Thoughts on writing, from the late J.D. Salinger

[matrixrefugee]

Taken from a news item on the Verizon homepage:

"There is a marvelous peace in not publishing," J.D. Salinger told The New York Times in 1974. "Publishing is a terrible invasion of my privacy. I like to write. I love to write. But I write just for myself and my own pleasure."

I have to say, I can't help but agree with him. I've rooted through bookstores and libraries, looking for a book on how to overcome fear of being rejected by publishers, and so far, I have not come up with *any*. That is my one big fear about getting published: the rejection slips. A lot of you saw how I fell apart earlier this week when some canon-Gestapo-wannabe came out of the logpile and browbeat me over a minor detail. Now imagine me trying to get something published and getting rejection slip after rejection slip. My dad's work-buddy "Dana" told the story about his "Uncle Steve", who got twelve or fifteen rejections for his first novel, and in frustration, he tossed his manuscript into the wastebasket. Then his wife, Tab, pulled the manuscript out, dusted it off and sent it to one more publisher, who bought it. I just don't think I have that kind of determination. I can see myself falling apart after the third rejection slip and swearing off trying to get published at all, maybe even swearing off writing entirely. Maybe I take my work too seriously, but I can't help feeling that my work is, in a way, an extension of myself, and that to reject my work is to reject a part of me, and by extension, reject me. Maybe I'm limiting myself, but sometimes, the only way to handle your fears is not to face them. I don't see any shame in admitting your limitations, as long as you can find a way to work and be fulfilled within them. The human spirit doesn't always have to defy the odds in order to triumph: sometimes just wanting what you've got is better than getting what you want.

People tell me I could be a very famous and successful writer, but I look at the tabloids, or even closer to home (sort of), at Dana's Uncle Steve and the crazy things he has to do to maintain his privacy (he's told us stories about fangirls camping on Uncle Steve's lawn and coming to the door at weird times. He's mentioned death threats and the hidden exit that Uncle Steve had built into an office that he used as a place to write, in case someone caused him any trouble. I don't think I could do that. I mean, I would like to be published, and I would like to have my work well known, but there's a too-fragile human behind the words and I'm not sure she's strong enough to handle the rough spots of publishing...

Comments

[sethanikeem.livejournal.com]

And these days, there is a huge amount of pressure from publishers for authors to be very public & very accessible. The days of Uncle Steve's type of author are numbered. There are a rare few out there who are in the current market who manage to remain reclusive and still carry a fanbase. But it's harder and harder to sell your work each year if you cannot already show a decent fanbase or at least a willingness to stick your face in the public eye as often and as aggressively as possible to build one. It's possible to compromise -- to be out there but still be genuine, to live a life in the public eye yet still protect certain aspects of privacy, but that's a difficult balancing act.

And even if you're not in the public eye, with the Internet's amazing ability to turn everyone into a critic, should you have a thin skin and accidentally check some of the inevitably brutal comments that will appear in Amazon reviews or on forums ... that can really ruin your day.

If you have someone you can trust to be the front man, perhaps write your work and let them handle the grueling process of submission & rejection?

--M

[matrixrefugee.livejournal.com]

The problem is, I'm really on my own here: I'm rather isolated, even in my own community (working-class/rural-semi-suburban town). I tried networking through a writing group, but that fell through when the group disbanded (plus, I was the only urban fantasy writer in the group which ranged from a guy who was taking a shot at writing a romance novel, to an older woman who was hoping to publish a book of family yarns). I've considered getting an agent, but I've been told that's really more applicable if you're writing a novel, whereas I'm looking at several possible short stories and/or short novels (I tend to lose steam badly when I'm in the third act of a novel, but I realize that I can handle shorter stories better). My mother has offered to handle the matter of sending things out and dealing with the rejection slips, but she has her own baggage to deal with and I feel odd about giving her this job on top of everything else. To say nothing of my indignation over how a certain author whose skills are little better than those of a fourteen year old on fanfiction.net even got her poor excuse for a manuscript *LOOKED AT*, let alone published (especially when an article in Writer's Digest listed the top five reasons why manuscripts get rejected, and the top reason was "poor writing").

By any chance... care to take a guess at who Uncle Steve is? :: Mysterious smile::