Category: The Quest for Publication

I’ve Been Here Before

What do you do when you are sad?  Do you go about your business with a heavy heart? Do you take steps to cheer yourself up? Maybe it depends on the source of your sadness…if you can even identify it.

When I’m feeling down, I often turn to writing. This explains the fact that many of my blog posts reflect that mood. I don’t want to be a complete bummer, but the inspiration to write often comes from feeling bad and needing to sort it out. Believe it or not, I have about 370 (!) posts on my blog, with probably less than 10 of those from guest writers. I wonder what percentage are about feeling depressed or disappointed? I do try to end them on a hopeful note.

But, writing and sharing helps me and I hope it helps my readers. It helps me process my thoughts, clarify my thinking and sometimes reset my mood. When I get feedback, it feels validating. I know I am not alone. Plus, it feels like a constructive thing to do, instead of wallowing. Sometimes I do need to wallow a bit, but I try to limit that. Putting pen to paper, or seeing the words on my computer screen, can help to take the sting out of the emotion. There’s a quote from Mr. Rogers (yes, Fred Rogers, he was quite wise) that says: “Anything that’s human is mentionable, and anything that is mentionable can be more manageable. When we can talk about our feelings, they become less overwhelming, less upsetting, and less scary.” Smart man, that Mr. Rogers. The stuff we hide away, mostly from ourselves, is the stuff that does the most damage.

I also find that usually when I am in a mood like this, it isn’t just one thing. There might be an incident or disappointment that pushes me over the edge, but there were likely other things that accumulated. So sorting it out, naming them, is helpful.

I have “finished” my manuscript for my memoir. I put quotes around finished because I feel like it will never really be done. I know it needs further editing, so there is that. But, also, every time I read portions of it, I tinker with the words, think of other potential scenes, wonder if it is any good. I could probably work on it forever. It reminds me of an observation Professor Weisband, one of my favorites from SUNY-Binghamton, made. I took a seminar with him that required a major research paper (it had to be 50 pages or more). Mine was on the U.S.-Soviet SALT talks. I was endlessly reading and finding new material. I asked him how you knew when your research was done. He basically said, you don’t. You decide to start writing. On the one hand, it was a very unsatisfying answer. On the other, I have found it to be largely true. You may realize that pieces are missing when you are writing and do some more digging, but at some point, and it may feel arbitrary, you have to stop and see what you have. I feel that way about my memoir.

Despite feeling like it may or may not be done, I have decided to move to the next phase which is trying to find a literary agent. I won’t go into the details of this grueling process but suffice it to say it is a little like auditioning for movies or plays. Mostly it involves rejection – or in this case, unanswered queries. No answer is the answer. I’ve only sent out 7 so far. There are hundreds, probably thousands, of agents. I will need to send out many, many more. At some point, again, perhaps an arbitrary decision, I can stop and decide to self-publish, but I want to give this a shot. It is hard not to be discouraged, especially when you feel so uncertain about whether your project is worthy. I remind myself to be proud of the fact that I am even doing this – I set a goal for 2024 to contact literary agents, and I have done that. (By the way, if anyone has contacts or suggestions, feel free to send them my way!) I need to just keep on keeping on.

Though this project weighs on me, it is not the primary source of my sadness. My memoir is something I have control over, at least to some degree. Getting it published may be as much a matter of luck as talent. The things that really make me sad are the things I can’t change: my friend’s serious illness; a relationship that isn’t what I wish it was; the precariousness of our democracy; Supreme Court decisions that defy how I understand our Constitution; and, the rise in antisemitism – to name a few.

I am old enough to have been here in this sadness  before. I will distract myself with a combination of constructive things, like doing something nice for my friend, making a contribution to a candidate I believe in, and other things that are just fun – like getting out in the sunshine, watching something mindless and entertaining, talking to friends. And I will wait for the sadness to pass. Thanks to writing this – and I am sitting in my backyard as I type, listening to the birds, seeing the sun on our daisies – my mood has already begun to lift.

The daisies in our backyard

Catching Up

I missed my self-imposed Monday morning deadline by several days, but hopefully you will forgive me. After five months of pandemic limitations, we arranged a visit with our son’s family. We got to spend time with our beloved granddaughter! To add to the joy, our daughter and son-in-law-to-be came too! We were all extra-careful in the weeks leading up to the visit, no one had any symptoms (though every day  I imagined every symptom in the book!) and we decided to take the risk. They came for six days (Leah and Ben were here for four)! We picked blueberries (granddaughter ate every single one she picked, none made it to the bucket), we swam in our pool for hours, we watched 101 Dalmations and Onward many times over, we ate great meals and generally reveled in their company.  I put aside my writing. I took many photographs to help remember the wonders of a two year old. On Monday Leah and Ben returned to their work life and yesterday, in the midst of the downpour that was the remnants of Isaias, Dan and his family packed up and drove home. It was a bittersweet goodbye, but we were left with a treasure trove of memories.

Today I have root canal to look forward to – I’m not joking. I probably could have timed that better. The good news is that we already have another visit planned so it will not be so long until we see each other – just a few weeks, not an endless five months (assuming no spike in Covid or other disaster).

