It's easy to grow very negative about writing. Revision is time consuming and it's hard to know when you've done enough. Submission is just plain scary -- did you do enough research? Did you avoid doing anything really embarrassing? Then there's rejection -- we crushing part of the writing life. Sometimes I get so caught up in the bad stuff that I actually think fondly of the idea of a full-time job doing something totally uncreative.

Then I remember: I have a LOT to be thankful for. First, I create people. Think about it -- the characters you create in your stories didn't exist before they were born in your imagination and delivered by your writing pen (or computer). Your plumber may make more per hour -- but do they invent new people? I didn't think so. I create interesting, lively, special people that I like hanging out with for the duration of the story.

Second, I was one of those little kids who was constantly being told to stop being such a dreamer and focus on the real world. Now I'm adult who makes a living by being a dreamer and creating my own world every time I sit down at my computer. I've turned the things that drove my folks crazy into an occupation -- how cool is that?

Third, I work with new people all the time. Every time I make a new sale or start a new project, I get to work with more intelligent, creative people in the book publishing business. I've worked with amazing editors. When you're collecting rejection letters, it's easy to imagine the editor at the other end is some cold, cruel entity, but I've had the pleasure of actually getting to know a number of editors. They're lovely people. They love good writing. They truly want to make everything they publish as good as it can possibly be. Now a single one of them gets any joy out of rejection.

Fourth, my daughter still thinks I'm cool. She's thirteen, so that's no small thing. She's still waiting for the day when I'm cool AND famous AND rich enough to buy her those boots she wants -- but still...she is proud of me. What could be better than that?

Fifth, I get fan mail. Because of the sort of writing I do, I don't drown in it like the famous writers, but I still get it. It's amazing to get a carefully hand-written note from a little girl who loved my book. Sure, sometimes they have some odd ideas about how rich I might be or which celebrities I might know -- but that's okay. Those notes can get a person through a lot of rejection days.

Sixth, I work a lot of hours, but they're MY hours. If I need to be at my daughter's school for something -- I go. If she's home sick, I'm here to take care of her. No one looks down on me or questions my "loyalty" to the company because I take care of my family. The bad side of that is that I don't get paid until the work is done -- so there's no paid vacations or paid sick leave for me, but the benefits I do have are pretty awsome.

So on this day-after-Thanksgiving -- I have a job to be thankful for. I'm not rich or famous. Most people don't know my name. I don't get invited to talk shows. But I'm a writer and it's the best job in the world -- for me.

Thoughout the writing years of my life, I've gotten burnt out by publishing a time or two. The system of submission, hope, rejection, submission again...cha cha cha...can become truly exhausting. It doesn't grow less so just because you're published. It doesn't even become less so when you're making a living from writing. The process of submission and rejection is still demoralizing. And like having someone break up with you by saying, "it's not you, it's me" -- well, it still feels like you. It still feels like failing. And failure is exhausting. It might be educational. It might be an unavoidable part of the process, but it's still exhausting.

So sometimes, I get burned out on publishing. Sometimes I even tell myself that I would quit writing if (1) I had another way to make a living and (2) I knew HOW to quit. I daydream about the restfulness of a job that is not filled with rejection. Still, I truly do love writing.

BUT. I learned something recently during the forced "vacation" created by being out of power for five days. I was tired. I wasn't tired of the submission/rejection process so much as...I was just tired. I'd been dipping pretty heavily out of the creative well these last couple of years. I have a six-book series coming out in January and a four-book series coming out later in the year. I have a bunch of stray books coming out -- parts of different series not all written by the same author. I've done educational writing and writing about writing. And the only times I took off was when I needed to do something else for the sake of someone else.

And I was tired. I was so tired that I actually ran out of ideas to pitch for one publisher. I've never run out of ideas. And I had to give up on a book that just wasn't working. I never give up on something a publisher is actively waiting on. Something was wrong. I was tired.

So when the lights were out, I couldn't use the Internet or my computer. And I couldn't really go anywhere. So I stayed home, tucked under a blanket and I read. I read a whole stack of books. I didn't write at all. And it was WONDERFUL. In fact, it was something I fantasized about when I was working so hard. Now that the lights are back on, I feel wonderful. And the amazing thing is that I was dumped off the hampster wheel I run on for a whole week and I'm still not really behind. I'm just refreshed. For the first time in a while.

