Author Archives: dinafried

The Danger of the Zero-Sum Game

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When I published my first book, Escaping Into the Night, with Simon & Schuster in 2006, I thought I had finally broken the publication barrier and was well on my way to achieving my goal of being a recognized author. Once that first book was published, the rest should be easy! And I had many ideas–and several manuscripts in various stages of completion in the drawer just waiting to be published.

But even though my contract required me to give Simon & Schuster an option on my next book before sending it anywhere else, they rejected my next manuscript. And the next. And the next. When I asked why, I was told that Escaping Into the Night didn’t do well enough–despite going into five additional printings and earning honorable mention designations from the American Library Association, Association of Jewish Libraries, and New York Public Library. When I reminded my editor of this, she said, “Well, you didn’t win a Newberry medal.”

O-kay… according to the Children’s Cooperative Book Center, approximately 5000 children’s books were published in 2006. Five of them won Newberry Honors. So, my book wasn’t in the top .001%. Gee! Sorry!

This is the thinking behind the predatory capitalist mentality and the “zero-sum game.” If you don’t win, you lose.

I’m thinking about this a lot this week while we’ve been in Florida managing yet another crisis with my father-in-law’s dementia. After being moved out of his home and into memory care a few weeks ago when his “sundowning” outbursts became too much for his home health aides to handle, he fell and broke his hip. In the last two weeks he has been in and out five different hospitals and rehab facilities. Each move has pressed further on his fragile ability to understand where he is and what is happening to him. At his worst, in another trip to the ER on Friday, he was shaking and crying and slapping at himself. I want to die! he screamed. You took it all away from me, and now I want to die. I’m already dead! I started dying when you took my apartment, my money, all my stuff!

As much as we patiently explained that his apartment was still there, and we could discuss whether he could go back to it after he was able to walk again (the apartment is inaccessible and he is completely bedridden at the moment), he could not be consoled. My father-in-law’s defining image of success–his only definition of success–revolved around independence: making his own decisions and doing things his own way. Once he lost that due to increasing dementia, in his mind, all was lost–a zero-sum game. He could not take a moment from his misery to appreciate even for one second some soothing music, a picture of his great-grandchild, the evocative shapes of the clouds on the skyline view out his hospital window, or us simply holding his hand and telling him that we loved him.

As I think about planning for my own aging, rather than focusing on the endless lists of financial minutiae that my father-in-law so meticulously put together and now lacks the cognitive ability to understand, I’m trying to instigate a practice now of cultivating gratitude for exactly the things I’ve been trying to point out to him that he does not see. This morning, in an attempt to “refill my empty tank” and fortify myself for another day fending off his anger on one end and negotiating intractable medical bureaucracy on the other, I spent a few minutes on the beach, mesmerized at the purple hues of the sky reflected in the ocean, the sound of the waves, the gulls strutting around in the sand.   Hopefully, if I’m ever plagued by dementia, I’ll be able to pull up that inner reservoir of abandoning the zero-sum game and simply enjoy whatever the moment has to offer me.

 

This is what I had to do as a writer 18 years ago: abandon the zero-sum game. And while it may not have been as difficult as that has been for my father-in-law (with admittedly less at stake, too) it still took a couple of years before I stopped thinking about being a writer as a win (big publisher)/lose (anything else) proposition and overcome the resulting depression that warped thinking caused.

But in the last several years, I HAVE reclaimed myself as a writer. And broadened the definition of a writer as anyone who uses their words to express a truth they’re compelled to tell (even when that truth is embedded in a fictional story). And while all truths may not touch all people, and some people will be more skilled than others in telling their truths, it’s the sharing of truth-telling that matters more than how much recognition or accolades I (or someone else) might get. And on days when I might doubt my own convictions, all I need to do is remember the outpouring of love and support at my launch reading for Immigrants last week, as well as all the comments I’ve received over the years from friends, colleagues and even strangers who have told me that my writing touched them.

And incidentally, the very small publisher who published Immigrants also requested an exclusive option on another work of fiction and subsequently rejected it–before Immigrants was even published. LOL it never ends!

How and Why

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Back in my business communication teaching days I often shared a tidbit with my classes that I picked up from the career center: To prepare for a job interview, make sure you can answer “how” and “why” to everything you wrote on your resume.

