Welcome to our second installment of Monday motivation! This is a one-month interlude of motivational fun, as I’m doing some traveling and unable to write the regular bi-weekly news column. Enjoy! Regular Lit Mag News news roundups will resume in August.
My motto: keep all the bile inside. Never write a sentence to an editor that you'll be ashamed of -- nor tremble over should it be read back to you in a courtroom. :-)
As with every author, I get annoyed when zines keep my submissions unjustifiably long.
But my approach is to challenge myself to stand out & surprise the recipient (in a good way).
EX: A message I sent to PCC Inscape Magazine got a reply from the editorial director within 2 hours.
Here's what I wrote -- via Submittable:
Dear J _ _ _ _ S _ _ _ _ _: Is everyone OK there on campus? There seems to be this dreadful curse going around: someone pricks a finger on a spinning wheel and falls asleep until awakened by a kiss.
Enclosed: 100 KISSES to break the spell. A reply would be so thoughtful.
Not only was the response immediate & pleasant - - - it was even better than that, Lauren.
Ms. J _ _ S _ _ _ (it was explained by the faculty advisor) had fallen very ill, which forced the campus magazine to alter its plans, prompting a combined Spring + Fall issue.
My piece had been accepted [surprise!], though no one had told me - - because the rotating student-based editorial staff was still in flux, etc.
Compliments about my poetry and my "approach" were also in the message.
Perhaps your grandpa mentioned that many more flies are attracted with honey. (wink)
Well of course they do! I’m glad you had a great response. Seems like timing also played into it as well. It’s such a sassy email to send (if I was the recipient I probably would have deleted it or fired off an impolite response for the passive-aggressive nature of it, that’s why I asked what came back).
Grandpa was very wise, but never did send an email in his life — the old sayings don’t often hold up to “new” media. Cheers!
I let loose in writing a bit differently a few months ago and it was very satisfying. I saw a woman from the back, she wore a clingy black lace top with a million little metal hooks and I couldn't stop looking at them wondering how the hell she managed to fasten that (not alone, obviously!). I obsessed about it for days, then I wrote the story. I had to get it out of my mind, exorcise it. I write crime, so it turned out sick and fascinating. And I did a happy dance because I nailed it. Shotgun Honey took the story, it'll be out in August. There's freedom in "going there".
Wise advice--both in approaching editors and editing oneself. A recent pub that gave me an award (and money!) for a contest submission never paid up. Months passed, I forgot, and I guess they did too, and I didn't want to be THAT WRITER, as you so aptly say, but in the end, I emailed and got a huge apology and prompt payment. On editing self, a wonderful writer, Caroline Leavitt, who eventually blurbed for my upcoming novel, told me I HAD to have a fight scene where I had a couple kinda dancing around their disgust with each other. I took her seriously, wrote the fight scene, and it worked so much better than the avoidance dance. Sometimes, as you say in this post, you have to go for broke. Ain't easy but it usually works.
Well since nobody has taken up the second part of this motivational number, namely going for it in a story allow me to at least have a try.
Love Without Fear
My seventeen-year-old hormones went into overdrive. She was lying on her back outside the caravan, her hands supporting her hips and her shapely legs high in the air going through a cycling motion. My eyes were on stalks and my loins on fire.
“Down, boy,” my father grunted as we unloaded our holiday gear and opened up the rented caravan. “You’ve no chance with her!”
Once we had settled in, we wandered over to the other caravan to introduce ourselves. My object of desire, Joyce, was a slender girl with freckles who looked about my age. She was accompanied by her aunt. It was 1954 and I had just finished my A Level exams and was hoping to go to university in the autumn. Like us, they were on a caravan holiday in a field near Clacton. Joyce and her aunt happened to be from London too, so we had something in common and conversation was easy.
“What were you doing, exactly when we arrived?” I asked Joyce.
“Oh, a few months ago I fell backwards on an escalator and damaged my coccyx. I do that exercise regularly as part of my therapy,” she responded.
