Livin’ La Vida Freelance

My friends say I am living the dream, working part time as a freelance writer and playing the rest of the time in San Francisco, my adopted city.

I am. But the landscape in this particular dream has shifted over the years, making my professional future more uncertain than ever. Most employers on Craigslist now want “content providers” instead of writers, and those content providers must be savvy about social media and often be willing to handle some office chores as well.

Some publications that once paid decent rates now offer freelancers the opportunity to “build a resume” instead of paying them. Some writers, desperate to do just that, agree to write for free because competition is so stiff. Of course, working for free hurts all of us.

Think about it. In the last decade, every daily newspaper in the country has sacked or bought out up to two-thirds of their staff, plunging a lot of highly skilled, deadline-abiding people into the freelance pool. Small ad agencies and p.r. firms have closed or been devoured by larger ones.

Yet colleges and universities continue to hand out degrees in journalism, communications and media studies.

Over Half a Century of Bylines

Fifty years ago, I sold my first magazine article to a national teen publication. Because I thought those magazines were written by teens, not grown-ups, I submitted a feature on a boy at my high school, a gifted comic artist. The magazine sent me a check for $25, which I never cashed.

Twenty-five years ago, I wrote my first book, a whale-watchers guide for Globe Pequot Press. At the time, I worked as a newspaper reporter, and an ambitious agent tracked me down after reading some of my syndicated travel stories. She talked me into writing that book, and now 16 titles – all nonfiction, on a variety of topics -- bear my name.

Ten years ago, I took a buyout from a daily newspaper after more than two decades there. Thanks to a small pension, a lot of hustle and now, Social Security, I am a full-time freelance writer, at least part of the time. Just a month ago, in three days I interviewed five people and finished six articles for the web sites, marketing firms and newspapers that buy my work.

Why am I doing math to help explain my life as a writer?

This Trophy Proves It

A few days ago, a friend noticed a small trophy on my bookshelf. The plaque reads, “First Place” and indicates I won it for a “beginners news story" in 1964 at a Missouri Interscholastic Press Association Conference in St. Louis.

After talking abut the trophy with my friend, I realized that ironically, by the time I won it, I was no longer a beginner.

The first paper I worked for was The Plymouth Rock, in 1962 at my junior high school. (I am still friends with my teacher and my first editor.) Then I branched out to write for and edit The Peppermint Press, the Candy Stripers’ newspaper at a local hospital where I volunteered.

After I won that trophy but before I left high school, I wrote regularly for the teen page at a daily paper in St. Louis, a weekly suburban paper, a St. Louis Press Club publication, a local teen magazine and my high school paper.

Time Spent in Service to the News

Once I got a taste of the writing life, knew the thrill of a byline, I wanted more.

I got it. After putting in time at an ad agency, a hospital’s public relations department, a religious book publisher and a federally funded educational laboratory, I spent 23 years at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. There, I worked as a feature writer, news reporter, health writer, theater critic, lifestyle columnist, travel writer, restaurant critic, food writer and night city editor.

At the paper, I predicted that the FDA would ban silicone breast implants. I also helped spread the word about endangered pandas and I spent many an afternoon interviewing Broadway stars. Along with my colleagues, I worked seven days a week covering the Great Flood of 1993. (I was interviewed on CNN about that.) I also wrote about pothole repairs, the birth of the zoo’s first baby elephant and recipes for apple pie.

I loved all of it.

In 1968, when I was in journalism school at the University of Missouri at Columbia, we were told that the day would come when everyone would have a home computer. Keep in mind that in 1968, computers took up entire rooms! (Our professors also told us there would be no more newspapers on front lawns; that readers would print out their papers at home. OK, they missed on that one.)

Loving the Freelance Life

By 1990, when I wrote my first book, that prediction seemed more likely than ever, so I started freelancing in case I needed a back-up plan for my career. Over the years, I’ve written articles for Ms., Southwest Airlines, the San Francisco Theological Seminary, Family Fun, Northwest Parks and Wildlife, the Catholic Hospital Association, Toastmasters International, Cruise Travel and numerous grocery magazines. My stories have been published in newspapers across the country, including USA Today.

Writing skills are transferable, so I also have penned web copy, brochures, releases, newsletters, direct mail pieces, speeches and one play. Clients have included a massage therapist, a theater company, a retail shop, an acupuncturist, book authors, a marine conservation organization, a dermatologist, several marketing firms and the lovely town of Gustavus, Alaska.

