Seventeen
Here’s my writing journey – and it applies to all forms I’ve written in: short stories, screenplays, and novels. But I’ll use novels as the model. I’ll write a novel, revise, submit. Rejection. I’ll submit again. Rejection. And again. Rejection. I’ll revise again and again and again. Submit. Rejection. Submit elsewhere. Rejection. Submit all around. I might get a nibble here, a request for the whole manuscript, or a glowing personalized rejection, but a rejection all the same. Rejection. Then, after getting over the initial frustration and wanting to quit writing, I’ll start a new book, and vow that this one will be different. This book will be THE ONE.…
Karen
I hate that “Karen” has crept into the vernacular as an insult. Growing up as a teen in the 1980s, I used to endure a barrage of “lesbian” and “lezzo” as a play on my name. During one Year 8 English class, the teacher (who was often the victim of innuendo because he might’ve been gay) stopped the class to go through the room, person by person, and ask them if they’d ever been made fun of and how they’d been made fun of. Then he’d ask the class if they’d ever made fun of that person in that way. When it got to me, the bulk of the class…