I spent $7 a few weeks ago to submit a story to the Tahoma Review. Normally, it doesn't cost that, but for the $7, they promise to give you some feedback. I got my feedback this week, and it was well worth the money. It wasn't exhaustive, but I wouldn't expect it for that price. Rather, they gave a two paragraph response as to why they didn't accept it.
Sure, I've been pretty negative on getting feedback, but I found this useful enough for what it was. Turns out, the reason they rejected it had a lot to do with the same flaw I saw in the story. It was a flaw I'd tried to iron out in later versions, but they didn't feel I'd quite attended to the issues. That doesn't mean, of course, that they're right. But right and wrong isn't really what you're after with something like this. You want to know the impressions someone had. It's like when I do a "Would I Have Published This Story" bit. I'm not saying I'm right or wrong, I'm saying this is how I think I'd have voted on a story and why. It's not criticism, it's just pulling back the curtain on what the gut reaction of a reader was.
I'd say that $7 was pretty good money, then. I've gotten less for a lot more money other places. The takeaway for me was that I might not have a story there right now. I'll probably pull that one and let it sit. Sometimes, at a later date, I get an idea for how to rework something, and then the original story becomes something new and better. I'm hoping that happens here.
Monday, October 30, 2017
Friday, October 27, 2017
Why I care if people read what I write
I posted last week about how to deal with it emotionally when a writer seems to get more than they deserve. Frequent commenter Badibanga--who is a friend of mine in real life--asked why I care. His comment:
Badibanga has a point. And lately I've been thinking a lot about that Borges story...the one I referred to in that post, where a man writes his masterpiece entirely in his head a split-second before he is gunned down by a firing squad. I think anyone who's going to write seriously will have to internalize that story at some point, because the odds are long for nearly every writer that anyone will ever seriously give a shit what you write. So yes, on some level, you have to write to please yourself.
That being said, what primarily motivates me to write is a sense that some disconcerting truth about existence has lodged itself in my brain, and nobody that I know of has ever mentioned it before. Am I wrong about it, or is this really a truth nobody has ever mentioned? I pick at it and pull at this notion and keep trying to give words to the thought it until I'm done. But the only way to know at that point if I've really arrived at some hitherto unspoken truth is for others to read on it and comment. So I need readers.
As much as folks romanticize the writer who was only discovered after death, that's actually not all that common an occurrence. And I have to believe it will become even rarer as time goes by, and the world is ever more and more caught up in the moment, caught up in today, and forgetting whatever happened five minutes ago.
As Badibanga says, it's likely that even if I became a well known writer today, I'd be forgotten soon after. It's far, far more likely, though, that if I am unknown when I die, I'll remain that way. It's very hard for me to imagine a future where a child or a widow goes through my thumb drives after I'm gone and manages to find a publisher--if such a thing even still exists--who will take them on.
Even many of the authors cited as examples of people who were discovered after death had at least some recognition in life. Phillip K. Dick was a well known Sci-Fi writer, he just hadn't crossed over into mainstream appeal until some of his books became movies. Edgar Allen Poe achieved mild success in life, albeit not the financial kind. Long before critics hated Moby Dick, they liked Melville's Omoo and Typee. Even Emily Dickinson had a few poems published before she died. In order for future generations to find gold floating in the detritus of the past, you have to at least get your work into that detritus. And the more of it you get there, the more likely it is to be found.
So yes, I do want to be read, which means I crave publications and awards and notoriety. That leaves me with a tough choice ahead of me. The more seriously I pursue writing, the more it becomes clear that what I want will probably elude me. The latest round of stories I have sent out were the best shots I had. I put everything into them, and they're coming back rejected. So I either have to keep plugging away with a growing sense of hopelessness or give up.
Gradually, I am arriving at a position that is something of a paradox. If I write only to be published, then I won't write anything worth writing. But having written that true verse in the darkness, I have to then become another person who cares very much about getting them published. I have to not care what people think when I write, and then care very much what people think when I'm done writing.
I used to not understand why writers so frequently suffered from a variety of psychological maladies, but the longer I'm at playing out this paradox, the more sense it makes to me.
...why do you want to fit in so badly? Great fiction is a coterie of usual suspects who will be unknown and unremembered 30, 20 years from now. That is the rational gamble here. The "great" writers often were not appreciated by contemporaries. So do you want to be of the moment? If so, then behave accordingly. Do you want to do what suits you, then do that, accept the consequences, and do not whine about it. Rare, rare is the person who is appreciated both by contemporaries and subsequent generations. I guarantee, however, that many of the truly great did not give a shit about fitting in or being some sort of also ran to a bunch of celebrated hacks.We discussed this in person last week, after the ablutions demanded by sacred tradition were first performed, but because I thought it was an interesting conversation, I'll share my view here.
Badibanga has a point. And lately I've been thinking a lot about that Borges story...the one I referred to in that post, where a man writes his masterpiece entirely in his head a split-second before he is gunned down by a firing squad. I think anyone who's going to write seriously will have to internalize that story at some point, because the odds are long for nearly every writer that anyone will ever seriously give a shit what you write. So yes, on some level, you have to write to please yourself.
That being said, what primarily motivates me to write is a sense that some disconcerting truth about existence has lodged itself in my brain, and nobody that I know of has ever mentioned it before. Am I wrong about it, or is this really a truth nobody has ever mentioned? I pick at it and pull at this notion and keep trying to give words to the thought it until I'm done. But the only way to know at that point if I've really arrived at some hitherto unspoken truth is for others to read on it and comment. So I need readers.
As much as folks romanticize the writer who was only discovered after death, that's actually not all that common an occurrence. And I have to believe it will become even rarer as time goes by, and the world is ever more and more caught up in the moment, caught up in today, and forgetting whatever happened five minutes ago.
As Badibanga says, it's likely that even if I became a well known writer today, I'd be forgotten soon after. It's far, far more likely, though, that if I am unknown when I die, I'll remain that way. It's very hard for me to imagine a future where a child or a widow goes through my thumb drives after I'm gone and manages to find a publisher--if such a thing even still exists--who will take them on.
Even many of the authors cited as examples of people who were discovered after death had at least some recognition in life. Phillip K. Dick was a well known Sci-Fi writer, he just hadn't crossed over into mainstream appeal until some of his books became movies. Edgar Allen Poe achieved mild success in life, albeit not the financial kind. Long before critics hated Moby Dick, they liked Melville's Omoo and Typee. Even Emily Dickinson had a few poems published before she died. In order for future generations to find gold floating in the detritus of the past, you have to at least get your work into that detritus. And the more of it you get there, the more likely it is to be found.
So yes, I do want to be read, which means I crave publications and awards and notoriety. That leaves me with a tough choice ahead of me. The more seriously I pursue writing, the more it becomes clear that what I want will probably elude me. The latest round of stories I have sent out were the best shots I had. I put everything into them, and they're coming back rejected. So I either have to keep plugging away with a growing sense of hopelessness or give up.
Gradually, I am arriving at a position that is something of a paradox. If I write only to be published, then I won't write anything worth writing. But having written that true verse in the darkness, I have to then become another person who cares very much about getting them published. I have to not care what people think when I write, and then care very much what people think when I'm done writing.
I used to not understand why writers so frequently suffered from a variety of psychological maladies, but the longer I'm at playing out this paradox, the more sense it makes to me.
Monday, October 23, 2017
Mini-Gallimaufry: MFA for popular work and an MFA advisor who realizes the current model isn't getting it done
This will be one of my shortest posts ever:
1) After my post yesterday, I was looking to see if any writing programs do, in fact, focus on popular fiction, and I found at least one that does: at University of Southern Maine, the Stonecoast MFA in Creative Writing has a popular fiction track.
2) A thoughtful article in the New Yorker today from an MFA advisor is the latest to question whether the heavy focus on craft is the right approach. I know it was a problem for me. I was around a lot of smart people who liked to read, but we didn't talk as much about what stories were worth telling as we did about how to tell them.
1) After my post yesterday, I was looking to see if any writing programs do, in fact, focus on popular fiction, and I found at least one that does: at University of Southern Maine, the Stonecoast MFA in Creative Writing has a popular fiction track.
2) A thoughtful article in the New Yorker today from an MFA advisor is the latest to question whether the heavy focus on craft is the right approach. I know it was a problem for me. I was around a lot of smart people who liked to read, but we didn't talk as much about what stories were worth telling as we did about how to tell them.