What are my books about?

When people ask, I say I am a production potter, willing to make whatever sort of paragraphs that publishers want. My best sellers include “Chemotherapy and Radiation for Dummies” (Wiley) and “Dolphins for Kids” (NorthWord Press). With Eve Batey, I wrote "100 Things to Do in San Francisco Before You Die." Other titles include books about cougars, waterfalls of the world, manatees, the St. Louis Zoo, sharks, the St. Louis Science Center and beavers. One book is a collection of my favorite columns from the newspaper.

Keeping the Dream Alive

Today, I am proud to be a contributing writer for Next Avenue (nextavenue.org), the web site for people 50 and older. I also write regularly for jWeekly in San Francisco and the St. Louis Jewish Light. My former newspaper buys two or three travel stories a year from me. From time to time, I put together calendar copy for a firm in Detroit and I do business with a marketing company in Tucson.

So what's my secret to succeeding in freelance?

That's simple. Most often, I say “yes” to work queries that show up in my email because “yes” means work and work means money to pay the rent. Work also means a great deal of satisfaction that I still do the work – and care deeply about it -- that chose me when I was 14 years old, back in junior high.

I am living the dream. But keep those emails coming!

April 27, 2010: A Life-Changing Day

Five years ago today, on April 27, I sold my condo in St. Louis. Two months later, I moved to San Francisco, following my heart to move close to my son and daughter-in-law and also giving myself the gift of a great adventure – the chance to get to know this amazing city.

I have adapted well! Here are just six of the reasons I know I really do live in San Francisco.

1. I do errands based on available parking. Parking is a huge problem in San Francisco. How big a deal is it? When I color with my three-year-old grandson, first he asks me to draw roads for his cars and then he asks me to draw parking places. Even when we play with his little plastic dinosaurs, I am instructed to provide parking. You can tell he is a native!

Most often, I take Muni, because if you have the time, the bus will take you anywhere you want to go. But if I’m heading out to pick up groceries or anything bulky, I drive. (Still, my odometer tallies fewer than 3,000 miles a year, and I buy gas every six or seven weeks -- but only if I need it.)

Anyway, if I can’t park right away where I planned to shop, I will go around the block four times. After that, I make a new plan to try again at another time or at a different place or I decide on a different purchase option altogether. Sometimes, I just forget about it. So not finding a parking place sometimes saves me money!

2. I know a lot of people here. Standing alone at a bus stop downtown one day, a stop that serves five different lines, I saw a #9 bus approach. I was waiting for the #6, so I stepped back. The #9 stopped and the door opened, but no one got off the bus. Then the driver waved and called out, “Hi, Pat! I’m not on the #37 any more, so I never see you. How’s that grandbaby?”

3. I have a favorite getaway place in the city. Cultural opportunities abound here – theater, the symphony, the ballet, the opera, dozens of wonderful museums. I take advantage of all that when I can, but San Francisco also offers numerous places that boast astonishing natural beauty.

If I’ve been working at the computer too many days in a row, I push back the chair and drive three miles to the edge of the continent. Once there, sometimes I walk. Sometimes I stare at the Pacific Ocean. Sometimes I memorize the cries of the gulls, the rush of the wind and the crashing of the waves. Beautiful – and it’s free!

My favorite getaway place outside the city is West Marin, where I head once a month. (Read my Post-Dispatch travel story on the area at http://www.stltoday.com/travel/west-marin-for-the-wild-at-heart/article_889acf23-3f9a-5c7d-a6be-5bade0a75220.html) Heck, just driving across the world-renowned Golden Gate Bridge gives me a thrill!

4. I’ll pay $10 for a cocktail. (My favorite is the pear martini at Cliff House: Grey Goose Le Poire vodka, St. Germain elderflower liqueur, fresh lime juice – tastes like silk.) Once a month, most often on or near the full moon, my Full Moon Cocktail group heads for a bar or restaurant where the four of us order pricy cocktails and split some tasty bar food. We drink, we laugh, we eat, we talk about what we’re doing or thinking or buying or hoping will happen. We never order a second drink.

5. I carry extra layers with me. San Francisco has micro-climates, which means every day the temperature can vary by up to 20 degrees across town, depending on what neighborhood you’re heading to or meandering through. People tend to dress for their home turf, but most of us never go out without a windbreaker and a scarf, just in case.

