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  • Bucket List Visit

    Bucket List Visit

    We went on a trip to Wisconsin for summer vacation and as a side trip, we stopped in Madison and visited a former professor of mine from when I was at Mississippi State University; he’s now at University of Wisconsin-Madison. We haven’t seen each other in thirty years, but we’ve stayed in touch on and off through that time (basically the whole time the Internet was being invented around us).

    We had a great visit, and at the end of it, he said something that will stick with me, I think. He said he admired my persistence and always had.

    That will keep me going for a while.

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  • New Notebook

    New Notebook

    I bought a fancy pink suede blank lined notebook today at a Renaissance fair this weekend. Not sure I will ever write in it, but I might. You never know.

    (I can hear all the blank notebooks already stashed in my office desks mocking me from afar. You? Write? Ha!)

    I’m going to, though. Just you hide and watch.

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  • The Question of Social Media

    The Question of Social Media

    Let me preface this post by saying–I love blogging. The immediacy, the honesty I can muster up, the value of my ability to produce really clean copy on a rough draft–it all makes me a natural blogger.

    Not so much with other social media–especially in a post-literate age.

    I once had to do a film project for a class ages ago in my journalism program. We did a TV news story. I only passed it through the efforts of my partner on the project; I was the on-air talent because of my public speaking skills, and she did the technical work–and word got back to me that the professor had commented that I had “a face made for radio” the first time he viewed it.

    He wasn’t wrong. I’m not conventionally attractive–the word I used to get was “handsome” rather than “pretty”. I had accepted that about myself and knew I wouldn’t make it a day in TV. But the comment still stung.

    So I don’t do TikTok. Or Bookstagram or Facebook reels.

    I do have Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/jdlwhitehead/), Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/julie.whitehead.146), Twitter (https://twitter.com/julielwhitehea1), LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/julie-liddell-whitehead-716a259b/), Mastodon (https://writing.exchange/@JulieLiddellWhitehead), and now Pinterest (https://www.pinterest.com/julieliddellwhitehead/).

    But I’m at a bit of an impasse as to how to make them work in my favor. Most of my followers are from Twitter, but of course so many people have left that platform that it isn’t as good a resource as it used to be.

    So if anyone else is still trying to figure out how to grow their social media program, I think we may be asking the wrong question–how does publishing need to restructure itself so that social media reach is not the important thing, but writing is? I think that’s the question to ask.

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  • Swap

    Swap

    My writing buddy Cheryl sent me back her read of Hurricane Baby: Stories, and her read was much more favorable that I thought it might be. She noted a very few places in the manuscript where she lost track/got tripped up in the narrative, and she thought I could actually cut some places where I was describing actions that didn’t necessarily move the plot forwards–she urged me to focus on the action throughout, which was a nice surprise. She said she really, really loved it, and her favorite character was Tommy Hebert, the one I turned from a peripheral character to a major one –she said his character arc really held her attention.

    So now I think I know what to do with it in the next stage of revision, which I am probably going to take up next year (if it doesn’t get picked up by someone before that) after I draft my new project I want to work on. I am going to make each story as individually strong as I can and start sending them out to see if I can publish them in high-profile places and get them some attention. We will see what happens.

    Some of the items she mentioned I can fix now before it goes out to anyone else this year–they’ll be quick. And I need to finish reading and reacting to her manuscript before the end of the month. So i am gong to look for some time to finish that before May 30.

    i am very glad I did this new swap. I feel more confident about the manuscript’ strengths and know where to fix the weaknesses. So good. Onward and upward!

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  • Genius Move

    Genius Move

    Just got off Facebook with a solid plan to write this late summer and fall.

    A writer buddy of mine and I were talking about writing, and I said I was going to start on my next short story collection in mid-August once my kid goes off to college and need something to distract me from the empty nest.

    I remembered how a lot of people talked since the pandemic about doing writing “sprints” where you and others meet over Zoom and write for a while together then compare notes when you finish the sprints. So she and I agreed to start meeting on Facebook at 6:30 p.m. three times a week, and each write for an hour, then compare notes.

    So I feel good about what I’m going to do. I’m going to only write an hour a day, three times a week, and write a very rough draft.

    I’m now aware that I’ve got to give up the notion of I’m putting down something magical right as it flows from the pen. I need to just get the story out. I have a good outline, a throughline, and lots and lots of details to squeeze in. I’m looking forward to it. Really. 🙂

    Accountability is really good for me. How do you feel about writing partners, workshop partners, accountability, and deadlnes?

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  • Numbers Update

    Numbers Update

    So it’s been a few months, and i thought I would update my query numbers.

