On not buying the farm

Our family wasn't looking for a farm. And then the opportunity to purchase a 10 acre property and a fully renovated farmhouse about an hour and fifteen minutes from where we live pretty much fell into our laps.

We'd been talking about our next steps for quite some time, ever since our kids started approaching college age. We knew we weren't going to stay in our current home and in the Boston suburbs forever.

A farm was not something I would ever have dreamed of wanting. I am a self-described 'city mouse'. I lived in Manhattan in my young independent years and it's a city that imprints itself on you. Living in the suburbs was a compromise with my husband (more of a country mouse) and the needs of our family.

But as my life shifted more and more to the life of a writer, the idea of a truly quiet space really began to appeal to me. Now, it had to be in the right area. I needed to be somewhere near a writing/creative community, ideally not far from a college town. In our pipe-dreams, we had settled on the Western MA region, somewhere not far from the Northampton area and the five colleges. That would give my husband his open space and me my connections to culture.

Then a month ago, I got an email. The farmers that run the meat share we belong to were selling a family property and our dream went from theoretical to practical. Long story short, we put in an offer. So did two others.

Yesterday, we found out that the sellers are choosing one of the other offers. And I totally understand why: it's a young couple with several years of farming experience who are ready to start farming the property now. We are a few years away from making the break from where we are. While we would maintain the property - either renting it out or using it as a weekend home/writing workshop space, we weren't ready to commit to it full time.

Am I disappointed? Yes. But here's the interesting thing: I'm not devastated, like I thought I'd be.

Disappointment is a feature (not a bug!) of the creative life. I have been rejected far more often than I have been accepted since I dedicated myself to being a writer. I have learned that so much about 'success' is simply out of my control and that my own abilities are not dependent upon what happens externally.

Honestly, it was far, far harder for me to cope during the several week-long process of waiting for the owners to accept or reject our offer. Living in that liminal state had me anxious and depressed. (I wonder if that's how Schrodinger's cat felt. . . )

Knowing - even if that meant the answer was no - is better than not knowing.

And I don't feel as if this process was in any way wasted. It clarified what my husband and I want in a way that all the daydreaming hadn't. We'll be continuing to look in the Northampton to Worcester region for a small farm property. We're not in any pressured rush and I know we'll find something we love. (And if you know of a place, please let us know!)

So someday we *will* 'buy the farm'. Just not this day. . .

---

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Message in a Bottle

 

(Acoustic version of "Message in a Bottle" by Sting)

I have another manuscript my agent wasn't able to sell. Another young adult story that is out of step with what the publishers are currently buying. That makes three books in five years.

(Digression number one: I have nothing but respect and admiration for the work my agent has done on  my behalf. Please, no agent-bashing in comments.)

Anyone less stubborn than I am might have given up on writing books that don't sell after one or two. Maybe that writer would have written different kinds of books, books that had more of what the market was looking for. Certainly, I think there have been times when I must have driven my agent mad. We had lunch when I was in LA a little over a year ago and spent some time walking through the local B&N, looking at the YA shelves together. It was sad and frustrating to acknowledge that my stories didn't seem to have a place next to what was published. What is even more frustrating is that she believes in me and in my writing. The editors who have read and then reluctantly turned down my work, praise it, but don't know how to sell it. 

(Digression number two: this isn't a 'traditional publishing stinks' tirade. I have gone on record in the past, and still believe, that the flexible author is the author who will thrive. I will publish in whatever way gets my books into the hands of its ideal readers. That means a mix of traditional, small press, and indie.)

I seem to write small stories. By small, I mean stories of choices and change, stories of friendship and danger in a world not quite our mundane one, but not too far from it, either. My worlds are not populated by flashy monsters or mythical creatures. My stories are not propelled by a primary romantic plot that depends on the heroine making a choice between two suitors.  That's just not my style or my preference in writing.

(Digression number three: I'm not anti-romance. I just think the love triangle plot device is horribly overused in YA work and has become a parody of itself.)

