Vulnerability in Writing

I've been writing a LOT lately, and I'm excited about the material that is coming out, the direction I see for possible books (plural, because I don't want to write just one, after all), and the small victories each piece presents.  I've been telling myself, You can't write about faith and poof! essays on faith (and other things).  And the "other things" are topics I've tried to write about before but have failed miserably, blathered on and on-- and then THIS happened and then THIS happened and I HATED this, I HATED it-- but now they are coming together, and I'm thrilled.

I think the work is good.  We will see.  I did have a short piece accepted by Brevity that will be published in the not-too-distant future (YEEEEEEE!!!!!).  It's called "Field Guide to Resisting Temptation," and I'm SO EXCITED and also SO ANXIOUS that it will be published and public.  As my dear friend said, "Talk about peeling your own skin off and creating art from the raw desire/confusion/humanity/desire/desire/desire beneath its surface. Lifting it to the page, to light, to awareness," which makes me feel a little better, but yeah, peeling your own skin off.  That's pretty accurate.

But that's what I love about good writing - the writer willing to bear witness, even if that artist is bearing witness to the dark interior of her own heart, displaying her own weaknesses, fears, anxieties, doubts, and desires - because that kind of a witness has the potential to be life-giving.  At least that's been my experience in both writing and in life - when a friend has been willing to lower her guard and be vulnerable, to show the red squishyness of her insides, it has been life- and relationship-changing.  

It's a short little thing to be giving me such fits.  I promise I won't chicken out.  I will post a link to it when it goes live.  Eep.  

In other news, I'm off to the In Print Festival at Ball State University tomorrow to represent River Teeth and the Ashland Poetry Press as Managing Editor, and then to visit a friend's class at Taylor University on Thursday.  This trip has been made possible by a set of friends who are taking care of our three children overnight, a set of childless friends who may find that they never, ever want to have kids after watching ours.  I'm only kind of kidding.  Pray for them ;)

Negative Nancy and the Art of Self-Promotion

First off, a short essay of mine, "Grounded: Engaging the Spiritual in Poetry" is available on Poets' Quarterly, which just relaunched this month.  Check it out!

Secondly, I now have all kinds of anxieties about what I just did: self-promote.

It probably doesn't seem like I have any trouble with promoting myself.  I rock the social media, y'all.  I have a MailChimp account for sharing good news about my book (subscribe to the right of this post!).  I carry a couple copies of my book in my purse, just in case.  Probably you've rolled your eyes a time or two at my tweets or Facebook posts mentioning this publication or that link or yet another blog post about food and mothering. 

So maybe it's a surprise to find out that I really struggle with sharing my good news.

I experience this range of inner monologue when something good happens to me:

"YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!!!!!!!  THIS IS SO AWESOME!!!!!!!! THEY LIKED IT!!!!!! THEY ARE GOING TO PUBLISH IT!!!!!!!!!"

"...What if they are publishing it because they somehow know you, or maybe they don't but they needed to fill out their issue and you are the best of the worst, and this is a pity move and it really isn't that great?"

"OH, WHO CARES!?!?! NONE OF THAT'S TRUE (is it?)!  THEY ARE GOING TO PUBLISH IT!!!!!!"

"Big freaking deal, Sarah. People get their stuff published every day, and no one reads that journal except the other poets who have been accepted.  And besides, who in the real world even cares about your writing?  Any writing?  At all?"

"BUT I DO!  WOOOOOOOO!  I LOVE THAT POEM!  THAT'S ONE OF MY FAVORITES AND I SUBMITTED IT A DOZEN PLACES BECAUSE I LOVE IT AND IT'S AWESOME, EVEN THOUGH IT TOOK 12 REJECTIONS BEFORE AN EDITOR ALSO LIKED IT ENOUGH TO PUBLISH IT!  I ALWAYS BELIEVED IN THAT POEM! WEEEEEEE! IT'S PUBLISHED!!!!!!"

"Get over yourself.  And now you're going to tell Facebook and Twitter, right, you egotistical diva, you.  I see you copying the link now."

