Push to Publish report by Jerry Waxler

by Jerry Waxler

For weeks I considered dedicating a precious Saturday to attend the “Push to
Publish” conference, hosted by Philadelphia Stories. I enjoyed the event last year
and thought I ought to do it again. Now, I needed to commit the time.

By Saturday morning my preference to meet writers won and I drove into pouring rain,
to find myself back along the winding paths and elegant buildings of the Rosemont
College campus on Philadelphia’s Main Line. The registration room was packed, and
looking around I spotted a likely networking candidate, a young man sitting alone.
“What do you write,” I asked. “A memoir,” he said. Jackpot. The memoir gods were
smiling.

He was an undergrad in the English Department at University of Delaware. “People
think I’m crazy to write a memoir when I’m so young.” I looked at him. “I think
they’re the ones who are crazy. It’s your story. You should tell it any time you
want.” Just then, a woman I knew from another regional writing group leaned in to
interrupt us. “Aren’t you the memoir guy? There’s someone I want you to meet.”

I excused myself from the youngest memoir writer I’ve met, and was introduced to a
woman, perhaps in her 40s, who had written about her family history. She told me a
fascinating tale complete with twists and turns. “I’m finished the draft. Now,
before I spend a lot of time editing it, I came to the conference to see if anyone
believes I’m wasting my time.” I looked at her. Had she really come here searching
for naysayers? “Ouch,” I said. “Why would anyone tell you that? And if they did, why
would you believe them?” She shrugged and I moved on.

Waiting on line for coffee, the woman in front of me turned, smiled, and stuck out a
hand. I clasped it in greeting, but instead of introducing herself, she pointed to
the man next to her. “This is my husband. I talked him into writing a novel.” I
asked her, “How did that work for you?” She said, “It was great” and they both
laughed.

We sat down together to eat our continental breakfast, and I said, “I’m into memoir
writing.” He said, “If I wrote about my life, it would put everyone to sleep.” I
chewed my bagel and tried to imagine an entire life with no dramatic tension.
Finally, I said, “It’s not about spectacular events. It’s about great story
telling.”

He grew quiet. “Well, actually, I have written a couple of stories about myself.” He
went on to describe an incident from his childhood that completely grabbed my
attention, like I was back there with him, and we were in danger together. I said,
“How could anyone fall asleep? That story is enchanting.” (No, I won’t tell it. It’s
his story, not mine.)

On my walk through the rain to hear the keynote speech, I wondered, “Why do so many
people think there’s something wrong with writing their own stories?” The keynote
speaker, Lise Funderburg, didn’t have this problem. She published a memoir about her
relationship with her father. Apparently, one of her goals as a writer is to share
herself.

In fact, most of the talk consisted of tips she had learned about the writing life.
For example, “You have to be okay with rejection. And that doesn’t stop. In fact, it
still hurts me when I’m rejected.”

“Well,” I thought. “That’s a consistent message. Writing is hard work, with long
periods of uncertainty, plenty of pain and for most of us not too much money. So, if
it hurts so bad, why is this room full of people again?”

Funderburg went on to read a passage from her recently published memoir, which I
have not yet had an opportunity to read, called “Pig Candy: Taking My Father South,
Taking My Father Home: A Memoir.” It’s about discovering her relationship with her
father while he was dying of cancer. The passage was rich in imagery, full of
kindness and conveying the same sparkle in her words as danced in her eyes. At the
end, I raised my hand and asked, “How did you find your voice?” She hesitated for a
moment, and said, “Finding my voice was really a very long journey around a big
circle until I finally came back to just being myself.”

Dodging rain drops and puddles on my way to the next section of the conference, I
thought, “Even her voice is an expression of herself. No wonder it hurts to be
rejected. We’re pouring ourselves out to other people. What a crazy thing to do.”

I realized that in addition to learning the art of self-expression, writers must
learn courage. We imagine, we write, we polish, and then we beg gatekeepers for the
opportunity to share our work with readers. But Lisa Funderburg didn’t shrivel back
from the task, and her story provides one more inspiring example of a writer pushing
through obstacles to reach higher goals.