All my stories, both those written for a young adult audience and those written for a general adult audience, have at their center a quiet character who must make quiet choices that turn out to be crucial, brave, and ultimately heroic.

It seems like my stories are neither here nor there. Neither magical enough, nor realistic enough to fit into neat genres.

But they are the stories that resonate with me.

(Digression number four: this is not a plea for reassurance or a self-pity party. I am comfortable with the choices I have made in my writing and have no regrets.)

I don't believe in writing 'message' fiction. (I bet you were wondering how I'd relate this to the title. . . ) It smacks of parental lectures and after-school TV specials. Yet all story has a message. I understand that. This is mine:

• authenticity matters
• integrity matters
• trusting oneself matters
• honor and friendship matter

Several years ago, I spent weeks and weeks struggling to find something to put on  my business cards that captured my style, my 'brand' if you will, though I dislike that word. Let's call it part of my manifesto. What I came up with after filling pages with ideas was this:

Where the mundane and the strange collide.
Where the familiar twists slightly out of shape.
Where ordinary choices lead to extraordinary journeys.

Looking at these words, I realize they fit me now, more than ever. The stories I write may not be the blockbusters you see on bookshelves, but I believe they are good stories, stories that resonate with young people and not-so-young people. Perhaps the market will turn toward the kind of quiet, small story I write. Perhaps it won't. That's not up to me. What is up to me is that I continue to write. Perhaps some day soon, I, too, will be amazed at the hundred million bottles, washed up on the shore.

Morning Thoughts, Morning Confessions

If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us.
  - Hermann Hesse

 This was on my google home page.  I like having a quote of the day.  It reminds me of my 6th grade teacher who kept a large jar on his desk filled with the small tags of saying from salada tea bags.  Once a week, we would each pick one and our homework was to write a short essay the quote inspired.

Today, this quote resonated with a video one of my facebook friends linked to.  A PSA/plea from Ellen Degeneris to work to protect children's lives from bullying.






It always comes down to fear. Fear of the 'other'. Fear that the 'other' is us.

Well, in a way, it's true. We are all 'other.' No one of us is the same as any one else. And yet, doesn't that mean that we are all fighting the same battle?

We have this drive, this need to connect. Yet fear keeps us apart. And our fear drives us to do terrible, hurtful things.

I remember being a young teen and feeling 'other.' Feeling desperate to be part of something, but not knowing how. In Jr. High school, I had a friend who was a 'geek'. A 'dweeb'. He was in the computer club. He was the first boy I ever kissed. And when some of the more popular kids let me beg the crumbs off their social table, I shunned him, as if he were a leper.

35 years later, I am still ashamed of myself.

I know I caused him pain out of my own selfish need for outside acceptance.

He didn't deserve it.

I rejected him because I knew I was also an outsider. And being an outsider was anathema to the acceptance I craved. So in rejecting him, I rejected myself.

I don't remember his name, but 35 years later, I still remember the feel of his chapped lips and his laugh. I still remember feeling ashamed.

Waiting for Earl, harvest update, and odds &ends

My in-laws said that the weather was just turning bad in Maryland, in advance of Hurricane Earl. The path of the storm may or may not strike us here in Massachusetts. I hope that it does not hit them on the Chesapeake Bay.

It's hard to believe in such a ferocious storm given the past several days here have been so hot, dry, and still.

***

We're still in full-on harvest mode. Today was about raspberry jam. I picked the berries this morning. By evening, they were cooling as jam in glass jars. How cool is that?

So far this season:

Dehydrated strawberries
Strawberry preserves: 8 half-pints
Raspberry preserves: 6 half pints, 4 pints
Sliced peaches: 16 pints
Peach 'honey': 5 half pints
Fig preserves: 6 4-oz jars
Dehydrated cherry tomatoes: 12 pints
Chopped tomatoes: 10 quarts frozen, 6 quarts canned
Tomato sauce: 12 quarts

Next up: more tomato sauce, and then apples! Dried, sliced, and apple sauce, and perhaps eggplants and zucchini to dry.