"I'm sharing it because it means something to me, because I think it says something about human experience.  Because I believe in it and I'm proud of it.  Stop bullying me."

"'It says something about human experience?!' Who are you, C.S. Lewis? T.S. Eliot? H.G. Wells? C.D. Wright? Some other guy with initials for his first name? Are you going to start publishing as S.M. Wells now?"

"WELL MAYBE I AM! *blowing raspberries*"

"That's real mature, S.M.  Well, go ahead, share your good news and a link to your new book/blog entry/essay/poem.  No one will read it.  You'll probably get like, two likes and one comment, and maybe a retweet, if someone is looking at twitter right this second.  And you'll keep checking Facebook and Twitter all night to see if someone's responded, thereby only half-participating in your family's evening events.  Way to engage in your own life."

"Oh, be quiet.  All that you say is true.  And all that I say is true, too.  How do you spread your passion and joy without sharing it with friends and family?  Celebrate good times, come on, Negative Nancy."

"Yea yea, Positive Polly.  The glass is always full with this one.  Send away, S.M., send away."

* * * * *

That's about how it goes, people.  Every time.  There's a zig-zag line between bragging and celebrating, trying to be humble but also wanting to rejoice in the good work that you've done with the help of the holy spirit.  In one breath, I'm ecstatic that I have a new book and in the next I'm apologizing that it's "just a poetry collection," afraid that the majority of the people I care about most in life won't read it or worse, will, and find it inaccessible, incomprehensible, ugly, or pointless.  Insecurities nearly choke me when I think about other poets reading the book - what will they think?  Probably that it's too sing-songy.  Probably that it isn't serious enough.  Probably that the book doesn't hold together as a collection.  Probably it's too feminine.  Or not feminine enough.  Or too formal and narrative and not at all experimental.  Maybe the publisher made a mistake in accepting it, or maybe the publisher I went with publishes everything they find, or maybe my work is only appealing to a small niche of readers. ON and ON and ON.  I'm dying to hear praise so I can kill it upon arrival with questions of motive.  Do all poets feel this way?  Do all writers?  Do all people?

And then after dwelling in that gunk for a while, I grab a pitchfork and start mucking out.  I lift the shit that is insecurity, doubt, fear, anxiety, self-consciousness, need for approval, and hot pride and pitch it into a wheelbarrow.  Dump it in the steaming manure pile where maybe it'll fertilize some earth someday.  And after the crap is gone, I spread some fresh straw.  Because I am a child of God, created to do good works, confident that he who began a good work in me will carry it to completion until the day of Christ Jesus, with a plan and a purpose, who believes in good and real and true and beautiful things, and I am grateful to have been given this gift with words, and if I try to shut it up or keep it down, it'll burn up my bones. 

So there.  Go read the effing article.

May Days

The River Teeth Nonfiction Conference wrapped up nicely this weekend.  I don't think we could have asked for a better experience (save for, perhaps, the mice... I could have done without the mice incident).  For a taste of what happened, visit the River Teeth website, where I've posted a few videos from the panels and presentations.  I didn't know how to zoom in as I was operating the camera (boooo) but the audio is what people care about anyway, right?

This last week, Henry has started to nod yes and shake his head no, indiscriminately.  He has also started to point.  This is a step up in the communication department for him, even if he says yes and no to anything you ask, and it is so entertaining to ask him questions.  He understands that something is being asked of him and he ought to reply.  Such a delight, he is. 

Our patio project is progressing - we now have the paver sand tamped and started to lay down bricks, except, like last time, we forgot that the square bricks are about a third less thick than the rectangular bricks, which means we need to fill in the spots where the square bricks go with a little more paver sand.  It's a tedious process, but it's better than spending the next five years stubbing our toes on bricks that protrude from the patio.

Lydia and Elvis wrap up the school year this coming week - we are all looking forward to summer and the freedom to come and go and stay up later and sleep in (ha).  I started running again the other day and hope to work my way back up to the Ashland Balloonfest 5K.  I did two miles at a horribly slow pace, mostly because I'm still nervous about my knee and its tendency to ache afterward, but it wasn't too bad. 

