Work is love made visible. –Kahlil Gibran
The right to bear children, like the right to write, creates the responsibility to do justice to one’s creation. Without parents as models, children will become burdens to themselves, the people in their lives, and society. The love, patience, compassion, knowledge, generosity, conscientiousness, selflessness, skills, sacrifice, pride, forbearance, discipline, determination, resourcefulness, creativity, courage, understanding, sense of humor, and spiritual beliefs needed to be a parent make it life’s hardest personal challenge.
Unless their books are irresistible to everyone who reads them, authors have to take the responsibility for the success of their books, or their babies will probably be among the 80% of published books that fail.
From the moment of conception, parenting, like writing, has to be a labor of love. Parenting requires spending two decades transforming children from being totally dependent into adults, capable of living and thinking independently. It’s a perpetual push-and-pull effect. You push them to be independent while pulling them back from challenges they’re not ready for.
The result of parent’s efforts should be adults who
- Live by the values with which they were raised
- Have a mature, ethical, emotional, and intellectual response to any situation
- Attract a mate with the same strengths, vision of life, and desire to be a parent
- Accept ambiguity and uncertainty, but are life-long learners with the potential to be a life-long earners in a rapidly changing culture
- Balance service and self-interest, personal and professional obligations, and the masculine and feminine aspects of their identity
- Fulfill the role of citizen and member of the community
Parents who bring up children like this create a legacy essential for sustaining the country. Nothing is more important for our future than parents’ labors of love.
Your book will be born twice: It may take you nine months to write it and your publisher nine months to publish it. You will do it faster and perhaps better, if you publish it yourself. You have to decide the best way to bring it into the world and achieve your goals for it. Doing whatever it takes to get your books written, published, and promoted as passionately and professionally as you is what it takes to become a successful author.
Someone once said of a writer that “After receiving numerous rejections, he decided to write for posterity.” Once you decide why you’re writing, you’ll be on your way to achieving your goals. Children embody the love with which their parents raise them. The most likely way for your book to become a source of pride and profit is if writing and promoting it are labors of love. If they are, your book will succeed.
The blog aspires to help us both understand writing and publishing. To make the blog as helpful as it can be, please respond with your questions and suggestions for changes. I hope you find it worth sharing.
Do one thing every day to make the world better . –John Perkins, Confessions of an Economic Hitman
The 10th San Francisco Writers Conference / A Celebration of Craft, Commerce & Community / February 14-17, 2013 / www.sfwriters.org / sfwriterscon@aol.com /
Keynoters: Bella Andre, Anne Perry, and R. L. Stine
http://sfwriters.info/blog /@SFWC/ www.facebook.com/SanFranciscoWritersConference
San Francisco Writers University / Where Writers Meet and You Learn
Laurie McLean, Dean/free classes/www.sfwritersu.com/sfwritersu@gmail.com/@SFWritersU
415-673-0939 / 1029 Jones Street / San Francisco, 94109
The 5th San Francisco Writing for Change Conference / Changing the World One Book at a Time
September 2013 / Unitarian Universalist Center / Geary and Franklin
www.sfwritingforchange.org / sfwriterscon@aol.com
Michael Larsen is a literary agent and consultant to nonfiction writers. He and his partner Elizabeth Pomada are co-directors of the San Francisco Writers Conference and the San Francisco Writing for Change Conference.
Dear Michael,
I am reading your blog for the first time and lapping up every word. This one, the Labor of Love, spoke directly to my heart, having birthed and raised four children into their college years as the mom and the dad. Having survived another round of holidays with all four coming home–from San Fran, Boston, Manhattan, and Ithaca–I am now settling into my college teaching routine and about to focus my parental love on my memoir-in-progress, which I recently birthed during my two years in Bennington College’s Low-res MFA in Writing Program. My goal is to rewrite/revise/restructure the 450-page manuscript in time for my attendance at this year’s San Francisco Writers Conference. This will be my first conference and exposure in person to agents and publishers–and people like you! I hope we get the chance to meet. I’m flying from Vermont…determined to make flight my home in 2013 as I begin to procure connections and pitch my memoir, a story that is sure to reach deep into the soul of any survivor, truly my Labor of Love.
With Gratitude and hopes of meeting you at the SFWC ’13!
Jenny Grosvenor
[Reply]
Michael Larsen Reply:
January 19th, 2013 at 10:10 am
Jenny Grosvenor » Dear Jenny:
Thanks so much for writing. Glad you found the post helpful. Have a good flight out and be sure to say hello. Looking forward to meeting you.
[Reply]
You can see agents’ and editors’ guidelines on their sites send a query letter to as many agents or editors you wish simultaneously, letting them know you’re approaching others. Four suggestions before you approach agents or editors: read as many books like your as you can find, finish the manuscript, get a lot of feedback from knowledgeable readers so you can make sure every word is right. Best of luck!
[Reply]
Michael, so far I haven’t had any luck to land an agent to represent me.
I am writing my book “Seeds of Unity” and seeking representation, it will be approximately100,000 words nonfiction about Afghanistan. The target date for completing the manuscript is scheduled for December 2013.
Ethnic violence has played a role in the decades old wars in Afghanistan.
There are four major ethnic groups in the country: Tajiks, Hazaras, Uzbeks with the fourth and largest being the Pashtuns. The ethnic rivalries between Pashtuns and the other three are the fiercest.
“Seeds of Unity’ is a first time nonfiction story about the core moral values of an Afghan man (author’s grandfather in real life) who struggles to wash away the hatred, disunity and rivalry between Pasthuns, Hazaras and other ethnicities, and between Sunni and Shiite sects.
A thought provoking tale about two men; a Pashtun elite from the Afghan royal blood who accidentally meets a convict (ethnic Hazara-Mongoloid- minority) incarcerated for a murder charge in a penitentiary in province of Parwan,–north of Kabul– in early 1930s.
The convict humbly asks the compassionate Pashtun man to take his 8 year old motherless son under his wing while he was serving time with no chance for parole.
The Pashtun man makes the effort by taking a 2-day mule ride to Central Afghanistan “Hazarajat” and brings the little boy to his house in Kabul.
As the story makes its way in precise detailed chapters, the last one specifies, the grandchildren of the then little boy are now living in Canada, England, Germany and elsewhere in Europe, thriving for their high academic achievements and successfully raising their own families.
Hope you could steer me in the right direction.
Thank you,
Khalil Nouri
[Reply]