Considering my last year of literary pursuit

August 21, 2013beccakinla authors, blogger, blogging, blogs, book, books, chareidi, depression, doldrums, frum, frustration, G-d, God, good news, Jewish, Jewish writing, Judaism, persistence, publishing, rejection, rejection letters, submissions, success, tafkid, writing, writing process Tags: cheshbon, elul, evaluation, in print, jewish year, journaling, literary, orthodox, professional goals, rosh hashana, rosh hashanah, thinking 11 Comments

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?

I stepped up to the challenge…but did I succeed?

May 5, 2013beccakinla failure, frustration, submissions, submit, success Tags: author, challenge, difficult, failure, fear, feature ideas, hard, literature, new, not in our hands, publishing, stretching, submissions, success, trying, vent, write, writing 2 Comments

Well.

A couple months ago, I challenged writers to try something new: a new genre, new POV, new publication, anything that would help us to stretch our wings.

Since I threw down the gauntlet, I had to participate in this challenge, right? So I thought about a couple possible places to sub a feature, a genre I hadn’t published in at least two years. Then I brainstormed a few feature ideas, and I sent our queries based on them.

Guess what.

I got nada.

I know that my ultimate success isn’t in my hands, so I feel like I did my share and can take no responsibility for the rest. And I plan to try for features and other new things, too. In fact, I heard about a poetry contest that sounds so interesting, I’m thinking of attempting serious poetry for the first time in many years.

So, is this a success–because I did try something new–or is this a failure–because I didn’t get responses to my queries?

What do you think? (Please post comments below.)

Never made it off the launch pad.

Better Writing vs Better Sales: What makes a better writer?

February 22, 2013February 22, 2013beccakinla advice, blogger, blogging, blogs, success, words, writer, writing, writing process Tags: author, better, bind, bond, chain, competition, connect, connection, joe bunting, judge, literature, moral, morality, quality, readers, sales, success, the write practice, worse, writer, writing, writing process Leave a comment

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?

Why you should do what you love to do, even if you’re no expert (and never will be)

January 13, 2013January 16, 2013beccakinla advice, art, art project, disappointment, failure, frustration, success, tafkid, talent Tags: adult, art, arts, challenging, childhood, drawing, expert, frustration, fun, give up, giving up, hobbies, hobby, illustration, love, pleasure, return, sketching, skills, suck, talent 1 Comment

I am no Picasso.

I am no Michelangelo or deVinci.

And I’m never going to be.

My girlfriend at MoiMeMoi posted last week about doing things we love even when we are less than expert at them. Her words struck a chord, because recently, I’ve started drawing again after years and years of avoiding it.

For my entire grade school career, I was considered “artsy.” I drew and painted better than my peers, mostly out of a smidgen of natural talent, but also because I applied myself in art classes and loved to read art books. It was a hobby that I hoped might turn into something more.

Then I hit 12th grade and had the sudden realization that I was good, but I wasn’t great and might very well never be great. That smidgen of talent was just a smidgen. So I threw my hands up in the air and gave up drawing and painting and pottery–the whole shebang.

Occasionally, I’d startle my husband when I had to draw something to show my kids how, or my students would respond to a diagram I’d drawn with admiration. At such moments, I felt like my past was leaking out. My family knew about my “artistic” past, and even suggested I illustrate my books, but I’ve always felt like I’m not good enough to do it and never will be.

Maybe that’s true. However, lately, I’ve gone back to drawing. At times, I sketch still lives, other times, I draw my kids while they sleep, or from a photo (because they are rarely still). I’ve also drawn a couple cartoons. I mourn years of no practice–my skills could have grown, but they didn’t. Sometimes, I get very frustrated. But it’s fun. It’s a hobby, and it’ll probably stay that way.

G-d-willing, I’ll share some more about my renewed hobby soon, with the help of my handy-dandy scanner.

What skills and hobbies have you neglected over the years? Would you ever go back to them?

Abandoned but not forgotten: My startling discovery about the websites of my past

December 17, 2012December 17, 2012beccakinla authors, blogger, blogging, blogs, marketing, success, wordpress, writer, writing Tags: abandoned, amateur, blog, blogger, blogging, forgot, monetize, old, SEO, strategy, success Leave a comment

“No, really?”

This past weekend, I visited a couple of websites/blogs that I designed in the past but that I had stopped maintaining because they simply zapped too much of my time. One is about running “mommy camp” for your family over the summer, the other is about finding cheap, “kosher” fun around Southern California for families and date nights. I was curious to know how they are doing, because ever since the local day schools went on Chanukah vacation last week, I’d been receiving emails and phone calls for activity recommendations. I wondered how many people had headed to my website instead of to the phone.

Lo and behold! The sites are actually doing quite well. Continue reading →

Early birds and the people who hate them–the writing habits of a morning person

November 20, 2012beccakinla advice, authors, best, success, writer, writing, writing process Tags: accomplish, brain, deprivation, early bird, fuzzy, habits, morning, naturally, nature, night owls, organize, people, sleep, time, when to write, work, worker, write 1 Comment

I may be an early bird, but I promise I don’t feed worms to my kids for breakfast.

I’m almost ashamed to admit it, but I am a morning person. Why the shame? Because I have discovered that there is nothing that night owls hate as much as the behavior of us early birds. And it seems that there are a lot of night owls around, judging but the fuzzy eyeballs cast in my direction at 7 am, when I smile and bounce and chirp, “Good morning!” at them.

When I lived in that sleep-deprived state induced by having an infant at home, my natural biorhythms were completely disrupted. Continue reading →

Rebecca Klempner

Author page of Rebecca Klempner

success

Considering my last year of literary pursuit

I stepped up to the challenge…but did I succeed?

Better Writing vs Better Sales: What makes a better writer?

Why you should do what you love to do, even if you’re no expert (and never will be)

Abandoned but not forgotten: My startling discovery about the websites of my past

Early birds and the people who hate them–the writing habits of a morning person

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