I’m a hoarder of writing magazines. And writing manuals. It’s true. After my first (and only) writer’s conference I went straight to Barnes & Noble and dropped $150 on books and magazines on writing, the current Writer’s Market, and Robert McKee’s masterpiece Story. And I picked up my first Flannery O’Connor anthology too.
But much like hoarding wedding magazines before I ever set eye on my husband, I had stacks of writing magazines telling me how to write and the in’s and out’s of the publishing world. I let myself be intimidated by the plethora of material on writing, when the truth was I just needed to write.
{You can read every good book on writing, but if you don’t write it won’t happen.}
I got to the point where I realized my magazine stack was growing, but my writing wasn’t. I began to throw away the magazines and Writer’s Market and devoted time to actually writing.
In the last two years I’ve renewed my interest (and subscriptions) in writing magazines. With a healthier balance of information and {actual} pen to paper, I’ve learned, been encouraged, and feel more confident as a writer.
What Writing Magazines Taught Me
1. There are endless books.
It’s obvious. Just walk into any bookstore or library and the fact stares you in the face. It’s intimidating. What can I say, what story can I contrive that one of these authors, bond and printed, hasn’t already said? It takes a concentrated effort to not remain timid.
If the word is calling your name, then write. Craft your own vision. Amid the sea of authors and writers you are still you. Bring your own passion and perspective. Get over the masses and write.
2. “No excuses, just write” is bad advice.
Sitting on the beach, sweat rolling down my back, the latest issue of Poets & Writers resting against my pregnant belly, I restrained myself from fist punching the air when I read the editor’s note,
“The truth is, if we’re doing good work there is no need to justify it. No matter how long it takes; no matter how many revisions have been scrapped or how many agents and editors have rejected us, we shouldn’t have to offer excuses for how we get here.
Living a life (with its attendant mortgage payments, pediatrician appointments, and flat tires) and writing a great poem or story or essay or book are not mutually exclusive. Quite the opposite. The writing life is messy, and there’s no secret to success.”
Kevin Larimer, Poets & Writer Editor, July/August 2012
3. There’s no age requirement on published.
I use to think if I didn’t have a novel and at least two screenplays published by the time I was 25, I had failed. {this is the part where I remind you I’m a recovering perfectionist} I’m slowly getting rid of that ridiculous deadline. I’m also five years past 25, so that helps too.
In the same issue of P&W as quoted above, a round-up of debut authors range decades. It took Anna Keesey 10 years to write her debut novel, Little Century, she admitted, “If something takes you that long to write, it had better be Middlemarch or Gravity’s Rainbow to justify the time. So it’s embarassing to discuss.” Later she continues,
“I just turned fifty. Do I wish I’d finished my first novel earlier, before I got fifty-year-old-lady neck, and when I had the potential to be fabulous? Devoutly. But I’m glad I persisted, in my fluttery, distracted, dorky way. [...]
A novel is an enormous pain, but it’s worth it. If you want to do it, you don’t feel complete until it’s done.”
Author Christopher Paolini started writing Eragon, the first book in the Inheritance Cycle, when he was 15. A few years later it was published and later turned into a movie. Paolini and I are the same age.
It’s easy to let stories like that send you into a whirlwind of “I’ve wasted my life!” and “Oh well…my time’s past.” But in writing there is no such thing as too old or too young. Write because you love it. Pursue and grow in the craft. Work toward publication if you desire. But as one insightful letter to the editor asserted,
“Let’s hope we can keep celebrating the indomitable forces that drive us to creation, rather than acknowledging the critical voices that insist we are unworthy of our work.”
4. There is no author stereotype.
If there’s anything writing magazines have taught me is you can’t name a writer by looks. I use to have this vision of a writer as one adorned in horn-rimmed glasses, touted messy hair, and a funky-yet-understated wardrobe. They had read all the classics and the moderns too. They wrote late into the night, every night, and sipped coffee on the apartment floor reviewing last night’s work (or reading another classic) while the mid-morning sun streamed through the loft window.
With that image what kind of writer could I be? But no, real writers still have jobs and kids and dishes to wash. Life still happens. Thank goodness.
What have writing magazines taught me?
There’s room for me and you. And all our quirks, years, and seasons.
***
What are your favorite writing or literary magazines? What have they taught you?
{Poets & Writers is mine.}
There is glory in the slow passing of time. Patience runs quick and shallow under the hollow earth; flowing swift, then at once colliding!—the roots of necessity. Fervor for efficiency and perfection give way to soul shaping, the weight of eternity’s calling careening waters. We meet at this slow place.
The wind blows and we name shapes in the clouds. I twist flowers into a crown…fingers remembering the long lost art. She wears it like a daughter should. Laughing. Proud. Free. I make a mental note to write her a letter to remind her to always be this way. Peaceful. Content. A grace.
These days I bottle. Saving graces and glimpses of beauty, discovery, joy. I save them for days when breath is fleeting and chaos reigns and all my failures evident.
