Such a wonderful essay Liza with such an important life lesson! One that I’ve been learning recently myself. It’s sounds like your Middle School experience was a formative period in your life. You were very set on snagging Rochester as your boyfriend and you felt like in order to win his approval you needed to dress and look a certain wa…
Such a wonderful essay Liza with such an important life lesson! One that I’ve been learning recently myself. It’s sounds like your Middle School experience was a formative period in your life. You were very set on snagging Rochester as your boyfriend and you felt like in order to win his approval you needed to dress and look a certain way to be acceptable to someone else. But you would come to the conclusion with the passing of time and you doing everything you were “supposed” to do and it going nowhere, that you would return to being yourself and just doing what came naturally to you. Ironically, this is when you caught Rochester’s attention. That’s when HE was the one to spend a ton of money, time and effort on YOU. Going to the trouble of putting up this fancy display with balloons and a cookie cake with prom spelled out in icing. You already had a date for the prom, had forgotten about him and had long since moved on. When all of a sudden he approached YOU. But it was too late, that ship had already sailed. You had options and could and did turn him down. If Rochester wanted to date you, he shouldn’t have waited so long and stayed silent. He should’ve just been direct and forthcoming and not caused to go through all that. But it all turned out for the best in the end. It turned out you didn’t need him and we’re worth a whole lot just as you were. The literary field from what you described here is the same way. Selfishness, backstabbing, arrogance, everyone trying to step on everyone else to be successful, etc. This is why it’s no wonder that you went the independent publishing route. You don’t want to have to, nor do you need to, win anyone else’s approval. You just need to be Liza and write the stories YOU want to write. Than the big publishing giants will seek you out. When the Lilac Room sells a million copies and earns the praise of people all across this nation, then the publishing houses and writers who turned you down or scoffed at you will seek YOU out, but by that time you’ll have plenty of options and can tell THEM no.
I will say, having been a young man myself once upon a time, we are frequently completely oblivious to the 'signals' young women insist on sending off.
Well, Ms. Libes puts stuff about how bad Marxism is for the arts and humanities on her blog...which, I should clarify, I 100% agree with, but given how cliquey and intensely left-wing publishing is these days (as she says, it's basically Mean Girls all over again) she's probably going to have to specifically seek out a conservative audience. Who, rather problematically, generally don't like to read literary fiction.
I suspect a lot of the libertarian/IDW/old-school liberal/'classical liberal' types might like her stuff. It's not a huge fraction but it might be a place to start.
Such a wonderful essay Liza with such an important life lesson! One that I’ve been learning recently myself. It’s sounds like your Middle School experience was a formative period in your life. You were very set on snagging Rochester as your boyfriend and you felt like in order to win his approval you needed to dress and look a certain way to be acceptable to someone else. But you would come to the conclusion with the passing of time and you doing everything you were “supposed” to do and it going nowhere, that you would return to being yourself and just doing what came naturally to you. Ironically, this is when you caught Rochester’s attention. That’s when HE was the one to spend a ton of money, time and effort on YOU. Going to the trouble of putting up this fancy display with balloons and a cookie cake with prom spelled out in icing. You already had a date for the prom, had forgotten about him and had long since moved on. When all of a sudden he approached YOU. But it was too late, that ship had already sailed. You had options and could and did turn him down. If Rochester wanted to date you, he shouldn’t have waited so long and stayed silent. He should’ve just been direct and forthcoming and not caused to go through all that. But it all turned out for the best in the end. It turned out you didn’t need him and we’re worth a whole lot just as you were. The literary field from what you described here is the same way. Selfishness, backstabbing, arrogance, everyone trying to step on everyone else to be successful, etc. This is why it’s no wonder that you went the independent publishing route. You don’t want to have to, nor do you need to, win anyone else’s approval. You just need to be Liza and write the stories YOU want to write. Than the big publishing giants will seek you out. When the Lilac Room sells a million copies and earns the praise of people all across this nation, then the publishing houses and writers who turned you down or scoffed at you will seek YOU out, but by that time you’ll have plenty of options and can tell THEM no.
I will say, having been a young man myself once upon a time, we are frequently completely oblivious to the 'signals' young women insist on sending off.
Well, Ms. Libes puts stuff about how bad Marxism is for the arts and humanities on her blog...which, I should clarify, I 100% agree with, but given how cliquey and intensely left-wing publishing is these days (as she says, it's basically Mean Girls all over again) she's probably going to have to specifically seek out a conservative audience. Who, rather problematically, generally don't like to read literary fiction.
I suspect a lot of the libertarian/IDW/old-school liberal/'classical liberal' types might like her stuff. It's not a huge fraction but it might be a place to start.