Shiny Everyday American
I like shoes. Strappy sandals, kitten heels, flats and worn-in sneakers. It's all good. So off to the mall I went (without kids!) to scope out the spring selections. I walked through Bloomingdale's, hoping for a great sale. But what I found I didn't expect.

The floor looked coated with shiny lip gloss leading up to the make-up counters. Women in smocks fussed over the brightly lit displays, waiting for customers. Dozens of tiny glass perfume jars like little twinkly stars. So many choices, so much excess. I couldn't wait to get out of the store, shoes or not.

Why does there have to be so much?

Home to the Shire
When I first came home from Indonesia, I went through a bit of reverse culture shock. Like Frodo in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, it's true you never can go back to the life you once had in the peaceful shire. When you witness a Third World lifestyle, American excess is like a slap across the face. The painful sting of how much we Americans have never fully heals. Every now and then, I'm reminded of it.

A Tale of Two Supermarkets...
In a city like Ujung Pandang, there is what we would call a supermarket, but with closer inspection, there isn't much of anything super about it. Lots of non-perishable items with a long shelf-life, like Nestle instant coffee and ramen noodles. Travel into the countryside and the choices are even fewer. When we drove up to the mountains, we stopped at a roadside market that reminded me of those fruit stands open in the summertime back home. That's the Indonesian convenience store for Coke, cigarettes, rice, and fruit.

The supermarket 20 minutes from my house here in New Jersey recently super-sized itself–again. Not only can you get live lobster, organic milk and vegetables, you can purchase sushi, rotisserie chicken,  and muffins bigger than your hand. I'm sure your local Super Wal-mart can do even better. If I want to buy clothes for my kids, I have to go to a separate store–a mere 10 minute jaunt up the road. If I need a missing ingredient when making dinner, I hop in the car to drive to our “roadside” store that is miles bigger than the Indonesian one.

And Two Christians
A girlfriend from church likes shoes as much as I do, so we're planning to go to shopping as soon as our schedules allow. As we discussed our girl's night out, I remembered walking through Bloomingdale's just a few days before.

“Does it ever bother you that this country has so much?”

“No,” she looked at me strangely. Why would I ask such a thing?
 
I can't fault her. It's the American way to have more than enough. We expect it, live with it, don't think much of it.

Faded  
Most days, I'm not unlike my friend. I adore cute shoes. I also like eating those sweet muffins. Bloomingdale's may bother me, but I can go into Borders, Target or Applebee's and not give Indonesia a second thought. Those stores aren't as decadent in their presentation as Bloomingdale's, but the idea is still the same. We have so much here.  

The slap of excess should still sting, shouldn't it?

As a Christian, I wish it would bother me more. And it seems to me that American Christians aren't too concerned of the disparity between Us and Them either. Part of me wants to stop and admire all the make-up in the glass case. But here's the thing about shiny glass surfaces–you can see your reflection staring back.

Previous Articles:

• Remembering Indonesia, Part 2
• Remembering Indonesia, Part 1  

Travis Griffith shares some of his own personal experiences in regards to writing and selling his children's book, Your Father Forever.

A writing career sounds so glamorous, doesn’t it?

Who wouldn’t want a job working from home and getting paid to see your name flashed across print publications, books, and computer screens worldwide?

How hard could it be to put fingers to keyboard and scribe cohesive sentences that grab your audience, leaving them laughing or crying, disturbed or derailed, informed or inspired, but most of all, hooked and desperate for more?

It’s a valid dream; one many people share. But good god friends, writing is hard!

And because it’s hard, it leaves a lot of failure in its wake. Even people with a real passion for the written word have given up, frustrated at the lack of attention, the lack of money, or the lack of publication.

The people who succeed do so with a combination of skill, good luck, and timing. Many of the people who fail do so only because their will to keep trying runs out before the right combination arrives.

How do I know? I’m on both sides of it.

I’m lucky enough to have a book published, but still struggle with the realities and challenges of getting more published.

