rus vanwestervelt

I spent nearly the entire day yesterday immersed in the study of reading and writing. It was an intense day that started a little before 6 a.m., where I wrote about 3,000 words in my daybook about various things; that writing session served no other purpose than as my Morning Pages, epic-style, for those of you who know Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way.

On most good days, I stop there. But I had the time (I have no idea how this happened) to push through and look for publishing opportunities for the upcoming year. One of the main ideas to emerge from my early-morning writing was to create some real, reachable goals to further my writing career a little more aggressively. So, with very little effort, I found about 25 markets that suited me perfectly. While most of these publications are not paying markets, they would provide me with some necessary big-name clips to make the paying markets give me a second look when I’m pitching a feature idea or submitting a new piece of fiction.

I selected four markets for the upcoming academic year: one fiction, one nonfiction, and two scholarly education publications. Their deadlines range from September to January, so they are spread out nicely over my peak writing season, the fall and early winter.

The piece that is due December 1, the short fiction, has me most concerned. I should have no problem at all with the creative nonfiction piece due in October (the subject is nature), and the two scholarly pieces, due in September and January, are in my field of specialty: metacognition and motivating reluctant writers. It’s that short fiction piece that is generating anxiety. Most of my fiction has been rejected, and I wanted to know why. I thought the writing was good enough for strong consideration, but most places where I submit to disagree. I decided to read a little more about the structure of the short story and see if I could see any glaring weaknesses in my approach.

I was very surprised by what I learned–not necessarily that the information seemed like breaking news to me; rather, that the information seemed like something I should have known (and was probably taught) many years ago. Yet, in all of my conversations with fellow writers and colleagues, the purpose of the short story has never really been discussed. We always spend so much time talking about the stories themselves and not about their greater purpose.

So what does all that mean? Perhaps my colleagues and writer-friends all know this, and they’ve made the awful assumption that I, too, have been writing with such a deeper understanding of the short story. But I confess now, for the entire world to read, that for all these years I have never given the purpose of the short story much thought. Instead, I have focused on the importance of the writing process to tell a good story, a story that entertains. Here’s what I’ve been missing all these years. Read the rest of this entry »

“Only amateurs say that they write for their own amusement. Writing is not an amusing occupation. It is a combination of ditch-digging, mountain-climbing, treadmill and childbirth… But amusing? Never.”

–Edna Ferber

I am just beginning to understand the depth and the genuine meaning of this quote. I have spent so much of my life on the non-published side of writing, where there was amusement experienced in all that I did in the world of writing: where I would write, what pen I would use, which daybook was best, when the best time of the day was to write.

I don’t find any of these aspects of writing trivial; I think they are all necessary if they contribute to the full balance of the writer’s world. If, however, they are what defines the writer’s world, then there is great imbalance. The reason they are called amateurs is simply because that is what they remain–a person not compensated for his or her work.

It’s the attention and energy we give to other side of writing that makes the difference. For years, I have made the claim that I am a writer–and I am one by definition. In the past decade I have published over 75 pieces in local, regional, and national publications. However, I have yet to cross that all-important, yet quite invisible line of sustaining any real income with my writing.

This is where the amusement ends for me. Publishing those 75+ pieces has been good fun. Those jobs have brought in $100 or so mostly, maybe $250 every once in a while. Nothing above that, though.

I’ve stopped the Merry-Go-Round. Pulled the plug on the whole park.

I’m at work now, ditch digging and mountain climbing, and I’ve never been happier about being dis-amused.

:)

Soon I will post my completed manuscript on how writing heals, but I find the whole experience healing in actually writing the piece. There has been little stress associated with this story, and it has been one of those cathartic experiences that showed me just how “unhealed” I still am about several issues in my life, including my father’s death.

Dad died in 1989 from hepatitis that he contracted while in the fire department. He and his partner were on a medical run with an AIDS patient, they both got infected from the patient, and both my father and his partner died. The City Fire Department refused to recognize these as deaths “in the line of duty” despite several challenges from both families. The months and even years following his death were confusing, as they still are, and I now know that I have much research to do in recreating the events that took place on that medical call and subsequently thereafter, leading up to and after his death on April 22.

That’s one story that has to be written by me, about him.

The other story that is ready to surface and be shared with the world is more about me and my own relationship with my father. I was 24 when he died, and my desires and needs to please were so strong at that point in my life that I was not able to see clearly my father for the individual that he was, separate of me. I think it’s hard for children to see their parents as individuals with goals and dreams, many of them unrealized for various reasons. It’s hard to see our parents as human beings who might struggle with the same things we struggle with. Beyond money, beyond health, they struggle with similar issues of love and an identity of who they are in this world, to themselves, to others.

We see them as our mothers and fathers, and it takes a long time to let go of that thought that they are individuals who have had identities and lives long before we came along in this world.

Mom is 80 and battling Cancer and various age-related illnesses, but I am old enough now to see her for the true individual she is. I never got the chance to do that with Dad while he was still alive, and in all these years since his death, my understanding of him as an individual has been locked in through the eyes of a 24 year old. The way I felt, the way I acted, the person I was on the day he died seems to be the person I become every time I think of Dad. All of those selfish filters fall over the memories, and I could not get beyond seeing him as my father first and as an individual a distant second.

Until now. Writing about healing has provided me the chance to heal his passing and remove some of those filters. Like anything else, the process is not complete, and it will continue to take many hours with pen in hand to work beyond the exclusive He’s-My-Dad vision of who this man genuinely was. But in the last 72 hours, I’ve given my father the room he needs to be an individual first, and that is the greatest respect I can give him for all that he gave to us in his short 63 years of life.

just a quickie, here. I’m working on a piece right now for a new lit journal, and it’s about healing through writing. All my life, I’ve used writing to help me through tough or challenging situations, and even now, during this summer, I am thankful that I have turned to writing to help me get through such tough times that I and other members of my family have been going through.

And even more deeply, I’ve come to realize today that writing about healing is therapeutic in itself, and this metacognitive practice brings me closer to the center, closer to balance than any other activity I might do.

it is truly a healthy and spiritual act to write as often as I do, and I am grateful that putting words down on paper can be so good for me.

that’s it for now. Back to working on this piece. My deadline’s tomorrow (yikes!). I’ll post all 2000 words of it here when I am finished.

Love and peace to all!

This, above all else, you must know first:

Like nearly every other moment in front of my computer, I have with me, just visible from my left, straining eye, my trusted cup of Starbucks coffee. Nothing fancy, mind you. Just a simple cup of their bold-on-tap in my wickedly green Starbucks thermos. A cup o’ Starbucks Joe makes the world go around a little better, if you know what I mean.

And so we begin.

I’ve spent a good part of the day hashing out my mission for this blog. At first, I thought it would be like so, so many other blogs out there: a mishmash of online diary writing and little else. But after I made my 2-year commitment with Blue Host to manage my site, I felt like it had to be something so much bigger, so much better. I decided to go with WordPress for my blogging software, simply because that’s what my friend Catherine uses, and I’ve seen her site grow leaps and bounds because of a few aesthetic changes that she has been able to make (not to mention her writing is fantastic).

And, of course, I got some books on blogging to help me better understand the terms. This site’s going to be under some heavy construction over the next month as I get many of the kinks worked out. No worries, though. My goal is to write a minimum of six times a week, beginning tonight.

And So It Begins. . . .