Oh, the Places She Should Go!

Rejection is the foundation upon which most writing careers are built. We get it. We know publishers turned up their noses umpteen times at Harry Potter and The Help and even Gone With the Wind. We take this sparkling diamond of a fact, wrap it in silk, and stitch it into the lining of our souls, because knowing it's there is often the only thing that keeps us going. We understand, in a rational legal-mind way, that publishing is a business. We don't (usually) fantasize about severed horse heads soiling editors' sheets. We have learned (through yoga and meditation and just plain getting old) to let go, to live in the current breath, to be thankful for the opportunities we've had and to seize the ones yet to come. Sure, we are disappointed our book doesn't recline upon store shelves. That the contract with our agent expired faster than an iPad deal. That the electronic release of The Pecking Order didn't single-handedly crash Amazon's site. But, mostly, we deal with it and hammer away at new projects. And drink champagne.

Today is not one of those days. Today, we stomp our feet and cross our arms and stick out our bottom lips and bitch, thanks to Jennifer Weiner and Dr. Suess. If you don't know Jennifer Weiner, you should. She's a funny, snarky, Bachelor-watching, blogging, tweeting writer with great hair who personifies that quote, "well behaved women seldom make history." She's also published more books than the Bible's got Psalms. (Okay, maybe not that many books, but I couldn't resist a House of Pain reference. Admit it, you're Jumpin' Around now...) She's long been an advocate for women writers, taking to task critics, the media, and authors (looking at you, Franzen), for the disparate treatment of books written by men versus women. She particularly calls out people who dismiss what they have labeled, pejoratively, "chick lit." She recently penned a brave and spot-on blog post regarding how the the New York Times statistically gives more coverage to books written by men. (For Huffington Post's discussion of the issue, see here.)

As we read her blog and tweets over the past few days, we became increasingly incensed. Don't get us wrong, we never expected our book to be reviewed by the NYT, but in our own podunk way, we have felt the same bias. Our agent called our book "upscale commercial women's fiction" and shopped it to major publishers. Every single one found it laugh-out-loud funny, engaging, and well written. But they passed because the market was "saturated." In other words, there was too much "chick lit" clogging up the shelves. Bullshit. How about male-written thrillers with well-coiffed male protagonists, some sort of far-fetched legal conundrum or conspiracy or code to crack, an egregious amount of passive voice, and overuse of adverbs? You can't spit in a bookstore without hitting dozens of those . . . and they're usually on the front tables. (For what it's worth, I'm not sure you should ever spit in a bookstore, but you see my point.) Good for those authors. You did it. You should be proud. We hope you ordered a cake and threw confetti. . . we know we would have. But it's time for women's fiction (and not just the "important" kind, whatever that is) to be invited to the party.

At this point you may be thinking . . . wtf does this have to do with Dr. Suess? (Or maybe you're thinking about a peanut butter chocolate chip milkshake. Or maybe I'm projecting). NPR aired a piece this morning, on the 75th anniversary of Dr. Suess publishing his first story, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street. I'm a huge fan of the Doctor. I listened to the segment with a smile on my face, nodding in solidarity when I learned his story had been rejected by publishers 27 times. This is exactly the encouragement I need today, I thought, pouring out a little green tea for my literary holmie. Then I heard this: Dr. Suess had all but given up when he was walking home and "bumped into a friend ... who had just become an editor at a publishing house in the children's section." Of course he did. Where's that champagne?

Portrait of an Artist?

Jennifer Weiner, author of Good in Bed, In Her Shoes, and the upcoming Best Friends Forever (and, as we recently discovered on twitter and her blog, generally hilarious person who we may have been separated from at birth and who should clearly be our new BFF), wrote a funny and inspirational blog post about her writing space. Apparently Entertainment Weekly is doing a piece on writers and their writing spaces, and she blogs about how (and I'm paraphrasing and condensing and hopefully not butchering here) she writes on a laptop in her closet, rather than in her fancy office, and how writing is about the margins and the stolen moments, not the ostentatious “arty-ness” of the endeavor. (“Arty-ness” is my word, by the by. Ms. Weiner would have used a much more fitting word. And, you know, probably one in existence. Maybe that's why she's the published one...).

Anyway, it occurred to me, writing not only occupies the margins . . . it shoves other parts of my life right off the page. Consider my legs, if you don’t mind. They are scaly. Reptilian, even. If some Hollywood genius decides to remake the television show V (which, OMG, I just found out is actually happening!), I’m all over it. You might ask, why? (Or, like my kids, you might just say “ew.”) I don’t have time for lotion. Every so often I’ll slather up, but usually, I rush from bed to shower to closet to kitchen to car with no time for extras. If I didn’t spend hours each day writing or researching or outlining, in addition to working and raising a family, I just might have time for a little lanolin love. (Or, let’s be honest, I might just start watching reality TV; I hear Daisy of Love is enthralling). Writing colors my other habits, too. Like the fact that I often can only fit in a workout at lunch, which means I end up practicing yoga in the corner of my office in my underwear on an afghan embroidered with cats. Classy.

Jennifer Weiner is a writer with a capital W. She has published novels and Entertainment Weekly talks to her about her writing habits. Me? I have leg hair so far beyond stubble it's frightening . . . and this is how I know I'm a writer. I don’t write as a hobby or write only according to a strict schedule or write when the house is quiet and the work is done. I write. I write even though I can’t find time for a real work-out and my kids had boxed mac-n-cheese three nights in a row and publishers aren’t knocking down my door. Writing is under my scaly skin. It is part of my soul.