Tag Archives: MFA in creative writing

Emerging Author Dispatches: Five Things I Wish I Knew About the Publishing Process Before Starting Out

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Full disclosure: This blog post should’ve been up two three weeks ago.* Lately I’ve been negligent in my WROB fellowship duties (and many duties, if I’m being real). For the past few months my schedule has gotten more and more crazy as the pub date for my first poetry collection gets nearer. Now that some semblance of sanity is starting to appear on the horizon, I’ve identified five things I wish I’d known about the publishing process before starting out. None of these learnings are novel, but there’s nothing like being humbled by the act of doing something new to make each lesson land sharply.

  1. PUBLISHING TAKES FOREVER

The gears of publishing machinery move v e r y   s l o w l y. So much of the process boils down to an unglamorous, unending waiting. Waiting for it to be “your turn” in your publisher’s roster, waiting for your edits to come back, for galleys, for a more inspired ending of a poem to surface. I tried to create new work during that time but I quickly realized…

  1. IT’S DIFFICULT TO WORK ON NEW CREATIVE PROJECTS WHILE LAUNCHING A BOOK

When TESTIFY’s pub process (re)gained traction I was six months into working on a new book-length project— this close to turning a corner in understanding the story’s structure. I was unprepared for (and, occasionally, resentful of) the onslaught of admin that landed in my lap. The e-mails alone are a part-time job: pitching tie-in essays; planning book launches and readings; being in communication with publicists, editors, and graphic designers… Week after week new work was repeatedly pushed to the bottom of my task list in favor of practical (or paying) responsibilities. When I’m not writing poems or answering e-mails, I’m juggling a full-time job and running a small business. There’s no advance to float authors between books in the poetry world, so carving out time to create new work while launching a book continues to be an ongoing challenge. (If you’ve got tips or suggestions, I’m all ears.)

  1. EVEN IF THE PROCESS SEEMS OPAQUE AND MYSTERIOUS, IT’S ALL JUST PEOPLE

When I was submitting my manuscript the pub process seemed scary and impenetrable, especially as a young poet with a newly minted MFA and no clue what to do next. As everything moves forward I’m regularly reminded that each limb of the publishing apparatus is made up of people. People who know each other and people who don’t. People who are friends in real life and people who have only met on the internet. People who have jobs and lives and responsibilities (so no, their delay in responding to my submission wasn’t personal). Case in point: a colleague I connected with through my publisher asked me to be a contributing editor at a new press he was starting. A year and a half later, I’m plugged into the “people side” of the poetry world in a whole new way. In grad school it felt like the words “publication” and “press” warranted capitalization, faceless institutions built of books and words. Now I know a press is just a group of people, and none of them bite.

  1. YOU REALLY SHOULD BE ON TWITTER.

If this industry is made up of people, most of those people are probably on Twitter. In my non-writing life I’m social media averse. I have a laundry list of reasons why, and I was quick to rattle them off—until a publicist told me in no uncertain words that I needed to be on Twitter. (Verbatim: “You needed to be on Twitter yesterday.”)

At first I was stressed about having to think up witty tweets, as if each post needed to be a pithy 140 character poem. Then I realized I could follow intelligent-sounding people I already like and share their tweets, adding my own comment when necessary.

Since joining I realized that literary/writing Twitter is actually a landscape where opportunities can happen. Editors tweet out topics they’re looking for pitches on, or have their contact info in their bios. Grant opportunities, submission deadlines, contests, and potential collaborators—all on Twitter. Angie Thomas, YA author whose debut novel “The Hate U Give” has been on the New York Times bestseller list for twenty weeks, is an excellent example of how Twitter can help launch a career. In June of 2015 Thomas turned to Twitter to ask literary agent Brooks Sherman if he considered a YA novel inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement acceptable to publishers. One year later, Sherman was representing Thomas in a thirteen house publishing auction that resulted in six figure deal. Sure, it’s a Twitter fairy tale, but it’s also a reminder that social media is more than a way to stay on top of the trends.

  1. YOU WILL FEEL LIKE YOU’RE FAKING IT ALL THE TIME

Writerly imposter syndrome is real. I spent so much time in the early stages of this process second-guessing myself and others who praised my work. It felt like everyone I encountered had access to some rulebook I hadn’t read, or a scorecard I couldn’t see. Even though I’d succeeded at getting picked up for publication, I spent a fair amount of time entertaining self-doubt. Should I have cc’d my publisher on that e-mail? Is that something I should do, or something my publicist should do? Should I run this idea by someone before I send this pitch?