Before I moved here, I never cared much for gray. Now, some of my extra layers are gray, as are other items of my clothing I’ve bought gray jackets, scarves, sweaters, shoes and purses. Why? I love the famous fog. From my apartment I have a great view of fog banks filling and then receding from the Golden Gate strait, and I am always grateful for the cool air here that the fog guarantees. (I also love the sunsets – art in the sky!)

6. I wrote a book about San Francisco’s neighborhood attractions. What a great way to get to know a city better! Reedy Press asked me to put together the guidebook, so first I found a co-author with deeper roots (the incomparable Eve Batey) and then together we compiled “100 Things to Do in San Francisco Before You Die” (see facebook.com/100thingsSF).

The book, which actually features about 230 things to do here, is one of Reedy’s 19 city guides, all penned by people who live in the cities they wrote about. (That’s rare.) Now that the book has been published, I’m meeting even more people as I spend time marketing it!

So even though I lived somewhere else for 62 years, I have adapted quite well, thank you, to my new city and even made dear friends. (Read my article about how to do that, published on Next Avenue at http://www.nextavenue.org/blog/7-ways-make-friends-new-city)

Still, after almost five years here, I remain in awe that my address is in San Francisco. I celebrate that – out loud. My route to the grocery store takes me up the hill to Twin Peaks, past a stunning view of downtown, with all its classic landmark buildings. On every trip to the store, I roll down the window, face into the wind and yell, “I live here!”

What’s the Verse Thing That Can Happen?

April is National Poetry Month – but you say you’re going to sit this one out?

Poetry scares a lot of people, especially people who didn’t do well in school when it came to interpreting dense verses in English class. How scary is poetry?

So scary that the artistic director of a regional modern dance company, struggling to build his audience, once quipped, “You would think we were trying to get people to sit through an evening of poetry!”

The point is this: Poetry is a conversation between the poet and the reader, a subjective experience. Some conversations go well, some not so much and perhaps some never should have happened at all. Robert Frost, he who stopped by woods on a snowy evening, looked at poetry another way. People forget, he said, and “poetry makes you remember what you didn't know you knew."

In defense of poetry, here some favorite lines from my favorite poets, poets with whom you may want to start your own conversations.  Keeping fair use laws in mind, only a tantalizing line or two are quoted here. The complete poems are in books or on line. For more about the 19th annual National Poetry Month, look to the Academy of American Poets. (www.poets.org/national-poetry-month/home)

Poetry about Lanyards, Dogs, Sex and Perseverance

A few months ago, by choice I sat through an evening of poetry read by Billy Collins, who served as U.S. Poet Laureate from 2001 to 2003. Here are some of my favorite lines from Collins, who routinely surprises readers:

• “She gave me life and milk from her breasts and I gave her a lanyard.”

• “When he told me he expected me to pay for dinner, I was like give me a break.”

• “I am the dog you put to sleep.”

About that dog -- speaking for those that don’t have a voice is common in poetry. In “Lady Freedom Among Us,” Rita Dove imagines a back story for a statue that sits on top of the Congress building in Washington, D.C. Dove, who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1986 and served as U.S. Poet Laureate from 1993 to 1995, depicts the statue as a former bag lady. The poet challenges readers to consider Lady Freedom as “one of the many” and also as “each of us.”

Some poems deliver barely a glancing blow on the psyche, but some make a big impression. Lines that have stayed with me for decades range from e.e. cummings’ “I like my body when it is with  your body” to Emily Dickinson’s “I’m Nobody! Who are you?” to John Donne’s “For God’s sake hold your tongue, and let me love” to Erica Jong’s “You gave me the child that seamed my belly & stitched up my life” to Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s “funny fantasies are never so real as oldstyle romances.”

As a college student in 1967, I spent a dollar on a new copy of Ferlinghetti’s “A Coney Island of the Mind,” which has sold over a million copies and been translated into nine languages since it was published in 1958. The co-founder of San Francisco’s storied City Lights Booksellers & Publishers (www.citylights.com), Ferlinghetti, who turns 96 on March 24, is a poet, painter and activist closely associated with the Beat Writers.

