A "Must Read #Fiction Listing" from Mass Book Awards

Remember me? Yeah, yeah....I know. Long time. Two things, though: some good book new and some rejection book news. My book of short stories, which was roundly rejected by all in the early years of this blog, was just named a Fiction Must Read for the Massachusetts Book Award hosted by the Massachusetts Center for the Book! Here's the full list. Congratulations to the winners. If you haven't read Pretend I'm Your Friend: Stories yet, check it out here.  

     As for the bad news, you all will recall that I was writing a non-fiction book about disinheritance in a memoir kind of style. My agent loved it, sent it out to the big houses, but, guess what, no one bought it.  The common theme seemed to be that the editors did not find resonance with the voice of the book, or had published something similar (?! not), or simply didn't respond (ghosted the agent: have you heard of this?).  I decided to let the book sit. Who knows? Maybe I dodged a bullet (literal family bullet by gun-carrying relatives who did not want me to publish that book no-way, no-how). I will eventually publish the rejections here, of course, so you may have a look-see and do what you will with them.  

     In the meantime, happy summer 2018. Keep writing. Don't believe what the fuck-wads say about you when they are rejecting your book. 

    Also, try not to worry so much about the state the country and the world. Just write about it. That's why you were put on this green earth.

How Much Wood Can A Woodchuck Chuck When Applying for Debut Novel Prizes?

Rodent People: I just wanted to let you know something in case you happen to have any delusion that getting published means making it, even getting published and getting coverage as a pick in People Magazine with Stephen King and Anne Lamott. I am lucky to have a day job because not only have I made zero dollars and zero cents on my novel, but I have actually shelled out quite a few clams to make sure it gets submitted to all the appropriate book awards and debut novel prizes. I am talking about anywhere from $35 to $95 in submission fees a pop, not only for each award, but also for each eligible category in each award, plus sending anywhere up to 8 free copies of the novel out of my stash of author's books, not to mention the postage I've paid. Seriously, I am in the hole at least a grand at this point, but these awards are a huge part of getting the novel to have an extended life, and most people consider them an essential marketing tool. Isn't that ridiculous? I think it is because whichever way you turn, the writer is the one who cares about the novel going further than just the original launch push, and so the writer is the one who pays. Maybe it's different in mainstreamed publishing houses; I'm not sure. Can anyone confirm or deny that the writer pays when published by Random House or Harper Collins imprints? I did wonder about this as I coerced one of my advertising buddies to help me make some pretty posters for my own readings at various book stores. I'm like a one-mouse marketing machine these days while still keeping up with the deadlines of my day jobs.  I tell you, it is an exhausting business, which does not favor the writer (or at least this writer) in any way, shape, or form. That said, I am also extremely grateful for the opportunity to have a book that's published and to whose success I am an indentured servant. I am also extremely grateful that I actually have a day job to fund all this craziness. I just wanted to set the record straight for anyone who is dreaming of the cushy life of a published writer these days. I do not think it exists. But, please, if you are out there sitting on your daybed, eating bon-bons, and thumbing a magazine, please do comment with a correction.

Count Down Day....Ah, Screw It. No One is Counting Down with Me Anyway. (Final Post)

You will understand the miracle of the blurb on the cover of my novel, if you are an LROD fan. You see, little rodents, good things can happen to good writers too.  In case you cannot see it, the quotation says:

"This debut sparkles; Miracle Girls is that rarest thing; a literary miracle. MB Caschetta will break your heart and mend it all at once." --Darin Strauss, author of Chang and Eng and Half a Life.

So, this is me and this is my novel: www.mbcaschetta.com, and @caschetta on The Twits if you wish to follow my progress. Most of you know I have been anonymous here as Writer, Rejected since 2007, through thick and thin, through blogging as a form of expression to the death of blogging and the rise of Twitter. From the early threats I received via email (remember email) to the yawns and crickets heard round the InterWebs in these latter years.

Here I was, and here I shall be. So, done and done, my friends. You have been good companions. 

Feel free to comment on this final blog post however you wish. Also, go ahead and purchase my book if you want to be very kind to me; it is readily available everywhere, though the official release date is November 11th, which we have established as a basically meaningless calendar number.  Please note that I did thank Rosemary Ahern for all generosity real and imagined.

