short story

The Rejection Letter that’s Good for You

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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.

Play-by-play: The Weird Things that Happen When You Write Under Time Pressure

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clock

Tick-tock…Quick, that deadline’s approaching!

Foolish me.

So, as I mentioned last week, I committed to produce a story just three days after Passover was over. I did prewrite before the holiday, and even had started a first draft in longhand (I often do). It was this surprisingly dark piece, written in second-person. A concerned family member was talking to “you,” and “you” (it becomes clear) are suffering from a clinical depression.

When I picked these materials back up after Passover had wrapped up,  the first thing I thought was: ugh.

  1. The tone was too dark, especially for this particular venue (Ironically, the theme I was given was “Put some spring in your step!” Right.).
  2. The second-person thing effectively pulled you in–making the dark subject matter even more depressing.

I felt like hyperventilating. Was I back to square one? With only three days to go?

AHHH!

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2 Major differences between writing a picture book and writing short stories

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So the folktale project turned out to be an eye-opening experience for me.

scissors

Am I a writer, or a barber?

When I first started writing for kids, I didn’t really understand the difference between short stories and picture books. I’d submit short stories to book publishers, and picture books to magazines who published short stories. Selling Raizy and being guided through revisions by Devorah Leah Rosenfeld, the editor at Hachai, schooled me in the differences between the two media. After a couple years, I started writing regularly for children’s magazines, and her lessons allowed me to jump between the two formats.

2 Major differences between picture books and short stories:

 

1) The length differs significantly in the two formats. Oddly, an entire picture book has about half the words (sometimes less) as a short story for a kids’ magazine.

2) The illustrations in a picture book replace almost all the description. And the only words that could appear in a picture book text are ones that drive the narrative forward. When I learned this lesson, my picture book writing attained a sharpness that it had previously lacked.

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New story out! “Long Lost” in this week’s Binyan

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Have you ever met someone who shared your last name, and wondered whether you were long-lost relatives? That’s the set up for my new story for teens in this week’s Binyan (inside the Parshas Shemos issue of Hamodia), “Long Lost.”  Check it out if you get the chance.

I used a remarkable incident from my own family history to add interest to the story. Have you ever adapted incidents from your family’s past into a fictional story? Please share your comments below.