"Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It's the one and only thing you have to offer."
I needed to hear that. I also needed to clean and organize our spare room so that it's a space I want to write in. So that I'm surrounded by things that inspire me, but also so that the clutter is gone. Maybe fung shui is real. Who am I to argue with the Ming dynasty? The room feels better to be in--that's all I know.
I also posted all my rejection letters from agents on one wall. I could only find eleven of them, and I know I should have at least twenty, but it's a good start. And in my defense, a couple of them aren't rejection letters--they are requests for partials or my entire ms, even though in the end they were rejections. But I digress.
I walk into the room now and I want to do just what Barbara Kingsolver says. Close the door. Write...
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3 comments:
hey don't feel like you have to defend your rejection letters 0- rejection letter means you are actually submitting! woo hoo!
Thanks, girl.
How are things out your way? Have you been writing lately--or are you waiting for NANO?
I think I want to try again this year, but I might do some kind of research/notes/prewriting ahead of time. I'll tell you what I'm definitely going to do. I'm going to do a freaking story map/plot diagram so I have some concept of the ending. I normally don't write that way, but it can't hurt to try something different, right?
I love the wall-O-Letters. Each rejection is a celebration that you are putting your stuff out into the world. Each rejection is a celebration of being one step closer to a publisher. It's easy to look at the wall and see progress. It's a stroke of genius.
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