Because It Is My Name

Last night I watched the 1990s movie version of Arthur Miller's The Crucible. At the end John Proctor (played movingly by Daniel Day-Lewis) reluctantly signs his name to a confession of witchcraft that will allow him and his wife to go free. However, he recants when the judges insist on posting the confession on the church door for everyone to see. Why, he is asked. "Because it is my name. It is the only one I will have in this life."

It struck me how, though less dramatically, this applies to writers. We have a name, and even if we choose to use another one for our writing, it still represents us and, therefore, everything that goes out under that name should be our best effort.

I mentioned in passing that I've begun to edit for a content site. Yes, the same kind of site I panned in some recent posts. I wasn't going to say much about it here, mainly because I didn't think many of my readers would be interested. However, in the past week I edited a couple of submissions with familiar names and bios at the bottom, and one was by an award-winning novelist who spoke at a conference I recently attended.

I imagine these people are writing for these sites for the same reason I edit for them. Not only does creative writing not pay much anymore, with contest submission fees––and now fees for standard submissions––attending conferences for networking, paying someone to design a website, and even published novelists often spending more on self-promotion than they make in royalties, most creative writers end up in the red, without counting those who paid for an MFA degree. Unless you are a pensioner (in which case you are usually too old to be taken seriously) or can depend on a partner's income, you may decide to lower your standards a bit in order to make some cash. But lower standards for where you will submit, shouldn't mean lower standards for what you submit.

I will tell you that from among 300 how-to and list articles I've edited in the past 3 weeks, the one by the novelist was one of only three I accepted on the first draft. The rest have gone back for rewrites even though it takes twice as much work for the same money and twice as long for me to get paid. Why? Because while I am not allowed to give my name, it is still my name I'm editing under, and I know it. I imagine the same applied to the piece the novelist submitted. Unfortunately, not all professional writers seem to feel the same.

As with any other editing job, the majority of submissions come from people who think they can write, but can't. When those writers think they can write knowledgeably about something they've never done, just by perusing a website or two, you can see why so much gets turned back. However, going by the bios (which, by the way, are not required, so I'm not telling tales about the novelist), some of these people are experienced writers who somehow feel what they are doing does not require their best efforts. One almost senses these writers throwing down their credentials like a gauntlet, challenging editors to question their skills and expertise.

Regularly, they ignore guidelines, like starting steps with an "action verb" or using AP style for punctuation. They use fancy language as filler to cover a lack of knowledge or skip steps in a fairly easy task like making home-made party invitations. Based on the credits in the bios, I can only assume they did not try to get away with the same things when submitting to those other publications, so why do they do it for this site? Perhaps as a way of saying, we do not deserve their best work. Then they get all huffy when something is rejected or post on other sites about the poor editors at the site I work with.

The novelist I spoke of obviously didn't feel that way. First she chose something she knew, a writing-related topic. Then she followed the guidelines perfectly and still managed to add some style. The piece was perfect––I didn't even need to add or subtract a comma––and she proudly added her bio, maybe the best bio to ever appear on the site.

As writers we may have to lower our standards in order to support our creative habit. Still, everything you write, whether for your blog or a letter to the local newspaper should meet your highest standards, because it is your name, and you should want it associated only with your best work.

Social Networking: Do You Do It? Where, Why, and How?

Do you frequent social networking sites?  If so, which ones? Why, and how do you use them? To keep up with friends? To make professional contacts? I'm curious because this is one aspect of the Internet I just can't warm up to.

My readers must know by now that while I am old, I am not an old fogey. I have embraced the internet from the days when it took its first baby steps beyond the world of cyber-geeks. I joined the very earliest reviewers on Amazon back when they sold only books and public reviewing made them unique. I jumped into discussion forums in a big way, and I'm sure I don't need to mention how I championed online publications long before they cut into print's bottom line. I would also say I do a lot of networking online, but not at networking sites. I blog and visit and comment on other blogs. I've gone through several different website formats. I advertise my editing business, CROSSxCHECKING online, but there's something about those social sites I just can't get into.

First there was Facebook, begun by college kids to help other college kids stay in touch with high school friends and meet new people. It began just around the time my daughter left for college and remained the purview of the younger set until about a year ago when it suddenly exploded with adults posting profiles and searching for old friends. MySpace is pretty much the same though my daughter tells me it originally attracted the younger or non-collegiate set. I hadn't quite gotten used to either of those when everyone, young and old, started using Twitter, where you can gab the day away by keeping it down to 140 characters.

I have a profile on all these sites by default. Some group, organization, or publication I was associated with posted a profile and in order to become a follower or friend I needed to join. Search my page and you will find, almost exclusively, messages about political causes I support where the organization sent me an e-mail where all I needed to do was click on the link for the message to appear on my site for my handful of followers to read. Or at least I think that's how it works. For all I know my Tweets may be going out to the entire world.

