Writing is therapy – let it happen

By Kandace Chapple

In September 2018, I squeezed my eyes shut and hit “submit” on one of the saddest essays I’ve ever written. And when the editor said yes two days later, I felt two things: glee and terror.

I was totally elated. Someone liked my stuff! But.

My family might read this. It was an essay in Motherwell about the new woman wearing my deceased mother’s jacket. I wasn’t sure, suddenly, if I should let the essay see the light of day.

But I knew that I had written the truth. And, just as importantly, I had kept the essay in my POV, framed from my very own eyeballs and heart. I had not projected anyone else’s thoughts, motives or ideas onto the page. Instead, I had focused on MY experience.

At the end of the day, even though not everyone would be happy with my publication credit, I realized that this was still my story to share.

And the experience made me a different writer. I had to cast off the old guilts and worries about others in order to take my writing to the next level, to really dig in and share what turned out to be a pretty universal experience. I got several emails from others who had gone through something similar.

I knew I had done something special: I had told my story. The people who needed to read it, who could identify with it, were my readers. Not necessarily my family. Maybe it’s time to write about something that matters to you. That will bring you healing. Here are some tips on letting yourself go deeper.

MAKE YOURSELF A CHARACTER

One morning I sat down to work on my memoir. But instead of a piece on my mom, as I had planned, I switched gears and wrote in third person. I turned myself into a character and she headed out for a bike ride at dawn (it was still mostly dark), during which a deer darted across the dirt road. And she hit it! With her bike! She was fine. The deer was fine. But she was shaking, she was scared, she was… laughing.

The story was true, I had just lived it a week earlier.

And it ended up in my Mom book because as I wrote it, an epiphany arrived. I realized that I didn’t fear the dark, not like I used to. I feared losing my mother, illness and loss much, much more. My “main character” wasn’t the same anymore. She was stronger. She was bolder. She was braver. (It’s way easier to say things like that about someone else, than yourself!) In the end, the scene was a picture of what grief does to a person.

Write what comes to you. Trust your intuition. Take a real-life episode and see where it goes on the page. It just might be your mind working something out. Let it.

BEST KEPT SECRETS

What are the things you’d tell your friend over coffee? What are the things you’d tell your BEST friend over wine? Two different versions of the same story. One for public consumption. One for private.

When it comes to writing a personal essay, you need to give yourself permission to put that best friend conversation down on paper. You can always cut and delete what seems too personal later.

But I have found that when I put stuff down on paper, it isn’t as scary as I think it is. I can write tough things, but have found that in doing so, it takes the edge off them. I am able to share things I wouldn’t have dreamed of sharing if I hadn’t written them down. It’s wild the way that works. Just put it down, tell it like you would tell that one person you trust the most in the world. Write now, edit later. Nothing you say will be held against you. But, bonus, that first version carries all of your healing.

UNEXPECTED TURNS

I had no idea where that Motherwell essay was heading when I wrote it. At first I was just venting and grieving on paper. Then, I thought about that coat on another women and all the other things my mother had left me (love, memories, family), and suddenly, a wonderful calm came over me. I didn’t NEED that coat! I had so much more.

I was delighted. I had healed, another layer of my grief soothed. All because I had written that essay.

So, take time this week and see if you can sit with yourself and write about something – that thing that hurts or niggles or just sits there on your mind. See what happens when you put it on paper, as yourself or as a character. Epiphanies, laughter, healing. It’s all up for grabs, thanks to the power of writing.

***

1-2-3 PERSONAL ESSAYS: WRITE REAL, HONEST, JOYFUL (SOMETIMES SAD!) ESSAYS WITH WEEKLY FEEDBACK by Kandace Chapple starts on Monday, January 9, 2023. Reserve your spot here! Kandace Chapple published and edited Grand Traverse Woman Magazine, a regional women’s publication in Michigan, for eighteen years before closing it to open Michigan Girl, LLC. She has spent 18 years coaching writers in her publication and helping them polish their personal essays. Her own essays have appeared in Writer’s Digest, Chicken Soup for the Soul, Literary Mama, Motherwell and more. She hosts weekly #Friday500 coaching sessions where writers submit 500 words every Friday (or else!). She is also a well-known freelance writer for publications in Michigan, including Traverse Magazine. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Education with a minor in Journalism and a Bachelor’s degree in Business. She loves to mountain bike on Northern Michigan trails, hike with her dog, Cookie, and spend time with her husband and two sons. Visit her at www.kandacechapple.com. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Would you like to participate in Friday "Speak Out!"? Email your short posts (under 500 words) about women and writing to: marcia[at]wow-womenonwriting[dot]com for consideration. We look forward to hearing from you! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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Sometimes Our Story Has to Find Shelter to Be Told

By Sheila Bender

Author Brenda Miller coined the term “hermit crab essay” when teaching her students a personal essay structure that delivers surprising results. Not only has the term become widely used, it has also educated many about hermit crabs: anomuran decapod crustaceans that have adapted to occupy empty scavenged mollusk shells to protect their soft abdominal exoskeleton.

Important to note: they must find shelter produced by other organisms or risk being defenseless.

How often do we sit down to write something so important to us that is difficult to start? Or perhaps we have only a hazy idea or feeling that something is there to be written, but we don’t know how we will find out what it is. Either way, we may feel stymied from defenseless in the face of the enormous task.

