Regarding Class & Crit Groups

Last night was the final class of my picture book writing course, which is always a little bittersweet. You get attached to people’s stories and the personalities who created them. The final night always feels like my last opportunity to equip them with all they’ll need as they step from the safety of the class environment into the wider world of publishing. We talked about interpreting rejection letters and how to deal with their sting, and we watched the interview with Kate diCamillo embedded in my Rejection blog post.

This year, the course went from 8 weeks to 12, which pleased me to no end. I was thrilled to spend not just one but three weeks delving deeper into narrative structure—very well-spent time laying a solid foundation for a strong manuscript. Extra weeks also allowed me to try a number of new activities and exercises, which was great fun for me and, I hope, beneficial for them.

It was also quite wonderful to spend extra time with such an engaged, supportive, talented, and lovely group with a wide variety of stories. I will miss it. We also discussed things they felt they’d miss about the class environment, which we developed into a list of qualities we think are important in a critique group:

Most of those are likely self-explanatory, but “awareness of wider stuff” means learning more about the world and ourselves by exploring each other’s work, which is just what we set out to help children do, isn’t it? It was a really thoughtful addition to our list.

And “sharing the crazy”? Well, maybe that’s the most important part. It is for me, anyway. Having real friends and a support team who truly understand why we started—and then continue—this inspiring, maddening, manic, rejection-filled, brilliant journey without us ever having to explain it or plead its case. Kindred folk who “get” it. Our people.

Did we miss anything from our list? What would you add or highlight?

I want to end by saying to my latest batch of Rizzies, thank you, it’s been such a pleasure. 

Out on a Limb

Beginning another new project has been the very last thing on my to-do list. But phrases have been whispering in my mind, repeating and growing in number, as I go about doing other things. While I scramble some eggs or dump out the compost, phrases have been turning into sentences and racing by me, soon sucking along in their wake characters and flashes of scenes. I’ve found myself clutching my notebook at all times (especially between 1 and 4 AM), pencil to page in sudden, unstoppable bursts in order to capture them before they slip away.

This story is the type that comes out all at once, all scattered little pieces blowing about, beginning, middle, and end all right there just waiting to be caught and shuffled into place. It’s a powerful feeling, when a story comes at you in an unbidden whoosh like this. It makes me chuckle out loud as I write, even though it often comes when I’ve been thinking about things that are hard. When I’m in it, I wish writing were always like that; probably, it would be exhausting if it went on too long.   

But it is magical, rare, and powerful, and feels somewhat like falling in love. But as in any passionate relationship, one comes to the end of that first rush; the flashes of pure inspiration are starting to hint that they might be slowing just a little. I haven’t hit the wall yet, but experience tells me it’s coming. What seemed pure and beautiful has some warts, and sometimes it’s grumpy or uncooperative in the morning. My mother talks about the “13-Week Rule” in relationships—the thirteenth week being make or break time. I’m closer to thirteen days into this story, and I’m pondering: How do we know whether to commit to further exploring and developing a manuscript? How do we know when to let go?

Sometimes you have to break up with a project, I’m convinced. Over time, some projects become, like some relationships, pedestrian, uninspiring, unsurprising, detrimental to your psyche, and ultimately unworthy of continuing. And sometimes you just grow out of them. I’m sure most of us have a few manuscripts like that in the drawer. But sometimes you’re so connected to a project that your belief in its worth doesn’t alter much over time, even though the project itself may have its ups and downs, even though you must step away from it now and then to get some breathing space. 

Have you ever broken up with a project? Did you say goodbye amicably, simply lose interest, or was it a tumultuous separation that left you weeping and gasping? Did you dive straight into another to replace it? Have you gotten back together with a project you thought you’d left behind? Do you juggle several at once? Have you plodded through a literary relationship you dreaded was going nowhere but had invested too much in to drop? Would you rather take the safe route and stick with a project you’re sure to handle easily, or would you dare go out on a limb for the challenge that truly inspires you?

It can be all too easy to retreat when you find yourself in the weeds. Because if you don’t really love the project deeply in some way, you’re making an enormous and somewhat dubious commitment if you decide to marry it despite your ambivalence. So doesn’t making the decision to fully commit to a project come down to how it makes you feel deep down?

I think creating a truly strong manuscript worthy of submission is like having a deep, true love: worth sticking with when things go from pure inspiration to tangled complexity; something you can’t seem to let go of no matter how much easier it would be to do something less challenging; always worth exploring just a little bit longer. And it’s something that won’t let you go in return.

So if you’re brave, you commit to it (as I’ve decided to commit to this story), even though you know it will be pure hard work at times, even when you might not have expected to be writing it, even when you’re not sure how it ends, or even quite what it is. Because, like falling in love, who knows? How often do you experience something mind-blowing? And isn’t that why we’re really doing this? 

