The little white envelope of rejection

Grant denied.


I'm not surprised, really, that my application for an arts grant has been denied -- I was applying for money to help convert my Christmas novella into a stage play and both my proposal, and my writing career, seemed just a little too multi-disciplinary for the arts board and its jury.


I knew that going in. I knew that the rules of the grant program were such that it would be much easier to establish oneself as a professional writer, and to obtain funding for a future project, by focusing one's work in a single genre of writing. That approach to life, however, just doesn't suit me and my career.


I am a writer of literary works (as opposed to poetic or theatrical works) primarily but I am also published poet, a news and magazine writer, an author of text books and a script writer.


And my proposal attempted to bridge two genres -- literature to theatre.


No go, they said. No cash for you.


I saw the envelope in the mail and I thought, "There it is, my first arts grant rejection letter."


And yet I still felt a little pang of disappointment when I opened the envelope and found those sad sad words: "We regret to inform you..."


Arts grants are important to writers in a number of ways. First, there's the money. Non-writers don't seem to understand the fact that writing costs money. Many people think writing just happens but writers know that there's a lot of money invested when you really want to focus on your writing: you need the materials and equipment, you need to make the effort necessary to do the required research (which often involves travel), you need to take time away from your life (work and home life). All of these involve money, either money spent or money not earned.


But money isn't the only thing of value an arts grant provides a writer. An arts grant, awarded as it is by a recognized body through a juried process, is also a sign of acceptance, of legitimacy, or recognition that you have established yourself as a professional writer.


It's not quite the same as getting your work accepted by a publication or publisher, sure, but it is an important badge of legitimacy, one that can lead to further arts grants potentially to the publication of your work.


I will apply again. I've learned from this experience and I will apply what I've learned to my next grant application. And I think I will stand a better chance of winning a grant because of it.


But that little pang of disappointment still lingers.

Taking nothing for granted

I submitted my first ever application for an arts grant this week. What an interesting experience!

It is a pretty exacting process. You have to make sure that you submit exactly what the funding body requires as part of the application, right down to the number of copies, the size of the paper and the colour of the ink.

I actually quite enjoyed the experience. Part of the package the funding body required was my writing CV, including all of my publication credits, all media coverage I have received and all of the training and education, related to writing, I have pursued.

It was a lot of work, to be honest, but the final product was a bit of an eye-opener. I guess I have lost track, over the years, of just how much I have accomplished as a writer.

The only problem, at least from the stand point of the application, is that the funding body wants to know what category of writer I fall into and then to receive evidence that I meet the criteria they have established to qualify as a professional writer in that particular genre.

In constructing my CV, I came to realise that I am a writer of middling accomplishment in three different "artistic" genres -- literature, poetry and script writing -- as well as several genres of writing for which they do not provide funding, such as legal texts, magazine and newspaper articles.

And, while my grant application is intended to attract support for my proposal to adapt my Christmas novella into a play, I would most likely qualify as a professional writer only in the category of a writer of fiction (literature).
If I recall the standards correctly, someone who has published 10 poems would qualify as a professional poet. Someone who has published a single collection of stories or a single novel with a known publisher would be considered a professional literary writer, no matter how many copies their books sold. And a person who has written a single play that has been mounted by a professional theatre company might earn the title of professional dramatist.


So, while I have written 9 published poems, an award-winning short story, a legal text book (in two published editions),  parts of four other legal text books, four collections of children's stories (self-published but quite successful), a self-published novella, a coffee table book and two plays that have been produced at an amateur level and video-taped for training purposes, as well as literally hundreds of articles in newspaper and magazines, I may not qualify as a "professional writer" for the purposes of this grant.


Strange. I can only hope that the jury that considers my application will be willing to recognise the breadth and depth of my writing accomplishments across these genres in making its determination as to the merits of my application.

And funny. The most important thing I've written recently is a grant application that, if successful, would put me in a position to adapt my well-received Christmas novella into a stage play.

Mapping out a new year of writing

With the dawning of the new year comes a chance to sit back, think things through and update my writing plans.


The fourth collection of Abigail stories sold very well throughout the holiday season, meaning we have already paid the cost of printing and are making significant money to support the restoration of the McAdam Railway Station and Hotel. Perhaps not surprisingly, we also saw a surge in sales of Volume 1 of the stories and of the Christmas novella, A McAdam Station Christmas.


As a writer of middling success, it fills my heart with joy to see such sales results. We seem to have built a pretty good following for the Abigail stories here in New Brunswick. The challenge is to come up with a fresh new approach to promoting each new collection.

That's my little blue book, to the left of the Grinch

One wonderful moment for this writer came when I visited Bryan Prince Booksellers in Hamilton over the holidays. I had done an Abigail event there in October and dropped in to this wonderful little independent book store while visiting friends in the Steel City.


Imagine my delight when I found the final two copies they had in stock of the Christmas novella nestled on their Christmas display beside How the Grinch Stole Christmas! My little book on the shelf with a Christmas classic -- like equals!


As for the new plans and the new focus, I have committed myself to completing four projects in 2016 -- and please do not call these New Years Resolutions!


1. An adaptation of A McAdam Station Christmas for the stage, with a significant focus on having it ready in time for potential staging next Christmas;


2. The scripts for at least the first four episodes of The Station, our proposed Web Series based on the Abigail stories, with a view to soliciting funding for the series and, if possible, beginning to film the pilot before the end of the year;


3. A strong draft of my middle-school novel; and


4. Another volume of Abigail stories, with my writing partner Mary E. O'Keefe.


I know, sounds ambitious. I have to get working.


But, to be honest, I wish it could be more ambitious. I'd like to include the completion of a second novel, a mystery, that I began several years ago AND the revision of another mystery that came very close to being published before I moved to NB.


All in good time, I guess. Any one of these projects could take over all of my time and energies and any number of outside distractions could also impact my ability to meet these goals. All I can do, I guess, is "hunker down" and get working.