Notes

Visit the Amazon Page for the memoir Pig Candy by Lise Funderburg
Lise Funderburg’s Home Page
Click here for the essay I wrote about last year’s Philadelphia Stories Conference

Cross-posted on Jerry’s blog about reading and writing memoirs, Memory Writers Network.

 

An Anthropological Take on the Underdog by Guest Blogger JK EVANCZUK

David and Goliath–the original underdog?

By JK EVANCZUK

There is something distinctly magical about the idea of the “underdog.” Seemingly present in most–if not all–fiction, the underdog is only too easy to identify with. Who hasn’t felt that the world is against us, our problems are too great, our skills are too inadequate? What ultimately happens to this character becomes tantamount to our own abilities to succeed, or to fail. The need to read on, to learn how the underdog will summon his strength and overcome the seemingly insurmountable odds, consumes us.

As the saying goes, everyone loves an underdog.

But I wonder if this intense bond we tend to form with our beloved underdog stems not from simple empathy, but from some more primeval source. I recently was reading a copy of Barbara Ehrenreich’s Blood Rites, an interesting analysis of the origins of war and ritual sacrifice, which despite its subject matter provided some insight as to why we crave fiction and how, like ritual sacrifice, it might satisfy an unconscious, primitive hunger we all share.

Let me explain: way, way back in the day, and I’m talking men-wearing-loincloths-and-drawing-on-cave-walls-back-in-the-day, humankind lived in fear of the beast. Before primitive technology like arrowheads or what-have-you (forget about more advanced technology that came later, such as the bow and arrow or the gun), we lived in fear of the lion, tiger, bear, wooly mammoth, etc. We were the hunted. The occurrence of people being plucked from their villages and dragged into the lion’s den to become, well, supper was not uncommon. Eventually, we did develop those primitive technologies and shifted our circumstances so that we graduated from being the “hunted” to becoming the “hunter.”

I describe this transition simply, but it was monumental. Even hundreds of thousands of years later, our fear of being the “hunted” lingers even now, like our innate fear of the dark. On at least on a biological level, we still haven’t quite gotten over the fact that we’ve since situated ourselves nicely at the top of the food chain. And because our species remains in a state of perpetual disbelief, we reenact that tremendous transition, over and over and over again. Hence, there are ritual sacrifices. Hence, there is war. We recognize that our species was once weak and then we demonstrate our newfound dominance by shedding blood.

So, wait, how does this relate to fiction again? I wonder–and here I venture into the exciting world of the theory–if fiction serves as another (less bloody) method of reenacting our graduation from “hunted” to “hunter.” More specifically: the underdog serves this purpose. And maybe this would better explain why we just love to see our puny, powerless, and beloved characters–the hunted–transcend their overwhelming circumstances to become the victor. The hunter.

And we do love to see the underdog succeed, over and over and over again. Such as in war and ritual sacrifice, just one reenactment will not do. Even when we know from the outset that the underdog will indeed overcome those impossible odds, we read on anyway because it is not the ending we are interested in. It is the act of transcendence, which so mirrors our own so many years ago, that enraptures us.

Here I can once again thank the horror movie for so baldly demonstrating my point. Think of your standard horror movie fare: a big scary monster chases some poor kids around for 90 minutes. The monster is bigger and stronger and the kids are woefully unmatched to him, but somehow they survive. Maybe I’m speaking too much to my own interests here, but I can’t imagine why anyone would want to willingly submit to being terrified in a dark theater for an hour and a half if not to ultimately experience that thrill when the protagonists miraculously survive.

So, yes, the concept of the underdog works so well in fiction because by nature the underdog inspires conflict, and such a character is infinitely more interesting to read about than one who gets everything he wants with little to no opposition. And yes, it is handy to the writer that the bond forged with the underdog helps pull the reader through the rest of the story. But beyond these more technical aspects, the underdog works so well in fiction because we need it on a primal level. We read on primarily to see the underdog achieve and thereby vicariously experience, once again, the thrill of making that phenomenal step from the “hunted” to the “hunter.”