I like to go downstairs and visit the jars in the pantry. Yeah, I know that's weird. :) But it makes me happy to see all the colorful food we can eat all winter long.

All that lovely abundance--sunshine and water transmuted to delicious food with a little work.

***

School starts for my kids in a few days. While it's been a looooong time since I've started a new school year, I still look at September as a time for new beginnings.

I'm looking forward to finding my work-a-day groove again with my writing. Now that I've set up my keyboard tray and the office is more ergonomically kind, I hope to be back to 1K/day writing.

A few 'passes' on the newest WIP out to editors. Disappointing, yes, but that's the way this process goes. I remain optimistic. My agent, the lovely and gracious Nephele Tempest remains optimistic. I have no control over how the editors regard my work. I can only write the strongest story I know how to write.

***

The Redsox are winning tonight--always a good thing in our family's life. Hubby poured me a lovely glass of red wine. He and I will celebrate our 22nd wedding anniversary this weekend.

I am fortunate beyond measure.

Interesting Statistics

I sent out my first query for my first completed novel in August of 2005. Since then, I've written 3 novels and most of a 4th.

According to my agent tracker database:

Total queries: 99 (for 3 completed projects)
Date spanned: 8/4/05 through 11/9/07
No answer post 1 year: 22
Outstanding queries: 6
Requested fulls awaiting response: 2

What I find fascinating about this is the high percentage of non-responses. Greater than 1/5. And this is after scrupulously following agency guidelines in terms of email vs snail mail, SASE, sample pages, etc. Some, but not most of these agencies do indicate that no response means not interested, but the vast majority of the non-responders have language on their websites or other postings on time frames. Several agencies did not respond even to a polite status request.

I share these numbers only as a point of interest. For me, this reinforces the need to query widely. To broadcast, as in its original meaning: "Sow over a wide area, especially by hand."

Many, many of your seeds will be pecked by birds*, get too much or not enough water, or will be buried too far down in the soil to reach the sunlight.

Cast your seeds widely, looking for fertile ground and good growing conditions.

----

*A joke for my hubby, who is a physician. There is an ICD-9 (diagnostic) code for just about every illness or ailment, including one for 'pecked by bird' E906.8 For some strange reason, this one makes me laugh, though I realize if one were pecked by birds, it would not be very funny. What can I say--I have an odd and often macabre sense of humor.

Fear and Loathing in Writer-land

"I cant. . . " "I'll never. . . " "Who am I fooling. . . "

That negative self talk is never so loud as when I receive a rejection. I think if you are sensitive enough to create, to write, then rejections, no matter how gently put, feel personal.

So I'm in my wallowing phase. I can wallow *today* and then it has to stop. That's the permission I give myself. One day to feel bloody awful, to lick my wounds, and generally pull the metaphorical covers over my head.

As rejections go, it was a pretty good one. A personal note with specific comments as to what they liked and what did not work for them with my partial. Looking at it objectively, (writer peeks from self-pity covers. . .) I've make fairly astounding progress in three and a half years of writing, two years of submitting.

I sent my first query for my first novel in August of 2005. Most of my responses were form letter rejections. I began querying for the second novel in September of 2006. That project garnered a bunch of partial requests and personalized rejections along with the dreaded form letters. Half the queries so far for my third novel have garnered requests for partials and for fulls. Some have come back as personal rejections, written with useful feedback. Several are still out in the world of potential agents. Novel number four is more than halfway completed.

I know this is progress, that momentum is gathering. I know the road to publication is a slow and painful process. I know they are not rejecting *me*.

I know all this. I even believe it and I share it with fellow writers. Only today, the inner voices of self-doubt are drowning out the other, more rational, more encouraging voices.

It's a beautiful sunny summer day and sitting here at the computer will not help shake me from this mood. My dog is waiting by the front door, looking out with the sadness and longing that only dogs can pull off--seeming goofy and immensely dignified at the same time. I think she is telling me that there are trees to sniff and tennis balls to chase and after all, the only time that matters is now.

