Publication Alert: Right Hand Pointing

Dear Reader,

A few weeks ago I made an announcement on social media that, in order to make the most quality time for other creative writing projects, I am reducing the posts on this blog to the first and last Friday each month. While on a normal basis this would not include publication alerts (which would be more frequent, I hope), forgive me if this week I forgo one of my normal rants and keep it strictly business . . .

. . . Mainly because, at the moment, I am away from business. I'm writing to you from my family's vacation spot at an enigmatic beach, where I'm enjoying some of nature's most beautiful and inspirational phenomenons: ocean, sunsets, and ice-cream (okay, the latter's not nature, but it's still beautiful). However, I couldn't wait to get home before telling you about my most recent publication. This week, Right Hand Pointing published their 88th issue, with my poem "Waking Moment" appearing on the first page of contributed works. For those unfamiliar with Right Hand Pointing, it is an eleven-year-old, monthly online magazine featuring very short works of poetry (sixteen lines or less) and fiction (500 words or less). In addition to publishing a nice array of emerging writers, its focus on flash and short-short genres makes it a solid read for lessons in momentism (my own word, and by golly I'm going to get it into a glossary of literary terms someday). Well worth a read.

You can read my poem here.

About the work: This has always been a favorite little poem of mine, something short and sweet to convey how hopelessly beautiful a tiny moment can be. Language, science, analysis -- even though they make up the world around us, they are often useless in showing how or why a brief, insignificant movement in the everyday can have an almost magical and spiritual effect on us. I hope and pray that my writing will always contain a tone of being in love with moments.

The poem you see printed at RHP is not, however, the original version I created for my Writing Poetry class last year. It's actually (gasp!) a revision. Shocking, I know, given my notorious dislike of the revision process and preference for one-and-done perfectionism. When I submitted "Waking Moment" to RHP, I received a response from the editors expressing an interest in it, but asking if I'd be willing to revise the final stanza for something stronger. As a new and naive writer, receiving a request like that can evoke a mix of emotions. It's easy to have a gut reaction of feeling insulted or misunderstood, and to brush the response off as an example of someone who just doesn't "get" you. But I learned quickly (with help from more experienced writer friends) that a "rejection" of this kind is extremely good. It means the editor cares enough about your work to communicate with you about its existing issues -- issues that editors from other magazines probably noticed but only responded to with a flat-out, no-second-chance rejection. It saves you the time of submitting to countless other venues and getting only silent rejections because the editors were all seeing the same flaws that you had missed, and not bothering to tell you about them. Rather than saying, "We don't like your work, you need to change it for us," a request for revision or additional work says, "We love your work so much that we're taking the time to tell you how to get it published here." (There's a good article floating around the internet called "Submit Like A Man." Read it, love it, and for Lord's sake, follow its advice.)

I hemmed and hawed a bit, got feedback from a few writer friends, and finally decided to give the revision a go -- which proved rather challenging. Granted, the revision being asked of me was minor, but it was difficult too, considering that the last stanza is the entire crux of the poem. I was afraid I'd have to butcher my poor little poem, sacrificing its original intent for something else; but I was fortunate enough that, one morning, something finally came to me ("in a flash," as Marcel Dupré would say). The revision meant keeping the original goal intact, but changing the mechanics of its delivery: I had to reflect on what the editors might have seen wrong with my poem and why; then, instead of altering the message, I had to ask myself how to reword it in a way they could grasp.

Lessons learned from the experience: 1) Don't be afraid of being asked to revise -- it's not an insult, it's a huge compliment and a door to get in; 2) Don't let a revision mean an overhaul of your work (unless it's necessary) for someone else, but make it an opportunity to help readers recognize and love your intentions better.

Hope you are all enjoying the summer. Grace and peace to you.

Prayerful Eyes

Observing and Writing with Reverence

Forgive me if I take a moment, reader, to discuss something close to my devotional heart.

I promise I am not a proselytizer. Nor have I ever identified as a "religious writer," "Catholic writer," or faith-based writer of any kind. Those are terms that, unfortunately, have come to connote the kind of cheesy, depthless work one often sees among Christians trying to promote godly messages with no regard to artistic talent. I know I'm not a good apologist, so I usually steer far away from explicitly religious topics in my writing. Call me cowardly, if you like -- I think it's honesty.

This does not mean I've drawn a line between my religion and my art, however. Far, far from it. My Catholicism is my life. It confuses me when I hear people use the phrase "Religion isn't everything" as an excuse to write it off. No, I don't believe "religion is everything" -- that one's every word, thought, or deed must directly pertain to one's spiritual life. But (and I say this emphatically) everything is religion, in that I believe it's impossible to live a single moment without encountering something that whispers of the divine. If all good things (spiritual, physical, intellectual, and emotional) belong to God, then religion is everywhere, whether we want it to be or not. It may sound like a fluffy, narrow perspective to say that my Catholicism is the lens with which I see the world, but one mustn't forget that "catholic" means "universal" -- all-embracing. Rather than denying the physical world, or blurring it with a spiritual brush, my religion allows me to see it plainly, widely, and to love it passionately.

