Well, the article that BiblioBuffet accepted is now rejected. A week after acceptance they e-mailed me requesting changes, saying, “You do have a wonderful topic here. But…it needs to be more you and less a college assignment.” I tried. I looked at it slowly, reading it over and over, finally coming up with a “patch”, an addition to it where I used words for the Carlyle-Emerson correspondence to express my feelings. No good, according to the editor. I received the e-mail this afternoon: “While I do find [your essay] well written it is missing…passion. I still see nothing of you in it. …There’s nothing that tells me…why you…or care about it. I am afraid I am going to have to decline to run this essay. …I urge you to continue with your writing group. Perhaps in a year or you might wish to try us again.“
“A year.” That in itself speaks volumes.
Oh, well. But to what do I ascribe this failure? I’m wondering if the uber-objective viewpoint required by Suite101.com has caused be to think only in that mode and have trouble with the personal point of view and with creative writing. That’s a possibility. Or maybe I really want to write college essays rather than creative pieces. That’s a possibility. Or maybe I just don’t have it. Whether or not I turn out to be the hero of my writing career…blah, blah, blah.
Oh, well. Tonight, being in a bachelor mode with Lynda in OKC, I went to Barnes & Noble after work. I had a gift card burning a hole in my pocket, and last time I was there didn’t find anything I really had to have. Tonight I picked up a remainders copy of Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters. Six hundred and eight-six glorious pages of his letters, plus index; a fair number of footnotes, and I love footnotes. This will be enjoyable reading for me, even given ACD’s spirituality issues. Into the reading pile with it; should get to it in late 2011.
I also looked in three writing magazines and culled some ideas. I’m wondering now how to approach my freelancing, or if I should just go back to novel and Bible study writing and see what I can do there. The good news is I made a whole $0.30 at Suite101 on Tuesday. Two tanks of gas per year for 72,000 words. Either I’m crazy or obsessed.
They can tell from your writing you're and engineer – precise, exacting, explicit, concrete. Nothing wrong with that. They just want an abstract impressionist with a touch of madness, that's all. Load up on the metaphors. Express some irony. Throw in a wry pun. Be puckish. Go read some Oscar Wilde or Mark Twain (Innocents Abroad)to get the hang of it.