Revise and Resubmit

It is hard, but you might have to teach it to yourself entirely. Yes, there are classes. If you can afford them. There are many books. Cheeky essays, lessons in disguise. Cheerleading overtures that make you vomit in your mouth, until you like them so much, you yourself become the cheerleader.

If you don’t have an MFA, store bought is fine. I have the off-brand kind. An MA in literature. I learned to do it by reading. But now, I want to go deeper. Harder. Less clinical. More exploratory.

I want to be the taste you can’t get off your tongue. The sentence that lolls around in your brain in the middle of the night, like a pinball, until you twist it and turn it into your own. I want to write for you, and only you.

Conceive it. Plot it. Outline it. Write it. Read it. Hate it. Write it again. Again. More. Harder. Yes. No. It’s awful. It’s pleasurable. If you didn’t write it, you’d read it.

Write a query. You’re stupid. No one’s first book gets published and your query sucks harder than a black hole. The agent doesn’t even read it. They don’t want it. There are too many people in line. Start again. From the back.

Someone’s first book gets published.

Mourn it. Rewrite it, disguised as new. Steal from yourself. Steal from others. Read the simple sentence, “I evaporated.” Wonder if it’s plagiarism to use the phrase.

You have to want it, really want it, and even then, you might be left unsatisfied. You probably will be left unsatisfied.

Teach yourself the art of the story. Teach yourself the query letter. Teach yourself the synopsis. And how the fuck do you take the first ten pages, the gunk of getting to know the character and world, and mold them into something interesting?

Submit. Submit. Submit. Wear all black. Drink coffee. Drink wine. Smoke until your throat is scratched. Become your character. Write a thinly veiled version of yourself. Write the person you wish you were. You’re a Mary Sue.

Say that writing is hard, like pulling teeth. You’re a cliché. Rejected. Say writing is easy, like eating a nectarine naked, letting the juice run down your body. Nobody bats an eye

Tell me. Don’t show. Tell me what to write. I follow directions well.

Jealousy runs through my veins. He has, she has, they have m o n e y.

They can “afford” “classes.”

Then, a ray of hope. She is self-taught. She is using her body. She twists and turns and uses her throat, her voice, like no one before. She is self-taught and she will teach you if you’re willing.

You find yourself lost in a vortex. Videos, books, buried up to your ass in craft, you second, third and fourth guess yourself, do you know this already?

I know plot. Setting (the space between us). Foreshadow (your hand in mine). Symbolism. Irony. Theme (desire), tone and mood (how I lose you).

I revise and resubmit. Thank you, thank you, thank you. The pleasure of paying a fee to be rejected. “Never pay a fee,” she says. She has never had to rely on the validation of a journal. She has never had to work a shitty job to feed herself.

Your piece is lovely, but it’s reductive. Juvenile. Bad.

Start. Over. We believe in you.

Keep going.

If you slam your head into the wall, you will lose critical brain cells. And then you won’t be able to write at all.

There is always more to the story. Layers upon layers, if you would only peel them off. It is a very delicate process, and you will have to teach yourself.