Tag: starving writer

February 2, 2016

Literary Anxiety

Photo by tableatny. Used with Creative Commons license. Edits by Jonny Eberle.

My year is off to a running start (creatively, at least). The end of January is busy for most writers of short prose, including me. A lot of literary journal reading periods and contests close around this time, turning the last week of January into a flurry of submissions. I’ve learned a lot about the process of sending my work to editors over the years. I have a better sense of when a story is ready and what piece will appeal to what publication. Yet, even with a few published pieces under my belt, I still feel a pang of worry every time I hit send.

I’m not sure why, but it never fails that when I send my work out into the world, I start to doubt myself. I call it literary anxiety — a feeling of dread at letting other people see your work and judge its merits. It doesn’t matter that I’ve spent months writing, rewriting and polishing. It doesn’t matter that I’m already a published writer. The anxiety is still there.

I think I will always worry about the quality of my work. A part of me will always feel inadequate, like a fraud and not a real artist. I also think that literary anxiety can be good — after all, if you aren’t at least a little worried about how your words will be judged, do you really care? Along with the torment, I also feel like 2016 is off to a good start. Nothing like the prospect of getting your work out to a wider audience to temper the angst of letting go.

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Jonny Eberle is a writer in Tacoma, WA. His short fiction has appeared in Creative Colloquy. You can follow him on Twitter.

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February 4, 2015

So You Think You Want to Freelance…

So, you think you want to take up freelance writing. I’ve been in your shoes. It’s exciting, but a little nerve wracking. It feels like you’re stepping free from the shackles of 9-to-5 work and into the warm sunlight of creative freedom. But before you embark on this journey, I’d like to offer my perspective.

For nearly a year, I worked as a freelance writer in addition to a part-time job. In that time, I learned a few things about what it takes to freelance — the good and the bad. Here are a few things to keep in mind:

You Might Not Get to Write About What You Want
When you’re a freelance writer, you have to treat your writing like a business, which means you have to write what pays. In a lot of cases, clients are looking for ad copy or a blog for their business. You do have to play to your strengths, but making a living requires that you write about what your client is willing to pay for. It’s not exactly creative freedom. I got lucky with a recurring gig writing about foreign policy, something I’m actually interested in, but you might find that your bread and butter accounts are writing about laminated plywood.

You May Not Get Paid at First
There are some freelancers who make six figures, but the vast majority are like me — eking out a meager living. You see, the trouble with the Internet is the same thing that makes it great. Nearly everything you read online is free. Advertisements bring in some money, but the precedent for free content means that a lot of clients don’t pay well. When you’re just starting to build your portfolio, it may mean taking low-paying or even no-paying jobs before any money starts to come in.

You May Not Get Paid at All
When you’re dealing with people on the Internet, you may end up discovering that lots of people don’t honor their agreements. The Internet is the Wild West and sometimes people will back out on the deal you’ve made. If you don’t go through a website that mediates payment between freelancers like Elance, you might write wind up getting shorted. I ran into this problem with a couple of clients who conveniently forgot to pay me. Short of taking them to small claims court or drowning them in angry emails, you’ll probably lose out.

I decided to stop working as a freelance writer on a regular basis when I landed a full-time marketing job. It was too much time, I couldn’t write what I wanted and I wasn’t making enough to support myself comfortably. But if you can stomach the long hours, boring topics, and the possibility that you will work for free or less than minimum wage — if you want to choose your own hours, your own projects, and forge your entrepreneurial spirit into a business built on words — I’d say go for it.

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Jonny Eberle is a writer, photographer and filmmaker in Tacoma, WA. You can follow him on Twitter or leave your comments in the comments.
August 28, 2014

The Inspiration Trap

For centuries — maybe longer — an insidious lie has spread through the creative community; whispered from one generation to the next. A lie that has kept promising writers, painters, photographers, and filmmakers from achieving their potential. It is a simple idea that buries itself deep in the mind of the beginning artist like a parasite and slowly eats away their will to create.

We’ve all heard some variation of it: “You must wait for inspiration.”

This idea is so pervasive. Inspiration will come to you. Inspiration will strike out of the blue. Great ideas only come in flashes; in divine revelation to an artist worthy of the vision. And so we sit around waiting when we should be writing.

It’s a trap.

