Category Archives: critique

The Perils of Publication

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Last Thursday evening, as I was packing frantically to leave the next morning for a week-long trip for family events in Minneapolis, I got an email from my editor that my book, Immigrants, was finally live on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple, and Google Books. I still don’t have my author’s copies or any indication of what the final product (post proof corrections) looks like in print, so it felt a bit illusory to suddenly be published in the digital universe with no hard evidence.

Yet, finally here it was–available for any and all to read. And like–or not. And praise–or not.

While publishing is the goal for many writers, it’s also terrifying. Because even when it’s fiction–as this book is, your book is still a process of excavating the deepest things that matter to you and spilling them to the universe. And when you’re published, you no longer get to control who reads your work and what they’ll say about it. In fact, your goal is to get as many people as possible to buy your book in order to make your sales numbers look good.

This is why I always try to buy the books of writer friends I know, even if it might take a few months before I’ve have time to read them. And this year I’ve had some wonderful reads! Highlights were for adult fiction: Gene Luetkemeyer’s, My Year at the Good Bean Cafe, and Katheryn Holzman’s, Granted; for YA: Benjamin Roesch’s, Blowing My Mind Like a Summer Breeze, and Jeannine Atkins’ Hidden Powers; for memoir, Magdalena Gomez’s, Mi’ja and Ani Tuzman’s, Angels on the Clothesline; for creative non fiction, Anne and Christopher Ellinger’s Authentic Fulfillment; for poetry, Rich Michelson’s, Sleeping as Fast as I Can  and Lindsay Rockwell’s Ghost Fires, and for a book on writing, Tzivia Gover’s Dreaming on the Page. (Note: While I mostly used Amazon hyperlinks, because that was easiest to search for, most of these books can also be ordered from a local bookstore, or you can contact the author or publisher if you prefer not to use Amazon.)

And if you have something complimentary to say–whether you know the author or not–it can be very helpful to leave a short review (1 to 2 sentences is generally sufficient). If you’re not an Amazon user, they sometimes won’t let you onto their platform, but Goodreads is also an option, as is simply spreading the word to friends you think might also like the book.

So, here’s my shameless way of pivoting to book marketing–a task I find as appealing is cleaning the toilet. If you feel so moved, I’d be honored if you buy a copy of Immigrants. And if you like it, please do leave a review. Or write to me and let me know what you thought. And while you’re at it, please check out some of the titles above.

 

 

The Down Side of Being Published

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As the publication date for my new book, Immigrants, draws closer, I’ve had a few more insomnia-driven nights than usual. And the question that keeps me up more than any others is: What if people don’t like my book? 

The word “publish” derives from the Latin word publicare, which means to “make public.” So, yes, when you publish your work it’s no longer you and your writing curled up in a cozy room. Your creative baby is out there for public scrutiny–your heart, stripped down to be as raw and vulnerable as you can stand. It’s not for everyone.

I like to think of myself as being relatively thick-skinned. Yet, even when I post published poems on social media I absolutely count the number of likes. Why did one recent poem get 46 likes and the other only 10? Was there something wrong with the second poem? Was it a bad poem?  And was that quick  “wonderful,” in the comments meant as a heartfelt response to the work, or a simple message of support from someone who might like me, even if they’re tepid, or confused, or maybe even turned off by my words.

I could get all huffy and say, My writing and I are one and the same! Love me, love my words! Understand and resonate with every single one of them! If you don’t, there’s something wrong with you. 

Or, more likely, something wrong with me! 

Because, ultimately, the writer is the chef serving up the tasty nuggets. So if the eater doesn’t like them, then the chef must not being doing their job.

Unless the chef is making an array of rhubarb pies, muffins, and turnovers and serving them to a crowd of people who can’t stand the taste of rhubarb.

