In one of the last days before the regular job really kicked into gear, I sat manic and crazed in front of my computer revising a short story and posting a fellowship application and slamming a 300-word essay together in 45 minutes flat.
Maybe it was an hour, and maybe this wasn’t my very best work, but it was definitely a wide-eyed, wild-eyed attack on writing and submitting.
These last-minute attempts at literary scholarship don’t always produce prize-winning material (…wait, do they ever?), but they do produce. In that strange and stubborn moment, when I can do anything but sit one more day on a story, I find a tiny bit of hope and possibility and a fire rekindled, which for me was relief after a very quiet summer.
Sure, I anticipate the usual No’s, No thank you’s, and “Really…No” to hit my inbox in the next several months. Still, I don’t regret hitting SEND. After all, as Sherman Alexie says in this podcast with Jess Walter, submitting, acceptances, and rejections are all part of the “entire process of becoming a writer.”
Mantras help me push that process, phrases like “Why not?” and “Fearless writing” and (more recently) “Do the foot work.”
What that means is that one day in doing the foot work to get your portfolio together for the submission to that literary journal so far out of your league it’s laughable, you will sift through all those old stories and rejections (because who are we kidding, you save every one), and you will discover that half of the stories you sent out, which bounced back time and again, eventually did find a home.
It took countless tries, but they made it to publication, all because you sat crazed at the computer that one Monday afternoon and hit SUBMIT again and again.
Is that Next Big Thing blog meme still making the rounds? I sure hope so, because I was tagged weeks ago and I’m just now getting around to joining the fun. Thanks to Paul August (a prolific poet) for mentioning me in his Next Big Thing post. Go take a peek at what’s in his sights, a chapbook of his poems entitled, Apologizing to Fish.
Speaking of apologizing…I don’t mean to make excuses, but (the inevitable “but”), there are two reasons why I waited so long to write my NBT post: 1) all my writing friends have been tagged and been more timely in their posting (when you procrastinate, you miss the party) and 2) I find it difficult to talk about a project I secretly fear may never be finished (there. I said it).
Earlier this year, though, I wrote about my new rally cry, fearless writing, and I realized that filling out these questions is yet another way to take a risk: share your hope, imagine The End in sight.
My Next Big Thing
1) What is the working title of your book?The Company Town.
2) Where did the idea come from for the book? During a visit to a historical site, an old iron smelting town in Upper Michigan, I stepped into one of the laborers’ cabins and felt the weight of more than just history. It was the pull of stories from the people who had lived there. When we drove home that day, I wrote feverishly in the back seat of the car, trying to re-capture every sight, feeling, thought that came to me when we walked the grounds.
3) What genre does your book fall under? Historical fiction.
4) Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition? I barely survived the first draft. Thinking about a movie rendition is like dreaming of how I will spend those lottery earnings when I haven’t even bought the ticket. Girl, stay in today.
5) What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book? One sentence? Don’t we get a page and a half of tiny type with skinny margins to write a synopsis? One sentence! Argh! I’m already over my quota with this answer, but here goes: A young woman mistakes a bustling factory town for a safe haven but finds she can’t escape her secrets and can’t ignore the Company’s own dark truths.
6) Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency? To that I’ll just say, I hope no agent is reading this (or that weak one-sentence synopsis) right now. Lordy.
7) How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?Too long. I kept trying to craft the perfect ending, until I thought, Oh for crying out loud. Write the last scene as you see it and be done with this. A first draft is a FIRST draft. Once I got over my angst, I reached the end in one sitting.
8) What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?Here are my ambitions: Anna Solomon’s The Little Bride, for the way place sets the mood and becomes its own character and Jenna Blum’s Those Who Save Us, for the way history propels the story.
9)Who or what inspired you to write this book?Photos of the laborers who lived in the cabins, and a book by Sarah Cowie, The Plurality of Power: An Archeology of Industrial Capitalism, which discusses all that was uncovered from underneath the surface of Fayette, markers of class structure and separation in even the smallest of communities.
10)What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest? I don’t know, perhaps photos?
The town of Fayette, MI.The hotel where the protagonist works.Slag Beach, the Company dumping grounds.Flowers growing on Slag Beach today.
Now, I’m directing you to a post by Rochelle Melander on her Next Big Thing. She got creative with the task of answering the list of questions and turned her post into a writing exercise for anyone who’s considering a project or envisioning their writing journey. Take a look, see where the Next Big Thing takes you.
* Book and pen photo credit: mconnors on Morguefile.com
In one of the last days before the regular job really kicked into gear, I sat manic and crazed in front of my computer revising a short story and posting a fellowship application and slamming a 300-word essay together in 45 minutes flat.
What that means is that one day in doing the foot work to get your portfolio together for the submission to that literary journal so far out of your league it’s laughable, you will sift through all those old stories and rejections (because who are we kidding, you save every one), and you will discover that half of the stories you sent out, which bounced back time and again, eventually did find a home.
