The Ominous Whang of Narrow Bridges

or, how to deal with arrogant editors while setting fire to grief, loss, and writers’ block—all in an afternoon.

Guest Post by Tovli Simiryan

2020. There’s something ominous about saying, 2020, don’t you think? It has a hopeful aura, yet it reeks. It’s Orwellian. After all, by 2020 we expected to be living like the Jetsons. Well, aren’t we? We have cars that drive themselves; some are supposed to actually fly by the end of the year. Of course we’re afraid to get inside. “Details!” as my mother was known to comment, directing the conversation with her brand of self-centered sarcasm.

Frankly, she waited from the sixties until the moment of her 2019 death for Rosie the Robot to join her family. Unfortunately, the Rumba Vacuum was a disappointment to her. It wasn’t Rosie! She couldn’t discuss dust-bunnies or get it to pop the cork on the bottle of Prosecco her kids thought they’d successfully hidden from her. So, perhaps one’s expectations of the future are often wrapped in imprecision, or at least a tissue-papered hue of what might never be realized.

Will 2020 be a failure? I hope not. When these insecure thoughts race through our brain cells, my solution is the same as any other writer’s: grab white paper; latch on to a svelte gel-roller of a pen and turn insecurity into a short story, a blunt poem, or an essay. Nothing restores my self-confidence more than finishing a piece of writing and having a family member or friend say, “Where do you get this from?” “How do you remember these things?”

I love writing. I love the way something comes out and says just what you wanted to say. When this occurs, my place in the universe takes on an unbreakable sense of security and belonging. I am safe. I am worthy. I’m an introvert. I don’t talk; I write. Life is safe. Life is good.

Of course, not all writers are introverts. However, one thing I like to believe writers have in common is their little stories and songs become their children. They are born, raised; invested in and sent out into the world to find homes of their own and, hopefully make a meaningful change or statement no one else has thought to say before. Even if one word or a minor punctuation is unique, the writer has accomplished something beautiful and exclusive.

The year leading into 2020 was seminal. 2019 was the narrow bridge you make yourself navigate by learning to close your eyes, hum a tune, and precariously tip-toe across while learning to overcome fear and foreboding. Everyone died in 2019. Seriously. Only my little brother and I remain. The entire generation preceding us had left the world. If that wasn’t ominous enough, our own generation witnessed a fragility we’d never anticipated. Peers and loved ones we’d started kindergarten with discovered they were breakable and vulnerable. There were annoying knocks on their doors from diagnoses and illnesses that had taken their grandparents and great-grandparents. These malicious visitors pressed their unwelcome noses against the windows of our lives and rattled our door knobs. We knew, sooner or later, they’d have to be dealt with.

Solution? Pull out the pens, warm up the computer and knock off a few stories and a chapbook or two. Dust off the pages you should have sent out into the world a year ago, and encourage them to find a home. Write. Enjoy yourself. If you get stuck, find an antidote for writer’s block and patent it. While you’re at it, make peace with marketing. Consider becoming friends with someone who understands the nuances of 2020 copywriting. Give up on fear, point yourself toward the narrow bridge, find a unique tune, and enjoy the adventure. 2020 is happening, and you might as well jump into the Orwellian soup and have a good time, or meal, as the case may be.

Bobbie, our mother, passed away in 2019 while we were on vacation, enjoying our summer house outside Hillsboro, WV. She was robust, happy, and loved life. She’d moved to our Cleveland home due to significant health issues in 2013 following eighty years of California living. She did well. She thrived. However, in 2019 I began to see the same pattern I’d seen while caring for my great-grandmother. She was becoming frail. Her arms and legs resembled the balsa wood my little brother used to build his model airplanes. Just before our anticipated visit of Pearl S. Buck’s childhood home she became ill and had to be medevaced to Morgantown. My last memory of her was watching her disappear over the beautiful, awe-inspiring mountains of West Virginia on her way to a major medical center.

Change and loss do strange things. While she was living with us, she took center stage, and my writing took a seat in the back of the car. Still, a few short stories, poems and essays found homes of their own. One particular story was accepted in a new, but well-respected, foreign literary journal. I was excited to say the least. I signed a contract, even though no monetary payment was involved, and a 2020 publication date was identified. It would mean excellent exposure among writers I admired and wanted to emulate (Some since childhood!) My mother was quite impressed when I showed her the contract a year before her death.