This seems like a good process for writers, too. We can ask ourselves questions like:

  • Why am I choosing to break this line in this spot?
  • Why would my character say–*that*? Or do *that*?
  • How can I convey my character’s emotions from describing the way she’s opening her backpack?
  • How can I integrate setting more effectively here to raise the emotional temperature of this conflict?
  • Why am I using a metaphor here instead of sticking to the actual image?

The questions can be endless. And while I almost never answer them with a logical and well-worded rationale, I do use them as a guiding light through my intuitive fogginess. In other words, the mere act of framing the question can help me figure out if the choices I’m making feel true and right, and also inspire me to try a few different approaches and compare the effects.

Lately, I’ve also been putting some of these questions in play in my piano practicing. How soft should I make this part?  How much rubato is too much? Articulating a rationale is even harder since both my intuition and field of knowledge are on much shakier ground. But framing the questions in order to consider different ways of playing gives me a sense of the options. And since I’m no longer trying to prove anything to anyone about my piano-playing, I end up just choosing what I like.

As I’ve had to sacrifice some of my writing and piano time to tackle book-marketing, I’ve come up against how/why questions that feel more annoying–perhaps because interviewers, bloggers, and podcasters need to have clear and well-worded responses, rather than the multi-directional swirls in my mucky brain.

Q. Why did you become a writer?
True answer: I don’t know. I’ve just always wanted to be one.
Cheeky answer (because true answer is way too bland): Because I knew I didn’t have the chops to make it as a Broadway or Carnegie Hall star. And with writing, you can have as many do-overs as you want before you put your work out in the world.

Q. How do you like to write? With a pen? On the computer? In the morning? Afternoon? Middle of the night?
True answer: Sometimes pen, sometimes screen. Morning is best, but I can force myself to write at any hour if I’m disciplined enough.|
Cheeky answer (because true answer is way too bland, and how I like to write has nothing to do with how someone else might like to write): Actually, I like to carve my thoughts in sand with a stick and then erase them like a Tibetan mandala. And, I guarantee, the muse doesn’t care what time it is and what color pen you’re writing with, even if you might care.

Prof Ranga Sai, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

So what questions do I hope people will ask me at my book launch reading for IMMIGRANTS on Wednesday night. Here are a few I’d love to chew on:

  • What was the hardest story in the book to write and why?
  • Which of your characters did you fall in love with and why? Which characters were difficult to empathize with and how did you manage to overcome that challenge?
  • How will you deal with reactions to this book from people who aren’t sympathetic to immigrant issues?

True confession: At this moment, I don’t know the answers to any of these questions, but I promise to corral the various options and choose one well-worded answer–just as I would in a job interview!

 

Support Your Local Writer

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After a week and a half of cooking nearly every day, I still have 7 beets, 11 carrots, one huge sweet potato and one huge daikon radish. And more food to come on Saturday!

In western Massachusetts, where I live, supporting the local economy is a huge value that transcends red/blue leanings. At the top of the list is buying from local farmers. In the summer, you can find a farmers market in one of the surrounding towns almost every day of the week. They are always packed with people  willing to spend a premium for the privilege of fresh, local food and the knowledge that they’re contributing to their neighbors’ labors of love. I also purchase summer and winter farm shares from various CSA farms for both myself and my children and their families. This means that at this time of year I’m basing more of my diet than I’d like on parsnips, radishes, and beets, but it’s still worth it to know I’m eating in sync with the season and supporting my community.

A second value that many of us share is supporting local businesses. While it’s often easier and sometimes cheaper to shop on-line (and I fully recognize that there are many people with various health or financial challenges for whom that’s essential), I try whenever possible to patronize local stores, often setting a challenge to myself to locally source all my holiday shopping. And since books are one of my favorite gifts to give, I end up spending a lot of my holiday shopping time at local bookstores. We have so many good ones. My favorites are (in alphabetical order): Amherst Books, Booklinks, Book Moon, Broadside, and the Odyssey Bookshop.

Independent bookstores often have an on-line component, which means you can order most books also available on Amazon through their systems. The price might be a few dollars higher than the Amazon price, but to me, that’s no different than paying a local farmer a little bit more to assure that they can meet their bottom line and stay in business.

However, not all books can be obtained at local bookstores. Many smaller independent publishers encounter obstacles or simply don’t choose to go through the extra hassle of getting their books on the Ingram distribution platform that these independent bookstores use. I had to lobby hard with my publisher before they were able and willing to get the book on Ingram–under a different ISBN, just to make things confusing–and that didn’t happen until six weeks after the book was published. In the meantime, I was grateful to the bookstores who were willing to take copies of Immigrants on consignment in order to address the concerns of many of my friends who told me they’d love to buy my book, but only if they could get it at a local bookstore. And I’m especially grateful to the Odyssey Bookshop for hosting my book launch event, now re-scheduled for February 7.