Perhaps, reader, you are non-religious (which is fine, I'm not here to convert you), and don't relate to the idea of finding a daily connection between spirituality and the physical realm. Let me present it this way: everything we see, whether we look for it or not, hints at something deeper, something hidden. Maybe you don't believe in the soul, but you believe in the mind, so you know that human interactions go beyond external acts -- each movement of the body connects to the brain that powers it, but also contains the nuances of feelings, thoughts, motivations. Simply being aware of those hidden elements is what gives physical humanity the kind of other-worldly aura that artists have tried to capture and lovers have tried to hold for centuries.

What does all of this mean as a writer? Even though religious concepts are mainly lacking in my writing, I want my writing process to nevertheless be permeated with the view that everything has spiritual depth. As a writer, an appreciator, a lover of the world, I am striving to see things with a prayerful eye, by which I mean four things:

First, to observe with a sense of searching. In spite of stereotypes that religion consists of blind acceptance of spoon-fed beliefs, true Catholicism (universalism) demands inquiry, study, reflection -- a careful examination of all areas of life and what it means. In examining her surroundings for inspiration, just as in religious study or literary analysis, the prayerful writers strives to look beyond surfaces and immediate impressions, believing that there is something deeper to be found (even if it's only an invented metaphor).

Second, to observe with humility. I don't know if other writers experience this, but the most moving moments in my life are when beauty (stars, conversations, musical voices) compels me to realize that creation isn't mine; humanity could write and paint for millions of years and never come close to articulating the full splendor of the natural world. Yet somehow, that helplessness to express it -- and the knowledge, as a spiritual person, that it was all created with love for us -- is what makes the prayerful writer desperate to praise, to at least write to this beautiful existence: "How will I ever adore you enough?"

Third, to observe with love. I honestly believe this: there is a virtue in loving beautiful things. If there are callings in life, I believe mine is simply to love and find beauty in whatever is in front of me. Love has many forms, but in the writing process it means having a deep appreciation, an avid attentiveness for the details of everything.  In observing, the prayerful writer must acknowledge that all persons and daily things possess hidden value and story-worthy essence. In actual writing, she must try to express that value. Writing is little more than a love letter to whatever and whomever one encounters.

Fourth, to observe, well, with prayerfulness. While I'm a die-hard church-going girl with traditional ideas about liturgical worship, I'm not one who thinks that God can only be found in explicitly godly things. Like G.K. Chesterton's practice of saying grace before concerts as well as meals, I believe that one can -- and should -- serve God by pursuing our passions ardently, whatever they may be. As Vincent van Gogh stated, "The best way to know God is to love many things" -- which is why I equate seeing a beautiful painting or reading an exquisite poem to a religious experience. Being a writer is my simple, silly way of praying, saying thank you, attempting poorly to give something back. I pray with my eyes open.

My faith has never limited my view of the universe -- only enhanced it. It makes me love and appreciate things passionately, knowing that they have a depth, a meaning; that it's all a glimpse of something more. Whether you believe in deities or not, I think we would all benefit to treat this life with reverence.

Grace and peace to you.

Publication Alert: Life in 10 Minutes

Dear Reader,

Well, talk about a surprise this morning.

Here I was, doing my semi-routine check on submission statuses (I've been sending a lot of work out lately -- hurrah submissions!), when on a whim I wandered over to the Life in 10 Minutes website and saw that the flash fiction piece I submitted to them recently was published last week.

Ironically, the piece is called "Realization."

I discovered Life in 10 Minutes only a few weeks ago, but I'm already an adoring fan. For this blog-style venue, the concept is simple: what can you express, invent, indulge in, or confess in a matter of ten minutes? Form can be almost anything -- fiction, non-fiction, poetry -- so long as it's "flash," spur-of-the-moment writing. I used to despise the idea of flash-anything, but over the years I've seen how the condensed space and (in this case) the time constraint gives one permission to freely explore the emotional aspect of the piece -- the moment-ism -- without getting caught up in details of structure. Once in awhile, it's good to shut off that analytical side of the brain, and just let go.

You can read "Realization" here.

About the work: There is a whirlwind of emotions surrounding this little publication. I am, of course, surprised and excited at the news of another publication, and also slightly flabbergasted to see that someone took a liking to my attempt at flash-fiction -- which can be a delightful bridge between poetry and prose, by the way. (The single-sentence, stream-of-consciousness style here is probably also indicative of my current Virginia Woolf obsession.) But it occurred to me, after I did my initial inner hurrah-another-published-story dance, that this is actually a significant milestone for me as a writer.

I've been trying to write a lot this summer, and although I haven't mastered it as a daily habit, I've been steadily producing at least one solid piece a week. It's frightening, sometimes, trying to approach the craft independently without a professor or deadlines to keep me in line. Occasionally I find myself staring at a new poem or story, wondering if it's any good, or if I'm incapable of producing publishable work on my own.

What makes the publication of "Realization" important to me is the fact that it was a summer project, something I wrote independently outside of any academic setting. Aside from this blog and its appearance on Writers Get Together, it is my first published creative piece that I wrote, edited, sent out, and had accepted entirely on my own (rather quickly, too), without feedback from a teacher or fellow writers. It took trusting my own judgement to know it was well-written, well-edited, and presentable work. It was a leap of faith, and somehow I made it. Few things have felt as validating as this.

I hope you enjoy the piece, and I hope to have more independent work to share with you soon.

Grace and peace to you.