Eventually, I found my way back to a powerful quote from my mother-poet Audre Lorde: “I am deliberate and afraid of nothing.” Thought I might not have been in this exact situation before, I’m generally a diligent person. My instincts led me to write TESTIFY, and they got me this far so they can’t be all wrong. Now I know there’s no rulebook.

If I could go back in time I’d give myself the following advice: do the best you can now, take notes for next time, and know there will be a next time—whether it’s five years from now or fifteen years from now, there will be another book. And whenever that happens, whatever curveballs that experience throws your way, you’ll know more than you did the first time around.

*Thanks to my WROB writer colleagues for their patience and understanding.

–Simone John, 2017 WROB Gish Jen Fellow

 

 

The Murky, Glorious Middle

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Photo Credit: Debka Colson
Photo Credit: Debka Colson

I’m in the middle of an MFA thesis, in the middle of revising a story, one that I’ve been writing, on and off, for years now. Middles tend to be viewed unfavorably, I’ve noticed. Age, car seats, and those poor children. One is always stuck, when in the middle. And I’ve lamented being here, many times, to anyone who will listen–here, where the exciting spark of a story’s beginnings is long behind me, and the prospect of finishing it seems impossibly far away.

But of course in writing, we spend most of our time here, in the middle. So it would be wise for us (for me) to learn to love it. Seven years ago I took my first fiction workshop, during which we learned, week by week, various components of craft. I had always been a reader of fiction, but until then had never really considered what effect point of view had on a narrative. How setting could be as important as plot. What it meant to use exposition, versus scene. It seemed to me that I was finally being shown fiction’s inner workings, and now it should be possible to spit a story out at will! And then during the last class, my brilliant teacher told us: Of course, revision is where we do all the actual work. He went on about how he really loved revision, as the class sat silent, all of us absorbing the idea that there was no way to shortcut to a finished piece. I felt the first stirrings of an anxiety that would become very familiar over the years–I could not conceive of dismantling the two stories I’d toiled over, only to put them back together again. Why, if I was supposed to write a different version of the story, couldn’t I write it the first time?

It took me a long time to accept his statement. To accept that in revision, we have the opportunity to consider what has emerged in the work unbeknownst to us. In that first draft we are busy constructing worlds, forming people, creating tangled events and timelines, and we are so close to this newness that we sometimes can’t recognize everything we’re putting down on paper. It’s not until the murky middle–the glorious middle–of the writing process that we step back and observe what we’ve created.

The hardest part, for me, is the stepping back. The re-seeing. Re-visioning. I reread my drafts obsessively, and this sometimes gives me the illusion of the words solidifying in their arrangements before they should, calling forth that anxiety about pulling them apart again. And since I know this is a challenge for me, I now shamelessly adopt any and all methods I learn from others, to see things anew. I change my fonts. I work backwards from the end. I switch to writing by hand. I read aloud. I tape sections to walls and summarize them on post-its, which my husband and cats find endlessly amusing. I leave my desk to write at the kitchen table, or the sofa, or the amazing, blessed Writer’s Room. If you tell me what you do to see your words as fresh words, I guarantee I will try it.

Because when we re-see our words in revision, we usually find that they don’t capture the feeling that first drove us to the page. Somehow the work has become its own beast, and has taken on all sorts of qualities we hadn’t intended. This character never acts upon anything. The energy in that scene lags. Or we notice parallels and connections we never saw before, and by restructuring this or that we can make them sing. We insert an image and are startled to see that its effects now echo through the narrative arc, opening a new direction altogether. It is only recently that I’ve come to appreciate this middle as the actual work of writing, something not to fear, but to revel in. I still don’t know the answer to that question, of why we can’t write the perfect poem, story, or novel the first time around. It is still mysterious to me how the act of creation requires us first to build something on paper, and then to break that something down. To see it with new eyes. To reshape it into something we could not conceive of before it was there, outside of ourselves. Little by little we coax our words to become what we hope they could be.

