Fireflies

New ideas are like fireflies, on, off, on again, lost among the leaves. Problem is that around here, in Connecticut, fireflies are waning. No one knows why, they just are. Problem is, around here in my head, ideas are waning too. No one knows why, but I do, too many leaves.

I have so many projects I would like to work on, that double the hours, double the days would not give me enough time. So I picked something I don’t have to finish…yet. A project presented by proposal.

Timing and ten years removed from the actual event, with enough story to bolster truth, gives me hope. It’s one of those, “It Could Happen to You” stories, an “Erin Brockovich” kind of unbelievable David and Goliath true tale. No one won the lottery, no one was poisoned but we were David and we went up against the biggest newsworthy bad-boy of the decade and guess what…we won. That’s what my proposal will be about, testing tenacity, truth and an against-all-odds triumph. Picture one of those scenes in a movie, when a huge door is being lowered and the good-guy has to run and slide under it and not be barred forever or crushed. That was us, sliding and making it through the opening, just before the door slammed shut. We made it to the other side and our lives changed

Because this story is so personal and because members of my family are against baring all, I have hesitated to chronical the journey until now. This story is convoluted, the background research will be extensive. We knew what was going on with us, what was going on with them is what I must discover. I can’t wait. When it comes to light it will explain, in a simple way, to an audience of millions, yes millions, how a monster’s failure saved a little guy.

I have contacted a number of agents, explained the specifics, and asked this one question only: can this be presented via proposal. Yes they all answered, most definitely yes.  So that’s what I am working on now, a story about the story.

It’s a hell of a tale. Unlike the waning fireflies, this idea will not be lost among the leaves, it will shed a flickering light that will eventually grow strong, fed by the fuel of the truism, that sometimes the nice guy at the end of the line is the last left standing. Like the movie title said, It Can Happen to You, it did. It happened to us.

When was the last time you won?

Let my fingers do the cross-country walking

Edits done, I’m querying again and though it feels good to be back in the cross country race, I’m feeling lost.

 When you need a dentist, a doctor or a lawyer one of the worst things you can do is chose your educated expert from the phonebook; not that anyone actually uses a phonebook any more. If you have just moved to town you’re supposed to ask friends, neighbors and coworkers for who they use; word of mouth, the best reference.

Well I don’t know a lot of published authors, actually I don’t personally know any well enough to ask for the name of their agent or a reference. The only one who said I could use his name was awesome writer Garth Stein, Racing in the Rain. I actually read his book because of his agent, Jeff Kleinman.  He is also Averil Dean’s agent. Jeff is a true gentleman and though honest, he is not brutal. Years ago I submitted work to him, and even an earlier version of the memoir I am plying now, so with utmost respect he’s off my list, don’t want to make a pest of myself.

Searching for an agent, the right agent, the one who is taking on new clients and wants me because he or she loves my manuscript is about as possible as standing on a Wall Street sidewalk pan-handling for a financial advisor.

So here I am, by the curb, with my hand printed cardboard sign and a basket of apples queries for a dime free, handing them out to passers-by. Any takers?

How lost are you?

Bare naked words

Remember your first paycheck? Not babysitting, lawn mowing or snow shoveling money but an actual paycheck, with a company’s name on it, signed by someone you didn’t know. Waiting tables, running a cash register, store clerk, sweeping the floor of a beauty salon or boat cleaning, the last two were my kids’ first jobs, that paycheck, the one which legitimized you as actually employed. Yup, that one, what a kick.

I was a sales clerk at E.J Korvette’s discount department store in St. Louis, Missouri.  My department, men’s haberdashery (habo). I told everyone I worked in men’s underwear. Even then I thought I was funny. It was a temporary summer job between my first two years of college.

I wanted to be an investigative curator in fine arts. Authenticating real from fake was my dream. I wanted to be the one to tell you that your Picasso or Pollach was not trash but worth tens of millions.

Little did I know, that though I would continue my education, I would never graduate from college and that my temporary job would lead to retail employment half way around the world.  Eventually lowly retail had me taking on store management, district management, and soul proprietorship of two retail establishments. All of that eased me into the start-up and management of a manufacturing company, that I would still be the CEO of today, if illness had not pulled the rug out from under my role as owner.

All those years, all those experiences, successes, feelings of joy and satisfaction, related to a job well done, can in no way compare to what I felt after receiving my first paycheck for writing.

August 14, 1988, $60.00 for 600 words in one paper and $75.00 for 700 words in a another paper, different subject, yes two on the same day. I swelled with pride and felt a kind of validation I had never felt before.

Over the years I have been paid many times for articles, op-eds and other journalistic pieces and during those same years I have written thousands upon thousands of words which have been published in newspapers, magazines and on-line and I have not-been-paid-a-dime.

Being published is wonderful, being paid is better.  Compliments, adoration and respect are everything, but when someone actually pays you for what races across your synapses and onto paper, that is validation, pure and uncomplicated.

Many a writer will spend years writing, a lifetime maybe, and not make a cent. Many more will write, get published and still not make any money. Are they any less a writer?

No.

But!

If publication is what you want, it is out there as long as you learn, listen and heed.

I am an essayist, still authenticating real from fake, an op-ed writer, the kind of word monger who rips off her clothes, I leave my underwear on, and shares what I am about.

A while back, I spent ten years writing fiction, unpublished. At times the effort broke my heart and yet, I learned, I listened and I heeded.

I learned long-form.

I listened to the experts.

I heeded the most important advice thrown my way.

At the end of a miserable day of dealing with rejection one-hundred something regarding novel number two, I stopped querying novel number one after my hundredth rejection, I told my youngest daughter I was, stick a fork in me, done with writing.

“Go back to what you know.” She said. I did and became a columnist.

If you are struggling, stop. Examine your form, your genre. Are you writing what you read, what you love, what you know, what you are good at? Do you share, do you listen to feedback and comments and do you heed what the industry and your heart is telling you.

Getting published is wonderful, being read is great and though being paid is better, it’s the writing stupid, the writing.  

These 700 words will never be traditionally published. Only a few very dear followers of this blog will read them. I will not be paid a cent and yet what I have keystroked here gives me immense pleasure. And to think, I did it with my clothes on.

How bare do you become when you write?