Cross-posted at Lit Drift

 

Permanent Press picks up The Singular Exploits of Wonder Mom and Party Girl

As the first run of The Singular Exploits of Wonder Mom and Party Girl (published by PS Books, the books division of Philadelphia Stories) inches closer to selling out, Marc Schuster is pleased to announce that the Permanent Press will be publishing a new edition of the novel in 2011. This edition will be significantly different from the current edition published by PS Books. More details to follow… In the mean time, be sure to get a copy of the original while supplies last!

 

Progress by guest blogger Elizabeth Mosier

by Elizabeth Mosier

 

Author Marketing in a Web 2.0 World by Don Lafferty

Cross-posted on Don Lafferty’s blog

by Don Lafferty on October 21, 2009

My stressful Saturday morning melted into a tremendously positive afternoon after arriving late to Rosemont College for Philadelphia Stories’ one day writer’s conference, Push to Publish 2009: Strategies and Techniques to Get Your Work in Print and Online.

I met a bunch of cool local writers who reminded me again why I continue to bury myself with live events.

I participated in two jam-packed panel discussions, both focused on best practices in selling yourself – something I’m always willing to do at the drop of a hat.

Kelly Simmons moderated MARKETING: SELLING YOURSELF, with Rosemont College’s very own, author, Lynn Rosen; author/publisher/wonder woman, Karen E. Quinones Miller; and debut romance author, Lisa Dale.

For the final panel of the day, I moderated PROMOTING YOUR WORK IN A WEB 2.0 WORLD with the ¢entcible life blogger Kelly Whalen; poet and owner of the Barefoot Muse, Anna Evans; and children’s author, Nancy Viau.

Between the two panels we covered a ton of best practices for authors marketing themselves and their work.  Here are our picks for the top ways and author can market their work in today’s Web 2.0 world.

1. Define your personal brand.

Do you write children’s books, steamy, sexy vampire tales, or political satire?

When agents, publishers and readers search for you on the ‘net, be sure the online presence they find showcases your expertise and clearly demonstrates your alignment with the other authors on that shelf.

Include the unique twist or angle that sets you apart from the pack, but frame it in such a way that your work compliments the other books in your space. A fresh take on a proven concept is easier to sell to most editors than a revolutionary new way of approaching the market.

2. Blog!

HEY! Don’t run away now. Get your head out of…the sand, and face the reality of being an author today. A blog is the number one way to drive social search. If you ignore this critical weapon in your marketing arsenal, you’re tying one hand and one leg behind you back before you even reach the starting line.

There are plenty of authors blogging out there, so browse until you find a style and structure that fits with your comfort level and copy it.

You do not have to blog every day; you simply need to create enough content, so when a potential agent, editor or reader finally takes ten precious seconds of their life to look at you, they get a quick, accurate feel for what you’re all about. If you’ve done your community-building homework, crafted a clear brand, and really understand your target connections, this is where you’ll convert casual interest to brand loyalty a.k.a. revenue, in the form of book deals, book sales, speaking engagements, teaching opportunities, job opportunities and other paying gigs.

3. Join Facebook.

Facebook is crushing MySpace. Facebook’s exploding demographics are growing younger and older, so get on Facebook. As weird as it may feel, authors should create a fan page in addition to their personal Facebook account, even if you don’t publish it right away. Facebook accounts have a limit of 5000 friends, while fan pages allow an unlimited number of fans. You’re shooting for the bestseller list, right?

4. Stalk the authors in your space.

Make a list of the top authors in your space, watch every move they make, and cozy up to them wherever you can. Once you’re there, you’ll find yourself surrounded by your potential readers, colleagues and media.

You can do this online by joining in the conversation at their blog, and connecting in the Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn communities.

One creative, hard-working author (I promised I wouldn’t say who) tucked a postcard into every book by every similar author in every local bookstore, driving his self-published book to sales in excess of 25,000 units inside the first two months of publication. That’s pretty cozy.

5. All signs should point home.

Wrap your online strategy around your home base; your blog/website and building your email list. Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn and all the other online outposts should point back to your home page where your content will convert a casually interested visitor into a loyal reader.

Offer an incentive to trade for an email address. A free short story, a free how-to e-book or some other form of exclusive or premium content.

6. Know your local booksellers.

More importantly, make sure they know you and your book. When your book hits the shelves, a passionate bookseller can be your best advocate. Create an Indiebound affiliate account and put that link to your book on all your Internet outposts.

