I Created This Fictional Character on Instagram
Instagram lends itself to fiction and I just created my second character on the social network. Follow my "quadsteppers" if you want some silliness sprinkled with all the selfies in your Instagram feed.Sometimes I use crutches, or what I call quadsteppers, but I don't want to carry them once I reach my destination. So I place them behind couches and under seats; prop them against walls; plop them in recycle bins. In what other ridiculous places can I stow my quadsteppers? Find out on Instagram.com/quadstep.You can also follow Cancerslayer, who is my first fictional character on Instagram.com/benrubenstein. Cancerslaye...
Source: cancerslayerblog - July 18, 2016 Category: Cancer & Oncology Tags: imaginative Source Type: blogs
Talk To Me: Me, My Dad, and Foul-Tasting Medicine
When Justin Halpern's hilarious hit book Shit My Dad Says published, I thought, I wish I thought of that first! My dad has been sharing with me his goofball stories, philosophies, and OCD-like behaviors my whole life. I have written about him, of course in my books and also in this blog about his thoughts on exercise and clothing. Now I get to share an interview I conducted with him.Two months ago The Huffington Post invited me to be part of its new video series called Talk To Me in which children interview their parents. The Huffington Post is sharing many of these interviews online and I hope they share this intervi...
Source: cancerslayerblog - June 6, 2016 Category: Cancer & Oncology Tags: family Source Type: blogs
Continued Phallic Stage
My first fiction story to publish is about a penile operation.During my first residency at Stonecoast, everyone talked about "submitting." I knew what that meant—my agent and I had submitted my first book about a hundred times before landing a publisher. I just didn't realize I could submit anything. I began researching publications. There are so many, for every genre and story length. I created an account on The (Submission) Grinder to track my work. And then I submitted two stories to a total of six publications, and have since received three rejections and one acceptance by the website A Story In 100 Words which ...
Source: cancerslayerblog - May 19, 2016 Category: Cancer & Oncology Tags: imaginative Source Type: blogs
My Greatest Professional Accomplishment Was a Bureaucratic Miracle
When we achieve our all-time greatest professional accomplishment, we know it right away. Like Dr. Carl June developing a novel way to treat cancer, Mark Sanchez not throwing an interception, and me breaking through bureaucracy in the U.S. federal government to author a column in my organization's 18,000-circulation newsletter.Last summer, the communications office where I work wanted to create a new feature in our newsletter focusing on a different employee every other week. They asked me to write it. They said, "We want it to be about people's day-to-day lives at work."I said, "That's boring, how about instead I intervie...
Source: cancerslayerblog - May 9, 2016 Category: Cancer & Oncology Tags: writing/speaking Source Type: blogs
The Fiction-Writing Guide Worthy of Dave Eggers and God
I am afraid to write fiction.Two months ago I wrote a jokey blog about being in over my head in my writing program despite having authored two memoirs and an essay that got anthologized. But there is truth in comedy. Compared to the personal stories I've been publishing on this blog the last nine years, writing fiction takes me longer, leads to anxiety, and usually lags in quality.It doesn't make sense. A story is a story, and the same elements that make a story entertaining cross all genres. But telling myself that didn't help, so I imagined myself as the protagonist, which I usually am in my blog stories. That, too, didn...
Source: cancerslayerblog - April 22, 2016 Category: Cancer & Oncology Tags: MFA writing/speaking Source Type: blogs
Writing Exercise: Develop Your Craft by Alternating Perspectives
If you want to improve your writing technique then—just like building physical strength and endurance—exercise. One of the books I read for school, The Art of Fiction by John Gardner, offers many writing exercises. One is to take a simple event and describe it using the same characters and setting in five radically different ways (changes of style, tone, sentence structure, voice, psychic distance, etc.).The event: A man gets off a bus, trips, looks around in embarrassment, and sees a woman smiling. Below are my five radically different attempts to describe this event. How would you write this scene? Email it to me!The...
Source: cancerslayerblog - April 11, 2016 Category: Cancer & Oncology Tags: imaginative MFA Source Type: blogs
Our Safari in Tanzania
For me, few things are more fun—and time-consuming—than creating videos. In February I went on an incredible group safari in Tanzania, in eastern Africa, through the nonprofit First Descents which sends young cancer survivors on free adventure trips. I made a video of our adventure which you can watch on YouTube or directly below if your Web browser allows. You can also read about my trip on First Descents' blog: FDX Africa: This is Way Better Than ‘Planet Earth’. (Source: cancerslayerblog)
Source: cancerslayerblog - April 4, 2016 Category: Cancer & Oncology Tags: my videos travels Source Type: blogs
My Batman-Loving Colleague's Opportunity of a Lifetime
I write a lot: for work and school, as a hobby, in my sleep. It is usually not appropriate for me to publish what I write for work, but I can in this case. Yesterday this story I wrote about my colleague published in my organization's newsletter. Enjoy.* * *James Olsen, an ace interviewer at Manhattan's immigration office, arrived at work March 28 with a case already resting on his desk. His supervisor left a sticky note on the file: “For James only.”Olsen spent his entire lunch break studying the file and preparing for his 1 p.m. interview. After the interview, he would have to recommend that the immigrant either get ...