Some writers might make a living on intermittent bursts of creativity, but the rest of us can’t afford to wait. I suspect the majority of published authors sit down to write every day regardless of whether or not their muse bothers to show up.

All of my best work has come from the act of sitting down in front of my computer, often without a clue about what I was going to write and forcing myself to do the work. And yet, I’m in the trap right now.

When I started my new job and changed my whole schedule, I neglected to set aside a dedicated time to write. I thought, in spite of years of evidence to the contrary, that inspiration would strike at a convenient time and I would fire off several pieces ready for publication.

I’ve barely written a word.

I know I’ve been trapped in the quicksands of inspiration. I have to free myself. Only after I get back into the habit of writing each and every day will I find what I thought was going to find me. Inspiration isn’t going to tap me on the shoulder and start whispering lines of dialogue and prose into my ear. A set routine will draw out the stories already percolating in my subconscious.

I’m tired of waiting for inspiration. I’m going to find it myself.

— 30 —

Jonny Eberle is a writer in Tacoma, WA. His short story, The Observable Universe, was published on Creative Colloquy in July.
August 19, 2014

The Life and Death of a Tomato

“If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.”
– Cicero

For most of my life, I’ve lived in the desert, where what grows is sparse and inedible. Pine trees cling to the thin layer of rocky, volcanic soil. My family tried to grow a small garden in a barrel that yielded a very small, sad serrano pepper. So, when I moved up to the insanely green Pacific Northwest, I knew I wanted to try my hand at something I’d never done before — to grow a plant.

And so, one summer’s morn, I bought a pot at a local hardware store containing basil, parsley, oregano and the holy grail of backyard gardens, a humble green tomato. Coincidentally, that was when the rain stopped.

For weeks, I watered it by hand with pint glasses of tap water. I set it out in the sun and pruned the dead leaves. I did my best to give it a fighting chance. I suppressed my tendency to get distracted by other things. Every day, I was there with water and scissors.

And yet, despite my fears, something strange began in happen as August turned hot. One of the tomatoes started to turn a sickly green shade of yellow. Gradually, slowly, it turned orange and then red.

I couldn’t believe it. I was convinced that I was going to kill it (the way I once killed a potted cactus), but miraculously, it pulled through.

This weekend, I carefully cut it from the vine and brought it inside. I stared at it, this fragile thing that I had nurtured — that I had managed not to murder. It felt good. It felt right that I had grown my own food through my own labor. I thought back to the generations of my family who had worked the land and wondered if they’d ever felt this kind of pride at the harvest.

Then I looked closer. My tomato was far from perfect. The skin was split around the stem. The skin was mottled with yellows and browns. It had spots and bumps. A grocery store would probably throw it out. But when we cut it open and took the first bite, it was so much better than anything a commercial farm could produce.

I don’t know if it was the emotional connection I forged with this fruit, the lingering feeling that this tomato was somehow a reflection of me with all my imperfections, or the simple fact that I had raised it, but it was by far the best tomato I’ve ever eaten.

Never judge a book by its cover or a tomato by its skin.

— 30 —

Jonny Eberle is a writer and small scale urban farmer (current farm = one pot of herbs and tomatoes) in Tacoma, WA. His short story, The Observable Universe, was published by Creative Colloquy in July.
July 8, 2014

In Which I Become a Big-Time Published Writer

I have exciting news — I have a published short story out on the Interwebs. It’s called “The Observable Universe” and you can read it right now on Creative Colloquy.

It feels great to have my writing reach a larger audience, like hitting a grand slam while eating a pizza; like I’ve climbed to the mountaintop secret writing club, been accepted and received a jacket with my name embroidered on it. I’m certain that fame, fortune and lucrative book deals are in the mail as we speak.

This is the first time one of my stories has been published and I’m very proud of it. While you’re over on Creative Colloquy’s site, check out the other stories. CC is an awesome literary website that publishes new work by South Sound writers every two weeks. Once a month, they also host a reading and open mic night in Tacoma.

This month, I’ll be one of the featured writers. If you’re in the Seattle-Tacoma area, come down to the B Sharp Coffee House on Monday, July 28 at 7:00 pm. I be reading my short story alongside other talented storytellers. Come support local writers and artists!