I'm going for a walk to look for my lost perspective. Perhaps Tigger will help me sniff it out--she is part scent-hound, after all.

Not Right for Me

I've experienced an epiphany in my quest for a literary agent. Okay, maybe epiphany is too strong a word. Perhaps a re-frame is more like it. When an agent sends back your query letter with a note or form letter saying your project 'is not right for me', well, that's exactly what it means.

(Pause for readers to reflect and exclaim upon my wisdom. . .)

Well, sarcasm aside, I had an interesting experience yesterday. I attended Boskone with my family--a scifi/fantasy literary convention in Boston. Several of the panels discussed the business end of writing and since I'm an aspiring author, I attended them all. Later in the evening, I had a lovely conversation with one of the agents from a panel. He was interested in the genres I write, open to new projects, and gave me his website address to look at his submission guidelines.

I spent some time looking at his website and blog, checking him out in the usual places (P&E, agentquery, etc) and determined that he was not right for me. My reasons for choosing not to query him have nothing to do with his skills or talents as an agent. (He's a legitimate agent with verifiable sales.) I just didn't come away from my research feeling that we would be a good match for one another.

I am not being sarcastic or snide when I say this and it casts my many 'not right for me' letters in a very different light.

The past three years have taught me a lot about how the business of publishing works and I am absolutely convinced that the match between agent and author has to be the right fit for both. When I finished writing "The Wings of Winter" 2 years ago, I queried every reputable agent I could find who took fantasy. I had this dream that if just one agent took me on, the book would sell and I'd be published. Just one agent. Any agent. As if they were interchangeable and I just had to find one who would say yes. I received many rejections for that project. I understand now that it was not ready for prime time and that I had pitched it incorrectly. The two books I've written since then are both stronger books and I understand far better what the query process is and isn't.

In a way, I've now made my own job harder. It's not just an agent. It's *the* agent. The right agent. Yet, what this means for me is that rejections are just not personal. It's about the relationship between my work and the reading agent. If that relationship is not right, I really don't want that agent representing my work. And if I respect my work, than it's worth finding the right agent for it.

There are things I'm just not going to obsess about anymore. One of these is type fonts for query letters and submissions. I've watched writers go into tailspins over minutiae like this. My plan is to follow the directions on a particular agent's listing. If he or she does not have specific guidelines, I'll go with basic manuscript formatting. Currier vs currier new vs times roman? Not going to give it a second thought. If an agent is going to reject me out of hand for choosing the wrong type font if I've followed specific or standard directions, then so be it.

I'm not going to agonize over my query letter. I will write a one page letter that has all the standard elements. But panic? Not going to do it anymore. My watchwords for query letters are now professional, direct, concise. Trying for dramatic or unusual isn't me. I'm a straightforward person. My query letters need to reflect that.

What I will do is move forward in my writing with confidence and joy. My expectations are realistic. I know this is a difficult business where art and the dictates of the marketplace collide. I know that most books never earn their advances and most authors cannot make a complete living through their art. It stinks, but that's the way it is.

I'm not discouraged. Writing is what I do. I think about stories all the time and in the quiet minutes I create between work and family obligations, I write them down.

No, I'm not discouraged. Somewhere out there is the right agent for my work.

I'll keep you posted.

Why write?

It's not a flippant question. Writing is hard work. It takes time. To become published is little more than a wild goose chase for most people. It requires patience and an endless capacity to deal with rejection. Even most published writers fail to make a living from it.

So why bother?

I can only answer for myself and my answer today may be different from my answer another day. Today I write because I choose to peddle that rarest and most addictive of drugs: hope. Life is a dangerous, uncertain proposition. Happy endings are the exception, rather than the rule. If you don't believe me, read the newspaper cover to cover or listen to CNN for a full day.

When I read, I choose to read stories in which characters move through adversity and into hope. I don't need the proverbial 'happily ever after' ending nor do I avoid stories in which unpleasant things happen. But I need to know the hero/heroine does not lose hope in the end.

