Once upon a time, a behavioral scientist called B. F. Skinner discovered that if you rewarded rats with a cookie every time they pressed a button, the rats were more likely to repeat said behavior.  The same is true for people.  Give a kid a cookie when the kid asks for one and chances are, she’ll ask for another.  And another.

Where things get dicey is that if you mess with how frequently the reward is given, you can actually increase the reward-getting behavior substantially.   It comes down to what researchers call a Variable Ratio (VR) Schedule.  This is the most treacherous schedule of reinforcement because reward is given after a random number of responses (red line on the graph).  In other words, give a kid a cookie, but only after she asks for it a certain number of times.  Then keep changing that number on her.  Chances are, she’ll ask even more often than if you just gave her the cookie when she asked in the first place.

What does this have to do with the query process, you ask?  Some might argue that the query process is a variable ratio schedule.  This carrot of publication success is dangled in front of us and as writers we have no way of knowing which query or which submission will be “the one.”  We never know when we’re going to get a “yes” so we all keep sending out more queries and more submissions, inundating the market, thus making the reward schedule even more random.

Personally, I think that’s a rather glum way of looking at things.  To me, writing is more than just a behavior motivated by the reward of publication.  Rather, it’s a quiet act of persistence driven by the knowledge that if I do what needs to be done, something good will come of it.  Maybe it won’t be the thing I wanted or when I wanted, but if I show up at the page good things can happen.

What about you?  How do you view the writing process?

…I learned playing the violin.

The violin and I have a love-hate relationship.  I started playing at age 4, and have continued on and off for over 25 years.  Some of the time this was by choice, other times… not so much.  After all, how much choice do you really have when you’re 4?  It scares me a little to think that, with the exception of maybe my parents and siblings, I’ve had a longer relationship with this instrument than I have with most humans.

The “hate” part of the love-hate relationship is what comes to mind first.  I hate that from the minute I started school until today, everyone thinks of me as “the violin kid.”  I mean, sure, the violin was an important part of my formative years, but it’s not like I was born with the thing strapped to my arm.  Another thing is that I can’t hear a car horn or an elevator “ping” without thinking: d minor 7th chord, or seeing the note in my head.  Most people listen to music to “check out” and relax but I listen to music and my fingers start playing air-violin.  Oh, and the next person to make a violin-hickey joke is seriously going to get smacked.

But for someone like me, playing a musical instrument was probably the best thing that ever happened (even if I hate having to admit it).  I will admit that I’m really shy and playing violin taught me how to get up in front of a crowd.  Today, in honor of my Thesis reading (which is tonight) I’d like to share the…

Octave of Things I Learned About Public Reading from Playing Violin

1. Practice.  There’s this old violin joke…
   

   Q: How do you get to Carnegie Hall?
   A: Practice, practice, practice.

   My violin teacher used to say: “You practice 120% so that if you mess up 30% at the concert, you still get it 90% right.”  I’ve learned that the best way to prepare for reading in public is to read the piece over and over to anyone who will listen.  Read it so many times you practically have the thing memorized.