Sunday, October 22, 2017
What being in writing workshops with Nnedi Okorafor taught me about the goal of writing programs
You may not, at this exact moment in history, grasp the significance of the title of this post. But it's likely you soon will. Her fantasy novel is about to be made into an HBO series, and it's backed by none other than George R.R. Martin himself, leading to inevitable claims that her series is the next Game of Thrones. Nnedi's done alright by herself.
That's fine with me. I only remember two people's names from my program in graduate school, and she's one of them. (I was talking recently with a woman who described her graduate writing program as an incestuous group where everyone hung out together, slept with each other, and gossiped about one another. Mine was nothing like that. We were friendly, but there were never any social events other than readings. Or maybe there were, and I just wasn't invited?)
What I remember most about Nnedi is that nobody knew what to do with her novel when it came up in workshops. Graduate workshops are generally geared toward literary fiction.
Defining what literary fiction is isn't easy. It is sometimes defined in opposition to other types of literature, which are tarred with the term "genre fiction." "Genre fiction" may or may not be seen as pejorative. I would say literary fiction is fiction which aspires to be regarded as serious, which hopes to say something significant about the human condition, about society, about the universe. It is literature the author hopes will be assigned as reading in universities one day.
That's the model for graduate writing programs at American universities. The programs teach students to write like the works those students are reading in their literature classes. (Most MFA's have at least some reading component, and my M.A. program was exactly half literature study, half workshops.)
Nnedi wrote YA post-apocalyptic fiction with a Nigerian bent, even then. The class wasn't rude about it. We commented on her work as energetically as we did anything. As I've said before, I don't think the feedback from classmates was useful to me at all. If it wasn't useful to her, I wouldn't be surprised. (I did once give her this feedback: I thought it seemed morally questionable for the children in her world to have super powers as a result of nuclear fallout, because that might make young people think nuclear war was desirable. I guess I can say I once gave advice to a famous writer.) I wouldn't presume to speak for her on how valuable she found the workshops. She stayed for her Ph.D., whereas I left after my M.A., so I'd guess she found some value in it.
What seems interesting to me looking back on it now is the conversation we had one day about her work. I want to say a comment by the instructor started it. It wasn't a particularly nasty comment, or even dismissive. My advisor was a fairly supportive person. I think she may have asked a question about the book and qualified it by saying she herself did not read a lot of this kind of fiction. Whatever she said, the class ended up in a sidebar about the merits of YA fiction, namely whether there were any. Nnedi and quite a few others defended YA. They declared that Harry Potter--the YA champion of the time--was actually quite complex and sophisticated and had intrinsic worth beyond being a bestseller. (I had no opinion then. I've read Harry Potter now, because now I'm a father, and I agree. It's a great series.)
It wasn't really a vitriolic conversation, but it seems odd to me now that it was a conversation we had at all. In law school, I doubt whether anyone has conversations over whether tort law is real law or just something for ambulance chasers to make a buck off of. I doubt if the status of plastic surgery is looked at askance in medicals schools. That's because these are really professionalizing programs. The end goal is to perform in an industry. To use an example more directly analogous, do drama programs only teach Shakespearean stage performance? Or do they also teach how to act in a movie or on TV?
I'm not sure why teaching to the job market is not a model for writing programs. Or maybe it is. It's just that when literary fiction is the presumed type of writing, the reality is that the vast majority of graduates won't be able to make a living writing. So the academy is teaching students to teach writing workshops as much as teaching them to write. To the extent it is teaching writing, it is teaching how to write stories that will be published in places where most of the readers are other writers who graduated from the same types of programs and publish in the same types of journals.
A few lucky literary fiction writers do succeed commercially, of course. They are the ones who won major awards so that their books were assigned in universities, or who got onto Oprah's book club and became one of the few "good for you" books Americans can be shamed into reading every year. But they are very much the exception that proves the rule.
I've been out of grad school for 15 years, of course, and the game may have changed. But I wonder why these schools don't offer mystery, fantasy, YA, romance, or any of the other genres that actually DO sell as part of the curriculum.
Part of it assuredly has to do with universities justifiably feeling that their mission is to promote human knowledge. But I'd bet there's at least some fear behind the choices. What if graduate programs cannot produce commercial success in fiction reliably? Right now, they're not really expected to. They're simply expected to produce occasional bright lights who can get published by the kinds of journals the school itself probably runs. They're expected to produce writers who win awards proctored by other MFA grads. You can teach people how to write for a system. But teaching people to write to be read widely is tough. Agents and publishers, whose whole lives revolve around trying to bet right on it, fail all the time at guessing what the next hot item will be.
That's why writing programs are as much about teaching students to teach writing programs themselves as they are about teaching them to write.
This shouldn't be seen as a personal complaint, by the way. As I told a friend the other day, even if I wanted to write genre fiction just to be read, I wouldn't know how. I don't have one in me. My literary hero in grad school was Herman Melville, a man whose greatest work was ignored in his own lifetime. So this isn't sour grapes that nobody taught me to write a NY Times bestseller. This is just to note that Nnedi's wonderful success was such an unusual dream for a writing program student back then that we almost didn't know what to do with it.
Keep this in mind if you want to follow her path to greatness.
Congratulations to Nnedi. I'll be getting some of her books and reading them. I like fantasy enough to know every single thing the Lord of the Rings movies did wrong, but it'll be nice to see what someone can do with it drawing from a completely different mythological tradition.
That's fine with me. I only remember two people's names from my program in graduate school, and she's one of them. (I was talking recently with a woman who described her graduate writing program as an incestuous group where everyone hung out together, slept with each other, and gossiped about one another. Mine was nothing like that. We were friendly, but there were never any social events other than readings. Or maybe there were, and I just wasn't invited?)
What I remember most about Nnedi is that nobody knew what to do with her novel when it came up in workshops. Graduate workshops are generally geared toward literary fiction.
Defining what literary fiction is isn't easy. It is sometimes defined in opposition to other types of literature, which are tarred with the term "genre fiction." "Genre fiction" may or may not be seen as pejorative. I would say literary fiction is fiction which aspires to be regarded as serious, which hopes to say something significant about the human condition, about society, about the universe. It is literature the author hopes will be assigned as reading in universities one day.
That's the model for graduate writing programs at American universities. The programs teach students to write like the works those students are reading in their literature classes. (Most MFA's have at least some reading component, and my M.A. program was exactly half literature study, half workshops.)
Nnedi wrote YA post-apocalyptic fiction with a Nigerian bent, even then. The class wasn't rude about it. We commented on her work as energetically as we did anything. As I've said before, I don't think the feedback from classmates was useful to me at all. If it wasn't useful to her, I wouldn't be surprised. (I did once give her this feedback: I thought it seemed morally questionable for the children in her world to have super powers as a result of nuclear fallout, because that might make young people think nuclear war was desirable. I guess I can say I once gave advice to a famous writer.) I wouldn't presume to speak for her on how valuable she found the workshops. She stayed for her Ph.D., whereas I left after my M.A., so I'd guess she found some value in it.
 |
| Post-apocalyptic fiction, but from an entirely different cultural wellspring than what we're used to |
What seems interesting to me looking back on it now is the conversation we had one day about her work. I want to say a comment by the instructor started it. It wasn't a particularly nasty comment, or even dismissive. My advisor was a fairly supportive person. I think she may have asked a question about the book and qualified it by saying she herself did not read a lot of this kind of fiction. Whatever she said, the class ended up in a sidebar about the merits of YA fiction, namely whether there were any. Nnedi and quite a few others defended YA. They declared that Harry Potter--the YA champion of the time--was actually quite complex and sophisticated and had intrinsic worth beyond being a bestseller. (I had no opinion then. I've read Harry Potter now, because now I'm a father, and I agree. It's a great series.)
It wasn't really a vitriolic conversation, but it seems odd to me now that it was a conversation we had at all. In law school, I doubt whether anyone has conversations over whether tort law is real law or just something for ambulance chasers to make a buck off of. I doubt if the status of plastic surgery is looked at askance in medicals schools. That's because these are really professionalizing programs. The end goal is to perform in an industry. To use an example more directly analogous, do drama programs only teach Shakespearean stage performance? Or do they also teach how to act in a movie or on TV?
