Author: maryjunebrown

When the weather is good…

~ maryjunebrown ~ 1 Comment

…there is nothing quite like San Francisco on a February day, when the sky is a bright, cerulean blue.  It’s almost as though the tall buildings in downtown are part of a movie set, so perfect they are against the backdrop of fluffy cottonball clouds.

I wax this way because I just got back from the City.  It was a gorgeous day, complete with a picnic in North Beach and warm breeze at Washington Square Park.  On the way home, the Golden Gate stood out from the sky like a bonfire.

Sometimes, like today, I am just struck with how fortunate we Bay Area folk are…with our bridges and our coffee and our museums and parks and Italian restaurants and our bay views and the music, the backroads, the artisans and the bakeries, and the farmers markets and the shows and the —

Oh, it’s a sweet, sweet place to call home.

Gearing up.

~ maryjunebrown ~ 1 Comment

A month ago, I threw out the novel I’d been working on.

Just pushed “save” and archived it.  Maybe I’ll come back to it, maybe (probably) not.

But…I am gearing up for the new novel.  I’ve been brainstorming, making notes, outlining, revving my little engine.

It hasn’t taken me over yet, so I’m not ready to start the actual writing.  In the meantime, I’m focused on the short stories I’ve been working on.

But that novel…I hear it, faintly…it’s cooing at me.

Stay, comic Valentine, stay.

~ maryjunebrown

I thought and reflected, on this Saint Valentine’s day, about the nature of romance, about the commerce of the holiday, and about the special recognition of a love that presumably should be recognized all throughout the year.

For me, the best Valentine’s gift is that six years after the first red holiday that I spent with my husband (then-boyfriend), we still celebrate the day.  The notion that Valentine’s is a beginner’s holiday in the realm of love and affection seems to permeate…that my spouse and I resist this idea is the sweetest confection of all.

xoxo

Rejections big and small.

~ maryjunebrown ~ 1 Comment

What kind of rejection is worse? The anonymous, “no thanks” kind or the kind that praises your writing, but rejects it anyway?

I really don’t know.

However, I just read t his rejection from a Chinese publisher (from Louis Zufofsky’s “A“):

Most honorable Sir,

We perused your manuscript with boundless delight. And we hurry to swear by our ancestors we have never read any other that equals its mastery. Were we to publish your work, we could never presume again on our public and name to print books of a standard not up to yours. For we cannot imagine that the next ten thousand years will offer its ectype. We must therefore refuse your work that shines as it were in the sky and beg you a thousand times to pardon our fault which impairs but our own offices. — Publishers.

Gads!

Writing? Show me the money!

~ maryjunebrown

Writers write for a large variety of reasons: a compelling drive to do so, the desire to document an experience, the challenge of putting to words something that previously only existed in the imagination.

And then there are those who write with the dream of FAME, of getting published, of making millions…of going on book tours, signing copies, all the cache that comes with celebrity.

How many copies do you think you’d need to sell in order to have a bestseller? According to some sources, the answer is much less than you might imagine. In fact, in 1996, only 11 titles total sold over a million copies in the whole year! That was over ten years ago…granted, but according to a 2006 article in Publishers Weekly, there are about 200,000 titles published every year, of which less than 1% make it to the “Bestseller Lists.”

And what is a bestseller, anyway? Well, it’s relative, depending on what list it is, in which country, etc. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bestseller for more on this.

Another great resource on the topic (pertaining directly to Canada, but applicable in the U.S. as well) is http://www.writersunion.ca/industry.pdf — which demonstrates how an author who sells over 10,000 copies of a book would probably make somewhere in the neighborhood of $13,750 dollars.

Bottom line? You’ve got to love writing, and be doing it for the right reasons. True, some get rich, but the odds are not playing in your favor. Love your writing, your characters, your topics…enjoy them…cherish the whole experience: it’s likely the highest pay you’re gonna get.

Sass.

~ maryjunebrown ~ 5 Comments

My three year-old has come up with quite a few interesting phrases recently.  I realize, of course, that he’s parroting back to me things my husband and I say.  But there are a couple humdingers that he’s picked up from other kids.

So here I am, mid-thirties, already lecturing about having a sassy mouth.  I’ve refrained (barely) from shouting, “Don’t you sass me!” and “Don’t get fresh with me!”  But I have resorted to saying, “child, we don’t say that in our house.”

His response?

“Hey lady, re-lax!”

I’m not kidding.

Here’s the Motivation.

~ maryjunebrown ~ 3 Comments

So, my prior post…see below, was all about finding the motivation to keep on writing.

Well, I found the best motivation.  It’s that thing called an email from a literary journal or a magazine…or anyone, really…who says, “yes! we love this! We want everyone to read it.”  I just got a great email with words to that effect (minus the exclamation points, mind you). I had submitted a short story and it was accepted yesterday.

(waiting politely for the applause to stop before I continue) 

If there is something that will push you forward, it’s this: take the rejections in stride, but man…savor those acceptances. They are pure gold motivation for the spirit.

Where’s the Motivation?

~ maryjunebrown ~ 1 Comment

I think, sometimes, that I’m a bit nuts.

I had decided to submit a short story to The First Line and they had a deadline of February 1st.  While I had written the story and only needed to do the very, very last fine-tuning, I still couldn’t help but wonder what it is about writers–such as myself–who put themselves under the gun this way.

It’s almost like being back in college, except that you assign yourself your own work…with the very slim chance that there’ll be any reward (besides the obvious:  WOOT! I wrote a story! ).

I read a profile of a businesswoman yesterday, and the one thing that stood out for me was this: when asked what her secret to success was, she said, “Never, ever, ever give up! Never give up! NEVER!”  It impacted me because a writer really needs a great deal of self-motivation to keep going.  You have to have that “don’t give up” mantra going in your head.  It’s so easy to let it (the writing) fall away, ease up…dwindle to nothing.

So, if you are writer, and you are tired or downtrodden or discouraged or uninspired or struggling–I’ll be your cheerleader today: Never Give Up.

Addiction at the cellular level.

~ maryjunebrown ~ 2 Comments

I washed my jeans on the hot cycle.

With my cell phone in the pocket.

I called my cellular company, whose general attitude was “Too bad, suckah!”  I spent several hours online looking for a replacement phone.  I went through serious cell phone withdrawls, complete with the shakes and cold sweats.

Like eMail, I’m hyper-dependant on my cell phone.  I call my husband, friends, son’s school., work, pizza delivery, doctor’s offices, prescription refill service…all on the fly, from the driver’s seat of my car.  I multi-task shamelessly.  I call myself–leaving long messages on my home phone with reminders, grocery lists, ideas for books to write someday.

I’m getting a new phone today, and I can’t wait.  If loving my cell phone is wrong…well, I don’t wanna be a-riiight.

Unfocused.

~ maryjunebrown

I think there can be some benefit to being unfocused in my writing.  I am currently working on two short stories (one being for the First Lines contest…see below).  I am also working on a poem.  I have been alternating between these three pieces, going away from them–coming back to them.  While I normally would find this difficult in that it would be too messy, I’m rather enjoying the variations.

It’s fun to be undisciplined in my writing.  I am actually working on being a bit more reckless…taking less time to craft a single sentence, so that I can just get a story out on paper.  I can always go back to do the wordsmithing.

Focus. Hocus pocus.