That’s when borrowing the protective shell of another kind of writing helps. That writing might be a grocery list, a calendar, a bus schedule, an address book, a map, a form letter, a manual or even a prayer, among so many more possibilities. Each of these are a story themselves moving over time and containing specifics from which scenes can spring by association. The shell of the common form we’ve encountered helps us find our writing occasion.

One of my students presented me with a piece of writing that she didn’t know what to do with. She had written about people in her address book. So much had changed—friends had died, moved, or grown ill. What could her address book tell her about what she was to know?

Here is an excerpt of the work by Suzan Huney after we talked about where a next draft could take her. The excerpt starts after she writes from the letter K, where her sister’s address appears, and reminisces about their times together:

I close my address book, but instead of working on my Christmas cards as planned I get out my inheritance from Grandma Cooper: her address book. It is a 5 1/2 inch by 4-inch pink notebook and inscribed inside the cover is “Given me by Suzie, Christmas 1960.”

The pages are aged a subtle yellow. The majority of addresses are crossed out with large, bold X’s. That’s what happens when you live to be 94, lots of X’s.

Grandma didn’t bother with alphabetizing and names appear randomly O, W, C, L, and B. Some names, like Harold and Flossie and Oscar and Elvira, are nearly obscured by heavy X’s. There are addresses with no zip codes, and phone numbers like GR2-5228. Recorded in the back of Grandma’s address book, in script so small I almost need a magnifying glass to read, are poems, Bible scripture, and Grandma’s Choice Bits.

I heard her voice as I read out loud. I worry I putter I push and shove Hunting little molehills to make mountains of.

Grandma kept track of old friends from North Dakota where she and Grandpa lived until their retirement from farming, and then their move out West She stayed in contact with grandsons with military FBO addresses, and her many relatives scattered like Johnny’s apple seeds. Her letters often included a Choice Bit like this one that Grandma sent to me when I was away at college:

Promise yourself to be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind. Promise yourself to think only of the best, to work only for the best and expect only the best. Promise yourself to forget the mistakes of the past and press on to greater achievements of the future.

***

When Suzy begins writing her Christmas cards, she returns to her own address book at the letter L and writes to Lenny, a childhood friend of the girls. She writes, “Judy is not fat,” referring to the way Lenny always teased Judy. We soon learn that Judy has been diagnosed with mast cytosis:

…a rare life-compromising, life-threatening disease. Her body produces huge levels of histamines that cause an abnormal accumulation of mast cells to form in her skin. The freckles on her insides are what worry me. These mast cells could accumulate in her liver, spleen and lymph nodes.

We know the reader fears that all the Xs in both the address books may someday soon include her sister, who she resolves to support, promising herself (despite her fear of loss), as her grandmother instructed, to expect only the best.

I have long treasured Suzay Huney’s essay and the way it demonstrates the beautiful way adopting a shell allows us to write into being what we have had inside.

It is a good idea as writers to practice the Hermit Crab method of creating an essay. Who knows what we might say between the lines of a recipe, say, or instructions on how to use Google Maps or even a bus schedule for a place we have never visited?

***

Sheila Bender, founder of WritingItReal.com, is the author of many books on writing, including the popular Writing Personal Essays: Shaping and Sharing Your Life Experience and Creative Writing DeMystified. Her memoir is entitled A New Theology: Turning to Poetry in a Time of Grief. Her newest book, Since Then: Poems and Short Prose will be available in spring 2022. She has been updating previously published books. Two of them are now available in print and digitally on Amazon and through bookstores: Writing in a Convertible with the Top Down, co-authored with Christi Killien Glover, and Sorrow’s Words: Writing Exercises to Heal Grief. As a writer, teacher and editor, she believes that writing so others understand our hearts and minds helps us understand ourselves, heal grief and sadness and grow. She has presented at conferences and writers' centers including Centrum Foundation's summer Port Townsend Writer's Conference, the Whidbey Island's writer's conference workshops, the Writer's Workshoppe in Port Townsend, WA, and the Kahini writing program's writer's workshops and served as a Distinguished Lecturer in Poetry at Seattle University.

--Sheila is also a WOW! Women on Writing instructor. Her class, Writing the Hermit Crab Essay and Other Related Creative Nonfiction Forms, starts on September 19th, and her class, Writing the Five-Minute Memoir starts October 10th.

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Sparking Your Writing Using Abantu

By Sheila Bender

What is Abantu?

Years ago, poet Robert Hass taught a short couplet form that he had read was an oral tradition among the Abantu people of Africa. In class, he recited this couplet:

The sound of an elephant’s tusk cracking
The voice of an angry man

It was an example of the oral poetry that the Abantu tribe members created as they worked. One person offered an image and another would respond with a an unrelated image that when paired with the first one provided a sensory experience. The participants created something like similes (the sound of an elephant’s tusk cracking is like the voice of an angry man).

Whether you imagine that the elephant’s tusk breaks as a consequence of the animal knocking into a tree or that the cracking is the noise the tusk causes when the elephant uses it to fell a tree, the sound has a tangible meaning when compared to the voice of an angry man.