Here are some reviews:  Kirkus and Bookshots at LitReactor.  (I will add the others as they come rolling on in--good, bad, and ugly.)

Peace out, for now. I am off to find Jacob Appel and buy that guy a beer.

Count Down Day 20: Things Are Shaping Up in My Little World of Novel Promotion

It's always the hard part to shift from being a writer alone in a room having a love affair or fist fight with words, plot, characters, story to being what amounts to a snake-oil salesman in a matter of minutes.  Once a book is sold, edited, proofed, and out the door, you kind of become a one-(wo)man*-show, a busker, a hawker, a magician. It's disconcerting. That said, I have lined up at least a dozen readings for the fall and winter, have sent out my book for first-book award contests variously, have planned a couple of book launch parties in different locations that I think of as home, and have written guest blog posts and had interviews all around the World Wide Inter-webs. All this, while holding down a full-time writing job in corporate America, which has funded me to write the novel in the first place and is a good source of book buyers, as it turns out. It's all very exhausting, but it's what we strive for, isn't it, Mice?

*Younger readers: You will please excuse my clinging to gender as a worthy construct. I know that the world is changing, and I will too. I'm just a little slow.

Count Down Day 23: Literary Agencies I Have Known and Cursed

I always thought I'd find a literary agent who would be my bestie forever and ever, but, alas, it didn't work out that way. In fact, I've had a series of ephemeral literary representatives who either I fired, or who left the business for a pregnancy, a retirement, a job in another field, a jazz career, or a prompt dismissal because she really hadn't agreed to be my agent in any official way, anyway. The latter is always the most heartbreaking: you work and work on the edits the agent offers and when you can't get it just so, they drop you like a hot potato. "Sorry, I just don't know how to go any further with this," or some such. The kiss off. But, what can you do? Most of these associations were tenuous at best. None of the agents were my BFF, and none of them will probably be that to me. I do still have Secret Agent Man still on my side for the non-fiction book I am writing, but that, too, is taking a long, long time, and who knows how patient he will be with me. Very, I hope.

Count Down Day 27--My Obsession with Editor Rosemary Ahern

Q: Do you have any idea what happened to Rosemary Ahern? Has she ever contacted you about your good-natured "obsession" with her? 
A: My agent is friends with Rosemary Ahern, and when my novel was flailing last year, he and I conferred about my getting help from someone who has a publishing-view and could edit the book from that perspective. We came up with Ms. Ahern. It was a little awkward given my fantasy life about having her be my editor, but she claimed she really didn't get the whole blog thing I was doing about her.  I said it was all in good fun, and on the phone, I could hear her shrug. Not an issue.  Anyway, I paid her a bit of coinage to read my novel as it was then and to talk to me on the phone for an hour with high level notes about how to make the thing work.  She was brilliant and encouraging, and I have been in touch with her ever since via email. So, in a way, my little fantasy series (in which she coins a nickname for me as Doodles) turned out to be true, though not romantic.

Count Down: Day 28--Why I Have No MFA & Why It Doesn't Matter

Q. Have you ever considered getting an MFA? Why or why not?
LROD:  Ah...the dreaded MFA question! We have had some fun here on this topic, haven't we?  I never got an MFA. Instead I got a degree related to the kind of writing I do to make a living. A place where I worked paid for the graduate degree. My undergraduate degree, though, was in English Literature and Creative Writing. It used to be one of the few colleges with a workshop-style creative writing program, which has now been decimated by the new President of the college who is an economist and a boor. Shortly after I graduated from said college, I applied to Iowa and Brown, but got promptly rejected, so never applied anywhere else again. That just goes to show you how both arrogant and how insecure I was--a bad combination.  After my first book came out, a collection of stories, I started teaching here and there at some fine institutions as an adjunct instructor in English and in fiction writing, so I guess I never felt like not having an MFA was a deficit. I still managed to do what I wanted to do, and to gain the connections I needed by hook or by crook to get my work read. It probably would have been an easier road had I gotten accepted into one of those prestigious MFA programs, but I had to work full-time, and sadly no one was offering to pay my way or give me a nice juicy grant--those came much later. I could have gotten loans, I guess, but I'm more the nose-to-the-grindstone, earn-and save-money type of individual. (I've had jobs since I was 16 years old.)  I guess easy isn't exactly my modus operandi, anyway. So, no. No MFA.

