The good some closure can do

my writing area . . .

Three-ring notebooks dominate the lowest tiers of a five-shelf unit in my writing station. Printouts of manuscripts and edits, e-books, and Internet tips and articles fill these binders--pages and pages and pages of material I generated or created to help me learn and improve my craft over the years. Paperbacks and hardbacks organized by function--craft, models, comparables, aspirants--are crammed into the upper shelves. Those that don't fit are piled on end tables, bureaus, or empty chairs in every room of my house.

Utility drawers upstairs and downstairs are stuffed with red and black pens, paper clips, binder clips, post-it notes, highlighters. Literary journals, a notebook full of manuscript requests, submissions, and rejection notices line the shelves on my work desk. Another binder lists writing contests organized by month, dating back to 2008, but hasn't been updated since I started graduate school.

Six years. Seven novels started, chapters of which haved been shared with family and friends to varying reviews. Three completed. Evidence of countless revisions. Rewrites. Stories and novels redux. Three years of online critiques printed and collated. One master's in creative writing earned and even more binders of graded writing--one per semester--taking up space.

Until a week ago, nothing much to show for all this work--no, mess--besides about a dozen short fiction/essay acceptances, a half dozen contest wins, and too many snark attacks to keep straight, mostly from other writers though several agents get high marks for snarky zingers, too, in response to queries. One of my favorites: "I remember when I wrote my first novel . . ." in response to querying my first novel.

When you win a contest, you're up. When you get a savage critique from an online site, you're down. Up. Down. Up. Down. Rarely is there any kind of equilibrium. Writer friends lift you up. The same ones put you down. High. Low. High. Low.

That's why, when Booktrope Publishing out of Seattle offered a contract to publish my opera book this month, I accepted. I needed some closure--on at least one of my projects--in order to keep working on the other projects--on anything.

I realize now I felt weighed down by my completed manuscripts that didn't accomplish the ends I envisioned for them. Now that Booktrope is publishing the opera book, that chapter of my saga can be considered done--no revisions required once the book is published--and I can recollect my widely scattered attentions and channel them towards a fewer number of projects.

Though we are encouraged to multi-task in the workplace, and everyone claims to be good at it, I've realized over the years that I am not. However, the only way to persevere as a writer is to multi-task. Shop one novel while you are completing another and polishing yet another while you're entering a story contest or writing a blog post or doing a review of a friend's book. It's what we all do, and frankly, it's exhausting.

I will continue to juggle novel completions, submissions, and rewrites because that's what the profession demands from us. Having closure on at least one of my works has restored my faith in making the journey and has made it feel less like a slog.

The path to publication is a slog. Remember?

I know! However, because of the closure offered by this particular acceptance, I feel like a horse reshod, a kid with new Keds. I feel reenergized in my once-noble, now wholly consuming quest to be a published writer.

As my friend Mary Beth says, "There's nothing a little success won't cure."

Note: My debut novel will be published in December 2011 by Booktrope Publishing.

Three great reasons to write creatively

Exactly six years ago, also in the thick of springtime, I began writing fiction. Since then I've spent an incalculable amount of time with my fingers attached to a computer keyboard, trying my hand at stories, essays, and several novels. I haven't done any house painting or furniture redecorating, things I did before I began writing. About the only hobby I've pursued with nearly the same intensity as writing creatively is gardening.

I never pledged to devote a singular amount of life focus to fiction writing, to the goal of becoming a published author. It's just something that happened along the way as I discerned the quality gap between what I was producing and needed to produce to be published.

Luckily, I have a supportive husband, who has encouraged my writing career in every conceivable way, including my choice to earn a master's degree in creative writing from Wilkes University.

Does writing involve sacrifice? It certainly can. It must. There are only so many hours in a day. I can't write every day and do all of the other activities I used to. Something's gotta give. I don't cook, bake, clean, shop, or hang out with friends as much as I used to. I don't do as many things with my husband either--writing is a solitary activity after all. Though my husband will occasionally serve as a first responder. By that I mean the first person to respond to new work I've written or stories I've rewritten.