I'm not sure why teaching to the job market is not a model for writing programs. Or maybe it is. It's just that when literary fiction is the presumed type of writing, the reality is that the vast majority of graduates won't be able to make a living writing. So the academy is teaching students to teach writing workshops as much as teaching them to write. To the extent it is teaching writing, it is teaching how to write stories that will be published in places where most of the readers are other writers who graduated from the same types of programs and publish in the same types of journals.
A few lucky literary fiction writers do succeed commercially, of course. They are the ones who won major awards so that their books were assigned in universities, or who got onto Oprah's book club and became one of the few "good for you" books Americans can be shamed into reading every year. But they are very much the exception that proves the rule.
I've been out of grad school for 15 years, of course, and the game may have changed. But I wonder why these schools don't offer mystery, fantasy, YA, romance, or any of the other genres that actually DO sell as part of the curriculum.
Part of it assuredly has to do with universities justifiably feeling that their mission is to promote human knowledge. But I'd bet there's at least some fear behind the choices. What if graduate programs cannot produce commercial success in fiction reliably? Right now, they're not really expected to. They're simply expected to produce occasional bright lights who can get published by the kinds of journals the school itself probably runs. They're expected to produce writers who win awards proctored by other MFA grads. You can teach people how to write for a system. But teaching people to write to be read widely is tough. Agents and publishers, whose whole lives revolve around trying to bet right on it, fail all the time at guessing what the next hot item will be.
That's why writing programs are as much about teaching students to teach writing programs themselves as they are about teaching them to write.
This shouldn't be seen as a personal complaint, by the way. As I told a friend the other day, even if I wanted to write genre fiction just to be read, I wouldn't know how. I don't have one in me. My literary hero in grad school was Herman Melville, a man whose greatest work was ignored in his own lifetime. So this isn't sour grapes that nobody taught me to write a NY Times bestseller. This is just to note that Nnedi's wonderful success was such an unusual dream for a writing program student back then that we almost didn't know what to do with it.
Keep this in mind if you want to follow her path to greatness.
Congratulations to Nnedi. I'll be getting some of her books and reading them. I like fantasy enough to know every single thing the Lord of the Rings movies did wrong, but it'll be nice to see what someone can do with it drawing from a completely different mythological tradition.
Friday, October 20, 2017
On people getting what they deserve (or more than, or less than)
Use every man after his desert, and who should 'scape whipping? -Hamlet, Act 2, Scene II.
I was just checking out the sales of my book on Amazon. A few people bought the e-book, which made me happy. Then, I saw sponsored links to other e-books. One was Rebel Cowbear: Paranormal Werebear Romance (Lone Star Cowbears Book 1). There is also a sequel in the Wearbear Cowboy romance series. I was tempted to laugh, but then I saw the book had 58 comments on Amazon. My book has three.
Earlier this week, I read a couple of installments from this year's Best American Short Stories anthology. The second and third stories in the anthology were from big names who'd been published recently in the New Yorker. I found both stories to be rather lazy efforts undeserving of the attention. They weren't terrible, they just didn't feel like they'd been written with any real urgency. They felt like something a professional writer thought would make a good story, so the writers put into them the stuff they usually put into a story to make it work. And because they are big name writers, they got into the New Yorker and the BASS anthology.
You won't always feel as a writer that others are getting things they don't deserve and you do. Sometimes, you'll feel that even whatever credit you have gotten is undeserved, and you are a fraud and a hack and a terrible writer. Sometimes, you'll feel both cheated of your due and undeserving of any due at the same time. (Just this morning, I deleted the first page of a rough draft I wrote last night, and asked myself why I ever write anything, because I am obviously terrible.)
However, when you do start finding yourself as a writer feeling cheated, that others are getting more than they deserve and you are getting far, far less, I find these thoughts help me:
-The Kardashians are all rich without having any apparent abilities between them. This is a much greater injustice than a writer continuing to be published by big journals in spite of having peaked years ago. So if T.C. Boyle phones in some crap sci-fi trash about designer babies, it's low on the list of cosmic injustices when that story gets love.
-It's almost certainly much worse for minority writers. The market can only support one niche writer at a time. So if you are a Rohingya writer writing about Rohingya issues and the market has already picked who its favorite Rohingya writer is, you're out of luck. Somewhere, there is a Chinese-American female writer who has been waiting for Amy Tan to die for about twenty years. Even when that happens, that new writer will spend a decade being called "the next Amy Tan."
-Both "Everyone is getting more than me" and "I am terrible" are irrational. I know that being irrational helps write great fiction, but when it starts to unsettle you emotionally, go try some other writerly activity like getting piss-drunk or philandering with half your neighborhood until you feel better.
-There is a Borges story called "The Secret Miracle." In it, a Jew who has been sentenced by the Nazis to die by firing squad is sad that he will never be able to finish writing his play. As the bullets are about to fire, God stops time. The man is able to complete the play in his head. The moment he completes the play, time resumes, and he is instantly killed. I often think of that story, imagine that each story I write has a private audience of one. If it is ever shared beyond that, this is a bonus. But writing the story is something I have to do. I'm only responsible for writing it. What happens beyond is not my responsibility.
I was just checking out the sales of my book on Amazon. A few people bought the e-book, which made me happy. Then, I saw sponsored links to other e-books. One was Rebel Cowbear: Paranormal Werebear Romance (Lone Star Cowbears Book 1). There is also a sequel in the Wearbear Cowboy romance series. I was tempted to laugh, but then I saw the book had 58 comments on Amazon. My book has three.
Earlier this week, I read a couple of installments from this year's Best American Short Stories anthology. The second and third stories in the anthology were from big names who'd been published recently in the New Yorker. I found both stories to be rather lazy efforts undeserving of the attention. They weren't terrible, they just didn't feel like they'd been written with any real urgency. They felt like something a professional writer thought would make a good story, so the writers put into them the stuff they usually put into a story to make it work. And because they are big name writers, they got into the New Yorker and the BASS anthology.
You won't always feel as a writer that others are getting things they don't deserve and you do. Sometimes, you'll feel that even whatever credit you have gotten is undeserved, and you are a fraud and a hack and a terrible writer. Sometimes, you'll feel both cheated of your due and undeserving of any due at the same time. (Just this morning, I deleted the first page of a rough draft I wrote last night, and asked myself why I ever write anything, because I am obviously terrible.)
However, when you do start finding yourself as a writer feeling cheated, that others are getting more than they deserve and you are getting far, far less, I find these thoughts help me:
-The Kardashians are all rich without having any apparent abilities between them. This is a much greater injustice than a writer continuing to be published by big journals in spite of having peaked years ago. So if T.C. Boyle phones in some crap sci-fi trash about designer babies, it's low on the list of cosmic injustices when that story gets love.
-It's almost certainly much worse for minority writers. The market can only support one niche writer at a time. So if you are a Rohingya writer writing about Rohingya issues and the market has already picked who its favorite Rohingya writer is, you're out of luck. Somewhere, there is a Chinese-American female writer who has been waiting for Amy Tan to die for about twenty years. Even when that happens, that new writer will spend a decade being called "the next Amy Tan."
-Both "Everyone is getting more than me" and "I am terrible" are irrational. I know that being irrational helps write great fiction, but when it starts to unsettle you emotionally, go try some other writerly activity like getting piss-drunk or philandering with half your neighborhood until you feel better.
-There is a Borges story called "The Secret Miracle." In it, a Jew who has been sentenced by the Nazis to die by firing squad is sad that he will never be able to finish writing his play. As the bullets are about to fire, God stops time. The man is able to complete the play in his head. The moment he completes the play, time resumes, and he is instantly killed. I often think of that story, imagine that each story I write has a private audience of one. If it is ever shared beyond that, this is a bonus. But writing the story is something I have to do. I'm only responsible for writing it. What happens beyond is not my responsibility.
Tuesday, October 17, 2017
E-book is out
If $17 was too much for a paperback, but you've just been dying to get my book to see if I can actually write anything worth reading (because this blog sure doesn't fit the bill), you can now get the much cheaper $8 e-book version.
I've just committed to buying books at a local book store if I can, but I really don't know another way to get an e-book than Amazon/Kindle. Here's the link for the Kindle version:
https://www.amazon.com/Dont-Wait-Called-Jacob-Weber-ebook/dp/B076H8FKNZ/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1508290153&sr=8-1.
Thanks to the folks who already got the high-priced paperback, and huge thanks to the people who have wanted to talk to me about it. I wrote the book for the same reason I write anything: to say things I think people will find worth reading, and, hopefully, talking about.