    Presses queried–53

    Rejections–33

    Submissions still outstanding–20

    Presses left to send to–8

    I am still hopeful. But I have a few backup plans in place now, so we will see what happens. I went ahead and sent it off to my workshop mate Cheryl to see what she will say about it. And I will spend time reading her work and see how I may be able to help her improve her new novel project.

    We will see what happens. Some really nice places still have the manuscript, so I will see what develops. I will send to a few places tomorrow that open on May 1. So that is the next step. Wish me well! Happy writing!

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  • Ready to Swap Again

    Ready to Swap Again

    I’m on the verge of doing another swap of Hurricane Baby with another writer, this time Cheryl Pappas, who I met through the workshop I attended last summer. She is writing her first novel even as we speak, so I will be beta reading that for her, and she will be reading Hurricane Baby.

    I’m not sure what I can actually accomplish by having it read again and revising it again. I may can make it better so it gets accepted at one the eight places left on my list where I haven’t yet sent it. Which is a heck of a tiny margin of error or success, depending on how you look at it.

    Or I may can make it better and send it around again in 2030.

    That looks like a damn desperate concept when I say it that way.

    Or her feedback may convince me to shelve it altogether and start over with my new story idea and just work on that for a while.

    Or I may can take the feedback, make each story the best it can be, and try to sell the individual stories around to see if I can get one or three picked up by journals to have a better chance once I start sending it around again.

    That sounds more hopeful than giving up. Or simply waiting around after revising.

    I guess the moral is: Keep fighting for your work. Even if it means a strategic retreat from time to time. The fight IS the work in that case. So that’s what I’m doing: Fighting.

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  • No Updates

    No Updates

    Not quite true. One more rejection. But nothing else. Sigh.

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  • Encouragement

    Encouragement

    Well, I got the nicest rejection letter I believe ever written in the history of the world on Monday.

    Very clear that they were not going to be able to publish, but also told me why: short- story collections are a hard sell in the best of environments, that this editor was unsure that Hurricane Baby (based on a reading of the first four stories) would be “something greater than the sum of its parts”; and that he didn’t feel he had enough time with each character in each individual story.

    But in the letter, he also complimented me on my writing skills, my ability to portray these emotional moments in the characters’ lives, and my ambition in taking on such a topic of import and delivering exactly what I promised in my cover letter: the mental and physical toll Hurricane Katrina took on those experiencing it.

    This letter is the kind of rejection you want–kind, respectful, and honest.

    Thank you so much, sir. Hats off to you for keeping my dignity and self-worth intact. May your tribe increase.

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  • And Now For Something Completely Different

    And Now For Something Completely Different

    I am just now hearing about the death last Thursday of one of America’s premier political satirists, Mark Russell, at the age of ninety.

    My first thought was, “I thought he was already dead!”

    But no. He actually lived to cover the 2016 presidential election, after which he retired. (Wouldn’t you? Satire cannot beat Donald Trump running for and winning the US Presidency.)

    You may not remember him at all. He did a regular show on PBS, taking what had been a lounge act with musical political parodies of songs to the network after the fall of the Nixon administration in the 70s.

    Since PBS was one of the three channels we could pick up regularly out in the country where I grew up, I watched a lot of him at night on the tiny black and white TV in my room. My parents believed that whatever appeared on PBS was educational and let me watch whatever I wanted to on PBS.

    Now, fast forward to the start of my freelance career in 2000. I read a flyer online about an arts series at little ol’ Meridian Community College and there it was in black and white–Mark Russell was coming to do a show.

    And I thought exactly the same thing I said above. “I thought he was dead already!”

    So I asked one of my editors if I could do a story on him appearing and interview him. She said “Sure!” (Probably laughed like a hyena after she got off the phone. I was fangirling big-time.)

    So I did have enough sense to call the people putting on the arts series and tell them I would like to speak with him for the story. So they said they would forward my request and number to his people.

    His people called and set up the day he could talk.

    A few days later, I pick up the phone after it rings. “Hi, Julie! It’s Mark Russell. Is this a good time to talk?” I heard.

    Oh, yessir, it is!

    We probably talked for twenty minutes, with him tossing off bon mots and me taking notes like aboslute mad. I was thinking, “I have ARRIVED! NOTHING in my professional career will top THIS MOMENT!”

    And you know what, I wasn’t far wrong.

    I still remember that kind man returning my overture and gifting me with grace when I was as green at this business as a Granny Smith apple.

    But I learned dreams can come true. What dreams are you waiting for to come true?

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