My book is a children’s book called Your Father Forever and it’s a perfect example of good luck and timing (the skill portion can be argued!). Because I’m published, people often ask me how they also can become published authors, a question for which I really don’t have an answer. I just answer it by telling the story of how I got published and then let the person decide if there’s anything inspiring or relevant to his or her own situation.

The Writing Process

For me, the greatest ideas tend to strike when I’m doing things completely unrelated to writing. Whether I’m brushing my teeth or mowing the lawn, I always have a notepad nearby. And sometimes even a pen!
After scrawling down an idea, I later sit down and analyze it. Sometimes ideas end up as the beginnings of a book, sometimes they end up as a newspaper column or blog. And sometimes they end up in the garbage can.
Occasionally, an idea will strike with so much force I have no choice but to drop everything and follow it all the way through. Such was the case one night in early 2002.

My son, Preston, was just a newborn and like all newborns, he cried. A lot. On this particular night, I was having a really hard time with the lack of sleep, and his wailing at 2 a.m. did not help with my crankiness. I reluctantly crawled out of bed and stumbled into his room, where the sight of his perfect, sad little face triggered something in me. I had this realization that he won’t need me in the middle of the night forever. It was one of those “ah-ha” moments where suddenly everything becomes clear. I remember standing with that baby in my arms and looking down on him, wondering what else he’d need me for, but only temporarily, as he grew. 

That’s when I told myself I’d wake up with my son at night for as long he needed me to. I went back to bed that night and scrawled out a list of other things I’d do for him as he grew up—things like tossing him up into the air to make him laugh, helping him learn to read, or holding onto his bike.

Before the sun rose, I had a poem of sorts that I had titled “As Long As You Want Me To.” My wife read it and said, “Wow… this needs to be a book.”

And that’s when the work began!

I believe that ideas go as far as the work behind them, and I wanted this to be a book. I began researching publishers. I sent queries letters. I sent manuscripts.

The Publication Process

And then I got rejections. LOTS of rejections. Of course in my mind I was expecting the rights to my perfect gem of a book would go to the lucky publisher who responded first.  Nothing like a little reality to ground a guy’s high expectations!

I figure I sent out about 60 queries and manuscripts, and probably received 59 rejections over about 6 months. Then, one day there was a message on my machine from an editor interested in discussing my project. A few more phone calls were exchanged, and then I heard the words that writers love to hear, “Congratulations, you’ve sold you’re first book.”

It’s actually quite remarkable that it happened so fast, though I didn’t know it at the time. I have a friend who has been trying to get a book published for over 10 years. It’s not that I’m any more skilled than she is, in fact I’d say the opposite is true. I just happened to have the right combination of a good story, good luck, and good timing. My publisher was looking for a book aimed at fathers, and my proposal fit the bill.

The process of actually going from signed contract to published book is another blog , but I’ll say that my original middle-of-the-night poem transformed over the course of two and a half years into a vastly different story, but one I’m equally proud of.

The Proud Published Author Today

Fast forward to 2008, and I’m still a struggling writer. Some things have changed; I’ve given up the corporate world and become a full-time writer. Not because the royalties from Your Father Forever have enabled me to do so; they haven’t. I did it so I can devote more time to my craft and continue sending queries for my new children’s books and a novel.

While I do have some writing successes behind me, my goals are still much larger but my will to make them reality is stronger.

Yet, the rejections still come… and I continue hoping for the next wave of good luck and perfect timing while taking the time to learn from other writers while constantly improving my abilities.

Previous Posts:

• My Personal UnChristian Story

Last week, Relief Staff Blogger Monica Brand gave us the back story behind her experiences in Indonesia --memories from a single American woman in the far off country of Indonesia. Today, she shares with us journal snippets of the writer who lived it.

Indonesia Part 2: I Wrote It All Down

Write in my journal, that's the first thing I want to do.

Leaving home and all things familiar, bound for exotic Indonesia, I can't wait to get words onto the page. After I stow my first laptop underneath the airplane seat, I open a new blank book. The date: June 1996. As the plane lifts off the Newark airport runway, only then do I finally stop to look out the window.

