Fledgling Writers Nest

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Fledgling Writers Nest
The Big Reach

The Big Reach

On going with the delulu of potential glory, Fledgling newsletter #69

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Sammi LaBue
Oct 10, 2024
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Fledgling Writers Nest
Fledgling Writers Nest
The Big Reach
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Yesterday as a writer: I am at my writing space in Manhattan. I finish some edits for an essay that will be published in January. I send a collection of my poems to my developmental editor. I receive a personal rejection from a big time outlet and have the guts to respond, riffing off of a joke the editor made. He writes back “Ha!” I eat a salad in the sun reading Patti Smith’s little Devotion. No one cares.

Before everybody is somebody they’re nobody. I am happy with the nobody I was yesterday and am today, only maybe because of some new found faith in the somebody I could be tomorrow.

Last month I joined Courtney Kocak’s Back to School Pitch Party. Every year I make sure I am a student. I join a workshop, a residency, or a retreat and sit in the student seat. My friend’s dad who is a writer gave me this advice when I was 18, and I have never forsaken it. He said: “Always be learning. Not just figuratively. Join a workshop, enroll in a class.” This being my first year as a parent, a big flashy, immersive residency didn’t seem possible and I wondered if perhaps this would be the first year I squandered his wisdom except for some one-off webinars.

Having read about an earlier iteration in my friend Elizabeth Austin’s newsletter, Courtney’s Pitch Party seemed easy but involved enough to sate me. We met one hour every day to write short memoir material, prompted by the many “calls for submissions” big outlets are looking for. I had no idea it would truly transform my attitude toward my writing life.

Sure, I’ve been delulu enough in the past to send work to the likes of The New York Times and The Sun, but it always came with a little cheek-burning embarrassment and a lot of chutzpah. This time Courtney had us writing whatever burned in us to write, then setting down the next burning idea, all the while firing pitches off this way and that. I hardly had time for imposter syndrome because I was writing so much and developing so many ideas.

I’ve been guilty of needing permission to write certain subjects in the past or telling myself “it’s not time,” keeping precious topics for some indeterminate later date. Spending the month writing all the little pieces I’ve dreamt of for “one day” taught me something important. If you are ready to publish, and publish big and wide, it’s less about timidly approaching that one scary Submittable page and more about throwing the spaghetti of your thoughts at the wall.

This going-for-it mentality trickled into the rest of my life. I found myself applying for big time fellowships, booking big time trips, and embarking on big time personal goals I’ve put off forever, waiting for “the right time.” I’ve never had a problem with writing, but after the writing came waiting. Whether or not I land some of these dream pubs, I’m not waiting anymore.

Why wait when nothing’s ever guaranteed. As one wise man once said (ahem, my husband): no asky, no getty.

So, I’m sticking with this asky era for now. (And yes, you can find me in Courtney’s November Pitch Party, too!) It feels good to throw your hat in the ring if you let it be just that. I knew then but now I’m certain, there will always be another hat. Another story, another good one for the big one. You have to write that great thing, to make room for the even greater thing, and the greaterer thing after that.

What have you been waiting for permission to do for too long? Could you go for it, like today? (Nepotism aside) somebodys aren’t born out of the clear blue. It takes a nobody with a lot of guts to get there. So come out on that limb, chickadee. The weather’s fine.

News:

  • Join the next online Fledgling Course beginning November 7th! Though this course is appropriate for a beginner or begin-againer, it’s also extremely fun for a seasoned writer who wants to write a lot and develop some new ideas and content with a group of likeminded people. Reply back here if you have questions! I’d love the chance to talk you into snagging one of the last couple of spots.

  • Enrollment for both Flight Behavior, an online novel planning course, and Migration, our in person course on writing the self, is now open. These will only be offered once in 2025, so register soon to claim your spot!

  • If you’re an essayist and interested in joining Courtney Kocak’s Pitch Party yourself, check it out and use code SAMMI for a special discount offer.

  • Call for info: Have you or someone you know experienced group therapy gone wrong (or dare I say, culty)? Has a friend or partner ended a relationship with you because of their therapy group? I’m writing about how group therapy can toe the line of appropriateness and am looking for some true experiences of control, intimidation, and unwanted pressure in group therapy. Please email me at fledgling@fledglingworkshops.com if you’re willing to share.

  • Upgrade to paid to join The Nest, our ongoing writing community. We write together every Tuesday from 12-1 in Lunch Break. It rules.

Prompts:

Turn your phone on airplane mode. Choose a prompt. Write to it for 10 minutes. Follow what ever comes out. A poem, an essay, a story, a letter, a list. If you want to keep going, keep going. If you like what you write, reply it back to me and maybe see it in the newsletter next month...

  • Write about a big risk, either your own or one made up. Quitting a job, leaving a relationship, telling someone you want to be more than friends. Put us straight into the hot seat of the risky moment from the first sentence. Challenge yourself not to ramp up to it, just dive in.

  • Here’s more of a journaling prompt: Write about a major success that has yet to happen as if it has already come to pass. What’s that one dangling carrot you’re running toward right now? What would it look like, feel like, taste like to finally snag it? Write it in the present tense. Who knows, maybe you’ll manifest it.

And lastly, something to read:

a Fledgling’s response to last month’s prompt

God is…

Release 

Movement 

Rest and dreams 

The rush after nearly getting hit by a bicycle 

Seeing kids across the street play in the summer

Remembering yourself as a kid, playing in the summer

It’s putting your feet into fresh socks and sitting by the woodstove after sledding in the snow

God is what you want yourself to know

Lengthened lavender stems and tomatoes off the vine 

Light that dances on water in an ocean’s tale of time 

God is not a man or a woman, but source itself

Where ancient meets tomorrow is now - is now 

Its cool rain after a summer of humid, unrelenting heat

Tomorrow, God could be different. 

But mostly I think it is remembering and knowing.

Aphaia Harper lives and works from home at her 115-year-old home in Catonsville, Maryland. She is a daughter of a sculptor and poet. She has always been curious and committed to memoir, storytelling, consciousness, and the creative process. Check her out @aphaia.harper on IG and here on Substack.

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