The good news is that you’re writing. Every single day you work to put words on paper, to gather the wispy intangible echoes and whispers from the far corners of your imagination and weave them into beautiful, true sentences, you’re taking part in the grandest tradition of humankind. You’re a storyteller, and your job is to remind us of who we are and what it means to be a human being, here, now. Your struggle, your long hours and your sleepless nights are not for nothing. Writing is important. Writing is holy work.
That’s the good news.
The bad news is that Joe the Plumber has a book coming out.
In the New York Times yesterday, guest columnist Timothy Egan railed against the Joe the Plumber books of the world. “Most of the writers I know work every day, in obscurity and close to poverty, trying to say one thing well and true. Day in, day out, they labor to find their voice, to learn their trade, to understand nuance and pace. And then, facing a sea of rejections, they hear about something like Barbara Bush’s dog getting a book deal.”
While books like “Joe the Plumber—Fighting for the American Dream” (I can hardly type the words without wanting to punch a fist through the screen), Meghan McCain’s My Dad, John McCain (because writing a children’s book is SO EASY! I wrote four of them this morning!), and yes, Millie’s Book, may make you lose faith in the publishing system, not to mention the general justice of the universe, take heart friends. For one thing, you’re not alone. Everyone hates Joe the Plumber. And though freckle-faced Millie the dog may have been a famous author and even earned herself a cameo on Murphy Brown while you were still lost in a twisted plot maze of your own making, in the end, she was still a dog. At least you have opposable thumbs.
More importantly, what “authors” like Joe the Plumber, Meghan McCain, and Millie the dog Bush are missing is the truth at the very heart of writing, the reason we all keep coming back to the blank page day after day: in the end, writing isn’t about the paycheck. It’s not about the money. If it were, we’d all be fools to pursue it for years, to spend so much time worrying about subtly revealing details and perfectly unspooling plots. If it were all about the money, we’d be better off sleeping with someone famous and then finding a ghostwriter. If it were all about the money, Harper Lee’s friends wouldn’t have supported her for a year so she could write To Kill A Mockingbird. John Kennedy Toole’s mother wouldn’t have worked tirelessly to publish A Confederacy of Dunces. Thomas Paine wouldn’t have written The Age of Reason, Milton wouldn’t have bothered to reach through his blindness and dictate Paradise Lost, and I would have majored in computer science.
The good news is that the very trials and struggles of crafting a good story are worth the effort. The work of writing is its own reward, regardless of celebrity authors and huge payouts for crappy books. Joe and Meghan and Millie might get the book deal, but they’ll miss out on the best part: actually writing a book.
Green Lantern, an independent press and gallery located in Wicker Park, is holding its first fundraiser tonight, November 22.
From noon to 9 p.m., the Green Lantern will be holding a silent auction featuring the work of a wide range of writers and artists; after the auction, from 9 p.m. until 1 a.m., there will be a live music show featuring Joan of Arc, The Lanterns, & lowland. Entry is $12; a $25 donation includes all you can drink at the bar, while $30 includes all you can drink and a one-year membership.
Green Lantern is located at 1511 N. Milwaukee Ave., second floor.
Narrative’s Fall Fiction Contest is open to all fiction writers. For this contest we accept short shorts, short stories, and excerpts from longer works of fiction. Entries must be previously unpublished, no longer than 10,000 words, and must not have been previously chosen as a winner, finalist, or honorable mention in another contest.
As always, we look for works that have a strong narrative drive, with characters we can respond to as human beings—works in which the effects of language, situation, and insight are intense and total, and whose authors have the ambition of enlarging our view of ourselves and the world.
Awards: First Prize is $3,000, Second Prize is $1,500, and Third Prize is $750. The prize winners will be announced in Narrative and will be eligible for publication. Additionally, ten finalists will receive $100 each. We’ll announce finalists in the magazine as well. All entries will be considered for publication.
Submission Fee: There is a $20 fee for each entry. And with your entry, you’ll receive three months of complimentary access to Narrative Backstage.
Timing: Entries will be accepted between September 1 and November 30, 2008. (The contest will close to entries at midnight Pacific Standard Time on November 30.)
Judging: The contest will be judged by the editors of the magazine. Winners and finalists will be announced to the public by December 30, 2008. All writers who enter will be notified by email of the judges’ decisions.
Check out their website for more info: Narrative Magazine’s 2008 Fall Fiction Contest
Our very own Jennifer Wagner, a longtime StoryStudio writer (from back in the old days when we used to meet in Bucktown praying the elevator operator didn’t knock off early!) has another piece in the RedEye today. 
Jennifer has always been interested in the music biz and did a great job of working her network and landing a regular writing gig for an online music review site.
Flash forward a few years and now, in between finishing her incredibly original-voiced novel, going to law school, Jennifer has a regular-sometime thing writing music-related pieces and interviews for the RedEye. You can read the latest here (or in print, look around p30-36): RedEye Online
Oh, and by the way, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JENNIFER!
This week, we have TWO StoryStudio peeps featured in the Huffington Post.
First, SSC teacher Ranjit Souri is interviewed about his 52 Open Mics project: Weekly Date With Mic for “Siblings of Doctors” Comic
and then, SSC student Adrienne C’s review of Paul Aster’s book Pitch Black is published.
Way to go, Ranjit & Adrienne!