That's what we do as writers, isn't it? We write down as much as we can, whenever we can, the important things - and even the trivial. All the details and emotions captured on paper or hard drive, observations to bring our fiction/poems/essays to life.

The airplane is full leaving the east coast, LAX seems a small city and not just an airport. I find the gate for my connecting flight, the majority of the passengers are Asian. For once, I'm a minority. Lord, do you really want me to do this?

All of it recorded on paper.

Finally in Indonesia, I write lengthy emails about the heat, a wicked-smart spider and rice for breakfast, all on that Toshiba laptop, lugging it to a friend's house because where I live has no phone. I'm a toddler learning to talk, thriving on the romance of my new life. Even the toilet, at first confusing, becomes a silly story for the journal.

A Muslim girl my age, and her mother who doesn't speak any English, rent me a room for three months. Ripe mangos fall onto my bedroom roof sounding like little bombs as they hit the tin metal. The sing-song Arabic broadcast throughout the city call Muslims to their prayers. The rats on the streets at night. Old man bacuk drivers woo me to hire them for a ride. Young girls walking in pairs toward the local mosque, their white prayer coverings blow in dry wind.

All captured within my journals.

And when homesickness finds me, I take solace in my journal. I write of my lack of anonymity on the street, I feel like I'm on display in a shop window. People openly stare. I hear "Hey, mister!" and "America!" and "Hello, Bill Clinton!" far too many times. Stupid Indonesians, I write in my journal. And when the married church leader makes a pass at me, that goes onto the page too.

Today the journals lay buried in a box in the attic along with other souvenirs. The old laptop on my closet floor. I don't want to re-read those words yet. I wrote to remember, to relive it someday, but along with the beauty of Indonesia is pain, loneliness, and abandonment. A voice saying the Lord forgot you. I never knew loneliness like Indonesia. I prayed. I wrote. And when I questioned God, I wrote it all down too.   

Related Articles:

• Remembering Indonesia, Part 1

Monica Brand, a former newspaper reporter turned stay-at-homeschooling mom who has been writing since high school, has been a Christian for most her life.  She likes to read across a wide variety of genres (not just CBA authors).  In addition to this site, you can find her at her own blog at monicabrand.net, Writer Interrupted, New Jersey Moms, and ACFW.com.

Continuing his series on The Path To Publication, Relief Blogger Kevin Lucia discusses the importance of listening to and valuing critique, taking direction, and playing nicely with editors.

The most important thing a new writer needs for improvement is critique. It’s hard to endure, admittedly. Our projects are dear to us. When we send them into the world, we want to protect them from mean editors who obviously don’t recognize brilliance when they see it. Snarky tone aside, rejection hurts, even for the seasoned writer.  No one likes to be told that what they’ve worked so hard on needs improvement.

However, a writer can’t improve without outside input.  For years, I wrote “behind closed doors,” never letting anyone see my work. I was afraid that negative comments would hinder my progress. Besides, from my perspective, the folks at the weekly Barnes & Noble Adult Writers Workshop weren’t published either, so why should I take their advice?

The result was obvious. Though I possessed a natural storytelling voice, I continually practiced bad fiction writing habits and never grew as a writer.  All writers have tendencies they’re blind to, no matter how many times they’ve proofread, so everyone needs a second pair of eyes.  For example, I love adverbs, and left to my own devices, I’ll use as many as I possibly can.

There are multiple ways to get this input. The first – which I so smugly sniffed at in my youth – would be some kind of formal or informal local writing group. Depending on a writer’s place in life, attending college and taking Creative Writing classes, either as a part of program or simply a course here and there could also be extremely helpful. Most important, writer’s always need to be open to suggestion. If writers can get to a point where they crave feedback – both positive and negative – they’re on the right path.

Once past that, there’s still the gatekeeper: the almighty editor; he or she that holds the ultimate fate of our treasured work in their hands.  Since none of us is Robert Heinlein, (who had an uncanny initial acceptance rate), we’re going to get rejected – a lot.  Instead of lengthy exposition detailing how to deal with it, I can relate several personal experiences.

