Rejection and Criticism

I’ve had experience with rejection, harsh critiques and lost contests…years and years of it. When I send out a short story, I know odds are it will be rejected. I’ve sold, maybe, ten percent of the short stories I’ve sent out. But I tell myself the market for short stories like I write is small with few chances of success and that’s just the business.

Poetry is just as hard and paying markets are slim. As the economy goes on the way it is publishing house have to be more choosy and getting a book published is ever more competitive. Contest judges try to encourage and help and to do that it means sometimes being tough.

I’ve learned to like tough. Those critics and contests judges are being generous with their precious time and I have to at least listen with my heart open or I lose.

But a writer keeps writing and hoping. That novel is yours, came from your open heart, your one-of-a-kind heart. It feels like sending a child away to college when you sent it out, whether for publication or contest or to a critic partner. Inevitably you will get harsh critiques or rejections. A ‘thanks, but no thanks’, a ‘it didn’t work for them.’

Remember: You will not die. Then, find a way to distance yourself, however long it takes, so you can go back and read suggestions, criticisms, emotionless, if you were lucky enough to get them. Determine to learn something.

First remember, you didn’t write it for them. They didn’t see what you envisioned. Then, remember, critics can be wrong. Look honestly and deeply into your heart and trust your gut, as Obi Won told Luke: feel the force. Only you know what you’re trying to say. Did you say what you wanted to clearly or do they have a point that you can see now that there is distance and the very real thought that someone else actually read it.

I try to remember that my happiness will never depend on being published, neither will my wealth. Writing rarely leads to mansions on a hill and sports cars.
Are the editors/judges/critics saying the same thing about your book? Do they echo what someone else has said? You’ve got to take a second look, then. Or at least look at what they said in common.

Each page we perfect moves us farther along in our journey, giving us miles under our belt. Experience and learned tools. This is good.

Providence

Just back from our annual vacation to the Uintah mountains in Northeastern Utah. Beautiful country. Country very dear to my husband. I have learned to love it. Learned because, at first, I was so out of my element, what I knew, my comfort zone. Now, it refreshes me.

For my husband, it’s all about the fishing. For me, it is the scenery, the quiet, the research. It is an old land, the aspen trees marked with dates and history and old gold mines and ghost tales and folk lore. A writer’s treasure, really, but it took me a long time to see it that way and take advantage.

On evening, a storm began behind us as we sat on the shore and fished. Thunder began as just rumblings, but soon into much more. When the lightning got too close I ran for the truck. Everything is more up at that altitude and lightning stands the hair up on my neck, no matter how far away.

Squalls moved through the canyon every night. We had rainbows two nights and skies that grabbed my heart. So much snow still clings to the mountain they look ghostly as the sun disappears for the day.

I spent one raining evening stealing words from the hand-outs they passed out in the campground. I love stealing words, finding words. I run a list of words that catch my eye and then write poetry or descriptions using them. It makes for a good way to stretch writing muscle.

A page is a page and nothing is ever wasted. Old writing can be revisited, old and new pieces mooshed together. I love doing that and I think, sometimes, it is providence.

My Writer's Retreat

There is more than one meaning to retreat: An act or process of withdrawing especially from what is difficult, dangerous or disagreeable, to withdraw or a place of privacy or safety, refuge. Maybe, this time, for me, it is both.

Just back from back of the beyond—we headed for the mountains or…retreated might be the better word. Things have been…complicated. And we needed to retreat…rest and I needed a writer’s retreat. That’s impossible for many reasons, but I made do with what was possible.

Still, I needed a refuge. I needed to recharge, refresh, reboot. What better place than mountain air and quiet breezes, lapping water and the smell of pine.

I took my laptop, a handful of writer’s magazines, such as The Writer, Writer’s Digest, RWR and Writer’s Journal and Barbara Abercrombie’s Courage & Craft, Writing Your Life into Story. That last was heaven-sent, I do believe.

