THE little MATTER OF GIVING UP

 

I have writing friends who say they are giving up.

 

They’re giving up writing new stories, querying agents, submitting to small publishers, and even giving up on interacting with other writers on chat groups.

 

They are dismayed at the state of publishing. Some have had great publishing credits in the past. Others have had a modicum of success, and a few have had no publishing credits. All have no interest or means ($$$) to self-publish & promote.

 

It’s okay to give up. It’s okay to do so and later change your mind. It’s okay no matter what.

 

But if writing new stories is enriching, all the giving up talk makes no sense to me.

 

Why would you deprive yourself of the deep pleasure and stimulation that writing has given you? If it’s to spare the disappointment of rejection, then isn’t all of life full of setbacks and disappointments? These are in fact some of the most enriching aspects of life, even as emotional pain isn’t “fun.”

There will be eternity in the grave to rest life’s challenging turns. Until then, writers— tell your stories.

THE MONEY in WRITING

 

OR

WRITERS and MONEY

By some estimates there are hundreds of thousands of Americans who write full time. Some sources claim as many as one million. This last number includes those who write articles and writers of non-fiction.

 

I know, this is vague. But it’s sobering to look at the storytellers who write fiction, whose numbers are closer to three hundred thousand. (Who makes these estimates? How reliable are they? I plead confusion. But anyway…)

 

It’s sobering to realize only about three hundred fiction writers make a living solely from writing.

 

Cut that number by ninety percent to count the fiction writers who are seriously wealthy* from writing.

*Think Stephen King or J.K. Rowling

 

I received a decent advance only once, and royalties also only once, for two separate traditionally published books. This is my total fiction writing income to date.

{I was paid --nominally to decently-- for exactly four published articles, and a few times for editing work. This falls into the non-fiction category, which undoubtedly supports many more in the writing community.}

 

Here’s the kicker: I received (and continue to receive) nourishment from writing fiction, but money isn’t part of it.

 

If you’re to go down this road, it’s sobering and important to grasp how money fits or doesn't fit in. Many writers (many more than the likes of me) pay to be published. Some wind up paying substantial sums that they never recoup. Long ago, I was clear this pay-to-publish wasn’t going to be my way. Vanity or self-publishing didn’t interest me. Specifically, for kidlit-- it's a money-pit. 🙀

 

Go into it with awareness. Dreaming is fine. Your dreams may come true. But have your eyes open wide.

 

 Make sure you love writing for its own sake. That’s the bottom line.

The WHY of Writing

 

“To write is to fight forgetting.”

Annie Ernaux, Nobel laureate in literature 2022

 

 

Much is made of the impetus to write. Annie Ernaux is primarily a memoirist, and so the quotation above seems a perfect fit for her motivation. Fiction writing appears to be more about organizing one’s thoughts, ideas, and ideals. After all, what is there to forget when it comes to tales of the imagination?

 

I maintain that fiction is about truth, our truth, and by writing our truth down, carved of words-sentences-paragraphs-chapters-novels, we writers are fighting the human propensity to forget.

 

Fiction/fantasy is the cloak. The body is our truth as we make an attempt to chisel and give shape to it so it may be incorporated into the communal memory.

 

Fiction is often, nay— usually, bolder, and thus more honest. Ernaux is exceptionally honest, but in my experience only fiction allows a complete unveiling.

 

This is my mini-attempt to record and reveal my personal driving force. As the number of my years grows, I am fighting forgetting with increasing ferocity.

A PITCH with a PITCHFORK

 

Querying and pitching one’s work is a craft in itself. Books and hundreds of websites of how-to are devoted to this craft and will greet a searcher.

The bottom line is that pitching is competitive, and a pitch must stand out.

 

An article I read got me thinking about a thornier matter. This article suggests writers must pitch themselves (as in “I am the product”) before getting into the work they are offering.

 

I have to say this rubs me wrong. Nay, very wrong, especially for fiction, where you can’t box the imagination and narrative powers by saying, “I did such and such.” However, as wrong as it is, it’s also part of the truth regarding successful pitching.

 

Most how-to query formats say to start with the hook of the book and end with the cook, i.e., the writer. The art of good hooking sentence/paragraph could fill library shelves, and I have one small shelf of such in my room.

