Writer's Block? Get Someone to Start it for You.

In many of my past blog posts, I have writing about trying to find inspiration. This week, I’ve found a new way to get some inspiration and to submit to a magazine with specific instructions. In my mind, a writer will have a much better chance at getting published if an anthology (in this case) has specific instructions.

I think specific instructions often eliminate many writers, giving me a better chance of acceptance. Also, I think that many writers are just looking for literary places they can recycle their rejected works. If these writers are faced with submitting a piece they already wrote to another magazine versus writing for another magazine, I think they will recycle their old. Anyway, let me get more specific with this inspiration.

I stumbled across it once in the past, but again just the other day. The anthology was calling for works that all began with the same paragraph. I once submitted to a literary review that all used the same line, but never a paragraph. In my past submission, I was rejected, but not with complete failure. They asked me to submit again sometime and told me they enjoyed my style. Ah, hope! It’s nice to see sometimes.

With focusing on my screenplay lately, I have written few short stories. These instructions were calling me to write. How hard could it be to write, when they’ve already started the writing? With a 5,000 word cap, I hammered out a story half of that but in a little over an hour. I actually think that this is one of the better pieces I’ve written in a long time. Hopefully, if you are stuck with writer’s block, you will fair well with one of these pieces too!

Which Words Count?

Reading a massive amount of e-mails this week on a listserv used by the online tutoring company that I am employed by, I picked up quite a few lessons on what I do wrong in writing. When writing creative fiction, I very easily convince myself to go ahead and throw grammar rules out the window.However, I learned by doing this I threw my chances of being published out the window as well.

So what are literary journals looking for that depends so much on grammar? Well, they want to see the writer get to the point. Whether this means eliminating repetition, extra words, or writing in the active voice, doesn’t necessarily depend on the different journal. The reader wants the author to get to the point. The reader wants to see the action happen. The literary journal wants to give the reader what she wants.

Recently, I read The Portrait of a Lady. I realize that I may be going against many in the literary community by saying it was one of the worst books I have read, but I’ll write it anyway. The story moved slowly, contained little action, mostly description, and repeated the same images. Yes, many of the images were beautiful and poetic, but I think they overwhelmed the story for 500 of the 600 pages. I literally yelled at the book “What is your point?!”

Don’t let your story fall into the pit of the yelling editor. Writing in the active voice helps to keep the reader involved in the action, limits the author’s intrusion on the reader, and lessens the wordiness. This has been my biggest struggle. At this point, I am revising my unpublished works, making sure they are in the active voice, eliminating unnecessary words (“that” is a big one), and ridding the paper of repetition. I suggest if you want to revise your rejected works the first thing you do is make sure you are writing in the active voice and not repeating yourself.

What Do You Do With Bad Work?

The first inclination you may have as a writer of a crappy piece of work is to throw it away, despite the time and half-hearted effort you put into it. For me, this usually comes when I am struggling to sit down and just spend time writing. I make myself write and I come out with something truly awful that I want to throw away. However, after all that work, is it really necessary to throw it away?

I never throw anything away. I am a pack rat by nature. This includes everything I have ever written, probably since the time I was an aspiring poet at the age of eleven. That’s right, I have binders somewhere that have all my writing. Why do I keep it? Probably every piece I have written has at least some value to it. I can return to the emotion I felt when I wrote that piece and write it better than I did when I was eleven. Looking at the bad stories I’ve written lately, there is always some detail or bit of storyline that I know can turn into something good.

These pieces are essentially inspiration to pull the good and make the bad into something better. Read through your old work. Is there one line that is a keeper? That is the reason you keep the work. Sometimes that’s all you need to get started on a good piece. Even if you don’t have one redemptive line, you’ll have the experience to write about. How many people can relate to a story of someone failing miserably in the things she loves to do? How bad is this failure? How funny is this failure?

Don’t underestimate the importance of anything you do. As a writer, you should be looking to take away something from everything you do. Look for that one detail that can inspire a great story. Look for that one detail that people see everyday but don’t recognize its significance until it is pointed out to them. Hold on to that work, it may be redemptive after all.

A Free Writers Workshop?!?

With so many options of places to send your writing, you know where you can send it. But, what about when it is ready to be sent? Is your story or poem ready to be scrutinized by volunteer readers and editors who may or may not know anything about the art of creative writing? Have you showed anyone your work beyond your always supportive-no-matter-what-you-do family? Have you considered sending your work away to one of those “writers’ workshops” online where people determine whether or not your work is even good enough for them to look at? Or have you looked into going to a workshop yourself, but are too afraid people will “hate” your work?

