Laura van den Berg

I wrote my first collection of stories, “What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us,” in about 4 years, from drafting the first story to submitting the final manuscript to my publisher, Dzanc Books. Much of the collection was written and revised while I was in the M.F.A. program at Emerson College, where I benefited hugely from the wise mentorship my teachers offered and the community of writers in the program. The collection has several thematic links—they are all narrated by women, explore landscape, and have a “mythic” element of some kind—but I wasn’t aware of those overlaps until I’d written about 3/4 of the stories. It was then that I began to wonder if I didn’t just have a random assortment of stories, but perhaps the beginnings of a book. Later I was able to see that it was helpful for me to not think in “big picture” terms too early on—i.e. I am writing a Book!—but to just take it day by day, one story at a time, and trust that a larger enterprise would eventually take shape.

To talk a little more about the collection’s thematic links, the central characters are all searching for something either elusive or imaginary, often a mythic monster of some sort, like the Loch Ness Monster or the Mokele-mbembe. This element is often central to the way the stories unfold, so I thought I would take a little time to explore the role of those creatures and the searches that accompany them. In my stories, I see the monsters as manifestations of the characters’ desires, obsessions, and fears, as tangible expressions of intangible things. The creatures are also a stand-in for all that is ineffable to us, for all that is unknown and unreachable. This is part of the reason I chose to never have a creature appear “onstage”; I wanted to keep that ambiguity, that inaccessibility. After all, there’s so much we will never know, will never understand, about ourselves and the people around us and the world at large. The thematic overlap in the stories gave me an opportunity to explore some of the facets of the human condition that fascinate me the most—desire and how it shapes us, obsession, and the ways in which we try to “make it all make sense.”

Another thematic connection in my stories is landscape. A few of the settings are familiar—like Boston, where I used to live, or southern France, where I’ve visited—but many of the settings are places I’ve never seen firsthand. For example, the title story in my collection is set in Madagascar and centers on a young woman and her scientist mother, who has traveled to the island to study lemurs, but the closest I’ve ever come to Madagascar or lemurs is watching a program on the Discovery Channel. Another story, Inverness, concerns a botanist searching for a rare flower in Inverness, Scotland; yet the only trip I’ve ever taken to Inverness has been courtesy of National Geographic. In fact, “writing what I don’t know” or writing outside my own experiences is actually another thread that runs throughout the book, with the far-flung landscapes (many of which I’ve never visited) and exotic vocations (all of which I’ve never held) that kept finding their way into my stories. Over time, I realized writing outside my own experiences, writing what I don’t know, was the very thing that allowed me to access what I do know; the unknown was the key to getting my own emotional realities onto the page, to accessing my autobiography in a way that could inform my fiction.

What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us

The first book, at least for me, is a tricky animal. At times, self-doubt was the biggest hurdle, both in the writing and publishing processes. With the debut book, you are, for perhaps the first time, you’re getting your vision of the world down in a comprehensive way; you’re learning what you think and know and feel and see and what you don’t know and don’t think and don’t feel and fail to see. Lorrie Moore has said that “if one publishes, then one is creating a public record of Learning to Write” and that notion seems especially true for the first book, which, with time, seems more and more like an artifact of The-Best-I-Could-Do-Then, a thing to be proud of but also a thing to seek to progress beyond.

For me, the most magical part of having a book out in the world has been the opportunity to connect with readers. To that end, many thanks to Glenda Bailey-Mershon for inviting me to write this guest post and many thanks to you for reading!

Editor’s Note: Find out more about Laura at www.lauravandenberg.com

Laura van den Berg was raised in Florida and earned her MFA at Emerson College. She is the recipient of scholarships from the Bread Loaf and Sewanee Writers’ Conferences, the 2009 Julia Peterkin Award, and the 2009-2010 Emerging Writer Lectureship at Gettysburg College. Formerly an assistant editor at Ploughshares, Laura is currently a fiction editor at West Branch and the assistant editor of Memorious, an online journal of new verse and fiction. She has taught writing at Emerson College, Grub Street, and in PEN/New England’s Freedom to Write Program. Her fiction has or will soon appear inOne Story, Boston Review, Epoch, The Literary Review, American Short Fiction, StoryQuarterly, Best American Nonrequired Reading 2008, Best New American Voices2010, and The Pushcart Prize XXIV: Best of the Small Presses, among other publications. The winner of the Dzanc Prize, Laura’s first collection of stories, What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us, was published by Dzanc Books in October 2009 and was a Holiday Pick for the Barnes & Noble “Discover Great New Writers” Program. She is currently at work on new stories and a novel.

