I am so looking forward to meeting Erica Bauermeister in my old stomping grounds, Bellingham, Washington, where we are both speaking at the Chuckanut Writers Conference from June 22nd – 23rd. Ooo, I can’t wait to go to Village Books and order the Colophon Café’s amazing chocolate cake with the big chocolate chips! Maybe Erica will join me there.
Who’s coming to the conference? I’d love to see you there! (PS: Early-bird registration ends on the 15th!) In the meantime, please help me welcome Erica and her lovely novel here!
About Erica Bauermeister
Erica Bauermeister is the author of two bestselling novels, The School of Essential Ingredients and Joy For Beginners. Before she turned her mind to make-believe, she was the co-author of two non-fiction books: 500 Great Books by Women: A Reader’s Guide and Let’s Hear It For the Girls: 375 Great Books for Readers 2-14. Her third novel will be published in the winter of 2013. She lives in Seattle with her family.
About Joy For Beginners
At an intimate, festive dinner party in Seattle, six women gather to celebrate their friend Kate’s recovery from cancer. Wineglass in hand, Kate strikes a bargain with them. To celebrate her new lease on life, she’ll do the one thing that’s always terrified her: white-water rafting. But if she goes, all of them will also do something they always swore they’d never do-and Kate is going to choose their adventures. Shimmering with warmth, wit, and insight, Joy for Beginners is a celebration of life: unexpected, lyrical, and deeply satisfying.
The Very Short Interview
When did you know for sure that you were a writer and that writing would be a major energy focus in your life?
I read Tillie Olsen’s short story, “I Stand Here Ironing” in college and knew that was the kind of literature I wanted to write –intimate, character-driven work that looked at the “unimportant” things in life and made them beautiful. But I also knew I wasn’t mature enough yet to write that kind of book. It took until I was 43 for me to feel as if I had the life experience to attempt it – although I wrote and studied literature the whole time, to keep learning the craft.
Who has always been behind your writing career and who helped pull you up the ladder of success?
It really does take a village. My husband has supported me emotionally, and often financially, for thirty years. I had friends and sisters and a mother who read draft after draft and gave me the good, constructive criticism that makes you a better writer. I had the kind of human angels who show up just when you need the introduction to an agent or an editor, and go out of their way to help a stranger. I’ve had an extraordinary agent and great editors. I’ve worked hard, but I’ve had wonderful luck in the people who surround me.
What is the most frequent comment you hear about your book (or books) from readers? Tell us a little story about the response to your work.
The comment that always surprises and delights me, no matter how often I hear it is “I finished your book and then started rereading it again. I didn’t want to let it go.” I can imagine no higher compliment.
But one letter I particularly loved was from a 68 year-old woman. She wrote to say that she had read Claire’s chapter in The School of Essential Ingredients. When I wrote that story I wasn’t sure that anyone else would understand the feelings that Claire, a young mother, was experiencing, but this woman wrote to tell me about her relief that someone articulated what she had felt as a new mother, and that she had read it to her husband. “40 years later,” she wrote, “he finally understands.”
And Now, Your Turn
Now it’s your turn. You remember how this works right?
I ask you a question. You answer in the comments for your chance to win a book each day.
Please just respond once, even if you make a typo. 
Answer in the comments in 50-200 words (no less and no more to qualify to win one of today’s books). Please read the complete rules at least once!
Thanks for participating in the Writer Mama Every-Day-In-May Book Giveaway! I hope to see you here every day this month. Bring your friends!
Q: So here’s how I met Erica Bauermeister…I didn’t yet! I just saw that she was going to be at the same conference as me, liked the sound of her bio, liked the sound of her book, and invited her to join the giveaway. Easy-peasy because I didn’t make it complicated.
If she had said no, oh-well. Or not responded at all, as several folks didn’t, then it would have been her loss, in my opinion. I don’t take this stuff personally…anymore. Though I used to. And it’s not like I don’t take anything personally, but mostly, after much practice, many ups and downs, many acceptances and rejections and silences, I don’t take things nearly as personally as I used to.
How about you? Rejection? Silence? No reply? Do you take it personally? Do you get offended? Do you get bent out of shape? Do you harumph around like Eloise?
How about a positive response or an acceptance, is that personal?