And I’m grateful to the friends who bought the book to support me, just as I try to support local writers by buying their books–another way of giving back to the community. This week I ordered three books from people I know through writing: Dean Cycon’s Finding Home: (Hungary 1945); John Sheirer’s For Now, and Eileen Cleary’s Wild Pack of the Living. I’m looking forward to reading these books. And if I like them, I’ll make to write a brief review on Goodreads and Amazon (I buy just enough from Amazon to make sure they’ll accept me as a reviewer). That’s another easy way to support a local writer. You don’t have to sound brilliant–and I generally don’t. One-to-two sentences can make a big difference.

And even if you’re not a big reader, buy a book for someone you think would enjoy it. Or buy an EP from a local musician, or a small piece of art or craft item from a visual artist. Just as we need fresh produce to nourish our bodies, we need art in all its forms to nourish our spirits. And we need to let the local artists in our community know we care.

 

Silver Linings in a Snowstorm

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Yesterday I was supposed to have my book launch reading for Immigrants at the Odyssey Bookshop, but the weather gods had other ideas. The forecast was for snow, sleet, and/or freezing rain starting in the late afternoon and continuing all the way into this morning. While accumulations were not expected to be significant, the roads were expected to be slippery.

While I’m an admitted snowphobe when it comes to driving, I knew I’d likely be able to make it to the bookstore, which is only 5 minutes away from my house. But I also knew that others who were planning to come were driving much longer distances. I didn’t want to ask people to risk their safety. And I didn’t want to risk a low turnout. Even though I’d already bought the snacks and the ingredients for brownie-making, I decided it would be best to postpone.

I don’t know if it’s from being born under the sign of Gemini, but communication has always been huge value for me. My pet peeve is when people don’t return my calls or texts, and it infuriates me when I’m not communicated information I need. So, even though the bookstore was willing to post on social media and notify the people who’d actually signed up to attend the event, I wanted to make sure that people who were thinking about coming, or might have been planning to come and not signed up, didn’t make an unnecessary drive through the slush or ice only to find out the event had been cancelled.

This meant a whole lot of texting, emailing, FB messaging, social media posts, etc. And it meant I ended up connecting with people I hadn’t spoken to directly, which felt really lovely. While my core identity is introvert, I definitely have an extroverted side, and all that communication gave me a surge of energy that kept me going and focused on the task. I was so touched by how many people answered my messages in a warm and personal way who thanked me for making a call on the side of safety. And I was surprised by the number of  people who said they had planned to come, or that they couldn’t have come tonight but they could come on the new date. It felt like such an overwhelming bubble of support from my community, this big universal love…

Between all this, I was also using that surge of energy to attend to political issues involving real immigrants, working with my immigration justice affinity group on a short emergency mailing to drive calls to Congress against the potential Senate deal that would trade away current protections and due process for people at the border seeking asylum and expand deportation of people who are already here, all in exchange for more military weapons for the Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. You can read more about that here.

So, I guess there are silver linings in a snowstorm–including the beautiful scenery when I woke up on Wednesday morning.

And, I was told by one friend that the new date February 7, has much better numerology–#8, a number which supposedly resonates with self-confidence, inner strength, and inner wisdom, among other things. I don’t know very much about numerology, but I’ll take it.

Hope to see some of you local people at the Odyssey Bookshop on February 7.

The Second Child

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Ironically, the day after I wrote the last post about my love/hate relationship with the spotlight, this wonderful feature of me in the Substack Starry, Starry Kite appeared. (Please check out this newsletter and subscribe!) So, I guess that means I’m doing my marketing homework.

It feels overwhelming, but in the past few weeks I’ve doubled the time I’ve spent on social media, mostly searching for and posting to groups. I also culled lists for a final email blast inviting people to my book launch next week, updated my Amazon and Goodreads author pages, revised my website, talked up the book at local bookstores, wrote an article for my alumni association, and connected with a number of editors of journals I’ve been published in to ask them to spread the word about the book. Still on my list is to set up and publicize a Youtube channel, investigate more blogs and podcasts, and connect more with journals and other relevant groups I know on social media, etc. etc. It never ends.

