writer

For writers: 5 ways to be funny

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Stripped Hyena

If you play your cards right, you’ll have them laughing like hyenas!

It’s been a week and a half since Purim, so I’ve gotten lots of feedback about this year’s Klempner family Purim Spiel. My husband and sister (fellow contributors) agreed with me that this year’s was less funny than last year’s, but we seem to be in a minority. As I mentioned last year, since I began writing professionally, my little hobby now feels like work, and I avoided cranking out a complete rough draft until the week before Purim.

And then, I deleted several stories at almost the last minute. They just weren’t funny enough. So, I prayed–yes, that’s what this professional writer with a Master’s Degree and a generally pragmatic outlook on life did–I prayed for new ideas. And G-d sent some!

Besides relying on Heavenly Intervention, there are other ways to be funny. Without further ado:

5 Ways To Be Funny Continue reading →

Throwing down the gauntlet: I challenge you to write something different!

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knight in armor

Be careful! If this guy throws down the gauntlet, it’ll probably hurt.

So yesterday I read this post by the Rubber Ducky Copywriter. In it, she posts about her first rejection letter after going out on a limb and submitting a short story. Despite her success as a copywriter, fiction is a new endeavor for her, and rejection hurt.

First of all, I’d like to cheer her on. Despite the rejection letter (and my readers will know I’m no stranger to them), the Rubber Ducky Copywriter did something a lot of us writers don’t do: try something new.

A lot of us avoid writing new things, especially after we find success (especially financial) in a particular niche. I know that it took me a long time to start writing for adults after I’d succeeded with kids’ lit. Other changes were also scary, because they carry risk. What if you invest time and emotions and no one ever publishes it?

But the pay-off can be big.

For years, I focused on my fiction. When I ventured on occasion to write a personal essay, it would inevitably face a quick rejection. Out of frustration, I gave up writing personal essays for a long time.

But, when I came back to it, I did better. My years of practicing fiction helped me hone my storytelling abilities. The first personal essay I’ve had published shows this and found a much wider audience than my fiction thus far has.

So here’s my creative writing challenge:
Continue reading →

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

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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?

metal chain

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?

Background on my new story: “Just Perfect” (or why I believe we all live in a Magical Reality)

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This week, Hamodia‘s Inyan Magazine published my new short story (and it’s actually for adults!), entitled “Just Perfect.”

The original version of the story was explicitly a piece of fantasy, but as I mentioned in a previous post, I transformed the story into an example of magical realism rather than fantasy in order to address the concerns of my lovely and knowledgeable editor at Hamodia. 

In the original version, then called “Easy as Pie,” the transformation of Libby’s life occurred after she bumped into a little old lady who offered her a slice of peach pie at a party. The pie made Libby’s life–well, just peachy. But my editor felt the little old lady was a little unbelievable. Could I cut her? The only problem was that her brief appearance at the beginning and the end of the story explained the wacky events in between.

I wracked my brains for a way to ditch the old lady but save the rest of the silliness. There had to be an explanation for it, after all. I did a bit of experimentation and research. Finally, I decided that maybe Libby should just pray–and then G-d answers.

Even after I found my “magically real” solution, I initially balked at making the change. It was an elegant solution, so my reaction puzzled me. I had to think about it a lot, and I think my conclusion is worth sharing. Continue reading →

Lights to the Nations: Two Jewish thinkers release their books for the secular–even non-Jewish–audience

beccakinla blogs, book, books, chareidi, frum, Jewish, Jewish writing, Judaism, literacy, literature, matisyahu, message, reading, recommended reading, tafkid, Torah, writer, writing Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Wow.

That’s pretty much all I could say. I read an amazing blog post by Ann Koffsky this morning (thanks Ann for sending me the link!) where she interviews the unforgettable writer Gila Manolson. The interview is chock full of advice to writers, advice to parents, and other neat stuff. But the biggest revelation to me is that Manolson has created a website to promote her upcoming book–her first book for a non-Jewish audience.

Manolson is not alone. Continue reading →

Fans, friends, and trolls–publishing my first piece on Tablet

beccakinla authors, magazines, online, publishing, respect, review, reviews, secular, words, writer, writing, writing process Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 11 Comments

So, Tablet published a piece of mine this week. It’s been a crazy experience.

In the first place, writing the piece was a bit out of my comfort zone. While I usually write fiction, this is a personal essay. In brief, the story is about confronting my inner teenager as I’m approaching 40 and relates an episode where I thought a younger man was checking me out in a cafe.

Troll

Trolls don’t only live under bridges.

The subject matter was outside the editorial policies of the chareidi magazines that comprise my usual stomping grounds, so I had to find an alternative publisher. Afraid I might embarrass my husband, I almost decided not to publish it at all, but he assured me that he didn’t mind. And when I shared an early draft with writing friends, the strongly positive reaction encouraged me further.

Tablet accepted my query, then the completed essay. They had it up in a matter of days. Whoa. It didn’t leave me much time to prepare myself. And, boy, did I have to prepare myself.

You see, there’s a lot of differences between a Jewish, but broad-spectrum, online magazine like Tablet and print magazines in the chareidi world. The biggest difference is the comments section.

In a print magazine, there is no comments section. Continue reading →