One of them, Gregory Corso, plaintively asks in his poem “Marriage:” “Should I get married? Should I be good?” Rather than entertain a question, Dag Hammarskjöld tells the reader exactly what to do in his moving poem that insists: “It is now, Now, that you must not give in.” Hammarskjöld -- the late Swedish diplomat, economist, author, second Secretary-General of the United Nations and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize -- later advises, “The way chose you -- And you must be thankful.” I routinely recommend the poem to friends going through tough times.

Poetry about Aging, Ginkgo Trees, Cancer and Grandkids

Aging is a topic tackled by many a poet, and reading these works reminds me that I am not alone on this odd journey of growing older. Rainer Maria Rilke begins one such poem this way: “You see, I want a lot.” Later, Rilke notes, “You have not grown old, and it is not too late to dive into your increasing depths where life calmly gives out its own secret.” On the same topic, Derek Walcott writes, “Sit. Feast on your own life.”

In one poem, Pat Schneider (http://patschneider.com/pat/), the poet and author who founded Amherst Writers & Artists, pays homage to her brother at age 60: “Because the world we knew together is coming to an end, and he’s the one who remembers that day I roller-skated too fast down the hill, how I fell – how he picked me up and called me by my childhood name.”

Marilyn Zuckerman’s poem “After Sixty” begins: “The sixth decade is coming to an end. Doors have opened and shut.” A few lines later, Zuckerman (http://marilynzuckermanpoet.com/) declares that after 60 is a “time to tell the story, time to invent the new one.” She is the recipient of an Allen Ginsberg Poetry Award.

Ginkgo trees, a personal favorite, are contemplated in the poetry of Howard Nemerov, Poet Laureate Consultant to the Library of Congress, and a winner of the National Book Award for Poetry and the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.

Even common diseases are discussed in poetry. Richard Fox occasionally writes poetry about cancer. In his “Day One,” Fox speaks about leaving from his first appointment about chemotherapy and radiation. He writes of meeting “a whistling man” at the elevator, a man with “sunken eyes, bald, no eyebrows” who is wearing a “CANCER SUCKS” button. The man grins and asks, “So what are you in for, kid?” (For more about Fox, see www.smallpoet@large.com)

In her poetry, Olivia Stiffler (www.oliviastiffler.com/) writes beautifully about grandchildren. David Tucker, longtime assistant managing editor at the New Jersey Star-Ledger, pens poems in his book “Late for Work” about life in the newsroom.

See? Poetry is about anything and everything, and about all of us and everything we love and fear and want to hold close. Go on – go to Google and type in any subject and the word “poem” and see for yourself.

And then please reconsider celebrating National Poetry Month!

I Am My Valentine

Some people on this planet do love me,  but none are racing out to choose a card, candy or flowers for me for Valentine’s Day. That’s why I use February 14 to assess my personal Pamper Patricia Program, which operates year ‘round.

How do I love me?

I’ve listed five ways here. Feel free to help yourself any time you need to be your own Valentine.

1. Borrow a Bathtub

For a dozen years, I had the bathtub of my dreams, a huge soaking tub in a spa-like bathroom in my condo. I always said that if I ever moved, I would carve out that tub and take it with me – but I didn’t, and my current standard-size tub annoys me.

Even my grandson, who is 3, finds it wanting. One evening after splashing around in it with too many tub toys, he asked, “Nana, do you have a bigger bathtub?” I do not. But I know someone who does. My plan is to rent it from time to time. I‘ll take my heart-print bathrobe and of course it’s Bring Your Own Bubbles.

2. Schedule a Facial

We all greet the world face first, so why not make the most of that face, which is assaulted day in and day out by grit, grime and air pollution? A professional facial offers deep cleansing, dead skin removal and intense moisturizing for dry, aging skin. Also, I pick up tips for more effective skin care to help me combat fine lines, brown spots or puffiness.

Plus, the time spent on the table is supremely relaxing. If you’re on a budget, you can still work in an occasional facial. Call a local beauty school and ask if the students need clients to practice on. For instance, the Cinta Aveda Institute in San Francisco offers facials for just $40. Such a deal!

3. Attend a Matinee

Even though the senior discount does not kick in at most movie theaters until the evening shows, nothing beats the delicious decadence of seeing a movie in the middle of the afternoon. Maybe it’s because I spent so many afternoons at the office wishing I were at the movies, or maybe it’s just a reminder of one of the privileges of being retired. (If you’re not yet retired, consider taking half a personal day sometime and sneak off to a movie theater.)