When you do a “drive-by book signing” tell everybody in your online community where they can find signed books. Follow up with the bookseller to make sure your signed books are moving.

Blog about them. Thank them on Twitter. Put their pictures up on your Facebook page. Remind everybody you meet every day in every way you can to support their local bookstores, and if you absolutely, positively must use an Amazon link, list it last.

Most publishers require authors to provide links to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Borders, Powell’s and Books A Million, but they don’t have the bandwidth or the authority to police the manner in which you display the links. I like to use the graphic here, linked out accordingly.

7. Get active in your local writing community.

Writing may be a solitary pursuit, but marketing works better with an army. Push your social beyond your comfort zone. Enlist the help of your local writing community by offering whatever support you can. Pay it forward. It works.

Go to www.meetup.com and you’ll find lots of local writers getting together for lots of different reasons; critique groups, genre-specific discussion groups and general discussion groups. If you don’t find one in your neighborhood, start one.

When you meet other writers, be sure to connect with them on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Engage them publicly on Twitter using the @ reply. Re-tweet their tweets. I know it sounds ridiculous but you’re playing a numbers game and you need more followers to sell more stuff. Engaging publicly in a non-selfish way raises your trust quotient in a social context.

My buddy, Chris Brogan recommends messaging 12 times about other people’s stuff for every 1 message about your own stuff to build your trust.

8. Use free tools to automate your social media work process.

Google Reader, Google Alerts, RSS Feeds and a Twitter application like TweetDeck can be combined to create an automated “listening post” that’ll help you minimize the time suck of social media engagement, and maximize the effectiveness of your social media marketing strategy.

9. Brainstorm your key words and find them.

There are millions of conversations being had out there in social networks every day. Yes, conversations. Status updates, comments on status updates, blog posts, comments on blog posts, comments on the comments, tweets, re-tweets, and more re-tweets.

You can use free search tools to identify your target connections by defining the key words and key word combinations being used by your target connections in the social space, and RSS Feeds to deliver the search results to your Google Reader.

Use your list to create “comprehensive”, “once daily” Google Alerts, and direct them via RSS to your Google Reader.

Go to www.search.twitter.com and search each term and combination in your key word list. Create RSS feeds for these searches and direct them to your Google Reader.

10. Be social! (I’m yelling here)

You can be a recluse, you can be a curmudgeon or you can be an asshole, but those romanticized, stereotypical author personalities won’t succeed in a Web 2.0 environment.

When someone takes the time to leave a comment on your blog, send you a message, or comment on your Facebook wall, pay attention! Respond! Thank them for their time! Answer questions! Make suggestions that add value to your relationship. Give them a reason to come back.

Engage and build brand loyalty.

Never before has it been easier for an author to connect with their public than it is today. All things being equal, the author who engages in Web 2.0 will crush the author who ignores this social space.

Times aren’t changing, they’ve already changed.

What are your best Web 2.0 practices for building platform and connecting with your readers? I’d love to hear them.

Thanks to Christine Weiser, the folks at Philadelphia Stories, my fellow panelists, and everyone who gave their valuable time to stop by and listen.

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Tagged as:
anna evans,
author marketing,
christine weiser,
Karen E. Quinones Miller,
kelly simmons,
kelly whelan,
lisa dale,
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nancy viau,
philadelphia stories,
push to publish,
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Social Media,
the barefoot muse,
the centcible life,
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All Eyes on Me #4

For some reason the whole “should I get an MFA or shouldn’t I” debate seems to be coming up fairly frequently these days. Many of these queries get lobbed in my direction, so, for what its worth, these are my thoughts on the subject.

First: Know why you want to get an MFA. It is expensive. There are programs that offer stipends and scholarships, and if money is an issue, start with those programs first. But before you even begin applying to school, you really need to know the answer to that question. If all you want out of an MFA program is to become a better writer–if you have no plans to change your career path–then consider saving your money and joining a really good writer’s group instead. That is not to say that being in an MFA program won’t make you a better writer–it should. But so will being in a writer’s group and reading a lot of great books. If you’re independently wealthy, or just really like school–then I say go for it! I loved being in school and if I had the money I would just earn one degree after another…seriously, I would.