Many writers send their work around without actually knowing if it is ready to be sent around, either because they are too afraid to show people that will tell them to their face how they feel about it, or they are just too lazy or unwilling to get someone’s opinion on their “perfect masterpiece.” Reality Check: I will venture to say that no piece of writing in history was ever a “perfect masterpiece” on the first try.

Here’s the key thing to remember: first, and foremost, writers’ workshops offer opinions. That’s it. However, you can gain great insight into your strengths—and weaknesses—in your piece and as a writer. Ok, ok, so writers’ workshops can be costly, especially if you have to travel. I have a solution: have a FREE online writers workshop.

There is less to be afraid of because you don’t have to see the other writers. You don’t have to have a set meeting time if you don’t want to. There are no costs. But where can I find this kind of writers’ workshop, you ask? Right here, on this blog. If anyone is interested in holding this writers’ workshop, I will moderate the online workshop (I’ve moderated one in person workshop previously) and we can set it up via blog and/or chat room.

Now, there are absolutely no excuses left. Now it’s your turn. Send me a comment on my blog and I’ll get back to you within the week. Cheers!

Who Needs an Agent?

Do you need an agent? This question recently came up on a writer’s listserv. Actually, the question was more like, I know I need an agent but where do I find one. I never considered this question, but now I realize that it is an important question to address.

Who needs an agent? If you are writing a couple of short stories or poems and you are looking to submit them to literary journals and anthologies, there is no need to get an agent—in fact you would probably have a hard time finding an agent that would take you on as a client. If you are, however, looking to publish a novel or to sell a collection of stories or poems, you should look to find an agent.

Where do you find an agent? A good place to network and to look for an agent is at conferences. Often there are specialized conferences specifically for your genre or just general writing conferences. Since conferences can be on the costly side of things, make sure you choose the best conference for your needs. This conference will allow you to network with other authors, meet agents, and to learn more about the craft.

Where do you find conferences? Look in the classified section of most literary magazines and you should find a section for conferences. Also typing writer’s conferences into yahoo will do the same thing. There is an abundance to pick from, but be sure to work the cost into your budget. And if you find any good ones on fiction, let me know!

Fight Those Rejection Slips

More and more rejection slips come in the mail every week. Pink ones, white ones, if you are lucky a handwritten one. But how do you deal with rejection? How many times can you send the same piece out? How are you going to get your big break with a large literary magazine? If you are asking yourself these questions, start over. These are the wrong questions.

Like many young writers, I decided that I wanted my poems and stories in only the best literary magazines. My writing was just as good as everyone else’s, so if I sent it in to as many literary magazines as possible, someone was bound to like it, right? Wrong. After listening to a podcast on the Poets and Writers website that interviewed leading editors from today’s top literary magazines, I knew I was way off with my questions.

I think every editor on the podcast said that the magazine s/he edits for accepts about one percent of the submissions it receives. At this point you’ll probably ask the question “why do I even try?” One editor explained that this is not necessarily accurate information. If you narrowed down the percentage to the number of people that followed the submission guidelines and submitted works that applied to the magazine, the acceptance rate would be much higher. She even said that people would send in Sci Fi and Romance stories when her literary journal obviously did not publish those kinds of stories.

So, in translation, follow the submission guidelines and read at least a few pieces from the genre that you are submitting to from the magazine. And as for those questions: Instead of resending the same piece over and over to magazines, take a look at it after each of your rejections. How can you improve it? What do you think the editor didn’t like about it? Is there a literary journal that accepts work close to what you have? Another thing to consider: there are plenty of literary journals out there; do your research. You do not have to be published in the largest or most notable literary journal at first. You are a writer no matter what journal has published you.

Inspiration: It's in Front of You

As I worked out this morning, I watched the first episode of October Road from abc.com. The show reminds me of a grown up cast of Dawson’s Creek. It has the same lofty language and wit, emphasis on character development but all with grown-up problems.

In the search for everyday inspiration, we often go looking for adventures. The protagonist of October Roads, is likewise looking for inspiration—to write his second novel. After isolating himself from his hometown and ridiculing his closest friends in his first novel, he comes back to a difficult situation after ten years. After spending the weekend at his hometown, he discovers that his adventures are here—the place he stayed away from for lack of adverturish quality—in his hometown.

Many writers are like this protagonist. They search everywhere for inspiration when they can find it right in front of them. Although good stories come from the unfamiliar, better stories can come from what they already know. An author’s knowledge of something in front of her is often developed and thorough. There is still an unknown to the scene they are used to, but the details are already in place, in their minds.

Try looking at what you know. Try watching an episode of October Road. Maybe watching the protagonist searching for his next story amidst the familiar and the changed will help you to find your next story.