stairs two at a time so as to get inside sooner. I’ll be in the stairwell making a phone call as they bound past me, whisked inside the spa by a young woman who keeps her face hidden behind her hair. It is tempting to stick out a foot and trip them as they go by, but I shrink back against the wall instead. I don’t even want to share an air current with them, not a molecule.

Of course, I don’t really know what’s going on inside the salon, though I can guess, based on accounts I’ve heard and read from women trapped working at places like it. Here’s an excerpt from a book review on FeministReview.com – the book is by Siddarth Kara, and it’s called Sex Trafficking:

“In one of the most devastating passages of the book, Kara locates sex slavery at a ‘massage parlor’ in Los Angeles. The young woman he meets was trafficked from Thailand with promises of a job as a waitress. Once in the U.S., she was told that she owed $20,000 to the ‘massage parlor’ owner she was sold to, which she would earn by having sex with several men a day. At first she refused, but was beaten and raped into submission. Most of the money she makes goes to the owner, except for a small portion that is sent to her parents. Kara offers to help the woman by calling the police, but she refuses his help because she is afraid the trafficker will hurt her parents in Thailand. The author talks about the anguish he felt about whether or not to contact the police. He ended up not doing so, but still isn’t sure if this was the right choice.” 

I wouldn’t say I’m anguished about whether or not to call the police, as I’m pretty sure the police know about this place, since I witnessed a detective with handcuffs and a badge being ushered inside one afternoon a few months ago. Was he on duty, investigating the place, or off duty, using their services? Either way, the cops know about the place.

But I am anguished about what I can do when I see evidence of sex trafficking right in my neighborhood. As I see it, my options are these:

1. Continue to glare at the johns I see going in and out of the place with my patented death stare, a stare that says, “I know you don’t think you’re a rapist, but you are,” a stare that says, “Is it really that fucking hard to pull on it yourself?” This option provides no satisfaction, as the johns universally do not meet anyone’s eyes, especially mine, and my death stare has resulted in neither death nor any decrease in traffic to the establishment.

2. Stand outside with a sign that says, YOU KNOW YOU’RE A RAPIST, RIGHT? IS IT REALLY THAT FUCKING HARD TO PULL ON IT YOURSELF? This option would be more satisfying, but would put me at risk for retribution from the pimps managing the place. And all of the anecdotal evidence suggests that pimps endorse violence against women, which leads me to believe that I’d get my ass kicked pretty quick if I tried it.

3. Shooting spree! I bet johns would avoid a place where there’d been gunfire aimed at “hobbyists” like themselves. That would shut the place down in a timely fashion, right? This option is very tempting, but has a number of drawbacks:

a)     Possibility of innocent casualties

b)    Fact that I do not own a gun, and do not know how to safely operate one

c)     I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t enjoy prison very much, although who knows? I could probably get a lot of reading done.

So I guess I’ll just keep doing what I do – working to educate myself and others about the issue of commercial sexual exploitation in the US, going to GEMS every week for the writing workshop, and hosting the GEMS tenth birthday party – maybe you heard about it?

Friday, May 8, 6pm, Bowery Poetry Club, 308 Bowery at First St. Dancing, cupcakes, and readings by GEMS founder Rachel Lloyd and some of the GEMS girls. Pay what you can – all proceeds go to GEMS.

This party will get you laid! This party will advance your career! This party is even more fun than a shooting spree! So RSVP today!

Worst Bilge Ever!

The Bilge Show, Episode 6 - watch more funny videos

Oh multiple noes -- it's Bilge time again! This week's show features marital accord, medical drama, and -- from the producers of Operation: Chimp -- a new vision of adventure! When will the madness end? Oh, about 9 and a half minutes after it begins...

GEMS and Girls Write Now News

So, have I mentioned both GEMS and Girls Write Now enough times that you can tell them apart? Because half the time my shrink screws it up. Not that I blame her; half the time when I go to mention one it comes out "Glerms."

Here's some important (to me) Glerms news:

Celebrities are catching on to GEMS! Very famous people (and/or their staff) using Twitter to spread the word about GEMS include Ellen DeGeneres, Ashton Kutcher, Demi Moore, and...what is the nomenclature these days? "Diddy?" Just "Diddy," right, no P. or anything? That guy. 

Please come to the GEMS 10th birthday party on Friday, May 8, 6-10pm, Bowery Poetry Club, 308 Bowery at First St.! I'm writing something new for the party, and so are many of the girls who have been taking my writing workshop there. Plus GEMS founder Rachel Lloyd reading from her upcoming memoir, Acceptable Victims, dancing with DJ Jools Palmer, and birthday cupcakes by Sugar Sweet Sunshine. Pay what you can, just come and support the cause! 

Speaking of writing workshops, I'm teaching Memoir Writing to girls ages 14-19 this summer as part of the Girls Write New York City four-week workshop. Applications for this program must be in by May 15, as do applications for next semester's GWN program. 