Count Down: Day 29 and The Fictionalization of This Blog

Day 29....and counting.... 

Q. Have you read the book After The Workshop: A Memoir by Jack Hercules Sheahan: A Novel by John McNally, which seems to include a pretty strong reference to your blog? If so, what did you think?

LROD: Yeah. That novel came out a few years ago.  I am friends with the agent representing the book, who knows this is my blog, but we have never spoken about the fictionalization in his author's book about LROD.  I didn't really know what to make of it, so I never really commented on it. I suppose I should be flattered to make it into the literature, as they say.  I find it amusing, which is what I guess the author's intent is, though it seems slightly defensive too, like maybe he is still working out getting a thrashing here at LROD about his point of view on MFAs.  I do feel a little bad that there are people walking around in the world who have gotten thrashed because, as you know, I think politeness is underrated. That said, here is an excerpt of McNally's novel regarding LROD, so that you may judge for yourself:

A year ago, after a late night at the Foxhead, I made the mistake of pulling up a blog dedicated solely to rejections from literary magazines.  The site was called "Rejections Are My Heart Break and Misery," and each entry was about rigged contests or impersonal notes from agents who'd turned down the blogger's novel or the cruel wording of submission guidelines.  One blog entry that I had drunkenly stumbled onto happened to be about MFA programs, a subject that brought the loons out of their closets by the dozens.  Finally, they could rationalize their own lack of success by accusing publishers and writers of being part of a secret cabal, like Yale's Skull and Bones, that refused to let in anyone who didn't know the secret MFA handshake.  The comments on the blog came pouring in, one after the other, the sentiment being that MFA'ers were coddled, that they didn't know the real world, that they were handed book contracts and cushy teaching appointments upon graduation, that they came from privileged backgrounds.  The words "Ivory Tower" appeared again and again.  Although I couln't argue that my own publications weren't born of dubious circumstances, I foolishly decided to weigh in, letting everyone know that I had an MFA, from Iowa no less, and although most of my colleagues had come from backgrounds with money I certainly hadn't.  furthermore only a few of my classmates had received cushy teaching appointments after earning their diplomas; the vast majority pierced together work any way they could.  Lastly, only a modest percentage of my classmates had published books after graduation, and of those who did, only two had managed to achieve the kind of reputation where someone, somewhere, might actually have heard of him or her.     

"You're all so paranoid, I wrote. And then, for lack of a better closing, I wrote, "Good grief!"

I entered my comment, waited a few minutes, and refreshed the page. A man whose nom de blog was "Oscare Wilde and Crazy" responded to my comment with one word: "Bullshit."  

I wrote back, "Bullshit?"

 "I should kick your ass," Oscar Wilde and Crazy wrote. "You have an MFA from Iowa and you dare come here and chastise us? You're an asshole. Furthermore, I don't believe most of what you've written."

The anonymous blogger, who was known as RAMHAM (the acronym for the blog's name), moderated the comments with such speed that it was only natrual to assume that this person had nothing of import going on in his or her life.

"Now, now," RAMHAM wrote. "No name calling.  Keep it civil."

"Are you kidding me?" I wrote back to Oscar. "Why the hell would I be making this up? Who the fuck are you?"

"I know your kind," Oscar wrote.  "I live in Cedar Rapids. I see you Iowa snobs all the time.  You think your shit doesn't stink..."

"Now, now," RAMHAM chimed back in. "Remember what I told you." (p234)

 The novel goes on for a while with the fictionalized exchange. Then there is a section where the two commenting adversaries plan to meet one another at a local diner.  But the protagonist chickens out at the last minute upon seeing Oscar Wilde and Crazy and denies that he is the guy who agreed to meet. This prompts a tongue lashing on the comments section of RAMHAM, in which Oscar Wilde and Crazy calls the protagonist a "chickenshit mama's boy" and a "hack with an MFA."

You tell me: Should I be flattered or annoyed or simply amused?