For lunch, it’s popcorn and a refreshing beverage. Maybe a box of Junior Mints for dessert. And yes, the snacks likely will cost more than the price of the movie ticket, even at the matinee rate.  I am worth it!

4. Make a Date

Where do you like to go to get away, breathe more freely, put down your day-to-day worries? Been there lately? Me either, though my list of favorite spots includes the botanical garden, a local diner with the best milkshakes ever, a cozy bookstore built for browsing and a hilltop with a beautiful view.

I also have a list of places I’ve never gone, and I seem to put off those expeditions as well. Why do I so often allow opportunities for new experiences pass me by? This Valentine’s Day, I am making a date with myself to get to a comedy club or jazz concert, places I have long wanted to go, meant to go and can’t believe I’ve never gone. I’m going!

5. Plan a Lovely Dinner

Valentine’s Day is one of the busiest nights for restaurants – why fight the crowd and compete for the attention of the crazed kitchen staff trying to serve all those couples? It’s a great night to feast on my favorite food in the comfort of my home, go beyond the usual low-key dinner for one.

Once a month, often on a minor holiday like Valentine’s Day, I give myself permission to splurge on my favorite food, either a prepared item or a special cut of meat that I cook just the way I like it. Dungeness crab is in season right now in San Francisco and an upscale grocery sells exquisite crab cakes for $4.99 each, a fraction of the cost at a restaurant. I may steam some asparagus – or I may just buy two crab cakes and a lemon and call it dinner.  

Happy Valentine’s Day to me – and you!

Wrestling with Aging

I’m 16, sitting in the kitchen at my boyfriend’s house, talking to his mother, while Joey gets ready for our bike ride. Adele Lawton  -- Mrs. Dr. Roger Lawton – is very nice. She offers me lemonade and asks me questions about school. She wears a dress, a dark print, with stockings and flats. I figure she is just a little older than my mom, maybe in her mid 50s.

Joey tells me his parents go to a lot of costume parties, whoop it up and drink and dance. That’s not the woman I see sitting across from me. In a moment of panic, I wonder if Mrs. Lawton suspects that Joey and I spend more time necking than riding bikes. I open my eyes wide and flash my most innocent virginal smile. She doesn’t notice. That’s not what’s on her mind.

Mrs. Lawton leans across the table.  “You’re 16. You look at me and you see Joey’s mother, an old woman. That’s who I see when I look in the mirror, too,” she says. "But inside, I am 16, like you." She settles back in her kitchen chair. “I remember 16," she says. "I remember 25. I remember 40. I do not feel the age I am, the age I look.”

Suddenly I see her at 16, laughing with friends, dressing carefully for school, flirting with boys. I see her at 25, married to a handsome doctor, starting a family. I see her at 40, dressed in an exotic pagan goddess costume, paying the babysitter when she and Dr. Lawton return home from a party.

Adele Lawton has just told me that inside, she is all these people at once!

Now I’m 66, but I remember 16. I remember 25. I remember 40. And I remember two months ago, when I’m sitting inside a large, round glass column, sort of a tall test tube designed to hold one person. This cylinder is closed at the top, but it has a door and I can see out.

The medical technician is a short, 30-something man, cheerful but professionally impersonal. He explains how I am to breathe into the hoses extending into the cylinder. We practice together, panting in unison, for six or seven breaths.

I’ve got this! It’s like panting during labor! Been there, done that. For 40 minutes, I pant while the technician stares at monitors. When the panting gets tough, he acts as a cheerleader. “Good! You’re doing great! Just a few more minutes now! Keep it up!”

Finally, the test is over. “Look at this!,” the technician says, pointing to graphs on a monitor. “Look at these numbers! You have better lung function than I do!” The test proves, he adds, that I do not have asthma. I exhale, greatly relieved, and turn to flash him a big smile.

Then I hear the technician say this: “When I saw your age and weight on the chart, I didn’t have a lot of hope for you.”

What? I want to slug him, pound on him, make him take it back!

Suddenly, visions of my athletic prowess race through my mind – me, winning a belly dancing contest on a cruise on the Nile. Me, chasing – and catching – buses all over San Francisco. Me, hiking to the top of Angel Island. Okay, I cried a little along the way, but I did it, made it to the top.

