Tag Archives: writing

Brand new website for writers!

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It’s official: I am incapable of keeping any kind of New Year’s resolution.

However, I have been insanely productive in pretty much every other way in the past three months. The most exciting thing that’s happened, the reason I’m back to blogging here, is that my friends and I have started a new website for writers! It’s called It’s Just Brunch, and we just went live today! 

The point of It’s Just Brunch is to give writers a space to talk in a laid-back kind of atmosphere…like brunch! During the week, we post blogs about different aspects of the writing life; the three of us come from different places and have different interests, so you can expect a pretty wide variety of stuff! And every Sunday, it’s brunch: a short video from the three of us, chatting about writing and other ridiculousness over mimosas. We’ll have special guests dropping in and guest bloggers, too!

I’m so excited to share this new project with you guys. If you like what you see here on my blog, you’re going to LOVE It’s Just Brunch. And if you’ve got requests for a blog or brunch topic that we can cover, let me know in the comments and we will put them on the menu! (Get it?)

Thanks for reading,

~Kate

“Death of an Adjunct” by Daniel Kovalik

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“Death of an Adjunct” by Daniel Kovalik

“Of course, what the case-worker didn’t understand was that Margaret Mary was an adjunct professor, meaning that, unlike a well-paid tenured professor, Margaret Mary worked on a contract basis from semester to semester, with no job security, no benefits and with a salary of between $3,000 and just over $3,500 per three-credit course. Adjuncts now make up well over 50 percent of the faculty at colleges and universities.”

And this is what I was talking about yesterday. If we do what we love and we do it well, we should expect the most basic remuneration: a living wage and human dignity. And universities and other institutions take advantage of the economic situation, letting us beg for scraps and take what we’re given. 

Thanks to Sonya Huber for sharing this.

On wanting it.

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This post didn’t start out negative. I swear.

A writer friend of mine recently shared this slideshow that offers tidbits from the collection Why We Write: 20 Acclaimed Authors on How and Why They Do What They Do. In the slideshow were several pearls of wisdom, but Susan Orlean’s quote is what I’d like to address today: 

“Wanting to be a writer is a huge percentage of what makes you be one. You have to want to do it really badly. You have to feel that’s what you’re supposed to be doing.”

That’s sure easy for a published author and New Yorker staff writer to say.

I originally thought this post was going to be about how reassured I felt by Orlean’s words—how I know now that I’m really a writer, because I want it so badly. I thought I was going to talk about how we can’t base our success on how much someone pays for our work.

And then I realized: that’s bullshit. Bullshit that I keep saying, because others keep saying it. So, one poor writer to another, let’s dispense with hollow platitudes for a moment. 

Wanting it isn’t enough sometimes.

The Orlean quote reminded me of a Saturday Night Live sketch from the 2008 election season, when Hillary was officially out of the running and Palin was the VP nominee for the GOP.

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FEY AS PALIN: It just goes to show that anyone can be President. …All you have to do is want it.

POEHLER AS CLINTON: (LAUGHS) Yeah, you know, Sarah, looking back, if I could change one thing, I should have wanted it more.

The idea that “all you have to do is want to be a writer and you are one” falls in the same category as “anyone can succeed in America” and “you’re guaranteed a job with a college degree.” They are delusions that people with money keep perpetuating, to the continued frustration of hardworking have-nots: are we not trying hard enough? Do we not want it bad enough?

I know Orlean isn’t saying that “if you want it enough, you’ll be a successful writer and make a boatload of cash.” She’s saying, “if you want it, you already are a writer.” But this means next to nothing in the land of capitalism, household bills, and student loans.

There was a time when writers could make a living for themselves on their talents alone; they didn’t live like royalty, but they got by. But this age of freelancing and adjuncting and the ever-shrinking list of periodicals that publish and pay for original work, especially from emerging writers without a platform, makes that whole “I write for a living” thing seem pretty impossible. Very few places are able (read: willing) to pay writers a living wage, leaving us to piece together a full-time, zero-benefits schedule between community colleges and jobs off Craigslist. And who has the desire to do anything but sleep at the end of that kind of day?

I’m not going to feed you a line of bull that this life is easy or that it even feels worth the trouble every day. Sure, it’s important to believe in yourself. And, yes, even without any viable prospect for a life in which my writing pays for itself, I will continue to write and continue to try. But the longer we deny that money  matters, that being well compensated for our work is as important as the act of creating it is, I don’t see the landscape changing in our favor.

…And in honor of the Ladies of SNL theme: This post was brought to you by Debbie Downer. Womp womp.

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The write music. #amwriting

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I find I often need to get to a place of intense longing or sadness in order to write anything of substance.

Here are a few songs that take me there.

“L’hymne à l’amour” – Edith Piaf

Pretty much anything by Edith works wonders. This one especially.

“If it kills me (Casa Nova Sessions” – Jason Mraz

Unrequited love. If longing runs deeper than that, I don’t wanna know about it.

“Jolene” – CAKE

A genuine jam, a girl taking a chance in the night to break out of her quiet life, out-of-control love. Yeah, yeah.

“Gravity” – John Mayer

I’m usually not a fan, but damn. Keep me where the light is.

“Grey” – Ani DiFranco

…And it’s October 2007 again. (Used only when completely necessary. Knocks the wind out of me for hours.)

What are some of your writing songs? 

THANK YOU: Updates on my open letter

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First off: I want to welcome all of my new followers! Thank you so much for taking the time to read my stuff, leave comments, and generally be awesome.