And as I was going full-steam ahead, a surprise snuck up on me. My poetry book  Here in Sanctuary–Whirling was suddenly in its final stages of pre-publication. In fact, it’s scheduled to come out from Querencia Press in late February and can already be pre-ordered at this link.

So now I have two books to drum up the buzz about. It’s kind of like having a second child, and (like the way I felt before actually having a second child) I’m worried about giving each book the love and attention it deserves. I had a similar situation in 2006, when my two children’s books, Escaping Into the Night and Playing Dad’s Song came out within months of each other. Escaping Into the Night continued to do well, since its unusual Holocaust story generated a lot of interest from middle school students and teachers. But Playing Dad’s Song, a book very close to my heart about music as a healing force from grief and aimed at a slightly younger audience, never found its niche. And several people with knowledge of the industry suggested its lack of success might have been related to being published too soon after my first book.

But these two new books are thematically related, so my plan is to market them together and let the books build on each other, treating Here in Sanctuary–Whirling as more like a late-arriving twin than a second child. There’ll be some differences in audience, since not all fiction readers like to read poetry and vice/versa. But both books center on the very human stories related to immigrants and immigration justice–one through poetry, the other via short fiction. And I believe there’s an emotional core in both these books that matters, and that we need to tell these stories to soften hearts and reject the horrible rhetoric that depicts immigrants as less than people.

And this alone is reason enough to keep marketing–and braving the spotlight.

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Shadowboxing the Spotlight

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Last Friday, even though I was thrilled to see this wonderful review/feature story on Immigrants come out in our local newspaper, I found myself facing the familiar discomfort of the spotlight. While I did what I knew I was supposed to do as a good book marketer: posting the link widely on social media and sending it around by email, there was a part of myself that just wanted to crawl into a dark place and hide from the rushing current of accolades. Can’t I just be humble? that small inner part of me whined. Why do I have to call so much attention to myself?

I’ve had a love/hate relationship with the spotlight since I was little and wanted to be a Broadway musical star. Then in high school, I think I went for an entire year without raising my hand in class. As an adult, there’s a part of me (who lives with the hider) that loves to perform. I enjoy public speaking (something most people hate) whether I’m reading my work, speaking at a rally, facilitating a gathering or ritual, or presenting in a workshop. I might be a little bit nervous with bigger audiences or unfamiliar contexts, but I’ve been able to quell that by imagining myself *talking to* a body of individuals rather than *speaking at* them. In other words, as I’ve said many times to college students in business communication classes or adult Continuing Ed students in my course, “Public Speaking for the Terrified,” take the “public” out of public speaking and think of the experience as simply speaking to other individuals from your heart on something you care about.

While I certainly care about my writing, and wouldn’t have a problem speaking about it to an audience of 5 or 500, marketing feels like an entirely different animal. For one thing, I’m sending/posting material that people aren’t necessarily asking for and competing with thousands of other people doing exactly the same thing. How can I justify contributing to our daily overwhelm of information overload? And if you ask the marketing gurus of this world, I’m likely not doing nearly enough for my book to make a splash, which is not good news to the perfectionist straight-A schoolgirl who also lives inside me along with the hider and the spotlight-seeker.

But hey, maybe a splash isn’t the goal here. Maybe I can be satisfied with a quiet series of ripples. Really, I just want people to read the book, my way of speaking from the heart on something I care about. If they want to read it, that is. I don’t need or want to be an arm-twister. Life is short. People are busy. We make our choices about what nurtures us.

A friend once told me I should think of all this marketing as an offering or invitation. But when you invite 50 people to a party and only 10 people come, it’s hard not to feel like there’s something wrong with you. Easier not to have the party in the first place, which has often been my fall-back. But with marketing you just have to have the party. And then another party, and another. And some of us just aren’t party-goers no matter how well I might describe the enticing activities or the mouth-watering food.

If there’s a conclusion to all of this, I haven’t found it. Other than to bravely step into the spotlight when it’s shining right beside me, but not worry too much or run too hard when it’s not within my sight or grasp. Hopefully that spotlight’s shining on someone else during those times. Someone who is also speaking from their heart.

 

Gratitude

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It seems fitting to start the new year with a post on gratitude.

