Creative submissions and response times

Getting rejected is part of the game of writing, and any serious writer who wants to be published needs to get used to the idea.  Stephen King used to pin his rejection letters to his wall, as a perverse kind of motivation, or just to remind himself that he was in fact submitting and working hard. As artists with a personal investment in what we write, writers naturally take rejection hard, and it can be dispiriting and disheartening.

While it's risking exposing myself as a fraud -- someone who's not as successful a writer as I'd like to be -- I must admit that yesterday I received a particularly difficult rejection for a non-fiction piece from a magazine I admire and was hopeful about contributing to. Writing this essay proved emotionally draining, but I believed the end result was worth it. The editors unfortunately compounded this psychic pain by prolonging the rejection process, sending me a curtly worded slip after having the piece in their possession for six months.

Publication's important, but how long should we wait? 

Normally, when an editor takes such a long time to return something, the writer is apt to take that as a positive sign, a variation on "no news is good news." So a writer may get hopeful, which is not the editor's fault as such, and then must still process the rejection as a routine sort of thing that happens very often in the writing business.

I have edited a literary journal and understand that dealing with the volume of submissions, even for  relatively unknown journal, can be overwhelming. Yet it seems unconscionable that we have come to accept it as "routine" for an editor to take six months or longer to respond to a writer. And sometimes editors don't respond at all.

This isn't just about being rejected. It's about professionalism and the very real harm that comes from taking a piece off the market for six months, assuming the writer is being respectful enough not to send out simultaneous submissions, which annoy most editors. Unfortunately, because of the market dynamics, writers have no say in how the game is shaped or played. We are expected to conform to editors' demands (which vary widely), wait patiently for any kind of response, and be grateful and respectful when an editor declines.

All of this makes me personally reluctant to even submit material, although I have of course had work accepted in the past. The process is just emotionally tiring and frustratingly inefficient. But of course, I continue on, because I recognize the value of publication from an artistic standpoint (not from the standpoint, as many non-writers sometimes assume, of vanity).  Here's an earlier piece I wrote about the value of publication, and while I'm more jaded now, I suppose I stand by it.

Donald Trump, TV reality star

I can find plenty to criticize about Donald Trump, and I find the prospect of his becoming president, as well as the thought of so many people rallying behind him, frightening. Yet I also find the dismissal of Donald Trump as a "reality TV star," a label often thrown about by his closest rivals like Jeb Bush, to be disingenuous.  All modern politicians are products of the media in one way or another, and it could be argued that politicians use TV when it's to their advantage and dismiss it when it is not. Bush's particular contempt for Trump as a "TV star" seems to stem from his own frustrations with his lack of telegenic presence and the fact that Trump's controlled media exposure has pushed him to the front of the race. (Meanwhile, Ted Cruz accepts endorsements from reality TV stars, a truly strange sign of the times.)

Such dismissals based on former roles, while they might be construed as fair criticisms of a politician's record or experience, are really constructed on the decidedly non-American idea that we cannot remake ourselves. What of the past lives of other presidents? The conservatives' favorite icon, Ronald Reagan, after all, was a former movie star. Actually, he wasn't really much of a movie star, but was rather a second-rate movie actor who starred mostly in throwaway movies like Bedtime for Bonzo  (not a bad movie for 60-year-old comic fluff). He reinvented himself as a politician and president, in his second life and career. America is the place of such reinventions and second acts.

What about other presidents? Sure, most of them were businessmen, lawyers, generals, or career politicians, but Gerald Ford worked as a fashion model in his 20s. Here he is on the cover of Cosmo.

Carter famously worked as a peanut farmer (which his critics used as a punchline and his supporters argued made him well connected to the common man; perhaps a similar connection to commonness could be said for Trump). Lyndon Johnson was a Houston high-school teacher. Truman was a haberdasher, and Teddy Roosevelt, generally a bad-ass, was an all-around adventurer and author. I'm sure there are others.

The point is that the U.S. presidency should not exist as a rarefied position of power that is achieved only through ascending through elitist hoops of predetermined experiences. The presidency as a unique American office is not an identity but is something that a person must define on his own terms, within the parameters of the Constitution of course. Trump would mostly likely be a terrible president not because he starred on TV, but because he is devoid of substantive ideas and relies too heavily on politically incorrect language and dangerous scapegoating. Though it makes for a good soundbite, it isn't enough to simply dismiss him as superficial based on a previous job. It's just trading one superficial jab for another.