This blog entry was crossposted from Writer’s Rainbow

from the Author’s Guild
The Right Battle at the Right Time
http://authorsguild.org/advocacy/articles/the-right-battle.html 
“Macmillan’s current fight with Amazon over e-book business models is a necessary one for the industry. The stakes are high, particularly for Macmillan authors. In a squabble over e-books, Amazon quickly and pre-emptively escalated matters by…” <more>

Writer’s Rainbow’s response:
This battle is necessary because paper publishers have to *prove* they’re in the service of authors and literature and, frankly, they *aren’t,* not in 2010. They’re in the service of bottom lines, from which they extract a lot of money and from which very few authors (especially new ones) can expect to make more than a pittance, if they can break into the pearly gates at all.

I take issue with this part of Macmillan’s statement:

“Without a healthy ecosystem in publishing, one in which authors and publishers are fairly compensated for their work, the quality and variety of books available to readers will inevitably suffer.”

Let’s get something straight… do the research and you’ll find that authors do NOT receive fair compensation for their work UNLESS they’re bestsellers. And who decides bestsellers? Not readers, but publishers. Books with bestseller status arrive that way not through genuine sales but through financial arrangements made before those books are even published.

Yes, it’s a scam and it’s been going on forever.

Bestselling authors comprise a very small percentage of the total authors being published, and yet the lion’s share of revenues for book authors go primarily to the bestsellers. This is because big house publishers bank of the bestsellers to keep them afloat (by investing in their shelf positioning and bestseller status). Newer authors can only get in through the gates of traditional publishing as long as their publishers have bestsellers to draw income from.

Let’s not forget: *publishers* are making a heap big more wampum on books than authors are. So really, Macmillan’s statement, in a more accurate sense, might be one that says:

“A healthy ecosystem in publishing fairly compensates publishers for their products irregardless of the quality and variety of books available.”

This is not to say that bestsellers are not diverse or of high quality; it’s to say that there are huge numbers of excellent new authors turned away from the gates because they simply aren’t a known quantity. They aren’t “branded.”

Even poorly done books, when branded effectively, can be bestsellers.

I’ve tired of publishers claiming they care about literature and books when that’s the last thing on their minds at the end of the day. Theirs is a crappy business model from the 20th century that they’re still trying to pass off as a legitimate strategy in this century. It’s been failing since the 1970s; this is not an issue of “the economy” in 2010. The industry will keep on spiraling downward until publishers start thinking of their authors as something more than toilet paper to be sold at Costco.

Though, to be honest, that scenario makes them sound shrewd… like Amazon. Which is to point out that they really aren’t all that different from Amazon, just a vulture with a different kind of pattern to their feathers.

Who’s the big loser here? Readers. They don’t even know what they’re missing.

New writers at least have a fighting alternative to this closed process with POD and Amazon etc. The stats are out there: self-publishing is actually a better money maker for new voices in 2010. You *will* make more money off your book if you go this route. And if new writers can do well in that way, using Amazon as a vehicle, then Macmillan & Co need to rethink their business model or they’ll be missing out on all that literary landscape they believe they’re somehow advocating for.

My biggest fear has been confirmed. From now on, all of my written works will require glossaries, indices, and compendia of definitions. Extraordinarily good friends gifted me a delightful banquet of a book called “Totally Weird and Wonderful Words”[1]. It’s simple aboulia[2] that compels me to use every new word I can process[3][4]. Still, I realize it’s risky to appear at best a maisterel[5] or, worst, mammothrept[6] in this compulsion to find and use words so geason[7] concinnous[8]. What, for me, is alexiteric[9] to ennui may well leave the reader alexithymic[10].

