Submission Decisions

I must have very few of the qualities that seem normally associated with writers. Not the creative stuff or the knack of plot finding (though they're tough enough and my aptitude in that area, such as it is, cannot be wholly relied upon), but the other traits you need when you get a knock-back.  The kind that suggests resolve, unbreakable self-belief, grim determination, bloody-mindedness even. I have read or heard so many accounts of writers sticking countless rejection slips on the walls of downstairs loos or in garden sheds. There they would be displayed as cocked-snooks to those who would judge their work negatively: exhibited proudly as hard proof and validation that they are writers who can embrace failure as quickly and with pretty much the same enthusiasm as success.  Rejection does not represent failure is the thinking, just another important step towards ultimate success. It is a force for good as opportunities are now available to hatch new approaches to make the writing tighter, to bring in more suspense, to use sparer prose, to create more interesting characters; the list is endless. And then undaunted, re-submit: again and again and again until hitting, if not a bull's-eye at least part of his body.  After all, look at the roll call of role models writers have as dogged inspiration.  Stephen King, whose wife kick started his career by rescuing a manuscript that he'd tossed in the fire on receiving his 200th rejection.  J D Salinger and J K Rowling collected rejection letters like they were post cards from secret lovers, and Louise (Little Women) Alcott, who was told to go back to teaching as it's 'what you do well.'  Richard Adams was told his book Watership Down didn't have a chance because the subject material and the vocabulary didn't sync).  The list goes on. But what do I do? After one rejection decide that it's all a waste of time and go back to the day job. What a wimp.

In truth this was only a couple of life writing stories for which I sacrificed most of the fiction writing conventions for language - there was never going to be tension, surprise or inciting incidents found in them, they were in fact nothing more than glorified diary entries.  The trick I suppose, is to know your market. The publishers, it turned out,were looking for something that ticked the majority of the boxes for conventional short stories, or if not it should be poetry, ideally free verse, not something that might look like it sits somewhere in between. I knew I was sunk when one of the selectors for this new publications wrote on their website that having been tasked with reading the life writing submissions for the new book, had felt frustrated by reading too many entries that failed to grip her. Grip her? I found this statement odd. I read quite a lot of autobiography before embarking on the life writing phase - not all of it gripping.  This is particularly true of childhood memories that rely more on observation, language and ideas such as Laurie Lee's Cider With Rosie or Blake Morrison's When Did You Last See Your Father. Whatever one says about those pieces of work, and I happen to think they are elegant, poetic,and thought provoking, they certainly aren't gripping, nor were they ever meant to be. And neither were my submissions. But they failed to impress and I suspect it's because they weren't sufficiently... gripping, even though that was never a preference expressed by the publishers.    

Perhaps on reflection I should have turned them into free verse poems. Maybe I should now? Possibly. Or perhaps I should just print off the 'Thank you for your submission email however we won't be using either of your stories this time. Please keep writing and consider re-submitting to our words for Wednesday features on our website' stick it up in my garden shed and get back to writing some new stuff, show some of that - what was it? resolve, unbreakable self-belief, grim determination and bloody-mindedness.

Words and Meanings

More from Merriam Webster - I really should get out more. According to its vocabulary test, consanguineous means' related.' Cue tumbleweed then fade in to silence. Does it? Can it? I'm learning not to fully trust these briefest of word definitions: a glance through any dictionary,even the most basic,will always show there are contexts to consider and often alternative meanings to words that came into being attached to myriad layers of confusion.  A word like 'consanguineous' (which is a devil to spell right, as well as pronounce), is never going to give you an easy ride. Perhaps 'related' is found only in the word's essence, which wraps around multiple layers that take you both towards and away from 'related.' That's the thing behind these instant word tests; to get the answer right you don't need to know the whole meaning of a word - only something of its existence sufficient to allow you to think, in an eye sparkle, that it looks familiar.The OED is actually very brief on the word: 'Of the same blood. Akin or pertaining to those so related.' 'Related.' So that settles that one at least.

But what of Gestalt, another one I got wrong despite having known of  it for years. Spirit is the answer according to the MW test. Surely there's more to this one I thought. I seem to remember from an old psychology course I did twenty odd years ago there's something called gestalt theory - something to do with making sense of diagrams and figures. According to MW's own website, gestalt is something that is made of many parts and yet is somehow more than or different from the combination of its parts, the general quality or character of something.

That explains part of my memory about diagrams. I seem to remember that there was a picture in a text book that could either be, depending how you looked at it, a depiction of an old crone with a gnarly face, hooked nose and etiolated neck with jowls huddled grotesquely into and old woolly scarf, or a young beauty with an elegant swan like neck and elfin face - the ugly wart now serving as a pretty button nose and a stray damned hair from the crone's chin a suggestion of a doll-like eyelash.  What the other constituent parts served for I can't remember, but the point being it is something to do with parts making different wholes, or better put by MW themselves: a structure,configuration or pattern of physical biological or psychological phenomena so integrated as to constitute a functional unit with properties not derivable by summation of its parts. In its native German, gestalt means shape or form. Which is handy since I'm trying to learn German at the moment so thank you MW for that.

But what of spirit? For this the MW Learner's Dictionary provides the answer. The second meaning of gestalt is atmosphere. Wither that reference in the earlier more expanded definition? Once you are informed that it has a definite second meaning - I refer to my first paragraph about alternative meanings etc - the atmosphere of a place can allude to its spirit.  But it seems a long haul from the original sense. Or perhaps it's just me. Anyway when faced with spirit alongside three other alternatives - with the knowledge that I had at the time, I was a long way from ticking the spirit box so got it wrong.

The final one that caught me out on this test was obviate. The meaning I assiduously avoided is the verb' to prevent.'  The Cambridge (I have used my one and only freebie with the OED who now request a registration for more information - like there aren't enough free dictionaries on line!) are very specific about this word:  to remove a difficulty, so that action to deal with it becomes necessary.

Returning and finishing with German, since I am trying to self teach myself the language, I spotted the word sehensucht when reading Julian Barne's 'Levels of Life.' I've been having a bit of a Barnes bonanza-fest-love-in lately, ever since reading 'Arthur and George' and loving everything about it. Since then I've ploughed my way through 'England England' (odd), 'A Sense of an Ending' (quite good), before remembering that 'Flaubert's Parrot' and 'A History of the World,' both of which in the early 1990s, seemed all but unreadable to me at the time. But I was going to stick with him this time pace 'Arthur and George', and try his essay style books instead. 'Nothing to be Frightened of,' a treatise on death and religion frightened me, 'The Pedant in the Kitchen' I found frustrating with Barnes writing about slavishly following recipes and his surprise that they always turn out wrong, (Duh, tsk, be creative Jules, use as a guide not a bible), but 'Levels of Life', a heart tearing brave and honest account about love and grief, I thought quite brilliant, thereby allowing me to thank 'Arthur and George' all over again. And if anyone knows anything about' L of L' they will understand why a word like sehensucht would appear. And having now considered it I think it should now be added it to my a/ German list, and b/ my writing list - a two for one.

Sehensucht  means yearning from the heart for something you're unlikely to ever receive. Apparently we have no word that successfully translates all shades and nuances that run through it like place names in English seaside rock. So let's hear it for sehensucht, which joins forces with lebensraum: 'space required for life growth and prosperity' and weltsmerz 'a mood that denotes sentimental sadness,' and get them all part of my world view. Or <cough> weltanschauung.  It does seem that I am confirming general opinion and belief that the German's really do have a word for it. For anything. They just don't have 'consanguineous' - that one is ours and ours alone.