Robert's Rules of Writing #27: Let It Marinate

[Rule quoted from Robert's Rules of Writing: 101 Unconventional Lessons Every Writer Needs to Know by Robert Masello (Writer's Digest Books, 2005). See my original post for the rules of this discussion.]

Masello's next two rules have to do with the question of when a manuscript is ready to go out the door. We'll tackle them one at a time.

In his short essay on letting a manuscript marinate, Masello doesn't mean that you should soak your manuscript in a nice sauce or marinade after you're done writing it. (Yum!) Instead, he advocates waiting for a short time before sending your manuscript out into the world as a submission. Once a work is finished, a writer tends to be eager to see it go out the door, but Masello warns that problems might ensue.

Why? Because perhaps the manuscript still isn't completely ready. He says that if you put aside the manuscript and avoid reading it, when you come back to it you will often find problems with the text because you were too close to the work as you were writing it. Approaching the work with a pair of fresh eyes will allow you to see flaws that you might have missed before.

How long should you let your work marinate? Masello suggests a day or two for shorter pieces and perhaps a week or two for longer works.

Personally, I tend to agree with Masello that it's always good to have a pair of fresh eyes read over any manuscript. But there are times when a deadline might prevent you from waiting that day or two that Masello advises. In situations like that, I tend to rely on a second reader to look over my work and make sure I haven't committed any serious blunders. (Frequent readers know that I'm referring to gnomi here, who even reads almost all my blog posts before I post them.) After all, the freshest pair of eyes is someone else's.

Robert's Rules of Writing #28: Overcome Your Separation Anxiety

[Rule quoted from Robert's Rules of Writing: 101 Unconventional Lessons Every Writer Needs to Know by Robert Masello (Writer's Digest Books, 2005). See my original post for the rules of this discussion.]

I've posted these two rules one right after the other because of the way they go together. In his previous rule, Masello advises writers to let a manuscript sit for a day or two (or longer) before sending it out. But with this rule, Masello warns about the flip side, about writers who hold onto their work too long. Oddly enough, in this particular essay he doesn't discuss writers who revise their work over and over, although he does mention that type of writer elsewhere. Here he just mentions the phenomenon of a writer who has completed a manuscript and is just letting it sit in the house, even if editors are asking to see it.

Why does this separation anxiety exist? Masello suggests that the culprit might be perfectionism or a fear of rejection, but in the end it doesn't matter. If the manuscript doesn't get sent out, there's no way it can sell and eventually be published. And if the manuscript is timely, it's possible someone else will get to the idea and publish their own version before you do.

Although Masello doesn't focus here on perfectionism and fear of rejection, those are the two aspects of this rule that I'd like to discuss briefly. At times, I'm guilty of both. I constantly worry that the stories I send out aren't as good as they could be and that if I only had more time, I could make them even better. Well, that may be true, but the fact is that I don't always have the time. And if the story is of publishable quality and needs to meet a deadline, it's far more important to meet the deadline than to make the story perfect. There's an old quote that is attributed to Leonardo da Vinci -- "Art is never finished, only abandoned." Almost every writer I've discussed this quote with tends to understand what it's about.

As for fear of rejection, well, I understand that one too. Every rejection comes with emotional baggage, the worry that maybe you're no longer any good at writing, or perhaps you were never any good at it in the first place. But there's another famous quote, this one attributed to Robert A. Heinlein, that takes on rejection. One of Heinlein's five rules of writing is that you must keep a work on the market until it is sold. One way I've done that is by keeping a new copy of every submission ready to go the instant the previous one comes back as a rejection. That way, you have no time to marinate in your anxiety, and you really do end up seeing rejection as just part of the process.

Karp/Behar Wedding

I'm feeling exhausted today because yesterday I attended the wedding of one of my cousins.

Like many people, I have a large extended family whom I don't see very often. To set the picture for anyone who's interested: My father Joel had one brother, Sam, and two sisters, Debby and Miriam. Debby married Rabbi Abraham J. Karp (my uncle Avram) and had two sons, Hillel and David, both of whom are somewhat older than I am. Hillel married Arlene, and David married Barbara. The wedding yesterday was of Hillel's oldest son Joshua Yale Karp and Rona Susan Behar, whom he met in college and who grew up in Sharon, Massachusetts. Because of that proximity, the wedding was held at Temple Emanuel in Newton, meaning that it was very easy for Nomi and me to attend.

Now, I have to admit that I don't know Joshua very well; I can't even recall the last time I saw him, although I'm sure we must have met at some point. But a family wedding is a simcha, and the last time I saw most of these family members was at the funeral of my uncle Avram in 2003. To note the blindingly obvious, weddings are more enjoyable than funerals, so I really wanted to make a point of attending.

One of the things I delighted in was finding out about the lives of my first cousins, once removed. Joshua has a younger brother Aaron and younger sister Rachel. Aaron is majoring in Urban Studies at Columbia, and we got to talking about New York City history. Rachel will be starting at Columbia next year. I also met David and Barbara's daughter Beth, who has been studying musical composition, which fascinates me. (I apologize to any cousins I fail to remember; as I kept joking during the wedding, I really could have used a scorecard with photographs.)

I also had a great time chatting with two of Joshua's college friends, Andy Lebwohl and Steven Branco. What prompted the conversations was that I saw Andy carrying a copy of the Crisis on Infinite Earths trade paperback. I couldn't let that pass, so I introduced myself, and we started to talk all about comic books and the current Infinite Crisis. His friend Steven isn't a comic book reader, but is an aficionado of the TV show 24, so that's what we talked about.

In fact, we managed to make a shidduch because of that. One of the older guests, a Mr. Stein, had missed last week's episode, and Steven might still have access to it on a friend's TiVo. So I introduced them, and if all goes well, Mr. Stein will get a copy of the episode so he can stay on track.

But back to family. Nomi and I ended up seated at what we decided was a "cousins" table. We met brothers Ari Rabinowitz and David Rabinowitz, whose mother was the sister of my grandfather Rabbi Abraham Burstein. (I think.) Ari is a Vice President at Bear Stearns, David does a lot of volunteer work in Washington DC and in Oregon, and their middle brother Moshe (who was not there) is a set builder on Long Island. We also met cousins of Arlene's, Seth Alper & Roberta Isberg and their son. They are local and they seemed very familiar, and I wish I knew if we had met them before. Lydia Feldman was also at the table, and Freda Alper, and Naomi Alper, who are all cousins of Arlene's. (I think.)

As for the bride, it turned out that we had a connection to her as well. Back in 1993, I taught her brother Ari, who was in my Center for Talented Youth (CTY) Astronomy class in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. And it so happens that we ran into Ari at a shabbas lunch about a year ago.

All in all, it was a joyous wedding. I'm very glad that we were invited, and I wish Joshua & Rona many years of happiness together. I also hope that my cousins do get in touch with me soon, even if it's just to share their contact information.