Girls Write Now is also very flossy, flossy, and will be featured on a segment on NBC Nightly News sometime next week. I'll post the time and date on Facebook when it's confirmed.

I have two spots left in a private workshop for young women like myself, in their post-teen years. The one-time, three-hour class is $50, all proceeds to go to Girls Write Now. Email me for more information.

Kid's Lib

I’ve been writing recently about my thirteenth year, which began with my mother announcing her impending marriage to my stepfather, Dave, on the cab ride home from my birthday dinner, and ended with her locking him out of the apartment, for neither the first nor the last time. In between, my half-brother was born, my breasts sprang from my chest like angry lemons, and I lost every single one of my school friends.

It hit me the other day, as I was writing in my notebook: a memory of sitting at the dining room table in our apartment on Roosevelt Island, hand-lettering flyers for the latest club I planned to start. The club was called Kid’s Lib, and its purpose was to champion the rights of children, who had no say in the conditions of their own lives. I’d got the idea from a book I’d read years before, Nobody’s Family is Going to Change; I’d also got it, I suppose, from the overwhelming sense of persecution and injustice I felt in regards to my own situation. I was stuck living with a violent creep, exiled from my bedroom to the living room to make room for his squalling infant son, and berated when I didn’t evince a proper amount of happiness with the arrangement. And that was just my mom’s house.

I remember Dave smirking at me from across the table, grabbing one of my flyers and pulling it towards him along the tabletop like a playing card. “Kid’s…Lib,” he said, really relishing the pause between the words. “Huh.” He didn’t have to say any more; I knew what “huh” meant. It meant, you are laughable, and I will enjoy watching this latest hopeless endeavor of yours fail.

I remembered this exchange the other day, this particular five seconds of my life from twenty-six years ago, and my whole body curled into a cringe. Kid’s Lib was a failure, as was my boycott of the deli on the corner by school (organized because of how they’d treated a popular girl named Caitlin, who could not possibly have cared less about me), as was my petition to force the dean of the middle school to make public a rumored list of troublemaking students, a list that, if it existed, definitely featured my own name, likely in capital letters. Nobody wanted one of my Kid’s Lib flyers, nobody wanted to come to the inaugural meeting, and I was forced to throw all my literature in a public garbage can two blocks from home, lest Dave find the discards and jeer at me some more.

This was the year that I started cutting classes and stealing from other kids’ lockers, the year I started weeping openly and ostentatiously in the middle of English class, hoping someone would ask me what was wrong. This was the year that a majority of my classmates formed the Make Janice Miserable Club, a club with a charter and officers and more than one meeting to its credit, making it infinitely more successful than Kid’s Lib.

And I know it’s gauche to feel sorry for myself in public, not that I haven’t done it before, but oh my god. I could not have been screaming for help any louder. Could it be that nobody at my tiny private school, a school that prided itself on small class size, individualized attention, and liberal values, could be bothered to pick up a phone and ask, “What the hell is going on in this kid’s home?” And what would that have done for me, anyway, besides get me in more trouble?

So it becomes the job of the adult writer to notice the pain of the thirteen-year-old. To say, okay, you could have had it worse, and no, you weren’t starving for food, but you were starving for safety, you were starving for a friend. To cringe, not out of shame, but out of empathy.

Twenty-six years later, I can’t right the wrongs. But I can write them. And that’s liberation.

Bilge Friday

The Bilge Show, Episode 5 - watch more funny videos

Once again, it's the Bilge show! This week, Janice is trapped on Rock of Love, and our hosts engage in another petty game of badminton over who owns the show. Plus, Barbra Streisand sings Kelly Clarkson! Wait, where are you going?

This is a blog post

This is a blog post. I am writing a blog post. I said I was going to write at least one real blog post every week – not just a list of upcoming events, or the weekly Bilge show, but a real blog post, where I say something about something. So here it goes.

So what do I have to say? I promised myself I wasn’t going to write about volunteering this time around – yes, I’m back to volunteering, despite what we all learned about me being the worst, most co-dependent volunteer in the history of unpaid labor – so I will just say that I fucking HATE people who commercially sexually exploit young women and girls. I hate pimps, I hate johns, and I hate people who want to argue the issue with me. The next person who tells me that “the girls are doing it by choice” is going to get repeatedly beaten and raped, and then asked to make some fucking choices.

Sorry. I get all curse-y and violent and ALL CAPS about this issue, as hard as I try not to. But I get curse-y and violent about lots of things – it’s the product of being in the thirty-ninth year of a lifelong rage. Even with all the therapy and the exercise and the writing; even with all the mindfulness and the deep breathing and the creative hobbies and the Positive Life Changes I Have Fought Hard to Implement, I am still an angry person. Or, rather, an Angry Person. The type of person that people say they feel sorry for – as in, “I feel sorry for Janice. She’s such an angry person.” When what they really mean is, “I feel superior to Janice, who can’t control her emotions in public.”