It really isn't that I have anything against these sites per se, but there are several things keeping me away. One is the learning curve. They never seem to provide simple instructions on how it works. Mostly you learn through trial and error. When the Rose & Thorn went on Facebook I sent out more requests than a needy kindergartener to become a friend thinking it somehow didn't take because I wasn't informed immediately. And Twitter, don't even get me started about how arcane that system is.

The main reason though is, I haven't quite figured out why I should. In the past months I've received messages from acquaintances or former acquaintances who want to be my friend on Facebook. Some of them have my e-mail or phone number, so, um, why do we need to go to some other site to communicate? As for those with whom I've lost touch, like maybe there was a reason? Now I'm reading all the time about how Twitter provides a great tool for writers. You can advertise your own work, and it's supposed to have taken the place of classifieds for finding jobs. But I can't figure out how my ads are going to stand out in the cacophony, and as for the search end, that's another whole thing to figure out. I'm sure I could if I spent enough time, but, frankly, I don't know that I particularly want to. As a writer I already spend enough time I could otherwise use writing on Internet activities someone has convinced me are necessary like, yes, blogging and maintaining my website, and chatting in forums.

But there's a side of me that feels a little guilty about this. Am I falling behind? Have I really made a  reasoned decision or am I just afraid of the unknown? Is shunning Tweets the middle-aged equivalent of my Mom shunning e-mail? Am I turning into a curmudgeon or simply trying to make better use of my time?

So, what do you think?

Stop! Do You Really Want to Submit There?

You are going through a dry spell. It has been months, maybe even over a year since your last submission was accepted. You've been circulating the same two––three––five––stories all that time. You started with the journals everyone dreams about. You've worked down to the ones where you thought you had a fighting chance, and nothing––nada-–bupkiss.

These are the times that try writers' souls and when you need to exercise the most self control. You have reached the point where you want your work to appear somewhere––anywhere––someone can read it.

There's the site you found last weekend that is nothing more than a webpage with guidelines telling how they encourage new and emerging writers and are reading for their first issue to appear this winter. They are looking for "quality work." Who isn't? You have no idea who will be reading your work, what the website will look like when it's complete, or what style of work they will publish.

Then there's the online journal that did put out one issue and promises the next issue is coming as soon as they have enough submissions. That was a year ago last spring.

Last week you found a journal that has actually published several issues. They claim to want only your best writing but everything in it reads like a third grader's essay on "How I Spent My Summer Vacation."

So how low are you willing to go to get published? It is something worth thinking about.

There is nothing wrong with submitting to brand new publications that haven't yet put out a first issue. This is one way to improve your chances of acceptance, and if the publication develops a good reputation it will make a good future credit. On the other hand, if everything surrounding your work is junk, you have ruined your chances of submitting that piece elsewhere, and the credit is not one you'll want to tout.

Use your common sense when considering any new publication. I submitted for the inaugural issue of Sotto Voce, but they already had an attractive site, an impressive staff, and a sophisticated online submissions system. Oh, and they paid, which is always a good sign of staying power. When a website shows nothing but some guidelines and you suspect the "we" is really an "I" wait until they've published a few issues before submitting.

The same goes ten times over for journals without a regular publication schedule. While I am a huge supporter of online journals, the fact is anyone can start one. What could be more painful than having a journal publish your work and then disappear into cyberspace? When an editor appears to publish whenever he gets around to it, someday he won't.

Finally, and this is the toughest one, there are those journals where it looks like you'd have a good chance of getting published, but mainly because the writing simply isn't very high calibre. Is there really any point in publishing in a journal where all you have to do is spell correctly––and sometimes not even that––to get in?

When you've gone through a long dry spell, you may find yourself eventually submitting anywhere and everywhere, but think carefully. Do you know anything about the journal? Will the journal last or will it disappear? If your work does appear in that journal, would you want to send your friends and writing colleagues over there to read it? If not, then don't submit there. Instead, keep revising and if you run out of places to send an old piece, write something new and fresh. Sometimes just being published isn't  enough.

The Writing Sweat Shoppe

At the end of an earlier post about submission fees I mentioned a site that claimed to send you writing assignments for which you'd be paid a minimum of $150, but they first required a $20 deposit. That was an obvious scam, but today I came across something legit, but almost as bad––a site I'll call "The Writing Sweat Shoppe". 

I found the ad in a respected newsletter that advertises only paying markets. I have no quarrel with the newsletter as I know from my time at The Rose & Thorn, you can't investigate every advertiser. That's why newsletters and writing magazines always include a disclaimer telling you to use caution. Besides, this was a paying market, but there's pay and then there's pay.