On National Coming Out Day, I Begin a 30 Day Count Down to Revealing My Identity

Mice! This is it! In 30 days, my book will be here, so I thought I'd answer a question a day until the big reveal of my identity, the day I will post the cover feature of my novel with an interview in the feature "Victory over Rejection".  In about 2010, some very nice LROD reader, named Anony-mouse, sent a list of questions s/he thought I should answer. 

So here goes: Day #30--Question #1:

Q: What was your most heartbreaking rejection, and why?
LROD: I haven't ever shared my most heartbreaking rejection on this blog before. I guess it was too upsetting for a long time. But now that I have received my first box of my  published novel via priority mail from the publisher, and am getting ready for a book launch, I can share it. As you know, I have had my fair share of agents who have retired, gotten pregnant, gotten fired, and/or left the business. One particular agent was a woman who worked with me on the book very intensely. We had a meeting after one specific serious rewrite, and she very soberly sat me down and told me that I should put the novel on the shelf; it wasn't working, and she didn't see how it would ever work, or how she could ever sell it. I was not expecting this turn of events; I thought we were meeting to figure out which editors we should try first. In fact, I had traveled all the way to New York to meet with her only to have her say that I should give it up. I remember thinking that I was never going to recover from the blow. I remember being really pissed and really down about it for a long time. But eventually, like a weed, I grew back even stronger and got back to work. When this agent quit the biz, I went on to find another. 

Blurb, Blurb, Blurb...Drowing in Strong Emotions

I'm feeling overwhelmed and lucky. You guys are never going to guess who just gave me the BEST blurb a new novel can have.  I'll give you a hint: It's someone we know here at LROD, which is my only connection to the guy.

What Happens to all the Words That Die in The Process of Writing a Novel?

This morning my shirinkydoo (whom I'll call Mini-Freud) seemed disgruntled. I asked him, "What's up? How are you feeling?"* This led to a long drawn out discussion about me, of all things, about how I'm doing with my forthcoming novel. November still seems a long way off, but by the end of this month, the final edited, the publisher's proof and the layout of the book will be put to bed, which means no more final fantastical blurbs, no more changes, no more holding it close to my chest. Not ever again. It is done, ready for sailing.

What came up as I was saying all this to Mini-Freud was somewhat surprising, at least to me.  That is, a great wave of sadness rose up and appeared in written words, not water. All these written words were the ones that didn't make it into the final book. Discarded scene after discarded scene, and back story after detail, all of which have been cut from the novel, and they washed over me, and I felt a sense of enormous grief. How is it that all these beloved words, these hundreds of pages, which did their duty in service to building the little boat that is my novel, are now gone, erased, their work complete? What happens to the unused writing when the little vessel floats out there on its own? It's just a slim volume compared to all that has been written in it and as it over the years to get to this very launching? How will it do on its own without the support of every single left-behind thought, word, image, metaphor, and scene that helped to create it? All those words that only I know about.  What if those are the words that justify the novel as being worthy of reading?

Mini-Freud suggested in his gentle way that perhaps I am grieving all the choices not taken in my own life, all the options passed by on the way toward realizing my one impermanent, imperfect, fragile life.  He said, "To actualize anything, especially a life, we leave a lot of dreams behind, don't we?" Ah, Mini-Freud, how wise you are.  Ah, novel, I hope you have a safe, adventuresome, and long journey into the world without too many storms. Sail boldly in the name of all the words that have drown in your honor.

*Or maybe I was feeling disgruntled and he asked me how I was feeling? I always know who's who in there.

Never Did Get An Agent, But Sold My Novel Anyway

Remember this catastrophe of agent rejections, mice? Well, it never got any better.  In fact, my novel got published because I entered it into a small press first novel contest. It didn't even win, you know, but it did get chosen as one of the four books the teeny tiny press puts out there in the world.  The publisher says, "Basically because this deserves to be a book." And that's that. Of course I do have an agent for the more commercial enterprise of mine, but that book is still being written. Why is it taking so long to get it right, the commercial book? I don't know. Maybe that's just not the kind of Girlie Man I am.