Is it only personal if it’s positive and not personal if it’s negative? Tell the truth, now.
What do you take personally in this crazy writing/networking business? Spill it!
Comments on this entry are closed.
While rejection is always a disappointment, I’ve come to realize that there are many factors involved in whether a book/story/essay gets accepted. Personal taste factors in, as do other titles on a publisher’s list. It’s better to wait till you find a editor or agent who LOVES what you’re doing than to settle for a tepid response.
The same thing goes for readers. I feel a little bad when someone gives one of my books a one-star review on GoodReads or whatever, but I’ve also heard from readers who love my book(s) and those are the ones who count.
This is a really great reminder that I need to get moving, and put myself out there. I have a fear of rejection, so I have not made many requests. I once heard someone say that they set a number of rejections as a goal – if she was getting rejections, that meant she was making submissions. Acceptance was a bonus.
I try really hard not to take rejections or unresponsiveness personally, but I’m not always successful. Recently an editor for whom I’ve written regularly for more than a year failed to reply to 6 emails (spread across 3 months) and a voicemail. I was just about to write a “did I mess up? please forgive me” kind of email when I received (finally) a long, personal email from the editor assigning two pieces I’d pitched and telling me what’s going on in her life (at the magazine and with her kids and upcoming travel, etc). That was great reinforcement for me. Most of the time, it’s NOT personal.
I’m still developing a thick skin to cover up my hungry ego. Rejections aren’t as much of a big deal any more (heck, I’m happy to just get a response at all sometimes). But part of that is because I put them up against the positive responses I get. So I admit it, I feed my ego those positive responses and call them “personal” while trying to assume any rejection is for reasons beyond my control.
It’s great that you have Erica Bauermeister featured today. I loved The School of Essential Ingredients. And I think Erica should take my praise personally because her writing enthralled me. Like Erica I didn’t feel like I had any stories to tell until recently (with the same number of years of life experience she had).
Rejection sometimes comes as a relief. I try to see it as a check list – if an editor says “No thanks”, I’m free to send the piece elsewhere, maybe to someone who’s a better fit for me and my writing.
It can get frustrating, and it takes a lot of patience. But there are plenty of editors, writers, and readers, and they all have different tastes and preferences. It’s a matter of finding the right match for everyone involved.
I think the negatives are more personal than positives. We all need and want positives, they’re like candy- you take as many as you can carry. Negatives give you an opportunity to take a closer look at yourself and perhaps to improve. In my 30’s I would have been hurt, in my 40’s more likely offended, but now further along I take it in stride. I try to look at it objectively and learn from it. As my son once told about a negative teacher who screamed a lot-“She’s not my mommy, I don’t love her.” It’s the people closest to you who will make you pause, the rest are just passing through. My current outlook came with age, we can all use both the positives and the negatives as long as we love what we’re doing. I think we all write first for ourselves.
In the business of submitting works
for publication, or to contests, there is totally subjectivity in whether or
not something of mine gets accepted. This is one person’s judgment of a
particular writing of mine, on a particular day, not an acceptance or rejection
of me as a person. Am I pleased when a writing of mine is accepted? Of course!
Disappointed when it’s not? Sure. But I’ve
learned not to take rejection personally anymore. I’ve also learned to submit exclusively
to journals I actually read on a regular basis, and whose style matches mine,
thereby reducing the number of “rejections” I get, and now view them as
learning experiences, rather than crushing disappointments.
Rejection comes with the job of writing. It’s no different than being in sales. If you take it personally, you won’t last. These days I’m more on the rejecting rather than the receiving end because I’m interviewing PR students for a summer internship. They have to submit writing samples. Sometimes it takes me a few days to get back to them. And only one will get the position. The decision on who I’ll hire comes in part from evaluating their work, but also from a gut feeling. But just because I personally don’t see something in a candidate doesn’t mean it isn’t there.
Having a thick hide comes from experience and a deep confidence that your work is good. If one editor doesn’t appreciate your talent, you simply have to find one who does.