Try creating sound, sight, taste, touch, smelling and hearing related images for a first line of an abantu couplet:

Clothes fresh from the dryer

Clothes tumbling in the dryer

Clothes going into the dryer

Next “answer back” to these lines with an image that creates the same physical sensation you got from the first line:

Clothes fresh from the dryer
Patch of carpet where my cat lies in sunshine

Clothes tumbling in the dryer
Leaves and paper blown by the wind

Clothes going into the dryer
Seaweed lying on the beach

Try some more with these first lines:

The cornflakes in my bowl

Waiting for the school bus

Kids eating in the cafeteria

Sitting at my desk

The lights in the ceiling

Lockers along the hallway

 
Here are some sample responses:

The cornflakes in my bowl
Sand bars in a bay

Waiting for the school bus
A jellybean out of the bag

Kids eating in the cafeteria
Undulating kelp

Sitting at my desk
Piloting a space craft

The lights in the ceiling
Egg cartons in the supermarket

Lockers along the hallway
An army waiting

If most of the images turn out to be visual in content (which most often happens at first) try putting sound or smell into your work instead of relying totally on visual images and likenesses:

My mother’s voice
Water in a fountain

My baby’s cry
Siren’s behind our car

The star jasmine at night
Powder on a baby

Bubble gum out of the wrapper
The plastic skin of a Barbie doll

Taste may be harder:

A cracker with no butter
Brown paper bag in my mouth

The rubber bands on my braces

Tofu

Sometimes the sense of touch needs practice. You can do that with first lines about textures:

My wool hat on my head
Blades of dry grass

Touching the skin of a dolphin
The smooth part of the peel under an eggshell

The rough skin of an orange
Stucco on a building

Developing facility with association, you foster new ways of looking at, touching, smelling, tasting and listening to the world. It keeps the writing mind oiled and ready to go:

I went downstairs for breakfast. My mother had put cornflakes in a bowl for me and I poured milk over the brown flakes. They peeked out of the milk, sand bars in the bay where my father used to take me fishing.

A beginning to a story about fishing with Father.

Valuing associational thinking both encourages good writing and the spirit of play essential in its creation.

***  

Sheila Bender, founder of WritingItReal.com, is the author of many books on writing, including the popular Writing Personal Essays: Shaping and Sharing Your Life Experience and Creative Writing DeMystified. Her memoir is entitled A New Theology: Turning to Poetry in a Time of Grief. Her newest book, Since Then: Poems and Short Prose will be available in spring 2022. She has been updating previously published books. Two of them are now available in print and digitally on Amazon and through bookstores: Writing in a Convertible with the Top Down, co-authored with Christi Killien Glover, and Sorrow’s Words: Writing Exercises to Heal Grief. As a writer, teacher and editor, she believes that writing so others understand our hearts and minds helps us understand ourselves, heal grief and sadness and grow. She has presented at conferences and writers' centers including Centrum Foundation's summer Port Townsend Writer's Conference, the Whidbey Island's writer's conference workshops, the Writer's Workshoppe in Port Townsend, WA, and the Kahini writing program's writer's workshops and served as a Distinguished Lecturer in Poetry at Seattle University.

--Sheila is also a WOW! Women on Writing instructor. Her class, Writing the Hermit Crab Essay and Other Related Creative Nonfiction Forms, starts on September 19th! Reserve your spot here.

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1 comment Abantu, associational thinking, oral poetry, Sheila Bender, WOW Classes, writer inspiration

Why You Should Show Rather Than Tell

By Madeline Dyer

Almost every writer at one point in their career has been asked by an editor to show rather than tell. Telling the story rather than showing it is a mistake that nearly all writers make early on in their career, and manuscripts and submissions will be returned with requests for more showing. But what exactly is showing, why is it important, and how do you achieve it?

What is showing vs telling?

In short, showing encourages the reader to experience something with the character, rather than simply being told that something has happened. Showing is about conveying information through imagery and emotion, whereas telling uses exposition.

Showing something gives more meaning and often more details.

For example, ‘it was a hot day’ simply tells readers it was a hot day. But ‘With the back of her hand, Anna wiped the sweat from her forehead as she squinted against the bright rays of the sun’ is better writing because it shows that it is hot through Anna’s body language and actions.

While ‘hot’ itself can be subjective in ‘it was a hot day,’ from the longer description, we know now that it is hot enough for Anna to sweat and have enough sweat that it needs wiping away. So we’ve now got a character involved in this description, and we can infer that she is outside. Not only is it hot, but it’s sunny and bright too (whereas ‘it was a hot day’ could mean it’s a muggy, cloudy hot day—there’s no sense of light or the effects on the human body). And we also know how Anna’s body reacts to hot weather (by sweating).

Why is showing important?

Firstly, showing something is more immersive for the reader and the act of showing rather than telling quite often brings in other literary and narrative devices, thereby improving the writing craft in more ways than one.

Showing rather than telling brings in more details that readers can relate to. We’ve all been outside on a bright day where it’s hard to see or we’ve all wiped sweat from our foreheads. These are moments we now share with this character, and so showing what it means for it to be a hot day provides a point of connection between reader and character—and connections are what we want.

So, how do we achieve more showing and less telling?

1. Involve your characters in the descriptions. As in the above example, show what something means specifically for your character. And remember, it could mean different things for different characters.