Next I mentally gloat over my most recent blood work. I need a button that reads, “Ask me about my triglycerides.” I pat myself on the back – figuratively, of course -- for losing 80 pounds some 10 years ago and keeping 70 of them off.

Yet in that room at that moment with that technician, I am just an old, overweight, red-faced woman – one with clenched fists. I can’t outrun security guards, so I decide to wound him with words. "Don’t you ever make assumptions about people you know nothing about,” I roar. Then I stomp out.

I am still new to being old. I am startled that I have gray hair, but smart enough to know if I color it, I will never get a seat on the bus. The occasional physical limitation conflicts with my self-image, and I now get why I am too old to fall.

As for my hands -- I do remain in awe of these hands, hands that have allowed me to earn a living as a writer for over 40 years. Through the decades, I’ve interviewed hundreds, maybe thousands, of older people, and now I realize I was on the outside, looking in.

Now that I’m on the inside, I would ask different questions.

How do you like being ignored, overlooked, undervalued -- invisible?

Do you find it hilarious that young people think they invented sex?

Are you angry that so much of what you know, what you worked for your whole life, what you’ve accomplished, is now disregarded?

Just how much do you miss cute shoes?

Are you unnerved because most of your life is behind you?

Do you relate at all to the word “elderhood?” Beware -- it’s coming soon from the mouth of a medical professional near you.

Back to my hands. I have to admit I don’t much like how my hands look.

My right hand now squares off at the wrist. There is a knot on my left thumb. And one of my little fingers is so crooked that it looks like a new mom standing with her hip jutted out to hold a baby.

I look at these hands and I see wrinkles, a few age spots, a weird bony bump. Yep, these are the hands of an older woman. I can’t say I didn’t see this coming.

I’m 26, visiting my neighbor, sipping tea and talking. Anita reaches for my hand. She holds it a minute, strokes it. “Look how smooth and soft your hand is,” she says, “how youthful and pretty.”

Anita – in her mid-60s then, a retired pediatric nurse – compares her hand to mine. “My hand is wrinkled,” she says, “with age spots. My thumb has a big knot on it and two of my fingers have decided to stiffen up and grow crooked.” Anita stares at her hand. “When did that happen?”

Now I’m the one with the old-lady hands. Every day I use them to push away the past, hang on to the present, grasp for the future. They have another use, as well. One day last month, my grandson, who is just three, looks at me and asks, “Nana, are you a grown-up?”

"No,” I say to Max. “I am a girl." Then these girlish hands grab him -- and hold him close.

Hey, I remember 3!

Popular Pumpkin Bread

PUMPKIN BREAD

¾ cup margarine (1½ sticks)
2 cups granulated sugar
4 eggs
1 (15-ounce) can pumpkin
2/3 cup water
3½ cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1½ teaspoons salt
1½ teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon cloves
1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts (if nuts are too pricey, skip 'em)

With a mixer, cream margarine and sugar together. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well. Add pumpkin and water, starting on slow speed, and mix until combined.

Add the flour, baking soda, salt, baking powder, cinnamon and cloves.

Starting on slow speed (otherwise you will be wearing the flour mixture), mix well, increasing the speed as the flour mixture is absorbed. Add nuts and give it a whirl again to mix them in.

Grease and flour pans or squirt them with baking spray. Pour pumpkin mixture into either two regular loaf pans or six mini loaf pans. Fill pans about two-thirds full.

Bake in a preheated 350-degree oven for about an hour. Large loaves take a little more time; small loaves take a little less.

This bread is not as sweet as cake (I reduced the sugar from 2 1/2 cups), but it’s so much more flavorful than dry, boring zucchini bread, and requires no butter or cream cheese on top. The pumpkin bread freezes wonderfully when wrapped in plastic wrap and topped off in foil.

FUN FACT: I found this recipe in Cosmopolitan magazine when I was 16 (!) and have been making it ever since. The original recipe called for chopped maraschino cherries as well, which I thought then (and agree now) is WAY too much trouble. Enjoy!

WARNING: Once you hand out mini loaves of this great bread, people start asking for it every November.

The Joy of Solo Shows

Why am I learning how to develop a solo show?

A better question might be why aren’t you? Everybody has a story, and with coaching and direction, we all can learn to tell the best parts of our story.

That’s why Gene Gore, 82, developed and performs “Cheesecake and Demerol,” her award-winning solo show, which runs through Oct. 19 at Stage Werx Theatre in San Francisco.

