1/19/07 “Dew Anne tells us how to get published”
I hadn’t been to a writers’ meeting in a long time. I was glad to go. I wore the white blouse I had bought on sale at Lane Bryant a few days ago. There is nothing like a crisp white blouse. But I almost didn’t get it because I saw I never wore the pretty long-sleeved blouses I bought on clearance at Robinson-May two years ago, and because white picks up stains so fast. But the saleslady said “it is cute” so I bought it. And it was the perfect thing to wear to writers’ meeting at Barnes and Noble last night. The trick with buying brand new clothes I now see is wearing them right away. I always used to save them, but that meant they wound up in my closet never worn. I wore a black cotton ruffled long skirt with it. A white blouse and black skirt is perfect for a writers’ meeting, I looked like a writer. And I wore pink open-toed sling backs, with flowers on them. That was just for fun, I love pink.
Maria was in yellow. She is a girl who looks good in yellow. She wore a yellow cotton sweater and black pants. It was because of her yellow sweater, that when she said “Am I late? what time is it?” I looked in my purse, found my watch, and showed her it said 7 minutes after 7. And she said “what a beautiful watch!” It has a yellow leather band and the watch face is mermaids, with sparkles. Maria fell in love with my watch. And I gave it to her. Very occasionally I go into my purse to see what time it is, it is helpful when I want to know, but when I stacked that up against Maria falling in love with my watch, there was no contest. It gave me huge joy to give Maria the watch she fell in love with. She put it on her wrist right away and it looked beautiful.
I guess that was the highlight of the meeting.
How often does someone’s eyes light up with desire and you can gratify it instantly. The whole idea of presents is there. And there is no joy like giving a present. What made this so perfect was its simplicity. She saw the watch, she loved it, I said “it’s yours Maria, this watch was meant for you,” and she glowed with happiness and put it on her wrist. It all took place amidst 3 sentences of DewAnne advising one of the writers at the table, we only missed two sentences of our meeting. I guess that is the beauty of taking advantage of the instant, it only takes an instant.
It was the first time we had left Beanie alone at night. But the meeting is only one hour, Barnes and Noble is only ten minutes away, and he has Lulu. Bill said “I will leave the TV on for them, you know how warm and comfortable the TV makes everything.” I said “tune it to the basketball game you are going to watch when you get home.” He said “good idea.” When we got into the car he said “the dogs are watching Oregon play Stanford right now.” I said “I wonder who they will go for?” He said “Lulu will for the Ducks, because she walks like a duck, Beanie will go for Stanford because he is so ivy league.” It made the favor of him taking me to the meeting so sweet, that I knew our Wildcats were playing the instant we returned home. And whatever he found to look at in Barnes and Noble while I was at the meeting, he really loved. I heard about it as I prepared my dinner when I got home.
The long table was not put out for us when we arrived, and I thought “O no! the meeting has been called off.” But I went to the desk to ask and she said “it is being held in the café,” which seemed like a very nice idea. I was very tempted to order one of their delicious coffees with lots of whipped cream, but I didn’t want to spring for the 3 dollars for a cup of coffee.
There was a square table in the middle with 6 chairs around it, and a sign saying “writers meeting.” And I recognized the woman at the next table as DewAnne. But she was involved in going thru her papers and said “I will be there in a while,” so I sat at the table by myself.
Then DewAnne arrived, and I said “how was your holidays?” and she said “peaceful.” And she said “have you been writing?” and I didn’t know how to answer that. I had gotten much more caught up in my writing when my news forum turned dismal, I had so much more time and energy and attention to give it. But during the past week there was a wonderful development in the news, I got totally excited and went back to posting my heart out on my news forum, and completely forgot about my writing. I said “I did write one story after Christmas,” I was thinking of my carburetor story. And she said “good!” I asked her if she has been writing and she said she writes all the time. I said “do you write every day?” And she said “that is the idea.”
Then two women who had not been there before arrived, I wondered if they were sisters. And a woman who had been at several meetings before arrived. She had gotten herself one of those delicious coffees with whipped cream, and snack to go with it. There was no Maria, and I wondered what happened to Maria. And DewAnne began the meeting. It was all women.