Lost in the Jungle of Complaints and Worry

Luck is a strange thing when it comes to books. My first book comes to mind: the editor quit/was fired almost as soon as the thing hit the bookstores. It was news  not shared with me for weeks. Finally, I heard about it on the street and I have to say I was furious at how it was handled. But what can you do? That was the end of that: book dead in the water. Orphaned books are generally not well promoted books.

With my novel due out November 11, 2014, I learn that the publisher/editor of the little press is pregnant: baby due in December, a few weeks following the birth of my novel. This is incredible happy news, and I am glad for the budding family. Also there's an illness in the family of someone closely related to the book. This is just life, I know, life and death.

Here's the long and short of it; I used to say that if my manuscript ever made it into a book I would be eternally grateful and humble. So be it. For now, I say thank you for the book, and I will shut the fuck up. Amen.

The Press and Other Calamities

Since last we got together, mice, a few seminal things have happened. I was profiled in the New York Times, though not for my writing, which was mentioned briefly as my profession. And all my trying and angling and scraping did not get the interviewer to mention my forthcoming novel. It would have been so great, and at the same time, it points out how much of a wheedler and whore one becomes when about to get published--or I should say what a wheedler and whore I have become. Case in point: twittering so that I can have "a platform" for selling my book. I mean, who am I? What have I become? It seems to me that it would be better for my mental and emotional health to understand that whatever happens when the novel is published is truly out of my grasp. And yet, sitting as an innocent bystander, and watching it all go down, feels pretty terrible too. So what's a writer to do? Another thing happened: a big name literary star who offered to blurb my book did not receive it though it was sent to her in the mail, and now she is on summer vacation and not going to work, so not going to read my novel and blurb it. But as she says: "Congrats anyway!" Right? Ah, mice, these are very minor bumps in the road to publication. There are bound to be more, and it would behoove me to focus on what's important here. A manuscript that I shepherded around for a decade and a half is going to become a book, which will get some kind of review attention, I would presume, and which will sit on a couple of library shelves for a while, and get read (if I'm lucky) by a few hundred people, and then it will rest comfortable in my heart and in the world as basically a done deal.  Hmm.  When I/you put it that way, it hardly seems worth the effort and pain, does it, or does it? Moot point, since it's what we do. I estimate that about 0.99% of us will have some publishing experience other than (more glorious?) the one described here, but that isn't likely going to be me. Ever. So, I will move it along and write the next book, which is taking a long time, because I have to work as a (paid) writer to make a living, and also I am traumatized by all this, which isn't a very flattering public disclosure, but it is true. Seriously, mice, I speak the truth. I am among the walking wounded: we overly sensitive sorts, we writers. And yet I think of myself as one of those ancient indestructible beetles with the head of a rhinoceros, on which you could drop a building, and the thing will still keep crawling toward water. For today, anyway, that is my dim take on the matter. Tomorrow, I will be excited and hopeful again, because that's just how it is to be me.

Time To Let Go (For Real This Time)

Some sort of change is sweeping me along, people. This week I fired two of my paying clients because I'd pretty much had it. You must understand that in the decades I have been a freelance writer in a certain couple of industries, I have never once fired anyone. Ever. So: a) you know it was bad, and b) you know I had tried for awhile to help them, which is what I usually do with the less successful teams. This is to say that I have put up with all sorts of indignities; I have stuffed and swallowed my comments at lame critcism, dysfunctional systems, and mean people as necessary over the years. I have written whatever was requested of me no matter the impossibility of the deadline, the incomprehensibility of the request, or the insanity of the circumstances. (Once I wrote a website about leukemia for an Italian-only-speaking client in what was requested as "British English," so it could be translated into French. What the what?!) But something has happened to me of late. Something good, I hope. I realize I don't have to take any old thing that is handed to me. I don't have to fix everything that is wrong. And I get a choice in the matter too. Just because I can write ANYTHING pretty well doesn't mean I have to say yes to EVERYONE.

There's a certain fellow, whom I like to call Mini Freud, who is the current guide of my psyche, who likens these crazy agency work teams (you know the set up: account people, traffic people, editors, and art directors) to my family of origin. The crazier they behave, the more at home I feel, says Mini Freud. And probably he is correct. But I am busting out. You know why? I don't need money THAT desperately.  I've been at this for nearly 20 years, so I can actually sit back a little and choose which projects to take and which to let pass by my front stoop. (This time of year, I do generally use my front porch as my office.) That's right, my friends, at this late date, W,R is finally giving up the panic about ever really making a living as a writer (technical/promotional writing almost counts as writing, doesn't it?) because I've been making a living for some time now, and I might as well catch up to this fact, and chill out a little. Our little W,R is growing up at last.

