Postst by "thetara" — Page 16

2016 was a very forward-facing year for me, and it was exhausting. Fortunately, most of this forward-facing was also quite exciting—events related to the release of Bystanders—and I’m above all grateful and stunned for all the opportunities I had to read and present and write guest posts. But being an introvert, I felt like the year was very energy-draining. The political climate in the U.S. was very upsetting in 2016–and continues to be so for the unforeseeable future. Art and Dash and I didn’t have a single vacation or getaway that wasn’t tacked on to some kind of writing event or other obligation. I constantly felt like I was being chased by an eternal to-do list that, rather than getting shorter, kept seeming longer and longer and longer the more things I checked off it.

So here we are on the last day of the year, and reflections and proclamations abound. Frankly, I’m tired. And my new year’s resolutions and thoughts seem to reflect this. Therefore, I’ve got a new mantra for 2017:

#RetreatRepeat

Say it with me…

Retreat

Retreat, as in pull back, move inward, chill out. Not retreat from fighting the good fight, but rather stop and reflect, focus on priorities, be smarter about my time choices. I gave a lot last year, and this year I want to be much more selfish about my time. I want to concentrate on writing, producing creative work, daydreaming. I’m working on a longer writing project right now and it requires more focus and energy than writing flash fiction. If I don’t give myself permission to focus and say no to other things, I don’t think I’ll ever finish it. And I really want to finish it.

But even more than writing, I want to spend time with friends and family because I want to, not as tacked-on to a self-made book tour. Retreat to me doesn’t necessarily mean become a hermit. It means to make the effort to spend quality time with people who are important to me, in ways that are fulfilling, fun, relaxing, and present. It means calling an old friend on the phone rather than scrolling through Facebook newsfeeds and getting depressed at all the terrible shit going on in the world. Emailing someone a thoughtful hello message rather than getting in a Twitter fight with a total stranger. My energies have been very distracted this year and I feel weary by all of it. I need to retreat in order to protect my emotional health.

Repeat

Repeat, as in seek out the things I’ve read, watched, done before and found joy in. Re-reading the classics, the books I fell in love with years ago. I first read The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis when I was in second grade, and throughout the years I’ve re-read the series and always discovered something new about it and got something new out of it. I’d love to revisit other texts that I loved years ago and see if I can learn new things or, at least, remember why they spoke to me so strongly the first time.

The same goes for my favorite movies—Art and I have DVDs collecting dust on our shelves of movies that we never re-watch because it always seems there are so many new films we haven’t seen . But I’d like to take some time to relish in old friends in 2017 and dust off those shelves. We recently re-watched Star Wars: A New Hope with our son, who was watching it for the first time, and seeing it through his eyes was a delight.

But beyond movies and books, repeat to me also means spending more time doing things that bring me joy. Things that aren’t obligations—crafting, putting together puzzles, just having long conversations with people I love. Putting down the phone and computer more. Connecting offline more than online.

Want to #RetreatRepeat with me? I’ll try to make a list of books, movies, etc. that I’ve read, watched, done throughout the year, and I’d be interested to hear what other folks repeat as well.

Happy New Year to everyone, and may 2017 be your best year yet.

There were a lot of really rotten, awful things that happened in 2016. I won’t dwell on them here, because I think we all know a lot of them and have been dealing with them for quite a while now. But 2016 wasn’t a complete stinkfest. In my attempt to cast things in a more positive light in the new year, I’m listing, in no particular order, some pretty awesome stuff that happened to me or just in general out there in the world over the past year. What are yours?

Jennifer Egan blurbed Bystanders. Jennifer Egan’s been my hero since I read Look at Me, and it’s only gotten more obsessive since then. So to get her stamp of approval on my new collection of stories was truly the best literary thing that’s ever happened to me. This also happened in January, which meant that the year was doomed to go down from there…but hey, start high!

And speaking of…Bystanders arrived into the world. Happy birthday, you crazy little book. (Buy it here! Or if you already have it, please consider giving it a quick, honest review!)

The book did pretty well. It got some lovely reviews, I did some lovely readings, people said they liked it. Grateful to everyone who was a part of that journey.

Stranger Things. Seriously, have you seen it yet? It was the best television that happened to me in 2016. Spooky stuff, 70s/80s throwback, a kick-ass complex female hero, and all in an easy-to-binge miniseries package. Can’t wait for more.

One of my very best friends moved back to D.C. from Florida. And now we work together! In an increasingly scary world, it’s nice to be surrounded by folks you love. And be able to have movie nights together.

I paid off my student loans.

I bought my very first new car. (She’s so cute, isn’t she?)

I saw Bryan Adams in concert. Teenage dream realized, people. He’s just lucky I didn’t bring my crinkled Teen Beat poster for him to sign.

My husband won a bunch of awards. His first novel On the Road with Del and Louise won the Agatha Award for best first novel and was a finalist for the Macavity and the Anthony awards. The anthology he edited, Murder Under the Oaks, was an Anthony Award winner.

All of the photos from my son’s bowling birthday party are blurry. Which means those crazy kids were having too much fun to ever stop moving.

What is it about Fall for the Book that makes me sad every single year? I’ve been asking myself this question all week.

I love this literary festival, held every year on George Mason University’s campus. I “grew up with it” in some ways, having attended it since my very first year in the MFA program there. I’ve seen and met amazing writers each year and had great experiences presenting at it myself.

But every year I get this hollowness in my chest. Every year I get the Fall for the Book blues, and when it hits, it hits big.

It hit last week, after I presented on a publishing panel for Santa Fe Writers Project. The panel itself went well. We had a small audience, which was probably in part due to timing and bad weather, but they were engaged and interested. We even sold a few books.