One other exciting thing since I last posted, the essay I wrote that was accepted to an online journal has gone live! (I wrote bout that in Victory! ) I am honored and excited to be included in this edition of Trolley, the literary journal of the New York State Writers Institute. The theme for the magazine was our experience during the pandemic – poets, essayists and visual artists contributed. I hope you’ll explore it. Here is the link to my story. Happy reading!

trolley-600-400

 

Victory!

I woke up and grabbed my phone, as I usually do, from the nightstand. I quickly flipped through various apps, just checking to see if anything momentous happened overnight. Nothing of note, just the usual craziness inherent in living in TrumpWorld. Then, the last thing I do before I get out of bed is look at my email. It is formatted so that I can read the first line or two of the body. Imagine my surprise when I saw this:

Hello Linda,

Your submission “Life in the age of coronavirus” has been accepted for publication 

Holy smokes! I couldn’t click on it fast enough. Those of you who have been reading this blog for a while know it has been a journey to get published (here is one example). I have wondered whether it would ever happen. I thought about why it was important to me, whether I could or should let go of that idea. Just recently I had recommitted to trying to make it happen ( wrote about that  in Another Monday in Quarantine).

On my daughter’s birthday, May 22, I submitted a piece to Trolley, the online journal of the New York State Writers Institute. They were soliciting submissions of poetry, fiction and nonfiction for an issue that would have coronavirus as its theme – they wanted to hear what writers were experiencing during the pandemic. That sounded like a promising topic. I have been posting essays to this blog on just that subject. I chose a recent one and did a bit of editing. When I hit the send button, I remember thinking maybe the date would be an auspicious one. Good things happen on May 22nd. The streak continues!

I forwarded the congratulatory email to my husband and children. I knew they would be pleased for me. It was still quite early, before 7:30 a.m. I would wait to call my mom until a more reasonable hour.

I fought my instinct to downplay the news. I have this way of devaluing things I do – saying to myself it isn’t a big deal; anyone could do it – doesn’t matter what it is. If it is something I accomplished, it can’t mean much. If I lost 20 pounds, I would focus on the fact that I had another 20 to go. If I got excellent evaluations for a presentation, I would think only about the one negative comment. When I finished a 5K or the Five Boro Bike Tour, I would talk about how slow I was. I started down that path this time, too. If a publication accepted my work, it must reflect poorly on them or they took everyone’s submission. For what might be the first time in my life, I shut that down. Instead, I thought, ‘Enjoy this, Linda, just enjoy it.’

I looked again at previous editions of Trolley. It made me smile to think of my essay appearing there. It may not be the New Yorker, but it doesn’t have to be.

Mom was excited, as I predicted, when I shared the news with her. Gary came home after work bearing roses. Shortly thereafter the doorbell rang. Two bottles of red wine were delivered, courtesy of Leah, Dan and Beth. Who knew wine could be ordered online and delivered to our door?!? I opened one bottle and poured myself a generous glass. I savored the full, sweet taste and all the moments of the day.

Now, to keep writing and submitting…perhaps I’ll try submitting on the birthdays of Dan and Gary. Maybe they’ll bring me good luck.  But, even if more publications don’t follow, at least this happened.

Another Monday in Quarantine

It is Monday again – I know that much. Time is hard to get a handle on, especially these days when each day varies so little from the one before.

For the first time in 14 weeks I don’t have a new blog post ready. I was on a roll! It isn’t surprising that I hit a road block.

A few things got in the way. Though for most of the weeks of this quarantine I have found some inspiration to write, this past week was tougher. I think the cumulative disappointment of celebrations being canceled and vacations postponed, and the general ennui, without an end in sight, was draining. I was feeling unmotivated and tired.

In response to that I decided to change things up a bit. I decided to work on submitting pieces for publication. I put energy into finding magazines accepting submissions and figuring out what essays or poems I have that might be appropriate. I’m not sure why it is important to me to get published, but I have to acknowledge that I want it. Maybe it is just the validation, or maybe it is the idea of reaching a wider audience, but whatever it is, I feel like I need to try. Trying involves doing some research, either writing something new or editing one of my previous blog posts. I wrote about the idea of submitting work two and a half years ago, here, and now I want to try again. Given my limited energy/motivation, that effort took away from producing new work.

Sometimes the blog feels like enough and I wonder why I want more. My numbers aren’t huge, especially when you consider how many views things can get on the Internet. Most of my posts get at least 100 reads in a given week – and that means it is being read by more than just my family and friends! Some have gotten considerably more hits, especially over time. Some of my pieces have been viewed by over 400 readers which is a lot on the one hand, but a paltry amount in the context of the larger blogosphere. But how much is enough? Isn’t that the question we all face in some form or another?

WordPress tells you what country readers are from so I can see that posts have been read on virtually every continent in the world.  I get positive feedback from my readers. too – thank you! My family has been generous in their response and tolerant of my digging around in our shared history. It has engaged us in some interesting conversations. I value that very much.

But, still, there is a voice inside that says I should reach for more. I am listening to that voice for the time being and working on submitting essays for publication. I’ll let you know what happens, but I need to be prepared for rejection. The very first writing workshop I took, almost five years ago, gave me some perspective on this. The poet who led us said that if you got one in ten published, consider yourself successful. I haven’t reached ten submissions yet, but I’m closing in. I am preparing myself mentally to go far beyond that.

As far as the blog goes, I have been working on some new essays. And, I have a few ideas that need cultivating –  so stay tuned and thanks for your patience. I hope this week brings renewed energy to all of us.