As the publication date closed in, I received a copy of the story as it was to appear in print. There were the proverbial issues of comma here versus semi-colon there. Would you mind if we used block paragraphs versus indentations? Can we spell this foreign word using these English letters instead of those English letters? We require UK English instead of American English—do you mind?

I was a pushover. “No problem. You don’t like semicolons? Hey, use a comma; in fact, use two commas. Thank you for asking me. The copy looks fine.” Then it happened. I received an odd email from a sub-editor who recommended entire deletions, re-writes and other substantial changes.

Where is this emanating from? Was I just an innocent dufus, or did I mistakenly send something to an obscure writer’s workshop instead of an established publication? “You’re kidding me, right?” I mocked, privately. “Let’s accept a manuscript, sign a contract then wait almost a year to re-write the thing. Not!” I was obstinate to say the least.

Deep down, I knew this was not something I was going to tolerate. A good editor always should be taken seriously. When suggestions are made, the first thing a writer needs to do is freeze the ego. The second thing to do is listen. I did. I found myself reviewing suggestion after suggestion, rewrite requests and decisions to delete paragraphs and admonitions for using words that, according to a phantom editor, did not exist.

Good old 2019, the watershed year, the year where most of the folks I trusted and turned to, “the elders”, had passed away. It was inevitable. Along with my little brother, I’d become a member of the “first generation,” and we were alone. How daunting, lonely and frightening. I needed someone to tell me I was right, I was valuable. The only sound I heard was my own breath and my old computer making an odd clicking sensation.

This new generational membership began with questioning my ability, my sense of belonging and safety. Perhaps I was not a real writer, just a wanna-be hack. I had no one to commensurate with, no one to agree with me, no one who would even appreciate a well-placed cuss phrase. I was lost. For just a moment, the realization that writing might as well become a thing of the past was not so far fetched. I’d lost my self-confidence, and I was facing that narrow bridge without so much as a melody. I spent days rewriting. I implemented every so-called recommendation and deletion the magazine personnel had offered. It left me with a deeply embedded hollow feeling in the holy place from where words and ideas emanate. It was frightening, unsettling, and it made the grief for those we’d recently lost all that more devastating.

I decided to reach into the cyber world of writers, publishers, and editors; out-of-control writer egos and how-to formulas for standing up for ourselves. I was looking for support and understanding from my own kind. The result was odd. Without exception, the articles I found counseled writers to take a second seat: editors know best. Take the money, give up your words. Be compliant. Don’t rock the boat, or you’ll never be published again. It was disturbing. It left sadness behind that rivaled those losses recently encountered and collected as 2020 began.

Positive risks are scary, but it has been my experience that they usually pay off. I contacted a fellow writer and got back this response (I’m paraphrasing): “Just tell them to leave ‘the bitter whang’ alone.” It came from Rhonda Browning White, who’d recently published The Lightness of Water & Other Stories. I don’t know Rhonda well, but I enjoy her enthusiasm and writings. She didn’t disappoint me. Just that phrase—“the bitter whang,” Rhonda’s description of how a character created from her West Virginia culture and upbringing would describe the charming “scent” of diesel fuel, and an editor’s desire to exchange it for a blast of Downey, did it for me. In conclusion, she advised, “Don’t let them touch a word.” My self-confidence was back and my period of mourning the losses of 2019 was over.

After several deep breaths, stepping back to the edge of the earth for a day or two and taking a long, clear look at writers’ block and self-confidence, I realized it wasn’t my story anymore. I’d killed it. It no longer said what it was created to say, it was cardboard-ish and made no sense. It had no purpose and changed nothing in the world for the better or worse—an absolute disaster for a mysterious little story written in the irreal genre that thought it had found its perfect forever home.

Politely, I sent a note respectfully declining to make any changes, other than grammar, stylistic adjustments particular to the format of the publication, and compliance with transliteration consistency in the spelling of foreign words. I explained the story was likely not the best fit for the magazine after all and that I would be more comfortable withdrawing it from consideration.

We are now into the first month of 2020. My confidence as a writer has returned. I have sent several stories, poems and essays out into the world to see if they will find homes for themselves. The grief of 2019 is falling away. 2020! It sounds good like you’re pumping a shotgun, loaded for bear and trotting across the narrow bridges that make up our future. Isn’t it refreshing the air has the whang of fearlessness—the ambiance that satiates our writer-dreams with the perfect metaphor?

