Advice for the New(ish) Writer (Plus Pictures of Birds and Flowers, Because Spring)
- At April 17, 2022
- By Jeannine Gailey
- In Blog
- 0
Advice for New(ish) Writers
Haven’t written a post like this in a while. Wishing you a wonderful Easter, Passover, Ramadan, or Eostre, or just a happy spring. I always write a poem around Easter for some reason; the fact that it’s a time of rebirth, resurrection, first flowers, and maybe because it’s my birthday month. I had a great holiday weekend entertaining my nephews but now I am ready for some downtime. In between advice to new(ish) writers, there will be pictures of ospreys and cherry blossoms
1. Being a writer requires a team. Find your team.
You hear a lot about writers being introverts, about writers being loners, about creation requiring solitude.
And those things can be true. But being a writer long-term requires a support team, whether that’s your family, your spouse, your writing group, fellow students from your writing program, your next-door neighbor, or someone who you’ve only corresponded with and never met in person. Because whether you’re down and dealing with rejection, or elated and dealing with some long-awaited success, you want someone one your side, to keep you from being driven to the extreme highs and lows that are involved in being a writer long-term. After reading a heck of a lot of diaries, letters, and accounts of successful women writers, I notice one thing: to succeed, it took more than just one woman alone – it took other people to champion, to encourage, to promote, to keep them going. Even Emily Dickinson – held up as the solitary genius icon – had multiple women (along with her brother and the editor of the Atlantic – who rejected her work 90 times while she was alive, so mixed feelings?) – who cared about carrying on her legacy after she died.
2. Feed your Creativity.
Whatever this means to you – time in nature, time around visual art, music, or reading books completely unrelated to what you’re writing. Take a class; go to a writer’s conference or festival. Keep your brain alert to messages from the universe. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been inspired by things I wouldn’t have thought at the time were important – a song lyric, an episode of a television show, a scientific concept, a bad sci-fi plot, a painting I glimpsed for a minute in a window of an art gallery. I know this has been hard during the pandemic. And spend time with people who inspire you and make your brain race (see above.)
3. Be persistent.
I am old enough to have seen lots of terrific writers fail not because they were not talented but because they stopped writing or stopped sending out their writing. They got discouraged. They got interested in something else. They got busy or had other priorities. That’s not the end of the world. But just when you think you’re at the end of your ability to tolerate rejection or discouragement, that’s when you’ll win the prize or get the acceptance that will keep you going. Again, this is why having teammates to cheer you on – it’s just as important in writing as it is in basketball. We all need a little encouragement to keep doing anything hard for the long term. The first acceptance or first book are great – but you will need to keep writing after those things. Writing is as much a practice as a sport – and hitting those foul shots in the NBA is not an accident – it’s because those players have practiced foul shots for hours, for years, in front of their audience and in front of their homes. Keep practicing your writing, trying new forms, and hang around with people who are also excited about writing.
4. Curiosity and Kindness Count
Stay curious – it will continue to pay off. Learn a new language, or a new instrument, read new literary journals and poets you’ve never heard of. Read fiction and non-fiction on subjects you don’t really know anything about. Education? Travel? Close examination of the natural world? Yes! The point is, never stop being curious about your world – that is what will drive your writing long term.
Be kind when you can be. Volunteer with younger writers; review someone’s book; do someone a favor who can’t do you a favor back. There can be a lot of competition and not enough kindness in the art world, the poetry world, the work world in general. Believe me, your small and large acts of kindness will reverberate more than you know. A note to someone to say what their work meant to you – or how much you loved their class in eighth grade – or thank them for support during a hard time – that sort of thing matters.
5. Last Notes: Answering Questions
Do you need an MFA? Do you need to attend AWP every year? Do you need to do a nation-wide reading tour? Do you need to be on Twitter 24/7?
Volunteering for a literary magazine or publisher would probably help give you more perspective on publishing in literary magazines, and help you see things from the editors’ points of view. As someone who has an MA in English and an MFA in Creative Writing, and after interviewing many writer friends who do and do not have MFAs, I can confidently say: going to an MFA program may connect you with lifelong friends or mentors, or give you publishing opportunities, but it may not – so the best way to decide if you want an MFA is to decide if you want to dedicate the time and money to your writing, because that’s the only guaranteed thing you get from any MFA program. I would say all writer’s conferences and festivals are more than anything an opportunity to make friends – friends that might last your whole writing life. The same with a reading tour – it’s an opportunity to connect with others, but it’s not the only way. Social media, like AWP, isn’t a necessity, but can be seen as just another way to connect, and believe it or not, be kind. Doing a few book reviews 1. help you read more carefully and 2. show you how much work people are putting in when they write your book reviews as well as 3. help you connect with the larger literary community.
The reality is, you don’t need an MFA or to go to AWP to be a writer. A good writer’s group can be better than a traditional MFA program. You have to decide what makes you healthy and happy as a writer. So no magic keys – just whatever helps you find your team, engages your creativity, and helps you be curious and kind.
Any more questions I can address? Put them in the comments!