The following day, eager as I was to get to know Joyce better, I asked her if she fancied going to the fair with me that evening. When she readily agreed, I couldn’t believe my luck. Having been a pupil at an all-boys school, my experience of asking girls out was nil. However, my classmates and I had read Eustace Chesser’s manual for rookie lovers entitled “Love Without Fear” from cover to cover and I knew it almost off by heart!
“You won’t get anywhere with her, so don’t build your hopes up,” was my father’s unsolicited opinion.
Simply being with her made me breathless with desire. She didn’t seem to mind holding hands on the way to the fair and after an exhilarating time on the rides, on the way back, I put my arms round her and gave her a long French kiss as instructed by Eustace! She was duly impressed and joined in with a passion. She exulted in pressing her slim, soft body against mine to the extent that I thought it was going to trigger an explosion in my pants.
For the rest of the week, we spent a good deal of time together. Her aunt would go down to the beach every afternoon leaving us alone in their caravan. Joyce would lie down on the bed and let me undress her and gaze at her perfect, slender body. But no touching was allowed. She was so tempting, but I had to abide by her rules.
“Why can’t I caress you?” I asked like the lovelorn adolescent I was.
“Because I am five years older than you and have a boyfriend who’s coming to see me on Friday,” she explained to my astonishment.
“What? You’re 23?” I squawked. I was completely taken aback and overwhelmed with jealousy.
Sure enough, her boyfriend, a muscle-bound hulk from Carnegie College in Leeds turned up on the Friday.
“I told you that you had no chance,” my father sniggered, “I bet you’d like to see what he’s eyeballing right now.”
Hmm. Little did Mr. Muscles or my father know... And that still brings a smile to my face all these years later.
This is such a good reference, the scene is awesome but Laura Dern herself embodies exactly what you are talking about. Wild at Heart anyone? She’s incredible. Great Monday motivation today, thanks!
My motto: keep all the bile inside. Never write a sentence to an editor that you'll be ashamed of -- nor tremble over should it be read back to you in a courtroom. :-)
As with every author, I get annoyed when zines keep my submissions unjustifiably long.
But my approach is to challenge myself to stand out & surprise the recipient (in a good way).
EX: A message I sent to PCC Inscape Magazine got a reply from the editorial director within 2 hours.
Here's what I wrote -- via Submittable:
Dear J _ _ _ _ S _ _ _ _ _: Is everyone OK there on campus? There seems to be this dreadful curse going around: someone pricks a finger on a spinning wheel and falls asleep until awakened by a kiss.
Enclosed: 100 KISSES to break the spell. A reply would be so thoughtful.
Also my grandfather instilled in me “never do anything you wouldn’t want to read about in the papers”…then I became a journalist.
Ha! This got you a reply? What was their tone back to you?
Not only was the response immediate & pleasant - - - it was even better than that, Lauren.
Ms. J _ _ S _ _ _ (it was explained by the faculty advisor) had fallen very ill, which forced the campus magazine to alter its plans, prompting a combined Spring + Fall issue.
My piece had been accepted [surprise!], though no one had told me - - because the rotating student-based editorial staff was still in flux, etc.
Compliments about my poetry and my "approach" were also in the message.
Perhaps your grandpa mentioned that many more flies are attracted with honey. (wink)
༺❀༻ Words have power. ༺❀༻
Well of course they do! I’m glad you had a great response. Seems like timing also played into it as well. It’s such a sassy email to send (if I was the recipient I probably would have deleted it or fired off an impolite response for the passive-aggressive nature of it, that’s why I asked what came back).
Grandpa was very wise, but never did send an email in his life — the old sayings don’t often hold up to “new” media. Cheers!
I let loose in writing a bit differently a few months ago and it was very satisfying. I saw a woman from the back, she wore a clingy black lace top with a million little metal hooks and I couldn't stop looking at them wondering how the hell she managed to fasten that (not alone, obviously!). I obsessed about it for days, then I wrote the story. I had to get it out of my mind, exorcise it. I write crime, so it turned out sick and fascinating. And I did a happy dance because I nailed it. Shotgun Honey took the story, it'll be out in August. There's freedom in "going there".