2. Avoid naming emotions. Whenever you name an emotion, you’re telling the reader how someone feels. Instead, show the emotion through your character’s actions and word choice. ‘He was happy’ becomes ‘A light smile spread across his face as he heard the song.’ This tells us what has made him happy, and also shows the reader body language that they associate with happiness.

3. Have your characters exhibit non-verbal communication. Something like 70% of communication is non-verbal in real life, so make sure this is also present in your writing. We rarely have to ask people how they’re feeling moment to moment because we pick up on non-verbal cues (especially applicable with those we know well). Have your narrator notice other characters’ body language, facial expressions, actions, and posture—together, these all build up a picture of what these characters are thinking and feeling. And you can totally have a character saying one thing in dialogue but their body language implies something different—because this happens in real life so often.

4. Pay attention to imagery. Imagery is your friend when you’re looking to show more and tell less. Think about the connotations of certain images and the things they can symbolise. Do these images and meanings link to a certain emotion you’re trying to convey? Then great!

5. Use all the senses in your writing. This will immediately help you to show more to your reader and immerse them into your story.

6. Be careful of word choice. Avoid adverbs when you can, as these tell the reader how a verb is performed. Instead, use a stronger verb. ‘He ran quickly’ becomes ‘He sprinted,’ which captures more urgency. In a similar vein, adjectives should be avoided or used sparingly.

7. Be as specific as you can. The more details you give, the better. Details avoid general telling sentences while also deepening characterisation. Introducing details often means you’re using more sensory language and imagery too.

But don’t show everything!

Every time you show something, you’re often spending more time on it. This sometimes has the effect of pausing a moment. If you’re showing absolutely everything, the pacing overall can be too slow. So you want to show the important moments, plus a few others. If your main character is travelling by bus, but nothing really happens on the bus and the action is focused on what happens before and after the journey, then don’t describe the whole bus journey in great detail. It’s fine then to say ‘He caught the bus to the next town’ rather than showing him waiting for the bus, then buying his ticket, then picking his seat, etc, when the bus journey itself isn’t significant to the overall plot.

When you’re showing something, you’re telling the reader it’s important because you’re spending more time and attention on it. So make sure that these make sense for your story. It’s all about getting the balance right.

***

Madeline Dyer lives on a farm in the southwest of England, where she hangs out with her Shetland ponies and writes dark and twisty young adult books.

Madeline has a strong love for anything dystopian or ghostly, and she can frequently be found exploring wild places. At least one notebook is known to follow her wherever she goes. Her books include the Untamed series, the Dangerous Ones series, and Captive: A Poetry Collection on OCD, Psychosis, and Brain Inflammation.

Untamed won the 2017 SIBA award for Best Dystopian Novel and has been a #1 bestseller in its Amazon category in five countries. Madeline’s second novel Fragmented was also a runner-up for Best Young Adult novel at the 2017 SIBAs. Her memoir, Captive and her ace romance novel, My Heart to Find (written as Elin Annalise) have both been nominated for 2021 Reader’s Choice Awards from TCK publishing, for Best Memoir and Best Romance respectively.

She is represented by Erin Clyburn at Howland Literary. Madeline is also a staff editor at Bolide Books, a publisher based in Scotland, specializing in speculative fiction. Visit her website at www.MadelineDyer.co.uk

--Madeline is also a WOW! Women on Writing instructor. Her class, AN INTRODUCTION TO STORYTELLING FORMS: Flash Fiction, Short Stories, Novels, Poetry, Screenplays, Personal Essays, and Memoir (Including Portfolio Creation), starts on July 19th! 

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How to Write a Travel Story: By Staying Home

By Barbara Noe Kennedy

 You don’t need to jet-set around the world to come up with a good travel story—as nice as that may be. Remember that old adage about writing what you know?

Maybe you live in an under-the-radar small town, a hidden gem of Khmer culture, a wilderness/camping/trail haven, or home to the best small museum/cooking school/monument you’ve never heard of. The possibilities are endless! It’s just a matter of viewing a place that you know inside-out through visitors’ eyes. What would a visitor want to know?

Honestly, as a travel writer who covers destinations around the world, I often find myself writing about my hometown—Washington DC. By virtue of living here, going about my daily life, seeing it through the different seasons, I have insider knowledge. I read local newspapers and magazines, watch the local news, talk to friends. I eat at local restaurants, run and bike on local trails, see shows at local theaters. I’m constantly running around town, visiting a new hotel or museum or restaurant. I’ve watched this city grow from a provincial southern town to a veritable global city. In short, I’m an expert.

In addition, I have developed relationships with local tourism representatives, who invite me to museum openings and hotel tours and put me on press release lists that keep me in-the-know on upcoming events. I always know when a new museum has been approved or when a distillery opening has been delayed. In addition, their website, Washington.org, is a font of information, including a special “press” section that offers story inspiration, resources, and the latest industry news. Most cities and towns have tourism staffs that are just as helpful.

So, what I encourage you to do, especially if you’re just breaking into travel writing, is take a look around you—and write what you know.

Here are some prompts to get you started: 

1. Small museums: Does a local museum have any intriguing artifacts (check out Old Rip in Eastland, Texas)? Is there a collection of sites related to a famous (even not-so-famous) person?

2. A local food specialty: Everyone may eat cheese curds (for example) where you come from, but most of the country has never heard of them. What’s their story? What are the best places to experience them?