Tovli Simiryan lives near Lake Erie with her husband Yosif, who does all the talking. Tovli spends her time filling up little pieces of paper with words until they morph into stories and poems. Sometimes she makes these writings leave home, find cyber caves or journals of their own. They are so faithful to their creator, they often send her royalties. Stories and some poems are like that—always thinking of something outside themselves. A few journals that have housed Tovli’s writings are: Ariga, Chabad Magazine, Jewish Magazine, Jewish Ideals-Conversations, Raving Dove and Tiferet Journal. You can contact Tovli at: tovli102@outlook.com; webpage: http://tovlis.wix.com/tovliwriter

Tovli Simiryan

February 9, 2020 0

Writing Advice from the Masters: Writing in Paradise

I recently spent eight fabulous days at the Eckerd College Writers’ Conference: Writers in Paradise, under the tutelage of some of America’s finest authors. Set on Eckerd’s idyllic waterfront campus (some of us took a boat ride into Boca Bay as the sun set late one afternoon), we attended readings, social events, lectures, panel discussions, and intensive workshops over the course of the program. I was privileged to be awarded the Sterling Watson MFA Fellowship to attend this exciting conference, and doubly privileged to have a chapter of my novel workshopped by eleven brilliant authors, including multi-award-winning author and conference co-director Les Standiford.

As you might imagine, in a conference of this lauded measure, one receives a plethora of great advice and inspiration. It’s a serious writer’s job, then, to apply that advice to her manuscript and to carry that inspiration into her work. (Check out my brief essay on how to do that here.)

If you have the opportunity to attend a conference of this high caliber, I strongly recommend it. Until then, here’s a tiny taste of some of the advice and inspiration shared by the masters at Writers in Paradise. I hope you’ll support these generous spirits by attending their readings, buying and sharing their books, and reviewing their outstanding work.

On the craft of writing:

“Every good story is personal.” –Les Standiford

“Let suspense hook the reader, but don’t show them the hook.” –Dennis Lehane

“We can’t know who you are, until we know what you’ve lost.” –Andre Dubus III

“Don’t shroud the opening in secrecy. Tell the whole story in the first sentence.” –Les Standiford

On the writing habit:

“The ones who make it are the ones who stick with it. They’re the grinders.” –Stewart O’Nan

“Sculpt your entire life around getting your writing done. Don’t waste time. Write. Write. Write.” –Ann Hood

“We need special language to commemorate our lives: weddings, love, death, inaugurations. We need poetry.” –Aimee Nezhukumatathil

“Writing is an act of humility, and it takes its own time.” –Ann Hood

On researching story details:

“Go where the story takes you.” –Gilbert King

“Writing is problem solving.” –Sterling Watson

“Start from ignorance. Admit you know nothing.” –Stewart O’Nan

“Always be particular. Writers will do anything to weasel out of being specific.” –Les Standiford

What success means to you as a writer:

“Success means being able to continue writing. I don’t want to be publishing, marketing, or finishing a book. I want to be writing. That’s where the reward is.” –Stewart O’Nan

“Writing a poem is devastatingly difficult; it’s also a privilege. Writing is a privilege.” –Aimee Nezhukumatathil

Do any of these words of wisdom speak to you or your process as a writer? What is the best writing advice you have to give?

January 29, 2016 7

How to Make Money as a Writer

Can you really make a living as a writer, without being one of the lucky few who make the New York Times Bestseller list? Can you quit your day job, or must writing always come last on your list of ways to earn a living?

Certainly you can make a living—and a good one—as a writer, without having a long list of novels under your belt. Here are some steps toward building your writing portfolio; landing paying jobs as a writer, editor, or proofreader; getting published; and yes, eventually quitting the daily grind of your current job.

Tell everyone you know that you’re a professional writer who’s available for hire. One of the biggest mistakes people make when trying to become paid writers is keeping their mouths shut! Tell everyone you meet that you’re a writer and that you’re available for work. What kind of work? Any kind, as long as it includes some form of writing and a paycheck.

Successful service industries and businesses get the word out about their services. You do have a business card or contact card, right? And what about word of mouth? It’s vital to becoming a paid writer. Social media? Make sure your Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn connections know you’re available for work. Start local. Do you have references? Start a list of your publications and clients for whom you’ve written. Do it today.

