In April of this year, I was inspired to write my essay for famous magazine called How Not to Reply to a Rejection Letter. I hate that we can’t read every book that gets queried to us here. Sending out rejection letters is not my favorite part of running the site, but there are only three of us here reviewing the books that come through. Each of us does read the preview of the book and tries to make a good decision about whether or not we want to continue reading. A lot of our decisions are based not just on the formatting or quality of the book itself, but also on whether or not it’s a story that appeals to our interests or personal reading tastes. So, when we say “this is not for us” it should be taken lightly because it’s not meant to be offensive. It’s being honest. Rejection is indeed a big part of being a writer and getting your work read, not just published. Accept it.
Loneliness: John Steinbeck said, “In utter loneliness a writer tries to explain the inexplicable.” Mark Twain said, “Be good and you will be lonely.” Does that mean that most good writers are lonely? Probably. The art of writing itself is very lonely. Most of us do it alone. We sit down with a blank white space and a blinking cursor, and a head full of stories to tell or with characters talking to us. Okay, so it’s lonely and crazy. You can certainly expel your narrative demons by telling the story out loud, but a writer goes away to a lonely place and concentrates on putting the story down on paper, on filling that white space with words. If you are like me, you tend to keep that story all to yourself until it’s completely done. It’s like a really good lover that you just met; it’s wild and exciting and you want to have them all to yourself for a while before you introduce them to family and friends. But there is a cure for the loneliness. It’s getting to hold your book in your hands for the first time, or better yet, handing that book to someone else. For me, it was always a dream to see my book on the shelf in the bookstore. It’s hearing what others have to say about my book when they finished reading it. Just beware that you don’t use writing to try to cure the loneliness. It won’t work. There are so many great authors who traveled that path alone who have gone before us who can attest to that: Truman Capote, Carson McCullers, Emily Dickinson, William Faulkner, Edgar Allan Poe, Oscar Wilde just to name a few of my favorites.
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Patience: Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.” You should be patient with yourself and with your story. Know that some days you will write pages, and some days you will only write a handful of words, if any words at all. The story won’t always go where you want it to. The characters won’t always listen to your fingers. Remember what I said earlier. If you don’t have time and you don’t have patience, then don’t do it. Read: In On Writing, Stephen King says if you want to be a writer then you must do two things: “read a lot and write a lot.” King even says you should be prepared to devote four to six hours a day to reading alone. And if you don’t know what genre you should write in, pick the one you like to read the most. While I don’t think I have that much time to devote to reading, I do try to do my fair share of it by reading some every single day. This year I made it a goal to read at least 25 books for pleasure and I’m about to finish #20 this week. I know many of you out there are laughing at me because you read much much more, and obviously read faster than I do. But I also read and study the books I review here, and I’m always reading blogs and industry related news to share with our readers. I learned how to correctly punctuate dialogue by going back and rereading scenes in books I had. So, read for pleasure, but also read to learn, and to improve your own writing. And as King also says, “If you sit down to write and the words won’t come out, step away from the computer and go read something.” Rejection: Rejection sort of goes hand in hand with criticism, but for me they are two totally different things. Someone can actually like your writing and offer you a good positive critique. For me, rejection means “no.” Now many of you immediately think of getting rejection letters from agents, and yes, that comes with the territory if you are out shopping your work to the traditional markets. I sent out close to 50 queries for my last book and only got back a handful of responses which were all rejections. My favorite was the shortest: “This is not for me.” -Liza. Going back to Stephen King, I believe he said that 99% of writing was rejection, or something like that. While I didn’t come up with a hefty list to compete with Houghton Mifflin, I did narrow my choices down to just a dozen words. They are just 12 simplistic words that can’t compete with the superiority of “chicanery” and “soliloquy” but without these words, I don’t think we could be writers. And so I present in no particular order…12 Words Every Author Should Know and Use: Creativity: One of my favorite writers, Truman Capote, said “To me, the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it’s about, but the inner music the words make.” Let’s face it. You have to have some kind of notion of creativity, some talent in putting words down in cohesive structure, a craft for telling a story, or a good imagination if you are writing fiction. That’s why they call it creative writing. Now, if your writing a dissertation on Noetic science, the material itself may not be so creative to work with but the writer’s ability to put together facts and write a winning academic paper still takes creativeness. Storytelling: Jean Houston said, “If you keep telling the same small story, you will keep living the same sad small life.” We’ve all got stories to tell, and I’m not just talking about those stories our parents told us from memory at bedtime. My father often shared stories with us when I was growing up. Once such story was about a call he got in the middle of the night from someone who had mistaken by dad for someone else who actually had the same name. “I’d like to buy those cattle you showed me,” the caller said. “I don’t own any cattle. I think you have the wrong number,” my dad said. But the caller was persistent that he had called the right person. My dad was tired and just wanted to hang up the phone and go back to sleep. “Put a check in the mail and go take all the cattle you want,” my dad finally said, and then hung up and went back to bed. The end of the story? My dad pauses for effect and then says, “I never did get my check!” |
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