Enough to say, I flagged, underlined or both, every page. Reading this book, I felt like I was attending the best workshop in the most relaxing place, a perfect one on one. I found gems on every page, great advice and encouragement. And somehow, I felt Abercrombie knew me and was directing the lessons to me.

The book has been sitting on my shelf for some time and I’ve looked at it longingly wishing for more time. I took the time and it was so worth it. I highly recommend this book to writers but also, to anyone working in art, writing or even anything that needs to tap into creativity would gain something from it.

Books

I grew up kissing books and bread. —Salman Rushdie

I am a book junkie. All sorts of books—poem, short story, novel, nonfiction, cereal boxes. Yes, I love to read. Reading is good, but it goes way beyond just reading. Oh, I’ll read anything, if my particular fix isn’t available, I resort to reading the backs of cereal boxes, flyers, match covers. It doesn’t matter. Books are my drug of choice.

Reading has saved me more than once, but it is the book, the physical, solid familiar book. And it doesn’t matter what book. Old musty books draw me like a kid to water. The smell, the feel of old leather covers, the dark mysterious covers, but best of all are old books with margin writing or writing on the blank pages in the front or back.

Bookstores hold me gripped by want and need. Old books, new books, paperback books, it doesn’t matter. I love snorting the musky scent of old books and touching the fragile pages. I love thumbing through new crisp paged books with the bright colors and paperbacks are like penny candy to me.

Worse, give me an hour and I will find, at least, five books I simply must have, no matter where I happen to be. Boxes of old books at the flea market can make my day. I don’t need any more books, I don’t have room for them, but they call me like little orphaned kittens. And I am caught. I cannot say no.

I was in junior high when I started writing in margins and front and end pages. I think it was the idea of ‘being published’ that did it. Knowing the words I wrote would be seen by some new seventh grader the next year.

I’ve tried to save me from myself. It doesn’t matter. I cannot deny my addiction.

A Few Random Thoughts

Perception and POV Again:

On the subject of perception and point of view, they are not always accurate. It’s hard to remember what we think is going on isn’t always the truth. We can’t know someone else’s heart. This false truth, this perception or point of view is often a point of contention or conflict. It is where the story is.

As a writer, it’s good to notice these situations as we go about our lives. It makes for great ideas for the scenes of our stories, but it also lets us step outside the problem, just a bit, and maybe see that we do not know someone else’s heart, so we don’t really know what that other person is thinking, why they are doing what they do.

**

Reassess:

It’s mid-year. I like to take a look at my goals and resolutions about now and see where I am. I reassess and sometimes, I see I need to adjust goals to the reality of what else is going on in my life. As the primary-care giver to an aging parent, very often…most of the times, really, things just don’t go according to plan. That can send my writing off-kilter, too. And as much as I want to dedicate every spare moment to my writing, that is not the reality of my life or what is very most important.

That is the one thing I’m determined to remember in everything I do—what is truly important. People before things, accomplishments before money, writing what I want to, to the very best of my ability and time before publishing.

Anyway, every once in a while I need reminding of some little thing I’m determined to accomplish. For instance, I’ve been going through old files, deleting duplicates, mooshing documents about the same story or subject so ideas are hanging out together, both irritating habits of mine. Some mornings I forget I planned to spend ten minutes on that and another ten minutes going through the books, files and junk that I’ve used already or has just accumulated in my office. That small block of time I spend has already helped so much in my organization and helped get a few stories and essays done or at least, farther along.

Oh, and that last ten minutes of the first half hour of my writing hours, my house plants on Mondays, tidying up or reading writing magazines or books the rest of the week. The Monday house plant care is for my soul, I guess. Plants fill my house and yard, but the house plants keep me sane through the winter. I value them, so the few minutes it takes to groom and water them is like a hedge fund. The tidying up and ‘assigned’ reading is my way of keeping my head in it, so to speak.

A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he be at peace with himself. —Abraham Maslow