Source: cancerslayerblog - April 1, 2016 Category: Cancer & Oncology Tags: imaginative Source Type: blogs
FDX Africa: This is Way Better Than ‘Planet Earth’
Last month I traveled to Tanzania in east Africa and I wrote this story about my trip.As published in the First Descents blogMy new friend Spaceballs and I walk through the tall grass at the Lake Manyara Rift Valley and enter the clearing where zebras, jackals, gazelle, wildebeest and warthogs all roam close enough to kill us before we could utter “hakuna matata.” We turn our heads and see more animals. Then we turn our bodies in a full circle and see animals everywhere. We are wearing long pants and button-downs coated in permethrin to deter malaria-carrying mosquitos, safari hats, daypacks, sunglasses and binoculars....
Source: cancerslayerblog - March 10, 2016 Category: Cancer & Oncology Tags: travels women Source Type: blogs
Nine Years of Blogging
Last Friday I was on a plane headed to Sarasota, Florida, where that night I was the guest speaker at services at Temple Beth Israel, and will speak again at its adult education class Monday. I rehearsed my talking points on the plane. I opened my speech with a story from my 2011 Birthright Israel trip and needed to re-read my blog post about that trip to remember the story's details.I've been blogging for nine years and, more than my blog's entertainment value for you (at least I hope it has been entertaining!), for me it has become a wonderful peek at my life and my past adventures. The average blogger stops af...
Source: cancerslayerblog - March 6, 2016 Category: Cancer & Oncology Tags: writing/speaking Source Type: blogs
Post on the Bulletin Board at Your Own Risk
People will draw funny things on marketing material. If you're going to post something on your apartment building's bulletin board then assume the worst will happen to it.I noticed this in my elevator. No, I didn't draw on it—someone did that before I got the chance. Yes, I made a video about it, which you can watch on YouTube or directly below if your Web browser allows. (Source: cancerslayerblog)
Source: cancerslayerblog - February 21, 2016 Category: Cancer & Oncology Tags: living habits my videos Source Type: blogs
An Illiterate Walks Into an MFA Program
As published in The Huffington PostDespite having written two nonfiction books, I don't know how to write. Shh.Have you ever done something without knowing how but you just did it anyway and could never explain it? That's me for writing, and now I'm attending a low residency Master of Fine Arts in creative writing program for fiction.I arrived at the program's first ten-day residency in Maine with my cohorts, ranging from 22 to 86 years old, all excited to avert real life for a week and a half. I first met Cameron, who had just finished undergrad, and we went out for lunch. Cameron played outfield for his college baseball ...
Source: cancerslayerblog - February 20, 2016 Category: Cancer & Oncology Tags: a day in my life I'm an ass MFA Source Type: blogs
Beginning my Low Residency MFA in Creative Writing
I have been busy and, I think, this has been the longest amount of time in between blog posts since I began blogging nine years ago. My latest video suggests why. You can watch it below (if your browser allows) or directly on YouTube. (Source: cancerslayerblog)
Source: cancerslayerblog - February 2, 2016 Category: Cancer & Oncology Tags: MFA my videos Source Type: blogs
My Stanford Prison Experiment While Waiting in Line for 'Star Wars'
As published in The Huffington PostThe scene reminded me of the 1971 experiment on authority which suggested why Nazis conformed, only instead of cells with prisoners there was an IMAX movie theater full of Star Wars nerds.My numbered wristband revealed when I could enter the IMAX theater at the National Air and Space Museum the night Star Wars: The Force Awakens opened. I would be the 362nd nerd in the theater because I arrived only 90 minutes before the showing instead of 630 minutes like the luckiest nerd, Number 1.Screw this. I cut through the pack, weaving between ropes, to stand with my friend Griffin who had arrived...
Source: cancerslayerblog - December 28, 2015 Category: Cancer & Oncology Tags: pop culture Source Type: blogs
Rocky VII
Creed snuck up on us like a left hook from 27-year-old Rocky Balboa. Creed is the latest film in the Rocky franchise and hit us all in the face for doubting Sylvester Stallone (yes, I know he didn’t write the screenplay this time, but come on). It has a 93 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes and an 8.7 on IMDB. “Five star movie of the year best actor best supporting actor top 25 movies I've ever seen,” I emailed JD when it ended.I still smiled hours after seeing the movie in the theater on Thanksgiving, thinking of the character I grew up with, loved, and considered my last line of defense against cancer; of the music ...
Source: cancerslayerblog - December 4, 2015 Category: Cancer & Oncology Tags: pop culture Source Type: blogs