 

That’s rational. That’s how it should work.

Apparently, this isn’t how it works much of the time.

Of course, if (as in the examples cited in the post) the writer has won a Pulitzer or was the first to land an aircraft upside-down, (the aircraft or the pilot being bottom up) this alone is a hook of sorts. It gets attention. Sentence one will lead the publishing professional to read the next and, eventually (hopefully), a request to see more. That’s what pitching is about, after all.

 

But few have such monumental statements to make about self, and most pitching would wind up sounding like the “fun facts” many writers mistake for an interesting bio. You know, “I finished a jar of jelly beans in eight minutes and won the Jelly Queen title at the state fair” sort of nothings. I wrote a post about this before.

 

So what to do?

 

If you won a Pulitzer, it’s worth considering the selling-of-you in the first paragraph. I’m less inclined to agree with this for most of us, good hardworking storytellers.

 

Story comes first.

SO, AGAIN— WHAT’S WITH THE CALENDAR?

 

Or…

🎇Happy New Year🎇

A new calendar year spells a new beginning; a new (or renewed) chance at getting it right. A renewed hope that the faux-pas of the past would be left on the side of the road, and the motors (echo-clean, what else) would propel smoothly and the world would~~~

🌈Live happily ever after🌈

We know better. But hope ignites at the very mention of the new year.

 

Here’s my wish to all: the wisdom and strength to understand and cope with what’s ahead.

Now go forth and prosper.

AFTER CHRISTMAS and BEFORE NEW YEAR'S

Harking back to days when I gifted and was gifted holiday gifts, (now a minor part of my holiday season) I remember the day after Christmas as the day the stores were crowded with folks returning gifts.

 

It’s a strange phenomenon, this “thanks for the thought but I’d rather have something else” that sweeps the land.

 

But it is what it is. Just try to remember that the thought that went into choosing something for you is the sweet part, not the actual “something.”

 

And let’s have fun before we take a collective breath and exhale a solemn wish for a better and more peaceful year to come.

EVOCATIVE CALENDAR DATES

 

Ever note the day’s date and feel there is something significant that you ought to have remembered about it, but you draw a blank?

 

This happens to me now and then, and usually it involves someone’s birthday who I have lost touch with long ago. Sometimes it’s a calendar date I made a point to remember for practical reasons, (time to turn the mattress, time to begin watering the yard, time to check on a relative who should have completed a last round of chemotherapy) but it was long ago.

 

Today’s date is an easy one for me: it celebrates the birth of a wonderful person I was lucky to have known. He left this earth, but his mark on it is alive and continues to bless many.

Happy Birthday, Abba

NO SECOND CHANCE~~~

 

An agent recently published a post where agent explained that she & other publishing professionals can assess a query in fifteen seconds or less.

There’s the easy “not what I work with,” the almost as easy “this reads badly,” and the less clear “not what I’m looking for right now.”

 

It sounds both arrogant and presumptuous, but it is a necessity when hundreds of queries pour in day after day.

 

I just read another post about how one’s website’s Homepage is likely the only one most visitors would glance at, and (gulp) on average, for less than a minute. That post is linked here.

 

It’s hard to think that other pages’ content you thoughtfully aggregated, mulled over, culled and refined— will remain largely unseen.

 

These are the facts. A home page is the front yard, and the way a few will choose to knock on the door and come inside.

 

My first publisher, a small house that published my picture book and had since closed, offered to make a website for me. That seemed a nice bonus. No effort to learn the ways of website hosting and design, the thought of which was intimidating. I liked their website for them, but their designer (who had designed their other authors’ sites) felt wrong for me. It was busy. It was jazzy. It was hip-hip-hoorah and kinetic to the point where one might worry about inducing seizures in susceptible individuals. 

All right, a slight exaggeration, with slight being the operative word.

 

That wasn’t going to be my calling card, which is what websites and especially their home pages serve as today.

 

So, I said, “thank you, but I’ll do my own”— and braved the choppy waters of the interwebs.

 

In addition to the good but general advice in the linked post, I would add that your home page has to feel right for you.

HERE COMES HANNUKAH…

 

…Or is it Hanuka, Hanukka, or Hannukkah?

And how about Chanukah?

 

Actually, it’s pronounced KHAH-NOO-KAH.