The past forty-eight hours have been surprising and wonderful. It was wild to wake up this morning and see over one hundred new e-mails about the post: likes, comments, follows. And all of this? Yet another gift from How I Met Your Mother. 

You see, it all started with this: a simple post, and a simple tweet:

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I tagged the creators and cast on a whim, hoping that one of them–ANY of them–would see it. I didn’t expect much, considering the amount of comments they must receive from fans like me.

Well. Not even two hours later:

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I need to point out that this screencap is saved on my computer as “OMG.”

I saw this and couldn’t speak for a moment. My wife, thinking I was reading something awful, just kept yelling “What? What?! WHO DIED?!” Eventually my vocal chords and mental faculties came back online.

A few hours later, CARTER BAYS RETWEETED MY LETTER. I am still in utter disbelief that this happened, but the meteoric rise in followers, retweets, and visits to my blog confirm the facts.

Twenty-four hours passed. My letter had nearly 2,000 views. This is probably small potatoes to most bloggers out there, but my past posts have gotten, like, twenty views, tops…and I’m pretty sure most of those were from me, checking in on different computers. So. Huge deal for this kid.

And then, this happened:

I really need to thank Cheri, the editor, who wrote me this letter. So thoughtful and personal!

I really need to thank Cheri Lucas Rowlands (@cherilucas) who wrote me this letter. So thoughtful and personal!

And yesterday morning, there I was, on the front page of WordPress.

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The retweets and comments continue to pour in. Thank you all so much for being here and reading and joining the conversation. Some of you are even sharing your own deep connections with How I Met Your Mother and other TV shows, and this is the most astounding thing to me of all: that something I wrote could resonate with you on a level that goes deeper than a specific show. It has been enlightening and touching to hear from you. Thank you for sharing such deep emotions with me.

You know, I’ve been focused lately on finishing up some short stories to send out for publication; the curse of the MFA-holder. I truly never thought a love letter to my favorite show would be the first thing to make any kind of impact. It gives me hope that I’ve got some stories to tell. And once again, I have HIMYM and its creators to thank. And WordPress! And you, too.

I know this has to end sometime, and probably soon. But I will always remember the day that Carter Bays reached out, when he didn’t have to, and held me up for the world to see for a moment. Eternally grateful.

Thanks for being here. I hope you will stick around.

The What.

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Last night, my wife and I were talking about writing. Given that I am a writer, you may think this kind of thing happens pretty regularly.

You would be wrong. And so was I, in at least one way.

The conversation began as a discussion of What Writers Talk About. For her, in most cases, the stuff we say to one another isn’t all that interesting; as a reader, she wants to know the What–the subject of our work–and all we seem to talk about is the How: the process, the edits, the self-loathing and general despair. As a result, we then turned toward the Why: why don’t we talk more about what we’re actually writing?

If you can believe it (as you should, from reading this blog), my response was: fear. A fear that my idea will be found wanting, or that the listener won’t understand the concept, or that my explanation will outshine the work itself: that someone will find out that I’m not really a writer at all. Instead of telling, I keep it inside, thinking I’m the only one who can understand, until everything is perfect and ready to be shared.

But it’s funny: as soon as I started talking to a non-writer about the What, I wanted to keep talking. I confessed that I haven’t touched my novel since January, because I’m scared of the hard parts (file under: Crying While Writing). I told her that the ideas are there, ready to be written, but putting my fingers to the keys brings everything back so clearly that hiding seems so much better of an idea. I mentioned the raw-beyond-raw short story that’s been slowly growing momentum since last summer, and not in terms of abstract ideas. I told her the plot. The What. I suddenly wanted to read it to her; it was the craziest thing. In telling her the What, I had given her advance access to the fledgling world I was creating. It made me want to take her even further down into it.

Why on earth had I waited? Did I think she was going to knock around inside the new world like a proverbial bull? That she would peek behind the scenes, tell me my seams were showing? Sharing even this greenest part of my writing got me excited to write again. Rapture replaced fear, and I read her the opening scene. My brain buzzed the rest of the night with new ideas spawned from our conversation and the simple act of reading words aloud.

I realized then that, while I sometimes told myself that I didn’t share my stuff with non-writers because they wouldn’t understand or I feared they would take it personally, the real reason was that I didn’t think it was worth sharing–that it needed to get to some enlightened, pristine level before anyone who didn’t fully understand the process could read it. I’ve squandered years on this kind of doubt, all while an incredible source of encouragement and feedback sat two feet from me on the couch, wanting to be let in.

We need readers; I know that writers always say that. But we don’t need them just to read. We need them to listen, even in the earliest stages. If you have a reader in your life who you’ve been afraid to let into the deeper levels of your writing life, just do it. Today. No matter how scary it seems. Tell them everything.

See what happens.

The first (of many).

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I got rejected today.

Back in December, I applied for a couple of long-term writing residencies/fellowships. I heard from Phillips Exeter Academy today, which was the one I really, really wanted, since it was an ideal setup for me and my family. I guess they received over 300 submissions this year; that’s twice the number I’d anticipated. I was hoping to at least get short-listed. No dice there, either. 

Of course I’m sad about it. While part of me knew I wouldn’t get it my first time out, the rest of me was quite hopeful, right up to the moment earlier today when I dropped everything I was carrying and tore open the letter, on the sidewalk in front of my house. But I know that rejections are as much a part of this writing life as the acceptances and publications; after all, how can we ever improve if we are accepted every time we submit?

Today I got my first rejection letter; it means I’m working. It means I’m trying to be better. It means I’m sending out pieces of myself to be judged. And that’s brave. To the first of many, and to my new motto:

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