Guest post by memoir writer Faye Rapoport DesPres, author of 'Message from a Blue Jay'
Many writers who start out on the journey
toward publication aren’t fully prepared for what that journey entails. It can
be tough – you can face a lot of rejection along the way. You also might find
that you have to revise, redraft, and re-envision your work many times before
you finally land on something that works both for you and potential readers and
publishers.
The writing life involves walking that fine
line between staying true to yourself and staying open to the feedback of
initial readers, editors, and publishers.
Sometimes we work so hard on something and we’re sure it’s “right,” and
we feel defensive when a reader points out things that don’t work. I find it’s
helpful to have more than one trusted reader who generally shares your
sensibilities as a writer or offers feedback that you can relate to and
understand. You won’t choose to follow every reader’s suggestion, but you want
to be careful not to become so attached to the text as you’ve written it –
whether it’s a sentence, a paragraph, or an entire essay or chapter – that you
close yourself off to advice that will make it better.
Publishing and promotion are not unlike
writing. You have to be persistent and hopeful, and to accept rejection
gracefully. You have to work at it – both finding a publisher and then
promoting a new book can involve a tremendous amount of work, more than you expect.
You’ll be asked to do interviews (spoken or written), write guest blog posts,
reach out to readers to ask for online reviews, approach reviewers about
looking at your work. As with writing, you have to stick with it – at the same
time, it helps to remember your real reasons for being a writer. Unless your
sole reason is to publish and find financial success (which only a small
percentage of writers do), it’s important to focus on the fulfillment you get
from writing, the pleasure of having a book published, and the way your work
touches other people’s lives – whether that’s a few hundred readers or a few
thousand, or more. Don’t let your self-esteem
as a writer be attached to anything but your own hard work at accomplishing
your goals. That’s the only part that’s really in your control.
Purchase Faye’s memoir, Message from a Blue Jay, on AMAZON
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About the Author
Faye Rapoport DesPres is the author of the new memoir-in-essays, Message from a Blue Jay. She earned her M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the Solstice MFA Program at Pine Manor College. Her essays, fiction, poetry, and reviews have appeared in Ascent, International Gymnast Magazine, Platte Valley Review, Superstition Review, In the Arts, Fourth Genre, TheWhistling Fire, the Writer’s Chronicle, and other journals and magazines. Faye was born in New York City and has lived in England, Israel, and Colorado. She currently lives in the Boston area with her husband, Jean-Paul Des Pres, and their cats.
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