3. Road trips: Americans love to drive. Is there a scenic or interesting drive in or around your town? Write about sites, restaurants, hotels, and parks to stop along the way, to create an idyllic escape. Or make it a themed drive—the best places to sample cheese curds in the greater Madison area; or Long Island in winter; or “George Washington Slept Here.”

4. Weekend getaways: People also love weekend getaways. Is there a weekend getaway from your town—or could your town be a weekend getaway? Provide restaurant, hotel, and activity suggestions.

5. Freebies: What are the free things to do, whether it’s summer concerts, gardens, museums, festivals, etc.?

Writing about home in the guise of travel writing doesn’t preclude you from hopping onto a plane to go kayaking in Hawaii or wat-hopping in Thailand. But it’s definitely a place to get started. Remember, you’re the on-the-ground expert. That goes a long way in writing an insightful travel story.

***  

Barbara Noe Kennedy is a former longtime editor with National Geographic Travel Publishing. She currently works as a fulltime freelance travel writer, with credits including Fodor’s, Lonely Planet, London Telegraph, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, National Geographic, BBC Travel, The Points Guy, and more. She also teaches travel writing and creative nonfiction and leads tours.

Barbara is also a WOW! Women on Writing instructor. Check out her upcoming webinar, Travel Writing 101. More information about our classes can be found on our classroom page.

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Would you like to participate in Friday "Speak Out!"? Email your short posts (under 500 words) about women and writing to: marcia[at]wow-womenonwriting[dot]com for consideration. We look forward to hearing from you!
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1 comment Barbara Kennedy, staying home, travel writing, travel writing trips, WOW Classes, writer tips, writing prompts

Don’t Just “Handle” Rejection. Work With It.

I’m writing this post as a reminder to myself as much as to you. Because yesterday I got a rejection email. The day before, I got three. One day last month I got six in one day. This year? I stopped counting after I reached 100. And each was as hard as the last.

Isaac Asimov called rejection letters “lacerations of the soul.” Me? I don’t feel lacerated as much as hit in the gut. Rejection makes me feel terrible, & terrible about myself. Jealousy, loneliness, self-doubt: to my lizard brain, a simple rejection is a threat to my human need to belong.

But rejection is also a constant, immovable companion: Alexander Chee calls it “the other medium of writing.” I have periodic mini-crises where rejection makes me doubt whether I can go on as a writer. But if I am to be a writer at all, rejection is part of it. That’s the choice: write, and be rejected, or don’t write. Don’t believe me? A Wrinkle in Time was rejected 29 times. Ray Bradbury got 800 (yes, eight hundred) rejections before selling even one story. The Tale of Peter Rabbit was rejected so many times that Beatrix Potter decided to self-publish.

At the end of each mini-crisis, I come to this: the writing is worth it. The readers and students I have are worth it, the ideas that sometimes well like bubbling water in my gut, pulling me out of bed in the morning, the satisfaction of work completed, the challenge of improving a piece: worth it. Knowing that I’ve tried is worth it—or at least it’s better than just not trying.

I’m not here to tell you that there’s a way around rejection. Or that it’s easy, or gets easier. I’m here to convince you that rejection is worth getting to know. So, how do you let rejection move your work forward?

1. Submit again.

Many writers have a strict routine: a piece gets rejected, they submit the same piece to other venues immediately. The idea is to not let a single rejection feel too important. Instead, you want a continual process of having your work out there.

Another way of looking at it: let the rejection fuel your fire. Let it focus you. Increase your persistence in fighting for what you want.

Another wrinkle to this “submit again” tip: make sure you always have multiple irons in the fire. When one piece feels too bruised by rejection, have a fresh piece to work on or submit. This ensures that you keep going somehow—even when it feels impossible to keep going in the exact same direction.

2. Take a break…then submit again.

Some of us need a little time before we get back up on the horse (raising my hand). Or sometimes a particular rejection will hit us hard. In that case, give yourself a set amount of time to grieve, sulk, or wallow. You can even have a little rejection ritual—take a bath, eat some ice cream, cry, watch a show. At the end of that set amount of time, move on. Submit again.

3. Take pride in your rejections.

They’re a feature, not a bug. “I love my rejection slips,” Sylvia Plath wrote. “They show me I try.” This instinct is behind the “100 rejections” idea—in one of the online writing groups I’m in, we publicly announce our rejections, counting them and cheering them on. The goal? Get to at least 100 rejections per year. The reason? Rejection is a natural part of writing, and we should welcome it.

Plus, you can only get accepted if you’re putting yourself out there to get rejected. Every one of my own acceptances this year (including my first personal essay publication, my first fiction publication, my second poetry book publication) sprung from my membership in the 100 rejections club. The acceptances were a happy byproduct of the rejections. Even writing this paragraph makes me smile at the word no (and no, and no, and no, and…). All those no’s now happy little flags, fluttering from my accepted work.

4. Let rejection teach you.

Sometimes a rejection teaches you what’s wrong with your work. Silence, form rejection, or specific critiques can lead you back to the work and show you what needs fixing.