Even if it at times it might feel like too much of a cliché to switch up the angst of the day with thoughts about what we’re grateful for, I do believe the recipe works. Expressing gratitude may not always result in the gourmet meal of your life, but it can be like a sauce you pour over your food to make it taste better. Or what was that line from Mary Poppins, Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. In the most delightful way. Emphasis on delightful. 

And for the new year, I’m trying a new way of thinking about gratitude. Instead of generically thinking about what I’m grateful for, which often brings up variations on the same list: my partner, my children and grandchildren, my close friends, the beautiful area in which I’m lucky to live, having good health and privilege, yada, yada, I’m mentally cataloging my day with discrete moments that brought me gratitude. I got this idea from my friend and colleague Tzivia Gover’s book, Dreaming on the Page.

Tzivia suggests the prompt, If I could preserve just one thing from this day it would be….

On Monday, January 1, what sprung to the top of the list was the long, leisurely brunch conversation over homemade crepes in our dining room with my partner, Shel, my younger child, Raf, and their partner, Nick. It wasn’t so much that any topic stood out as much as an ease of being and connection that felt precious. And even sweeter: gone was the usual nagging voice reminding me of all the tasks I had yet to complete and should be doing instead.

Yesterday (Tuesday January 2), the moment that edged its way to the top was visiting the tree I call my friend–a stout and stately presence on the Bachelor Brook Trail. I always stop to say hello, and this time, I took a picture of the view upward, made even more special in the bright blue sky on the first sunny day we’ve had in over a week.

Today (Wednesday January 3) is young yet, but in the running at this moment is that feeling of my chest expanding and energy releasing from my body when doing a cardio-work out earlier this morning. It’s not uncommon for me to experience those endorphin rushes, but it was still different to stop and appreciate the feeling as a discrete and special moment.

I often feel flummoxed and shut down when I think about what I can do to prepare for aging, because ultimately, none of us know what challenges might lie on the horizon. But I do think gratitude can be an important foundational practice, and better to institute now when I’m healthy and strong, rather than waiting to find silvers of good in the midst of more challenging times.

So I’m looking forward to continuing this practice for a while, and perhaps, mining these moments that give me joy and finding homes for some of them in poems and stories.

 

TAKING STOCK OF 2023

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As the year draws to a close, here’s what I’ve done in the publication/submission universe:

POETRY:

  • 86 rejections
  • 18 journals accepted 22 poems (Including one poem in Rattle!)
  • 1 chapbook accepted–Very excited about Here in Sanctuary–Whirling, which is forthcoming from Querencia Press in 2024. This dedicated and spirited small press has been a dream to work with. Cover reveal is coming soon!
  • 2 Pushcart Prize Nominations: Thank you so much to Gyroscope Review and the River Heron Review for this recognition.
  • 20 submissions still pending

SHORT FICTION:

Since I knew Immigrants was coming out soon, I only sent out one short story that wasn’t in the collection. That story got 12 rejections, with 2 pending.

The more exciting news on this front was that Immigrants did come out just last month and has already gotten some lovely reviews on Amazon and Goodreads. (Of the 13 stories in this book, 8 have been previously published by other journals.)

For those of you playing the submission game, be aware that stories, especially those on the longer side are harder to publish than poems, especially for a print journal that has to deal with space considerations.

CREATIVE NON-FICTION:

Essays I sent out were rejected 11 times, with 6 submissions still pending. One of the rejections made it to a final round and one of the pending submissions is in the final round. Also in this category–2 guest columns submitted to and published by our local newspaper, The Daily Hampshire Gazette: Losing the Light and Let Them Wear Tutus.

LONGER WORK:

I queried 27 agents this year about my music memoir, Imperfect Pitch. Three agents sent actual rejection letters, 3 are still pending (sent within the last three months), and 21 ghosted me. Of those that ghosted, 2 of them first asked to see a proposal and then ghosted when I followed up.

I also sent the book to three small presses and received 2 rejections. One small press submission is still pending.

And finally, I did take another stab at submitting a novel I’d given up on when I found out that Delphinium was considering unagented queries. The editor asked to see the whole book, and rejected it a month later with a letter that began, “Deer Dina…”

All these rejections may sound depressing, but I’m really okay with them. I’m glad to have far exceeded my goal of getting 100 rejections, and as I’ve said to many fellow writers, I make a point of not letting any rejection bother me for more than 10 minutes.

Besides the successes are incredibly sweet, and I’m grateful (and, quite honestly, also terrified) any time some of my words make it past my computer into the big, wide world.

Onward to 2024. Happy New Year!