Jessica Rosevear

This weekend, I’m taking a writing workshop with Susan Shapiro, author and professor of journalism.  I’ve heard rave reviews about her courses and I can’t wait to meet her.

I’ve looked up a few interviews with Shapiro and found the following question in one of them:  What’s your advice to writers who are trying to get published in this difficult publishing environment?

Let me preface this by saying that I am so tired of talking to people who have succeeded in the publishing industry and then tell aspiring writers, “You’ll never make it.”  At a recent publishing conference I attended, the opening speaker actually tried to dissuade the writers in the audience from pursuing the traditional publishing route (i.e., querying agents), saying that it’s better start with the less-prestigious self-publishing route.

I also remember meeting Elizabeth Wurtzel, author of three books starting with her bestselling debut memoir Prozac Nation at age 26, when I was a senior in college.  I told her I was writing a novel for my senior thesis and did she have any advice?  She looked at me dead in the eyes and said, “Don’t do it.”  And then she signed the copy of Prozac Nation for which I had just paid $15.  In my friend’s copy of the book, she wrote:  “Another writer doomed to misery.” 

Susan Shapiro, however, is a breath of fresh air.  In her response to the above question, she said the following:

Even in this economy I have students publishing in newspapers, magazines and getting book deals every day. There were more books published in 2008 than 2007, so there are still plenty of opportunities. Maybe the work just has to be even better.

My advice:
• Read what you want to write.
• Take classes with authors you admire.
• Hire a great ghost editor (If you email me I can recommend excellent ones.).
• If you can’t afford classes or ghost editors, start your own writing workshop.
• Never give up, no never means no. Keep writing. As my mentor Howard Fast (author of Spartacus and 80 other novels) used to tell me when I’d say I had writer’s block: “Plumbers don’t get plumbers block. A page a day is a book a year.”

I’m not saying that a writer’s life isn’t hard.  Of course it’s hard (hello, Sylvia Plath).  But to succeed at anything, you need to believe that it’s possible to do so.  I like Susan’s advice here.  It embraces reality, yet it still inspires.  In fact, I think I’ll go revise another one of my chapters now.  See, she’s inspiring me already, and I haven’t even taken her class yet!

My spirits were lifted yesterday while reading an article about Curtis Sittenfeld, bestselling author of novels Prep, The Man of My Dreams, and American Wife.  Sittenfeld was teaching high school English part time when she wrote Prep (or at least for part of the time).  She brought her galley proofs into the high school to show her students when Prep was in production, and joked with them that if her book became a bestseller, she would buy the whole class pizza.  Later, commenting on her own book jacket photo in a New York Times essay, Sittenfeld said her author photo, typically a chance for a writer to look alluring with pensive, smoky eyes, was not so much “Come hither” as it was “Ninth graders, your Macbeth papers are due on Monday.”

How inspiring that someone out there was a huge literary success while continuing to inspire students every day.   I’m not sure if Sittenfeld continued teaching after the runaway success of Prep, but think about how much she could bring to her students should she continue to do so, being a superstar in the publishing world.

My own students fuel my energy to write, either in their own passions for writing or in the way they approach literature.  One of my classes is wrapping up a unit on Oedipus Rex and Antigone.  For most adults, the plots to these Greek tragedies are pretty basic, no questioning required.  But my students are inquisitive.  They press to know why it takes Oedipus so long to find out the truth, why he would kill anyone at all in his lifetime if he was trying to avoid a prophecy involving murder.  Their questions often inspire me to think in new ways, to ponder  possibilities never before considered.

Teaching affords the opportunity to engage with students in discovery every single day.  It can be hard, exhausting, and some days I wake up praying that my alarm clock is really someone calling to say it’s a snow day.  But those moments when I see a student excited about a book, angry at the choice a character makes, connecting literature to life, growing as a critical thinker, engaging in the art of debate, tackling revision… these moments make me happy and proud to be part of this profession.

“The teacher is one who made two ideas grow where only one grew before.” ~Elbert Hubbard

This weekend I bought a book called Ms. Hempel Chronicles, by Sarah Shun-lien Bynum.  I usually don’t like recommending a book until I’ve read the whole thing, but OH MY GOSH.  I’m going to go out on a limb and say that you MUST read this book NOW!!  I’ve just read the first three chapters/stories (it’s a novel, but they read like stories) and it is food for my soul!!!  It will feed your soul too!  Check it out!  It’s about a young middle school English teacher and it just cuts right to the bone in a million different ways. 