Veganbaking.net from USA, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

One of my writing mentors (Pat Schneider, founder of Amherst Writers & Artists) said we should think of our writing as a type of music. Some people just don’t like jazz. Others can’t stand classical music, or country music. So if someone doesn’t respond to your writing in the way you might like them to, that doesn’t always mean that you’re the problem. They just may not jive with your progression of harmonies.

Still, it was hard when one of my novels got a mediocre review. And despite the book winning awards and getting a lot of other very good reviews, this was the review I remembered. Negativity bias, (taking negative information more seriously and intensely than positive information) is a real thing. And it’s not a flaw in our personality. It’s connected to our innate “fight-or-flight” response.

I think it’s fine to choose not to publish, to share your work only with people whose reactions will be uplifting and encouraging, or choose not to share your work at all. But if you do choose to set out on the thorny  publication path, try not to get swept up in any negative comments that might get flung your way. Instead, thank all those people on social media who took the time to write “wonderful,” because they cared about you–whether they genuinely liked your writing or not.

 

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To Share or Not to Share

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“You have to learn to take rejection not as an indication of personal failing but as a wrong address.” ~ Ray Bradbury

Even when we’re not asking an entity from the great gods of publishing to judge and dissect our work to give us outside proof of its worthiness, when we share our writing, the stakes can be significant. In fact, when your best friend doesn’t like something you’ve written, it can feel much worse than a journal rejection. Because even when the people you love are trying to be diplomatic, you can usually sense their ambivalence in their tone, or the way they might hem and haw as they try to figure out a nice thing to say, or when they ask you an off-topic question that demonstrates beyond the shadow of a doubt that they just didn’t get what your story or poem means to you (and what you think it should mean to them). Or they don’t know what to say so they focus on the grammar: Are you sure “its” shouldn’t have an apostrophe here?

So, what to do?

The urge to share what we write can be compelling. Sharing is what connects us. We write because we want to be heard, validated, acknowledged. While it’s a purely personal decision to decide when, with whom, and how to share, here are some suggestions to share in a way that both enhances and protects our vulnerability.

Be true to yourself about WHEN you want to share: There are many times I want to take myself and my writing to some snowy inn on top of a mountain and sit with it by a fireplace at a candlelit table for one. And this is a perfectly fine choice, whether you do it literally or metaphorically, especially for writing that still zings in its its newness and rawness. I find that I don’t necessarily need outside validation for every word that leaks out of my pen or pours out of my keyboarding fingers. Often the catharsis of dealing with a difficult emotional subject or finding the right words to capture a joyful moment, or a knotty character revelation can be its own reward.

Be discerning about WHO you share your writing with: Chances are, your soulmate in love and life will not be your best writing/sharing buddy (though I know some lucky few soulmate pairs that defy these odds). And words from your soulmate, your parent, your child, your best friend, all of whom know you too well and in too many other contexts carry much more weight than comments from people who know you less well, or those who know you only in a writing context. I could write a very long book that had nothing in it but annoying things people I love have said to me about my writing. And while I can’t ban all these stinging nettles from my memory, as I know I should, I do my best to consign unhelpful comments to their own little corner of my mental closet.

Be Clear About Exactly WHAT Feedback You Want: Especially with those you love–and even more so if they are not writers–ask them to tell you some things they liked about your writing–an image, a description, a funny moment. If you’re ready to hear their more constructive feedback, ask them to frame it as something they were confused about or didn’t understand, rather than giving you a prescriptive way of how to “fix it.” These can be helpful guidelines in a writing group, as well. However, if you are open to prescriptive suggestions, especially from other writers who likely have more experience than your friend-set in solving writing issues, be sure to consider any suggestions as a possible exploration that can get you closer to your own path, rather than as a “must do.”

Happy sharing!

 

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Taking Stock of 2022–Part II: Submissions

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“Dear Sir or Madam would you read my book. It took me years to write, will you take a look…” —The Beatles, Paperback Writer

 

2022 was the first full year I had no teaching responsibilities, which meant more time for writing and more time for submitting my work to journals. Many writers I know would rather scrub toilets than submit their work, but I’ve generally liked the “submissions” process, a word that really should be reframed (as one of my mentors pointed out) as “offering” your work to others, rather than submitting to anything or anyone.