2. Pick a piece that shines.  If the goal is to wow the audience, selecting the right repertoire is key.  In particular, try to pick a piece that shows your work in its best light.  It always drove me crazy that I’d play a difficult baroque solo sonata and the audience would snooze but if I chose a short, easy, flashy piece I’d get a standing ovation.  It’s ridiculous, I know, but if all you get is one chance to stun an audience, sometimes short/easy/flashy is the way to go.
3. Remember: the audience is on your side.  Unless you’re defending your thesis in front of a panel of professors or you’re a lawyer giving your closing statements to a jury, chances are are the audience is not there to judge you.  They’re rooting for you.
4. Don’t worry about mechanics.  The fastest way for me to mess up a violin performance is to think about my bow hand, or my posture, or my feet.  The minute I become hyper-aware of some mechanical detail of playing all bets are off and I start making mistakes left and right.  The same is true for reading.  If you start to think about the actual words or grammar, that’s when fumbles can happen.  Which brings me to #5.
5. Hear the story in your head.  Whenever I feel myself focusing too much on the mechanics of what I’m playing, I force myself to hear the music in my head.  Same is true for writing.  When I read, I try to get caught up in telling a good story, rather than the minutia of my writing.
6. If you make a mistake, just move on.  Don’t stop or go back.  Pretend it’s part of the piece.  After all, who’s going to know that it’s not?  Especially if you’re reading something that’s not yet published.
7. Don’t make faces.  This is a corollary to #6.  I’m queen of face-making when I play.  If I’m playing something difficult, I snarl at the fingerboard.  When I make mistakes, I mouth swear words.  I know this because my parents have oh-so-graciously captured all these moments on tape.  My point is, if you act like you’ve made a mistake, everyone’s going to notice that something’s up.  If you just keep reading, no one will ever know.
8. Smile and have fun.  Even if you think this experience is about as enjoyable as getting a root canal, smile at the audience.  If you pretend you’re having fun, chances are, you’ll find yourself enjoying the moment and the audience will respond.

Today I’m going to deviate a little from my blogging schedule because I have something on my mind.

On Saturday, I attended a huge celebration commemorating my school’s 125th anniversary.  I went to this school for eleven years–from second grade through senior year–and in many ways, this school has shaped who I have become as a writer and as a person.

Perhaps the thing that most impacted me at Saturday’s event was that I ran into my eleventh grade creative writing teacher.  While my eleven years at that school taught me to write, it was Ms. T’s creative writing class that made me into a writer.

Looking back, there wasn’t a lot of craft or deep analysis involved in that class.  Instead, there was acceptance, encouragement and permission to take risks, all of which came through in Ms. T’s calm and nurturing demeanor.  In college, when I took my second creative writing course, I was so used to this creative freedom that I had no problem taking plenty of risks and writing things that were a bit… unconventional.  Unfortunately, my professor and classmates did have a problem with this and that semester every ounce of creativity got squelched out of me.

For years, I didn’t touch pen to page.

But slowly, Ms. T’s docile voice started talking to me from the back of my memories.  “Don’t worry what comes out.  Just write,” she’d say.  And that’s what I did.  Ms. T’s quiet insistence saved me when I went through that period of creative drought. Wwhen I saw Ms. T on Saturday, I gave her a huge hug and told her that I’ve always remembered everything she taught me and that it’s made me the writer I am now.

Her bashful reply was a quiet: “Oh dear” followed by a smile.

Yesterday I posted a question about whether publishing something on a blog meant that it was considered “already published” for the purposes of trying to submit said work elsewhere.  In particular, I wanted to know whether publishing a short story on my blog meant that then I could not submit this short story to literary magazines.

Later in the evening, I spoke with LawyerFriend–who knows all about copyright and publishing stuff.  He said that yes indeed my assumption was correct.  If you put something on your blog, it’s considered “published material” so if magazines want First Rights to your piece, you can’t submit to that magazine.  He went on to spout a lot of other legal garble that was somewhat complicated and I didn’t quite understand.  The long and the short of it is: if you think there’s a chance you may want to submit a piece somewhere, don’t post it on your blog first.  Thanks LawyerFriend!

That said, I still like the idea of posting some Story-A-Day work because it’s the thought of knowing that someone out there might be looking at my stories, thus keeping me accountable.  Which is when I got this idea:

Anyone out there wanna play catch?

Here’s how it works:

• I toss you a story via email and you catch it.  You can toss a story back if you like, too.
• As for what to do with the story: you don’t have to read it (though you’re welcome to if you want).  You certainly don’t have to critique or comment on it.  You just have to catch it.  And know that your story will be caught on this end.
• If more than one person decides to play, then I’ll put an email list together and we can toss to the whole group.

If you want to play, comment below then send me an your story at: iggingabi.catch@gmail.com

p.s. If you want to keep the game separate from your regular email, just open a new gmail account and use that for catch!