Because the only way to win at life, or at least to win at Facebook, is to project an image of complete happiness, fulfillment, and satisfaction. Everything is great! Look at my beautiful children, and/or the important work I do! I am invested in global political affairs, but only in a positive way – sign my petition! I do not have trouble falling asleep at night because I’m worrying about the cruelty and privation other beings are suffering at every moment! Not me! I don’t experience depression, and I especially don’t experience anger, because anger is for gross, disgusting people who can’t just let it go! I feel GREAT about life, especially MY life!

Well, I don’t feel great about life. Don’t get me wrong, I prefer it to the alternative, but I don’t feel great about it. I feel frustrated and sad that we were given this incredible gift – this consciousness, this existence, this planet – and most of what we choose to do with it is so stupid and meaningless, not to mention ugly and destructive. I feel frustrated with myself for wasting so much of my own time on petty bullshit, when I was the nine-year-old who planned to unite the world under a banner of fairness and compassion. I feel remorse for all the harm I’ve caused in the world, so much of it a product of my anger.

None of which I’m posting as my status update.

And now I want to reassure you that I am a happy person, that I am a successful person – not just successful (enough) as a writer, but successful as a human being. I count my blessings every day, sometimes more than once, especially if I feel like there’s a new one to add to the list; I won’t detail them here, but it goes something like: husband, family, friends, cats, security, brains, heart, health, freedom. Enough inner peace to keep me from exploding. Many more resources than most people on the planet. Awesome comments and emails from people who have read my books. I mean, come on. All of that makes me very happy, which is why you will see me, at least fifty percent of the time, walking down the street and smiling and singing to myself. When I’m not walking down the street muttering to myself, cursing under my breath at people in my way, apologizing out loud to people I haven’t seen in years, or audibly saying to myself, “I’m all right, everything’s all right,” in an effort to make it so. 

So there it is: I’m an angry, happy, successful, remorseful, grateful, miserable person. I may not win at Facebook, but I win at blog post. At least until I think better of it, and delete this post later this afternoon…

Here's your invite...

GEMS Celebrates 10 Years of Smashing the Sexual Exploitation of Girls

Here’s the ugly truth: The average age of girls entering the commercial sex industry in the United States is thirteen.

And here’s one beautiful solution: GEMS, Girls Educational and Mentoring Services, has spent the past ten years successfully helping hundreds of girls to escape the commercial sex industry and go on to happier, more productive lives.

Founder Rachel Lloyd started GEMS from her kitchen table in 1999, after experiencing the realities of commercial sexual exploitation firsthand as a teenager. Since then, she’s grown the organization to the thriving enterprise it is today, providing hundreds of girls annually with shelter, practical assistance, and medical and legal support, as well as therapeutic, educational, and vocational programs. In 2008, together with Legal Aid and the Juvenile Justice Coalition, GEMS was instrumental in advocating for the passage of the Safe Harbor Act, so that youth under the age of 16 in New York State would no longer be prosecuted for the “crime” of being sold for sex. The story of GEMS and many of the girls it has served was told in the Showtime documentary “Very Young Girls,” which has caused a dramatic shift in the way hundreds of thousands of viewers perceive commercial sexual exploitation and domestic trafficking.

Despite deep funding cuts and the ailing economy, GEMS is poised to continue and expand its vital work, serving as a lifeline for individual young women in crisis, a strong voice in both culture and government about the realities of the commercial sex industry, and a model for other programs seeking to make a positive difference in the lives of commercially sexually exploited and domestically trafficked girls.

Hosted by GEMS volunteer Janice Erlbaum (author of Girlbomb: A Halfway Homeless Memoir), the tenth birthday party on Friday, May 8 features founder Rachel Lloyd reading from her upcoming memoir, Acceptable Victims, and readings by several of the GEMS girls. “The candor and immediacy of the girls’ writing is stunning,” says Erlbaum, who leads a weekly writing workshop at GEMS. “They’re very excited to share their hard work with their friends and supporters at this celebratory event.”

There will also be birthday cupcakes, and dancing with DJ Jools Palmer. This uplifting event is open to everyone who wants to celebrate the achievements of this amazing organization, and the young women it serves.

GEMS Tenth Birthday Party and Reading

Friday, May 8, 6-9:30pm, Bowery Poetry Club, 308 Bowery at First St.

Free for GEMS girls, staff, and friends; $10 suggested donation for others

RSVP at tinyurl.com/gemsparty

Incredibly stale Bilge

The Bilge Show, Episode 4 - watch more funny videos

Not only is this week's Bilge show stale as last Passover's matzoh, at nearly fourteen minutes, it's too giant and bloated for YouTube. So this week we're on FunnyOrDie.com -- vote funny, or we will be forced to kill ourselves! Or each other. Which might happen anyway. Topics include Survivor, The House Bunny, and the zombie apocalypse. Plus the first ever Bilge show trivia challenge! Bickering + snickering = good times in the Bilge household. Won't you be our neighbor?