I’ve been following and enjoying Mike Winerip’s pieces in the New Jersey section of the NY Times for the last year or so. A few weeks ago he wrote about girls and designer goods and their ‘product placement’ in young adult novels. This is currently a hot topic in publishing circles and certainly a hot topic for me and not just as a writer. When my daughter hit 16 and we sent her on a teen tour (full disclosure: I went on the original Musiker Teen Tours with Judy and Mike Musiker. The reunions were in the basement of their house) she discovered that not everyone in the world was okay with Levi's and the occasional Nordstrom's upgrade. We got a frantic, whispered, call from Montana one night ('Mom, thank God you sent me with a pair of Sevens and by the way, what's a trundle bed and do I have one???')

The high school in our town is regional and the 4 towns that use it are quite a socioeconomic mix, often difficult to navigate. While I know in the long run my children, these mini-diplomats, will gain immeasurable gifts from the experience, now that both kids have been exposed to camp in New England, trips across country and to Europe and summer sessions at A List universities, there is an ongoing mantra in our household. They often ask, "We don't understand, you grew up in Great Neck, so if you wanted to move, couldn't you have just gone to Roslyn?"

I suppose by moving to our more rural corner of the North Jersey suburbs it was my attempt to shield them from all of the nonsense and hype, the mandatory material rights of passage (for me it was that first opal ring and leather jacket and Pontiac Firebird-we're talking late 70's and it was mild in comparison but didn't feel that way to my parents at the time) and insure a more 'wholesome' childhood. Yeah, right. Can't be done. The only thing that can be done is to inject your values like you would a daily dose of insulin. And while I do agree that we are a society of runaway and ridiculous consumers, when it comes to teenage novels, I believe that, like all art, they reflect and don’t promote, what’s happening in society, just as edgy books like Goodbye Columbus or Portnoy or Valley of The Dolls reflected the era of sex and drugs years ago.

I’m not sure if this is a good or bad thing but I do know you can't shut it down. And, as an LCSW and former school social worker I can tell you that girls that read (anything!) are likely to fair well later on. Instead of taking books off shelves as some propose, I say we lobby Fendi and Marc Jacobs to make inner slots for BOOKS just as they do for IPods and phones. That's what I call 'joining them'. P.S. I confess to a secret stash of Harold Robbins novels even as I transitioned from Long Island to Ann Arbor and loftier material.

As for my daughter of the 'teen tour travails', she did sell Cutco knives the summer she turned 18 and earned several thousand dollars and blew most of it that fall on Kate Spade bags. My husband and I were devastated but the lesson she learned now that she has graduated college and is working and (semi) supporting herself is that it was a huge waste of money and she'd love to have those dollars back. She thinks long and hard these days about where her money goes and more importantly, where she gets her self worth. So it took a few years. But, as those of us with older children say, '25 is the new 18'. And, under the heading of ‘be careful what you ask for’, the son who wanted to live in Roslyn actually attends Hofstra Law, which is just an exit or two down the highway, and counts the months until he can get off Long Island! Okay, so I’m smiling just a bit.

Although my next book marries memoir/cooking/self help (and world peace while I'm at it?) I've also begun to outline a YA (which is why I focused on this article) and when I mentioned to my agent that I was going to begin to explore what's out there, she said NO, Please don't! I'm not sure if she speaks for the entire publishing world but my sense is that there are a lot of parents of middle and high school kids at the editorial level who would like a little less Malandrino and lot more Mockingbird. This doesn't bode well for my main character, who finds meaning in a lip gloss...but I'll let you know.

For now, here's my product placement: It’s very early in the morning and while I'd love to tell you that I'm sitting here writing in Prada P.J.'s and Jimmy Choos, the only brand names I'm really accessing are 'Gevalia' and 'Advil'.