Hand out business cards and flyers to bridal shops, book clubs, churches, community groups, your child’s school, libraries, and small businesses in your community. Organizations like the Elks, Moose, Eagles, and Freemasons not only publish national magazines, but often need to have local newsletters and press releases professionally written. Businesses need blog articles, employee handbooks, technical manuals, and company newsletters prepared. If you have specialized training in your background (i.e., medical experience, IT experience, etc.) solicit work from companies in that field, marketing yourself as an expert.

Don’t be afraid to start small. And yes, small can be a synonym for free when you’re getting started. If you don’t have a writer’s resume or list of professional writing references and publications, you must start somewhere. Write weekly bulletins for your church, a PTA press release, a groom’s tribute for a wedding program, or even short speeches for local banquets. Your current employer may need to have the office policy or benefits package updated and rewritten. Offer to do it free, after work hours, in exchange for a letter of reference, testimonial, or recommendation. Then, once you’ve written your company’s policy, you can solicit other similar businesses, charging a fee to update theirs.

The Beginner’s Bottom Line

Don’t look at any of your first writing jobs as “free,” even if they don’t pay with cash. You’re earning a byline, a professional business reference, and perhaps a long-term client who may hire you for higher-paying jobs in the future.

Now, About That Money . . .

You’ve got a bite. There’s a fish on the hook. All you gotta do is reel him in and serve him for dinner. But how much do you charge? Who sets the standards for what you can and should charge, once you’ve established yourself as a professional writer? The short answer: You do!

By the hour – What’s your time worth? How much would you make per hour at your day job? Does the fee you have in mind compete with other writers in your area? How much is too much? Even worse, how much is too little? Always consider your level of expertise. Beginners simply can’t charge the same hourly rate as someone with a long list of bylines attached to their name. Check the Web for information on going prices in your state, and base your price competitively. My recommendation? Consider $20-60 per hour, depending on the project and company, with a set minimum fee. Minimum fees (say, $45-$60) help weed out clients who “only want a short paragraph,” but who will take up three days of your time to get that paragraph “just right.”

By the project – You might quote large, standardized, one-time projects with a set amount. Be careful not to under-quote yourself in these cases, because sometimes a small article can turn into a huge volume overnight. Consider whether research is involved. If so, can you apply that research to other similar jobs in the future? As an example, early in my freelance career, I wrote employee handbooks for various companies. When I wrote the first one, I spent a lot of time researching federal workplace laws, state employment laws, the employer’s benefit packages, and so forth. Once the first manual was written, subsequent clients only required minor changes specific to their company, because the state and federal laws remained the same. Your client doesn’t need to know that, however. For those jobs, in the early 2000s, I charged a flat rate of $450, which the clients were quite happy to pay. (Maybe I should have charged more!)

By the word – Charging a flat fee per word is an excellent way to receive a fair amount of pay for a fair amount of work, and it notifies your clients what you expect for the quantity of work they want delivered. Then, if they add extra pages to the job, you’ll earn extra pay!

Share the Wealth

If you follow these steps and you provide quality work, it won’t be long until you have more work than you can handle. As you build your portfolio, network with other writers, and read samples of their work. Offer to proofread each other’s project. Then, instead of turning away a job that seems too big, too involved, too rushed, or too time-consuming for you, offer it to another strong writer, with the understanding that they’ll return the favor. You might even retain a percentage of the company’s payment as a finder’s fee.

Remember, the best writers are only as strong as their network, so don’t hesitate to pay it forward. Uplift other writers, offering to pick up extra work when they’re overwhelmed, and sharing your overburden in return. As soon as the customers for whom you’re freelancing learn that you are available for any project, regardless of size or deadline, your business will grow–and so will your bank account.

December 4, 2015 2

The Hiatus: Taking a Break from Writing

“Write every day.” We writers have heard this mantra from nearly every teacher, writing coach, agent, and editor we’ve encountered. We’ve heard it from other authors who’ve had it drilled into their heads so often they have no choice but parrot it when asked about their writing habits.

I call bullshit.

