Getting sick doesn't hold the pleasures for the freelancer that it does for the employed person. You're already home, and removed from the world. There is no dramatic change of wardrobe. And you have to get up and go to the bathroom anyway, so what's a few extra steps to the computer?
But there is no better time of year to get sick than the week between Christmas and New Year's. Lying in bed, you can read the books you got as presents. You can watch teams you've never cared for play in bowls you've never heard of. You can work your way, uninterrupted, through that stack of New Yorker's that's been piling up (and greet January with a clean plate). You can reflect on the past year (which ultimately laid you low) and gather strength for the one coming. You can think of all the places you're going to go, people you're going to meet, editors you're going to dazzle in the new year, when your nose stops running.
I hate rejections right before Christmas.
It’s best to get them out of the way, I guess,
but the message of exclusion doesn’t go with the season.
(Or maybe it does.)
The form rejections often apologize for their sterility,
explaining that personal responses are impossible
because of the large number of submissions.
Which is really editors saying: We’re popular;
you’re not.
And now most rejections arrive electronically,
so you can’t even crumple them
and hang them on the tree.
Martin arrived fresh from giving a group of Mexicans and Brazilians Miami's Cuban Heritage Tour. The Mexicans had shown interest, he said; the Brazilians not so much. "I guess their own country is so wonderful it's hard for them to get excited about another." But he did remember a trip once that got the attention of Brazilians: a dinner cruise on the Jungle Queen during which they were served baked beans.
Hilary and Roland walked in, Hilary holding up the day's Herald and announcing we had a published author in the class. Then she showed us Blanca's Letter to the Editor. Roland handed out copies of his story, about studying Chinese in Shanghai, on East China Normal University stationery.
Hilary read about a journey in Brazil, which included a visit to the sculptures of Aleijadinho. (I knew the name because one of my freelancers, Pamela Petro, wrote a beautiful story about him when I was at the Sun-Sentinel.)
Ketsia read about getting a lift from a tow-truck driver in Georgia and discussing with him the salty-sweet perfection of PayDay candy bars. Blanca hadn't written anything new, so she read her Letter to the Editor about Virginia Key. Then Jorge, the journalist from Madrid, read the beginning of a piece about Aragon. In Spanish.
Yesterday I started writing a book proposal. It went well until I got to the part where I was supposed to list the audiences the book would appeal to and the reasons why. Everybody who likes to read? People who don't have cable?
I tried to imagine writers from the past similarly engaged. Freya Stark assuring her publisher that the sun-starved Brits will snap up every copy of her forthcoming A Winter in Arabia. Graham Greene confidently claiming that Journey Without Maps will appeal to "everyone who has ever dreamed of visiting Liberia."
Hearing on NPR - while in the midst of a frustrating struggle to get your book about travel and journalism published - an interview with the author of another pet memoir.
The other day a physical trainer asked me if I knew anything about book publishing. She had written a book about her time in India, she said, and didn't know how to go about finding a publisher.
If you're a writer who has spent the better part of your life writing, this sort of question is a little annoying. An adult (even an adult writer) might suddenly decide to take up the harp. But he wouldn't say, "I'm going to play the harp for the Cleveland Orchestra." He'd practice contentedly in the privacy of his home, where only his family would be subjected to his mangling of the instrument.
In the United States we've long been taught to "follow our dreams." Combine this with an education system in which every child is told that he or she is "special" and you get a nation of would-be authors all convinced of the uniqueness and value of their individual stories. (Though why people continue to dream of being writers in the age of video is something of a mystery.)
The difference between writing and music is that the latter field has standards (because no one would want to listen to a mediocre harpist). In publishing, standards are almost always trumped by profits. (It helps that the population of readers is not as attuned to differences in quality as an audience of concertgoers.)
Yesterday I got talking to a retired man at the pool who told me he was writing poetry. And for some reason I didn't find this irritating. In fact, I found it rather admirable, because it showed an interest in language that came with no dreams of bestseller lists or appearances on Oprah. I think the next time someone tells me they've got a book they want to get published, I'm going to suggest they try writing poetry.