In the age of texting, when the physical monograph is on the endangered species list, I can’t help worrying that the next generation of writers will consider word-craft emunctory[11]. Of course, that’s a bit paranoid even though paper publishing is becoming as archaic as xenelasy[12]. Still, McKean provides a menu of tasty ingredients for sauciest creations of prose cuisine. The book is fun, educational, and probably won’t get the attention it deserves. Most people today prefer mousse to meat.
1. Totally Weird and Wonderful Words Edited by Erin McKean and Illustrated by Roz Chast and Danny Shanahan with forwards by Simon Winchester and Richard Lederer; Oxford University Press, 2006.
2.Aboulia [uh-BOO-lee-uh] the loss of will or volition, as a mental illness. (Related to the Greek: “thoughtlessness”)
3.Process [PRAH-sess] absorb through the ever-thickening [and sickening] neuro-CRS[6] wall.
4.CRS [see-ARGH-ess] Can’t Remember S***
5.Maisterel [MAYs-ter-ell] rare and obsolete, imp or familiar (perhaps Middle French maistral: servant)
6.Mammothrept [MAM-o-thrept] a spoiled child. (From the Greek word meaning: “raised by one’s grandmother.” – Don’t you just love the Greeks!)
7.geason [GHEE-zun] rare, uncommon — therefore extraordinary, amazing.
8.concinnous [kun-SIN-us] neat, elegant.
9.alexiteric [uh-lek-si-tTERR-ik] able to ward off contagion or act as an antidote.
10.alexithymia [ay-leks-ih-THY-mee-uh] a disorder leaving one unable to recognize or express emotions.
11.emunctory [e-MUNK-tuh-ree] relating blowing (or wiping) one’s nose.
12. Xenelasy [zen-EE-luh-see] an ancient Spartan law which made deportation loom menacingly over tourists. From Greek words “foreigner” and “drive away” (Think: “the management reserves the right . . .”)

Greetings from the Pacific Northwest! When I moved here in August of 2005 I had no idea I would be here this long, but the Douglas firs and Pacific mist have wrapped around me and it looks like I’ve been here long enough for me and the moss to move in together — which is all to say, living in Seattle is great!

As I get ready to welcome 2010, I look back at what beatific bounties the last half of the decade held for me: teaching kids reading and math AmeriCorps; recording and releasing Musiplication, a kids’ hip hop album to help them learn their times tables; traveling to Morocco and returning to write a mini-chapbook which I read from at a couple of terrific events with other Janes writers in Seattle; leading dozens of creative writing, monologue and poetry workshops with middle-school and high-school students in Washington and Oregon; facilitating arts-based summer camps for teens; transitioning to a new job this summer at Youth in Focus, an awesome nonprofit that gives free photography classes and mentoring to underserved urban teens; I was recently accepted to WSU’s Master Gardener training program which I am thrilled to start next Saturday, Jan 9th; and I also recently procured a creative studio all my own where my muse may circle, land, paint, write, dance, sing or just philosophize while staring at an Impressionistic watercolor sky full of melodramatic Seattle clouds.

My writing practice maintains, thanks to Julia Cameron and my morning pages, but public oration has given way to more soul-searching exploration — pages meant just for me, dear reader. Lately I’ve been riding high on the words of women poets who came before me, thanks in large part to No More Masks, a gorgeous, dog-eared, well-loved, tattered anthology of women’s poetry given to me by a friend who saved it from a purgatory of languishing on a thrift store bookshelf. Here is one of my favorites, by Marge Piercy, which I find myself reading weekly; may it inspire you as it has me, and may you bloom ever more beautiful in 2010:

The Woman in the Ordinary
The woman in the ordinary pudgy downcast girl
is crouching with eyes and muscles clenched.
Round and pebble smooth she effaces herself
under ripples of conversation and debate.
The woman in the block of ivory soap
has massive thighs that neigh,
great breasts that blare and strong arms that trumpet.
The woman of the golden fleece
laughs uproariously from the belly
inside the girl who imitates
a Christmas card virgin with glued hands,
who fishes for herself in other’s eyes,
who stoops and creeps to make herself smaller.
In her bottled up is a woman peppery as curry,
a yam of a woman of butter and brass,
compounded of acid and sweet like a pineapple,
like a handgrenade set to explode,
like goldenrod ready to bloom.

