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

Tue Jan 10 12:14:07 UTC 2012

Nice article Nancy if you're out there. :) 
Reminds me that luck is not what it appears, it 
is really preparation colliding with opportunity. 
The more we  continue with the former and 
consciously jump in the path of the latter, we 
can try to speed up the process of luck. Here's to our agility.

Brad

On 1/9/2012  09:33 PM Robert Leslie Newman said...
>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.
>
>(back
><http://www.nfb.org/images/nfb/Publications/bm/bm12/bm1201/bm120110.htm> )
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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
>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>Writers Division web site:
>http://www.nfb-writers-division.net <http://www.nfb-writers-division.org/>
>
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Brad Dunsé

"After the game, the king and the pawn go into the same box." --Italian Proverb

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