[stylist] The January Braille Monitor has an article by Nancy Scott

[Robert Leslie Newman]

Nancy Scott is a long-long time member of the Writers' division. She has
written many-many pieces of poetry and prose and has done a  lot  to promote
our organization's goal of "Changing what it means to be blind." When I find
an article from one of our members, I want to pass it on to the rest of us;
as a tribute to the success of one of our fellow members, and to spur us all
on to continue writing. 

 

The Braille Monitor January 2012


Great Life


by Nancy Scott

 

>From the Editor: When I was a younger man, when getting a job was very much
on my mind, and when I was looking to the National Federation of the Blind
to assure me I could find one, I remember hearing how the very successful
people I met had had to apply for fifty or a hundred jobs before landing
one. Sometimes it was the job they had longed to get, and sometimes it was a
stepping-stone on the path to what they really wanted, but each and every
one of them encouraged me and gave me confidence to keep believing and keep
on trying.

Nancy Scott is a writer trying to get more of her material published. Some
of our members are writers. Some pursue different occupations and avocations
but sit down to write so the Monitor has something to offer both people who
want to know more about blindness and people determined to change what it
means to be blind. Here is what Nancy Scott has to say about the heartbreak
of rejection, the way to get beyond it, and the value of persistence,
whether it is getting an essay accepted or a piece of legislation enacted.

"Why do I bother writing?" I ask myself for what feels like the fiftieth
time this year. My two submitted essays that I'd most hoped for were just
rejected, both in the same week. Tin House and Creative Nonfiction chose not
to publish, though my piece for Creative Nonfiction made it to the top
twenty. (Close counts only with hand grenades and horseshoes.)

No one is calling. I just got over a fierce but short cold. My apartment
neighbors all have strange people living with them, and most of them smoke.
I'm feeling fragile and bereft and untalented and melodramatic. But I've
been writing for thirty years, and I know the drill. I must send both essays
out again, and I should simultaneously submit them. That way any one
rejection is only one rejection. (Of course maybe no one will consider them
because they're traipsing all over the place.)

I know editors are rejecting my work and not me, but I really wanted at
least one of these essays to make it. And the biggest fear for a
moderately-published author is that she might be only a mediocre writer. I
must banish this "mediocre" mantra. In writing as in blindness we need
action and the will to find that action. So what do I do? I listen to part
of an issue of Poets & Writers on NFB-NEWSLINER. I have done this often,
though this intervention feels more serious. I am battling a real lack of
energy, and writing is energy on a page.

It works almost instantly. One author talks about his "great death." He gave
up writing in his 50s. He went back to it and wrote a successful novel that
was published when he was 65. And he has a disability. I also hear MFA
[master of fine arts] alternatives and lists of prominent authors who don't
have the magic letters after their names. The very good synthetic voice
reads lots of written words about writing practice, writing myths, and
writing community. (There's even one author who pretended to be blind when
he was a kid.)

Many like-minded writers are doing what I'm doing. They struggle and fail
and succeed. They lose their way and find their way. The best advice is "You
never know when you'll do your best writing, so write a lot." Yes! That is
the power of one necessary phrase. And it's just as true for advocacy.
Like-minded communities are often helpful. Setbacks can feel permanent. And,
if we're not careful, they can become permanent. A community of people
dealing with the same thing can advise and motivate.

Maybe I'll achieve some necessary phrases. Maybe I already have, but no one
will know unless I send them to many editors. Maybe my writing achievements
will help show what a blind person can do. I will check out Poets & Writers'
long marketing section.

I like many other things featured on NEWSLINE: Air and Space Magazine,
Matilda Ziegler, TV listings, and UPI Business and Science, just to name a
few. But, when I question my calling, Poets & Writers is more important than
anything else. I always find something in every issue I read. I bet the
people who decided to include it needed pep talks and markets too. This is
why we have one another; this is why I am a part of and contribute to the
National Federation of the Blind. Working together, trying together, there
is no doubt we will succeed.

Sidebar: For information on becoming a subscriber to NFB-NEWSLINER, call
(866) 504-7300 or go to www.nfbnewsline.org. 

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Robert Leslie Newman

President, Omaha Chapter NFB

President, NFB Writers' Division

Division Website 

 <http://www.nfb-writers-division.> http://www.nfb-writers-division.net

Chair, Newsletter Publication committee

Personal Website-

 <http://www.thoughtprovoker.info/> http://www.thoughtprovoker.info