Keep up with me at http://katvellos.squarespace.com
Thanks!

Oh, Dear! Another perfectly good two weeks have gone by and I haven’t revised or written anything. Today’s post is a help list to continue writing even when it is not paying the bills.

Of course, I am being hypocritical. I delayed writing while getting the grades in for one of my numerous day-jobs: teaching. I do not even teach writing; I teach math to Liberal Arts Majors. Then I delayed writing while I prepared for my next day-job: teaching skiing at the Winter Park Ski and Ride School in Colorado. Donna McAleer, an agented writer and snow-ski instructor, taunted me with tales of spending her morning in knee-deep powder. Ha! I know she did not write today, either. I have delayed writing while meeting catalog shopping deadlines and meditating on staying peaceful while my family visits me. December has to be the top month for not writing.

As of now, I resolve to find ways to write my memoir during December. I am starting by scheduling time during my peak focus hours, as Tamara Sellman advises us to do. While meditating on the reason for the season, I will ask God to use my writing talent, which implies a big obligation on my part to use that talent, as well. I will be inspired, not just by Hallmark commercials, but from my Janes Stories newsletter. I resolve to share the best part of me this season, which means sharing on paper, as a writer, at least thirty minutes a day.

Will you join me at the writing desk? Will you wish me luck?

I’ve used this handout for a while in workshops. Thought I would share it here with you.

HOW TO WORK A WRITING CONFERENCE
Why attend conferences?
• It’s whom you know—network, network, network!
• It’s one of the best places to meet writers you admire!
• Many conferences provide opportunities to get your work in front of editors and agents.
Before you go:
1. Focus on conferences that provide a service you need now. For example:
a. opportunities to get your manuscript in front of an editor and/or agent;
b. manuscript critiques by reputable authors, or editors;
c. chances to meet with editors or agents.
2. Check the conference brochure for the names of contacts you want to make. Most list editors, agents, and well-known writers who will be attending.
3. Study resource lists (See handout) so that you know what each editor, publisher, agent is looking for and which ones best suit your work.
4. Make a contact list, including when and where those people will be available or appearing.
5. Make appointments in advance, if the conference offers chances to meet with editors or agents.
6. Prepare your proposal or manuscripts according to the conference guidelines.
7. Make a projects sheet listing subject, length, your credentials for writing the project, and when it will be finished.
At the conference
1. Dress and act professionally.
2. Show up on time and be prepared.
3. Remember that editors and agents are people too. Treat them the way you’d like to be treated.
4. Share your projects sheet with editors or agents with whom you have appointments or with those you meet who indicate interest.
5. Do NOT push your manuscript or proposal on everyone you meet, especially at social events.
After the conference:
1. Make another contact list for editors, agents, or writing contacts with whom you want to keep in touch.
2. Write thank-you notes to those with whom you met.
3. Send follow-up letters and manuscripts to publishers, editors or agents you identified as good prospects, or who indicated interest in your work. Be sure and follow their guidelines for contacts!
For lists of conferences:
http://writersconf.org/ (AWP)

http://writing.shawguides.com/

IMPORTANT RESOURCES FOR CONTACT LISTS (Editors’ Names Change Some Years. The Market books usually come out in the summer.):

2009 Writer’s Market by Robert Brewer*
2009 Poet’s Market by Nancy Breen*
2009 Novel and Short Story Writer’s Market by Lauren Mosko*
2009 Guide to Literary Agents by Chuck Sambuchino*
* 2010 Editions should be out by August 2010

2009 Children’s Writer’s & Illustrator’s Market (Children’s Writer’s and Illustrator’s Market) by Alice Pope
Jeff Herman’s Guide to Book Publishers, Editors & Literary Agents: Who They Are! What They Want! How to Win Them Over!
Write the Perfect Book Proposal: 10 That Sold and Why, 2nd Edition (Paperback) by Jeff Hermann
Literary Agents: What They Do, How They Do It, and How to Find and Work with the Right One for You, Revised and Expanded by Michael Larsen

Nonfiction Book Proposals Anybody can Write (Revised and Updated) by Elizabeth Lyon

Has anyone else ever used the term “word wicker?”  I have used it for so long that I can’t remember where I first learned it.  Unfortunately, it is not in my online dictionary, and my editing buddies,  the Jane’s Stories board members, atlthough they loved the term’s sound, had never heard it before.

