For Mary Oliver

(September 10, 1935 – January 17, 2019)

When a poet dies

words drift,

milkweed floss

on an updraft,

white bleeding to sky,

watermarks waning

to nothing, beyond.

The hole grows.

Image to hand to page,

liquid through fingers,

raindrops off a leaf, 

ache to ember, coal to ash.

Sifting through cinders,

you feel for warmth,

but the unsaid,

ghosts ephemeral.

All that remains

is air.

Liza Carens Salerno

01/19/19

Finding the Gift - IWSG January, 2019

It's IWSG Day. The goal of this blog hop is to share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds. IWSG is the brainchild of Alex Cavanaugh, our brilliant ninja leader.  Co-hosts this month are:   

Patricia Lynne, Lisa Buie-Collard, Kim Lajevardi, and Fundy Blue.  

To find a list of contributors with links to their posts, click here.

 

My Christmas gift was a second rejection letter from an agent I originally queried in January, 2018. The rejection back then (received the same day), contained a sentence with personal, direct, actionable feedback to which I could respond. She was absolutely correct and I spent several grateful months revising my story into what I KNOW is a much better book. 

Now, I am of the mind that a rejection from an agent is a rejection, so I had no intention of re-querying the woman who’d been so helpful…but then at the beginning of December I looked her up again. A FAQ page on her agency website included this:

You turned me down a while back, but I’ve thoroughly revised my work.  Can I try again?

If you’ve genuinely made it substantially different (and, one hopes, better) then we don’t at all mind if you come back to us and offer it again. Just be up front about it when you do, and if we think that a re-read might be to our and your benefit, we’ll be happy to do so.

Oh what the heck. I sent another query. Three weeks later, I received the following:

Thanks for thinking of me again! You’re a good writer and this premise is inventive. That said, I’m just not finding myself invested on this second time around—speculative/magical content is always a tough buy-in for my taste...

Am I disappointed? Yeah. Accepting? I guess. Pleased at least that the response seems to be personal? Absolutely. Hanging on to the phrase, “You’re a good writer?” More than anything. 

Why is this one rejection so important to me? Well, here's the thing. Right now, my query-tracking spreadsheet lists ten open queries out for between 4-8 months to which I have received NOTHING…not even an automatic “Not for me, thank you.” I received one request for a full manuscript that’s been out since August, also with no further feedback. (Note to self. Follow up.) The above statistics don’t include queries I sent prior to my re-write, which I’ve marked “assumed rejection” after hearing nothing over many months. In my limited experience, when querying traditional publishers, no news is NOT good news. So, a simple, quick, marginally personal response says to me an agent is thoughtful, caring and respects writers’ feelings. And, while I won’t make a habit of it, this experience also taught me that the world didn’t come to an end because I queried twice.

In truth, I’m questioning whether this poor book is going anywhere. That said, if I haven’t attracted an agent by the time I’m ready to query my next book (which does not contain speculative or magical content), she’ll be the first on my list.

Wishing you a happy New Year and a 2019 filled with writing success.

Finding Joy - IWSG December 2018

 

It's IWSG Day. The goal of this blog hop is to share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds. IWSG is the brainchild of Alex Cavanaugh, our brilliant ninja leader.  To find a list of contributors with links to their posts, click here. Co-Hosts for December:  J.H. Moncrieff, Tonja Drecker , Patsy Collins, and Chrys Fey.

This month's optional IWSG Day question: What are five objects we'd find in your writing space?

You’d think this would an easy one to answer, but at the moment, my writing space is barren.  There’s a laptop, of course, and a printed manuscript, but that’s it. Call it enforced neatness, but my desk is a drop-leaf table in our living room, and well—we just hosted Thanksgiving. Numbers for the holiday have ranged from a low of 19 (this year) to as many as 33, and to seat the crew we line up tables through the dining room well into the living room. My desk becomes a casualty to the effort. 

And, yes, I know we’re almost two weeks beyond T-day, but Christmas follows and I’m married to St. Nick’s son. (Just kidding…though my father-in-law’s name was Nicholas.) Truly, my husband IS Mr. Christmas and my desk has been relocated to its annual spot away from the window to make space for one of three, yes three trees! We’ll end up hosting smaller numbers for Christmas Day dinner, easily fitting around the dining room table, but it seems appropriate to keep my desk neat for the season. 

As a result, my stack of notebooks, the printed drafts filled with edits from my writer’s group, my list of books to be read, the cup with my daughter’s initials on it filled with pens, pencils and a salt-crusted card with my Twitter password, all sit on a bench in my bedroom. Under the bench I’ve tucked the Himalayan sea salt lamp I “won” last Christmas in a Yankee Swap… which I discovered melts in the humidity (hence the salt-crusted card above). Supposedly, the negative salt ions released by heating the lamp boost blood flow, improve sleep and increase levels of serotonin. I don’t know whether it really works, but I’m game to receive any positive energy while I write—which is why I just retrieved a small rock etched with the word “JOY”from that pile in the bedroom.  It sits by my laptop year-round--a stone for all seasons if you will, but it fits in especially well now. The salt lamp may  remain tucked away for December, but the stone on my desk  tells the real story.

What's your writing space like?

Wishing you all a season filled with joy!