Thanks to everyone who ever checks out this blog.
I've just committed to buying books at a local book store if I can, but I really don't know another way to get an e-book than Amazon/Kindle. Here's the link for the Kindle version:
https://www.amazon.com/Dont-Wait-Called-Jacob-Weber-ebook/dp/B076H8FKNZ/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1508290153&sr=8-1.
Thanks to the folks who already got the high-priced paperback, and huge thanks to the people who have wanted to talk to me about it. I wrote the book for the same reason I write anything: to say things I think people will find worth reading, and, hopefully, talking about.
Thanks to everyone who ever checks out this blog.
Wednesday, October 11, 2017
Reading the tea leaves of rejection
When I first started this blog, I wrote a lot about the sordid guts of getting rejections. I didn't do it to be morose, exactly. I wanted to accurately reflect both what one encounters and what one thinks while trying to publish stories. There is something reassuring to knowing that you aren't the only one getting tons of no answers, wondering if you were close, wondering why the stories that did get picked are better than yours, wondering if you will ever get anywhere with it and if it all makes any sense.
About a decade a go, another writer who was going through the same issues started a blog called Literary Rejections on Display. It had quite a following for a while. I'm not sure if its popularity ebbed because nowadays, people seem to prefer to watch people on YouTube talk into a camera rather than read a blog, or because she actually finally did break through and get a few books published. When I started my own tour of rejections, though, it was a great help to me to go back through her litany of rejections.
It was especially helpful that she posted a lot of the actual rejections she got. Commenters chipped in, too, which meant you got to start to form a sense of whether the rejection letter you got really was encouraging or if that's just what they send to all the writers.
The options when it's a no
Most journals just send a pretty unambiguous no, something like "Thanks for sending to ___, but unfortunately, this story isn't for us right now. Best of luck placing it elsewhere."
Sometimes, though, you'll get a note that says something like, "Although we are not publishing this story, we admired your writing, and would like to see more of it." There are two options here: either it's sincere, or it's letting you down easy. Why let you down easy? I guess to get you to keep submitting. This is especially possible if it's a journal that charges enough from its reading fees to make money off of them.
But for most journals that are either free to submit to or only charge a few dollars, why would they lie? I assume this is a second kind of form rejection letter. The journal probably has three choices. Door number one is to accept. Door number two is to reject. Door number three is for the good-but-not-good-enough, who get a consolation prize of the more encouraging rejection letter.
I assume that when a journal that isn't charging a lot for submissions tells you they want to see more of your work, they mean it. Nobody wants to read through crap. If they see something that's almost there, they'd rather get more of that in the future. I assume they only want to encourage writing of the kind they'd like to see again. But it's so hard to be sure.
A lot of writers suggest that you just look at whether it's a yes or a no and forget the rest. There is nothing to be gained by considering how long it took to get a decision or what they said after the no. But with some journals in particular, the kinds where to get in would really be a big breakthrough, I can't help it.
Which brings me to the past two weeks
I've had either one, two, or three of these kinds of rejections in the past two weeks, depending on how you count them.
#1: Although this piece isn't going to be a go for ____, we like your writing and would welcome the chance to see more from you.
#2: While we enjoyed 'Story X,' we didn't quite feel the ending wrapped up in a satisfying way. We appreciate your interest in NR, and hope you keep us in mind for future submissions--we'd love to see more.
#3: Unfortunately this particular piece was not a right fit for ____, but we were very impressed by your writing. We hope that you will feel encouraged by this short note and send us something else.
I could take any of those to be the kind of response you'd get if the editors thought they'd just seen a story worth at least a moment's thought. #1 might just be what they send everyone, since it's not terribly effusive, but again, why would they encourage more stories they will just reject? #2 suggests that they at least read to the end, which is actually a very good sign. #3 is the real one I wonder about. #3 was a journal that would have been a very big deal to get in. But they also tend to be a bit aggressive with offering extras, like writing seminars. So maybe my hope is important to them. It's very hard to know. I just know that I sent out a lot of work to some very hard-to-crack journals out there, and I'm likely to keep getting more rejections in the next few weeks, which means I'm likely to keep trying to read tea leaves to know if there's more to the no than just a no.
I can't imagine I'm the only one like this, which is why I'm sharing it. If you are reading this and thinking that you can't stop wondering what your "no" means, that means you're like everyone else.
About a decade a go, another writer who was going through the same issues started a blog called Literary Rejections on Display. It had quite a following for a while. I'm not sure if its popularity ebbed because nowadays, people seem to prefer to watch people on YouTube talk into a camera rather than read a blog, or because she actually finally did break through and get a few books published. When I started my own tour of rejections, though, it was a great help to me to go back through her litany of rejections.
It was especially helpful that she posted a lot of the actual rejections she got. Commenters chipped in, too, which meant you got to start to form a sense of whether the rejection letter you got really was encouraging or if that's just what they send to all the writers.
The options when it's a no
Most journals just send a pretty unambiguous no, something like "Thanks for sending to ___, but unfortunately, this story isn't for us right now. Best of luck placing it elsewhere."
Sometimes, though, you'll get a note that says something like, "Although we are not publishing this story, we admired your writing, and would like to see more of it." There are two options here: either it's sincere, or it's letting you down easy. Why let you down easy? I guess to get you to keep submitting. This is especially possible if it's a journal that charges enough from its reading fees to make money off of them.
But for most journals that are either free to submit to or only charge a few dollars, why would they lie? I assume this is a second kind of form rejection letter. The journal probably has three choices. Door number one is to accept. Door number two is to reject. Door number three is for the good-but-not-good-enough, who get a consolation prize of the more encouraging rejection letter.
I assume that when a journal that isn't charging a lot for submissions tells you they want to see more of your work, they mean it. Nobody wants to read through crap. If they see something that's almost there, they'd rather get more of that in the future. I assume they only want to encourage writing of the kind they'd like to see again. But it's so hard to be sure.
A lot of writers suggest that you just look at whether it's a yes or a no and forget the rest. There is nothing to be gained by considering how long it took to get a decision or what they said after the no. But with some journals in particular, the kinds where to get in would really be a big breakthrough, I can't help it.
Which brings me to the past two weeks
I've had either one, two, or three of these kinds of rejections in the past two weeks, depending on how you count them.
#1: Although this piece isn't going to be a go for ____, we like your writing and would welcome the chance to see more from you.
#2: While we enjoyed 'Story X,' we didn't quite feel the ending wrapped up in a satisfying way. We appreciate your interest in NR, and hope you keep us in mind for future submissions--we'd love to see more.
#3: Unfortunately this particular piece was not a right fit for ____, but we were very impressed by your writing. We hope that you will feel encouraged by this short note and send us something else.
I could take any of those to be the kind of response you'd get if the editors thought they'd just seen a story worth at least a moment's thought. #1 might just be what they send everyone, since it's not terribly effusive, but again, why would they encourage more stories they will just reject? #2 suggests that they at least read to the end, which is actually a very good sign. #3 is the real one I wonder about. #3 was a journal that would have been a very big deal to get in. But they also tend to be a bit aggressive with offering extras, like writing seminars. So maybe my hope is important to them. It's very hard to know. I just know that I sent out a lot of work to some very hard-to-crack journals out there, and I'm likely to keep getting more rejections in the next few weeks, which means I'm likely to keep trying to read tea leaves to know if there's more to the no than just a no.
I can't imagine I'm the only one like this, which is why I'm sharing it. If you are reading this and thinking that you can't stop wondering what your "no" means, that means you're like everyone else.
Monday, October 9, 2017
Gallimaufry of observations
Nothing big enough for a full post here, but a few half-thoughts.
1. Amazon apparently enforces its terms of service for comments on books
I had never really thought Amazon had tough rules for its comments. Based on past history like the three-wolf shirt comments thread, I kind of thought the comments could be a place to throw some absurdist commentary. I left a comment on my own book that gave it five stars, but also said the book was terrible. I was kind of proud of it. After over two months, Amazon I guess noticed that it was me, and removed it. They also did not allow a post from my mother, although I'm not sure how they knew it was her. It's not really a big deal to me. It's apparent that barring something unforeseen, this isn't going to become a huge seller, and a few comments one way or the other aren't going to change that. But it does seem like an unlikely to be really followed policy. The FAQ tells us that Amazon doesn't "allow individuals who share a household with the author or close friends to write Customer Reviews for that author’s book." I'd guess that the vast majority of people who actually write reviews on Amazon of smaller press books have some kind of relationship with the author.