But there is something else too. There is something big I have put off until the last minute, as my deadline is June. I have put off the final write up for the publisher of all the proof changes, final tinkerings, and last minute catches to my novel that will finalize the published version you will see on November 11, 2014. What it means, mice, is that this is truly it. End of the line. It as in IT, no more time on the meter. I will no longer have this novel all to myself any more. I will no longer have the opportunity to change any word, any punctuation, any character name, any anything I see fit to change in that leisurely "no-one's-going-to-buy-this-book" way. I will not be able to make it better after this, cannot think of some cool thing to try out, cannot let it rest in its little word document file while we take a break. I must let it go, and I must do so now.

Though I have longed for this moment of sending it off into the world for many years, as you have witnessed through this blog, it feels like I am ripping out the inner lining of my lungs. (Sorry to be so dramatic; I am tempted to ignore the feeling and wheeze out a statement about everything being fine, but I tend to get in trouble when I allow myself to be the Queen of Denial, as they say.)  So, I have cleared away nearly entire the day (except for a brochure on multiple sclerosis that needs to be rewritten) for this task, and maybe for a few melodramatic tears. 

Luckily, too, I think I have finally nailed the right approach for the nonfiction book I have been writing (fist-fight, more like) for the past couple of years, so I better get on with the new book (draft #4) and start this whole bruising book-readying cycle all over again. Why do we do it? I ask you and you ask me. There is no answer to that question other than, I suppose, because we can't not.

Happy Friday, ya'll. And Happy Memorial Day Weekend, Rosemary Ahern.

I Stand on The Titles That Came Before Me

Yesterday I was featured in the local newspaper's weekend art's section with a head-to-toe photograph and a Q&A interview by way of a little early book promotion. It was my idea to stand on the pile of books, which I thought would be interesting. In the photo, I am also holding the advanced reading copy of my novel. Of course. The whole thing was kind of fun. But here's the thing: we are ill-equipped in so many ways, we writers. I mean, they keep you alone in a dark room with the dim glow of the computer screen for, say, 15 years,* where you become isolated, surly, and happy being alone. Then for a few minutes they throw you into the glaring light to sing and dance, and seem like the interesting person whose book everyone will want to read, and it's weird. I feel vaguely unpresentable, like I need a shave (back and legs, of course). Also, I feel apologetic about it, like: "Look what I'll do to sell my book....that's right, anything!" And yet they tell you this is what you must do: tweet, pose, post, stump, read, smile, sound interesting, balance on one foot, stand on your head. Don't get me wrong: I am not complaining. I am perfectly, happily happy about the entire situation. I'm just....I don't know...a little uncomfy, I guess. It's like my friends 7-year-old kid who always says: "Look at me! Look at me! Don't look at me!" Right?? I keep looking at my watch, thinking, "Okay, so when do I get to go back to my dungeon office? I have another book I could be writing." And I'm also thinking at the exact same time, "Oh, no. This will be over in the blink of an eye, and then I will have to go back to that office dungeon! I have that other book to write." It's very confusing, is what I'm trying to say. Today, after the article ran, I got a text from someone who is sort of stalking/flirting/playing me, but it might also have been completely innocent in that "guess-who-I-am-I-met-you-once-at-a-party-and-I-want-to-read-everything-you've-ever-written-but-am-not-going-to-tell-you-who-I-am-cause-it's-more-fun-for-me-to-have-you-keep-guessing" way. And, um, the whole thing is super weird.

*My writer friend, Sal, says that I have to stop harping on the length of time that it took to write this beyotch of a novel. She says no one cares, and so I'd better start shutting up about it. I believe she is probably right.

Fresh Juniper Rejection

I got this today, which means, oops, I forgot to withdraw my novel manuscript from this competition.  Guess it's a good thing it apparently didn't even come close to winning. Also, it's about as bare bones as you can get, no?