First, I believe that all writers can—and should—have different processes for creating new work, and that a particular process can—and should—change to fit the creation. If forcing yourself to sit each morning in front of a blank screen until beads of words form on your brow is a technique that works for you, that’s great. Goody for you. And if waking from a deep sleep with a scene in your head rouses you from bed at 2:00 a.m. to pound on your keyboard, that’s equally as wonderful. Or, if staring out the window for an hour, or sitting on the beach for three days, or walking your neighborhood each morning for two weeks is what causes (or allows) a story to jell in your mind before you type the first word, then that’s fabulous, too.

If your particular way of writing works for you, then it’s the perfect way for you to write. One size does not fit all.

There’s nothing like a deadline to encourage your words to appear on a page. When you were in school, your teachers gave you a due date for every assignment, because if they didn’t, you wouldn’t do the research that resulted in ideas that formed the thoughts you typed onto the page. Now that you’re out of school, it may be up to you to set imaginary deadlines, if that’s what it takes to keep you focused. Or maybe you work with a writing group, and you set deadlines for each other to meet. If deadlines are what you need, then set them.

Whether your deadline is real or imaginary, sometimes life gets in the way, and you simply must take a break from writing. Recently, that’s happened to me.

I work multiple jobs (adjunct professor, Realtor, ghostwriter, editor) and have myriad “unpaid” responsibilities (mother, wife, homemaker, book reviewer, blogger). It’s no surprise that these tasks often come with their own deadlines, and sometimes those deadlines bottleneck into the same week or same day. My personal writing simply has to take a back seat for a while.

I’m not advocating putting your writing aside for other duties: no! Writing—if you take your writing seriously at all—must be a priority. However, if you’re sitting in front of your computer in an attempt to get into the mind of your main character while ignoring more pressing responsibilities, your brain often won’t let you slide into the creative mode required to write well. The muse—if you believe in muses—will tell you to get your butt up and do what must be done.

When, then, will you get back to writing?

Here’s what I believe: writers are always writing. Just because we’re not sitting in front of our computers or holding a pad and pen in hand doesn’t mean we’re not creating stories.

During my low-residency MFA days, we were tasked with keeping a writing log that detailed the hours we spent reading and writing. I always struggled with how to approach this log, because it seemed to me then—and now—that rare are the hours when I’m not reading or writing. When I’m driving, I’m plotting. When I’m drifting off to sleep at night, I place my characters in a scene (one that may or may not be appropriate for my story), and I see what they’ll do. When I’m doing housework, I imagine a setting and how I’d describe it from my main character’s point of view. When I’m in the shower, I consider what obstacles I can put in the way of my characters’ goals and dreams. When I’m walking, I figure out how in the world my character can get around those obstacles I’ve created. This is writing.

Sometimes I make notes when a great idea pops into my head. My desk, my purse, and the inside covers of books I’m reading are littered with scribbles; scrawled ideas, scenes, sentences, or even sparse phrases that I know I’ll use when I next sit down to write.

And when time has passed and that precious, quiet hour arrives when I finally sit down in front of my screen, the ideas are all there. The sticky notes and index cards are placed in front of me, the books are stacked within reach, their pages flagged with points of inspiration. My fingers fly over the keys.

It’s then I realize that my time away from the keyboard is not and never has been a hiatus from writing: it is my impetus to create.

November 19, 2015 6

Thinking about an MFA in Creative Writing? START HERE!

It’s no secret that graduates (like myself) of Converse College’s Low-Residency MFA in Creative Writing Program like to brag about our experience in the program. Truly, it’s nothing short of life-changing.

What makes the Converse MFA program so special? It’s the award-winning, bestselling core faculty. It’s the I-can’t-believe-it’s-her/him visiting authors. It’s the one-on-one time with faculty mentors during the semester, and the ongoing relationships you have with them long after graduation. It’s the priceless opportunities to share your work with agents and editors and receive immediate feedback (and in some cases, a contract). It’s the breakfasts, lunches, dinners, and drinks you’ll share with faculty and classmates who quickly become your forever friends. It’s the chill bumps that race across your skin when you finally get that line just right. It’s knowing that, even after you’ve turned in your final thesis, celebrated your graduation, and hung that beautiful diploma on your wall, you still have a community of writers to turn to for advice, for inspiration, for celebration.