It shouldn't have taken a massive storm and power outage to get me to stop and rest. Sometimes the cure isn't to run faster, write more and dig deeper. Sometimes the answer is to stop writing and do something you've wanted to do but didn't have time. Sometimes the answer is to give yourself a break. I'm going to try to remember that -- I don't know if I will. I'm pretty used to spinning that hamster wheel hard. But hopefully, the next time it won't take a hurricane to get me back in a good splace. But just in case...I hear there's a Nor'easter coming!

Anyone in any area of the arts knows it’s difficult to separate yourself from your work. Your writing feels like an extension of who you are. That makes anything said about a piece you’ve written hurt. As long as you’re writing only for your own enjoyment – and not to be published – feeling totally bonded to each thing you produce is fine. But once you begin looking for publication, it can kill you. Not only does rejection hurt, but every single step in the process of publication has fresh hurt for writers who cannot see the piece they produced as something other than a shard of their soul.

The first reason you need to separate is because very few people in the publishing process (other than you) are going to equate you with the work you produce. To most people, your story, your article or your book is a product to be examined, considered and possibly bought. For everyone in the process other than you, the situation is about whether they want that product.

REJECTION ISN’T ABOUT YOU

Imagine if you went to a farmer’s market (something I’m doing a lot these days) and you need some tomatoes. You pass by a booth selling corn. You don’t need corn. You don’t want corn. You have a lot of corn. BUT, the person selling the corn worked hard to grow it. They spent money growing the best corn they could grow. How can you callously walk by without giving the person a long explanation of why you’re not getting corn that day while assuring the farmer that that corn is lovely? You can do it because you go to the market looking for a product and plan to buy the best available example of that product. Imagine if every person whose booth you passed by collapsed in a weeping heap or shouted rude comments at you for passing on the world’s best corn? Right, that farmer would have some problems making ANY money at the market.

Acquiring editors and agents are a bit like you shopping at a farmer’s market. They know what they need. They know what they’re capable of using. They might be lured into buying something else (just as I can sometimes be lured aside by a truly lovely golden plum at the farmer’s market) but they also know the things they flatly cannot use. Those things will not be bought. They won’t be bought even if they’re lovely because they aren’t what the buyer needs. They won’t be bought even if the writer worked hard and spent a lot in preparation of the story – because they aren’t what the buyer needs.

When you recognize that you’re the seller of the lovely corn, you can understand that not everyone wants corn – no matter how lovely it is. And if you’re a seller of something a bit off-beat like black beets or lima beans, you can understand that the folks looking for those things are going to be even fewer – but if you connect with the buyer looking for exactly what you have…you will make the sale. Don’t give up if the first person – or half dozen people – you offer your corn to are actually shopping for tomatoes. It isn’t about YOU.

EDITING ISN’T ABOUT YOU

Editorial response is a second place where writers feel the ouch if they’re overly bonded to their work. In this case, imagine you’re a seamstress who sells one-of-a-kind dresses – offering tailoring for a perfect fit. Now imagine that when it comes time to actually make the changes to fit the customer, you balk. You’ve already lined up a customer. Why can’t she adjust to the dress? Doesn’t she know that shortening the sleeve will mean removing some lace!! Doesn’t she know that if you take in the bodice, it will look different from the way you created it and wanted it!! Doesn’t she know shortening the hem will throw off the proportions you intended!! How quickly would you want to buy from a seamstress who expects you to change to fit the dress instead of the other way around?

For the most part, editors know what they need from a writer. And marketing is sometimes helpful to put in remarks about what they need to get tons of sales out of the book. These suggestions OFTEN don’t fit what you thought about the story, article, or book – at least at first. Tailoring your story in response to editorial input requires an act of trust, and that’s really had to do if you see that piece as a slice of you’re soul. What do they mean by saying my SOUL needs changing!! They aren’t saying that. They aren’t buying YOU. They’re looking for a product that meets their needs, the needs of the reader, and/or the needs of the market. It isn’t about YOU.