Why do so many writers hate submitting? Because it sets us up for rejection. Most literary journals reject at least 80-90% of what’s offered to them. And the top journals accept less than 1%. A rejection can easily be (mis)interpreted by our inner critic and societal expectations as a message that you are a bad writer. But really, this isn’t about you. Having been a reader for journals and residency applications, I’ve seen a lot of good work that gets passed over, simply because there’s so much of it. The process of winnowing down to find the best fit for a particular venue can be excruciating. So rather than thinking of rejection as being a condemnation of my work or my writing abilities, I think of it more like playing the lottery or entering a raffle. Likely, I’m not going to win, but occasionally, I do… and that’s lovely.

I’ve also made it a point not to let any rejection bother me for more than 10 minutes. Well… occasionally 15, if the rejection’s accompanied by a snarky letter (which is rare, but has happened). And that is a very good New Year’s resolution to have. A second one might be a goal to accumulate 100 rejections in 2023.

I had a better than average year for submissions in 2022:
–24 journals/anthologies accepted 28 poems. 48 poetry submissions were rejected; 42 are pending.
–Fiction was more typical. I submitted short stories to 31 journals. 1 was accepted, 25 rejected, 5 pending.
–For essays, I had 1 acceptance, 9 rejections, and 4 pending.

And most exciting, my fourth book, Immigrants, a short-story collection was accepted after accumulating only 15 rejections!

So, adding up the numbers, while I’m delighted about 27 acceptances, I only got 97 rejections in 2022. Hope I do better in 2023.

 

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Critique: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

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I recently came across a social media post from someone who talked about the difficulty of being asked to critique poetry that in his words, “isn’t very good.” The writer didn’t want to make people feel bad by being honest, and yet he felt strongly that standards for “good art” shouldn’t be compromised. He tried to resolve the issue by comparing the situation to music. No one would expect to give a concert after their first three violin lessons, he rationalized. So perhaps I can make up some cards that say things like, “take a course, learn what a cliché is, learn what triteness is, and read some really good poems. Take your time. You’re not going to get it in a week.”

 

As a Suzuki parent, I’ve witnessed many beginner violin concerts featuring cute little kids with not too many more than three weeks of violin lessons scratching their way through Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. No one expects the audience to have a great musical experience hearing them; yet, this teaches these children early on that they have a voice and what they are saying through their music matters enough for people to listen to them despite their flaws and inexperience. This is an important lesson not only for the children, but for everyone in our goal-oriented society. Our all-or-nothing approach when it comes to fame and accomplishment minimizes the personal sharing of one’s art on whatever “level” it’s at, and amplifies only those who reach the highest bars of success, causing many to quit and abandon their own artistic voices when they realize they’re never going to reach that level.

 

This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t learn what a cliché is and work to avoid triteness in our writing. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t keep practicing our music and try to get better. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t read great poems or listen to musicians we admire. I’m all for studying great writers and musicians and being wowed by them. I’d just like to see a more permeable playing field instead of a high fence between those who have it (and are therefore defined as “good”) and those who don’t (defined as “bad”). Why can’t we feel joy in praising the ambition of a poem, even if its execution might reflect the poet’s inexperience? Or—even better—praise the one true line or phrase that leaps over that fence and truly sings?

 

In teaching violin to children, Dr. Suzuki’s philosophy is to fix one thing at a time. One week (or for as long as it takes) you focus only on bow hold; the next on phrasing, etc. We should be that gentle to each other in writing—giving criticism that doesn’t overwhelm and overload, and which will help the writer on their path—whether that be to take one step further toward writing great poems, or to simply process what they can’t easily express in other ways. And instead of telling writers their poetry is “bad” or too far from the high bar of poets we all admire, we can simply say, “I hear you! Your voice matters.”

 

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