Sound like the perfect place for you? Then check it out in person. Below you’ll find an article about The Converse College Low-Residency MFA in Creative Writing OPEN HOUSE. Trust me when I tell you it’s worth the trip to meet faculty, students, and alums who can answer your questions and show you just how incredibly special this program really is.

S.C.’s Only Low-Residency MFA in Creative Writing to Hold Open House May 31

Spartanburg, S.C. — Discover why Publishers Weekly named the Converse College Low Residency MFA in Creative Writing “a program to watch” in 2015. Join us at our Open House information session on May 31, 2015 from 6:30-7:30 p.m. in the Barnet Room of the Montgomery Student Center on the Converse campus.

Meet current students, published alumni, and faculty, including Robert Olmstead, Denise Duhamel, Marlin Barton, Leslie Pietrzyk, Susan Tekulve, Albert Goldbarth, C. Michael Curtis, Suzanne Cleary, and program director Rick Mulkey. Learn about the program’s new concentrations in Young Adult Fiction and Environmental Writing, plus scholarship and Teaching Assistantship opportunities, along with information on recent alumni successes in fiction, poetry and nonfiction. Then stay to mingle with current students who are on campus for their summer residency, enjoying live music with Nashville-based folk rock band The Hart Strings beginning at 8 p.m.

More information on the Converse College Low-Residency MFA is available at www.converse.edu/mfa.

About the Converse College Low-Residency MFA

As South Carolina’s only low residency MFA program in creative writing, the Converse College MFA offers students opportunities to focus in fiction, Y.A. fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and Environmental writing, plus opportunities to pursue internships in publishing and editing through our C. Michael Curtis Publishing Fellowship at Hub City Press. MFA students may also participate in editing opportunities with the program’s national online literary magazine, South 85 Journal, and pursue teaching opportunities with our Teaching Assistant program, a unique opportunity for low residency students.

“One of the strengths of a low-residency format is how it introduces students to the real writing life,” said program director Rick Mulkey. “Most writers have family and career obligations in addition to their writing. While students spend part of each academic year on the Converse campus during the residencies, they continue work on their writing and academic projects during the rest of the year without disruption from their family and career. Plus they study in a true mentor/apprentice relationship with a gifted writer. It provides both an intensive learning environment and the flexibility that most of us need.”

Converse MFA faculty members include National Book Critic Circle Award winners, best-selling novelists, award winning short fiction writers and essayists, plus some of the top editors in the country. “In addition to being outstanding writers, our faculty are energetic and dedicated teachers who have been honored for their classroom instruction,” said Mulkey. “In some graduate programs, a student enrolls to discover that the writer she planned to work with only teaches one course a year, or is on leave while the student is in the program. Here you have the opportunity to work with a large number of writers, editors and agents in a very personal mentoring relationship.”

In the last few years, Converse MFA graduates and current students have distinguished themselves with honors and awards including the AWP Intro Award, a Melbourne Independent Film Festival Award, and the South Carolina Poetry Initiative Prize, among many others. In addition, they have published work in a range of literary venues from Colorado Review, Shenandoah, Ploughshares, and Southern Review to such noted publishers as William Morrow/Harper Collins, Simon & Schuster, Random House, Negative Capability Press, Finishing Line Press, and others.

May 6, 2015 1

Six Things You Need to Know about Your Writer

So your friend—or, God help you, your spouse—is a writer. Chances are, the more you get to know your writer, the more confused you’ll feel. Writers are odd ducks. We’re fun. We’re irritating. We’re enigmas and amoebas. How are you supposed to make sense of someone who flip-flops more than cheap rubber shower thongs? It’ll help you to know a few things about us that might make us a little easier to understand. Or not. No one says we are easy.

1. We are extroverted introverts. Writers realize the importance of socialization; in fact, we’re often pushed to network, self-promote, and mingle in order to make the necessary connections to publish our work, or sell it once it is published, so that we can publish again. We can juggle Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter, all while texting and providing riotous dinner-party banter. Sometimes we are wildly gregarious, prone to spontaneous road trips or bar-hopping. We can be the life of the party, cracking witty jokes you can’t wait to tell your friends at the water cooler, and boogying to every song the band plays. Don’t count on our amusing behavior to last, however, because . . .