A little over a year ago, I put my novel dreams to rest, (I plan on detailing this in a future blog series titled “Why Write Short Stories?”), and submitted one of my first short stories ever to this up-and coming speculative anthology. The editor seemed a bit radical and “out there,” and seeing as how I was a Christian who didn’t write evangelical fiction, it seemed like the perfect place for my masterpiece.

Said editor’s reaction was less than glowing. Among some of the reactions were, “hackneyed”, “clichéd”, “really bad dialogue” – and he called it a “bad knock-off of Buffy [the Vampire Slayer].”

My initial response (which thankfully never made it to email!) was shock, and then a little anger. How dare he? This was something I’d slaved over, worked hard on, and put late nights into. “It’s a stupid anthology anyway,” I muttered to myself, the way a kid calls a carnival stupid because his mom won’t let him go. I was about to email him my opinion of his editorial abilities when a thought hit me: ALL writers go through this, don’t they?

It was a stunning revelation.  Every magazine and anthology in the world had editors, and it stood to reason that every writer had to work with editors and listen to their critique, probably even the ones who’d been published multiple times. What made me so special that I could skip what everyone else endured? With that in mind, I took a deep breath and read the editor’s final remarks:

“There’s something here – a good voice underneath all this.  Try again.”

Try again. Did I have the guts? Could I make the changes in style this guy wanted? Of course, then came the only logical follow-up question: How badly did I want to get published?

I wrote something completely new, keeping in mind these comments, swallowing my pride along the way (which didn’t exactly taste yummy).  I wrote and re-wrote, deleting whole passages in the spirit of said advice.  I re-submitted—still grumbling, I might add—but also feeling a glimmer of hope, because I sensed the truth in the advice: this piece was much better than its predecessor.

The eventual result wasn’t the Pulitzer Prize, though it felt like it to me. Not only was it selected for the anthology, it later won Editor’s Choice honors, and took home a decent cash prize. The lesson about critique was hammered home.

Accepting critique is a mindset, however, and not something applied only to big-cash rewarding publications. Not long after my first acceptance, I received editing requests from two different, smaller magazines that paid only in contributor copies. They wanted my stories, but had some very specific advice about what they wanted changed. My lesson having been learned; I instantly made the changes they requested.

For those worried about losing their distinctive voices by always acceding to editor’s requests, not to worry.  The longer you write and the more critique you soak up, the better “eye” you get for the story itself, and are better able to judge critique. Case in point— not too long after my learned lesson, I received a rejection/invitation to resubmit concerning another story of mine from a publication. The editors “liked the concept, but weren’t comfortable with all the flashbacks”.

I opened the story to critique, but came to the conclusion the flashbacks were integral to the plot. Though I felt it needed some brushing up here and there, I kept it the way it was and sent it out to the next magazine, which it accepted for several contributor copies.

On a final note, learning to work with editors and being willing to accept critique helps build your reputation as a writer who acts professionally, is humble, and easy to work with. I’ve run into many writers, writer-hopefuls, and small press authors whose attitudes are defensive, abrasive, and confrontational. Rejection is a dish best served never with them, and I can’t imagine their careers are going to grow much.  

Regarding over-all personality and reputation, I can’t help but return to a recent example of an author who’s attitude has been continually and over-abundantly blessed. About a year ago, best-selling Young Adult Fantasy Author Bryan Davis stayed with my family for several days when he graced our school book fair with an appearance and signing. Not only was he a tremendous wealth of information for a young writer, but was an astounding example of how to act: gracious, courteous, easy to work with, humble, and cooperative. It’s not hard to imagine how his success came about. I’m sure booksellers, publishers, and editors find him a joy to work with. This is a perfect, final example of how important it is to set a personal standard when it comes to accepting critique and relating to editors and others in the writing field.

Related Articles:

• The Path To Publication, Introduction
• No Batteries Included, Patience Required

Kevin Lucia is currently seeking an MA in Creative Writing from Binghamton University, is a born-again Christian who teaches 9-10th grade English and acts as a freelance columnist for The Press & Sun Bulletin.  If you can’t get enough of Kevin here at Relief, you can find him at kevinlucia.net, as well as on MySpace and ShoutLife.