My name is Diana, and it’s been six months since my last rejection. It was late, and I was jittery. I’d been checking Varuna’s News & Diary page with the ferocious regularity that lets you know you have a serious problem, and when I looked again, they were there: the five recipients of the 2009 Varuna HarperCollins Manuscript Development Awards. My name? M.I.A. Inside a voice whined, “But…but… Charlie finds the golden ticket – and then he gets into the chocolate factory, and… and… and now spoiled Veruca Salt, fat Lederhosen-loving Augustus Gloop, cowboy kid Mike Teavee and vile Violet Beauregarde, now they’re all going instead of… instead of… oh look, screw you, Charlie Bucket, this isn’t about you, I’m talking about me.” And then I stamped my foot in a manner that would do Roald Dahl’s brats proud.
God it sucked.
But it didn’t suck half as much as the previous year, and I guess that’s what my month here is about: how and why we rejects keep going. And on the guest blogger thing, I am so chuffed – even if the esteemed assembled company makes me feel a bit sick. Sure I work as a professional writer, but I don’t have a published novel, I’ve never had a single short story accepted, and I don’t have an agent. I keep thinking Simonne and Charlotte have made a horrible mistake, and any minute now they’ll realise, and then they’ll get a real author to step in, but until then, well, let’s just don everything in the jewellery box and jump on the beds.
I began 2008 with a January 2 follow-up consultation with Varuna, having failed to make the long list for the MS Development Awards. Very soon after, I signed up for a Professional Development Residency. This is a non-selective program – anyone can do it. I coughed up the dough because I was desperate – desperate – for peers, community, and direction. It was a significant amount of money, but I can’t put a price on the experience. It changed everything. The ongoing writers’ group that formed there – we five christened ourselves the Darklings – is invaluable, as is the alumni network. I kept redrafting, and a year later, I made that long list. Then I made the short list. And then I failed to win a place. But you get that – sometimes over and over again.
I’m a word addict – aren’t we all? – I love reading, writing, hearing, and sounding out the words of the world. I’m hooked on language, and it’s why I pick myself up and dust off after the latest rejection. My first draft bombed out of the last Vogel I was eligible to enter. Then a literary agency sent a ‘With Comps’ slip, leaving off the compliments. A year later, a commissioning editor at a publishing house passed. Twice. One of my many first chapters failed to move another editor to ask for more. An agent who requested the full MS (happy day) then called to pass (dark day). And finally HarperCollins didn’t pick my MS. They picked five others.
But you have to keep trying, right? To write well, improve, and always, always to learn: these are precious things to me. That’s a golden ticket right there.
I write without apology or permission because it’s how I honour my niece. Her death in 2003 – so early, so absolute – brought everything into painful, permanent relief. I asked myself what truly mattered to me. Because this is it, this is my finite life, already underway. So many things matter, but at my own fleeting core is this: living, loving, laughing, and trying. For me, those four roads all meet here, in this small act of one letter following another. I’d dearly love to know how you all got started – and what keeps you going.
26 Comments
October 5, 2009 at 10:51 am
I always knew I’d die unhappy if I didn’t get down to writing at least one damn good novel. Always? Well, for at least 30 years. Good? That made me shiver while typing the last word. At least? Turns out I want my first one published now, thanks very much – plus I’m already consumed by my next. Characters clamoring. Scenes shifting. Images flooding. I’m sure you know what I mean…
What keeps me going is also an addiction to words – Di’s put it perfectly. Plus the Darklings, all things Varuna, my bookstore and my very next chapter.
October 5, 2009 at 11:12 am
A comment! Yay! Yes, that’s it, Jewelene – I too asked myself what I would regret, and not trying, not really applying myself to creating something valuable in words, that was it. And it’s so exciting, don’t you think, just to be doing it, just to have a manuscript now where before there was only an abstract hope that one might fall from the sky?! That was a shock, too, the day I realised it wasn’t going to simply land in my lap. It sounds so stupid, but a tiny part of me genuinely seemed to think it might, if I only willed it hard enough… But no.
October 5, 2009 at 12:37 pm
When I was little I always knew I’d grow up to be a writer about animals. I became a lawyer instead. But through thirty long years, a little, annoying, nagging voice – that voice of me as a child – reminded me I was supposed to be a writer. I’m very grateful for that voice. In his wonderful essay ‘Why I Write,’ George Orwell says, “If a writer escapes from his early influences altogether, he will have killed his impulse to write.”
Anyway, one day I saw a little wasp buzz past, and it struck me as amazing that for one moment, that insect and I shared the same time, the same place, the same space. This got me thinking about what else we might share. I sat down and wrote Wasp Season, my first novel. Now I’m well into my third.
Writing, rejections aside, is the most satisfying thing I know. I’m part of a wonderful community of creative people, including the Darklings and this alumni. And that childish little voice doesn’t nag anymore. She’s too busy writing.
October 5, 2009 at 1:31 pm
Ah, so you’re one of the Darklings! I met you at the EWF book zine – it was extremely brief so I won’t blame you if you don’t remember! I agree about this incredible writing community, it makes the rejections so much easier to take! I’ve come from Perth to Melbourne and have been overwhelmed at how inclusive the Melb writing community has been.