“I like being part of the theater community, I like connecting with the audience, with new people, and I like telling my story,” Gene said over tea Friday at Café Reverie, one of my favorite places to sit around and hear stories.

“At last Sunday’s performance, I really hit my stride, was in that place where I could tweak some lines to get laughs I hadn’t gotten before.” (See genegore.com for info on future performances.)

A retired nurse and mother of four, grandmother of three, Gene has been working in theater for about a dozen years. She has appeared in a handful of plays and another handful of movies and done some commercials. Gene has studied acting, voice-over work and improvisation. She also has taken workshops in solo performance with David Ford, where she says she found her voice, and has been directed by David and most recently by Wayne Harris.

Here is one review from her performance at the San Francisco Fringe Festival in 2012: “Attending Gene’s show is like having strong coffee with your gracious, vivacious and very witty grandmother. Documentaries and fiction can’t compare with the rare opportunity to experience history through the eyes of a woman who lived it all and tells it like it is. Plus, she’s funny as hell.”

That she is! Gene has fans of all ages, including a 14-year-old who was inspired to take up acting after seeing “Cheesecake and Demerol.” When I saw it earlier this month, I thought it was funny and profound, a mesmerizing look back at the important choices Gene has made in her life -- and those that were made for her.

At the theater, I also leaned in a little to study how Gene “shows” instead of “tells,” how she uses a few props to flesh out important points and how she paces the stories in the show for maximum impact. All those are things I need to learn as I work on developing a solo show.

In August, I attended an intense three-day workshop conducted by Alicia Dattner, who also has won awards for her solo shows. Alicia has performed in San Francisco, New York, Hollywood, Bombay, Chennai and London. (See aliciadattner.com) I saw her amazing show "The Oy of Sex" last week.

At the workshop, for three days we talked, performed, wrote, did theater exercises, wrote some more and performed some more. By the end of the workshop, I had seven pages of material that included several of my stories about aging, about how older women being underestimated or disregarded, all strung loosely together.

Here’s how I started, and yes, I sang the first line. Of course, as I continue to revise the material, the current beginning may end up deleted, replaced by something else.

“I am 16, going on 17 – I know that I can’t sing. A few lines later in that song comes this: I need someone older and wiser, telling me what to do. That works! I am 66, going on 32 - -the perfect age to tell my 16-year-old self what to do. 

Just so you know, I am not upset that I am old. I have made a point of collecting plenty of experiences that I can use to startle and delight people on the porch at the nursing home as we sit rocking, rocking, rocking.

What I am upset about is how some people perceive me based only on my age and the life they presume I am leading. I am concerned about the disconnect between what I feel inside, who I see in the mirror, and the person others see. When they notice me at all.” 

My work made people in the class laugh, made them think and made them say really nice things about my writing. They also seemed impressed that I’m not afraid to stand up and perform. That said, Alicia pointed out that what I have is more of a narrative than a script, and that I need to pull apart some of the paragraphs so I can develop characters and write dialogue for them so that I show, rather than just tell.

I haven’t done that yet. This has been a busy month – my new book with Eve Batey is just out (see 100thingssf.com or facebook.com/100thingsSF, where we’re posting great photos!) and some in-depth freelance work came my way. But that’s okay.

Procrastinating is okay because in mid-October, I will begin an eight-week workshop on solo show development with Charlie Varon (see charlievaron.com), who has been writing and performing for over 30 years. Since 1991, he has created award-winning solo theater work in collaboration with David Ford at The Marsh (themarsh.org), where I have seen half a dozen wonderful solo shows since I moved to San Francisco.

I was familiar with the genre long before that, of course. For me, solo performance seems like another way to tell stories, something I’ve been doing for over 50 years. “It’s expensive,” cautioned Gene when I told her I was just beginning.

“Often, you pay for the space, you pay for tech and you pay for publicity,” she said. Gene is tackling that problem by researching grants and launching a crowd-funding project on Indiegogo. (Read her amazing story at www.indiegogo.com/projects/gene-gore-s-cheesecake-and-demerol). She’s way ahead of me!

A dear, generous friend did pay my workshop expenses (corporate sponsorship, this early in the game!) but I haven’t looked any farther ahead. Right now, for me this project is about joy, about learning something new, about being determined to live an interesting life while I’m still here.

Stay tuned!