‘The very impulse to write springs from an inner chaos crying for order, for meaning….”
With thanks to Aristotle, Robert McKee, Arthur Miller and this post by Scott W. Smith.
Tag: writing
Blue Collar Review and Partisan Press Remind Us That Angelfire is Still a Thing
Who knew? Check out BCR’s guidelines, hosted on Angelfire.
How All Literary Rejection Letters Should Start
This lets you know right away that the rest of the email is not about your Pushcart nomination.
After the salutation, the very first word of the first sentence should be “unfortunately.” This saves writers from having to scan the rest of the text for the word. It also means that if the writer’s e-mail service shows body text previews, the writer doesn’t even have to open the email to know they’ve been slush-piled. I still recommend reading the actual rejections just in case there are specific comments or requests for more work.
This message has been brought to you by the editors of a review somewhere in the formerly industrial Midwest. Remembering which story I sent them four months ago is pretty tough, and it looks like they forgot the title, too.
Since many of you visit this blog looking for bits and pieces about the MFA process and the nuts and bolts of trying to get pieces published, I thought I’d share the secret hierarchy of rejection letters.
1: The standard form letter like the one seen here. Not very gratifying, but don’t take it personally. You’re busy, they’re busy, and that’s just how it goes.
2: The form letter with your name and the title of your piece. Pretty standard practice. I think I get more rejections with this level of personalization than without.
3: The personalized rejection letter with a personal note telling you how much they liked your story, even though it’s not for them, and encouraging you to send them more. In the super-competitive and completely subjective literary world, this can feel almost as good as an acceptance. When you’re at this point with a specific piece or a specific market, you know that the editors really looked hard at your piece, thought about it, and saw enough promise (or whatever they look for) to personally encourage you as a writer. No one owes you that, so when you get it, it’s a good thing. Follow up with a thank you.
The most important thing to remember? We’re talking about subjective responses to art. You will “fail” often, especially in the beginning. The thing is persistence and, very often, revision.
Robert McKee’s One-Hour MFA
I haven’t watched this whole video yet, but any time successful people talk about the crafts of writing and storytelling, it’s worth checking out. When you have an hour to spend, why not spend it with Robert McKee? Yes, yes it is good enough for me. Good enough for me and Bobby McKee.
So, You Have an MFA?
Just saw this from the New York Times on my friend Conor’s Facebook feed:
Funny and often true. Just another reason we have to keep creating. Have to have to have to. Looking forward to your novel, Conor. You’re quite good at this creation business.
Novel Progress: 3000 Words In Three Days
I’m on a roll, and I thought you should know. I had a low day yesterday at 300, but sailed through 1700 hundred today. There’s no finer feeling in this process than organic production, the joy of the flow, the subconscious tying together of threads and layers, the dropping of symbols, the way your brain works when you let it. But (and if you’re a writer, I know you know this), you don’t ever start there. You have to do the grueling, embarrassing, tiring footwork to break into those times you’re writing from what our cousins the athletes call The Zone. You’ve heard of Kevin Garnett “playing out of his mind”? Writing can be just like that when you consciously train it to do subconscious work. The key here is work: just ask Ray Bradbury.
Not long ago I heard a sort of writing koan that went something like this:
“If you read one hundred poets, you’ll sound like one hundred poets. If you read one thousand poets, you’ll sound like yourself.”
In the linked post from a blog called Screenwriting From Iowa, Bradbury talks about writing 1000 words a day for 10 years before finding his voice. Now I’m not saying it will take everyone that long, but the point here is commitment, sweat equity, effort. The point here is to write through the desires not to, to write through to your sweet spot, to write enough crap to know what isn’t.
A huge part of my productivity comes from being forced to look at my work through different eyes via workshops, peer groups, and input from professors and my thesis advisor. Recently, I finally took some oft-quoted, not-heeded advice about writing in general from Ann Hood. Namely, blow it up. For me, blowing it up means messing with structure, order, and my preconceived notions about the book’s main conceits. I’m not saying your epic tales should be written by committee. I am saying that I know my advisor and my peers are right about what’s lacking in the story so far. Addressing those needs s up to me. And so I shall. And so I am.
Rest assured, friends, this novel will be finished by May 1. Do stay tuned.
Writing and Revising with Ann Hood and Joseph Conrad
When I was in my MFA program, I felt like the luckiest person in the world. My classmates were amazing, my teachers brilliant. My job in that course of study was to learn, as best I could, how to build a story. Ann Hood told us that whatever our latent talent, we were there to learn how fiction works, and how and why it doesn’t. She taught us to be merciless with the things we thought we’d been so clever about, and, in short, to blow them up.
Joseph Conrad reminds us that revision literally means to see anew. Ann might say that revision isn’t a necessary evil but a necessary good. Someone else said “anyone can write, but only a writer can revise.” Most honest writers will tell you that the story is really written in the revision.
Beginning writers sometimes feel so beholden to their initial muse that they mystify everything and end up producing very little. Writing is a craft. Yes, it requires inspiration. There are days when I stare at the page or the screen and do very little with my hands. Then there are days when the ideas and language flow. I can’t control which day is which, but I can do by best, on the slow days, to prepare myself for the fast ones. The later are more thrilling, for sure. But they don’t come without the former. Feeling stuck? Read a book. Watch a well-written show. Listen to a song that keeps raising the narrative stakes.
Chris Cocca 