Writing News and Updates
 A hot Sunday afternoon in mid-August, my husband and three children out of the house. Giddy at being home alone, I can’t settle down to any of the things I’d like to do in the rare quiet left behind in their absence. So I go for a walk.
So begins my most recently published essay, "Walking in Place," which appears in the Fall 2024 issue of Stillpoint Arts Quarterly. I jotted down the first germ on an idea for this piece in April 2010. I completed a full draft in August 2015. Over the next year and a half, I revised it with input from my writing group. I sent it out on submission for the first time in February 2017. Over the next seven-plus years I sent it out 13 more times, revising it a bit here and there, letting it rest for long periods of time in between (I didn't send it out at all in 2021 or 2023). Finally, on the 14th submission, nine years after I completed a first draft, 14 years after first I first toyed with the idea, the essay was accepted and subsequently published in Stillpoint's "Walking" themed issue. All this is to say is that--on top of the continual study of craft, the steady practice of putting words on the page, the self-discipline of sitting down and writing and rewriting words--writing, which is to say publishing, requires patience and persistence. Sometimes it pays off (though less often does it pay off literally). Sometimes it doesn't. I had all but retired this essay when I saw the call for submission that eventually led to its publication. The reason I hadn't fully retired this essay was that, despite repeated rejections, I believed in it. The writing describes most honestly and accurately my relationship to the place where I live and to the place I come from. Last weekend I gave a reading at the local library for my book, Uphill Both Ways, and a member of the audience, who had already read the book, expressed surprise that I'd written within its pages that I felt "stuck in Maine." It had never occurred to her, she said, that anyone who lived in Maine felt that way. What a wonderful gift that would be, to exist in the comfort and certainty that the place you occupy on the earth is the place where you belong. Though there are many lovely things about Maine, I have never felt that way, as long as I've lived here, and I don't expect I ever will, even though I'll probably never live anywhere else. This struggle with a feeling of dislocation is what "Walking in Place" is about. You can read the essay here and peruse the rest of the digital edition here, both for free. Or you can purchase a print copy here.
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  I've had two pieces appear in magazines this summer. The first is an essay called "At Home in the Trees" about the summer I lived in a treehouse. You can find it in the "A Place in Mind" department on the last page of the Summer 2024 issue of Northern Woodlands Magazine.
The second is an article called "Discover Maine's Undersea World" about all the many places in the state you can go to learn more about the Gulf of Maine, from touch tanks at children's museums to informal ocean science talks at local breweries. You can find it in the Summer 2024 issue of Green & Healthy Maine.  You may or may not be aware that I have a split writing personality, applying my pen to both nature nonfiction and mystery fiction. Today's news is about the latter: I'm thrilled to announce that my short story, "The Rest of the Story," has been selected for third place in the CrimeFlash Fiction Contest for the 2024 Maine Crime Wave crime writing conference. I, along with the winner and other finalists, will be reading my story during the opening evening of the conference, An Evening of Crime (Writing)! This part of the event, to be held on June 14th, starting at 5 p.m., is free and open to the public.
 Thanks to the efforts of a good friend, Uphill Both Ways is now available in a large print edition, which you can order directly from the publisher, Center Point Large Print. It's really fun to see my words in such big letters!   Every January for the last several years, I've made an annual I Did It! list, inspired by Lisa Romeo. Below is the list for 2017.
Writing I Did Its! I finished a draft of the narrative part of The Book and put that narrative though one full round of revision. I still have a lot of research to do to fill in a lot of holes, but clearing that hurdle of getting those first round edits into the document felt good! I continued to write and submit short pieces, especially during the first half of the year. My results: Submissions: 24 Rejections: 26 Withdrawals (due to acceptance elsewhere): 2 Short-listed: 1 Acceptances: 7 Pending Publication: 2 Publications: 14
The reason these numbers don't add up is because rejections, acceptances, etc. include a number of pieces submitted in 2016. Even though my submission rate was almost half what it was last year (24 versus 45), my rejection rate was higher (26 versus 20) and so was my publication rate (14 versus 8), but my acceptance numbers were down (7 versus 9). What does all this mean? I have no idea. The low submission number has to do with me focusing on writing short pieces and getting them out in the world during the first half of the year and turning my attention to The Book during the second half (only two submissions since May!). I would like to find more of a balance between The Book and keeping short pieces flowing next year. Right now I only have two essays that are finished and making the rounds of literary journals. They're two of the best pieces I've ever written, I believe, and they're having a hard time finding a home. Probably because I insist on sending them only to paying journals. I've got a bunch of partially written essays on hold in the files and numerous short stories on hiatus. At some point I have to address the gap between essay and short story—why am I having more success with the former than the latter? Which stories in the queue truly have merit and which need to be retired? I also want to write more fiction, despite the challenges it poses. Other writing activity:
On the financial front, my writing balance is in the black! It's not much, in terms of trying to survive (or even buy the occasional cup of chai), but my income from publications and teaching workshops exceeded my expenses of buying books and office supplies and paying submission fees and alumni weekend registration, Duotrope and Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance membership fees, and cloud storage costs. I've reached my goal of not spending more money on writing than I earn. Now I just need to earn enough to live on. Travel I Did Its! I took the boys on a road trip to Colorado and back home (via Utah, Wyoming, and South Dakota). This was the first time I went on a road trip as the only adult (though I had some driving help from M), and I think I did pretty great (we never ran out of gas and we never succumbed to a hotel room, camping the whole way there and back). We even survived a rare Utah Hurricane which threatened to float our tent away. And my kids had fun! Crafty I Did Its! Making things by hand has taken a bit of a backseat to writing this past year, but I still appreciate the satisfaction of creating a tangible and usable object—a different and often more immediate satisfaction than writing. A few things I made:
I taught myself to watercolor by painting every day for 100 days over the spring and summer (and continuing not quite as religiously since then), following some online tutorials and attending a couple of painting classes at my friend's studio. Watercolor painting is something I've wanted to learn for years and this project not only got me started painting, but also taught me the value of doing something every single day—you actually get better! Nature I Did Its! I taught a couple of nature journaling workshops and have been volunteering at a local nature center, helping lead groups of fourth graders through the woods and trails. I've also put my newly acquired watercolor skills to work in my nature journals. I compiled my birding Life List and went on several bird-watching expeditions, each of which added a few more birds to said list. C, E, Z, and I again did our Christmas Bird Count route. In general, I paid a lot more attention to birds. Phew! That's a lot for one year! Can't wait to see what 2018 has in store, and I'm a little worried about how I'll keep track of it all if I'm not blogging next year. Cross-posted at https://remainsofday.blogspot.com/2018/01/i-did-it-2017.html. |
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Andrea E. Lani. All rights reserved. |
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