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Back in November I wrote a novel. I know what you're thinking: You can't
write a novel in a month. I entered the NaNoWriMo (National Novel
Writing Month) and I did. Not that you'll ever be buying this novel at
the checkout stand at the supermarket. In fact, the jumble of mismatched
ideas, plot lines, and chaotic word structure may never see the light of
day again, and that may be good news for the literary world. But for the
month of November 2003, I wrote like Stephen King. I wrote every day.
Author J.A. Jance said, "A writer is someone who has written today." In
November I was a writer. I also consumed inordinate amounts of chocolate
and gallons of hi-test coffee. Thanksgiving flashed by barely noticed.
Each week, NaNoWriMo founder and high priest, Chris Baty, would send out
an email to the twenty thousand people world wide with the weekly "pep
talk" and each night I'd register my word count, causing my personal
blue bar graph to move toward the final total of 50,000 words in thirty
days. There was no charge to enter, and the financial reward at the end
was the same as the entry fee. Yet several thousand people actually made
it to the goal, earning a place on the "Winner's Page" at the website.
Flip through it for inspiration sometime (www.nanowrimo.org). Those
people were writers.
We all start out as writers. In elementary school, we learn how to
write. We learn words, spelling and grammar. With the unrestricted
imagination of children, we write stories. Then, education kicks in, and
while school teaches us math and science and language and history, it
doesn't do much in the area of the arts, but then, Ray Bradbury said
writing isn't taught, it must be learned. Learned by doing, like riding
a bicycle. By the time we graduate from high school, most of us have our
creativity, our love of new ideas, and our imagination well buried under
mountains of intellectual facts used mainly to pass standardized tests.
Know any jobs out there that require good test-taking skills? I don't
either.
Despite this conversion of the young mind to practical matters,
some of us still escape with the muse intact, or at least, the belief
that we should be writing, if only we had the time. We all have the same
twenty-four hours each day. Why do some people crank out novels like
King, and others get stuck working at the bank? Tom Clancy didn't get
stuck in the insurance business, and Grisham wrote his first blockbuster
before work at the law firm every morning. They found the time. In the
words of the wonderful Natalie Goldberg, "Finally, one has to shut up,
sit down, and write." It only takes a pencil and a piece of paper. Being
simple and being easy are not quite the same, are they?
Then, after we
sit down, shut up, and write, we have to send it out to publishers.
Amazingly, some of those publishers will not accept our work, much less
pay for it. By age 14, Stephen King had so many rejections pierced on a
nail in the wall of his bedroom, he had to replace it with a larger
spike. It didn't stop him, of course, but it could explain the demented
characters in most of his stories, probably based on editors.
It was an honor to be asked to be guest editor for this edition of
flashquake. For the first time, I sat on the other side of the "slush
pile." Hundreds of stories and poems were submitted, competing for a
very limited space. The first thing I can say is that every single
submission was read by at least two editors, and every writer will get a
response. Not many publications can say that. Have you ever sent out one
of your stories never to hear from that publication again? I have. There
was much great writing and some that needed a little loving. Many great
stories just didn't fit in the space. That's editing. But every
submission came from someone who sat down and put their story or poem
down in black and white, and then they sent it out. They are all
writers. I tip my hat to every one of them.
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