Guest Editor's Corner
Message In a Bottle: Reflections on Writing and Guest Editing
by Louisa Howerow
A girl of eight tosses a green bottle into a northern river. The bottle holds a folded paper heart; inside the heart is a message penned in lemon juice.
She pesters her parents with questions for which there are no easy answers. Will the current carry the bottle to the sea? Who will pick it up? Will the stranger (it's always another girl) know how to make the invisible writing appear? Will the message surprise? Delight? Will there be a response?
The family will spend a week camping on this river. The girl will spend every morning searching the shore, certain she'll find a bottle with a message addressed to her.
I can't write without a reader. It's precisely like a kiss — you can't do it alone.
— John Cheever
I'm no longer eight years old, no longer throwing bottles into rivers, but I've returned to writing. I send out prose and poetry with the same hope, trepidation and excitement that accompanied my first message in a bottle.
The stranger on the far shore is now an editor who fishes out bottles, reads the papers enclosed, decides whether the submission will appear in a future issue. She'll send a note of acceptance, an encouraging comment coupled with regrets, a form rejection or, perhaps, nothing at all.
My ambitions are modest, seemingly straightforward: write, improve the writing, offer an engaging submission to an editor and a journal's readers.
I dig through books and articles stacked on the floor and shelves of my writing room, look for secrets to help me move from a blank page to an idea ready to be shaped, revised, accepted. I take walks, make up stories about people I see, play with "what ifs". I poke around in my garden, run my fingers across petal stems, examine the shape of the leaves, breathe in the smell of damp earth. I make endless cups of tea, write lists, doodle — anything to get the pen moving.
On the days when even one decent sentence is out of reach, how I wish writing wasn't as simple or as hard as putting down words, reading them aloud, re-thinking, revising.
In Internet workshops, members patiently help me find flaws in my submissions, before I send them off. I cherish their critiques, crave their input.
I read the work of others; the work both inspires and fills me with despair. Does anyone really need more stories, poems, memoir pieces from a struggling writer? The answer is no, but I stubbornly continue, afraid that if I stop, I won't be able to start again. I do it because I want to, because no one else will tell my stories, because writing is what I do.
It's a damn good story. If you have any comments, write them on the back of a check.
— Erle Stanley Gardner
One day I receive a different message: leave the shore, climb into the boat we've sent and inspect the bottles with us — the quality of the glass, the shape, the corks. Read the message-submissions and help us decide which ones best fit our journal's needs. Signed, the flashquake editors.
I accept, wonder if I'm mad, reason that since the final decision rests on a six-person team, I'm free from the burden of being an editor with a capital E. As if it were that easy to distance onself from responsibility!
According to the journal's guidelines, the editors must justify their choices. Certain criteria are straight forward; they reflect the bottle's shape, the glass, the cork: spelling, grammar, punctuation, structure. The other criteria are less evident; they rest on personal judgment.
I read and re-read the submissions, compose my responses to the work, trust the reasons behind the choices are clear, complete and helpful.
All writers have promise, but not all writing is ready for a note of acceptance. Many pieces resemble each other in theme, content, stylistic approach. Other submissions, through lack of attention or skill have key elements missing or are weighed down with extraneous details. Some of the writing is excellent — I long to write that well — but it isn't what this journal publishes.
I wonder where the full-time editors find the enthusiasm, stamina and time to read submissions year round. Somehow they do, one excellent issue after another.
"Begin at the beginning," the King said, gravely, "and go on till you come to the end: then stop."
— Lewis Carroll
The position of guest editor comes to an end. My own writing continues. Rough drafts wait for revisions.
I receive an envelope from a university press. A form rejection. An e-mail message informs me a magazine has folded before publishing a story accepted two months ago. A small lump of disappointment implodes somewhere just below my throat. I take a walk along the river, pick pebbles, watch geese waddle ashore. An new idea starts to form.
I return home to begin again: one word, one sentence, one story at a time.
Louisa Howerow extends a thank you to her Internet writing colleagues for reading a preliminary version of this editorial and providing input. She also extends thanks to flashquake for the invitation to be guest editor. What an interesting experience! In closing, she commends the full-time flashquake editors and webmaster for putting out one excellent issue after another. The work they put in is incredible!