Stop thinking about others as competition. It’s hard sometimes to ignore what others are doing, but nobody’s path is the same.
Author Archives: Beth Bates
Post-MFA Writers Facebook, Hobbify and Goof Off
Join Facebook even if it scares the living hell out of you. Keep in touch with your lit gang. Make some new lit and non-lit friends. Let people into your writing life. It makes it less lonely.
Got My MFA. Now What?
I did it because I didn’t just want to be someone with an MFA, I wanted to be someone with a shelf of books and short stories and screenplays with my name on them.
The fact is you will be much grumpier if you don’t write than if you do. You’ll feel better after you’ve written.
Writers Write, Submit and Make Nice with Rejection
Sure, you’re going to submit work before you’re ready, but that is okay. Keep submitting work. New work. Re-revised work. Whatever. Work on it, make it the best you can, have more than one piece going out, and GO.
Post-MFA Survival Guide Part 1: Read Lit Mags
It does make me want to get a little smacky-smacky when I hear writers say, in whispered tones, “I don’t really read literary magazines.” Well, that’s a problem. The fact is there is a lit mag for everyone—slipstream, genre-based, anything and everything.
Rejection’s Easy. What’s a Writer to Do With Acceptance?
After precisely fifteen minutes of eye-dabbing Sally Field gratitude, my inner Woody Allen got to work sabotaging my joy and minimizing my accomplishment. It’s not the New York Times, that SOB said in my head.
Free to Report Bullying
In the handbook of the school system attended by my children and funded by my household, under the section about bullying (defined as overt, repeated acts or gestures, including verbal … communication … by a student with the intent to harass, ridicule, humiliate or harm the other student) there is a point that states: Parents should feel free to report suspected acts of bullying to an appropriate school official.
Moments with Merwin: God Bless America!
I must admit, as a proser I was unfamiliar with this two-time Pulitzer Prize winner’s work. In fact, I wasn’t aware that the United States even has an official poet. (How cool is that?) Thank you, NPR, for shining the light into my darkness. In this story, I listened to the handsome octogenarian read one of his earlier, most famous poems. It has haunted me for days (in a good way), and now I will share it with you.
Hell Has Frozen Over…
…and I’m in it. After a gloomy weekend of rainy weather, it’s Monday, the kids have a Flex Day, and the sun is shining. The sun is shining bright like a blue sky day on the beach, it’s 75 degrees, and I’m in the Carmel Ice Skadium writing a Bosma internal newsletter on my laptop whileContinue reading “Hell Has Frozen Over…”
Live Actually? Are you kidding me?
On the Second Story Blog, I read about the most radical notion today. I don’t think you can do it. I hope I can, because it looks more refreshing than a bottle of water on a hike above timberline on a July day. But let’s try, shall we? I dare ya. 10 ways to liveContinue reading “Live Actually? Are you kidding me?”
VICTORY, Personified
At the Indianapolis 500 Festival Mini Marathon 15K training race this past Saturday, a friend of mine who is legally blind finished STRONG! See a snippet of her story and a link to the video of her celebrating by clicking this link.
Remodel Update
Good things to say, no time to say it. Go Butler.
Beth Bates 