Category: Faith

On Rejection

~ plainswriter ~ 2 Comments

Two weeks ago in my prose Creative Writing class, we read and discussed Bret Lott’s essay, “A Home, a House: On Writing and Rejection,” from Before We Get Started: A Practical Memoir of the Writer’s Life. In the essay, Lott explores the relationship between the writing life and the publishing life, using the analogy of a lean-to in the woods for the writing space and a house built from rejections (and acceptances). He calculates, as of August 2004, that he has received 597 rejections (for stories and essay alone–not his books). This figure (understandably) startled my students.

As I visual aid, I brought my binder of rejections (those that I saved) beginning in 2003 and running through 2009, when I stopped saving them. The binder also contains my earliest acceptances, including my first post-MFA acceptance: a poem in The Chaffin Journal. I told my students how I had danced around my apartment, how Amy and I had celebrated by going out to eat at some fast-food place in Southeast Portland. Using the classroom projector, I displayed my Submittable account, showing them first the number of rejections, and then the acceptances. My disclosures added an up-close example of several of Lott’s points.

By my rough estimate, in 12 years I’ve sent out close to 500 submissions. As my website’s publications section attests, some fellow editors have decided to publish my poems, stories, essays, and reviews. I’m proud of each item on that list, not embarrassed by any of them, and I take great satisfaction in the places where some of these works were published.

Lott reminds writers that they “will be rejected,” and he suggests that writers need to view the submission element of writing as a “business transaction.” I understand both ends of the “business transaction” element of submissions: as a writer, and as an editor. Since I became editor of Windhover in 2012, my own comfort level with being rejected has increased. This isn’t to suggest that I enjoy rejection but only that I understand and “accept” the dynamics: I don’t take rejection personally. I reexamine the work (perhaps), and then send the piece (or pieces) out again.

In the closing section of the essay, Lott reminds writers that the real joy, the real delight is in the creation of (and reworking of) the pieces themselves. I agree. Probably because I hold on to that exhortation, I find that the submission process (the rejections, the acceptances, the unanswered submissions, the lost submissions) doesn’t wildly raise or drop my emotional barometer as it once used to. Perhaps as Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes in that famous passage, we might add that there is time for publication, a time for rejection.

On Editing (#2)

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2 months ago I wrote about my experiences as a guest fiction editor for a newer journal, Driftwood Press. At the end of that post, I referred to other kinds of editing I’ve done, adding that I would write at a later date about some of those experiences. Today, I thought I’d share about a wonderful editorial experience I had two summers ago.

One of my pastors, Austin Fischer, approached me about offering a critique of his manuscript. Even though it was already accepted for publication, he wanted someone to read it from a literary angle, to read it at the sentence level. Having the summer open in front of me, and interested in his project, I said yes.

For a few weeks I spent time in the world of his book, Young, Restless, and No Longer Reformed: Black Holes, Love, and a Journey In and Out of Calvinism. The first pass involved reading the book from beginning to end, leaving aside my Pilot G2 .07 black pen. As I read, I was absorbed in his story. It sure makes editing more meaningful when you’re genuinely interested in the writer’s work.

The second pass I read with my standard pen in hand, looking for ways in which the language might be improved, stylistic glitches might be remedied. Where might sentences be combined? Where might sentence patterns be varied? Where might there be crisper verbs, sharper nouns? How could I help Austin’s message be more clear?

I gave Austin my marked-up copy one Sunday after church, and we made plans to meet later that week after he read through my line edits. I recall a sunny morning where we sat outside at Starbucks. I was drinking black coffee. I shared some further observations about the book, and there was the pleasure as he offered me words of affirmation in what I provided. I knew my work was not only appreciated and valued; my suggestions moved something already good toward the great.

And in those ways, I felt less like a line editor and more like a writing coach. I believed in his book from my first read, and even after “marking it up,” I had a more profound admiration of what he was sharing in his story. I’ve told him that I’m ready for the next book, whenever he’s ready to write it.

Note: if you’re interested in what editing services I can provide, please feel free to send an email to plainswriter.nlh@gmail.com or contact me via the Contact menu tab.

On Creative Nonfiction

~ plainswriter ~ 3 Comments

Much of my writing output is poetry and short fiction. I’m most comfortable and familiar with these two genres, read them the most, enjoy them the most. I teach both of these genres in my role as a college educator; however, I also teach creative nonfiction within the context of a prose creative-writing class. Lately, I have been discovering (rediscovering?) some of the pressing issues in writing creative nonfiction. And I’m thinking about some of these issues because I know an individual who is working on a memoir and asked me, “I’m trying to be as honest as I can, without hurting people I love. Any advice on that?” Whew. That’s a tough question.

Two weeks ago, I received an acceptance of a piece of creative nonfiction, a piece that I presented at the 2014 Texas Association of Creative Writing Teachers’ Conference. I was excited of course. I felt good reading the piece at the aforementioned conference, and I am glad the piece has found a “home” in a magazine I admire. Although I have my share of poetry and short fiction publication, this piece will be my first published creative nonfiction, which is also exciting.

In his excellent creative nonfiction text, The Truth of the Matter, Dinty W. Moore addresses the idea of the writer’s motivation in writing creative nonfiction: why are you telling this story? When teaching this genre to writing students, I pose this question, as well as these two: are you trying to get revenge on someone? Are you trying to make yourself look better than you were/are? For me, these are three fundamental questions in creative nonfiction because the “characters” are real people. I want to be fair, as truthful as possible, and yet in that truth-telling, I must also practice tact. What to include, what to omit, how to say what I want say–these are all considerations, too.

After I received the question quoted above, I began scouring the internet for available articles that I thought might be helpful to pass along. At the same time, I had this feeling in my gut that I needed to reexamine my forthcoming publication. In the piece, I am recounting a series of incidents from my time in a Christian rock band and a weekend tour that was a disaster (from my perspective). In portraying the concert promoter and the visiting evangelist, I realized that I was being uncharitable at the expense of delivering a few more jokes, jokes that were essentially cheap shots. When I read the piece aloud at the conference, it generated a good response. Laughter in the places where I had hoped to achieve laughter. But the promoter is still involved in lay ministry. The evangelist/church planter has a growing ministry. And despite some of my theological disagreements, they were (and still are, as far as I can discern) genuine people, “real” people–not simply “characters” in a story that’s “made up.” I had to think about my motivation for telling this story, arriving at the conclusion that the main target of the piece is really me (as a 21-year-old) and some of my assumptions and my self-inflated ego.

In discussing these matters, I do not intend to paint myself in a more positive light as though I’m some “holy roller” who has it all figured out. I’m only trying to engage the core questions with which I challenge my creative writing students. I am trying to answer these questions, confronted by my own lack of charity. So there is rewriting to do, and I’m grateful that I can do so (since the piece won’t be published until the fall sometime.) As the late Richard Marius wrote in “Writing and Its Rewards” (a wonderful brief essay), “Writing is a parable of life itself.”