Or sometimes the work is perfect, and rejection is just one person’s opinion. Barbara Kingsolver wrote, “This manuscript of yours that has just come back from another editor is a precious package. Don’t consider it rejected. Consider that you’ve addressed it ‘to the editor who can appreciate my work’ and it has simply come back stamped ‘Not at this address’. Just keep looking for the right address.”

In those cases, rejection can be the closed door that shows you a new path. It can teach you who your audience is—or isn’t—or what’s wrong with your submission approach. For example (and this happens to me a lot!) it might make you ask—do you want to be published in a particular venue because of something intrinsic to that venue’s voice or values? Or because it’s a name-brand venue that would make you feel fancy? Look for the places that love and will value your work, not places you view as wins.

5. Reaffirm yourself.

You can trick yourself into keeping on despite it, and you can do the hard work of reevaluating your writing after it. But you also need to remember that you are good, are great, are worthy apart from what anyone else decides about your work. That is: rejection does not define you. Rejection does not determine your self-worth (that one’s good for a post-it note on the mirror).

When rejection gets you down, take some time to remind yourself of the successes you’ve had, or of the things that have graced your life without your having to ask for them. Take some time to remind yourself of what you love about writing, about the writing life, about your writing. Which does not need an acceptance to exist, and matter.

Now go! And may your path be littered with rejections, acceptances, and most of all may it be paved with the good stones of your own work.

***

Leah Claire Kaminski holds degrees from UC Irvine and Harvard. For nearly 15 years she’s taught students to read with attention and to write poetry, academic essays, and creative nonfiction. Leah’s poetry is widely published in magazines and in a chapbook from Dancing Girl Press called Peninsular Scar. Her collection Live oak nearly on fire has recently been named a finalist for the Laureate Prize from Harbor Editions and the Paul Nemser Prize from Lily Poetry Review. She’s at work on a new collection, Death Cleaning, and is also at work on speculative and horror fiction. Originally from Miami, Leah lived in Boston and Orange County, California before recently relocating to Chicago with her partner, child, and two cats, Bernie and Betsy. She loves writing, and teaching writing, because the page never judges. Visit her website at www.leahkaminski.com.

Leah is also a WOW! Women on Writing instructor. Check out her new class, WHY DO I WRITE?: Discover your true drives, your idiosyncratic rituals, and your own path forward, which starts on September 17th!

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2 comments handling rejection, Leah Claire Kaminski, WOW Classes, WOW instructor, writer inspiration, writer tips

Promotion, Promotion, Promotion

My writing colleague Linda O'Connell recently nudged me into trying to promote myself. You know, get my face and name out there. She suggested I reach out to newspaper and local TV news folks to connect my most recent Chicken Soup story to what's going on in our country... and she even wrote a text to get me thinking.

This is what she wrote:

"Despite continued stereotyping, and Donald Trump calling Ferguson one of the most dangerous cities in the world,  I'd like to share with you and the community at large my timely and inspirational story. ‘MY Ferguson’ was published in Chicken Soup for the Soul, My Kind of America. 

The story of Cathy and Jerome Jenkins and young Cortez Thomas is hopeful, positive, and uplifting--exactly what people need to hear in these trying and divisive times.

I am a published writer, former seasoned Ferguson public school teacher, and current parochial school teacher who believes ....(your mantra or something like this:)  Goodness trumps hate. If we seek the good, we will find it."

The thing is, Linda is gifted when it comes to promotion. You read her posts, you listen to her, and she weaves in bits of self-promotion in a creative (and interesting way). She never piles it on. You never feel like "Will this bragging never end?" because it's not bragging. She drops a detail about a published piece, and usually follows it up with something inspirational, or generously shares a writing resource she's found.

Pixabay

I have to dip my toes into these unknown waters (marketing) because at some point in the next 98 years, I will have my novel published. (Look for it in 2020 at a street corner near you. It'll be hand-written, on a stack of legal pads.) In February I will be doing someting incredibly exciting and terrifying. I'll be taking a WOW class on creating a platform (Website. Newsletters. Effective Posts. Yikes! Karen Cioffi has her work cut out with me). Will I be able to walk that fine line between singing the same song over and over (Buy my book! Buy my book!) and being so quiet, nobody knows I'm out there?

I'm not sure. I would hope I'd be able to dig up enough interesting details about my life and my job, so I could them to cushion a promotional tidbit here and there. We'll see.

I read a New York Times article on how authors in the past create brands for themselves. How crazy were the schemes? Here are a couple of them:

In the late 1800's, Guy de Maupassant (who came up with my all-time favorite writing quote: "Get black on white.") launched a hot air balloon. It flew over the river Seine, the side of the balloon emblazoned with the title of his most-recently published short story. 

In the early 1900's, Georges Simenon announced he would write an entire novel in just three days. To make it even more challenging, he'd do it in a glass cage outside the Moulin Rouge nightclub.

Three days? That's even worse than NaNoWriMo. However, Simenon never had to go through with the stunt, because the newspaper that was financing went out of business, putting a stop to the clever scheme. It didn't stop people from claiming they'd witnessed the writer tapping away in his glass cage... even though it had never happened.

(This one got me thinking. I could write in a glass cage--naked. People would pay money for me to put clothes back on. Certainly, I'd make more money that way than I would as a writer.)

So, in the next few months I'll be trying to learn how to build a platform for myself. A platform sturdy enough to support my wide rump. Is such a thing possible? We'll see.