Posted by Debra Borden at 09:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I’ve been thinking a lot about Passion. Not the sexual kind, although that’s not a bad place for thoughts to land, but for now, I’ve been focusing on the kind you’d like to have for a vocation or a career and the way you figure out how to make them one. With two kids in their twenties, the idea of incorporating passion into work holds much interest for me on their behalf. Who doesn’t want their child to be able to say ‘I love what I do.’ Who hasn’t said ‘he can be a teacher or a ballet dancer if that’s what makes him happy’?

But in the real world the realities of shelter and sustenance and lifestyle seem to take precedent over passion. I suspect that one of my children would adore being a coach and the other would be content walking dogs in Manhattan but neither one of them would earn enough to satisfy their tangible needs and neither one would consider it, at least not now, at an age when the possibility of happiness on all fronts seems, if not within imminent reach, possible. And I don’t blame them. But here’s a thought: Every financially successful person I’ve ever heard says that the key to their success was being passionate about what they were doing.

For me, it’s a no-brainer. I get to work at my passion every day. Although I didn’t have this opportunity until about eight years ago, I have it now and that’s all that matters. Even with all the ups and downs of agents, editors, publishing, marketing and sales, I am grateful for every single day that I have the privilege of being a writer. The ‘passion’ experts advise that you can identify your passion with this question, ‘What are you doing when you lose track of time?’ For me, it’s when I’m writing, reading, or cooking. Okay, and maybe also during a Michigan/Wisconsin Football game. Since I doubt my alumni will be calling me any time soon for defensive tips it’s a good thing that singing the UM fight song or doing the Badger ‘jump around’, remain my hobbies. But writing? Hours go by, literally. And cooking? Let’s put it this way. Every morning I write, and when I’m finished I pick out a recipe for dinner and go to the market for the ingredients and come home and cook. This is my routine most days, broken up only by book clubs, research, and of course, another incredible bonus of being a working writer, the ability to stop everything in order to read a good book. So I get to play with my passions every single day and don’t think I don’t know how lucky I am. It’s for this reason, because I know how great it is, that I want it for my kids.

In truth, I didn’t get here purposefully; it was by accident or at least by some other design. Yet it’s too tempting not to try and reconstruct what I’ve learned in order to form an opinion or perhaps even a blueprint on how to do it. In retrospect, that clearest of all visions, I see that I was always supposed to be a writer. There were definitely signs, huge neon ones, if only I’d been paying attention. Every step of the way I’d been writing, whether it was rhymes at age 7, poor poetry at 16, witty letters in college, and eventually, essays as a concerned citizen. When I volunteered at school it was not as class mother, but as literary circle chair. Even as a social worker, it should have been obvious. The average social assessment is a page and a half-mine were 5-6 pages long.

So if there were signs and I ignored them, what is the average person to do who doesn’t happen to see any? I have a theory. Passions or talents are like certain viruses, and lie dormant within each of us. Just as you can have a predisposition to an illness I believe we are all predisposed to at least one, and perhaps many, gifts, or ‘things we are meant to do’. With a predisposition to an illness, thankfully, unless certain physical or environmental events occur, a person does not get sick. It’s the same with a talent. You’ve got to create activity, try to catalyst some reactions, do what you can to make the passion live and grow. Don’t do what I did and ignore the signs, make a point of looking for them. To the task of figuring out ‘when you lose track of time’ I would add, figure out when you’re ‘in the zone’, when ‘it all feels right, as if you’re doing what you were meant to do’. I’m pretty sure that you can’t make changes until you identify what it is you want.

Finally, even when you figure out what your passion is, it may not be practical to make it your life’s work at this time. You may not be able to leave your CPA job to pursue flower arranging. But, the key is to start to add bits and pieces, even a little bit at a time. Maybe you could take a course on Saturdays for now; you never know when one step is going to lead to a rewarding and surprising other. For me, had I not felt the need to write such sensitive and complicated social histories I probably would not have learned as much as I did about character development and even plot. Go figure. Now, when I question why I waited so long to start my writing career, why I side-tracked to social work, I realize that social work was not a detour at all; not only does it inform all of my novels, but it was actually necessary practice for the thing I was always meant to do.