War, Literature and the Arts

I have two poems in the most recent edition of War, Literature & the Arts, a journal based at the United States Air Force Academy. It's a terrific, attractive, and well-edited journal that has a history of some important contributors, so I'm proud to be a part of it.

RIP Gunnar Hansen

I just found out that Gunnar Hansen, the actor famous for playing Leatherface in the first Texas Chainsaw Massacre, died from pancreatic cancer yesterday.  He was 68.  Hansen had made a bit of a comeback in the past 15 years playing in B-grade horror movies and appearing at fan festivals, and he was written up in the Wall Street Journal for his successes in continuing to carve out an interesting side career so long after that film.

In spite of his recent film appearances, he remained most famous for Chainsaw, and for his refusals to appear in any of the sequels (he always claimed the money they offered was an insult, though it's hard to believe he was getting paid much better for his appearances in flicks with knock-off parody titles like Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers and Chainsaw Sally).

Back in the 1990s, I was lucky enough to have dinner with Hansen, through the introduction of a mutual friend. I found him to be a charming and gracious man, and we mostly talked about writing. He autographed my copy of Islands on the Edge of Time, his excellent travel memoir that details his exploration and research of United States barrier islands. 

Hansen also worked as a screenwriter, wrote a memoir, and wrote many magazine articles.  He had an undergraduate degree in English and a very interesting master's degree in Scandinavian studies, and he worked as an adjunct college teacher in his younger years.  He was an all-around Renaissance man with a wide range of interests, serious intellectual acumen, and a natural ability, because of his size and physical charisma, to be scary on screen.  

I know he will be missed by his friends, family, and fans, but he will also be well remembered by this writer, who was inspired by his depth of character and gentlemanly demeanor that so humorously contrasted with his on-screen persona. 

My So-Called Pen Name

The use of pseudonyms has a long and respected history in the world of letters. In the past, female writers with high-minded literary aspirations (such as George Eliot -- real name Mary Ann Evans -- and the Bronte sisters) adopted male pen names in order to be taken seriously by the establishment. Other writers, such as Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain, have adopted pen names because their real names seemed too ordinary or otherwise out-of-step with the work they were producing. Pen names help writers to shape their image and their message. This doesn't just mean improving marketing and sales, although that can be part of it; it's also about the writer creating his own identity and advancing his own story, in writer-like fashion. The poet James Dickey (actually his real name) has become famous after his death for all the half-truths he told as a way of advancing his own mythology. But the truth is that writers as artists used to creating stories and characters do this impulsively to some extent; they experiment with their identities and consider how their persona fits with the writing.

Hemingway's study (original photo).  Hemingway did not use a pen name.

The story of my own pen name, which barely qualifies as a pen name at all, is rather mundane in comparison to the stories of these great writers, of course. When publishing, I use the name "D. Brian Anderson," which is an abbreviated form of my actual full name "David Brian Anderson."  Clever, yes? I have been doing this since my first nonfiction book was published, but why? At first glance, it might seem rather pretentious (and it is considered pretentious, by some) to use a first initial like this, as if I fashioning myself to be some kind of W. Somerset Maugham or F. Scott Fitzgerald.

But the truth is that I adopted my "pen name" because there were too many other Brian Andersons lurking around. It turns out it's a very ordinary name.  When I worked for the Lunar and Planetary Institute, a NASA subcontractor, there were at least two other Brian Andersons working for NASA in the Houston area at the same time. I used to get annoying calls from a collection agent looking for one of them.

And that's the least of it. There are several semi-famous Brian Andersons, people who are well known and well respected in their fields -- certainly more well known than I am.  There's Brian Anderson the professional skateboarder, Brian Anderson the sportscaster,  Brian Anderson the retired major-league pitcher, Brian Anderson the current outfielder, and Brian Anderson the Australian academic.

This is just the top of the list. I used to have a more comprehensive list on my old geocities website (since deleted). It seemed weird and interesting to collect these in-name-only doppelgangers.

So as it was, when you google "Brian Anderson," you're going to get a whole lot of people besides me.  You may never find me, in fact.  But when you google "D. Brian Anderson," you'll get me (at least last time I checked).  Since I'm not a commercial author, this is not in any way designed to "increase sales," but it is just hoped that it might help the occasional reader or fellow writer get in touch. 