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15 comments Karen Cioffi, WOW Classes

Interview with Ashley Memory, 1st Place Winner in Summer 2018 Flash Fiction Contest

Ashley Memory finds inspiration in the ancient Uwharrie mountains surrounding her home in rural Randolph, County, N.C. She enjoys preserving what she grows in the garden she tends with her husband Johnpaul. She’s learned the hard way about wearing gloves when making jalapeno pickles!

Ashley’s poetry and prose have recently appeared in The Birds We Piled Loosely, Gyroscope Review, The Ginger Collect’s 2018 Halloween Mini-Magazine and numerous other literary journals and anthologies. New work is forthcoming in Okay Donkey and Coffin Bell. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee and a two-time recipient of the Doris Betts Fiction Prize sponsored by the N.C. Writers’ Network. A previous story, “Eula Dare Hampton Agrees to Edit the Quaker Ladies’ Cookbook,” earned honorable mention in the WOW! Winter 2018 Flash Fiction Contest.

Ashley loves sharing what she’s learned as a part-time instructor for Central Carolina Community College’s Creative Writing Program in Pittsboro, N.C. Follow Ashley on Twitter @memoryashley or visit her fruit-inspired blog at ashley-memory.com.

interview by Marcia Peterson

WOW: Congratulations on your first place win in our Summer 2018 Flash Fiction competition! What inspired you to enter the contest?

Ashley: I love entering writing contests! A deadline is an excellent incentive for finishing a story, and a little healthy competition is good for every writer. I’m also a big fan of the WOW contests and their community in particular, which I first learned about from a writing friend many years ago. The WOW prizes and support of their writers is outstanding, and unique of its kind. The entry fee is very reasonable and the judging is blind, two factors which equalize the playing field for everyone. This means that even someone like me (from the little town of Asheboro, N.C.) can earn a place along with the best writers across the world. Oh, and it’s also judged by a literary agent. How cool is that?

WOW:  Love your enthusiasm for our contests! Can you tell us what encouraged the idea behind your story, "Dear Derinda?"

Ashley: Years ago I heard about such a situation—a cell company offering big bucks to a rural community to install a tower and how it fractured the neighborhood. But I just tucked it away in my head as an anecdote because for the life of me I couldn’t figure out how to turn it into a story. And then in May of this last year, I participated in Julie Duffy’s Story A Day project and one of her prompts was to write a story in the form of a letter. The two elements just clicked – one friend mad at another and so she writes a letter – and the story finally came to life. The “turn” in the story, how one friend forgave another, was a bit of a personal journey. Having to work that out, as I’m not sure how I would have personally handled that dilemma, meant I had to imagine that I could forgive such a betrayal, which turned out to be an exercise in humility and grace. Does writing make you a better person? In my case, I think it does. At least I hope so.

WOW:  What key elements do you think make a great piece of flash fiction?

Ashley: A flash fiction should have all the elements of a traditional story – a strong character or two, sense of place, imagery, conflict and some kind of resolution – but within an extremely tight space. Beyond this, the writer Vanessa Gebbie says it best. “What a good flash ought to do,” she says, is to “catch you as you turn away, hold you, and when you’re finished reading, it should echo and resonate.”

All of these things make flash fiction one of the more challenging pieces to write, but it’s a wonderful exercise for writers of any level, from professional to beginning because it hones your skills so sharply. It’s also just plain fun! I am fortunate enough to lead a couple of workshops a year on flash for Central Carolina Community College’s Creative Writing Program, and we have a blast. There are so many possible formats for flash, from emails to text messages to even overheard conversations. The sky is truly the limit!

WOW:  Are you working on any writing projects currently? What can we plan on seeing from you in the future?

Ashley: For the past year, I’ve focused on improving my writing, through close study of the masters and a disciplined writing of the short story in particular. Eventually, once a theme emerges, I may produce a collection of stories. I’m also exploring creative nonfiction, particularly the essay. I’m taking my second Chelsey Clammer workshop – one on humor and loving it.

Interestingly, I recently revised a flash story that placed in a WOW contest last year and gave it a holiday twist. “Holiday Party Etiquette for Insects Recently Transformed into People,” will be published by one of my favorite literary magazines, Okay Donkey, in December. I also have a long form narrative poem, “Orchard #9,” about a haunted cherry orchard that will be published by the evocative and eerie Coffin Bell in January.

WOW:  Thanks so much for chatting with us today, Ashley. Before you go, do you have any tips for our readers who may be thinking about entering writing contests?

Ashley: First, enter! Second, you, yes you, I’m talking to you! What are you waiting for?!! Seriously, I encourage all my writer friends to enter contests, especially ones like WOW offers because of the blind judging and great prizes. Look at it like this. The judge may very well be looking for a story just like yours, and it’s your responsibility to share it with her! :) But the best part of entering a competition is the opportunity to join a terrific community of fellow women writers and continue to grow, rewards that endure well beyond the contest itself.

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For more information about our quarterly Flash Fiction and Creative Nonfiction Essay contests, visit our contest page here.

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3 comments ashley memory, flash fiction winner, Marcia Peterson, Summer 2018 Flash Fiction Contest, WOW Classes, writer advice, writer inspiration, writing ideas, writing tips

3 Ways to Support Small Business Saturday As a Writer

In the United States, we're now in the busy shopping season between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and today is Small Business Saturday. Not as popular or crazy as Black Friday, which has been around for decades, Small Business Saturday, a registered trademark of American Express, is six years old and focuses on shopping small and local.