I choose to write about characters who move through adversity and into hope. In fact, that is a basic theme of both my completed novels and the one currently in process. There's a reason I prefer "The Tempest" to "Othello". Both are complex works. In one, Shakespeare has his characters end with hope. In the other, the stage is littered with bodies.

Real life is littered with bodies. I don't need that in my reading.

Besides, writing is an act of faith and of hope. I write at home, usually when I'm alone and yet, there's a reader in my mind all the time. Maybe a multitude of readers. They are there just over the horizon and I am writing to tell them a story.

I am writing to share my belief that we can move through adversity and into hope.

Even if its only within the pages of a book.

What I am Thankful For

It is so easy to get overwhelmed by all that we haven't accomplished. In this materialistic society we often measure our success and our happiness by tangible things.

By the standards of outward success I am a failure. In two years of querying for two different books I have received only rejections. I have fallen behind my writing schedule for "The House of Many Doors" and have written only a few hundred words in the past several weeks. I continue to be woefully behind in the paperwork and billing aspects of my day job.

But I have an enormous amount of love and support in my life. My family and my friends hold me in their hearts in the same way I hold them in mine. I cannot begin to articulate how much that love means to me. My children are growing and thriving. For the most part they are happy--even without cable TV. (A long running family joke--we must be one of the last American families without cable.) We enjoy one another's company and we celebrate each other's small successes. My boys are some of my biggest supporters. They push me to write and write well and they share their stories and poetry with me.

I am thankful to have the ability and the support to write.

I am thankful for laughter and the ability to be silly in the face of adversity.

I am thankful for the love I receive and the love that I am able to give.

To all those who celebrate it--Happy Thanksgiving and may you always have blessings to be thankful for.

It is too easy. . .

It is too easy to get discouraged. Thin envelopes with my own handwriting on them depress me. I know when they slip from the mess of catalogues and bills, it will be another rejection.

My head knows it's not a rejection of *me*. How could it be? These agents don't know me. They only have access to a smattering of my words. The start of a story, a query letter. A slim fraction of my work, and almost no sense of who I am.

My heart feels something utterly primal and undeniable.

I can argue with my heart from now until next Tuesday and it won't make it feel any better.

I am tired of reading cheery form letters that exhort me to keep trying, that the right agent for me is certainly just around the corner.

Sigh.

I'm enough of an optimist to get to that place on my own.

It just takes me a few days.

It would be simple to get discouraged, to give up this ridiculous dream of publication. But my traitor heart won't let me. Oh, it will wallow in it's own misery for a day or two, but it can't hold onto bitterness or despair for very long. Soon it will start whistling at odd moments when it doesn't think I'll notice.

And I'll fall in love with the way two words sound next to one another or how one character nudges another into action. Then it's the easiest thing in the world to believe.

Even in the most unlikely of dreams.

A year of querying

It has been just over a year since I completed "The Wings of Winter" and set out to begin the agent query quest.

I must admit to a large degree of naivete, but I did think I would obtain agency representation without too much difficulty.

Perhaps when the odds are so long, one must hold onto belief and hope.

I year, 48 queries, 30 rejections. That leaves 18 outstanding, some from a year ago, a bunch from last winter.

Likely some of the outliers are rejections--several agents only respond to e-queries *if* they are interested. I decided that I would forgo the convenience of e-queries for the closure of a slim envelope with a 'sorry, not right for us' on it.

Do I experience a pang of disappointment when I get a rejection letter? Of course--I can't imagine who wouldn't. But I am not ready to slit my wrists over my keyboard or stop writing.

Nor will I chuck "Wings" under the (metaphorical) bed. Writing a good query has been a process. I am still learning.

I am still learning the craft of writing.

My first draft of "MindBlind" is significantly better than the first draft of "Wings."

I've been able to take everything I've learned writing "Wings" and translate it to the new project. Dialogue is sharper, I (think!) I've overcome my tendency to use the dreaded comma splice, and I've learned to outline more fully.