I use the term as a verb, meaning “to make small or incremental improvements to a piece of writing. “  The genus of the term probably comes from the image of weaving better words together–of interlacing the words of our writing.

Please comment whether you have used this term in the past–or if you plan to start using it in the future, dictionary listing or not!

I am not a happy person when I have to travel.  So this past weekend, when I had to leave for St. Augustine, Florida, for a writer’s conference sponsored by JSPF and FLAC,( Florida Arts Literary Council) I was loathe to leave my perch in the bedroom, listening to progressive radio and knitting or quilting or reading! Once I arrived at the conference, I was glad to see sunshine and feel the warmth of the weather and the participants. I was particularly thrilled to meet Ira Sukrungruang, who teaches creative writing at the University of South Florida. I attended his session on creative non-fiction and filled my conference booklet with his book references and little nuggets of suggestions for writing effective non-fiction. He listened to what we as participants had to say about our challenges with writing in this genre and the conflicts of memory while writing down about past events.  I bought one of his books and also heard him read from his upcoming book, Talk Thai , which talks about growing  up in the south side of Chicago.

[This is the fifth article in my series on Getting a First Book Published]

Award-winning, multi-book  author and teacher Diana Abu-Jaber delighted conferees at the Janes’ Stories Press Foundation/ Florida Literary Arts Council “Other Words” Writing Conference this past November weekend.  Lucky me moderated our session on “Getting into Print II” and introduced Abu-Jaber as the conference’s featured speaker at the evening reading.  Our session  included a light-hearted exchange on how to find a literary agent.

I started off by outlining all the rules I have learned for approaching literary agents.  One of these “rules” is to target your query to an agent who represents the  types of books that you are writing.  I repeated advice that a fledgling author should make a list of fifty target agents.  “Don’t just turn to Jeff Herman’s guide to literary agents and write down the first fifty names,” I cautioned.  “Make sure that the agents you choose to query actually like and represent your type of book.  …Diana, can you tell us how you got your first agent?”

“Well,” Ms. Abu-Jaber smiled both sheepishly and mischievously.  “At the time, I was so new to writing that all I knew is a friend told me I had to get an agent.  I opened the directory of literary agents and saw a name that I thought sounded like the person would be really nice.  I mailed a collection of short stories to Eric Ashford just because I liked his name.”

Mr. Ashford wrote back that he loved Diana’s writing style, but that short stories are nearly impossible to sell.  He asked her to submit to him again when she had a novel.  Several years later, she contacted him with the manuscript for Arabian Jazz.  He sold the novel and the rest is history.  Mr. Ashford is now retired.

I could make the trite comment that Diana’s experience acquiring her first agent is the exception that proves the rule.  Instead, I will just add that luck–or in this case, intuition–and talent are still the best formula for success!

Twice again Writers Digest has published entertaining and useful books. Their 2007, A Picture is Worth 1,000 Words: image driven prompts and exercises for writers by Phillis Sexton – photos by Tricia Bateman and Bonnie Trenga’s 2006 The Curious Case of Misplaced Modifiers: How to Solve the Mysteries of Weak Writing.

Sexton structured A Picture is Worth 1,000 Words by which section of the story he designed the prompts to aid: beginnings, description, character, dialogue, emotions, ending, and story starters. Each chapter begins with an explanation as does each prompt. It will work even better to explode blockages and help with existing projects than as an idea mine. You’ll find tips on how to get the most out of each exercise in the introduction and later in the book. These are not ten minute prompts to begin a circle. The recommendation is to set a minimum length of 1000 words for each exercise (about two pages.)

According to the back cover of The Curious Case of Misplaced Modifiers, “Most people think that good grammar leads to good writing. But the truth is that while good writing may be technically correct, it’s also strong, concise, and specific.” Trenga identifies the seven writing weaknesses that editors [and today’s plethora of inept professional proofreaders] face the most. It’s written in a humorous mock police procedural style. Like Lynn Truss’ Eats Shoots and Leaves it’s a lively written adventure suitable for the grammar police as well as those of us who plague them.