2. I had a reading the other day, and I had a wonderful time
The publishing company, Washington Writers' Publishing House, is just fantastic. It's made up entirely of past winners, and many of them came out, got a book, heard me read, asked questions, listened to me talk about writing the book, and generally made it a great day. A few friends actually gave up football just to come hear me read a story they've already been hounded into buying. Made me feel like a real author. I could do that every day.
It was also kind of encouraging to be at a book store that looks like it's going to stay open for a while. I'm thinking I'm going to start buying my books from here, if I can. They support the local writing scene and they provide some sort of alternative to Amazon, so if it's a few dollars more, it's worth it.
3. It's fall, so that means the rejections are coming in
I shot for the moon with nearly all my submissions this fall. I feel like after the book, I'm writing better work, but I also feel like I need to move forward in terms of the level of respect of the journals I'm appearing in. That means the job of getting published--which is hard enough in any journal--got a lot tougher. I've already had seven rejection of the work I turned in last month. Two seemed encouraging, which I guess ought to make me feel good.
I have to say, a lot of the fancy journals are really on point with handling submissions. They are making decisions quickly, much quicker than my journal is usually able to do. I think that's because many of them are either tied to schools or can otherwise command large numbers ofslaves intern readers interested in getting in on the ground floor of publishing.
4. I paid $45 to have an agent proof read my query letter for my novel.
I'm not sure yet if the final product is great, but I can't complain about the level of effort from the agent. For $45, I got three rounds of edits, which were not in any way half-assed. I'll start sending out more query letters next week after the last round of edits is done, and I'll report back on whether the next 25 letters got any better response than the first 25.
1. Amazon apparently enforces its terms of service for comments on books
I had never really thought Amazon had tough rules for its comments. Based on past history like the three-wolf shirt comments thread, I kind of thought the comments could be a place to throw some absurdist commentary. I left a comment on my own book that gave it five stars, but also said the book was terrible. I was kind of proud of it. After over two months, Amazon I guess noticed that it was me, and removed it. They also did not allow a post from my mother, although I'm not sure how they knew it was her. It's not really a big deal to me. It's apparent that barring something unforeseen, this isn't going to become a huge seller, and a few comments one way or the other aren't going to change that. But it does seem like an unlikely to be really followed policy. The FAQ tells us that Amazon doesn't "allow individuals who share a household with the author or close friends to write Customer Reviews for that author’s book." I'd guess that the vast majority of people who actually write reviews on Amazon of smaller press books have some kind of relationship with the author.
2. I had a reading the other day, and I had a wonderful time
The publishing company, Washington Writers' Publishing House, is just fantastic. It's made up entirely of past winners, and many of them came out, got a book, heard me read, asked questions, listened to me talk about writing the book, and generally made it a great day. A few friends actually gave up football just to come hear me read a story they've already been hounded into buying. Made me feel like a real author. I could do that every day.
 | ||
| I rock a pencil and pen in my shirt pocket nearly all the time. It's kind of my thing. |
It was also kind of encouraging to be at a book store that looks like it's going to stay open for a while. I'm thinking I'm going to start buying my books from here, if I can. They support the local writing scene and they provide some sort of alternative to Amazon, so if it's a few dollars more, it's worth it.
3. It's fall, so that means the rejections are coming in
I shot for the moon with nearly all my submissions this fall. I feel like after the book, I'm writing better work, but I also feel like I need to move forward in terms of the level of respect of the journals I'm appearing in. That means the job of getting published--which is hard enough in any journal--got a lot tougher. I've already had seven rejection of the work I turned in last month. Two seemed encouraging, which I guess ought to make me feel good.
I have to say, a lot of the fancy journals are really on point with handling submissions. They are making decisions quickly, much quicker than my journal is usually able to do. I think that's because many of them are either tied to schools or can otherwise command large numbers of
4. I paid $45 to have an agent proof read my query letter for my novel.
I'm not sure yet if the final product is great, but I can't complain about the level of effort from the agent. For $45, I got three rounds of edits, which were not in any way half-assed. I'll start sending out more query letters next week after the last round of edits is done, and I'll report back on whether the next 25 letters got any better response than the first 25.
Friday, October 6, 2017
Washington Independent Review of Books reviews my collection of short stories
Let my friend Chris know that I actually did manage to do one thing right as a self-promoter of my book: I got a review from Washington Independent Review of Books.
I didn't know for sure that they were going to review it. (In fact, it's been up for three days and I just now saw it.) I sent them two books, because the folks at my publisher, Washington Writers' Publishing House, suggested it. A woman on the WWPH staff knew someone at WIRB, but when I sent them the books to review, I forgot to include my email address, because I am a moron. So I never heard from them. I also saw on Amazon that there was a used copy of my book for sale at the Goodwill right by the WIRB, so I wondered if they just dumped it. But it looks like they did a real service to a local writer and used one copy to get it reviewed.
They don't normally review a whole lot of books from small presses like mine. I believe this was a solid they did me because I'm local. That's darn nice of them.
It's especially gratifying to see this now, because I'm in the middle of doing my own literary good citizenship right now. I'm doing a review of a book someone asked me to do. Turns out, it's a much harder assignment than I thought it would be. The American Review of Books actually wants a short academic paper. I haven't written anything like that in years. I'm not sure I'm up for it, but it's my job to do this, and I know if I were the author, I'd want me to put some effort into it. So I'm struggling through it. Nice to see karma paying me back for it ahead of time.
I didn't know for sure that they were going to review it. (In fact, it's been up for three days and I just now saw it.) I sent them two books, because the folks at my publisher, Washington Writers' Publishing House, suggested it. A woman on the WWPH staff knew someone at WIRB, but when I sent them the books to review, I forgot to include my email address, because I am a moron. So I never heard from them. I also saw on Amazon that there was a used copy of my book for sale at the Goodwill right by the WIRB, so I wondered if they just dumped it. But it looks like they did a real service to a local writer and used one copy to get it reviewed.
They don't normally review a whole lot of books from small presses like mine. I believe this was a solid they did me because I'm local. That's darn nice of them.
It's especially gratifying to see this now, because I'm in the middle of doing my own literary good citizenship right now. I'm doing a review of a book someone asked me to do. Turns out, it's a much harder assignment than I thought it would be. The American Review of Books actually wants a short academic paper. I haven't written anything like that in years. I'm not sure I'm up for it, but it's my job to do this, and I know if I were the author, I'd want me to put some effort into it. So I'm struggling through it. Nice to see karma paying me back for it ahead of time.
Tuesday, October 3, 2017
Why you might want to stand for the national anthem even if you think you don't
Here are some things this post is NOT saying:
-You must stand for the national anthem. It astounds me that a president who was elected by the American impulse not to be told how to act summarily ignored that impulse.
-If you do not stand for the national anthem, you are less American, less patriotic, or love your country less than those who do stand.
-The national anthem or the flag are inherently sacred, apart from the meaning we choose to give them.
-Forced acts of patriotism are meaningful.
-The underlying argument that sparked the protest is not a very valid point to make, or not critical to the health of the country. On both an emotional level--the kind that comes about from watching videos of young black people get killed in what certainly looks like an unjust manner--and a cognitive level, when one looks at statistics about young men of color in America, it appears the American dream is not offered equally to young people of color.
I've been surprised how divisive the issue of standing for the national anthem before football games has been. Trump baited us, of course, but having taken the bait, I'm surprised how viciously we're willing to fight each other over it. As these arguments go round after round, they sometimes stray into offshoots of the main argument. It's one of those offshoots I want to address. Eventually, if you argue this long enough, you'll get into territory where you're addressing propositions like "Is it just a song?" and "Is it just a piece of cloth?" That is, is there anything intrinsically meaningful about standing for the national anthem?
What would the meaning be?
Although a lot of people are conflating standing for the national anthem with respect for members of the armed services, past and present, I'm only aware of one explicit meaning given to the ritual at sports events. When we are asked to rise (and I'd say we are asked, not ordered: the PA announcer always says "please rise"), it's "to honor America." That's a pretty amorphous objective, one that each person who stands is going to interpret in their own way. When I stand--and I always have--I can't think that I've ever felt much of anything in the way of patriotic sentiment. I don't tend to find a whole lot of meaning in ceremonies. But I can see that it matters to some people around me. The ceremony they care about loses meaning for them, though, if everybody does not participate. It requires my outward observance. So I give it, in order for them to enjoy a ceremony that matters to them.
