Thank God I'm Not a Sports Writer

I was glancing over the newspaper and my eye fixed on the sports page. The headline read “Sharp's Injury Is Death Nail in Hawks Season.” “Death Nail?” Hmmmm. It's a whole new concept. And, most of today's readers probably never even heard of a Death Knell...

To be a news writer of any kind stretches the limits of the English language because each specific news area has such a limited vocabulary. Sports, for instance. How many ways can you say that a team won? Good sports writers find creative ways. Team names help, as do individual players' names. But still, the essence is the same – one team won and the opposing team lost. The headline usually features the team that most people who read the article would support, which makes it tough in Chicago when the Cubs and the Sox play.

However, the day in and day out task of writing news challenges its writers to be creative within the confines of the vocabulary and genre. We fiction writers can be similarly challenged, and to be truly interesting, we must be just as creative and well versed in craft and vocabulary. We could also learn from the daily diligence of the news writer. Practice, practice, practice!

But, I still say – Thank God, I'm not a sports writer!

It's all about what you do today

Seriously, it really is.

These past few months have not been entirely unproductive from the writing end. The proof? I've been holding my own with my Examiner.com reviews and interviews. That's important to me because I do love to promote good writing and illustrating. However, without about a million more readers checking it out daily, it's not going to make me wealthy. My payment at this point is largely that I believe it helps out a smattering of kids and adults who desire some guidance in finding excellent reading materials. (With this in mind, please tell all your friends to subscribe to the site and stop by frequently.)

I've also plugged away at getting a few picture book manuscripts out there, especially considering the fact that it takes months to know whether they're accepted or rejected.

But I have not been diligent on working on my novel. I'll just tell you right now. Last night, I did sit out and churn out some words. They weren't inspired. They were lousy. No one had to tell me.

I find myself rolling the following over in my mind:

• I may not be a great writer, but I still want to finish the book.

• I am afraid that it isn't going to ever be any good, but I still want to finish the book.

• I never feel like writing after a day of teaching school, grading papers, and being a mom, but I still want to finish this book.

• If I don't do this now, I'll never do it at all.

That's the bottom line, really. If I don't get over these fears of mediocrity, staple my rear end to the chair, and make myself do this now, no one else is going to do it for me. (It always comes back to that, somehow, and I hate that part.) It's all about what I do today, not what I want to do tomorrow.

Do you ever feel this way too?

Getting to know all about you...

As part of Examiner.com's recent push for evergreen content (articles which hold their ability to inform over time) I'll be doing a series of children's author and illustrator interviews. If you're interested, stop by my page and subscribe so you can be alerted when these articles become available. In the battle to become published, information is power.

Also, check out my two part interview with local teacher and author Laura Crawford which was posted about a week ago if you're interested in writing educational (but fun) nonfiction for children.

http://www.examiner.com/childrens-literature-in-chicago/elizabeth-mackinney

Have a great day!

Can you kill off characters in middle grade fiction?

This is sure to disturb Christine, but I had an idea about killing off one of my characters in my book today. It was bad enough when I had Grandpa shot. She just about had a conniption, and he's only a made up character. I guess it's a step worse when you knock off a beloved character completely. For her peace of mind, I'll refrain from saying who it is, but my daughter, who is reading this over my shoulder, is already upset and telling me I can't kill anyone off. All I can say without giving anything away is that it is sci-fi, and I'll make everything okay in the end.

This brings us to the question of the hour. Can you kill off characters in middle grade novels, or is this too disturbing for kids this age? What do you think?

Explaining rejection to a ten-year-old

"Mom sent a letter to herself," my daughter told my husband.

She was obviously puzzled. She recognized my handwriting and was wondering why I would have sent myself a letter. She would have been doubly freaked if she had checked out the Pennsylvania postmark, but her sleuthing isn't quite up to that yet.

Yes, the dreaded SASE had squirreled it's way back to my doorstep. To add insult to injury, I had to explain it to my ten-year-old rather than just filing it and moving on.

My thirteen-year-old son jumped in the game. "What's a rejection?"

Where have you been for the last five years of my life? was all I could wonder. Except for one picture book "almost sale" through Magination Press, I had had nothing but rejections for five years, and hadn't kept it a secret from my family.

Again, I explained the concept of sending out a manuscript that you'd labored over for 20+ drafts in hopes of selling it to some pleased editor vs. the concept of sending out a manuscript and getting a form letter with the same manuscript back (meaning they didn't want it).

"Wow." My son looked at me with something akin to shock. "Writers go through that?"

Yes, writers go through that. Again and again and again and again.

Now, I'll admit, it has been a touch discouraging with this particular manuscript, but that's only because I had early success with it. The very first editor who looked at it wanted to buy a rewrite of it. It's only the editorial board that decided against it. No problem, I thought. If they wanted it, certainly another interested agent or editor couldn't be that hard to find.

Wrong.

The current stats on the manuscript in question are as follows: nay's–12 agents and 6 publishers, yea's–zero. The nay's are definitely winning.

But the truth is, that's nothing compared to what some authors have gone through during submissions. If you're selling a middle grade or YA manuscript, there are many more agents and publishers available for you to try for.

The ending? Writers don't give up. They mean business. They know that they're going to have to do what it takes and stay in for the long haul. For the few who have instant success, I applaud them because almost no one gets that. For the rest of us, we're just going to keep on trucking till we get there.

Have any stories of success or rejection to share? Leave a comment.

Back in the saddle—sort of

It's Thursday, and I missed my Monday post, but I had a good reason. As far as we can tell, it had something to do with a disk in my back and excruciating pain followed by blacking out as I became a dead weight while my husband tried to hold me up.

I should have eaten less banana bread last week.

Oh, well. After plenty of prayer and some upper cervical spinal correction (which made me thankful for specialist Dr. Duda), I'm almost back at one hundred percent. In the mean time, I've been doing more reading than writing, and I'll share a post from Paul Joseph which made me laugh this week.

For all you writers out there who thinks that no one understands you, you're mostly right. Just have a good laugh about it and move on.

Please leave a message

This is just a post to tell you that I'm actually writing, so I'm not really posting. But that's a good thing, because I've allowed my novel to suffer as I try to get a few PB manuscripts out the door again. (It's not unlike keeping plates spinning.) Anyway, have a great Thursday, and see you next week!