I've had strange experiences with the manuscripts I've been working on. First, with the yoga chapbook... I sent it out to some people, only to have them ignore it completely. Since I think it's some of my best work, that puzzled me. For example, I sent it to an Iyengar yoga teacher who is also a writer and English professor. He didn't say a word. Later, someone told me he was very fussy about his writing, but I thought that at least he could have made some comments. It isn't so far beyond the pale that it deserved to be ignored.
Now I have sent out my manuscript, which is hardly as smooth and finished as the chapbook, but nonetheless has promise, in my view at least. And no one I've sent it to except an old college friend from poetry workshop will say a word, not even the people at the online poetry workshop I've joined, to which I just sent the first section (4 poems).
I have a tendency to be paranoid, which is an unfortunate thing for a writer because there is plenty of opportunity sometimes to exercise those irrational feelings. I just have to send it and forget it I guess, and grow a thicker skin.
5 comments:
I'm sorry people aren't replying with at least a thank you. Do you send a cover letter explaining how the collection came about, what you hope for it, why you are sending the poems to them? That might help.
Of course. I wrote cover letters to everyone I sent it to. I welcomed comments. And to the online group, I wrote a long letter explaining why I was doing this. But it is unusual for the workshop to look at manuscripts. I was commenting on everyone's poems, and they asked me why I never sent any. I told them that I was interested in having people comment on my manuscript, on the order of the poems, the relevancy of the sections, and whether everything in there should stay or be in the section it was in. I sent only four poems, along with the table of contents, which has about 50-some poems in it, separated into sections. That's to make it easier down the line if I submit other sections to them to see the order. No one said a word, except one writer who said not to boldface the titles or put quotation marks around them in the table of contents. And she said she hadn't read the 4 poems yet.
Robbi,
I still think you need to find somebody (or somebodies) who are at your level (that is, haven't had a book yet but are good writers) and want to swap and get comments themselves and so are motivated to give. As for me, I hope to get around to reading, but I hardly think you can find anybody busier than a mom of three who already has lots of writing deadlines and book-related obligations... so I always think that I'm a rather poor choice. But the right choice (preferably a local one) will give you comments and you'll return the favor, and you'll have somebody close by in the business of mutual encouragement. That means, down the road, that you'll also have somebody (or somebodies) to come to a reading and ask friends, etc. I know it's hard to find, but that's what I think you need at the moment.
P. S. I also think you need that writing friend or two because writing is one of those mad enterprises where you give yourself away but may never get a whit of thanks and appreciation. The publishing world is full of absurd catastrophes and over-busy people. It just is. So one needs to be strong and also to have cohorts who are struggling with the same sorts of issues and understand.
Marly,
That's the secret isn't it? I have friends, but for one reason or another (usually busyness) they can't read my manuscript. I may end up yet having to pay someone to read it.
I totally understand why you can't do it, by the way. Don't worry. It's just that I joined this workshop, and I spend lots of time I don't really have commenting about people's poems, though I enjoy doing it, actually, and people can't do it for me, whether because they don't have anything to say, don't understand what I want, or hate the poems. Who knows?
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