This may seem like I'm saying it doesn't mean anything at all to me, but in a sense, its meaning to me has a lot to do with life in a democracy. I'd be fine without a national anthem prior to sporting events, but it seems to matter to a majority of the community, so I participate to a limited extent. By standing, I'm saying that what other people want sometimes is more important than what I want personally. It may not really be a great song. It might be some rather pedestrian, 19th-Century bombast about a battle with a racist third verse we thankfully never sing. We might have a history as a nation that was just as long without it as our national anthem as we've had with it. Everything about the custom might be arbitrarily chosen and a complete accident of history. But it's an accident we've been living with for a while, and it's an accident that my neighbors seem to care about, so I'll participate.
Not everything is meaningful
I don't feel this way about every ritual. For years after 9/11, baseball stadiums were in the habit of pulling out a second patriotic act. In the 7th inning, where "Take me Out to the Ballgame" used to go, they started doing "God Bless America." And they were actually acting like we were supposed to stand for that, too. I remember getting in an argument with the person next to me at a Washington Nationals game one year when I didn't stand for it. I claimed it was because to stand for a song other than the national anthem was disrespectful to the national anthem, like saluting a state flag would be disrespectful to the national ensign. In reality, though, I was just annoyed by what felt like too much community patriotic display in one night. The 7th inning already had a great American tradition attached to it, I thought, and I didn't want to see it replaced because in our post-9/11 world, we were all falling over each other to show how much we loved America.
As a teenager, my high school suddenly re-implemented the Pledge of Allegiance soon after Desert Storm began, after years of not observing it. I found this troubling, like we were being told to get on board with the war. Not that I necessarily objected to the war, but I did object to being told not to object to it. So I stood for the Pledge, but I didn't recite it. I don't think anyone noticed, or if they did, nobody cared. But I just couldn't see myself going along with a group ceremony then. I didn't think the claims of the community to my participation were stronger than my personal conscience.
But maybe we need a few ceremonies we all agree on
I'm a snarky pain in the ass a lot of the time. When group organizers are trying to get some community activity going, I am usually the one crapping all over their efforts. In the Marine Corps, I sang the wrong words to cadences while we ran. Or I wouldn't sing them at all, and claim I had a religious objection to some of the baudier lyrics. I've uttered thousands of really great jokes under my breath. As a child, when my poor parents were trying to establish traditions for us, I worked against anything I found too solemn. I ignore 95% of all work functions outside of work.
Partly, this is just a reflection of my own personal predilection toward autonomy. And this predilection is probably healthy for the community, provided it isn't too prevalent or too pronounced. Too much community spirit can lead to totalitarian communities. It's a good thing to have a couple of wise asses in the group to keep the group from taking itself too seriously.
But there is also a danger in a community being too atomized, too focused on the individual. What would a school be without those PTA parents I find so hard to talk to? What would the Marine Corps be without those obnoxious Sergeants acting like we really belonged together? A few years ago, I coached my son's baseball team. It was a disaster for a while, because I wanted to be the wise-ass at the back undermining my own leadership. It took me a few weeks to realize that I had to be the chipper, annoying presence who made the whole thing stick together, or there would be no thing for people to make fun of.
Just because I make fun of something doesn't mean I don't love it. I keep my country at a safe emotional distance, but I also love it. I don't want it to dissolve. I want it to be there, so I can go on snarking about its traditions for decades to come.
Standing for he national anthem doesn't have any meaning unless we ascribe meaning to it. The flag is a piece of cloth. But this is the ritual we have. We don't have another one that's more central, more recognized. If we have nothing at all, no ceremony, however flawed, that is a space where we all recognize that we do, in some sense, belong together, then we will not belong together in any sense for long. If the community can make no claims on us at all, then there is no community.
Standing for a bad, 200-year-old song so convoluted the singers often screw up the words is not a great ritual. But it's the closest thing to an all-encompassing, American ritual that we have. At some point, the ones who mistrust community have to give the community some right to trespass our personal space, or the community will not be there. America is a more fragile thing than we imagine.
Words that should have been said by someone other than me
I admire those who kneel. It would have been much, much easier on Colin Kaepernick to just go along with the ritual, not rock the boat, and do what was expected. Those who kneel show a bravery I didn't have in high school to make their objections visible. And the underlying social reality of black Americans is real enough that I understand not feeling like you want to show outward signs of respect for a country that doesn't respect you.
But I don't think anyone who is kneeling wants the community to fall apart entirely. I suspect that many of those who kneel might love America more than many who stand, and it's the fierceness of their love that makes them kneel. But they may not realize the peril the nation is in. When Russian trolls seek to take America down, their easiest target is just to make us fight with each other. And we are starting to make it easy for them.
Former Green Beret-turned-NFL-long-snapper Nate Boyer approached this the right way last year when Kaepernick began his protest. He didn't berate Kaepernick. He said Kaepernick's protest was understandable, and made him sad more than angry. He longed for a time when Kaepernick would WANT to stand for the national anthem again.
These are the words the President should have said, rather than demanding the patriotic observances of free citizens. The paradox of democracy is that it doesn't work if we make you do it, and it doesn't work if we don't all do it without being forced. In that sense, standing for the national anthem does take on some meaning, because its significance arises, like the nation itself, from voluntary participation.
So I'm not saying you must, you should, you ought. I'm saying you might want to.
-You must stand for the national anthem. It astounds me that a president who was elected by the American impulse not to be told how to act summarily ignored that impulse.
-If you do not stand for the national anthem, you are less American, less patriotic, or love your country less than those who do stand.
-The national anthem or the flag are inherently sacred, apart from the meaning we choose to give them.
-Forced acts of patriotism are meaningful.
-The underlying argument that sparked the protest is not a very valid point to make, or not critical to the health of the country. On both an emotional level--the kind that comes about from watching videos of young black people get killed in what certainly looks like an unjust manner--and a cognitive level, when one looks at statistics about young men of color in America, it appears the American dream is not offered equally to young people of color.
I've been surprised how divisive the issue of standing for the national anthem before football games has been. Trump baited us, of course, but having taken the bait, I'm surprised how viciously we're willing to fight each other over it. As these arguments go round after round, they sometimes stray into offshoots of the main argument. It's one of those offshoots I want to address. Eventually, if you argue this long enough, you'll get into territory where you're addressing propositions like "Is it just a song?" and "Is it just a piece of cloth?" That is, is there anything intrinsically meaningful about standing for the national anthem?
What would the meaning be?
Although a lot of people are conflating standing for the national anthem with respect for members of the armed services, past and present, I'm only aware of one explicit meaning given to the ritual at sports events. When we are asked to rise (and I'd say we are asked, not ordered: the PA announcer always says "please rise"), it's "to honor America." That's a pretty amorphous objective, one that each person who stands is going to interpret in their own way. When I stand--and I always have--I can't think that I've ever felt much of anything in the way of patriotic sentiment. I don't tend to find a whole lot of meaning in ceremonies. But I can see that it matters to some people around me. The ceremony they care about loses meaning for them, though, if everybody does not participate. It requires my outward observance. So I give it, in order for them to enjoy a ceremony that matters to them.
This may seem like I'm saying it doesn't mean anything at all to me, but in a sense, its meaning to me has a lot to do with life in a democracy. I'd be fine without a national anthem prior to sporting events, but it seems to matter to a majority of the community, so I participate to a limited extent. By standing, I'm saying that what other people want sometimes is more important than what I want personally. It may not really be a great song. It might be some rather pedestrian, 19th-Century bombast about a battle with a racist third verse we thankfully never sing. We might have a history as a nation that was just as long without it as our national anthem as we've had with it. Everything about the custom might be arbitrarily chosen and a complete accident of history. But it's an accident we've been living with for a while, and it's an accident that my neighbors seem to care about, so I'll participate.