In a previous career, I contacted another business owner to introduce myself and explain what I had to offer and how it might be of service to his clients. He questioned the need for anyone to seek my services and was sure no one would be willing to pay for my classes. After I hung up, feeling small and hopeless, I took a breath and thought, wow, this guy is having a lot of problems with his business and he has nothing to do with me! I shook off all of his negativity and moved on. I hope that I can maintain that optimism as I send my writing out into the world.
Rejection is never easy and I take it very personally. To lessen the sting, I try to put myself into the other person’s shoes. I’m a tiny player on their stage. Silence is perhaps the hardest type of rejection. It leaves so much room for me to project, imagine, and fret that I can fill a whole auditorium of silence with dark thoughts.
Rejection and writing go together like peas and carrots; I have to accept one with grace to have the other. I tend not to let the negative (rejection,
silence, lack of reply) get me down, but then I never have. Life is too damn
short. I do go back in and look at what I’ve written with a fresh set of eyes,
and see if I can improve upon what I have written, to get a bite (feedback) or,
better yet, published. Then I’m on to something else…
I don’t think I take rejection so personally. What I DO tend to take personlly and get really annoyed about is a lack of response. I wrote a query to magazine once, got a positive response to send the article, which I did in a very timely manner. I never heard a thing! I emailed a couple times very politely asking for an update and never heard a word. To me, that is so unprofessional that it drives me nuts! At least tell me you didn’t like it! Thta’s my .02 worth. 🙂
On more than one
occasion, I’ve written a project or a contact off after failing to connect or
not hearing back and then heard back out of the blue. Still I am probably
better at reminding friends not to take silence or a slow response personally
than I am at taking that advice myself.
Okay, I admit I feel dejected when I don’t get a response to a follow-up. Negative isn’t fun, but when I submit and do a follow-up, anything would be better than silence. If I’m just submitting and I don’t receive any word, that doesn’t bug me. It’s soley the follow-up.I tend to beat myself up, so silence makes me feel like I’m not even worth an automated “No Thanks.” Then I get frazzled and whatever piece I’m working on gets revised and rewritten a few dozen or so times.
Positive responses, I guess I do take personally. I get excited and have more confidence, so I must be taking it personally…in a good way, obviously.
I tend to conflate assumptions with things that are
personal. When an editor assumes that a piece of my writing is likely to be “disappointing”
(to quote from an email I once received) without reading my writing first, it
feels personal. An editor who doesn’t know me ought not assume I can’t do
something just because I’ve never done it before. Most of us are moms. We know
what it’s like to see someone’s first wave, smile, laugh, walk and more. Why
shouldn’t we expect that we can write something? Who cares if we’ve never done something
precisely like that before?
I wish I could say that rejection didn’t bother me, but sometimes it still does. Although now that I work for a magazine, I’m learning that rejections really aren’t a personal thing. They’re necessary. I DO try to take positive critiques personally, though! It’s nice when somebody tells me something that I’ve done right. I’m trying to learn to focus on the positive instead of the negative.
It is interesting how we often feel rejected when someone does not respond to an email. I remember when I was working for a company, I had to go to our San Diego office one day, so I was not at my computer for a whole day. The next day when I checked my messages, one of the clients thought that I was mad at him because I didn’t respond to his email that day. We often jump to conclusions. Sometimes people are out of town, the email went to spam, or who knows what else. I don’t give it a second thought anymore, but I used to also feel rejected when I didn’t even know for sure what the other person was thinking.
It is interesting how we often feel rejected when someone does not
respond to an email. I remember when I was working for a company, I had
to go to our San Diego office one day, so I was not at my computer for a
whole day. The next day when I checked my messages, one of the clients
thought that I was mad at him because I didn’t respond to his email that
day. We often jump to conclusions. Sometimes people are out of town,
the email went to spam, or who knows what else. I don’t give it a second
thought anymore, but I used to also feel rejected when I didn’t even
know for sure what the other person was thinking.
It is interesting how we often feel rejected when someone does not
respond to an email. I remember when I was working for a company, I had
to go to our San Diego office one day, so I was not at my computer for a
whole day. The next day when I checked my messages, one of the clients
thought that I was mad at him because I didn’t respond to his email that
day. We often jump to conclusions. Sometimes people are out of town,
the email went to spam, or who knows what else. I don’t give it a second
thought anymore, but I used to also feel rejected when I didn’t even
know for sure what the other person was thinking.