yuvi zalkow - novelist, failed writer, schmo

I’ve begun dabbling in the world in stop-motion animation. What does this mean? This means that I wait for my toddler to take a nap and then I frantically begin playing with his stuffed animals.

My excuse this time for playing with his toys is that I want to talk about writing groups. I’ve been in plenty of writing groups and here is my take on what makes an (in)effective writing group:

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So I’ve finally put together a presentation describing how I make my presentations. It’s a pretty geeky little video that focuses on the tools that I use. I’ve honestly stumbled my way into this video-making process, so it is definitely flawed…

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There’s a saying in the presentation world: “once you need your wife to film you naked for a presentation, you’ve gotten too desperate.” OK. That’s not really a saying… But it should be.

In any case, I hope you find some of this presentation useful. I took the tremendous risk of getting my wife to film me naked for this video (which is risky for both my presentation gig and my marriage) because I wanted to show you many of the ways I try to get a fresh look at my own writing. Let’s see if it pays off…

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Here is my video about failure. I talk about my love affair with failure and how it serves me as a writer. I also reveal a bit too much about my psychoses. And I talk about martinis.

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This is my video tribute to a great talk at SXSW in 2009 between John Gruber and Merlin Mann about obsession and voice. Here is how it has affected me as a neurotic novelist.

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A novel by Yuvi Zalkow

To be published by MP Publishing in the Fall of 2012.

Check out the unauthorized trailer (which includes me pantsless):

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Here is a video tribute to an incredible 1985 essay about writing and the need for durability by Ted Solotaroff. I apologize in advance for the comparison of the writing life to a bad game of Frogger.

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I have two short videos for you this time. First of all, I made a book trailer for the novel that I was struggling to sell. Instead of talking about the high points, it emphasizes all the rejections. It requires just one minute of your life! Check it out before you get too annoyed with me and my gratuitous and ineffective use of exclamation marks! (WARNING: This one minute video has two occurrences of a neurotic Jew in his underwear.)

And related to this trailer, I created another “I’m a Failed Writer” episode, this time about the balance between the writing and the marketing of the writing, where I tell my own story about re-balancing things to de-emphasize the marketing and focus again on the writing.

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So I’ve come up with this way of writing my novel amidst a chaotic life. I stupidly call it the “bucket writing method”. This way of writing has been great for me. Check out the video.

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The very-nearly-awaited second episode in the “I’m a failed writer” series. This one is about time management. With some arrogance, I try to solve all your time management issues in 3 words.

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