Category: Writing About Writing

Old door, Tribeca, NYC, 2018
Writing About Writing

Rejections Are Opportunities

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Old door, Tribeca, NYC, 2018
Photo by Pamela Weis – Old door, Tribeca, NYC, 2018

It’s not that it hurts so horribly, getting a rejection, or a “decline,” which I think is a bit softer, but it does sting a tiny bit. I appreciate the kindness of the letters I have received so far, and there have been only three, so it’s not like I am racking up tons of “NO”s just yet, but I know it’s coming. I will inevitably have a huge email folder overflowing with gentle rejections. Hopefully those will be semi-balanced by a handful of “YES”s. I believe they will. Eventually. The doors are not closed to me forever. And there are many doors from which to choose.

Finding the right fit for my writing is one of the most difficult parts of this process. There are so. many. journals. Some have been around for decades, others are new and eager to discover new authors. I have no vanity about where I am published. I’m happy to try whatever feels right. While it would be nice to have a “recognizable name” on my list of credits, that is not why I am doing this. And that is something I need to remember. It’s easy to get caught up in the process of submitting, revising, submitting, revising, submitting. It’s easy to focus on where I should plant my flag. It’s easy to read short stories by others who are published and say, yes that is something like me. Or no, that is nothing like me. Or, how in the hell did that get published? Or, how can I ever write that well? I sometimes have to remind myself that I am doing this–the writing part–because I love it. It makes me feel whole. It is not helpful to compare my writing to that of anyone else’s. And most of the time I am good at pushing those thoughts out of my head, but they are sneaky. A writer will produce a particularly gorgeous sentence or paragraph and I think, damn, I wish I’d written that. Could I have written that? No, of course not. It did not come from my brain. What are the odds of the exact same sentence, phrase, or paragraph coming from more than one person’s brain? I mean okay, if it’s something like, “I ate dinner,” or “Life is hard,” then sure. But if it’s something like, “The nose on that man reminds me of a ski slope I crashed on a few years ago,” or “It’s best to check your vegetables halfway through roasting to make sure you’re not turning them into shriveled bits of carbon,” it’s unlikely anyone else would write those exact same words in that exact same order. I don’t know the odds. I’m not a statistician. I studied theater and anthropology. The point is, we each have our own voice. Part of this process is not only finding that voice, but embracing it. Loving it. Finding comfort and challenge and inspiration in it.

I keep writing a new short story every week, more or less, so I don’t have a lot of time for more revisions and more submissions, but that’s okay. I don’t want to get too caught up in that aspect of being a writer. It’s important, of course, and it is a goal, but it’s not what drives me. I suppose it’s different for everyone, but for me the most important part is just doing it–every day, even if I feel distracted or frustrated or if Shuri cat is crawling all over me and I have to type with one hand. It’s worth it.

Art by El Anatsui, Brooklyn Museum of Art
Writing About Writing

One Short Story per Week

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Photo by Pamela Weis – Art by El Anatsui, Brooklyn Museum of Art, August 2013

Someone in the Slack group I belong to posted a Ray Bradbury quote awhile back:

“The best hygiene for beginning writers or intermediate writers is to write a hell of a lot of short stories. If you can write one short story a week—it doesn’t matter what the quality is to start, but at least you’re practicing, and at the end of the year you have 52 short stories, and I defy you to write 52 bad ones. Can’t be done. At the end of 30 weeks or 40 weeks or at the end of the year, all of a sudden a story will come that’s just wonderful.”

Per LitHub, this is from “Telling the Truth,” the keynote address of The Sixth Annual Writer’s Symposium by the Sea, sponsored by Point Loma Nazarene University, 2001.

I love this idea, and on a semi-conscious level began doing just that about four or five weeks ago—writing one short story per week. So far, so good. I have managed to more or less complete the task each week. I might be a day late now and then, but I have done it.

This week, I am on vacation. Or “staycation” I guess since I am not going anywhere—partly because of COVID, partly because I want to be home. I am pretending for this week that I am a full time professional writer. Or at least I am trying. It’s hard to be super disciplined about it when all I really want to do is lie down on the bed with an ice pack and fall asleep. Our A/C is on the fritz and it is HOT in here.

But for the most part, I am doing alright with this plan. And since I am pretending to be a full time writer for the week, I am also upping my weekly short story goal. Just for this one week, I will write two of them. I will also spend time editing and submitting to literary journals. (Did I mention I received my first rejection letter recently? I think that means I’m a “real” writer now. It feels like a rite of passage. I suspect I will have many many more.)

This also happens to be the week of the second, shorter, #1000wordsofsummer for 2020. Good timing, totally unplanned. So that challenge is definitely helping me with the inspiration and discipline as well.

As for the quality of the stories I’m writing, I hope Bradbury was right. That it’s impossible to write 52 (or 53) bad short stories. I actually think some of mine are pretty good. I’ll find out soon enough if anyone else agrees.

Nyxie the cat sits on a laptop
Writing About Writing

Time of the Cats

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Photo by Pamela Weis – Nyxie takes over the work laptop

I started writing this post when it had been just over four weeks of doing my day job from home. That was in March. Obviously, I did not finish that post and now what I have to say has completely mutated into something else.

Working from home is great. The cats have certainly enjoyed my constant presence. Contrary to popular notions of cats wanting their humans to get the hell out, our cats spend much of our new quality time together goading me to play with them, sleeping on my desk (or work laptop), and crawling all over me while I attempt to work. Yeah, they like having me home. I know I am not alone in this, and I have mixed feelings about their attentions. I love our cats as if they were human children and relish the extra time with them, but sometimes I do wish our apartment had another room…with a door.

Photo by Pamela Weis – Shuri insists on being the center of attention

Amidst all of this upheaval, I have struggled to maintain a regular writing schedule. I actually have more time – about 45 minutes more each day. Yet somehow, I am writing less during my morning writing sessions. Not because I sit there and type less or because I am struggling to get the words out, but because I either sleep too late or spend more of that extra time on social media. It’s probably not healthy.

Nevertheless, I have written a fair amount of new stuff since March. I finished another novel (another first draft, that is). And I submitted a short story to a journal. This was a huge leap for me. I fully expect it to be rejected, but we all have to start putting our work out there at some point. I will keep doing that no matter how scary it is.

I’ve also been editing the first novel I finished. Editing is satisfying. It doesn’t provide the same creative outlet as writing something completely new, but it appeals to that part of my brain that likes digging into messy details and making them neat and tidy.

The funny thing about all this stay-at-home-ness is that I feel much less stressed and anxious. I am more content in general. I like being home. I like not seeing other people. Of course I miss friends and family and even my work colleagues, but it would take much longer than 3 1/2 months for me to miss them so much that I would go out of my way to make contact. And I am really hoping I can talk my boss into letting me work from home indefinitely. That doesn’t make me a bad person. It makes me an introvert. It also makes our cats very happy.