Second: If you think you might want to teach college, you are a creative writer, and you don’t think you have the time or the patience to earn a PhD, then the MFA is for you. Just be warned–you will be an adjunct for a long time–maybe forever–and you will have to teach a lot of comp classes. This is not to say that there aren’t things to be learned from teaching comp at 8:00 AM, but sometimes it’s hard to remember what. The one really great thing about having an advanced degree in English is that there are a zillion English classes out there to be taught by non-tenured faculty. Don’t get all dreamy-eyed thinking that you’re finally going to get to lecture on your favorite novel, or run the perfect poetry workshop–these luxuries are left to the full time folks. There are sections of creative writing out there, and I’ve been lucky enough to grab my share. But I’m not kidding myself–luck had a lot to do with it.

If you think you might want to seriously teach college full time, if health benefits and not spending half of your life driving from campus to campus is what you’re really after, then suck it up and get a PhD in Rhetoric and do it before you’re 30. I know this may sound a little bitter, and I don’t mean it to at all. I love teaching. Period. But these are the facts the way I’ve experienced them. Folks who won’t give you and interview for a full time job will not hesitate to call you two weeks before the beginning of the semester and offer you three sections of comp at a fraction of the pay. This is the reality that is academia in these economic times. But experience is experience and you get to add it all to your CV.

If I were ten years younger I would get a PhD with a creative dissertation. This would mean I would have to leave the Philadelphia area, because none of the 130 or so schools in the region offer a creative dissertation. For me, the time and energy it would take to write a book length academic work is just not worth it. I’ve got novels to write, and that takes every ounce of energy I’ve got left in me.

As for my own MFA experience I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I knew I wanted to teach college and I knew the only way I was going to get to do it was to get an MFA. I already have one Master’s degree (in music) and knew that I would love being in a class room again. This is why I chose a resident program as opposed to a low-res program. My bachelor’s degree is in music and so I had very little literature in my background. I’d spent years in a well-known writer’s group, workshopping stories and novel chapters so this was not what I went back to school for. And I will say that I learned more about writing in those lit classes than I did in workshop. Not that my workshops weren’t great–they were–but the lit classes! Reading books and authors that I would have never forced myself to on my own, being able to discuss technique with experienced professors who were also writers, this was invaluable to me.

Frequently in workshop the facilitator will assign published stories for the class to read and discuss, and they never bother getting around to them. This is a shame, really. What we learn in workshop from reading and editing each others work is invaluable, but it is really all about editing. What we learn from reading work that’s already been edited and published is craft. I pushed myself to try new things as a writer within the safety of my MFA program. I experimented and thought to myself, you are nuts! You’re not this kind of writer, and then I found that I could be that kind of writer, If I wanted to be. Could I have figured this out on my own? Plenty of people do, but I don’t think that I would have.

My MFA experience changed my life in unexpected ways. Half way through my program was when I began my weight loss and fitness journey. I believe it was the confidence, and happiness (I know–that sounds a little crazy!) that I experienced in school which gave me the push I needed. I finally was ready to have my outside match my inside. (To date I’ve lost 103.5 pounds.) But for me, the financial burden has bee worth it. I’m exhausted but pursuing a profession I find incredibly rewarding and I’m wearing a size ten!

 

Review: Georgia Under Water

If I ever think that it might be fun to be a teenager again, Georgia Underwater by Heather Sellers will cure me of that misapprehension immediately. Granted, Georgia Jackson, the young protagonist of the majority of stories in this lovingly conceived and sensitively executed collection, has a few more issues to deal with than does the average American teenager, but her struggles with family, identity and burgeoning sexuality bear witness to the insecurities that most teens face regardless of background. And, come to think of it, to the insecurities that many adults experience as well. We want to believe that our world makes sense. We want to believe that everything will (somehow, magically, despite all evidence to the contrary) work out in the end. We want to trust in the people and institutions that hold sway over our lives, but sometimes we need to realize that we can’t. Throughout Georgia Underwater, the protagonist’s journey takes her one cautious step at a time toward this realization.