The Path to Publication

Recently, a writer asked me to be honest about whether he should continue to pursue writing or not. It’s not the first time I’ve been asked that question. It always catches me very off-guard, but it does make me want to say what follows:

I’m really not the one you should be asking. 

It would be the height of arrogance and stupidity for me—or anyone else—to suggest someone not pursue writing. We all start somewhere, and we all have quite a learning curve. Everybody. If we write, it’s because we are writers. And so we must write (or paint or sculpt or garden or whatever) or shrivel up and die a bitter, strangled creative/spiritual death.

But should we ‘pursue’ it…which I assume really means ‘pursue publication’?

When I was a younger, less experienced editor (and probably thought I knew more than I did, as is natural), I worked with a gentleman who was determined to be an author. He was incredibly eager, earnest, and gung-ho, but he just seemed to be starting in a difficult place. His work seemed a bit… well, unpublishable. But he just wanted to keep trying, no matter what the critique.

And so he did.

We kept working together, multiple drafts of first one book  and then another, both of us learning much along the way. Beneath the unpublishable veneer of what he was doing, there was something wonderful and inspired and rich in what he thought and felt and cared about. But it was just all coming out in ways that were not working at all. In truth, I didn’t think his chances of ever getting published were very good. I was almost certain he wouldn’t, in fact, even though I wanted it for him. But he loved it and wanted it for himself, and that’s all he saw in front of him (or so it seemed to me). So no matter what, he just kept on.

I don’t know what ups and downs he went through on his private journey as a writer, but I guess they’re the ups and downs we all go through. The self-doubt and the frustration, the elation and late nights. All I saw was his consistent drive, the revising, the eagerness, the upbeat attitude, the desire, the focus, and the pleasant, grateful willingness to listen intently, to learn every single thing he could. When he was ready he let go of ideas he’d tried and which he now understood weren't working. He tried new things that incorporated new knowledge. He was willing and ego-free and hardworking.

And he quickly proved me wrong. He grew. His work became good, then really good (in my humble opinion). It was amazing and wonderful to watch. He soon did what I had not managed to do at that point: he found a publisher who wanted his book, signed the contract, and produced a very saleable story with a lovely heart and appealing vehicle. I’ve never seen a writer with such a short journey to (traditional) publication. (Sure, it took years, but not even close to double digits like most of us.) 

He might well have wondered if he’d ever be a published writer. He never discussed that with me. Yet he knew he would, no matter how long or how hard the journey. He was the only one he needed to ask. 

In which you meet my handsome cello...

This is my cello. See how he sits there against my studio wall, surrounded by More Important Things? Watch how he admonishes me silently from his stand. Look closely, maybe you can see the dust there on his shoulders, the reproach in that lovely costume eye-patch he’s sporting. Yet each time I pass him or glance his way, a small feisty part of me is quite convinced that if I picked him up and played him, something exquisite would pour through me along the bow, into the strings and body, and spill forth singing and sonorous, resonant and ethereal. It will just spring from us almost unbidden, effortlessly, with great passion. The experience will feel transcendent.  

But it’s a complex act, playing a cello, and my playing, when I got round to it today, did not sound good.

There are many technical complexities in cello playing, and that’s before you even think about the artistry or the soul of the piece of music. I do know just how tight my bow should be, and I can tune my instrument perfectly. I can pick out an interesting melody and sometimes even hit the right note. I sound almost terrific when I am wearing big headphones and playing along to some *loud* cello music. But my small knowledge is far from enough. 

Playing the cello is something I’d really like to do well, but it’s not on my urgent list. I do feel more strongly about it than learning to blow glass or use a pottery wheel or surf and other things I’d quite like to do but could never hope to teach myself. I probably should take some cello lessons and practice every day, and I will when I have the time, money, and desire. 

In the meantime playing the cello is really hard and not always fun, in fact. Actually, it’s a lot like writing (c’mon, you knew where I was going with this). However, I can readily laugh off how bad I sound as I drag bow across strings and still happily fantasize about one day being listenable. I know I’m not my screechy cello playing, anymore than I am my excellent scone baking skills or my tragic inability to sew. But that’s hard to do with your writing, isn’t it? If our writing isn’t good, we feel it in our core as some terrible damning exposition of what’s deepest and most wonderful (or wrong) within us. Indeed,if I aspired to be the next Yo Yo Ma, I imagine the way I play the cello would be upsetting.

The thing is, we all understand it takes many lessons, a full understanding of tools, and many years of dedicated daily practice and fine tuning of artistry to become a concert musician—and yet we think we should be accomplished writers the moment we sit down to write, and then again each time we write. And when we fear that’s not happening, we quake at the thought of critiques. We shiver at the thought of sharing, of exposing our work and ourselves. We get really bloody frustrated. We let our writing and passion catch dust.

Does that make any sense at all?

All published writers have a long learning curve before they actually "make it." Everyone’s first attempts and early drafts sound like caterwauling cellos. So practice and play, be happy you’re on your way. One day, you will be a maestro. 