PROFESSIONAL BOOK REVIEWS AREN’T ABOUT YOU

Mostly neither are amateur book reviews. Readers read a book in light of what they like. For them, it’s a bit like sipping soup. If they are sensitive to salt – the taster may complain that the soup is salty, even if it tasted perfect to the chef. Do you know what that means? It means the soup was too salty for that person – that’s it. That’s all it means. It doesn’t mean the person has no taste. It doesn’t mean the person hates the chef. It means the person didn’t like the level of salt.

Book reviewers can be the same way about a book. A reviewer can complain that a story you loved and labored over was too predictable, too racy, too mature, too immature, too preachy, or that it doesn’t do enough to uplift the youth of America. And for each review, the words that wrote reflect the reading experience of that person. It doesn’t just happen to new writers, best selling writers, religious writers, secular writers, good writers, bad writers – ALL writers get reviews that say things the writer would not agree with. That’s because the reviewer is a reader with his/her own set of tastes and values. It’s all about the reviewer and his/her experience with the story/article/book. It’s not about YOU.

AND guess what. If a reviewer didn’t like your book (or your favorite book) that doesn’t mean the reviewer is JEALOUS. It means the reviewer’s experience with the book was different from yours. Difference doesn’t mean invalid or jealous. Sure, if that gets you through the day…go ahead and think it in the quiet of your own head. But don’t post it online. It makes you look bad. Honestly; it does.

So when you get your rejections (and we all get them) or discover your masterpiece needs some rewriting (and we’ve all faced it) or find out not everyone loved the thing you wrote – even though you did – keep in mind. None of that is about you. You are not your book. You’re a person who is infinitely more complex and wonderful than the work you produce. Sure, it’s stings to get negative feedback on your art – but you can shake it off, you can keep moving forward, and you can at least put forth a public face that is professional and flexible. Don’t cry over your corn. It’s not about you.

Humans have always loved stories. Some of the earliest people used walls in caves, walls of buildings, and even rocks to tell their stories. When the bulk of the population in Europe couldn’t write, they gathered around oral storytellers with rapt attention. Stories offer us a window into an experience that is not our own. And if the storyteller does his job well, the story ends up belonging to the listener as well as the teller. A good story, well told grows in the mind of the listerner.

Oral storytelling is an amazing art. You have the power of the words but also the instrument of the human voice. And you can move as you speak, expanding the story with gesture and expression. Oral storytelling captivates the people listening as the speaker performs.

Written storytelling captivates the reader who is not there are the writer performs. Oral storytelling is for the “now” and written storytelling is for the future. The writer creates for the future reader. The story’s biggest fan might not even be born yet as the writer sits alone (or perhaps surrounded by distractions) and creates.

Storytelling is a creative act. If you accept that people truly are made in the imagine of God; it is in this act of creation that we most look like our creator. Writers create people, places, voices, action that did not exist until that writer sat down and began putting those word on paper. Similar worlds may have existed (sometimes too similar) but nowhere can you find EXACTLY that selection of words, images, and personality.

As a writer, I can imagine a character who could not exist in the real world. I can imagine a sweet natured and terribly innocent bear who lives in a cottage in the woods. I can imagine that he wakes to find an uninvited and unexpected houseguest in bright yellow curls eating everything in his kitchen. I can imagine the bear’s vexation, but bound by the rules of hospitality, my bear might find himself trying harder and harder to meet the demands of this bossy golden haired guest. Then I might imagine the bear discovers that the bossy guest is actually his nemesis fox in a yellow wig, tricking bear out of a big breakfast. I can imagine that bear wins in the end.

As I imagine all this, I borrow from trickster tales all over the world. I borrow from a European fairy tale. I borrow from the picture book tradition of kind, cuddly bears. I even pinch a bit from old absurd cartoons where a bad wig or a crooked mustache renders a character totally unrecognizable to his friends. But I create something different from all those things. And in the creation, I speak about my own feelings on hospitality and house guests.

At the time I am writing, I have no audience. At the point of creation, I don’t do the careful editing in response to audience cues that oral storytellers do. I have only my own pleasure (and my experience as a writer) as my guide because at that first writing – I’m only telling myself a story. It is as if I am storytelling at the end of a tunnel and the reader is at the other end. I’m writing with the hope and belief that eventually the story will make it through that tunnel of revision and submission to reach the reader.