I’m not alone in my opinion.  As Nylon magazine reviewed, Ms. Hempel Chronicles is “… a back-to-school book that will make you wish you were in class… Beatrice Hempel is still the teacher you wish you had (or wish you were):  cool but caring, sweet but smart.”  And Curtis Sittenfeld (another author I admire) says:  “I want to give this book to everyone I know who has ever taught.”  Just adding my premature review to the pile.

Yesterday, I ran a 5K in 29 minutes and 55 seconds, cutting about five minutes off of my previous race time.  Or, as my students might put it:  “Yeah, just ran my best race ever, on top of my game, no big deal.” 

My nerves were shot before the race started.  I overheard one guy saying, “I’m in such horrible shape; I’ll barely make it in thirty minutes.”  My own best time was 34 minutes last June, and the August race took 35.  A lot of participants were jogging before the race started, which always intimidates me… I personally need to conserve as much energy as I can!  And those iPod armband holders intimidate me too, all high-tech and fancy.  Everyone, I thought as I gingerly took my place at the starting line, seemed to have a head start on me.

About midway through the race, as I huffed up the long, uphill stretch, the really fast, 5-minute-mile runners were passing by me in the final, downhill portion.  Great, I thought, chugging along.  I had barely finished the first mile and they were almost done with the whole race.  Who did I think I was kidding, thinking I could break my 34 minute time?

But after I ran around the hairpin and started downhill on the same road, my outlook began to change.  I knew the end was in sight, and even though I doubted my ability at the start of the race, knowing I was close pushed me along even faster.  I was now on the side of the road that all of the really fast runners were on before… it had taken me just a little bit longer.  Their “head starts” didn’t matter anymore, because now I was running on the same track they once ran.

A minute or so after passing mile two, I overheard a woman say to her running partner, “It’s only 9:19!”  9:19! I thought to myself.  The race had started at nine.  I’d never run two miles in 19 minutes.  If I pushed forward, I could definitely break my last 35 minute race time.  Maybe I could even finish in under a half hour!

So I kept churning forward, picking up as much speed as I could, the thought of 9:19 pushing me forward when I might have otherwise just been happy to finish at the same time I had at my last race.  As I approached the last few yards, I saw the time clock in the distance.  All I could make out was the 2 at the start of the time, and I made a mad dash for it.  I crossed the finish line (nearly barrelling over another girl who was finishing and handing her ticket to the collector) at 29:55.

My name might not have appeared on the top 50 scores, but I didn’t care.  I pushed myself and achieved a personal best time.  I was proud of my run.  That’s when I realized that just like there was no point in psyching myself out at the beginning of the race because everyone else seemed better than me, there’s no point in writers comparing themselves to other writers.  It’s easy to resent someone else’s success, or feel inferior when someone your own age has accomplished more than you have.  At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what they’re doing; it matters what you’re doing. 

My brother Paul is a musician, and we share a lot of the same philosophy regarding creative life.  He once told me something he heard in an interview with another musician.  I don’t remember who said this or who published the interview, but it went something like this:  “The worst songwriter out there is still a songwriter.”  The idea is not that we should shoot for mediocrity, but rather that we aren’t going to cross the finish line by sitting back and being scared to try.  It doesn’t matter if we don’t always succeed, if we’re not as good as other people out there, whether they’re runners or writers.  Our job is to keep writing, keep running, keep putting ourselves out there, getting to our personal bests.  And sure, maybe sometimes we might feel inferior or embarrassed to try.  But the key, I think, is to listen to the voices, be they our own or those of others, that encourage rather than discourage.  Focus on the voice that says, “I’m scared, but I’m going to try anyway.”  The voice that says, “This run, this story, this novel will be better than the last.”  The voice that says, “I can do this!”

I love, love, love going to conventions and conferences.  Writing conferences.  Teacher conventions.  Yearbook conferences.  Give me a flyer or an email forward, and more often than not, I’m automatically looking for a way to register and go.

Conventions are a chance to meet people with similar interests and attend seminars on relevant and interesting topics with the top professionals in your field.  Session catalogs are like a candy store to me.  “Teaching Shakespeare through Rap.”  “They Made Me an Advisor, Now What?”  “How to Build a Platform.”  “Wikis in the Classroom.”  Each session is a delicious chance to hone a specific aspect of a craft, be it teaching or writing (or yearbook advising!).  Last year I trekked all the way to San Antonio for the NCTE convention, and it was well worth it. 