I’m not sure if I’m any closer to a definitive road map for marrying one’s passion to one’s work and I’m not sure I’m any closer to helping my children do it, but I do know this, tonight I’m going to call them both, I’m going to suggest that one adopt an inner city soccer team in need of a weekend coach and that the other volunteer at the ASPCA. Because like I said, you never know.

Posted by Debra Borden at 02:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Some of you may know that I have been dealing with Irritable Bowel Disease for many years. And for those of you don’t, lucky you! What could be cheerier than a discussion of Ulcerative Colitis or Crohn’s Disease? But I’ve decided it’s time to come out of the closet, or the bathroom, as the case may be, and discuss something that recently occurred. Even though Katie Couric brought the Colonoscopy out of the closet and Mehmet Oz describes stool shapes on Oprah, for about a million people worldwide, these diseases and the tests for them (colonoscopy, and it’s slightly less invasive evil twin, sigmoidoscopy), remain a shameful part of everyday life. These are the last bastion of taboo illnesses, still avoided in polite conversation and it’s no secret why. How’s this for an icebreaker: Hi, I’m Debra. I like Pina Coladas, walks on the beach and retention enemas.”

At last year’s CCFA (Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation) dinner, a lavish affair sponsored by the Modell family, who’s son succumbed to years of ravages from Crohn’s, our friends’ twenty-four year old son was a featured speaker. He stunned the audience by peppering his speech with blunt references to the symptoms and humiliations of the disease. In mixed, black tie, company, he used expressions such as “bloody stool” and “anal fistulas”; not exactly appetizing dinner conversation, but the effect was profound. This group of 1000, which included top doctors and gastrointestinal surgeons, guests with ill family members, and still others suffering themselves, a group that should be least likely to be embarrassed by the terms of bowel disease, squirmed.

So imagine how that poor teenage girl just entering high school or a new bride in the first year of marriage, or a young mother with school-age kids, feels. How do you go on a date, to the prom, to dinner, on vacation, to a PTO meeting, on a car trip or to the office, when you have little or no warning before you need a toilet, any toilet? And the unspoken biggy: how to be intimate, feel sexual, desired and desirous in the face of real physical issues, side effects from meds, and the humiliation of having a ‘disgusting’ disease? I’ll tell you this, I’ve been navigating all of it for almost twenty years and I’ve decided that after the meds and the right doctors and the alternative therapies there is one, single, unifying and helpful tool; a sense of humor. Yes, I advocate for myself, constantly check out the research, occasionally participate in a clinical trial and even make my own, probiotic-on-steroids yogurt. But if I didn’t step back and laugh once in awhile, or more, I’d be lost. Unknowingly and most certainly unintentionally, CCFA recently gave me the chance to do just that.

CCFA is an amazing organization with a plethora of resources, information, and support groups for every age and stage of disease but occasionally they misstep. Last year they sent out ‘emergency cards’ to members; bright purple, and with large white letters, these cards announce, ‘I CAN’T WAIT!’ Flip the card for further details and you learn: “The cardholder suffers from a chronic gastrointestinal illness and MUST be allowed to use an available restroom.” Lovely. And in a pinch, even necessary. But if there were any doubt about the shame of this disease just imagine having to present that card. Dignity’s last stop. Or, (she said sheepishly) here’s my note:
I can’t wait!

It’s no wonder no one wants to talk about Crohns’ and Colitis. We have no pink ribbons, no cute tee shirts and very few Rallies for a Cure. Although recently, we did get a slogan: Got Guts! We also have disturbing seminars (Your Colon: Diarrhea has many colors.) and articles (Rectal Mucus: friend or foe?). Yes, I jest. But see, even you are starting to feel better about all this bathroom talk and you don’t even have the disease! Recently I was on the phone with my sister-in-law, who has her fair share of bowel issues, and we were having one of our frequent discussions about movements, cramps, and gas. “Twenty years ago” she said, “when we were running around at the clubs, who knew that ‘doody’ would turn out to be so important?”
Like I said, ya gotta laugh. Now that can’t wait.

Posted by Debra Borden at 02:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)