First, some explanation. I think I am every bit as good––in fact probably better––at writing nonfiction articles and opinion pieces as I am at fiction. My first editing job was craft articles, and what I didn't already know about article writing I learned from the excellent writer and editor I worked under. However, with the exception of The Philadelphia Inquirer I don't have really valuable published clips because I hate researching markets and sending query letters. It's one thing to read literary journals to find a match for your work, it's another to slog through Fence Post Manufacturers of America. The majority of my clips are on pay-per-click sites that, while they may demonstrate my writing ability, don't count for much in the scheme of things.

That being the case, my interest was piqued by an ad for a site that assigned contract work. The writing jobs ranged from topics needing to be researched and written to putting completed research in readable form. You could take on as much or as little work as you liked. Most of it was ghostwriting, but that didn't concern me. Ghostwriting is a legitimate business, and while my name wouldn't appear on the article, I wasn't looking for name recognition, just some income to support my expensive fiction habit. The company owner offered "if your writing is good, I'll write a letter of recommendation."

That "if" should have raised my antennae. How could they run a ghost writing service with bad writers? Instead, I sent an e-mail expressing my interest. The reply came back immediately, asking me to return the attached nondisclosure agreement on any information I might be writing about and include two writing samples.

Worrying that my pay-per-click samples might not be good enough, and refusing to get my hopes up, I waited until I had some time to carefully choose the pieces I thought best illustrated my writing and research capabilities and e-mailed them with the agreement (which I read carefully to ensure it put me under no obligation and required no sensitive information), then settled in for a long wait or perhaps no reply all. After that I trekked to the mailbox to post the required extra hardcopy of the agreement calculating, along the way, how many articles I could write in a week and how much I'd make at what I assumed must be a minimum of $50 per piece.

To my chagrin a reply awaited me on my return. The owner was ready to take me on (had this person even read my clips?), if I was satisfied with the rates––$3.00 for 375 words and $6.00 for 650 words and as much work as I wanted to take on.

I was and remain dumbfounded. Needless to say, I turned it down. Considering even my blog posts often take more than an hour to write, what kind of hourly rate could I make at that scale? True, my pay-per-click articles pay a pittance, but they are topics I chose to write about, and I have the byline, which, I might add, has paid off handsomely from time to time with requests for re-prints. That couldn't happen here. This is mostly ghostwriting.

What really boggles my mind is knowing there are people out there who will take this on. They are so desperate to have their writing accepted, even if they can't claim it, or to receive some kind of pay for which they can now officially call themselves "writers" that they will jump at the chance.  Of course, one has to wonder how much this contractor gets paid on her end for these articles––ten times at the least, I'd imagine, or it wouldn't be worth it. She sounded pretty desperate to add more writers, so if no one accepted her offer, she'd have to turn over more of her take. Sadly, I'm going to guess she'll fill all the slots plus have some writers in the wings she can call on later.

Then again, we should be glad she wasn't offering the work for free, 'cuz I bet she'd get some people to do that too.

Researching an Article: Dig a Little Deeper

No matter how many times I use it, I'm still in awe at the ease of doing research on the Internet. At the same time, the phrase "dig a little deeper" has taken on a new more literal meaning in addition to the figurative one.

Every time I look up a statistic to back up a point in an article or a fact that will add realism to a piece of fiction, like the day of the week Christmas fell on in 1875, I think how, just a few years ago, I'd have to visit libraries and archives, and possibly weed through nausea inducing microfiche. That hands-on experience can still be fun when researching a scholarly paper or a novel, but for a blog post or a short story, it is so much more efficient having the information just a click away. And the search keeps getting easier. No longer do we need to leave out articles and add + or - between words. Looking for a study to quote for a post on my new healthcare reform blog (shameless plug inserted), I typed in "statistics on uninsured by age" and found a wealth of listings apropos to the subject.

However, that embarrassment of riches can also be a problem as the arcane workings of SEO often cause articles about articles quoting statistics to rise to the top while the actual study or poll they are quoting shows up somewhere on page 3. Unfortunately, in doing research, many don't bother to dig down that far.

There are many reasons we often stop short of the original source when researching. Aside from sheer laziness––which can account for a good bit of it––less savvy researches can mistake top billing in search engines for a badge of authority––like Wikipedia, the site I love to hate. It is also very tempting to pick an article that supports the point of view we are espousing with our own article and rely on their citation of the "facts." Of course, those writers may be quoting the parts of the study that support their view and ignoring significant information from that same study or poll that either doesn't support them or isn't quite so sensational. Secondary and tertiary sources may also slant information. Notice how the same statistics with different modifyers can make contrasting points.

"As many as 1 in 5 abortions is performed on unwed mothers."

"Only 1 in 5 abortions is performed on unwed mothers."

(Note:These are totally fabricated statistics I made up just as an example.)

With information literally at our fingertips these days, one can hardly complain about having to sift through one or two pages of listings or perusing a few short articles, many of which could be eliminated from the first line. There's a lot of misinformation and distorted facts out there, both in blogs and forums and even in the mainstream media, but why join the crowd, when it is so easy to just dig a little deeper.