I received my stuff back intact, no comments. My new friend Sandra told me something like this:
- I think you have potential.
- You write with too many weak verbs.
- Kill your adverbs.
- Slay your adjectives.
- Only one space after a period.
To be honest, I thought she was bonkers about the period thing. I mean, isn't that what they taught you in typing class? Period. Space. Space. Capital letter. Of course, I learned she was right, and she was right about everything else, though I didn't know if I had potential or not. I wrote flowery prose--the type Anne with an E from Anne of Green Gables and Jo from Little Women (in her sensational newspaper days) would applaud.
I used to--I kid you not--go through books like Christy, writing down all the words I thought were beautiful. Then, I'd take the pretty word to a piece I was writing and try to cram the word in, square-peg-round-hole-ish. I particularly remember adding the word wraithlike, describing fog.
My first-ever query letter was long, laborious, and rambling. Thankfully, Sandra got a hold of it before I flung it out there to Discipleship Journal, rescuing me from certain editorial doom. She helped me narrow it from two pages to one, told me not to use a silly font, and showed me what a query structure should be by giving me one of hers. (Now, I do a query workshop. Go figure. If you're interested in learning more, click here.)
The answer from DJ was a no, but a personalized one. I continued writing query letters left and right, garnering more rejections. Unlike Stephen King, I did not skewer them on a spike or count them. Suffice to say, though, there were aplenty!
And then I got the letter! From a real-live magazine editor with words like, "we are pleased to inform you..." I leapt. I clapped. I smiled. When I got the check, I took Sandra out to lunch to celebrate. She'd had everything to do with that sale because she dared to take me under her editorial/writerly wing and nurture me as a writer.
But there was so much more to learn...
Stumble It!
6 comments:
Love that you're giving a detailed account of your journey. Makes me realize I'm not alone! And God's faithfulness has brought you so far! Encouraging.
love your teachable spirit,
willingness to change...to be
corrected. i want to have that same
spirit.
any chance this is Sandra G.?
If so, she was journalism prof years ago :)
Yes, it's that Sandra!
CBA author (and my friend here in KC) Nancy Moser and I met at a local writers group here before her first book of humor essays came out. We clicked immediately. She asked me what I was publishing. I said, "Um...I'm not exactly sending anything out." She asked how long that had been going on, coming to meetings but not trying to get published. I said five years, or whatever. Anyway, she issued me an ULTIMATUM the first night I met her: "I really like you, and I want us to become friends. But I challenge you NOT to come to another writers group until you have sent a finished article to a magazine." She scared the hmm-hmm out of me! By the next month's meeting, I had two accepted articles and a lifelong friend! I love these stories of writer helping writer along the path.....Thanks, Mary.
The period rule: really?? Where have I been?! My family calls me the Grammar Queen, and I didn't know the spacing rule changed. Oh, dear.
The query ultimatum: I need to give myself a challenge like this, because I have notebooks full of ideas, but very few queries actually sent. It's laziness and timidity, and I need to get busy.
(I also need to stop spacing twice...shoot!)
Thanks, Mary, for another great post.
As a freelance writer, I had to learn to type. I hated typing in high school. I dropped the class because I was horrible. And who wants to use a typewriter.
So rules like double periods are new to me. One benefit for me is I don't have to undo some habit. But having said that, I am slower at typing than others. Which bugs me. I'm improving in speed, but I still make too many typos.
Love your story here. Thanks for sharing.
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