 

No matter^, the holiday of lights in the dark is coming this Gregorian calendar year-- starting December 7^th.

 

Lighting the darkness is not a simple thing. To me, darkness isn’t just the places where justice is scarce. It’s the very notion that we don’t know. It’s the future, the purpose of all, the ways of the creator.

 

It’s harder to be prideful and a know-it-all in the face of darkness.

 

And so, I light. One little candle, and counting, at a time.

At least for me, it’s more a hopeful gesture to understanding than a grand celebration.

DIALOGUE for CHARACTERS WHO ARE SPEAKING A FOREIGN LANGUAGE

 

Ah, well. The challenge of telling stories set in other countries includes how to tell their tellings in English, and what to do with foreign words.

 

An article on this can be read here.

 

I faced it with my published novel, THE VOICE OF THUNDER. My solution was to use standard English and where a foreign (i.e., Hebrew) word was used, I followed it immediately with the English equivalent. Because I was writing for young readers, I felt there was no place to send them searching, to footnotes, or a glossary.  I have seen others use glossaries in similarly-set stories for children, and it didn't feel right. Young readers should experience the pleasure of a story. Footnotes and glossaries are for academics.

 

Above all, the flow of reading must not be bumpy and hence interrupted by the foreignness of the setting. It's challenging enough to meet and envisage another place or time. Let the characters speak plainly and clearly. Save the layering to their ideas and let the flow ride the twists of plot.

STANDING IN ONE’S OWN WAY

 

Maybe it was fortuitous, but I happened upon this blog post one day after reflecting on the conduct of an artist who I’m close to. The post is a reflection on the various ways some of us sabotage ourselves without having the slightest clue we are doing it.

 

I think this applies to all human endeavors. The crux of it is that because it sounds an illogical thing to do, we refuse to see it. Competing with insufficient or no preparation, spending time in useless activities that do not so much as bring us joy, spewing unkind words born of frustrations at the people who love us most and could help— all examples of self-sabotage. All lend themselves to easy explanations to self that disguise the drive behind them: I do not deserve success.

 

In one way, no one deserves anything. But striving to do something that adds value and having it recognized is a worthwhile way to go through life. Thus, if we just remove the notion of “deserving,” maybe we’ll also withdraw our third invisible foot that somehow, against reason, we have placed right where we step. Maybe this will prevent the next tripping up. Maybe.

THE WISTFULNESS OF FALL

 

Wistful: A sadness tinged with longing, often having a hint of sweetness.

 

Fall is an odd time because (like its name) it evokes decline/demise and closure of life’s affirmations, so redolent in spring and fully manifested in summer.

 

It’s also a romantic time, because light becomes less harsh and the unforgiving cracks and wrinkles brightness exposes are softened.

 

The natural world of which we are a part shifts to a lower, slower gear. Slow is comforting, but also sad.

 

Fall is an awesome mixture. The trek of life, always marching toward death and rebirth, sings its swansong.

 

Do go gently into winter.

©Photo Rachel Breen

APPROACHING PUBLISHED WRITERS FOR ADVICE/BLURB

 

There’s a right way and a wrong way to ask writers to help your writing journey. I learned the hard way, making most of the usual mistakes.

 

A good post on this is here.

 

But despite the above linked post, my experience is that the right way is to not ask anything of a writer who is barely an acquaintance. Even more so if the writer is a complete stranger. Published writers, especially successfully published writers, don’t have the time to wade through the writing of others as they get many (repeat: MANY) such requests.

 

The bottom line is that unless you are close personal friends, or the writer offers without solicitation (rare, but happens. It happened to me 😊) they can’t blurb (which would mean also reading your work) and any general advice they give can be found on the Internet.

 

If you are real friends in real life (Facebook doesn’t count. Not ever) or taking a course with a writer, which includes feedback to your writing, other writers farther along on the path are our inspiration for aspirations, not personal assistants.

 

Enjoy meeting authors without asking them to bear your burdens.

The Un-power of TIK-TOK

On the eve of the camp horror-show that is Halloween, I am thinking of a different but also pseudo-horror our legislator have taken to sound alarm to.