Thank you for entering our Juniper Prize competition. I am sorry that your entry was not chosen. I hope you will enter again in August 2014.

Reflections on A Writing Life

It's always a little complicated to come back from a writing retreat. In my normal daily life as a writer, I actually write all the time, as in definitely every day, and mostly every hour of every working day, Monday through Friday. This has been good because writing is really the only thing I do well, and I've figured out ways to squeeze some spinach out of my abilities.

No part of my paid writing is very meaningful, of course, or very good for that matter, but I take a certain pride in getting it done to the satisfaction of the people paying me. Of course my creative writing is very meaningful, at least to me, and we'll see how it goes with the rest of you in November. In the minutes between being paid to write, I've always found spare time to work on my own projects: novels, stories, essays, occasionally even a book or two. It's a huge balancing act, and I realize I should be grateful for all the years I've managed to have something weighing down both sides of the scales: dollars on one side, fiction on the other. It's not been easy, of course, but whose writing life is easy? My books take an eternity to finish, in part because they are written in the cracks between paid gigs. But it's been all right. In fact, looking back it's been pretty good. I wish I could take back all the worrying I did over the years. If I could give young W,R some advice, I'd say, "Calm the F down, little dude. It's all good."

Coming home from the writing retreat this weekend, I did have to wonder, probably for the first time with any seriousness, what it would be like for me to be able to work solely on my own creative projects. Could I do it? Would I really want to? I'd be very poor, of course, and probably ultimately homeless, and potentially un-spoused, and maybe a little bit feral. But I do know people who live their life this way for art's sake. I've seen them. I've met them. They are scrappy and have truck loads of integrity because they don't hire themselves out to write about smart phones and pharmaceutical drugs and psoriasis.

I'm not sure I'm cut out for that kind of deprivation and artistic intensity though. It seems supremely hard to me: both logistically and creatively. It would be like always worrying about money, and always staring at the blank page at the exact same time, but maybe also it would be amazing. Maybe my work would blossom and not be such a struggle. Who knows?

I pretty much always felt the need for a mix of things: having someone tell me what to write has actually offset the difficulty of knowing myself what I should be writing. Plus I work well under deadlines and time pressures. They seem to give my life purpose, though I do see what a trap that kind of thinking can be. Before you know, time's up and you've been writing about health insurance, paint colors and what-not. 

I could live in the woods. I could eat berries. I could write all the day long. But probably I won't. I'll stay in my house and pay my mortgage, and have annoying clients who email me constantly, and call me with issues and problems and edits and advertising crises that in the moment seem so important, but really are not. And I will be slightly annoyed by the whole thing, but still grateful for them.

In the aggregate, it has really all been just fine the way it happened to play out.

Road Trip: AWP in Minneapolis, 2015

I got an email at writerrejected [at] aol [dot] com from a complete stranger inviting me to be on a panel about rejection at AWP. Remember when people were mad about LROD sparking discussions on the matter? Now they will host panels on the matter. A very nice progression.

I accepted the invitation, of course, which would bring my coming out a bit earlier than expected. The announcement of AWP panels and speakers (should this particular panel be selected) is in August 2014, the book comes out in November 2014, the panel is April 2015. The idea is to use my real name in the announcement in August, and I suppose, and to bill me (the real me) as host to LROD/Writer, Rejected.

Seems like a some sort of new level of something-ness has been reached here at the good old LROD Ranch.

So, maybe I'll see you, then, at AWP next spring.

Tweet, Tweet, Yo.

This little blue bird of happiness is busting my butt. I am a twittering twit now. I am conquering the learning curve: RT-ing and MT-ing and #-ing up a storm. It's strangely addictive and falsely reassuring. Someone I know has a little kid, who when asked what facebook was, replied, "It's where you go on the computer and pretend you're famous." Right? When did it become so much about being famous? (Not to mention falsely so.) I don't know, but I did create a facebook page for my novel, and I invited all my friends and all my "friends." I already feel like my novel is getting overexposed among my friends, and we are all going to be sick of it in about 1 minute. The pub date is still 7 months away, so I guess I better get un-shy in a hurry.

Also did you know you cannot follow more than 2K tweeps?  I just found that out.