Why do I do that? Mostly I do it because of my own enjoyment and need for stories. I need the stories I read. The stories I hear. Even the stories I watch on television. And because others have met that need for me, I step up with trepidation and try to produce something that will help feed that need for others. I take joy in the writing. First and foremost I’m telling myself a story. But then, I push it into the tunnel and hope it reaches the other end where I’m telling the story to others.

Just wrote a one paragraph pitch for a series idea I had and sent it to an editor at a publisher I've worked with in the past...the editor got right back to me saying the pitch gave her the chills! So I need to write up a full proposal, but I might be looking at my second series. Yippity skippity!

I read a lot of new writer work. Sometimes it's really nice as it reminds me of things I want to do and things I don't want to do. Sometimes it just makes my head hurt. But recently I read yet another story with a problem I see a lot. The "let me tell you all this stuff I know and then I'll start the story" problem.

These beginnings tend to sound like this: "Joey Weber is ten years old. He's a nice kid who is generally polite and obedient but doesn't always do as well as he could in school because he daydreams. Joey has a big imagination. This can be good when it's time to write a story in Language Arts class. But it can be bad when Joey is trying to figure out why his parents are geting a divorce. His parents are worried about him. His dad is a lawyer. His mom is a electrician. They're both away from home a lot with work, and now the times they are home are pretty tense. They suspect something is going on with Joey that they ought to know, but he's not talking. And they're so caught up in their own problems that sometimes they forget to ask. So it's a tough time in the Weber household as they prepare to become two households."

And that would be a short one. I've seen these "blah, blah, blah" beginnings last two or three pages. And in a short story, that doesn't leave a ton of room for the STORY part which is usually fairly unrelated to all that opening blather. As a result, the blah-blah writer tends to have trouble with word count, and showing (since they tend to cut out the wrong stuff when trying to get down to word count).

The really sad part? -- I've done these blah blah blah beginnings. Oh, sure, not in third person with viewpoint shifts. I'd like to think I'm a far enough along in my writing to avoid that. But I have done them when writing in first person in a voice I particularly like. I fall in love with the character's voice and I just let her talk...and talk....and talk. And then I realize...good heavens, she's blathered on for three pages without a single scene. And I have to cut all that out.

On the plus side, just writing the first person blah-blah-blah helps me solidify the voice, and as long as I cut it out before inflicting it on my critique partner or sending it to an editor, I'm fine. Doing the blah, blah, blah might be serving a similar purpose for a new writer. It might be helping get the story rolling. But...please...don't forget the cutting-that-crap-out-of-there part. Because, honestly, an editor isn't ever going to get to READ your story because he's going to stop in the middle of the blah, blah, blah and look for your SASE for the rejection.

I know I'm preaching to the choir here so forgive my ramblings. Sometimes it's good to get some of the windiest bits of my pontification off my chest before I go respond to a new writer story.

I was suddenly struck by a nursey rhyme.
Since I'd never sell it anywhere, I dump it here.

tippity-tappity
bippity-bappity
Jenny will dance for the king
And when he has seen her go tippity tap
I know he will make her a queen.

Hmmm...I'm having a bit of problem posting as my posting page seems to have gone wonky. So, this is a bit of a test. I'm not sure if I'm popping this into the correct teeny tiny box. If I manage it, I suppose I'll just have to make my posts in notepad and copy them into Live Journal.

Today I finally packaged up two stories to bundle off to magazines. One of the stories I wrote over ten years ago with the mistaken assumption that it would make a nice picture book. Actually, I still think it would, though it definitely needed some serious revision. The other is one I wrote last year in response to a writing prompt on the Writer's Retreat message board. It's a silly story but I fancied it (to use one of my favorite words from Doctor Who) so I cleaned it up a bit. I haven't been sending out enough things to magazines. Shame on me.

I'm still fighting a certain inertia but getting some submissions into the mail should help. Leastways, I hope so. I hit these horrible swampy inertia spots now and then and find them just painful to slog out of. But if I just wait for them to pass, they seem to settle in and set up house. That I simply cannot afford. Still, I detest these slogging slow times, and I love the racey fast bits.