O yes there was another woman too. She sat next to the woman who had been at several meetings. She said she is just beginning to write now. She had a beautiful ring which I wanted to look at close up to see the stone. And a lot of light coming from her face. She was a spark of loveliness across the table. One of the two women who looked like sisters said she had done PublishAmerica, and I was curious about that. She has a few books out with them, and so does her husband. That is a print-on-demand company. They gave her two free copies, and she gets percentage of whatever is sold. But she has to create the demand for the book herself. Her question to DewAnne was “how do I do that?”
The thrust of all the advice DewAnne gave at the meeting was really the opposite of what Steve had made such an effort to communicate to us. According to Steve, there is no way a big publisher will publish us, they have their pet authors, their best sellers, and that is all they want; if we send them stuff they will throw it out the window.
DewAnne’s attitude is, unless you are writing for friends and relatives or your church group, you don’t want small press or print-on-demand, you want a big publisher, because only they can publish for a mass audience. “Have a heart-to-heart talk with yourself,” she said. “Decide if your book is best seller or for your friends and relatives, based on that choose which way you will go.” I just don’t see how this applies to me. I want to reach a wide audience, I don’t write only for my friends and relatives and church group, but I don’t know what a best seller is. All I ever wanted was for my work to be published, and then find its own audience. Whatever audience it found for itself, I am content.
DewAnne said “choose where you send your book to, based on how many readers you think there will be, and how many books they can put out.” But she said “big publishers will only look at a book an agent brings to them.” And altho Harry was very lucky finding an agent right off the bat, finding an agent is not so easy.
DewAnne is right about a lot of things. She said “you want to send them a good package, the best writing, the best editing, all put together attractively.” Yes she is right on that. She said “they usually want to see the first 3 chapters, but if you don’t hold their interest in the first 3 pages you are finished.” And she is right about that too.
I really perked up when she said “you can send it all as an attachment.” That is news to me. It had never crossed my mind that the old way of doing it, putting a whole manuscript in a manuscript box, putting the box in a huge padded envelope, stuffing in a stamped self addressed huge padded envelope for them to return it, and then taking it all to post office, and have address label with their address, may not be the only way to do things now. It seemed so luxurious that we can email it to them. I said “DewAnne, is that true, can we email them our manuscript?” She said “you have to find out, they are very explicit on what they want, some want hard copy and some want it as attachment on email.”
I guess the reason everything DewAnne said sounded slightly unreal to me, and in the past, is because I already did everything she said, when I lived in New York City. I know the name of this game is you keep on doing it, and then eventually it would happen, how could it not? And I had appetite for the enterprise when I first started it. In the beginning I liked doing it. It was a challenge, and a labor, and interesting labor too. But it is a game of who will wear the other one down. When I was so determined there was no way they could wear me down, I just kept on. But now I have a problem with the whole premise of it. They don’t want me, and I somehow have to make them want me, and keep going till I find someone who does. The problem now is I have no zest for any of it.
And that is the whole truth in a nutshell. How can I do what I have no zest for doing. That is why I have to find a better way, and a new way. I have to find some way which intrigues my imagination, and which gives me hope. I don’t want to enter into another enterprise knowing it will be fruitless. When I did it the first time, I was sure I would succeed at it. It was entered into filled with hope, and expectation. That was what supplied all the energy for it. But if I don’t see it that way now, then I won’t do it. Who forces themself to do huge chore which they don’t feel will bear fruit. No one.
That is why I found it so thrilling to put up 40 of my Tucson stories on blog on internet. It was brand new enterprise. It thrilled me. It was filled with hope and joy. And it was so simple. I didn’t have to convince anyone of what they didn’t want to be convinced of. All I had to do was sign up for a blogspot, I was instantly given it. And bingo, it meant I could put up stories anyone could read. All I have to do is email them a link, and they can read 40 of my stories. And if I write a new one which turns out good, I can add it. It doesn’t solve the problem of publishing, some stories are too personal for an internet blog, too quiet. And some are too long. I still want a book of my stories to be out there. And I will still have to figure out a way to do this. But maybe until an idea comes to me, or some path opens up, I should continue with my blog.
The Southwest Authors Luncheon is this Sunday, and Maria and I are going to go. I wonder what that will be like?
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