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Jonny Eberle is a writer in Tacoma, WA. You just read all about his new story, but did you know that he also has a Twitter feed? Once you’re done reading, you should follow him on Twitter and tweet him your thoughts. Thanks for reading!
June 25, 2014

Reading the Competition

Over the last couple of years, I have submitted to a truckload of literary journals. None of them have ever published me and I have yet to win any writing contests. The closest I got was last summer, when I was a finalist for a contest (but not enough of a finalist to see my name in print). This is the life of a writer — you submit and you submit and you submit some more.

At most of these literary journals, there’s a reading fee, a small amount (usually between $2-5) that you pay to the magazine in exchange for having your piece read by a human. These fees go to maintaining their websites or hosting an online submission uploading service. For contests (usually between $5-20), the reading fee generally goes toward financing the prize money. I tend to sigh every time I have to shell out two meager Washingtons (or one Jefferson, if you’re a collector) with little hope of being published.

But there is one tiny perk. One glimmer of reward for letting go of my hard earned gas money.

At most of these lit journals, contest entry fees or reading fees qualify you for a one-year subscription. Regardless of whether they choose my entry — regardless of whether they even like my entry — I get a small paperback book in the mail. It gives me the opportunity to size up the competition.

You see, each thin volume is packed with the words of the people who made the cut. And from studying their techniques, I can start to understand the mechanics that separate the published writers from the rest of us. These small books, printed off by MFA programs around the country, provide a snapshot of the modern-day short story scene. These are the people on the top of the game. These are the people I want to be.

We may not be in direct competition, but there are a limited number of pages out there to be filled. To be counted among the published is a badge of honor rolled up in a coming of age ritual. I want to get there and to make it, I have to understand the marketplace for fiction. It may not influence what I write, but it can teach me what people want to read.

The more journals pile up on my dining room table, the better I’m able to compete. The closer I am to sweet, sweet publication.

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Jonny Eberle is a writer and prizefighting storyteller in Tacoma, WA. You can swing a left hook at him in the comments or on Twitter. Thanks for reading!
May 5, 2014

Airing Out

“I love my rejection slips. They show me I try.” – Sylvia Plath

For nine months, I’ve kept a box sealed up in my apartment. I brought it with me from Arizona last summer. Inside, tucked in between old manuscripts and saved letters is a small, neat stack of rejections. Some came in the mail; most by email. I printed each of them out and used to have them thumb-tacked to a bulletin board that hung near my desk in my old office.

When I moved into my new place, I placed the bulletin board behind the bedroom door, unseen. The rejections from literary journals, websites and writing competitions stayed in their box. I taped it shut and was tempted to leave it like that. It’s so much easier to ignore them than to face them each day.

But this week, there was a change in the weather. The first tease of a Washington summer brought blue skies and warmth — and a strange idea. My musty, cavelike apartment needed to be aired out. I threw open the windows and doors to let the space breathe. And the fresh air must have gone to my head.

I grabbed a knife and started cutting through the packing tape on the boxes I had left sealed and stacked in a corner. I went looking for my rejections. Because just like my apartment, they need to be dusted off. I realize now that I need to see them. No one likes to think about their failures, but I need to be reminded of how far I’ve come and far I still have to go. I need to face rejection and use it to propel me to improve, not bury it in a box to be forgotten.

Maybe I’ll hang the bulletin board up and pin the rejections where I can see them while I write. Maybe I’ll print off my recent rejection notices. Maybe it will hurt to read them. Maybe that will spur me onward.

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Jonny Eberle is a writer in Tacoma, WA. You can follow him on Twitter or leave a comment below. How do you deal with rejection? Tell me your secrets!
January 21, 2014

Words Upon the Stage

I have always been drawn to the theatre. From my earliest performance as Robert E. Lee in a kindergarten production of “What’s More American Than Cornflakes?” to playing the protagonist in George Bernard Shaw’s “Arms and the Man” to my college years performing with Theatrikos Theatre Company (often in silent roles), I have loved being on stage. Frequent readers of this blog will know that I also love to write. So, it will come as no surprise that I’ve always flirted with the idea of being a playwright.

I’ve dabbled in playwriting before. I wrote my first play in high school. It was a heavily allegorical one-act script in the vein of Samuel Beckett and Sophocles. In college, I co-wrote three scripts that were produced by the campus ministry center as a small, traveling musical. But I’ve never written anything for a mainstream theatre-going audience. Until now.

