Emily Dickinson called her Amherst home “The Homestead.” I lovingly call my apartment in St. Louis the same thing (although I definitely get out more than Dickinson). This monthly newsletter is my attempt to work through what it feels like to put down roots as a writer in my own Homestead.
The balancing scales of acceptance and rejection.
When I teach writing workshops, I try to remind people that it’s normal to swim through the bog of rejection. The only way to access opportunity in the writing world is to face an excess of rejection letters first. It’s nothing personal; it’s just the game.
This past month, I balanced the scales of my own rhythms of acceptance and rejection. Like most working writers, I only share my acceptances. If I post anything on social media or share it in this newsletter, then I’m probably sharing a “win,” not a loss. It’s no fun to talk about your rejections, but I’m trying to get better at embracing my own “losses” under the umbrella of transparency.
So, I got a big rejection this month. It’s the kind of rejection that made me step back from a project and decide to shelve it.
Early in the pandemic, I started writing a novel. It was my first serious novel, completed in-between some of the gig work I was doing as a romance writer. Writing those romance books so quickly gave me the confidence to sit down and write something of my own—and that’s just what I did. It took me over a year to draft the manuscript and revise it, and then I spent the next 2+ years querying the novel to agents and editors.
There were so many close calls. I got full manuscript requests that ultimately resulted in kind rejections. I corresponded directly with editors about the book. I felt confident about the concept of the novel, and I let my spirit lift when agents and editors complimented this concept. The answer was always no, however.
Earlier this summer, after I’d essentially shelved the manuscript, I received one last close call. A very well-respected indie publisher was interested in my manuscript! I spent most of the summer frantically refreshing my email to see if I’d received a final decision, anxiously obsessing over whether this was my breakthrough.
This month, I got my answer: a no.
I read the rejection email while sitting in the cell phone lot at the airport, waiting to pick up a friend. My heart sank. It was done.
The rejection was kind, but it said something I hadn’t heard yet from an agent or editor, a phrase that unlocked things for me and clarified a feeling I hadn’t yet voiced: “For us, it’s not ready to be published.” Most editors and agents use vague lines like “this just isn’t for us” or “this isn’t quite right for our audience,” but I’d never had someone say outright that “it’s not ready to be published.”
It was the best thing anyone could’ve said to me. It was the best thing because it helped me admit the same truth to myself. On some level, I’ve known that it wasn’t ready, but I was eager to push forward and deal with the manuscript’s shortcomings later. I felt that the promise of agent representation or of publication would be the kick in the pants I needed to revise the manuscript fully. The truth is that I wasn’t interested in doing that intensive revision work up front. I jumped the gun.
This rejection also brought a sense of relief. Now I can move on with another project, I thought. I can shelve this manuscript and move forward with something that excites me now. Keep moving forward.
Before I heard my “no,” I wrote down an affirmation to myself to help me cope with the possibility of a rejection. I’m keeping this on my desk from now on:
“A promise to myself:
If they pass on my book, I will only let it CATAPULT me further into making GOOD WORK. I will spend the summer finishing POPE JOAN, getting myself ready to send out the next book.
I will not be stopped.
This is progress.”
Some brief, honest thoughts on The Artist’s Way
In my weekly writing workshop, I’m preparing to lead us through a deep dive into Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. For twelve weeks, we’ll use Cameron’s famous text as a shape-maker for our sessions and hopefully restart our creative engines for fall.
I first picked up The Artist’s Way in graduate school, and it was just the medicine I needed for my worn out creative soul. Cameron’s message is that anyone can cultivate their inner Artist, regardless of their daily lives. It’s a largely democratic message, one that emphasizes experience and process over product. It’s also a deeply persona program, asking you to articulate your own fears and anxieties about the vulnerability of creative work.
I’m looking forward to using it as a teaching tool, but I’m also preparing myself to work through my own apprehensions. For one thing, I’m skeptical of the dogmatism of The Artist’s Way. There’s a huge emphasis in this text to complete daily “morning pages.” For Cameron, this is one of the non-negotiables. I’ve done morning pages before, but I find that pushing people to write them every day only works for a season.
I’m stepping into this multi-week teaching plan with a bit of trepidation. I’ll keep you updated. ✍️
What I’m reading this month…
It’s been a slow reading month for me. The heat has made me want to just lay on the couch and rest my eyes. These are two books that I kept coming back to…
Standing at the Edge: Finding Freedom where Fear and Courage Meet by Roshi Joan Halifax. I listened to a podcast with Roshi Joan Halifax, a Buddhist teacher, and picked up this book from the library. It’s a lovely reflection on how to practice compassion without completely exhausting your own emotional reserves.
Middlemarch by George Eliot. This is my peace-weaving novel. It always relaxes me and reminds me of how human drama is always more interesting than big, disembodied ideas (for me, at least). The beautiful pink edition in the picture is from Barnes & Noble.
How I made money this month $$$
I believe freelance artists should be more upfront about how they support themselves financially, rather than maintaining the illusion that they are fully supported by their art (they usually aren’t). This is me attempting to live out that principle. So, here are all the ways I brought in money to the Homestead for the month of July.
Teaching artist work for Prison Performing Arts. Teaching a weekly writing workshop and gearing up to teach Spoken Word in some new facilities.
Compiling/editing an anthology for PPA. It’s been fun to put on my editorial hat and collect/arrange short pieces for a printed anthology.
Facilitating online graduate literature courses. Every day I’m grading, grading, grading.
Grant money! Thanks to a generous artistic research grant from the Folger Shakespeare Library, I can really get to work on my play about Charlotte Cushman, which will eventually have a home with the women’s prison in Vandalia, MO.
Paid Substack subscriptions! Thank you to all of my paid subscribers. It means the world to me that you make a financial contribution to my work.
The turning point of August.
I think this is the first time in over two years that I’ve sent my monthly newsletter one day late. This lateness is a testament to how busy I’ve felt this summer, a sensation that’s only magnified by this awful heat. I’m grateful for the turning of August, the hope of fall.
Today starts a new month.
Thank you, as always, for reading.
Yours ever & etc., etc.,
Courtney, Mistress of the Homestead, and Noble Midge the Cat 🐈⬛