Q: What is on your holiday writer-wish list?
"If there is something you are looking for..."
Welcome to our weekend conversation!
Between last year and this year, my daughter wrote a whopping fourteen letters to Santa.
She did not receive every item asked for, obviously. But she had a lot of fun writing the letters.
She also left a friendly reminder for the jolly fella for when he comes into our home.
We’re not especially holiday-oriented in our household. We actually only just started doing Christmas-y and Hanukkah-y things two years ago. But the letters to Santa are a delightfully fun part of it all. It’s creative, it adds a bit of magic to the experience, and it’s a direct articulation of what it is you want. You might not get every single gift you ask for, but it’s the asking that is itself part of the fun.
I was thinking about wish lists this week for all the obvious holiday reasons, but also because someone asked me if I knew a copy editor. He is looking to hire one. Unfortunately, I do not. Or, at least, I do not know that I know one.
In fact, it’s quite possible that someone reading this newsletter right now is a copy editor. If that’s you, you might be just the person for this job. Or maybe you know someone else who would be just right for this and putting these people in touch with each other would be win-win for all.
This, in turn, made me think about our community here, and what many of us might be seeking and ways we could turn to one another. We’ve come here to read each other’s work, to share resources and information, to exchange ideas and to vent, to ask questions and voice opinions.
Might it not also be a place, this weekend, to share your wish list? Well, why not? Surely there are people among us who have skills we’re looking for and talents that could help us.
So this weekend, I’d like to know what’s on your writer wish list.
Your list need not be long. In fact, it would be great if you limited it to just one or two concrete things.
This probably goes without saying, but your list also need not be addressed to Santa. Obviously, Santa isn’t for everyone. And I hate to burst bubbles, but I’ve heard rumors that he’s not actually real. (Sorry! Just saying!)
In all seriousness, if there is something you are looking for:
a kind of service you are seeking to hire someone for
a recommendation for certain kinds of books
a workshop you are trying to organize
a reading list you’re working to compile
lit mag recommendations for a particular piece you’re trying to publish
beta readers you’d like to hire
developmental editors you’re seeking…
…or something else, this is the place to name your wish.
I have a good feeling that there are people right here in this community who can help you fulfill that wish.
What is on my own list is good recommendations for contemporary novels, specifically psychological thrillers. I know, this is not lit-mag related. But it is related to something I am working on, something I hope (fingers crossed) to be finished with very soon. If this is a genre you read, I would love a book recommendation or two. If it’s a genre you write, please reach out to me, as I would love to connect with you.
And now, it’s your turn.
What’s on your writer wish list?
Dear Santa,
Please do not come down our chimney. The previous owners of this old house blocked off the fireplace to make more wall space for God knows what. Use the door.
Second, if you leave anything in this house, dear old fellow, I will hunt you down and hurt you. At my age, I cannot give away stuff fast enough. (Is that why you do it? This Christmas thing?) I get angry at people on NextDoor who claim to want my once beloved artwork/lamps/books/curling iron/ice bag/etc. and do not come when they say they will. WT actual F? Why can't people who seek free stuff show up when they say they will? Correlation between flakiness and desiring or needing other people's shit, who knows? Why am I asking you?
The point is: DO NOT BRING ANYTHING!!! This year, Christmas will be like an Easter egg hunt for you, old man. You're taking stuff away. Here is my list:
- Take away Twitter, for obvious reasons.
- Take away my smartphone. It is not only spying on me, it is also ruining my brain for reading and writing. The only reason I'm on this website typing a note to an imaginary elf is because I haven't looked at it all day.
- Take away that Grammarly shit. It keeps trying to change my sentences into nicer, more normal ones. Fuck that.
- Take away every single pen from this house that no longer works.
- Take away the stacks of lit mags I didn't get to read that are now gathering dust on the piano. Also, take away the ones I did.
- Finally, take away the moldering doubt that makes me think real literature is written by other people, and if I ever appear to write it myself, it must have been a happy accident. You may have to open up my chest to find that one, but please, even if you have to split me open from stern to stem, please take it away.
Oh, and eat all the cookies you want.
Lots of love,
D. P.
I don’t have much on my wish list. What matters to me is to say thank you for all you've done for us all this year and beyond. If we are a community instead of a bunch of random loose cannons, it we are going to matter in these turbulent times, your contribution is going to be a vital part of reasons why we can keep going, we can maybe matter to more than ourselves and a few close friends. So thank you. You successfully accomplish things most of us can’t. Every day from now until the distant future, when you look into a mirror for the first time during the day, flash a superhero smile at yourself. And don’t ever underestimate yourself. In other words, thank you.