Mostly, I’ve been a back door sort of submitter.  I didn’t used to be.  I used to march straight through the front door and send my stuff out shotgun.  In fact, the very first story I wrote, I sent, wait for it…to the New Yorker.  And when I got that first form rejection, I was stunned.  I was twenty.  I was a dreamer, not really a writer.  And dreamers are a bit delusional.  So I kept sending out that short story—Harpers, Esquire, every magazine I could think of, every literary review I found in the Harvard Square kiosk (we didn’t have the internet yet).  Still rejection after rejection.  After rejection.  I had a bulletin board over my desk with a chart full of all my submissions written on butcher block paper.  In the section which I’d entitled Y/N, there were so many N’s that I did that N some courtesy and elongated it to Nope.  To this day it’s still Nope, only now I know how to make a spreadsheet on my computer.  I sort of miss that bulletin board.  It was so visceral, writing Nope in Sharpie on butcher’s block paper pinned up with thumb tacks.  

Then I read somewhere—Hemingway On Writing or something like that, that you just had to write and write and write and stop trying to get published, and so I spent the next half of my life writing.  I recoiled from submitting.  I wrote some essays and stories, cast them off into the wind from time to time, and got down to work, ignoring the rejections as they came in—well, KIND of ignoring them.   more...

Years ago, I had just put my youngest son to bed when I heard tell tale sounds, ran in, and found him throwing up.  Excepting the desk and the walls, there was much to be tidied.  A bit rattled over where to start, I cleaned the child first and set him out of the fray while I stripped the bed of everything.  Awkwardly scooping up bedding and clothing, I headed for the laundry room, still fueled by my emergency mentality.  But while crossing the living room, I stopped – perhaps to reconfigure my load – and something happened.  In a moment, I went from concerned and agitated to… a happy person.  All of a sudden I felt grateful for being able to take care of someone I loved, for having the son I did, for all of it. No longer did it matter that I had initially judged the conditions as unwanted.  The details of the experience itself didn’t matter; I was feeling love for the opportunity of life. 

This moment has remained with me, a reminder that if I could feel authentically happy and blessed in the company of a vomiting child there is something in me so smart and loving that the specifics of my experiences never matter to it as much as the creative act of living itself.  And since 100% of what I worry about are the specifics of what might or might not happen – as though my happiness depends upon those details – I am left to wonder why I am worrying when I’ve already been taught that that is simply not true.  more...

Show, Don't Tell! This maxim makes writers want to tear their hair out more than any other (well, other than, "Our agency isn't interested, but best of luck"). I've touched upon this topic a few times in the past, but inevitably, almost every first-time author I work with must overcome the tendency to "tell" instead of "show."

Many writers become frustrated thinking that the essential writing advice of "Show versus tell" means that every plot point must be shown (Egads, does that mean that I need to include everyone's point of view???? What about when my character goes to the bathroom—do I have to show that?). This is not what show versus tell means.

Often authors simply tell the reader about a character's personality ("He was a mean man") instead of showing it through dialogue or inventive narrative ("After that no good varmint kicked all my puppies and salted my fields, he shot a squirrel on Main Street for no damn reason and rode outta town on a broken old mule"). more...