Last summer, during a Young Writers session, I discovered a story I needed to tell. (In the same way that teaching and writing are not about us, I strongly believe that ???ideas’ aren’t not about us generating them. When we have an ???idea’, we open ourselves to listening to God or the universe or fate or time or whatever you want to call the energy that surrounds us. It’s a bit Jedi Knight in its explanation, but I think it works.) I was sitting in on Kirsten Ogden’s class after watching “Stranger Than Fiction,” grooving to that writing/thinking/creating energy that infuses such classes, and there, in my notebook, I met Paul Swanson, a soldier in Afghanistan obsessed with his father and baseball. His was the story I needed to tell. A few days later, I had some good pages (if I do say so myself), but not a story. Within six weeks of writing, rewriting, soliciting feedback, rewriting some more, I had a story I was proud of. Swanson’s story. Sandlot. Of course, I thought it was publishable. I probably, foolishly, said something like. “Man, I can’t wait to see this in print.”
As it turns out, I have to.
In August of last year, I submitted the story to the Kenyon Review. And waited. About a week or so later, Sergei responded with an enthusiastic “Let’s talk.” It was a good story, that we agreed on, but there were some gaping narrative holes that needed filling and some rough edges that needed smoothed. No problem. I rewrote. I resubmitted. I waited. Go more feedback. And then had to do even more rewriting and resubmitting and waiting.
By this time, August had become November. While standing in line during the Review’s Literary Festival, waiting for a few minutes with Margaret Atwood–a thrill I had waited for my whole writing life, by the way–David Lynn pulled me aside to tell me he wanted the story for the Review. A while later, I got the email: Sandlot had been officially accepted.
It’s been scheduled for publication in March.
2009.
Told you waiting was the hardest part.
I’ve been writing since I was 10 years old and I’ve even published a few pieces along the way. I’ve worked at a small publishing company, Fantagraphics Books, a lifetime ago, and I’m the advisor for my school’s student newspaper. You’d think by now I understand that seeing work in print takes time. But no. I’m still not used to the lag time between acceptance and publication. Somehow, in my mind, the phrase “Congratulations! We are happy to accept Your Story“” has the mythical ability to bend the space/time continuum and make my contributor’s copies appear instantaneously on my doorstep.
Ah, such dreams. Reality dictates that you write, you wait. You craft a story, you wait. You send the story out, you wait. You get your story accepted (maybe, if not, you keep waiting), you wait. You get published. You celebrate. You wait.
And the cycle starts all over again.
Shortly after Sandlot was “done,” I found another strand of idea in my Young Writing notebook, a twisted futuristic piece that I have been hammering away at, off and on, for three or four months now. Even with daily, disciplined writing, I still have to wait for the good lines, a solid plot point, that bit of dynamic characterization. I keep waiting for the process to get easier, but it doesn’t. It’s an apprenticeship that will never end. If I ever become a master, it’s only of the moment when I captured the bit I’ve been waiting for. Then that mastery dissolves and I’m waiting once again. I’m frustrated with the story and this frustration goes beyond simply writing badly. I keep showing up at the keyboard but nothing’s happening.
Maybe I need to crank some Tom Petty and keep having faith that something will come of this story.
I am, after all, a writer. I can wait.