Fresh off of writing a novella, I’ve spent the last several weeks laboring on a play that I hope will someday be performed. That’s the real beauty of the theatre. A play literally leaps off the page and briefly inhabits the real world. More than any other form of literature, it is a living story; the themes of which lay hidden in the subtext of each character’s dialogue. A great play can be performed a hundred different ways.

While writing, I’ve also been reading Barefoot in the Park, a masterpiece of comedy by a giant of American drama, Neil Simon. Reading his words has inspired me and seeing how he has unraveled the elements of his plot in the claustrophobic setting of a New York apartment — not unlike my play’s setting — has given me fresh ideas about how to tell my own story of life and death, guilt and revenge, expectation and reality.

In a lot of ways, it’s exciting to write a play. There is something thrilling about seeing the reactions of your audience; something a novelist can never experience. But there is also something terrifying about it. I’m asking a theater company to stake their time and talents upon my words. What if it’s not good enough? What if the reviews are bad and the audience throws rotten tomatoes?

I’m no Shakespeare. I’m not even going to aim that high. But when I’m finished, when it’s gone through a few table readings and polishings, I hope my characters get to stand in the spotlight. I hope people see their own foibles and laugh at my distorted reflection of modern life. Even if it doesn’t rise to the heights of Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller, I think I’ll be content to stand in the wings and listen to the applause.

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Jonny Eberle is a budding playwright and an actor specializing in playing mute apple thieves. All the world’s a stage, the saying goes, and that includes the world of Twitter, where you can follow Jonny at @jonnyeberle. Curtain.
November 27, 2013

Speed and the Inverted Pyramid

My fingers are not happy with me. I’m racing against time and turkey to finish a week’s worth of freelance articles by Wednesday night. In pursuit of my goal, I’ve written four articles in the past two days — and I’m already working on the fifth. Normally, I wouldn’t rush a project, but with the holiday weekend, I need to be present; not off in a corner typing away.

When you’re writing fast to get ahead of a deadline, it’s easy to let your inner editor slack off. In the hurry to meet the word count, typos and inaccuracies slip through the cracks. Even the best writers do it. That’s why so many breaking news stories are later found out to be false. When there’s pressure to get it done fast, there is a tendency to cut corners.

But that doesn’t make it right. We’re all pressed for time; that doesn’t mean we get an ethical (or even a grammatical) get out of jail free card. I don’t have the time I normally devote to each piece, but I know people are reading my work with the expectation that everything I say is true. I owe them that.

To maximize my time and the integrity of the final product, I’m doing a few things. First, I’m still sourcing everything. It takes a bit longer to confirm something I already know, but it’s worth it to have corroboration. Second, I’m sticking with my most trusted sources. This isn’t the week to scope out a new newspaper or academic think tank for material. This week, it’s just the old favorites. Finally, I’m sticking to inverted pyramid form, the standard journalistic structure. By writing to an established formula, I’m removing one variable from my process. I just plug and chug.

With luck, I’ll get to take Thanksgiving off, knowing my articles are safely in my editor’s hands, free of mistakes and misinformation. And my fingers can rest up for next week.

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Jonny Eberle is a freelance writer in Tacoma, WA. He takes his journalistic ethics seriously, but lets loose on Twitter. Thanks for reading!
October 9, 2013

Second Blogiversary

All my days are running together. So much so that I completely forgot my blogiversary, which was on September 24. I’ve been blogging for two years; two crazy, great, life-changing years. This blog has seen me graduate from college, submit my first work for publication, travel to Guatemala, move from Arizona to Washington and take the leap into freelancing. Today, I am a thousand miles away from the person I was two years ago.

The process of blogging — of consistently sitting down to write — continues to be the bedrock of my development as a writer. Like any skill, writing must be practiced. As a professional, I need to be on top of my game. Writing these little blurbs on writing and life, as well as reading some of the blogosphere’s plethora of talented writers has aided my growth immensely.

Many religious orders practice meditation as a way to center their lives. I’ve never been very good at meditating, but I think writing is my way of centering myself. When I don’t practice the craft for a few days, I lose focus. I lay around my apartment, slowly dissolving into a mass of tapioca pudding. Especially without a steady day job, writing is my anchor to reality. This blog is a still point in an ever spinning world.

It’s been a great two years and I know there are years more of literary adventures to come.

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Jonny Eberle is a freelance writer, photographer and filmmaker with a slight Twitter addiction. You can enable him at @jonnyeberle. Thanks for reading!

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