writing process

The Rejection Letter that’s Good for You

beccakinla advice, authors, editing, publishing, rejection, rejection letters, relationships, revision, writer, writing, writing groups, writing process Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 4 Comments

Yesterday, I got a rejection letter.

Yes, it happens a lot.

I’ve argued in the past that rejection letters are good for you, and I’ve gotten better at taking them in stride, but this one went even further. Its timing couldn’t have been more perfect.

You see, last night was my monthly writers’ workshop. All morning, I’d been trying to decide on a piece to bring and share. When that rejection letter appeared in my inbox around noon, I decided it was a sign.

No, not that kind of sign.

Not just a sign, but a Sign — “This is the piece you should bring to your writers’ workshop tonight.”

So, I did.

And it was magical.

Our group was smaller than usual, consisting of just three of us (usually, we’re four or five). But the two other ladies present gave me so much insight about what worked in my story and what did not, feedback that I might have been less open to, had I not just received the rejection letter. I spent a good chunk of this morning working on revisions, and plan to wrap them up tomorrow in between baking my challah and roasting my chicken.

I’m still hoping that the next time I hear from an editor, they send an acceptance letter. (To say that I pray for acceptance letters is no exaggeration.) But this experience is definitely going to help me embrace the next rejection letter.

Because another will surely come.

“You knew you wanted to do it, but you’d never had the courage…:” Writing in the second person

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For some people, it’s bungee-jumping. For others, it’s swimming with dolphins, getting a tattoo, or eating fugu.

What am I talking about?

The thing you’ve always wanted to do, but were too chicken to try.

For me, it’s writing in the second person. When it’s done well, it’s so, so compelling. The reader is naturally drawn into the narrative, as they are a part of it. But when it’s bad, it’s like a poor imitation of a Choose Your Own Adventure book (I loved them as a kid, by the way). I remember reading a book that teaches writing which suggested that only the most gifted of writers should attempt writing in the second person.

Over the last few months, the second person narrative has appeared on my radar quite a bit. And for the first time, it’s in non-fiction.

I’m a huge fan of Erika Dreifus’s blogs, and that led me to some of her other writing. Among her corpus of work are several interlocked true short stories about her (yikes!) mugging in Central Park.

(You can read them, too:

What really interested me about the stories was Dreifus’s handling of her misadventure. While the events actually happened to her, she writes them as if they happened to the reader. Whether this was intentional or serendipitous, she discovered a way of writing about a traumatic event that happened to her with greater objectivity.

My new POV

A couple months back, I wrote a very self-revelatory story. It was the kind of thing that is so embarrassing to myself that I can’t be at all objective about it. When I wrote piece, I thought it was completely unpublishable, but shared it at my writing group nonetheless.

Surprise! Several members of the group had a very strong reaction to it, not because it was exceptionally well-written (it wasn’t), but because they felt the feelings I portrayed were very universal. So, they encouraged me to revise it.

Struggling to handle material that was a little too close for comfort, I tried Dreifus’s technique and rewrote my story entirely in the second person. I’d describe it as highly therapeutic. I was able to laugh at my foibles and not take the behavior that elicited my negative response so personally. I have no idea if the story will ever make it to publication. But the process definitely gave me a new perspective on my behavior.

The process also gave me a bit more confidence in writing the second-person. Now, I’m looking for the right opportunity to use it again.

Have you read notable works in the second person? Have you ever tried to write in the second person? Share your experiences as a reader or a writer below.

I am not a blogger

beccakinla authors, blogger, blogging, blogs, book, books, failure, farginen, frustration, writer, writing, writing process Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 8 Comments

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 →

School is on and I’m back to work!

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The kids are back in school, and I am back to work. For four days, at least.

school, classroom

When the kids go to school, Mommy gets to write!

Because of the unfortunate discrepancy between the Jewish calendar and that of the traditional American school, my children will not experience a full week of school this fall until October. That means that even though their summer vacation is over, my days of child-wrangling are not.

It’s really important to me to take advantage of time alone during the day. I cherish the time I get to spend with my kids over summers and holidays, but when they are home, I can only write at night. Unfortunately, I am decidedly a morning person. The quality and quantity of what I write is strongly affected by my kids’ days off.

So today I tried to be as productive as possible. I got to pray at length, spent a couple hours on a story, took care of some housework, and made sure to listen to some music.  As a treat, G-d sent a playdate for my preschooler to extend the quiet a little longer.

One of the areas I’ve decided to work on this new year is time-wasting, so I tried very hard not to lose too much time to unnecessary internet surfing or checking my email repeatedly. I fought off the time wasting habit better than I expected today.

Who knows what tomorrow will bring? And Friday, for sure, will be spent minding my kids and preparing for the Yom Kippur fast. Sukkot will start just a few days later. But at least this evening, I’m wrapping up a workday feeling I did my best, B”H.

Considering my last year of literary pursuit

beccakinla 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: , , , , , , , , , , , 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?

Helping out the illustrator, even when you don’t know who they are yet

beccakinla advice, authors, children, children's books, illustrations, kids, poem, poetry, publishing, revision, stories, submissions, writer, writing, writing process Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 3 Comments

I’ve been working on a new picture book manuscript, my first one in a while. It’s a poem that came out of  experiences with my kids and with others’ and the troubles they face.

I put it away for a couple days, pulling it out again this morning. Now that I’ve decided it’s a picture book, I’m revising it with an eye to the requirements of the format.

O the horror! It’s unillustrateable!

(Yes, I just made that word up.)

What do I mean?  Continue reading →