January 31, 2008 Issue                                       

©2007 The Chestnut Hill Local

Opinion

What’s it worth?

The Chestnut Hill Community Association faces several tough decisions in the coming months. Before its members are the following choices: Should it raise the price of its membership dues? And should it raise the price of its community newspaper? Membership dues have been $30 and subscriptions to the Local have been $20 since the last time they were raised in 1996.

Association president Tolis Vardakis made a good case for raising the costs of both in a proposal last November. First, he said, a $10 to $15 increase after 12 years was behind the pace of inflation and worked out to, at most, a 29-cent per week hike. Second, he said, it is no secret that the association and Local, both of which would benefit from his proposed hikes, could use the boost in revenue. Although the buy in cost for the assocaition (dues) and Local (subscription) has remained constant during the last 12 years, the cost of doing business has continued to go up.

The trouble with making a decision comes when one tries to determine what people in the community are willing to pay for both the Local and the association. Some have said that the last time the association raised its dues, it lost 20 percent of its members. Why did those people not renew? It’s not clear that any effort was made to find out. If it was simply the price, than there is reason to worry about raising those prices again.

If the issue of raising prices is to be understood, it is important to make a clear distinction between the Local and the association that discussion of proposed rate hikes has yet to draw. When discussing rate hikes, the association and Local are lumped together as if they are both conventional commodities or services governed soley by the simple economic principal  of supply and demand. That sort of thinking gives neither the association nor the Local their due.

Although membership in the association includes a subscription to the Local, the act of paying dues is the act of  buying into an organization which, despite perceptions of its volitility, accomplishes and supports a remarkable amount of good work in Chestnut Hill. Anyone who believes Chestnut HIll would be as desirable a place to live without the CHCA is kidding himself. From the hard work of its zoning committees to the neighbporhood support provided by its office staff, the CHCA provides a tremendous service for Chestnut Hill, a service on which putting a price is difficult.

There are certainly limits to what people would pay for that membership, but people either desire to be members of their community association or they don’t. If people want to be members they will likely find the money to make the commitment to membership. Board members often talk about the need for more and more members when perhaps what they need are more committed members.

Subscription to the Local, on the other hand, is more conventional. The Local, despite protestations from some, is not an association newsletter. It was set up by the CHCA to operate exactly like a conventional newspaper. It must sell advertising to pay its expenses. In order to sell that advertising it must reach as many people as possible, meaning that for the Local to stay in business it must be relevant to people beyond the borders of Chestnut Hill. People in Chestnut Hill and it’s surrounding neighboorhoods decide if the Local is worth the cost or not based on whether they feel they get news they need and want or not. If we’re not interesting to readers, we won’t sell copies.

Advertisers do business with us based on how many readers we reach and what kind of readers those are (Paid subscription makes us more valuable than free papers, for example. The demographics of Chestnut Hill, Mt Airy, Wyndmoor and Whitemarsh, where we sell most of our papers, makes us valuable to advertisers, too.)

In order to make good decisions about raising the prices of the CHCA and Local, I think it is important to make these distinctions, or subsequent hikes have a good chance of failing. After those distinctions are made, a survey might also be a good place to start. This is a big decision. It can’t be made too carefully.

Pete Mazzaccaro

An invitation to join me in writing a novel
by HUGH GILMORE

In my last column, the one about reading A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, I mentioned that I had started writing a novel. A few people have asked how and what and why I’m writing, so this might be a good time to check in and let you know.

I had originally wanted to state my intentions for this project at the beginning of the year, as I did last year with my reading project. But I wasn’t sure of my commitment to this book and was a bit afraid I wouldn’t really follow through on what I said I would do. I guess I’m still not certain. Nonetheless, following the guidelines I set up for this writing program, I’m far enough into it that I’ll stick my head out of the cave and invite you to join along.

I started on January 1, with the idea that I’d have completed several drafts of a short novel by year’s end. You could choose to begin your writing year on February 1 or March 1, or on the 16th or the 22nd of whatever month you choose to start. There’s nothing official about all this. Truthfully, the world doesn’t care when you or I get it done, or if we even start. This is a personal project for people who have always wanted to write an entire novel and are willing to do what it takes to get one done.

My particular guidelines have been borrowed freely from Walter Mosley’s wonderful little book This Year You Write Your Novel. I’ve read several writers’ guides in the past years, hoping for useful advice, but nothing has matched Mosley’s gentle, enthusiastic, and practical tone. I suggest you get a copy and read it quickly and then read it again slowly, seeing what parts you can use.

Mosley says you should write first thing every day. Yes, the gutters need cleaning. There’s food to buy and cook. Other people make demands of us. That’s the way of the world and it’s true for everyone. If you want to write a novel, you have to go ahead and write anyway. Is your life busier than everyone else’s? You have his complete sympathy, but if you want to have your completed novel done next year something’s got to give. Maybe one of those television shows you watch.

Mosley says a minimum hour and a half a day, more if you have it. No matter what time his day starts, he writes before he does anything else. Every day. Yes, weekends. Yes, vacation.  

 I’ve been following this “at least” hour-and-a-half habit since January 1. It has paid off, but has not been easy. When I awaken to each fresh new day I want to do all sorts of things. Run errands, go exercise, sit with coffee and read the paper, work on my chores. Then I remember I must write first. Sometimes I remember with a groan. I find myself getting up earlier each week so I can get my writing over with and get my real life started.

But I go to my computer and return to my story. Even if I have no idea what to write next, Mosley has given us a way out: rereading your pages counts. Proofing counts. Staring at the screen counts. Closing your eyes and thinking about the story counts. Type nonsense if you must, but the rule is that you must be parked in your writing spot for an hour and a half. Then you can go.

You should spend some time thinking before you start this project. But you don’t have to have the whole story figured first. Some people do. They plot out their characters, the number of scenes they’re in, how much face time they get with the reader and so on. But others, just as interesting, just as successful, use the writing process as a means of discovery. Characters take on lives of their own and start dictating the plot. It’s your book, do it your way.

I started my novel with a single image in my head, a bottle of vintage port wine a father has been saving to give to his son on his 21st birthday. The vintage is the year the boy was born. But his son has died. What should he do with that bottle that grows grander every year? While he works on all the various meanings that might follow any given course of action he might take, he comes home one night to discover the bottle has been stolen in a burglary.

That’s all I knew. Oh, wait, I also knew I wanted it to be a murder mystery and I wanted to set it in Ann Arbor, Michigan around 1985. I began writing on January 1. I always put in at least an hour and a half a day on it (some weekend days five or six hours). As of today, after 30 days, I’m over 30,000 words. I expect to be around 110,000 by mid-April. That will be my working draft.

The first few days I worked on this book I experimented with first versus third person narrative voice. Being a column writer has inclined me toward using first person, but even when I was trying to sound serious I was wisecracking, so I abandoned the approach and am writing “he” said this and “she” said that. There are tricks for working “I” in if you need to and you’ll learn them soon enough once you start.

One final thing for today. Mosley’s practice is to write the whole story out, whether he gets 500 words a day or a few thousand. Get the story out. Assume that the writing is lousy. Don’t stop. Assume you were wrong about that 1979 Dodge Colt having power windows. Don’t stop to google it. You can always change the color of a character’s hair. Or add a mustache. Leave the research for later. Write it. Get the story down. If you’re faithful, after about three or four months you’ll have at least 75,000 words, enough for a short novel.

After that, the work begins. 

Hugh can be reached at gilmorebooks@yahoo.com.