In this quest to excel at writing and someday publish a novel, what then have I gained?

I'm more observant.

Over the weekend I was lying on the hammock on a gloriously sunny day and found myself examining the color of the sky behind scads of new green leaves on maple branches. A cloudless blue sky, with too much blue in it to be called robin-egg blue.

While it might not be difficult to identify the shade that comes from an HTML color chart  such as #045FB4, the writer's job is to link the shade of blue with which something the reader can identify--a sensory detail. It was uniformly cornflower blue. I also really notice the heat stream from the dishwasher when I open it. And spend more time than ever watching blue jays contort their large bodies. With claws clutching the metal perch, they tuck their heads almost to their breast to be able to eat from the cylindrical feeder.


I learned volumes about classic opera
researching a novel about an opera guild.



I have a better general education.

Writers have to do incredible amounts of research in order to complete stories and books--fiction writers, too. In efforts to realistically create settings, effective plot points, and interests/quirks of characters, I have studied classic opera, Jamaican patois, contemporary hate crimes in the United States and around the world, calorie-restrictionist organizations, perfume makers, Shaker culture, Amish culture, activism in South America, Tom Jones impersonators, and the list goes on and on. I'm lucky I have a pronounced love of learning. At least that's what a University of Pennsylvania strengths-finder survey identified as my top strength. Does one's avocation pursued over time hone one's strengths or do certain strengths steer one a person toward certain pursuits? Perhaps a little of both.

I've learned to take rejection better, almost in stride.



Rejection hurts. No, Cymbalta can't help.

 When you begin submitting your work with regularity, you are bound to face more rejection than you ever imagined you could or would. And unless you intend to stop writing, you learn to absorb what you can from the experience, put aside the rejection, and keep moving forward. Do I consider myself a loser because my work is being constantly rejected? Absolutely not. Rejection means I'm in the game.

I've not always handled rejection well. That's because a lot of things in life come easily to me. Writing not so much. If I have any success in the creative writing universe, it's because I earned it. Yes, rejection stings, sometimes it hurts like hell, especially when you've come close to publication, and by publication, I mean a book deal--that's what I'm working toward. But like Margaret Atwood said, "Don't complain. No one's putting a gun to your head--forcing you to be a writer." Or something like that. Being rejected offers me the chance to learn lessons critical to my development as a writer and as a person.

Why do you write creatively? What reasons can you add to this short list?

Publishing wannabes, be optimistic but not foolish

Never thought I'd be referring to the Harvard Business Review for a creative writing blog post. But I ran into this inspired post at work offering great advice for those who've set challenging goals for themselves. What could be more challenging than publishing a novel--conventionally?

Anyway, in this article called "Be a Optimist Without Being a Fool," motivational psychologist Heidi Grant Halvorson* believes that while it's good to be optimistic, it is a ridiculous posture to think you'll easily succeed at most difficult tasks.

"But there is an important caveat: to be successful, you need to understand the vital difference between believing you will succeed, and believing you will succeed easily."

In other words, be a realistic optimist. Believe you will succeed, but at the same time, take steps to ensure success happens. For writers, that means submitting, networking, continuing writing, joining a writing group, taking a craft class or workshop, building your platform, etc.

None of us knows our own timetable for success. A friend's book may get picked up far sooner than yours or mine. Rarely does success follow just because we really want to be published. Don't be discouraged. Be heartened because you are a realist with the wisdom and maturity to needed to accept that difficulty lies ahead.

"Believing that the road to success will be rocky leads to greater success because it forces you to take action." Halvorson said. "People who are confident that they will succeed, and equally confident that success won't come easily, put in more effort, plan how they'll deal with problems before they arise, and persist longer in the face of difficulty."

Keep putting in the effort. Keep keeping on. Eventually, your persistence is likely to be rewarded.

*Heidi Grant Halvorson, Ph.D. is a motivational psychologist, and author of the new book Succeed: How We Can Reach Our Goals (Hudson Street Press, 2011)