Not everything is meaningful
I don't feel this way about every ritual. For years after 9/11, baseball stadiums were in the habit of pulling out a second patriotic act. In the 7th inning, where "Take me Out to the Ballgame" used to go, they started doing "God Bless America." And they were actually acting like we were supposed to stand for that, too. I remember getting in an argument with the person next to me at a Washington Nationals game one year when I didn't stand for it. I claimed it was because to stand for a song other than the national anthem was disrespectful to the national anthem, like saluting a state flag would be disrespectful to the national ensign. In reality, though, I was just annoyed by what felt like too much community patriotic display in one night. The 7th inning already had a great American tradition attached to it, I thought, and I didn't want to see it replaced because in our post-9/11 world, we were all falling over each other to show how much we loved America.
As a teenager, my high school suddenly re-implemented the Pledge of Allegiance soon after Desert Storm began, after years of not observing it. I found this troubling, like we were being told to get on board with the war. Not that I necessarily objected to the war, but I did object to being told not to object to it. So I stood for the Pledge, but I didn't recite it. I don't think anyone noticed, or if they did, nobody cared. But I just couldn't see myself going along with a group ceremony then. I didn't think the claims of the community to my participation were stronger than my personal conscience.
But maybe we need a few ceremonies we all agree on
I'm a snarky pain in the ass a lot of the time. When group organizers are trying to get some community activity going, I am usually the one crapping all over their efforts. In the Marine Corps, I sang the wrong words to cadences while we ran. Or I wouldn't sing them at all, and claim I had a religious objection to some of the baudier lyrics. I've uttered thousands of really great jokes under my breath. As a child, when my poor parents were trying to establish traditions for us, I worked against anything I found too solemn. I ignore 95% of all work functions outside of work.
Partly, this is just a reflection of my own personal predilection toward autonomy. And this predilection is probably healthy for the community, provided it isn't too prevalent or too pronounced. Too much community spirit can lead to totalitarian communities. It's a good thing to have a couple of wise asses in the group to keep the group from taking itself too seriously.
But there is also a danger in a community being too atomized, too focused on the individual. What would a school be without those PTA parents I find so hard to talk to? What would the Marine Corps be without those obnoxious Sergeants acting like we really belonged together? A few years ago, I coached my son's baseball team. It was a disaster for a while, because I wanted to be the wise-ass at the back undermining my own leadership. It took me a few weeks to realize that I had to be the chipper, annoying presence who made the whole thing stick together, or there would be no thing for people to make fun of.
Just because I make fun of something doesn't mean I don't love it. I keep my country at a safe emotional distance, but I also love it. I don't want it to dissolve. I want it to be there, so I can go on snarking about its traditions for decades to come.
Standing for he national anthem doesn't have any meaning unless we ascribe meaning to it. The flag is a piece of cloth. But this is the ritual we have. We don't have another one that's more central, more recognized. If we have nothing at all, no ceremony, however flawed, that is a space where we all recognize that we do, in some sense, belong together, then we will not belong together in any sense for long. If the community can make no claims on us at all, then there is no community.
Standing for a bad, 200-year-old song so convoluted the singers often screw up the words is not a great ritual. But it's the closest thing to an all-encompassing, American ritual that we have. At some point, the ones who mistrust community have to give the community some right to trespass our personal space, or the community will not be there. America is a more fragile thing than we imagine.
Words that should have been said by someone other than me
I admire those who kneel. It would have been much, much easier on Colin Kaepernick to just go along with the ritual, not rock the boat, and do what was expected. Those who kneel show a bravery I didn't have in high school to make their objections visible. And the underlying social reality of black Americans is real enough that I understand not feeling like you want to show outward signs of respect for a country that doesn't respect you.
But I don't think anyone who is kneeling wants the community to fall apart entirely. I suspect that many of those who kneel might love America more than many who stand, and it's the fierceness of their love that makes them kneel. But they may not realize the peril the nation is in. When Russian trolls seek to take America down, their easiest target is just to make us fight with each other. And we are starting to make it easy for them.
Former Green Beret-turned-NFL-long-snapper Nate Boyer approached this the right way last year when Kaepernick began his protest. He didn't berate Kaepernick. He said Kaepernick's protest was understandable, and made him sad more than angry. He longed for a time when Kaepernick would WANT to stand for the national anthem again.
These are the words the President should have said, rather than demanding the patriotic observances of free citizens. The paradox of democracy is that it doesn't work if we make you do it, and it doesn't work if we don't all do it without being forced. In that sense, standing for the national anthem does take on some meaning, because its significance arises, like the nation itself, from voluntary participation.
So I'm not saying you must, you should, you ought. I'm saying you might want to.
Sunday, October 1, 2017
Editing Roald Dahl
This is going to seem presumptuous as hell, but there's a point to it. Who am I, Writer McNobody, to suggest changes to the great Roald Dahl? Well, that's not exactly what I'm saying. Dahl IS great. I'm not arguing that. And I wouldn't want to change a word that he wrote.
Unless he were trying to get published today.
What I'm saying has more to do with something I suggested a few months ago, something having to do with not having read a lot of modern fiction until very recently. A lot of people who start writing have read a lot of fiction, but a good portion of what we've read is older. We've read a lot of the type of stuff we were assigned in school. I know when I first started writing, I'd read more 19th-Century literature than all other literature put together.
The 19th Century is great. Melville is great. I wouldn't change a word of Moby Dick. But you couldn't write Moby Dick today and get it published. You couldn't write Shakespeare today and get it published. Right or wrong, each generation has certain expectations it has to write to. As much as journals love it when someone turns those expectations on their heads, there are still some things you just can't do. In the 19th Century, journals often paid by the word, which lead to florid sentences. That was part of the expectation of editors and readers. But if you tried to write a story now with a bunch of seven-line sentences, you'd be rejected before the first page was up, unless you were writing something that explicitly channeled the age, such as John Knowles' The French Lieutenant's Woman.
Same goes for the early-to-mid 20th Century. There are things writers from that age did that tend to have a low reputation among editors nowadays. You can argue with me that this is stupid, that the currently approved lit-fic conventions are terrible and banal and lead to literature that all sounds the same. You can argue that, but if you stick to your guns and write like O. Henry or Roald Dahl or Dash Hammett or Ring Lardner because that's what you read in your teens or whenever your introduction to great literature came, you're probably facing an uphill slog getting your short stories published. So fight me if you want. I'm just the messenger here of what editors are looking for.
Two things to avoid
I just read Dahl's "Lamb to the Slaughter" this week, because my son was assigned it for his English class. Two things stand out about it that, as much as I enjoy them in Dahl, I would advise writers to avoid now if they want to get published in a good literary journal.
1. The "dark and stormy night" beginning. Okay, Dahl's opening here isn't hackish like "it was a dark and stormy night," but it is a cold start onto scene setting: "The room was warm, the curtains were closed, the two table lamps were lit." Now, right after that, we get action, so this might not really be a problem, but I see a lot of stories come in as an editor that go on with scene-setting for a page or more. There was a time when this was a standard way to begin a story. ("A Saturday afternoon in November was approaching the time of twilight...") But nowadays, there is an expectation that right from the jump, you're going to start to establish not only mood and scene, but also character and, if possible, a unique voice. Generally speaking, it's advisable to give an opening line that introduces the people we'll be getting to know. If possible, make it sound like no other opening line ever, so we know that there is also something special about the people we're about to meet. That's expecting a lot, and maybe it does lead to cookie-cutter fiction by making every opening line predictably unpredictable. But that's sort of what's expected. Don't believe me? Here are the opening lines from the first ten short stories in this year's Pushcart Prize anthology:
As you can see, you don't have to necessarily have fireworks going off. Most of these are actually rather modest starts. But one thing they all have in common is that the people in them are in sentence number one. We eventually will get setting, but that's not where we start. We start with people, normally. I'm sure you can find exceptions. I'm not telling you not to break the rules. I'm telling you what the rules are.
2. The plot twist as the story's raisson d'etre. Plot twists are great. I'm sure a lot of the stories we all grew up loving were built around plot twists. "The Gift of the Magi" comes to mind. (I just re-read that not long ago. It honestly stands up pretty well to the test of time.) But you can't make the plot twist the thing on which your whole story stands. In Dahl's "Lamb to the Slaughter," we get three moments where the plot turns: the man tells his wife some secret, probably that he is leaving her and their unborn child for another woman; she murders him with a frozen lamb leg; and then she feeds the murder weapons to the police who worked with her husband.