Wise advice--both in approaching editors and editing oneself. A recent pub that gave me an award (and money!) for a contest submission never paid up. Months passed, I forgot, and I guess they did too, and I didn't want to be THAT WRITER, as you so aptly say, but in the end, I emailed and got a huge apology and prompt payment. On editing self, a wonderful writer, Caroline Leavitt, who eventually blurbed for my upcoming novel, told me I HAD to have a fight scene where I had a couple kinda dancing around their disgust with each other. I took her seriously, wrote the fight scene, and it worked so much better than the avoidance dance. Sometimes, as you say in this post, you have to go for broke. Ain't easy but it usually works.
Well since nobody has taken up the second part of this motivational number, namely going for it in a story allow me to at least have a try.
Love Without Fear
My seventeen-year-old hormones went into overdrive. She was lying on her back outside the caravan, her hands supporting her hips and her shapely legs high in the air going through a cycling motion. My eyes were on stalks and my loins on fire.
“Down, boy,” my father grunted as we unloaded our holiday gear and opened up the rented caravan. “You’ve no chance with her!”
Once we had settled in, we wandered over to the other caravan to introduce ourselves. My object of desire, Joyce, was a slender girl with freckles who looked about my age. She was accompanied by her aunt. It was 1954 and I had just finished my A Level exams and was hoping to go to university in the autumn. Like us, they were on a caravan holiday in a field near Clacton. Joyce and her aunt happened to be from London too, so we had something in common and conversation was easy.
“What were you doing, exactly when we arrived?” I asked Joyce.
“Oh, a few months ago I fell backwards on an escalator and damaged my coccyx. I do that exercise regularly as part of my therapy,” she responded.
The following day, eager as I was to get to know Joyce better, I asked her if she fancied going to the fair with me that evening. When she readily agreed, I couldn’t believe my luck. Having been a pupil at an all-boys school, my experience of asking girls out was nil. However, my classmates and I had read Eustace Chesser’s manual for rookie lovers entitled “Love Without Fear” from cover to cover and I knew it almost off by heart!
“You won’t get anywhere with her, so don’t build your hopes up,” was my father’s unsolicited opinion.
Simply being with her made me breathless with desire. She didn’t seem to mind holding hands on the way to the fair and after an exhilarating time on the rides, on the way back, I put my arms round her and gave her a long French kiss as instructed by Eustace! She was duly impressed and joined in with a passion. She exulted in pressing her slim, soft body against mine to the extent that I thought it was going to trigger an explosion in my pants.
For the rest of the week, we spent a good deal of time together. Her aunt would go down to the beach every afternoon leaving us alone in their caravan. Joyce would lie down on the bed and let me undress her and gaze at her perfect, slender body. But no touching was allowed. She was so tempting, but I had to abide by her rules.
“Why can’t I caress you?” I asked like the lovelorn adolescent I was.
“Because I am five years older than you and have a boyfriend who’s coming to see me on Friday,” she explained to my astonishment.
“What? You’re 23?” I squawked. I was completely taken aback and overwhelmed with jealousy.
Sure enough, her boyfriend, a muscle-bound hulk from Carnegie College in Leeds turned up on the Friday.
“I told you that you had no chance,” my father sniggered, “I bet you’d like to see what he’s eyeballing right now.”
Hmm. Little did Mr. Muscles or my father know... And that still brings a smile to my face all these years later.
Perfect timing. Thank you for the inspiration to let it rip!
the way the judge looks at them when the nanny says she'd like to keep it at that, hahaha
Good timing for this motivational post! I'm constantly worrying that I'm being too heavy-handed in my current novel-in-progress.
This is such a good reference, the scene is awesome but Laura Dern herself embodies exactly what you are talking about. Wild at Heart anyone? She’s incredible. Great Monday motivation today, thanks!
That scene! So good. Thanks for the inspiration, Becky!