As yet another storm front heads toward the Southern California coast, I can’t help some skepticism that rain can possibly arrive soon, because the sky here has turned blue and the air balmy. But I’m assured we’re in for a few days of rain. I plan to focus on fiction for the duration. To make up for sounding like a spoiled Californian who has no idea what winter is, I leave you with links to two stellar blog posts on writing and books, from Eric Mayer and Vikk Simmons.
Eric, at Byzantine Blog, wrote a brief, inspiring article on writer perseverance, titled Luck or Design? which rings true and reminds me gently to stop messing with this blog and get back to work. While you’re checking out his blog, don’t neglect to visit Eric’s homepage. Eric Mayer and Mary Reed co-author a series of historical mysteries set in the Byzantine era.
Vikk, at Down the Writer’s Path (author of the young adult novel, Divided Loyalties), gave me goosebumps with her description of a small group of children’s reverence for one large book, in The power of books: fact or fiction? offering hope that the next generation will cultivate a love of books and reading, in spite of statistical evidence to the contrary.
Both articles will lift any aspiring writer’s spirits much the way a cloudless blue sky does on a late winter day.
Well, we’re having rain here in Bucks County Pennsylvania today. I’m just glad it isn’t snow.
Thanks for the mention. I actually got to revision today the moment I posted the blog and just now finished off the chapter I’d started which needed a new scene. I am reminded I don’t have trackback, which is a very nice feature. But I do like JournalScape anyway. My technical abilities only go so far.
Thanks for stopping by and for noting my story on your blog today. It’s a wonderful thing to hear your words actually produced a physical reaction in a reader. Made my day.
I tell ya, it’s mind blogging how much blog is out there. One could blog an entire day away! I am so impressed with the quality writing. I had a skewed notion that bloggers were first cousins to graffitists. I should have known better, knowing classy Barbara.
I read both suggested blogs and both were thought provoking. But Mayer’s personally inspired me. A stack of rejections is starting to mount.
Several days after I finished my first book, I enthusiastically started my second. I daydreamed that my folks had erred by not calling me Hope because I was full of so much of it! I love my second book – it’s so dear to my heart. But after chapter 7, and after not setting the publishing world afire, I started to make excuses not to write - Christmas, my new grandson’s blanket I was crocheting, too much coffee, not enough coffee, Groundhog Day - I was a nobody, a dreamer…I even stopped trying to peddle my manuscript, though I did fete a little nibble given to me from an agent. It was a martini night! There was no ensuing hangover – just bitter disappointment when he decided to ‘pass.’ My name became Despair.
I took out my paints and let my creativity spill onto the canvas. It was a benevolent hedge – I have a deadline for a show. I know, I know. My hubris is insatiable that I want people to embrace my words as well as my paints.
This morning I madly searched the Internet for a ‘grow-up’ pill and found it with Mayer’s blog. I am starting chapter 8. I know I have a gift, I know I have a good book – the right person just hasn’t discovered it. By golly, there is an ass for every seat. No, my name isn’t Hope, and it ain’t Despair. It’s Reenie, and I’m a writer!
The publishing industry is, I think, tougher than most people can imagine. I had 30 years of rejection slips, and even then I had to marry a co-writer to break through! Most agents don’t even want most writers who already have books out.
I like your phrase “there is an ass for every seat.” Sometimes I feel that way when I write, sometimes I feel like “what ass would buy this?” I become convinced our editor is about to finally sober up and realize what dreck she’s been buying. And I’ve heard the same from plenty of other writers who’ve had some success. So the important thing is to ignore those bleak thoughts and keep going.
I’m buoyed again. Thanks! Reenie
Cassie, I spent three weeks in July 1998 in Philadelphia on business, and stayed in a hotel in Bucks County—one of the greenest places I’ve ever seen. Must be all that snow and rain. We hardly ever get it here, so this being our 7th wettest year in recorded history has us a bit out of our element. Every time I drive a little north to Temecula, this winter, I marvel at the snow capping the San Bernardino mountains, low on the slopes and semi-permanent. Most years there’s just a dusting that fades and returns with each storm. Some years there’s none at all. Snow at a distance is so easy to see as simply beautiful.
Reenie, I don’t think any writer manages to develop a skin thick enough to take rejection well. It just sucks! But there are rejections, and then there are rejections. I once got a scathing rejection from Marion Zimmer Bradley, and it felt awful, until I realized she’d written it herself. But most are form letters or so cryptic as to why, they may as well be form letters.
Eric and Vikk, thanks so much for stopping by, and Eric, thank you for the mention.