In some ways, teaching and writing are quite solitary professions.  Teachers lead their classrooms alone and are individually responsible for their own students.  Writers sit at a computer for hours, tapping away, reading alone and in silence.  Go to a conference, though, and suddenly you’re interacting with hundreds, if not thousands, of people who engage in the same activities as you do every single day.  It’s a chance to exchange ideas, to meet other like-minded professionals, to get updated on the latest and greatest advances and tips in your field.  Not to mention the occasional opportunity to see a new part of the world! 

“Learn as if you were to live forever.” ~Gandhi

There’s a lot of fuss over the opening of a story:  it has to hook you; we have to know the conflict at the beginning; are you starting in medias res or at the chronological beginning?  I think, though, that more attention should be paid to the end of the story.

This past weekend, I saw two movies:  Coco Avant Chanel and St. Elmo’s Fire.  I enjoyed Coco Avant Chanel , but it moved a bit slowly.  The authenticity of the ending made up for it, with the camera focusing on Audrey Tautou’s satisfied yet hardened expression.  I left the movie theater contentedly.  St. Elmo’s Fire, on the other hand, was entertaining throughout, but the quick-fix wrap-up ending ruined the previous 90 minutes of good laughs.

There are also books whose endings dilute the story.  While I’ve loved reading the first two thirds or so of A Confederacy of Dunces, the last one hundred pages are absolutely dragging.  My Sister’s Keeper and Plain Truth, two Jodi Picoult novels, have endings that are no match for the epic build that develops over the 400 preceding pages.  Donna Tartt’s The Secret History held me spellbound for two days straight this summer, but the end was dissatisfying and ruined the rest of the book for me.  Same thing with Richard Yates’s Revolutionary Road.

Maybe I’m too picky regarding the question of what makes a great novel (or a great movie).  But I think it’s good to keep in mind that you not only have to hook your readers at the beginning of a story–that goodness should hold through to the last drop.

I’ve been thinking more and more about YA (Young Adult) literature lately.  I have an idea for my own YA novel that I might delve into as soon as my novel-in-progress is done.

This got me thinking about general fiction authors who have written successful YA novels.  On my own bookshelf, my eye fell to Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, his first YA novel after several successful novels and short story collections.  And since I’ve gotten interested in bringing in guest speakers to talk to my classes, I thought I’d look up his website to see if he does school visits. 

Instead, I saw in the “news” section that he has two new poems in La Petite Zine.  To my surprise, one of the poems is a response to the same poem I quoted in an earlier post:  Frost’s “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening.”  The poem is titled “Stopping,” and suffice it to say that Alexie has a much different reaction to Frost’s poem than I did.  The poem’s angry, sarcastic tone mocks Frost’s speaker’s gaze at the mystery of the woods and the idea of promises.

I wonder what about Frost’s poem evoked a response so different from my own just a few days ago.  I’m still digesting Alexie’s poem myself.  What most interests me, though, is not the specific differences between Alexie’s and my reactions, but the very fact that one poem could elicit such different responses from its readers.  At the end of the day, literature should move its reader, should evoke a reaction, be it positive or negative.  And while I hope I’m never on the receiving end of such a scornful response for my own work, in some ways, maybe it’s gratifying to know that something you’ve created has stirred such a strong reaction in someone else.

I recently taught a mini-lesson on the verb “to be” and why students should avoid using it in their writing.  “It was hot.”  “I was sad.”  “It was the end of December.”  Or an even greater crime:  using “to be” with the passive voice.  “Meals were made in this kitchen.”  “I was told by my parents…”

“Paint a picture,” I told them.  “Use stronger verbs; vary your sentence structure.  Don’t use ‘was’ all the time.  Instead of It was the end of December, you could say, The late December chill enveloped us.”

A student raised his hand.  “But what if we want to be simple and straight-forward?  Not all of us want to write like Jane Austen.”

“I hated Pride and Prejudice,” another student added.

The conversation reminded me of a line from Stephen King’s writing book, On Writing:  “The road to hell is paved with adverbs.”  Writers, myself included, can take this kind of advice quite seriously.  I once took a writing class in which one participant would announce how many adverbs she found in a draft of someone else’s work… every single time we met.  When I write or revise, my own radar constantly screens how many times I use the verb to be, if I’m using the passive voice, if I’m on adverb or adjective overload. 

But open up to a page in The Great Gatsby or Pride and Prejudice, and more often than not, an adverb or two will be lurking on the page.  A celebrated author writing in slang will be reviewed as ground-breaking.  This begs the question:  When is it okay to break the textbook writing rules that teachers, workshop leaders, author mentors, and peer groups keep passing on to each other?