You might be tempted to divide humanity not by nations, races, genders or whatever else. Instead, think of the TIK TOK app, and do it this way:

 

1.      The billion who love it

2.      The billion who see it as dangerous

3.      The billions who don’t know what it is and why others make such a fuss.

 

Call me old (you wouldn’t be wrong) and put me in the third category. Neither the charm nor the existential calamity of Tik- Tok manage to reach my consciousness.

 

Data sharing? All the tech apps and the companies behind them already do that. This includes this platform, Blogger, owned by Google. It seems no one does it better than Google, and who they sell it to is not an open book.

 

I wonder if this brouhaha isn’t a way of distracting Americans from real issues, only one of them having to do with China as a menace. These issues include but are not exclusive to our right to privacy, which (big news) is long gone.

 

The wild world of the Interwebs and smartphones have changed everything. We gave them this power. Tik-Tok is but a dot in a vast international matrix.

YOU WILL LAUGH, EVENTUALLY

 

Some months back, my trusty old computer stopped functioning. I learned that I shouldn’t trust a machine, which had the audacity to take with it much of the functionalities I had built in to suit the way I work, and many of my contacts.

 

I didn’t lose any work, because I had my files and photos backed up on a USB drive. Setting a second computer properly took time and this computer is not yet up to the one that was.

 

I can look back now, and see that I survived. There are (much) worse things.

 

But, at that time, I felt so lost and disconnected that I lamented to DD how I long for the innocent days of my childhood, when connecting meant seeing someone in person or writing a snail mail letter.

 

Her response, pasted here from Messenger (my phone worked):

“…Do you miss your boyhood in surrey, romping with your school chums in the fens and spinneys?”

And then she sent this link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?fbclid=IwAR1dU0AIpsn42MFtviaSRQhaDPb2Kjl2sSfGP9AaCuQ1AZcrkEKiJS-Cmk8&v=PM8WPZtnBAw&feature=youtu.be

 

It’s a brilliant section from an old episode of Frasier, a TV show we used to watch when she was but a youth. Her comment was a quotation from one of the characters in it, and her pointed reflection on the uselessness of nostalgia for “simpler times.”

 

I laughed. It made a difference.

 

Eventually, we laugh at so many things we had experienced as important.

There’s no point in lamenting what isn’t anymore.

 

Meanwhile, back up your computers, everyone.

Justice, Justice You Shall Pursue

 

 

“צֶ֥דֶק צֶ֖דֶק תִּרְדֹּ֑ף לְמַ֤עַן תִּֽחְיֶה֙ וְיָרַשְׁתָּ֣ אֶת־הָאָ֔רֶץ אֲשֶׁר־יְהֹוָ֥ה אֱלֹהֶ֖יךָ נֹתֵ֥ן לָֽךְ׃”

 

“Justice, justice shall you pursue, that you may thrive and occupy the land that your God יהוה is giving you.”

Deuteronomy 16:18-21:9

 

I find it impossible at the moment not to repeat this injunction as I watch the horrors once again visited upon the middle east.

 

A time will come, when we can contemplate mercy. Justice without mercy (such as Hamas clearly demonstrated) is hell on earth. But mercy without justice is suicidal.

 

That is all I’m able to put out at this moment. I hope to return to gentler contemplations on the writing life and life in general, which, for me, are one and the same.

Just like the dove who signaled to Noah— after the great flood— the return of life on earth with a single olive branch, we await her once again.

WHERE’S YOUR BAOBAB?

 

Many (many!) years ago, in a land far away, I discovered The Little Prince.

 

He was a curious creature, born of fantasy. His journey was metaphorical. Even then, I knew his various stops on many small planets with their curious inhabitants were not to be taken as realistic.

 

On his own planet, the Little Prince spoke of Baobab trees. The sound of that, BA-OH-BAB, made them creatures of fancy, not real things to be found in our world.

Turned out I was wrong. Baobabs are real. They grow in Madagascar, where my son served in the United States Peace Corps until a short time ago. I told him I would value a photo of him near one of these.

 

Before leaving Madagascar, right after his close of service, my son made a point to travel to where the oldest Baobab in all of Madagascar stands proud. The locals claim it’s a thousand years old, while arborists say it’s likely seven to eight hundred. Old enough, either way.

