Following up on a suggestion (I wish I could remember who passed along this hint!), I was scoping out historically significant anniversaries occurring in 2014 as potential topics for my writing.
St. Louis, Missouri – 250 years and counting!
In theory, choosing a topic that’s–well, topical–can be a marketing advantage. Unfortunately, none of the anniversaries I’ve found has inspired me so far, but I thought they would be worth sharing because maybe one of them will inspire you. Continue reading
Last week, a personal essay of mine appeared on Tablet Magazine online. As it hit the front page, I braced myself. A couple of my previous contributions to Tablet received a lot of comments…including a bunch of nasty ones. I figured this latest essay–about being Jewish during the holiday season–might ruffle the feathers of readers.
A couple days after the story was published, much to my surprise Continue reading
I am not a blogger.
There, I said it.
I came to this realization yesterday, after the funny (as in “weird,” not in “haha”) response I had to PopChassid’s marvelous list of 7 bloggers he thinks deserve more attention. As I read about all the fabulous bloggers (Several I had heard of, and a couple I had not…my favorite post by one of the unfamiliar ones was Ruchi Koval’s interview with her yetzer hara. Just so funny and true!), I felt more and more (embarrassing to admit) jealous.
Now, I’ve blogged here before about how important it is not to envy other writers. I’m a big believer in being farginen those around me. But I sensed something unusual about the variety of jealousy I was experiencing. Continue reading
Since there are just two weeks left of the Jewish year of 5773, I’ve been looking back at the last year and evaluating my life on every level: spiritual, physical, and even professional. And one goal still stands out at unfulfilled:
I STILL HAVEN’T PUBLISHED BOOK #2.
This issue depressed me a couple weeks ago, as I sat in front of my journal on Rosh Chodesh Elul (exactly one month before Rosh Hashanah), scribbling about the past year. I’d submitted a few picture books and two novels to multiple publishers and had zilch to show for it.
But then I counted how many times I appeared in print in the last year for pay: over two dozen times (bli ayin hara).
And then, I counted how many words I’d written. Essentially, it was the length of a novel. Wow.
I realized at that point how many more readers — potentially thousands more people — read my work in magazines this year than in my entire previous professional life.
That’s when I felt blessed.
Okay, I still have a major unfulfilled goal. It will be top of my professional goals again for this 5774. But if success is measured in progress, I made a lot of progress last year. And I could only do it with G-d’s help, which makes the year feel very sweet indeed.
How are you feeling about your last year, professionally? What is your top goal for 5774?
“Take that, you nasty troll! Maybe you’ll think twice before saying mean things about my sister again!”
I hate trolls.
Not the fictional kind. The internet kind. I’ve blogged about it before.
But now, my sister has published her first piece on Tablet. And the very first comment she got was from a troll. A mean, nasty one who called her names.
If getting mean-spirited comments from random strangers is bad, having your sister get them is worse. I’m irate! I’m disgusted.
I have commented.
Fair readers: go read my sister’s essay — and say something nice in the comments. (Even if it means you have to learn how to use Discus.)
K?
Today’s post from The Write Practice got me thinking. In it, Joe Bunting suggests that we worry too much about sales, and even about how good our writing is.
I love these two lines:
Does the fact that more people have read Twilight than have read [any book by] Mark Twain mean Stephenie Meyer is a better writer?
More important for us, does the fact that we are all less known than E.L. James (as far as I know) mean our stories aren’t as good?
Your writing can be the chain that binds people together.
Bunting suggests we think “Connection” (with readers) over “Competition” (with other writers).
What Bunting says really appealed to me. Of all the kinds of feedback I get from my stories and articles, the ones that mean the most are the ones where people tell me that they identified with some aspect of what I’d written–particularly if the person is really different from me. This the kind of thing that bonds together humanity. Bunting would call this kind of connection literary success.
I’d call it something else: a measuring stick to use if you want to judge your writing’s moral quotient: will this writing bind people together, or will it tear them apart with strife? In that sense, “Good Writing” has a quality beyond the writer’s style or storytelling ability. It’s “Good” in the moral sense, as well.
What do you think?
Rebecca Klempner 