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Write From Home
Kim Wilson
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Hamilton, NJ 08610
Tel: (609) 888-1683
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Off
the Page...
Embracing Change
by
Tama Westman
Reorganizing my office the other day, I came across a dusty file
of unpublished stories. After I first wrote them, I queried every editor I could
find, and yet, the pieces were never placed with a publication. Frustrated, I
had jammed the rejection letters and returned submissions into a manila file
folder marked "unsellable" and stuck it in the back of the file drawer, out of
sight.
As I took a few moments to read them again, it
dawned on me why they were unsold. Yes, the stories were powerful. However, like
asphalt to a bricklayer, they were not relevant. There was no heart-tug or life
lesson to benefit the reader, no "take away" value at all.
Free yourself to change
Indeed, I had committed the worst possible sin for a writer; I had forgotten
about the reader. With stunning clarity, I realized that my own fear of failure
had locked the stories in their infancy, never allowing them to grow into the
dynamic pieces they should have been. Like a fool, I was married to the stories
as written, and had not opened myself to changing them to better fit an editor's
needs.
Flexibility is the key
My work in recent months with non-profit organizations and in the vastly
opposite technical realm of corporate markets has pushed me to new
understandings. I have learned that flexibility is key to being relevant in a
changing world. With a new perspective, I am changing, growing into a better
person, and a better writer. Taking the stories from the folder, I played and
reworked them until I was satisfied they now held a message an editor would find
meaningful. In some instances, I removed the more dramatic passages because it
is not always necessary to make the reader cry, so long as you can help the
reader learn or grow. Of the three rewritten stories, two have now been sold.
Forget your fear
Fear of failure, of others' opinions, of inadequacy, even success—keeps
us locked inside, shades drawn. But when we break from that fear to reach
beyond our comfort zones, to embrace change, then good things start to happen.
Our writing becomes more potent when we turn our backs on fear. We
self-mobilize, finding new stories and markets as a new energy surfaces in our
soul. Like a trapeze artist, we soar, flying without fear. I encourage you to
strip away those rejections and forget your fear. Turn the page, a new story is
about to be written.
Tama Westman writes the
Off the Page column for Write From Home. As a correspondent and columnist,
she publishes news articles, feature stories and her column, Cuppa Thoughts,
regularly with her local paper, the Chaska Herald. She has served as the
editor of the award-winning literary magazine, Haute Dish. Her articles
appear in several local newspapers and, nationally in The Gathering and
Light & Life Magazine.
She teaches creative writing and poetry classes
with the AHEAD program (Achieving Higher Education and Dreams) at Metropolitan
State University in St. Paul, MN, mentors high school journalism students, and
teaches beginning and intermediate writers at conferences throughout the
country. Married with two grown children, she keeps her balance with a cup of
tea taken in the afternoon in her English garden. Further samples of her writing
can be viewed on her Web site,
http://www.tamawestman.com feel free to e-mail comments to
tama@tamawestman.com
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Have You Read...
I Wanna
Win
by Cheryl Wright
If you want to win writing contests and earn that elusive tag of
'award-winning writer' or if you just want to hone your skills, this book will
point you in the right direction.
New to freelance writing?
Read
this informative article.
Read
Glossary of Writing Terms
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Writing
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