One of the most frustrating elements of Georgia Jackson’s life is her relationship with her parents. Her father is an alcoholic, and her mother suffers from crippling bouts of paranoia. Lacking guidance of any kind, Georgia must learn to navigate the dangerous waters of adolescence on her own, and she does so with the kind of awkward grace and aplomb that only a young girl growing up in Florida can muster. She dreams about boys. She wonders what sex must be like. She wishes her parents would behave like normal adults. She wonders about sex some more. Through it all, she endears herself to the reader — to the point where it’s hard for those among us who are blessed with stable families and relatively “normal” lives to feel anything but pity for the girl. She wants so badly to belong somewhere, to fit in, to be loved (by her parents, by her brother, by boys, by anyone), to be something other than invisible, that one is hard pressed to ignore her.

Part Running with Scissors, part Catcher in the Rye, and completely engrossing, this collection of stories will charm even the most cynical reader. Set against a backdrop of highways and housing developments in the shadow of Disney World, Georgia Underwater speaks to the heart and paints the life of a lonely young girl in the vivid, glowing pink and purple detail of an Orlando sunset.

For more information on Heather Sellers and to order a copy of Georgia Underwater, visit HeatherSellers.com.

 

Review: End Credits

Back when I was an undergrad at Saint Joseph’s University, I had an English professor named Owen Gilman who defined an A paper as any paper that he wished he’d written himself. Reading A.F. Rutzy’s latest novel, End Credits (Casperian, 2008), I couldn’t help thinking of my former professor and how dead-on his definition was. Part mind-bending crash-course on the mysteries of the afterlife and part zany critique of the excesses of consumer culture, Rutzy’s novel is, hands-down, the novel I wish I could have written. Combining Neil Gaiman’s sense of magic, Kurt Vonnegut’s wry wit and uncompromising moral compass, Thomas Pynchon’s penchant for spiraling yet captivating narrative digressions and Don DeLillo’s fascination with all things contemporary, Rutzy laughs wildly at the world at large while the rest of us avert our eyes in horror.

The fun begins when the novel’s narrator, Raymond Kessel, dies while crashing the wrong funeral. The only problem is that the afterlife isn’t remotely like anything his Sunday school teacher promised. Instead of plucking a harp behind the pearly gates, he finds himself desperately trying to get a straight answer from a Grim Reaper named Cleo while inhabiting the body of a wealthy advertising executive. From here, the novel only grows curiouser and curiouser (to borrow a phrase) as Rutzy introduces us to a wide cast of memorable characters including (but not limited to) the previously mentioned angel of death, a desperate would-be rock star, a bumbling accountant, and a pair of wild hogs with an apparent fondness for sunglasses and shopping malls. Conjuring his vision of American excess with a careful balance of exuberance and aplomb, the Finnish author weaves an intricate web of characters and amusingly outlandish scenarios that had me hooked from page one.

Of course, that End Credits is such a good book comes as no surprise. It’s the latest from Casperian Books, a press whose track record with such titles as Mouth of the Lion and The Tea House has made it one of my favorites. (And just to give a shout out to a favorite author of mine, Curtis Smith, I should also mention that his first novel, Sound and Noise, will be coming out as a Casperian title very soon… I’m definitely looking forward to that one!)

Needless to say, End Credits earns an A in my book. And given the number of emails I’ve received from disgruntled students over the years, that’s really saying something.

For a free sample of Rutzy’s work, check out his short-short, Nolens, at Hecale: A Portal for Writers.

 

Elizabeth Mosier on What is Lost and Found

 

 

 

All writers tell rough drafts aloud, but this was grad school, so we gave ourselves themes: crappiest job, caught-naked scene, best prank, worst party, the moment that changed your life.  It was less like a slam than like dinner theater with a rapt, appreciative audience.  Since that summer, I’ve rarely listened to or told a story that someone didn’t interrupt.  Sad as it sounds to my students, this was entertainment in the age before YouTube.

 

One night, I told “The Story of Menstruation”, about the sex-ed film the girls at my school were shown in fifth grade.  More to the point:  how, a week before the premier, Danny Favata pulled the pizza-sized reel from the AV closet, threaded the forbidden film through the projector, and wheeled the contraption into our classroom, where we awaited what we thought would be “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”.  Blinds drawn, lights out, we watched as a background of purple velvet appeared on the screen.  And then, letter by white girly letter, swirled just enough of the film’s title to horrify, before Mrs. Grimstead yanked the projector’s cord from the wall. 

