NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO
Hello Friends,
I could start this off by wishing you a belated happy new decade but instead, how about this: I’ve been rejected 4 times since I last wrote you. As promised, I took my one dog-one rejection schtick over to Instagram because the logic goes that the only things in this world that can reliably make me forget I’m having a bad day are dogs. More dogs in our feeds are good things, but I also want to show that for every yes we celebrate publicly there are likely 10-20 nos that it swims in the sea of, at least (disclosure: I’m not a statistician). There is little to be done to escape the applying/waiting/hoping/let down cycle as an artist. The yeses are rare, and you don’t get them unless you keep risking the no.
In thinking about rejections and how they're woven into the fabric of a writing life, I’ve been coming back to a conversation I had at the end of last year with my friend Jackie about moments of validation, the little yeses we need––from a publication or a prize or someone bigwig, that exterior authority that seems to anoint our work long after we’ve put everything we’ve got into it. We decided that those yeses are mostly about fueling up the yes we need to locate in ourselves. If you can’t continue to say yes to yourself about the large project of being a writer, then it will be impossible to put yourself out there in the hope of the external yes.
You have to tell yourself––know within yourself––that the no isn’t a NO. It’s just a not this thing, right now. You can’t hang it all on a single or 20 or even 200 nos, which is at least as many as you’ll amass in a writing life, if you’re trying. I’ve been doing this for a couple of decades and I still have to remind myself what a no means. (The other day I got an acceptance via email and the subject line literally had the word “invitation” in it and I turned to my husband next to me on the couch and said ugh, another rejection. I’ve made my brain blind to the possibility of a yes.) I can say this cycle of applying and likely rejection does get somewhat easier, a dance you can do in your sleep, and that it doesn't ever become easy. Take comfort in that bruised ego; it means you care, likely enough to keep trying.
I’m very much talking to all of you who are hearing from MFA programs right about now, and perhaps not hearing what you’d hoped. Maybe next round of applications, maybe never, but you have to commit to what you’re doing as a long term project, not a singular submission. Don’t let anyone anoint you besides yourself.
I wish you all a yes, and a dog to tell you it’s going to be okay, whether in real life or through the internet.
Reading, Thinking, Feeling
I’ve talked about this book before, but Peter Kispert’s I KNOW YOU KNOW WHO I AM is finally availablewherever books are sold and I suggest, again, forever, that you get yourself a copy. I love these stories and I’ve also really enjoyed how Peter talks about the collection as a whole. Here’s Peter talking to Ari Shapiro on NPR in one such conversation.
2020 has started off strong for me on the reading front. Loved the Israeli writer Zeruya Shalev’s novel PAIN and was moved and engrossed by Sarah M. Broom’s memoir THE YELLOW HOUSE; it’s really as good as everyone says. I just hit the point in Claire Beams’s THE ILLNESS LESSON the other night where I’m sunk into the language and the world and in it. That’s the best feeling.
Samantha Hunt, a self-proclaimed “ghost activist”, has a new and perfect story in this month’s Atlantic. Interview about it here.
Ashley Ford on the Longform podcast. Much respect for the part of the discussion where she discloses her income.
Rivka Galchen on the mystery of motherhood.
My family is developing a See’s Candy problem. My husband introduced me to these and I can’t un-see/un-taste them.
I’ve been baking bread, and other things, from the beautiful cookbook Canelle et Vanille. A gluten-free baker and cook’s dream. I have a sourdough starter now. Easier to feed than most children.
Just booked a family trip to Sedona to check out some red rocks, stars, and energy vortexes. My older child won’t stop saying vibes now. Any recommendations for Sedona or Phoenix are much appreciated.
Where to Find Me
Applying for more grants, awards, and residencies, including one I’ve been rejected from literally 7 times, and hoping for yeses.
Teaching the stories of Nick White, Camille Acker, May-Lan Tan, Ann Beattie, and Kimberly King Parsons to students at the 92Y.
Asking if I can say hi to your dog.
Talk soon,
Danielle