P.S. Here's an article I found while researching this post; it's a general reflection on the idea of using first initials.

School Nightmares

A common anxiety-based nightmare, as confirmed by the very cool book The Pop-up Book of Nightmares, involves finding yourself in a classroom and realizing you haven't studied for a test or haven't been to school all semester. In my experience, the test usually has something to do with math, and it's usually a high-school setting.  This common nightmare is of course closely related to the one in which you realize you are naked in school or in some other public setting.  In the latter nightmare, you're literally dealing with your fear of being exposed, whereas in the former, you're facing the fear of being exposed as an intellectual or academic fraud. Often, there's the added pressure of the clock running out, or the time being hard to figure out.

In my most recent school-based nightmare, I'm taking the GRE and I can't find a pencil that is sharp enough, and then when I try to sharpen one, the sharpener grinds it into a nub. In another recent dream, I find myself waking up in the classroom, hungover, and the instructor tells me I have ten minutes to prepare for my presentation, which I know I have carefully prepared, but I don't have it with me. I rush back to my dormitory room, but I can't find the right folder -- just lots of other folders, and they're all wet or fall apart when I pick them up. (I'm using the literary present to describe the action of these dreams.)

Nightmares like this raise all sorts of interesting questions, like what did people have nightmares about before school or automobiles existed?  I also wonder if people who haven't continued in school continue to have school nightmares.  I haven't been in undergraduate school for almost 25 years, but in that time, I think I've been teaching or taking classes for all but four years.  I can't remember if I had a lot of school dreams during those four years, but I would bet that I did not. 

I also have nightmares about not being prepared to teach a class or facing down particularly disruptive students, and even some pleasant dreams about appreciative students, but the most common nightmare by far has me returning to school as a student, facing down my lack of preparedness or dealing with my intellectual shortcomings. In addition to still being a student myself (a student of guitar and a doctoral student), having this nightmare makes me more compassionate toward students, as it helps me remember how difficult and stressful going to school can be. 

Presents for teachers

The end of each semester always brings about new opportunities to reflect on relationships with students and the effects you've had on each other.  This semester, a student gave me a Christmas present, which is rare enough that it always kind of reminds me -- in a self-deprecating way -- of the heartbreaking end of the film The Browning Version.  This particular present, while unexpected, was certainly much appreciated as a symbolic gesture.  As indicated by her card, this student enjoyed the class and wanted to express those good feelings with a gift.  In return, the gift prompted me to reflect in a more personal way on my students (all of them) as individuals and to think about how they have changed, even if only in small ways, over the semester. As college instructors, we're not always encouraged or expected to connect with our students on this level, since the traditional college model, whether it's appropriate or not, emphasizes rigor and mastery of the complex subject matter, and our students, after all, are increasingly self-reliant adults. I am perhaps not the friendliest guy around, even though I try not to be downright aloof, so when I do inspire this kind of personal connection it's always a bonus that makes me realize some of my efforts to get students to be successful and more confident in their actual abilities have worked.

Browning Version, 1951 version

Gifts like this always remind of the elementary-school tradition that encourages all students to buy their teachers presents for the holidays.  Memories of this tradition are not all-around pleasant. When I was in the second grade, I was roundly humiliated when I gave my teacher, Mrs. Tribble, a white-haired older woman with perfectly straight teeth, a three-pack of Irish Spring bar soap.  Most of the other students had given Mrs. Tribble pretty baubles or affectionately sensible items like little teddy bears or novelty coffee mugs. Most of the other students, it would seem, had some parental guidance and financial assistance in this regard. I seem to remember wandering around Target with a couple of dollars stuffed into my Toughskins jeans, wondering what I could possibly get for a teacher. The soap seemed practical, but I also remember being fond of the jaunty Irish Spring TV commercials, so I'm sure that was a factor. 

The other students laughed uproariously at my measly and inappropriate gift, probably in part because they thought it implied that I thought the teacher needed a bath.  Mrs. Tribble, to her credit, added the soap to her stack of gifts and said with some pride, "I'm going to smell so good."  It's sort of amazing to think about all the strange and unexpected situations that elementary-school teachers have to be ready for.