 

This oral draft was really Danny’s; it paid tribute to his status as AV Operator and his bad boy ingenuity.  It was as truthful as memory could make it, and yet it skirted the true story, which I wrote as fiction years later for a ‘zine called Whispering Campaign. 

 

 “What I wanted was his courage,” my female narrator confesses, “which I could only imitate.”  No wonder.  “The Story of Menstruation”, as we were to discover at a segregated viewing of the film, was full of baffling information and censorious imagery:  a girl cluelessly riding a bike in a dress, a girl collapsing in tears over a tangle in her hair, a girl unhappily showering in an avalanche of ice cubes.  This, we were told, was our story.  And these were our instructions, delivered in a voice — as familiar as a lullaby — from Disney’s “Cinderella”. 

 

“All this time I thought you were exaggerating,” my friend, the writer Brian Bouldrey, admitted in an e-mail message that arrived yesterday.  Attached was a link to “The Story” on YouTube, where, as Brian says, all that is lost is found.  “Why is nature always called MOTHER nature?” he teased, quoting the film.  Thirty-five years later, the film is exactly as I remember it.  But I’ve spent those years writing a different story.

 

For me – as a writer and as a reader – the story often hides in the rough draft’s odd image: a perfumed permission slip, a bully’s scabbed knuckles, a classroom arranged in battle formation with boys against girls.  Whenever I read student work or submissions to Philadelphia Stories, I look for these odd images in order to find the writer’s truest intentions.  They are like a treasure map carried across the desert during the long process of revision, instructions creased closed and spread open again and again until the document disintegrates and the gold is found.  

 

http://elizabethmosier.wordpress.com

 

 

 

 

 

Michelle Wittle on Rejection Letters 3 and 4

The first rejection letter in this batch, I am not too surprised about because I just once again threw out my novel without really preparing it. I always think that everything is a sign, so I think if I am on line and I see this great publisher or magazine, then I should rush my stuff out to them. But, the reality is that although it may in fact be a sign of something I should do, I should send things when they are ready and not just throw stuff out into the world. I misread signs all the time.

So, when my novel got rejected, it was a form letter and I didn’t get upset about it. There was no nice comments or anything, just hey we are passing on your novel. But again, I am fine with it because I knew going in I didn’t put my best finished work forward.

The other rejection letter was a blow to my ego. I really felt that this one was going to work out. Every time I thought about it, I kept thinking that this piece was going to make it. However, I started really thinking about that piece and I think my intentions for writing the piece were a bit skewed. I wrote it as a letter and it was a real letter to a real person. I was apologizing for things that have happened to me and I think that maybe I am not supposed to apologize for those things anymore. Also, I had it in my head that they would finally be proud of me. They would read it and want to come and talk to me again. These are all silly reasons for writing something. Did I really think this person would be proud of me? Was I really that naive to think they would read it and want to talk to me? I can almost guarantee they wouldn’t even read it. I could have probably staple it to their forehead and they still wouldn’t read it..

So, here are a few truths I am trying to learn. The first is, you can’t predict anything. You must go into everything with an honest and open heart. Secondly, we aren’t mind readers. I don’t know why this person ignores me…maybe they do hate me and maybe they don’t. All I have is their actions and their actions show me I am not important to them. I have to learn that not everything we say or do will work out just because we feel it should work out. Lastly, I have to be completely true to myself. When I write, it has to be pure and a true representation of me. I can’t write to make people proud of me, or so they will talk to me, or anything like that. I have to tell my stories with my voice. I have to write from me because that is what separates me from everyone else out there.

Sure, I wish I did get that story published. But as I think about it, I am glad it didn’t get picked up. Maybe I am wrong and that person would have read it and got even more mad at me. Maybe they would wonder why I am still trying to say I am sorry. At the end of the day, things happen for a reason (yes still a believer in signs) and who am I to question the reasons? I just need to learn I can only write for me and I need to put what I think is my best work out there.