2. We are introverted extroverts. You know that party we looked forward to all week? The one we chattered about incessantly, the one for which we bought a sparkly dress and fabulous shoes? We might arrive and sit quietly in a corner. Yes, last weekend we sang karaoke at midnight and break-danced as an encore, but this weekend we’re happy to play the wallflower, soaking up all that energy we expended the last time we were out. We’re having fun—don’t think we aren’t, even if we’re not smiling—because we’re watching, we’re processing, and we’re thinking. And it’s likely that something we see, hear, smell, feel, or taste will show up later in the story we’re writing.

3. We are usually right. Writers are sometimes perceived as know-it-alls. It isn’t that we believe we know everything, though we surely wish we did. We’re avid researchers, constant readers, and we’re always questioning how this works and why that doesn’t. We study the ingredients on cereal boxes. Our dictionaries actually wear out from overuse. Our Google search history could easily get us arrested. We’re smart, because we thirst for knowledge like a sponge in the Sahara Desert, and we’ll track down an expert for answers as doggedly as if he were the Aquafina man. When we offer unsolicited advice, consider it a gift (this is one we hope you’ll return!), because we give it in the spirit of helpfulness, not haughtiness.

4. But we are often wrong. And it breaks our hearts. It embarrasses us. Mortifies us. Many times, we know the answer, but our always-in-overdrive brains sometimes can’t shift gears quickly enough to turn a tight corner. So when you ask us the difference between a simile and a metaphor, and we answer incorrectly—though we’ve known the answer at a cellular level since third grade—it isn’t because we’re dumb. It’s because our minds are absorbing new information, or we are creating a new character in our minds, or writing a scene for a work in progress—or all of this is happening simultaneously in our heads while we’re attempting to answer your question. Besides, if we truly don’t know the answer, you can bet we’ll look it up.

5. We are not ignoring you. Yes, you’ve said our name three times, and when we finally respond, we ask you to repeat yourself twice. It’s sometimes difficult for us to come back to this planet when we are in a world of our own making. We are often visiting universes that we’ve created inside of our heads. We have to go there. Have you ever read a story and envisioned the scene as if it were playing out in front of you? That’s because a writer became so intensely involved in the creation of that setting that she pictured it in vivid detail—scents, sounds, surfaces, and more—so much so that she temporarily blocked out this world in order to create that one. It’s a necessary part of the job, and it’s what makes us good at what we do. It’s hard to hear you when we’re intently listening to the monologue or dialogue inside of our heads. Be patient. Repeat yourself. We’ll catch up to you.

6. Except when we’re ignoring you. Writing is a solitary profession driven by creativity that requires deep internal thought. The busyness and business of everyday life must be shut out both mentally and physically for us to work at peak capacity and get in touch with our highest creative selves. We’re okay with shutting the door—and locking it. We’re fine going all week without television, and we may equally be fine letting it play all day on the same unwatched channel. We don’t feel guilty letting your call go to voice mail. (In fact, when we’re writing, a ringing phone can be the equivalent of a pipe bomb exploding in our laps.) We can exist for days on coffee and candy corn or wine and Doritos. Don’t worry. We’ll come around soon enough, and we’ll again be ready to jabber until your ears wear out or spin you around the dance floor until your legs grow numb.

We know we’re different. We’re okay with that. And we hope with every breath that you’re okay with it, because we need you. When we come back to this earth, this country, this room, we want to find you there. After all, it’s you we’re writing for.

Tip for Writers: Be sure to email the link to this article to your your friend or significant other, or print it out and strategically place it where they will see it. Then get back to writing!

March 27, 2015 13

SUBMIT!

I suppose that, in this post-Fifty-Shades-of-Gray era, I should tell you up front that I’m not writing about that kind of submission, though a rough spanking might seem preferable to the pain of formatting, reformatting, searching this-week’s-editor’s name, copying and pasting cover letters, adding your name, removing your name, and paying fees from one dollar to thirty of them simply to have your work read—and likely rejected—by the magazine/agent/publisher/editor you’ve long had your eye on. But if you’re a writer, submit you must!

Is there any way to make the submission process easier?

After several years of occasionally (and sometimes rarely) submitting my work, followed by a year of submitting more frequently, I’ve learned a couple of things. If there are painless ways, I haven’t found them, though here are a few facts you can accept and steps you can take to streamline the process and perhaps even soften the pain of rejection.