The good news I have to share is that my essay, "Those Summers, These Days," which appeared in Ascent, will be listed as a notable essay in this year's Best American Essays.  Woo hoo!  I'm still beaming about this news.  I have another essay I've just started that could prove to be a real challenge, on self-image, insecurity, boys/men, daughters, and lots more.  I made a bulleted list of topics I think could fit in this essay.  Now I just need to write it.  Just.

Peace, Not War - Online and Print Publication

In the last few days I've been thinking again about publication.  Unlike my last meditation on posting poems to a blog site, my most-read post to-date, I've been thinking about how hard we all work (and how much money we all spend) trying to get our poems published in elite literary journals, like Poetry and the likes.  I must admit to submitting every single poem I've written to Poetry in the hopes of publication (their online submission manager is FREE!!!!).  And I've submitted nearly every poem I've written to Rattle (they take email submissions, and they are FREE!!!!).  But of the poems I've had accepted for publication in the last two years, the ones that have gotten the most readers have appeared online.

I do not want to knock the literary journal, that ambitious little creature surviving off of grants, institutional support, and buckets of blood, sweat, and tears from their editors.  Writers in academia require the juried selection of their work by their peers in order to secure tenure and to give evidence of their mastery of craft.  This selection process is long, painful, and subjective-- I've learned as much working with a journal-- and when a publication boasts a 1% acceptance rate, that means 99% of submissions receive a generic note apologizing for not being able to publish it, encouraging the writer to submit again and granting best wishes for placing their work elsewhere.  What an honor and privilege to be among the 1%! 

Besides building one's CV for tenure, publication in the big guns builds a writer's reputation in the literary world.  Work is exposed to the broader literary community (supposedly).  Submitting to the patriarchs and matriarchs of the literary journal is worthwhile and encouraged, so long as those grandparents of literary publishers are still being read.

As more and more opportunities to access literature open up online and in digital print readers, writers and publishers of writers need to reevaluate the way we spread the word, so to speak.  I don't think it is any surprise that print media subscriptions are slip sliding away.  In light of this fact, in order to stay current and accessible, journals need to begin exploring alternative means of delivery and additional ways to lure subscribers and readers to their material.

There are some very worthy examples of journals that have embraced the digital age and are broadening readership by doing so.  One such journal here in Ohio is the Kenyon Review.  A quick peek at their homepage shows a full acceptance of the changing of the times-- they are blogging, posting excerpts, offering eBook editions, sharing interviews, and airing podcasts.  Compare this to journals that may have a website with subscription and submission information, but tracking down any actual writing in that journal requires ordering a back issue.

The sad fact is there are hundreds of literary journals and a handful of faithful print subscribers.  Journals like Kenyon Review, Rattle, Poetry, and others are making the wise move to providing alternative access and bridging the gap between the print version and the online version.  Given the choice between having a poem of mine appear in a journal with hundreds of other poets who will all mostly scan through until they find the page their poem appears on and then look to see if they recognize any of the poets in the table of contents, and publishing a poem online, where I can link to it on my blog, share it on Facebook and Twitter, email it to friends and family, all without any cost to me... I'd rather go online.

As an administrator at a university rather than a faculty member at a university, my primary interest isn't in building my CV, although being able to wave the flag of a hot journal in my list of acknowledgments down the road would certainly be nice.  My primary interest is in readers.  I'd like to be able to share what I've written with friends and family while still adding to a list of publications, which will serve its purpose toward book publication, someday. 

The print journals that make the leap into hybrid forms of publication and alternative delivery are the ones that I expect to survive and thrive.  The online journals that are popping up and delivering the same level of editorial selection as the highly regarded print journals will continue to grow and gain respect.  The journals that resist technology are likely to fade into the past along with the land-line telephone and the typewriter-- two devices that served their purpose for a time and still exist today but are becoming endangered species, dangerously close to extinction.  Except, of course, in academia.