I found one possible answer recently while reading Sideways, by Rex Pickett.  Miles, a wine aficionado, is at a tasting and the owner just opened a ‘92 Byron sparkling wine.  His friend asks, “Why do you call it a sparkling wine and not champagne?”  Miles responds:  “The term ‘champagne’ is trademarked by the French, and if it’s not from the Champagne region of France, then it can’t be called champagne… but because I’m sick of the French and their proprietary ways, Spumanti, Cava, California sparkling, they’re all champagne to me.”

Miles knows the history, facts, and story behind champagne versus sparkling wine.  However, he makes an informed choice to break with proper nomenclature.  I think the same is true of writing.  We can write what we want, express ourselves and our ideas however we choose.  But I think the truest writer is aware of the process behind those choices.  The truest writer is as much aware of what she is not doing as what she is doing.  Know the rules so that you can break them.

Tonight I heard Binnie Kirshenbaum, author and head of the MFA program at Columbia University, speak about writing and her new novel, The Scenic Route.  Her reading was very engaging and her book sounds great–of course, I had to buy a copy for her to autograph.

When talking about her writing process, Kirshenbaum mentioned how her projects start in a very unstructured way.  She tends to write from ideas, without focusing on form or plot, and then the pieces evolve naturally.

As someone who’s been trying to piece together a novel over the past year and a half or so, I had to raise my hand and ask if she always approached writing in this way.  With my own novel, I’ve tried writing with structure, without structure, word count charts, outlining, not outlining, then re-outlining.  At one point I even found myself drawing four different weirdo graphs and layering them on top of each other.  It’s coming together slowly, but there’s no way that I could say I started with only a pure thought and through ruminations it naturally grew into a polished novel.  My process felt less spiritual and intuitive and more like a commercial factory gone awry.  An Egg McMuffin next to a plate of organic, freshly scrambled eggs.

So I asked her if this was her process for her first novel.  To my relief, she said it wasn’t.  For her first book, she started out with the very pointed objective of developing a novel from characters she had created for a past short story.  Eight books later, she has the flexibility and experience that allows her more freedom in her writing.  The process doesn’t have to be so structured. 

I started thinking about how this relates to my teaching.  I’m far from being a veteran teacher, but the more time I spend in the classroom, the more I feel increasing flexibility in my teaching.  During my student teaching days, my lesson plans read like scripts, allowing little flexibility during a lesson to move with student thought.  Any derailment of a plan would send me into a tailspin.  These days, I love collaborating with colleagues, getting ideas from the newspaper or art exhibits I see on the weekends, listening to the ideas my students have, nurturing the thoughts that arise in our class discussions.  This focused flexibility allows me to incorporate fresh perspectives into what my students learn, and it allows my classes to evolve continuously.

As far as writing goes, it’s back to the crazy graphs… for now!

Taking a break from novel revision to blog (funny how my breaks from reading/writing stuff usually involve reading/writing…).  I’m revising chapter one today… and it’s taken me three hours to go through eleven pages.  Was not expecting that!  I fear what stands between now and the finished product!

I’ve gotten really into running 5Ks in the past year.  I’ve run three so far and am now training now for a fourth on October 24.  The prospect of competing interests me more than running itself–generally, I don’t run if I’m not preparing for a race.

A lot of writers have written about the connection between running and writing; Joyce Carol Oates and Haruki Murakami come to mind.  Oates talks about writerly stumbling blocks resolving over the course of a run; Murakami talks about how just like running every day makes you better, so does writing.

I don’t think I’ve ever experienced what Oates talks about, but running definitely clears my head.  My recent purchase of an iPod, however, is making my runs less transcendental and more rooted in the real world.  The tradeoff is that the music pushes me to run for longer and usually distracts from the sweaty discomfort of pushing oneself.

Murakami is on the money, though.  My last run was easier than past runs and I’m motivated to train more frequently in order to beat my last 5k time (36 minutes in August at the Jersey Shore, longer than the 35-minute North Jersey run in June… ouch).  Same thing with writing–sometimes I read over something I’ve written and get motivated to keep going, or knowing I wrote one day will encourage me to do it again the next day, just to keep the ball rolling. 

I like when disciplines merge and inform one another.  That’s one of the reasons why I like tying Romantic and Realist art into my lessons when reading Romantic and Realist writing, or when we make pop culture or musical connections in my classes.  No matter what your passion, it’s a strand of something bigger, tying together something meaningful and universal.

2 weeks until the 5K, and 3 months until my self-imposed deadline for a polished novel.  And… go!