Everyone Can Do More

The title of this post comes from a recent post by Blake Butler that got me to thinking.  Within this post, Blake offers many ideas of how each of us within the literary community could, as noted, be doing more:

"(1) When you read something you like, in any form, write the author and tell them. You don't have to gush or take forever. Just tell them you saw it, you read it, you liked it. It's a supportive feeling. It's better than not saying anything.

(2) Write reviews of books you like. Short review/long review, whatever. It's not that hard. It takes a little work to think about it clearly, but what goes around comes around. You can't expect to be recognized for your work if you aren't recognizing others for their work. Open the doors.

(3) Interview writers. New writers or well known writers. You like somebody's work a lot? Ask to do an interview with them. It doesn't take a ton of effort. Write up some questions. Let them talk. Spread the word. Talk. Say. Get. Eat.

...

(4) If you have free time, start an online journal. Start a blog, a review, an anything. If you don't know how I'll help you. Say stuff. Mean what you say.

(5) If you have a journal already, respond faster. Pay attention to your inbox. When someone asks a question that feels dumb or unnecessary maybe, answer it anyway. Don't be a fuck. Yeah, we're all busy. Yeah, things take time. Work to take less time. It's okay to move forward at a wicked pace. (And yes, as an editor, I too struggle to adhere to this advice, but I struggle at least, everyone struggles, but you can always struggle more. I am so tired of seeing journals with 200+ days response time, why do you even exist? Does it really take that long to like something? People should stop sending to these places. Seriously. Just stop sending.

Yeah I know the flood comes strong. Stand in the flood. (Me too.))

Seriously, Conjunctions/Ninth Letter/Subtropics: these 3 journals get just as much work coming in as anybody, and they all respond often in less than a month.

To everyone: Push the fucking envelope even harder than you do. Be an open node.

BE AN OPEN NODE.

I am amazed sometimes by people who want to be writers and yet seem to know little to nothing about even the more popular journals, who don't read that actively, who don't buy literary magazines hardly ever but send out their own work constantly, who don't buy even their friends work, who etc etc. Then they want to turn around and call anyone with any stripe of 'success' a 'secret handshake motherfucker' or 'in crowd' or anything like that.

There are people who don't even answer their emails when they get those 'I like your work' mails, which really blows my mind some. You're just typing into a keyboard like the rest of us. Don't be Richard Ford spitting on Colson Whitehead. Don't be a turd person.

Getting involved is being involved, and if you aren't actively promoting others, I don't know why in hell you'd think anyone would ever want to read or support you."

My own thoughts after the jump.

I find it difficult to quibble with any single thing Blake has said.  He's doing and saying things I've been doing and saying for over a decade now and I think the only reason I feel the need to post his words here is because I think our blogs, while certainly having some crossover, also reach slightly different audiences, and his words are important enough that whatever audience I have that he doesn't needs to read what Blake wrote.

Simply going through point by point.  Number 1 - send a note to an author.  It's not hard.  Not at all.  Especially in these days of FaceBook and MySpace, etc.  I began doing this back in the late 80's, and to be honest I don't remember if that's before or after Uncle Al created the internet, but even if it was after, I had no clue how to use it.  I found the addresses of the universities some of my favorite authors taught at via reference books in the library.  I recall sending letters to folks such as Greg Johnson, Peter LaSalle, TC Boyle, and Pinckney Benedict back when their first or second books (well, probably fifth in Boyle's case) had come out.  Partially to let them know I had enjoyed their work, and partially to find out where I might find more. 

On the flip side, as one who doesn't write, I can say it's always a cool feeling when somebody sends me a note about the EWN, or nowadays about Dzanc, and so, I imagine it's the same as an author when one of the many faceless, nameless readers out there attaches their name.

2 - Reviews.  All I'm going to say is that if a guy with a BS in Statistics, who was working inspecting car parts for quality malfunctions can get a decent reputation for his opinions and excitement about literature, well, those of you with MFA's and novels and poems published?

3 - Interviews.  Like Blake said, it's not a lot of work.  For crying out loud, they're writers.  You yell "Set!" when you lob that ball up in the air and let them spike it home.  Do so about a dozen times and you've got yourself some good reading, and little more exposure for a writer you obviously believe deserves more.

4.  Seeing as Blake has started a blog, started an online journal, is moving into print journals, all the while writing an unbelievable amount of fiction, I'd say if he's offering to help you get started, you're going to the right place.

5.  Some advice I'm taking to heart when it comes to Dzanc.

Open Node
Wow does the first and third paragraph of this point make absolute sense to me.  As one who doesn't write, doesn't send out submissions, (or feel the pain of rejection), I've been amazed, if not completely stunned, over the past decade when talking to, or reading posts by, authors that were so obviously out of the loop. 

Maybe I'm a bit more obsessive about things than most, at least those things that I'm interested in.  In 2005, I really became interested in literary journals.  I had been before, but not to the level I hit that year.  I began interviewing editors of said journals.  85 of them before the year was over.  It has to be the most common complaint registered from them - the submission to subscription ratio, and the percentage of submissions that come from people that could NOT have ever looked at a copy, or researched the website at all (novel excerpts to all-poetry journals for instance).

And readings.  Why would you ever expect a crowd to show up when you come back to your hometown to read from your first book if you've attended a grand total of 2 readings over the last five years?  Why will your friends buy your book and suggest it to their friends if you've never supported them?  Maybe they will simply because they treat friendship on a different level than you, but if there's any truth to the idea of karma, well, I'd heartily suggest being an open node.