October 5, 2009 at 2:36 pm
Still waiting for you to come see us in Sydney!
October 5, 2009 at 2:43 pm
Funny you should say that… I’m going to the David Roach master class in Katoomba and might need a place to crash that night! Got a couch for me?
October 5, 2009 at 3:14 pm
Absolutely. Thinking of attending that myself, I’m just trying to figure out holiday dates. But either way you can crash here, I’ll figure out something re. keys if we’re away – not ideal if we miss each other, but at least I can put a roof over your head!
October 6, 2009 at 8:01 pm
Nice to meet you again Simonne,
I didn’t realise you were talking to me on this blog, until Di pointed it out in private. Maybe we’ll connect again? Through the Victorian Writer’s Centre perhaps? I can’t say enough nice things about the VWC.
October 5, 2009 at 12:57 pm
A little while I exchanged a couple of emails with a long-established and admired writer, who said this: “It seems to me that writing is a kind of spiritual path. You can choose either to join an ashram and clean latrines as a way of annihilating your ego or you can write Australian fiction. But it’s better as you age because you become clearer about what’s important to you.”
I know it’s easy to say this kind of stuff when one has had a book or two published, but (as Katherine Howell said way back in her blogging month here, I think) it doesn’t necessarily get easier. But the first publication certainly does make one feel vindicated, I agree. It is a very tough gig, and I think getting tougher. I don’t think my first novel would be published now. It’s depressing news, I know – but that’s why your last paragraph is so sane, Di. Sooner or later, one absolutely MUST find an honest reason to write that isn’t to do with publication – whether you end up published or not. And if you can’t find that reason, I’d stop and do something easier and more pleasurable.
October 5, 2009 at 1:20 pm
Thanks, Charlotte (these hideous reality checks! Thank god for fiction!) – I totally agree. I have always written – though for many years just diaries and letters – but when I was younger, undeniably my most vivid fantasy was publishing-to-worldwide-acclaim-cue-fame-and-fortune. That’s what I was waiting for, I think, when I hoped a fully formed masterpiece would turn up under my pillow. Ta-da!
But once I understood the brass tacks of wonderful life and ghastly death, that all receded. Honestly? It almost entirely went away. I only want to write a good book. I want to write well, for its own sake. Publication would be very nice, because then someone might read what I wrote, but it’s not why I write now, and it won’t be why I write for the rest of my life. And funnily enough, I think that keeps it pleasurable. Sort of. As in, only because I’m a masochist.
October 5, 2009 at 1:05 pm
Oh, Jenny, I know that nagging voice so bloody well! It’s funny, because I know plenty of people who aren’t sure if they have a nagging inner voice, or who at least don’t feel they’re tuned into its frequency, and it amazes me, because like you, I’ve always had mine. And boy, I wouldn’t trade it for the silence some people hear when they search their heart of hearts. From what I understand, that’s a very painful burden for some.
As hard as writing is, and as thoroughly FOUL as rejection will always be, I still believe we’re all so lucky to know, and to always have known, what it is we should be doing with our time.
October 5, 2009 at 1:08 pm
Great post, Di! I love reading about the fire that keeps people going. I agree too with Charlotte that once published you realise it has to be about *more* than getting published, because that doesn’t fill the hole: only the writing itself, the actual process, can do that.
cheers,
Katherine.
October 5, 2009 at 1:38 pm
I reckon an agent, a big fat publishing deal, loads of cash and adulation will fill the hole for me nicely… ok, ok, I’m going back to the dungeon and sharpening my pencil…
My yearning for publication has been a beast on my back and it feels like it’s taking me a long time to get to where Di’s at; of writing for writing, not for publication. It’s amazing how consuming (and energy-zapping) it can be. And it’s SO hard to take the advice given by friends like Katherine and Charlotte, who KNOW what they’re talking about, when that beast weighs so damn heavily on you. But the more I hear it the more it sinks in and the better I feel and the more I get on with the important stuff – writing!
October 5, 2009 at 2:23 pm
Ha ha ha – yes, I think my husband would agree with you, Simonne. He’s pretty sure the main hole we have to worry about is the one at the bank!
I think I offset that beast of burden by working as a freelancer, because while it’s not fiction, it is certainly publication, and writing is the only way I get paid.
October 5, 2009 at 1:34 pm
Thanks, Katherine! You know, I’m really, really glad that realisation has hit me so early, well and truly pre-publication, because it makes the horror of rejection a lot easier to withstand. It also makes it easier to go back and keep redrafting, because that’s the process, and it’s the only way I’ll learn.
October 5, 2009 at 2:07 pm
I guess people write for different reasons, but part of why I write novels is that there are ideas I want to express in that form. It’s clear Jenny wants to write about animals, and I know I want to talk about the grace books bring to our lives – and books themselves as objects of art – and the importance of literacy (as an ex-literacy teacher). The most vital thing to me is to express these ideas with beauty & clarity, but wanting to be published is also about wanting ideas heard. I’m sounding a bit earnest, aren’t I? But must dash…
October 5, 2009 at 2:33 pm
Definitely, JB. I think there are as many reasons as there are writers, but it’s been very useful to me clarifying what my own reasons are.
