Karen Harrington's favorite rejection

by Joan

I met Karen Harrington several years ago when she spoke about her book Janeology at the Writers' Guild of Texas. She's been a good friend of our blog and we were lucky to have her guest post a while back. I'm so pleased she's back for another guest post, and this time on the eve of the launch of her new novel, Sure Signs of Crazy. 

From her website:

You've never met anyone exactly like twelve-year-old Sarah Nelson. While most of her classmates geek out over Harry Potter, she writes letters to Atticus Finch. Her best friend is a plant. And she's never known her mother, who has lived in a mental institution since Sarah was two.

Sarah and her dad have spent the last decade moving from one Texas town to another, and she's never felt truly at home...until now. This is the story of on extraordinary summer in which Sarah gets her first real crush, new friends, and the answers she's always been looking for. 

Early buzz:

"Don't think this will be a hard sell to readers...for Harrington has created a protagonist who is, in her own way, as clear-eyed, tough-minded, and inspiring as any dystopian hero." (Booklist, starred review)

"Readers intrigued by the premise of this moving story will sympathize with the plucky protagonist and rejoice in the way her summer works out." (Kirkus, starred review)

"Sure signs of crazy is knowing, hilarious, and tender. Karen Harrington's character portrait of Sarah Nelson is one for the ages." (Pat Conroy, bestselling author of The Prince of Tides and My Reading Life.)

MY FAVORITE REJECTION

By Karen Harrington

 

Years ago when my children were ages one and two, I received a life changing phone call. I was mopping the floor at the time and Sesame Street played on the TV. “We’d like to publish your novel!” said the voice on the phone. Those are the words every aspiring writer longs to hear. I’d been waiting to hear them all my life.

I dropped my mop.

One year later, I was ecstatic at the release of my first adult novel, Janeology, published by Kunati Books. And one year after that, Kunati Books closed. My novel went out of print almost as fast as it came out.

Chalking this up to experience, I got busy writing a new novel. Around the time I finished the new work, I got a nice letter from a reader of Janeology. “After the mother is sent to a mental institution, what happened to the little girl?” the letter asked.

Interesting question, I thought, and then pushed the idea aside. After all, I still had to polish my other novel. And get an agent. Who had time for interesting questions?

After sending out scores of queries and collecting scores of rejections, I got what I now refer to as My Favorite Rejection. The agent loved the writing, but said, “I don’t know who would buy this.” It was that agonizing rite of passage every writer I know has crossed. It happens when an agent says “this is close, but not quite there.” And then she added a sentence to her rejection that made it unforgettable: “The solution for you is easy. Just write another novel.”

What?!

I said a lot of mean things to my computer screen.

This happened close to November, which is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). I’d participated in this month-long challenge before and decided to write that “easy” novel and get the agent’s voice out of my head. I cast about for an idea and decided that, like the reader who emailed me months back, I, too, was curious about what happened to the little girl in Janeology.

Fueled by caffeine and indignance, I wrote about a spunky, word-loving, twelve-year-old girl finding hope and courage despite living in the dark shadows of an infamous, mentally ill mother. Like all first drafts, it was a fine mess. But I loved the character and wanted to work on it.

That novel turned into what is now SURE SIGNS OF CRAZY, which will be released tomorrow by Little, Brown Books. Many writers cite the one story that is their “heart” book. SURE SIGNS OF CRAZY is my heart book.

Of course, I have a different perspective about that agent and her irritating rejection. Her advice turned out to be one of the great gifts of my life, which is why it will always be my favorite rejection. Ultimately, she gave me confidence by suggesting I should keep writing and not give up.  

Now, because I owe a lot to writer friends who’ve supported and inspired me (including the writers here at What Women Write) I share my rejection anecdote in the spirit of encouragement. Just in case you are thinking of giving up, don’t.

Don’t give up until you’ve found the right story. DO NOT GIVE UP. You might be at the point where the advice “just write another novel” is frustratingly necessary. You might be on the verge of writing your heart book.

And I, for one, want to read it.

Joan here. Thanks, Karen, for sharing that wonderful story! Inspiring! 

Readers, you can find her book at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Indie Bound.

Karen Harrington on Writing and Nature vs. Nurture

It's my pleasure to introduce a new contributor to What Women Write. You'll be seeing Karen Harrington around the place once a month or so.

Karen is the author of Janeology, a book I (Julie) read recently and thoroughly enjoyed, though the subject matter is tough.

Using what I thought was a pretty unique storytelling method, Karen addresses the issue of whether someone can be genetically predisposed to committing a crime.

Janeology (Kunati/2008) is available from the usual sites, but Karen also has a certain number of copies available at a great discount by contacting her directly at kharrin2003(at sign)yahoo.com. Check out Karen's website, where you can read more about her and her novel and even catch an excerpt.

Karen's a native Texan (our FIRST native here at What Women Write!), stay-at-home mom by day, and novelist by night.

Karen, thanks for joining us and welcome to What Women Write. Now, here's Karen!

Have you ever seen Andy Rooney? He’s a 60 Minutes news commentator. Nobody does curmudgeon better than Andy Rooney. He often launches into his satirical segments about everyday questions with “Do you ever wonder why...”

Lately I’ve been channeling my inner Andy Rooney over a single question: Do you ever wonder why . . . some writers become minimalists while others are maximalists?

Why do some writers develop the economic style of Hemingway while others write the kind of honeyed prose that helped make Pat Conroy famous?

Since I am captivated by the nature vs. nurture debate, I’ve begun to wonder if a writer’s style is more the result of nature or nurture. Are writers born with a certain stylistic lean? Or are we influenced by our earliest reading and writing experiences?

For myself, I attended the writing program at the University of Texas at Dallas. In its heyday, the UTD program had a proud distinction: 25% of all graduates from the program went on to be published. The reason behind this great result was, in part, the tremendous professors the university attracted. The head of the creative writing program was Dr. Robert Nelsen. Nelsen had a bent toward minimalism and short stories. We read Hemingway, Carver, Amy Hempel and Mary Gaitskill. These were among his favorites. We studied and outlined their stories, unearthing what was and wasn’t in the text. In his teaching and critique, he applied the famous Hemingway quote:

“If a writer knows enough about what he is writing about, he may omit things that he knows. The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one-ninth of it being above water.”

These lessons stuck. I write in the minimalist style. Some of my early efforts indicated I was successful in this approach. One of my first short stories won an honorable mention in the Lorian Hemingway Short Story Competition. Another was optioned for an independent short film.

So you see, the common denominator of these early achievements was developing a minimalist method. But a funny thing happened last year. I developed literary crushes on John Irving and Pat Conroy. To say that their writing is full, descriptive and luminous is an understatement. You’d be hard pressed to find a book by either author that weighs less than one pound. Their words not only describe where the protagonist lives, but also make you wonder if the scent of, say, an oceanside setting has perfumed the page.

Raymond Carver best summed up the difference in these two styles when he said, "Prose is architecture, not interior decoration.”

But sometimes I like interior decoration! As much as I WANT to write long, I come up short.

I find it difficult and strained. The writing sounds like I just found a purple crayon and want to use it on everything. Nothing alerted me more to my own purple floweriness than when rereading my last NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) novel, which was an experiment in imitating Irving. I considered giving you an example sentence from said draft, but I’m not that brave.

So I have to wonder: If my early professors had been devotees to Faulkner and I had been trained on an expanded style, would my writing style today reflect the influence of those writers? Or, was I already hardwired with a certain style? Is there a nature/nurture correlation to writing?

Tell me what you think. Do you ever wonder why you write a certain way? Do you think your style is reflective of nature or nurture?