I've edited "Wings", paring down what was not needed, sharpening the prose, and focusing on the main characters and conflicts. It's now down to 125K from a first draft of well over 150K. And I'm starting to see that it is a YA story, as its main story arc is one of coming of age/growing into power. 6 more queries will hit the mailbox tomorrow.

I'm on target to finish "MindBlind" by the end of August. Sometime in the fall, if I haven't gotten any positive response for "Wings", I will lay it aside for a while and query for "MindBlind."

I'm getting that familiar tickle in the back of my head when a story is trying to emerge. Next project--"The House of Many Doors," a YA horror novel.

I do have faith that one of these stories will strike a chord with an agent, a publisher, and become one of the lucky ones to make it to print.

In the meanwhile, I continue to write.

"It Just Takes One Yes"

These are snippets taken from my collection of rejection letters. To be a writer, you need a thick skin and the ability to create art from anything is a definite plus.

Enjoy.

"It Just Takes One Yes"
(A found poem)


Please accept my apology for this form response,  
              Thank you for your submission. Unfortunately 
 I was delighted to receive your query, and I  
   Thank you so much for sending [our] Literary Agency 
 
 
but the volume of mail received in my office  
  I was not sufficiently enthusiastic to feel 
 have given it my most careful attention. Alas--  
   your query. I’d like to apologize in advance 
 
makes a personal reply impossible.  
              that I would be the right agent for your work. 
 and much as I hate to relay the news thru this form,  
   this standard rejection letter.  
 
 
I have reviewed your material and it is not anything. 
  Best wishes for finding a good agent and publisher. 
 The query was not quite intriguing enough. 
   The volume of queries as of late-- 
   
   
Thank you    I wish to work with,  
I was delighted    inspire me 
Thank you so much  to offer representation, 
Please accept my apology   I am grateful. 
 
   
I wish you the best of luck with other agents  
  and I wish you the best of success 
   Good luck with all your publishing endeavors. 
 I recommend that you pursue other agents 
 
 
I'm sorry to say that I don't believe  
I am the right agent for you. You deserve  
 
an enthusiastic representative, so. After all,  
it just takes one "yes" and with so many  
 
different opinions out there,  
you could easily find the right match. 

Dealing with Rejection

I just received my 16th rejection on my query for "The Wings of Winter." When I got that first rejection in the mail--that terribly thin envelope written in my own handwriting--I was devastated. Then the second came and I was devastated. Somewhere after they hit double digits, I stopped feeling as if that envelope was the end of the world. Don't get me wrong--rejection is never fun, but I believe in the book and believe it has what it takes to be successfully published. It's just that I'm no longer emotionally tied up in the query process. My energies and focus remain on writing. Getting "Wings" in the right hands is a matter of persistence, timing, and some luck. It has little to do with me personally.

It's the writing, stupid. (She says to self.) That's what I love, what feeds my soul. Words, sentences, story ideas, characters; they follow me through my waking hours and into my dreams.

5 more queries are going in the mail tomorrow. Bring on the skinny envelopes. Each day gets me closer to yes.

"Opening the Fifth Rejection Letter"

I will stop feeling
sorry for myself. He didn't
tell me I should look
into another line of work. Really,
I've gotten that letter before.
Twenty two years ago; the stakes
much higher, grad school the brass
ring. More like brass balls. Oh so
gently suggesting (full of parenthetical
concern) that I apply to another type
of program. One I would be more
suited for. This, a hiccup--
no need for the universal gesture
or the heimlich. Just a belly-full
of ache and chocolate chunk ice cream.
A hundred or more of the same
sterile letters folded in envelopes
addressed in my own hand
and I would still count
only blessings. I will not be beaten
for words, the right words, lack of words,
silence when I should have shouted,
a hemmorhage of sentences,
paragraphs when I should have been
silent. It is deviant, yes, this private
thing, this playing with oneself
in a dimly lit room or the orgy
of sharing, the "I'll show you mine
if you show me yours." But if I stop
scratching pen to paper,
I would die as surely as any
chicken who refuses
to scratch the dirt for food.

ljcohen, 2005