Again, I'm not saying Dahl's story is some cheap one-trick thing. It's a strong character study of a woman who puts too much of her own self-worth into how her husband feels about her, a story of a woman treated badly but who finds, suddenly, that she has the emotional reserves necessary to bring about her own resolution. If the story doesn't resonate with us today quite as much as it might have with readers in 1953, that's because we're now used to stories of abused women fighting back. It's like expecting us to be impressed with the special effects from Ben Hur.
But that's not the problem for a modern writer who would try to build a whole story around a plot twist. You can certainly have plot twists, but if we feel that's the whole reason you offered us a story, if that's what was gnawing at you until it spilled out of you into words on the page, then an editor is going to feel you've cheated him, that you didn't really have that much to say. The plot, in modern fiction, is a result of two things: what the author throws at the character, and how the character reacts. If the editor feels that the end result of your story was something you had in mind from the beginning without pausing to get input from your characters, then you're going to get a polite letter thanking your for your story, which isn't quite right for the journal right now.
And so, I offer this simple edit:
In order to make it not feel like Dahl is trying to spring surprise on us as the main draw of his story, and also to make the story open on Mary, rather than the setting, I would simply suggest that he change his opening sentence, if Dahl were alive and unknown today and trying to get his story published. I'd offer these two sentences: "The day Mary Maloney killed her husband with a leg of lamb, she was sitting with equanimity on the couch in front of the curtains, which were closed. The room was warm, and the two table lamps were lit." Now, it no longer seems like Dahl is trying to shock the reader with a plot twist more characteristic of mystery genre fiction than literary fiction. He's fine from there. Mary is still a fully realized character, and interesting for the way she reacts to her whole world being blown up with a few words uttered off camera.
So there you have it. Open on people and don't make a surprise ending the whole draw of the story. Mock me if you wish for suggesting a legend should change to suit my dull tastes. Just keep some of what I said about those dull tastes in mind if you're trying to get published in a journal of serious fiction.
Unless he were trying to get published today.
What I'm saying has more to do with something I suggested a few months ago, something having to do with not having read a lot of modern fiction until very recently. A lot of people who start writing have read a lot of fiction, but a good portion of what we've read is older. We've read a lot of the type of stuff we were assigned in school. I know when I first started writing, I'd read more 19th-Century literature than all other literature put together.
The 19th Century is great. Melville is great. I wouldn't change a word of Moby Dick. But you couldn't write Moby Dick today and get it published. You couldn't write Shakespeare today and get it published. Right or wrong, each generation has certain expectations it has to write to. As much as journals love it when someone turns those expectations on their heads, there are still some things you just can't do. In the 19th Century, journals often paid by the word, which lead to florid sentences. That was part of the expectation of editors and readers. But if you tried to write a story now with a bunch of seven-line sentences, you'd be rejected before the first page was up, unless you were writing something that explicitly channeled the age, such as John Knowles' The French Lieutenant's Woman.
Same goes for the early-to-mid 20th Century. There are things writers from that age did that tend to have a low reputation among editors nowadays. You can argue with me that this is stupid, that the currently approved lit-fic conventions are terrible and banal and lead to literature that all sounds the same. You can argue that, but if you stick to your guns and write like O. Henry or Roald Dahl or Dash Hammett or Ring Lardner because that's what you read in your teens or whenever your introduction to great literature came, you're probably facing an uphill slog getting your short stories published. So fight me if you want. I'm just the messenger here of what editors are looking for.
Two things to avoid
I just read Dahl's "Lamb to the Slaughter" this week, because my son was assigned it for his English class. Two things stand out about it that, as much as I enjoy them in Dahl, I would advise writers to avoid now if they want to get published in a good literary journal.
1. The "dark and stormy night" beginning. Okay, Dahl's opening here isn't hackish like "it was a dark and stormy night," but it is a cold start onto scene setting: "The room was warm, the curtains were closed, the two table lamps were lit." Now, right after that, we get action, so this might not really be a problem, but I see a lot of stories come in as an editor that go on with scene-setting for a page or more. There was a time when this was a standard way to begin a story. ("A Saturday afternoon in November was approaching the time of twilight...") But nowadays, there is an expectation that right from the jump, you're going to start to establish not only mood and scene, but also character and, if possible, a unique voice. Generally speaking, it's advisable to give an opening line that introduces the people we'll be getting to know. If possible, make it sound like no other opening line ever, so we know that there is also something special about the people we're about to meet. That's expecting a lot, and maybe it does lead to cookie-cutter fiction by making every opening line predictably unpredictable. But that's sort of what's expected. Don't believe me? Here are the opening lines from the first ten short stories in this year's Pushcart Prize anthology:
1) I was once a star on YouTube.
2) Full disclosure up front: I am a gay black man, a proud New Orleanian, thirty years old, five out of the closet, a decade on the down-low before that; bi-dialectical as every educated brother in this city must be, a code-switcher as needed; a poet in my spare time, in my unspare time a poetry teacher devoted to dead French guys and live black ones.
3) My former daughter-in-law is sitting in the next room eating cookies off a plate.
4) Barnes Hollow was actually Jason something, but no one dreamed of calling him that.
5) Afterward, Eva turns her face to the wall and falls asleep immediately, smacking her lips like a newborn.
6) It's the middle of the night and the woman can't sleep.
7) Her parents always said they'd dig their own graves if anything ever happened to their children, so when her sister Claire disappeared on a camping trip in the White Mountains, Elsie kept at eye on things.
8) He lived in a world of grease, and no matter how often he bathed, which was once a day, rigorously--and no shower but a drawn bath--he smelled of carnitas, machaca, and the chopped white onion and soapy cilantro he folded each morning into his pico de gallo.
9) Joan had to look beautiful.
10) When Father Tom comes to a party, people look embarrassed, even the ones who invited him.
As you can see, you don't have to necessarily have fireworks going off. Most of these are actually rather modest starts. But one thing they all have in common is that the people in them are in sentence number one. We eventually will get setting, but that's not where we start. We start with people, normally. I'm sure you can find exceptions. I'm not telling you not to break the rules. I'm telling you what the rules are.
2. The plot twist as the story's raisson d'etre. Plot twists are great. I'm sure a lot of the stories we all grew up loving were built around plot twists. "The Gift of the Magi" comes to mind. (I just re-read that not long ago. It honestly stands up pretty well to the test of time.) But you can't make the plot twist the thing on which your whole story stands. In Dahl's "Lamb to the Slaughter," we get three moments where the plot turns: the man tells his wife some secret, probably that he is leaving her and their unborn child for another woman; she murders him with a frozen lamb leg; and then she feeds the murder weapons to the police who worked with her husband.
Again, I'm not saying Dahl's story is some cheap one-trick thing. It's a strong character study of a woman who puts too much of her own self-worth into how her husband feels about her, a story of a woman treated badly but who finds, suddenly, that she has the emotional reserves necessary to bring about her own resolution. If the story doesn't resonate with us today quite as much as it might have with readers in 1953, that's because we're now used to stories of abused women fighting back. It's like expecting us to be impressed with the special effects from Ben Hur.
But that's not the problem for a modern writer who would try to build a whole story around a plot twist. You can certainly have plot twists, but if we feel that's the whole reason you offered us a story, if that's what was gnawing at you until it spilled out of you into words on the page, then an editor is going to feel you've cheated him, that you didn't really have that much to say. The plot, in modern fiction, is a result of two things: what the author throws at the character, and how the character reacts. If the editor feels that the end result of your story was something you had in mind from the beginning without pausing to get input from your characters, then you're going to get a polite letter thanking your for your story, which isn't quite right for the journal right now.
And so, I offer this simple edit:
In order to make it not feel like Dahl is trying to spring surprise on us as the main draw of his story, and also to make the story open on Mary, rather than the setting, I would simply suggest that he change his opening sentence, if Dahl were alive and unknown today and trying to get his story published. I'd offer these two sentences: "The day Mary Maloney killed her husband with a leg of lamb, she was sitting with equanimity on the couch in front of the curtains, which were closed. The room was warm, and the two table lamps were lit." Now, it no longer seems like Dahl is trying to shock the reader with a plot twist more characteristic of mystery genre fiction than literary fiction. He's fine from there. Mary is still a fully realized character, and interesting for the way she reacts to her whole world being blown up with a few words uttered off camera.
So there you have it. Open on people and don't make a surprise ending the whole draw of the story. Mock me if you wish for suggesting a legend should change to suit my dull tastes. Just keep some of what I said about those dull tastes in mind if you're trying to get published in a journal of serious fiction.
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