Permission

As an often-blocked writer and writing teacher, I think a great deal about process and the conditions required for us to write, keep writing, and write well. So much of writing (or perhaps any creative endeavor) is about ignoring, overcoming, or otherwise harnessing one’s basic personality flaws and/or neuroses.

For me, like many writers, it’s a fear of my stuff never being as good as I want it to be that sometimes stops me not long after I’ve begun. But as the inimitable Katherine Paterson said in her keynote address at the SCBWI winter conference a few years ago:

"I knew that if I didn't dare failure, or worse, mediocrity, I would never be a writer at all."

These words will stay with me always. But becoming a writer is not just about daring mediocrity. And it’s not just about hard work.

What it might really all boil down to is permission, the permission we give ourselves to:

• Make a space (physical, emotional, time) that is reserved for writing and creating.
• Request our loved ones respect that space.
• Ignore the growing pile of dishes in the sink and the dusky hue of the usually pale kitchen floor.
• Spend the money on the tools/equipment/memberships/conferences needed.
• Pull over on the road when our characters begin to whisper, pull out our notebooks in the supermarket’s dairy aisle, stop and listen and take notes.
• Go for a run or a walk or a drive or a shower if that’s what it takes to get them whispering.
• Unplug the router, to turn off the phone/TV,  give the social media a rest.
• Put the eternal research aside in favor of the writing.
• Go to crit group and share.
• March to the beat of your own drum.
• Fail.
• Try again and again and again.
• Succeed.
• Enjoy it all.

At some point in a writing career, the permission of others (agents, publishers, buying audience, etc.) becomes important too, but well before that it’s our own permission that matters. When you’re a person with a career and family responsibilities and all the things a modern person has to deal with, giving oneself permission can be extremely difficult. But really, aren’t we the only ones accountable to ourselves for the choices we make?

So if we don’t give ourselves full permission to be happy, successful writers and to undertake all that journey entails, it’s unlikely we’ll ever get anywhere.

How do you give yourself permission to write/create? How do you deny yourself permission?

Rejection

Tonight is my last class for this semester's Writing for Children's Books at RISD, and it’s rejection night. That’s right: this is the evening that I bring in my teetering pile of rejection letters and my students look aghast for a little while. A depressing way to end? I don’t think so at all.

They’re going to get rejection letters. Everyone does. The more rejection letters they get, the closer they’ll be to an acceptance. Each one is a necessary step. Each a rite of passage. Each an opportunity to revise and try again. And rejection letters do tend, after a while, to evolve, as I explain in class.

There’s always a student who says, “You actually keep them?!”

Of course I do. I was sifting through the pile this morning and found six “positive” rejections for a picture book I’d shelved some time ago. Now I’m thinking it might be time to get that text out and revise it, take a good hard look after letting it ferment and see what I can do to make it viable. Apparently, there’s something there to work with, which I wouldn’t have considered without the letters.

As I was researching author rejection statistics, I also came across this great little interview with the wonderful Kate diCamillo who apparently was rejected 397 times (sources vary on the number, and I saw as many as 500 times) before she found a  home for the 2001 Newbery Honor book Because of Winn Dixie.

So, today I thought I’d share my thoughts on rejection.

Rejection is What You Make It

My first form rejection made me cry. I think. I really don’t remember it that well, though at the time I probably felt I'd never forget the sting. In the seventeen years since then, I’ve had many rejections. Somewhere along the way, "positive rejections" began to outnumber form rejections, and after a time I gathered a few non-rejections—um, I mean "acceptances." Form letter-induced tears have given way to forced laughter, then grim-but-determined smiles, wry sighs, and now more or less indifferent shrugs.

This is par for the course. And it’s a challenging course. It’s not for the faint of heart. It will:

• bamboozle the uninitiated
• overwhelm the lazy
• shrivel up the gutless
• stymie the passive aggressive faster than they can wail, “It’s not my fault, it’s theirs!”
• quickly teach you whether or not you’re a quitter.

Achieving publication requires:

• guts
• stamina
• passion
• hard work
• vision
• professionalism
•  a hearty dose of mindless, blind faith that success is just around the corner… or the next… or the next...
• the belief that the journey, the lovely people met along the way, and the countless hours spent learning, creating, crafting, revising, and editing are worth the struggle
• niceness.

Glorious and bountiful form rejections:

• force you to be a better writer;
• show your developmental arc as a writer;
• teach you to accept rejection (any kind of rejection in *Life!*) with dignity, learn from it, shrug off any residual pain, and bloody well just get on with it;
• and tell you you’re probably gutsy, strong, passionate, hard-working, accepting, professional, and if you’re not already, at least on the way to being nice. And cool. And dignified. And visionary! And possibly slightly delusional, but that’s ok... You’re a writer.

* Originally posted on cleverbirdy.blogspot.com on 2.25.11