My son bequeathed his smart phone to a local individual, because he knew it would be useful to his Malagasy friend. What my son took with him on the pilgrimage to the old Baobab was a not-very-smart borrowed phone that could only manage poor photos. But you can imagine that, regardless of quality, the photo is one I value. It holds a special meaning, joining one of the circles of my life.

 

My little Prince communed with a Baobab.

 

Here he is with the Old Tree of Mahajanga~

Life continues to be magical even as it is ever real. Maybe especially then.

Story ARC, Story Conventions

 

How-to writing books and literary analysis courses have distilled storytelling conventions this way:

Inciting incident > Main Character accepts the challenge >Three attempts in increasing intensity at resolution > Climax/crisis> Resolution.

The most amusing pithy presentation on story ARCs is this mini joyride of a presentation by Kurt Vonnegut here, well worth the seventeen minutes it takes.

There are posts online that show simple graphs of story ARCs, such as this:

This is the tried and true. No argument there.

But then, ever so rarely, someone challenges these conventions and (even rarer) succeeds in making something new and wonderful. I was intrigued to read a post on this here.

 

When I began writing, I knew less about writing conventions and I did in fact write less conventionally. By now the story-ARC  rules are so ingrained in me that I wonder if I even could, or dare, to set them aside.

 

But it’s food for writerly thought.

SUKKOT of LONG AGO

 

It’s been some years since we observed a variation of Sukkot, the holiday where Jews are advised to dwell in huts as our ancestors did while on the way to the promised land.

 

Contemplating this year’s upcoming Sukkot and whether I have the energy to make a Sukkah again, I happened to come upon an old photo. It reminded me of a feline family friend who has left this earth long ago. Clyde was not our cat. He lived next door. When his family moved a mile away up the hill, he kept returning. Not to his old home, but to ours.

 

We even found him sleeping in our makeshift Sukkah. We always returned him to his new home, and he continued to make his way back to ours.

One of these trips may have cost him his life. He was found dead, possibly injured. I tried to answer one of my kids as to whether cats have souls and go to heaven by writing about him:

 

CLYDE HILL

©By Mirka M. G. Breen

  

            Clyde is climbing a great green hill.

            The grass under his paws is as soft as fur. It’s tingly wet, and smells of catnip.

            The light is soft blue, no sun yet.

Clyde passes every mouse he ever ate. The mice wave at him.

Birds he had watched, fly over and wink.

Squirrels he had chased puff their tails

No time to think. Up Clyde must go.

Yes, this is so.

Clyde still climbs the green hill.

The grass is deeper, the hill steeper. But the higher he climbs, the lighter his steps.

He’s not hot; he’s not cold. Light’s turning gold.

A purple butterfly flutters before him. Clyde’s trotting, then pouncing.

One butterfly soars, and then a hundred more-

In every color, with spots and dots

In a ribbon-dance the butterflies flow.

Yes, this is so.

 

Clyde is bounding up the glistening green.

When the moss grows dark, a cloud heavy with steel gray covers the light.

Clyde slows. What to do? He squints, then pulls through.

A line of pure silver is guiding him on. The cloud turns to vapor.

The blue of the air, gentle light everywhere-

Give power from nose to tail.

Clyde faces toward the glow.

Yes, this is so.

Clyde climbs some more, the hill, green as hope.

The air caressing his ears with gentle fluffing strokes. Cat music is sounding.

His mother and father are mewing above

Clyde turns his head back one last time.

 The people he loves look at him with wet eyes: they are wise.

Balls of yarn left below, adventures above.

Clyde has to go

We think this is so.

 

Sukkot this year falls on September 29-October 6

 

In a Silly Mood: CLEVER DEFINITIONS for YOU

  

{Skip if you're in a solemn mood}

Clever Definitions

 

COMMITTEE
A body that keeps minutes and wastes hours.

DUST
Mud with the juice squeezed out.

EGOTIST
Someone who is usually me-deep in conversation.

HANDKERCHIEF
Cold Storage.

INFLATION
Cutting money in half without damaging the paper.

MOSQUITO
An insect that makes you like flies better.

SECRET
A story you tell to one person at a time.

TOOTHACHE
The pain that drives you to extraction.

TOMORROW
One of the greatest labour saving devices of today.

YAWN
An honest opinion openly expressed.

WRINKLES
Something other people have....similar to my character lines.