I can honestly say that following Blake's suggestions, albeit a decade before he posted them, has been the greatest thing I've ever done in my life that doesn't have to do with my children.  While they still take a certain precedence (though they might argue with me that they do at times) in my life - it's the acting out of these 6 ideas of Blake's through the 2000's that has led to me finding my closest friends in the world, to finding hundreds of others that I consider friends as well, that has led to me doing what I do 7 days a week 15 to 20 hours a day.  Maybe I have become an 'in crowd secret handshake motherfucker,' but I doubt it.  I still see myself as that statistics guy interested in the literary world that's amazed anybody stops by here (except for those of you googling 'secret handshake motherfucker') regularly.

Comments

[jessica]

Dan, thanks for posting this; it's the little shove I needed, particularly re: telling someone you like their work (I love it on the rare moments when people tell me that, so why not spread the love?) and the "secret handshake..." comment is just smart.

Rock on.

[Matt Bell]

A lot of this is probably going to be repeated at my own site, but I started writing it here in the comments so I wanted to post it here too:

I know that for myself, I started getting published when I started sending stories only to magazines I read and loved and wanted to be a part of instead of just the magazines with the big reputations. Guess what? The magazines I liked the best were also the places that were likely to be publishing the kind of work I wrote, and sure enough, I started getting published on a much regular basis.

One of the best things that helped me was--and here's another of the above points--I started doing literary magazine and book reviews. I was in Hobart #5--which is only relevant to show that I didn't do this to get published--but I took Hobart #6 and wrote a review of every single story and essay on my blog. Besides trying to promote a magazine I love reading, it also gave me an opportunity to really dive into how a particular magazine is put together, what the editor likes and doesn't like, etc.

I also took that opportunity to try and e-mail as many of the writers in the issue as I could find, or to link to their websites if the had one. I met several of the writers this way, and stayed in some sort of contact over the years, as well as starting to look for their work in other magazines.

Which brings me to my last point, I guess. If reading and reviewing and subscribing made me a more successful writer, then reaching out and saying hi to writers I admired--and having strangers do the same to me--has made me a happier writer. It is a lonely, solitary thing to be a writer, especially for someone who started out living in a rural community far removed from any literary "scene," and there was a long time where the only people I knew who read literary fiction or wanted to write it were people I'd met on the internet. I'm lucky now to live in a place where there's lots of people trying to make a career in the writing world (okay, there's like twelve, but to me, that's a lot more than I had before), and it's pretty amazing. It's still worth pointing out that almost all of the "real world" relationships I have with Ann Arbor's writers and editors started on the Internet or through submitting and publishing. Everyone I know in real life here I had a preexisting relationship based on reaching out, saying hi, admiring someone's work or asking to be considered. The community you have is the one you make for yourself, and the more you expand your circle, the better off you'll be.

[Cliff Garstang]

It all boils down to "Get the Word Out!"

I occasionally get email from writers whose work I mention on my blog. I'm glad when they see it and appreciate it, and I'm glad they let me know!

[barry]

forget uncle al, where is dan wickett's nobel prize?

[Laura van den Berg]

I totally agree. I'm perpetually baffled by people who want the community to love them, but aren't really willing to do expend energy doing things that don't directly benefit them/their careers. There's a discussion about Blake's post going on at the Ploughshares blog too: http://pshares.blogspot.com.

[Blake]

awesome Dan, thank you for bringing this even further. as I've told you before, EWN and Dzanc is a great inspiration and model for how with focused effort over time you can accomplish great things. Dzanc is the future, and I believe that.

excellent point, too, Matt, about these activities, if not necessarily making you a more 'successful' writer, then definitely at least making you happier. at this point I really don't know what I would do without the writing friends I have made online, they fuel me in a way I never had before I started blogging, contacting people etc. If nothing else, it is fuel.

[Pamela]

This is great, Dan. Words I'll try harder to live up to.

[ed]

This is very good advice. And I think it's applicable to what we're seeing with a lot of people who have earned an artistic reputation online. This interesting NY Times article on Girl Talk also relates:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/20/magazine/20wwln-consumed-t.html?_r=1&ref=magazine&oref=slogin

[Susan Olson Lawson]

Bravo! And ditto Cliff Garstang's Nobel nomination.

[Laura Benedict]

Kick-ass post, Dan, as usual. And I'm thrilled to have gotten a chance to check out Blake's blog.

As an aside--I'm ALWAYS happy to have writers--lit or genre--guest blog or interview at my Notes From The Handbasket blog. Especially debuters. It's all about getting folks' names out there!

[Joseph Levens]

I think this is good, but the fact is that there are many, many more people out there that want to be the next great writer, than there are people interested in simply reading good literary stories on a consistent basis. This is evident in the subscriber/submitter ratio many editors complain about, and how about this one: My literary mag offers a $100 prize for 50 words of comments on a story, per quarter. In the last two quarters, the ratio of comments to submitted stories was about 1:100! In addition to getting the word out, which largely revolves around writers, we need to think of ways of getting people to read more. I think it is becoming ever harder with all the other mediums and things one can do these days.

[Cliff Garstang]

Hey, Susan, I think that was Barry's nomination--I'm not on the committee--but, what the heck: I third the nomination.

[Rosanne Griffeth]

I totally wanted to be one of those secret handshake motherfuckers but my nodes were too open. All of this makes perfect sense--and being kindly and literate to those who aren't writers opens up more opportunities to the literary community.

Thanks for mentioning me in your piece about Keyhole. Peter is a great guy and I'm real proud he accepted some of my work.