One thing I've noticed is that when I'm in a racey fast bit, I have kaboodles of ideas popping up and trying to lure me away from the task at hand. The ideas just sound soooooo good and I see scenes and hear dialogue and they're just marvelous. Then when I finish the task...I nearly always tumble into a swamp. And the ideas then sound kinda stupid and I can't pull up the scenes with the same wit and enthusiasm. It's enough to make me feel like I've got loose cogs in the old noggin. Ya know?

Ah well...I reckon if writing was easy everyone would be doing it...oh, wait...everyone is these days, aren't they?

After a year spent feeling a bit limbo-esque as we mostly waited for my husband's broken leg to heal, I have higher aspirations for 2012. So far, I haven't acted on many of them -- but I aspire. I'd like to complete a book that is not work-for-hire and jump back into the horrors of seeking normal commercial publication. You know, the whole long journey of misery that begins with agent hunting.

But first, of course, I must complete a book. I'm not so good at this. I'm gang-busters at STARTING books. And I've presently got something like twenty-three books in publication with various work-for-hire venues and another seven written, turned in, and waiting to see the light of day. So I know I CAN finish a book. But somehow...when there's no paycheck, cheering section waiting at the end...I'm not so great on actually DOING it with a book of my own.

It's not that I can't come up with an original idea. The series coming out in 2013 with ABDO was my original idea, totally. And I wrote six books without passing out or needing constant breaks to run about wildly and avoid the work of writing.

Anyway, I'm hopeful.

One kinda sad thing I've done this year is face facts and close KidMagWriters. I'm not going to be able to keep up that site. It was a spot of fun back when my husband was working and we depended less on my income so I could invest time in things that not only brought in no income but actually cost money to no gain. Now...I just don't have the time. And we really need to stop spending the money to keep it open when no one is updating it. So, it's closing. I'm sad about it. I wish someone would start a really good comprehensive site about children's magazines, but it won't be me.

I haven't been a little girl for a long, long time. When I was, I lived in a part of the country where bigotry was alive and well. Some bigots were such nice people until you tumbled into discussion of integrating schools, interracial marriage, or having black folks move into your neighborhood. Then things turned nasty. When we make tv shows and movies about the bigoted south, the bigots are fat, disgusting idiots -- but in real life, they were just folks.

You know something funny? Most of those folks didn't think they were racist. They trotted out a "black guy at work" that they thought well of or a "black friend" from childhood. They talked about the "nice black lady who works at the grocery store." This was proof that they liked black people -- they just didn't want them to have equal rights (though they didn't say it that bluntly, of course).

Interracial marriage was especially tough. Many of the folks I grew up with thought it was icky. There was something unnatural about it. And it was wrong in the eyes of God (backed up by interesting Scriptural choices). It was just wrong and would never be right. And allowing it would cause the total destruction of the institution of marriage.

Only, of course, it didn't. And as a very small girl, I couldn't see how it possibly could. How could who someone else married have any affect on your marriage? How was your marriage lessened if some white person married a person of color? I sometimes even asked that question but I was a little girl. But little girls are rarely given straight answers -- especially if the straight answers aren't going to make sense anyway.

Today, I'm seeing those folks again. Now many of the people who ranted and raved in my childhood have shuffled off the mortal coil. They aren't (by an large) part of the angry hoarde decrying the destruction of marriage by letting "those folks" in. It's a new group. But it's the same words. I swear, it gives me the most incredible flashbacks to hear people. I've listened to the conversation before. The voices were tinged with just as much moral outrage. The shudders of disgust were there. The calls on religion were there.

I've been there.
History is repeating itself with an exactness that is terrifying to me. This is history from my life time. Can we not learn from history in the recent past? Do we have to repeat the same bigotry, the same fear, the same disgust over and over? Is that what it means to be American?

Sometimes it makes me tired. Really tired. I love my country. I want to believe the best for it. But when I see us do again what we did when I was a little girl...I'm so sad.

When I was a very young woman, a young black man I knew was beat up for just being friends with a white girl (me). Now as a middle aged woman, I know young men are being beaten up, teased, tormented, and driven to suicide just for being suspected of being "gay."

Gay marriage is just one element of the whole deja vu experience. And sometimes, I'm really ashamed of us as humans. I don't have any close gay friends. But I once wept for a black man beaten up just for being my friend. And I can feel that pain for the folks today who are suffering the same abuse based on what they are.