It’s not you; it’s them. The best literary magazines, most coveted agents, and biggest publishing companies receive—quite literally—hundreds of submissions each day. Imagine this: you drive to work in the pouring rain, get stuck in traffic, break the heel on your favorite pumps while running for the office door, spill coffee on your desk, and then your kid calls to tell you he forgot his homework, so you have to run home to retrieve the homework, deliver it to the school, and restart the process. You’re behind before you even begin. Then you open your email to find your inbox filled with new submissions. You have phone calls to return and meetings to attend, yet those submissions need your attention. How do you begin to sift through them? Like any smart editor, you sift the chaff from the wheat. You immediately reject any submissions that don’t fit your formatting guidelines, that open with a sluggish first page/paragraph/sentence, and those that are pocked with typos. Out of the dozen that are left, you save the few that fit a theme you’ve noticed coming in this month—they’ll make a nice collection when published together—and you reject the rest. After all, you’ll have a hundred more to scour tomorrow.

It’s not them; it’s you. You know you’ve done it. The Muse sat on your shoulder, whispered in your ear, and you pounded out a 5,000-word story in two hours flat, and the story blew your mind. You read through it a second time, and you only found one misspelled word. A. Maze. Ing. This is the story that will get you noticed. You send it to the top fifteen lit mags you’ve been drooling over since your fingers first fit a keyboard, and later that night, you drift off to sleep imagining the acceptance letters you’ll get, the Pushcart nominations, Best American Short Stories calling to ask for your bio, the movie they’ll make of your story, and what you’ll wear on the red carpet when you accept your Oscar.

And then the rejections start pouring in. Not even personalized rejections; they’re form letters! You take a second look, and you realize you called one of the editors by the wrong name—instant rejection. On the next, you submitted a .docx file, when they specifically requested rich-text files only. Then you notice that on page one your main character was named Kathy with a K, and on page six she’s Cathy with a C. And you accidentally wrote affect instead of effect. Ah, the pain. Self-inflicted pain, at that.

Slow down. Proofread. Wait a week. Proofread again. Send your story to a trusted writerly friend. Proofread again. Reformat. Check submission guidelines. Proofread again. Submit.

Do your research. There are some wonderful web sites that make the process of determining which agent is seeking what kind of story, which lit mags are open to submissions and when, and what the word count and submission guidelines are for your genre. I am huge fan of New Pages, which also offers the free service of weekly emails notifying you of calls for submissions, contests, and even conference and retreat notices, as well as book and lit-mag reviews. There’s also a great list that’s updated quarterly at Entropy Magazine, and author C. Hope Clark runs a website called Funds for Writers that has won awards for its regular market updates. Let these amazing services do the initial searches for you.

Keep notes. The best thing I have done to streamline my submission process is to start a submission file. You can use a notebook, a manila folder, a calendar—or simply do as I’ve done—use a Word document. My submission file is simply a table tracking my submission information (date submitted, publication, story submitted, result), followed by an ongoing list of magazines, web sites, agents, and publishers to which I want to submit, each with very brief notes listing maximum word count, passwords (many require you to set up an account), and web address. Don’t bother listing a magazine’s editor, because that may change before you actually submit your work. Always check the publication’s web site for submission guidelines before sending in your work. Always.

Submit often! You can’t get published if you don’t submit your work. Editors and agents won’t knock on your door and ask to browse your computer files to find a story they can’t wait to print. You have to send your story out, and typically, you have to send it to multiple places before it’s accepted for publication.

Submit a lot! I’m talking quantity, here. At any given time, I have around four to six stories and essays floating among ten to fifteen lit mags and publishers. I know other well-respected authors who can claim four times those numbers. If you always have submissions out there, you always have hope, so the sting of rejection is softened. Just when I’d almost given up (much too easily) on one of my stories finding a home, I received a publication agreement from a magazine I’d long admired. I’d sent the story so long ago that I’d assumed they’d lost it in the slush pile, yet it had been making the rounds from the slush reader, to the fiction editor, to the senior editor.

Following these simple guidelines won’t guarantee your work will be published—if there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s that there are no publication guarantees for writers. But if you’ve worked hard, written the very best story you can write, and followed these guidelines, you’ll stand a much better chance of seeing your name in print.

Write well, and keep submitting!

February 25, 2015 0

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SUBMIT!

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or, how to deal with arrogant editors while setting fire to grief, loss, and writers’ block—all in an afternoon.

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