Yeah, I would agree that wanting to be published is about sharing your ideas, and hopefully connecting with others, but that’s evolved over time in tandem with, as Charlotte says, the violent annihilation of my ego.
October 6, 2009 at 12:03 pm
*steps out of the shadows and looks slightly awkward*
Marvellous post, Doctordi. Especially the bit about donning all the jewellery in the box and bouncing on the bed. That’s my next Saturday night sorted.
My nagging interior voice tells me to draw rather than write, but I did start blogging roughly 3 years ago – for which I had an excellent reason, namely that I was deeply in love. Unrequited, obviously. If he felt the same way I’d have been too busy having glorious sex to blog, right?
Anyway, I’m as over him as I’m ever likely to be but I’m still blogging. He even reads it. Still doesn’t fancy me, though, damn him.
I’ll shut up now and go and draw something.
*slinks off*
October 6, 2009 at 1:17 pm
A very warm welcome, Woo! And to anyone else who pops in here and wonders whether this is an open or closed forum, it’s open. Open, wide open, OPEN to all, taking questions, opinions, and/or stories of unrequited love…
Now, Woo, that sounds suspiciously like writing *and* drawing to me… lucky you! My inner voice is boorishly adamant on the point that I have but one arrow in the arsenal… it can be quite mean, really.
October 7, 2009 at 11:30 am
A lovely post! – For me it’s more awful not to write than to write. I spend a lot of time not writing, until I can’t bear it any more. And then it’s such a relief to write. And then I wonder why it’s so hard to get started. Every day. It’s fear, of course. Unpeeling is scary. I’ve never hit ’send’ or put work in the postbox without thinking noooooooo – give it back, I didn’t mean it, it’s not ready, it wasn’t me it was him, I can do it better than that etc. I enjoy the complete absorption of writing – the losing of self, the disappearing of hours. Another thing that attracts me the work is loving reading, and thinking I really want to do that; I really want to engender this feeling in other readers. (My first novel is being published next year, and one of the high points in its life was winning a Varuna fellowship, which gave me an intense Sally Field moment.)
October 7, 2009 at 1:12 pm
Fiona, that makes me laugh – I do the same thing! It’s like a dance of arrested development, a jerky stop-start thing that would probably look like a Jerry Lewis pratfall to the untrained eye. And it all takes place at my desk… day after day after day.
Congratulations on having your debut’s publication date in your sights – bravo! Another one gets over the line!
October 9, 2009 at 5:12 pm
Why do I write? Because I can’t help it.
October 11, 2009 at 1:54 pm
That about says it, Maria. In a nutshell.
October 16, 2009 at 3:10 pm
I’ve been voyeuristically following the Varuna blogs and haven’t commented so far, but this one struck a chord. My little writing/publishing/rejection dilemma – actually it’s more like a Zen koan – is this. In the past I found it really quite easy to get published (please don’t hate me). No longer. So, are you still a writer if you are not getting published? The children’s novel I completed at Varuna has been doing the rounds – and I even had a spot of excitement when I talked with one of the editors at Macmillan (she talked about a sequel, so you can see why I got excited) – but nothing’s happened so far. I’m happy for them, but secretly feel like cringing or crying as the other three in my writer’s group win awards, contracts, grants. I’m writing an adult novel now and I can sort of hide behind the fact that it’s long – “Yes, still working on the novel, plugging away…” but I’m feeling less and less like a real writer.
Sigh.
OK, whinge over. I just keep going. I just do. When I’m writing, I forget about being a writer and just write.
PS Hi to Simmone and Katherine. I still remember us running around madly in the snow at Varuna – in November.
October 17, 2009 at 1:52 pm
Susan, you are not alone with those secret cringes. A while ago I was trying to get to the root of such feelings, and a wise friend said, it’s awful because it puts you back in the schoolroom. I think that’s so true; you have to sit at your desk while the teacher is holding up everyone else’s drawing, and you’ve got your hand up waiting patiently, saying, ‘But Miss, I did good work too…’ Very human, I say.
I think specially if it’s been easy in the past, rejection can feel so shocking. We’re kind of led to believe that the first book is the hardest to get published, but I too know from experience that this isn’t necessarily the case…
October 18, 2009 at 11:13 am
Hi Susan – because I deal in scraps and rats, these days I have a *very* broad definition of a win, and I don’t mind telling you that your being moved to post your first comment here qualifies big time – so thank you.
As Charlotte says, you are not alone. In fact, that’s broadly speaking the post I’m saving until last. I really want to be honest about my meaner feelings, because I think we all must have them, but I don’t think it’ll be easy, and I guess I’m saving it for the end so I can run away afterwards.
I agree early validation can set you up for a nasty fall later on… but I do think everyone stumbles at some point, in public or alone at their desk, and it’s one of the ways in which I choose to believe I am on the right track. As a child, I was forever stubbing my toe, so there’s a comforting familiarity in all these grazes that make them strangely okay with me.