In St. Louis, our wonderful local bookstore, Left Bank Books, is guest-hosting many authors and inviting people to come in and shop. Their email invitation made me think about three other ways, besides visiting local, independent bookstores, that writers could participate in Small Business Saturday.

1. Buy an independent or small press book from their websites. It's great if you buy a small press or self-published book from Amazon or Barnes and Noble, and often, you do this because you want to download it as an e-book. But often times, you can buy straight from the author on his or her website or from the small press's website. I know this because my novels are published with a small press, and I sell my novels from my website. Is there a book you've been wanting to purchase recently? How about some of our blog tour authors? Make Saturday the day you finally sit down and make your purchases.

2. Hire an editor, graphic designer, or audio book actor. So you've been wanting to publish your book or get it ready for submitting to an agent. Maybe you've been putting off hiring a graphic designer for your book cover, or you've finally decided to make your book available as an audio book. Today, contact that person and take the plunge or at least get the conversation going and show your interest in their services.

3. Take a WOW! class or enter our flash fiction contest. Yes, you can celebrate Small Business Saturday right here! WOW! Women on Writing is a small business designed to help writers--men and women--reach their goals and fulfill their dreams. We offer several online classes, currently listed on the WOW! classroom page and begin the first week of December through the first week of March. Some are offered every month; some are offered a couple times a year, so check that out here and sign up for a class on Saturday. Or enter our fall short story contest with a deadline of November 30. You can read the rules and submission information here.

However you decide to honor Small Business Saturday this year, may it help you reach your writing goals and bring you continued productivity and success into 2017.

Margo L. Dill is a writer, teacher, editor, and writing coach, living in St. Louis. She teaches a novel writing course for the WOW! classroom, which begins the first Friday of every month. To find out more about Margo and her books, please visit http://www.margoldill.com. 

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2 comments Flash Fiction Contest, holiday shopping, local bookstores, Margo L. Dilld, small business, small press, WOW Classes

With All of Your Senses

by Bernadette Geyer

One of the best ways to experience a place is to be there. Outside of that, reading a wonderful collection of poems, or a work of prose, has the ability to convey a wealth of sensory information about a place. By stimulating all of a reader’s senses – not just one or two – you can captivate a reader and help them experience a place.

Consider how you experience a place. How do your senses shape your experience? Let’s look at some ways of writing about a place that can evoke all of the senses.

1. Sight – Details about what can be seen at a place are very important. Use details that set “this” place apart from “other” places. There isn’t just “a bridge” across “the river”. What type of bridge? A covered wooden bridge? A steel suspension bridge? Which river? Is it a wide river, or a river suffering through a drought?

2. Sound – Think about the layers of sound in a place. There is the layer that is most obvious, such as car engines, or helicopters flying overhead. Then there is the layer that is hidden by the louder layer. Are there children playing in a courtyard? Voices in the next room? Details here are also important as you may not want to simply convey that there are “voices,” but that these are the voices of two businessmen having a heated discussion about a project. You may not just hear children “playing,” but you hear the sound of a ball being kicked against a wall while a baby cries.

3. Smell – Is there a smell particular to the place you are writing about, such as a Maryland beach boardwalk with the smell of fresh fish and Old Bay Seasoning? Perhaps you are writing about a summer fair and the smells of cotton candy, funnel cake, and sweaty children. In the town where I grew up, we could tell when the steel mills were operating because the stench of sulfur was nearly impossible to escape.

4. Taste – Sometimes, how a specific food tastes is highly dependent on the place where it is being eaten. For instance, how would the taste of a hot dog from a baseball park vendor differ from the taste of a hot dog at a backyard cookout? Or the taste of a hot dog that’s been steeping all day in an iron pot full of sauerkraut at an Oktoberfest event in Bavaria?

5. Touch – Even the feel of a windowsill as a character rests her hand on it will differ due to place. Following a dust storm in Tel Aviv, everything exposed to the outdoors is coated with a fine layer of dust. The windowsill of a cabin in the woods may be sticky with sap from the evergreens around it.

There are many ways to describe a place in your writing. These are just some of the examples. By considering how you would describe your environment to someone else, you will also be more attuned to the wonders of the unique space that you inhabit at this moment.

***

Bernadette Geyer is the author of a full-length poetry collection, The Scabbard of Her Throat, and a poetry chapbook, What Remains. She is the recipient of a Strauss Fellowship from the Arts Council of Fairfax County (Virginia, USA) and was a finalist for the 2011 Brittingham and Pollak Prizes. Geyer has served in the past on editorial boards of an independent press and literary journal, and has led workshops for The Writer’s Center in Bethesda, Maryland. She lives in Berlin, Germany, where she works as a freelance writer, editor, and translator. Her web site can be found at http://www.bernadettegeyer.com.

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Join Bernadette's upcoming online class, WRITING ABOUT PLACE, which starts on October 26, 2015. Visit our classroom page for details and enrollment.

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Leave a Comment Bernadette Geyer, online class, sense of place, senses, WOW Classes, WOW instructor, writing about place, writing tips