Cynthia Gunadi, Ivan Gold Fiction Fellow

Literature is My Mistress

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Subway
Photo Credit: Debka Colson

A lot of MFA students dream about writing full-time, but in reality most of us will need to work. We imagine long hours spent at our laptops with mugs of tea or coffee, typing out literary masterpieces that manage to sell well commercially. Of course, when we imagine this, we forget about paying rent or the electric bill, not to mention for Netflix or groceries. Some of my peers are fresh out of college and still adjusting to the fact that food doesn’t appear, fully prepared, in a magical place called the dining hall. Feeding ourselves and keeping a roof over our heads takes time, energy and money. And as I’m sure a lot of freelance writers can attest, this can be hard to do when writing full-time. So most of us have to get a job.

The problem with having a job is that it takes up a lot of time. Time that we might otherwise spend writing. Our creative work gets pushed into pockets of time in the evening or on the weekends. If we’re not careful, it can seem like we have no time to write at all.

However, we’re not alone. Many successful writers have balanced their creative work with full-time jobs: Chekhov and William Carlos Williams were doctors, Kafka worked in insurance, Marilynne Robinson and Amy Hempl teach. These writers didn’t let their jobs stop them from writing. Chekhov once famously wrote: “Medicine is my lawful wife, and literature is my mistress. When I get fed up with one, I spend the night with the other. Though it is irregular, it is less boring this way, and besides, neither of them loses anything through my infidelity.”

During the school year I work part-time, but during the summer I have the opportunity to work full-time. I’m using this time as a sort of dress rehearsal for when I graduate, to figure out how I can keep my writing practice going with a job. If you are also struggling with balancing your writing with your job, here are a couple of things that work for me.

Set Aside Writing Time and Space

Sunday afternoons are my designated writing time. I keep this time sacred. I don’t allow myself to schedule anything. Instead, I pack a lunch and go to the Writers’ Room to work all afternoon. Having a separate space to write allows me to focus enough to work in-depth. I am removed from the distraction of chores or email or friends. I sink into my work and emerge 5-6 hours later, unsure of how all that time passed.

If you want to set aside time to write every week, I recommend choosing a time when you can work for a couple of hours at a stretch. Once you have chosen your time, guard it zealously. Do not schedule anything during your writing hours unless it is a matter of life or death.

I also recommend finding a writing space. This could be a desk in your home, or your favorite coffee shop, or a library, or a writing space like the Writers’ Room. Space can really affect how your brain approaches work. If you can find a place where you do nothing except write, you’ll be training your brain to block out distractions and start your creativity flowing every time you see a familiar window or smell coffee.

Make the Most of Small Pockets of Time

While a job can seem like it takes up all our time, we often have small pockets of free time we could use to write. For example, most states dictate that during an eight-hour shift at a job you must take a half hour lunch break. Boom! Thirty minutes of writing time. Just pack your lunch, close your office door or put in your headphones, and fall into the work.

Here are more small pockets of potential writing time I’ve found in my life: I write on my hour-long commute in the mornings, and again in the evenings if I can get a seat. I sometimes write after dinner, before bed, when I would usually watch TV. Any time spent waiting for an appointment or friends is potential writing time. I try to always carry a notebook, so I can take advantage of these times.

Join a Motivational Challenge or Group

There’s nothing like competition, whether trying to meet a goal or keep up with others, to help us stay focused on writing. Before I tried National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) in college, I had never finished a story. Then after a month of furious writing (and several marathon days in the library), I had a completed 50,000 word novel manuscript. It was a really rough first draft, but I had written every day for a month and for the first time I actually finished something.

Camp NaNoWriMo in July is a great way to try this out. You can set your own word count goal and you can work on projects other than novels. The best part is that you are part of a writing community for a month, and you can look to the other writers for encouragement and motivation. I’m going to give it a try.

Another place I find motivation is in my writing group. Every weekend a group of my peers meets for a couple of hours at someone’s apartment. We write, or we talk about what we are working on, or sometimes we just talk. Checking in with my friends and fellow writers once a week makes me feel accountable for continuing to writing and work on my projects. We’re hoping to also start workshopping in this group, which would give us deadlines to meet. This way, we will encourage each other to keep producing new and revised work for the group to read.

For those of you with day jobs, how do you balance working and writing? What have you tried to keep yourself motivated?

Miriam Cook, Ivan Gold Fiction Fellow