But later that night, I started to get the sadness. Those feelings of inadequacy, of hopelessness.

Maybe it’s tied to the fact that I “grew up with it,” that the nostalgia of the festival brings out some deep-seated anxieties or at least highlights them in a different way. When I was first attending FFTB, I was an unpublished writer desperately wanting to be a published writer. I listened to accomplished authors with their amazing books and felt like I would never get there. I remember attending a panel of Mason MFA alumni and thinking, ‘Wow, they went through this same program and now they have books and a career. Will this ever happen to me?” It was panic-attack-inducing at the same time that it was inspiring.

It got worse after I graduated from the program and started to see my own classmates and writer friends get published. I’d attend their Fall for the Book events and though I was ecstatic to see them succeed and be awesome, that same inadequacy for myself started creeping in. Will I ever get there?

And then I started publishing things, but never in The New Yorker. And then my first book came out, but it was “just with a small press.” And then I won an award, but it wasn’t a Pushcart. And it goes on. Will I ever get There?

What I’ve come to realize—even though I have to continue to tell myself this over and over and over again—is that the truth is, there is no “There” to get to. Each new level of success we reach or accomplishment we earn opens a whole other world of challenges to conquer, a whole other set of demons and confusions and expectations to navigate. And you can drive yourself crazy battling them.

I think it’s a universal feeling to always feel that wherever you are is not good enough. Especially for writers, perspectives, goals, and aspirations shift as we move forward. I think about myself twelve years ago, and how I would’ve gladly stuck my tongue out and gotten it run over by a tractor trailer to have a book published. I think about Merritt Tierce’s recent piece in Marie Claire about book sales and not being able to live off her writing. She’s been scorned by some people, but I have to say I kind of get it. The higher you get on the publishing ladder, the farther it feels you can fall. The inadequacy feels even more looming—”Well, surely, if I was able to do this, it can’t really mean all that much.”

I’m not trying to get all woe-is-me on you. I feel very fortunate that I’m able to continue writing and have success doing so. I’m grateful to all the wonderful writers and editors that I’ve met and built friendships with who keep me going every day. I’m proud of all the hard work that both my husband and I put in to our writing and editing, and totally fine with the sacrifices we make to continue doing this insanity.

But despite all that, my own worst inner critic never goes away. And sometimes I think it’s important to acknowledge that beast. To yank it out and stare at it and say, “Ok, fine. I get you. I’m not perfect and sometimes I feel sucky.” And then put it away, and crank up your computer and get back to work.

After the panel last week I had a young woman come up to talk to me. She was excited. She said she’d never heard of flash fiction until that night, and she’d been writing all these one or two page stories and not having a clue what to do with them. She thanked me for mentioning it and we talked for a bit about all the amazing journals out there that want those very stories.

And you know what? That was enough. That was worth it. That is why I keep doing what I do, year after year, even when the demons get me down.

I’ve been bummed out this week after hearing about the massive plagiarism accusations against B. Mitchell Cator, including several pieces from SmokeLong Quarterly that were apparently lifted and published in a book under different titles. For now, Cator has been largely silent, except for a few emails he’s sent to some of the writers and journals that he stole from. We have not heard from him at SmokeLong.

This makes me angry, and it also makes me sad. Angry because many of the writers I know are struggling to find time to write and publish in between other jobs and family obligations, and hardly getting paid anything for their work. Angry because flash fiction, especially, is a form that is brilliant, but largely misunderstood—each time I do any sort of presentation on the form, inevitably someone in the audience will say it’s the first time they’ve even heard of it—and plagiarizing these stories for profit seems like an even bigger ‘FU’ to me for some reason. Now, I say ‘for profit,’ perfectly understanding that chances are Cator’s self-published book on Amazon wasn’t selling like hotcakes before the news broke anyway. I wouldn’t be surprised if his total royalties were less in dollars than the fingers I have on my hands. But even if he made 5 cents on the book…WRONG. But it’s also sad to me that he felt the need to put this much effort into plucking stories, paragraphs, sentences from other people and collaging it together to call it his own. I’ve seen many comments along the lines of: It probably would have been easier to just write his own book. But he didn’t. Why? Can we find some sympathy in this situation?

I’ve heard from lots of writers and editors, and we’re all sort of reeling in puzzlement. What makes someone do something like this? How could he think he could get away with it? And the thing is, I wouldn’t be surprised to find that this issue is much more widespread than we think. Perhaps not to the systematic, serial level that Cator conducted, but smaller violations. Stories previously published elsewhere, contract violations, lines and phrases lifted, even unintentionally, from other places. The online journal writing world, the flash fiction writing world, is a small one, and one that I feel is bound together in some ways by trust, collaboration, and support. Many journals, operating with small volunteer staffs and little to no budget, don’t have the time to extensively scour the Internet to verify stories accepted are the works of the author and don’t appear anywhere else. Editors are overworked, under-thanked, and usually juggling a million other things, and they trust that writers are going by the honor code. It’s not an excuse, but it is often the reality. Clearly that can easily be taken advantage of.

At SmokeLong, we’ve been discussing this issue and trying to decide what actions to take. I believe in the next few months we will be changing our editorial process slightly to give room to vet stories accepted and ensure as much as possible that we are publishing the highest quality and original works by writers. To my knowledge, we have never discovered plagiarism in any of our published stories, but that doesn’t mean it can’t happen or hasn’t.

It’s been a sad week for writers, but also a good wake-up call for us as well. Here’s hoping it will make us better, more original, and more vigilant with our words.