Writing that Gets Noticed with Estelle Erasmus

Welcome to season three of the Writing Your Resilience podcast! During seasons one and two, I interviewed experts and published authors who generously shared their wisdom on writing and healing. We’ll get back to that in season four. But sometimes it’s nice to know the people walking this journey alongside you. For my season three “Summer Shorts” series, you’ll meet ten writers in the trenches of the writing process and hear my advice to them.

But I wanted to launch this season with one more expert–Estelle Erasmus, author of the craft book Writing That Gets Noticed. During our episode, we explore how to craft short pieces with the greatest chance for publication. You’ll also learn some savvy tricks for dealing with rejection.

Bio: Estelle Erasmus, author of Writing That Gets Noticed: Find Your Voice, Become a Better Storyteller, Get Published, named a 2024 "Best Book for Writers" by Poets & Writers, is a professor of writing at New York University, the host of the Freelance Writing Direct podcast, a contributing editor for Writer's Digest, where she also teaches courses on writing essays and pitches, and judges the Writer's Digest Personal Essay contest. Her articles for the New York Times and The Washington Post have gone globally viral. She has appeared on Good Morning America and has had her articles discussed on The View. She has also taught, coached, and mentored many writers who have gone on to be widely published. She received the 2023 NYU School of Professional Studies Teaching Excellence Award, a 2023 Zibby Award for Best Book for the Writer, is an American Society of Journalists and Authors award winner, and was a cast member in the inaugural New York City production of the Listen to Your Mother storytelling show. 

Resources In This Episode
How to BullyProof Your Child
Plus Here I'm the Focus of the Well Newsletter re the Bullyproof Story
I'm Learning to Listen in New Ways
Freelance Writing Direct with Ann Hood

Highlights
7:00 The Best Time to Work on Short Pieces
10:00 The Power of Google Alerts
13:00 Journaling with Purpose
17:30: Vulnerability versus Pity 
25:11 The Danger of Oversharing
29:00 Confessing versus Confiding
32:00 The Power of Accomplishment Lists
33:48  Writing Timely Essays
40:52 Handling Rejection
51:25 Estelle’s best writing advice

Connect with Estelle
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Connect with your host, Lisa:
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Sign up for Camp Structure: 14 Weeks to Find and Refine Your Memoir’s Narrative Arc: https://lisacooperellison.com/camp-structure-find-your-memoirs-narrative-arc/

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Transcript

Transcript for Writing Your Resilience Podcast Episode 25

Writing That Gets Noticed with Estelle Erasmus 

Welcome to season 3 of the Writing Your Resilience Podcast. I want to thank all of you who’ve been listening, and if this is your first episode, welcome aboard. I look forward to having you along for the ride. In seasons one and two, I interviewed published writers and experts in the field of mental health, so they could share their expertise and wisdom with all of us. I’ll get back to that in season four, but for season three, which airs over the summer in the northern hemisphere, I’m launching my season of what I call “Summer Shorts.” These are shorter episodes where you’ll get to hear from writers working in the trenches right alongside you. They’ll share their fears, doubts, worries, and questions they have about the craft of writing and their writing lives. Think of it as your personal window into my coaching practice. 

But before we get to those episodes, I want you to hear from one more expert: Estelle Erasmus, author of Writing that Gets Noticed and host of the Freelance Writing Direct podcast. I met Estelle in 2017 at the HippoCamp Writing Conference. Since then, I’ve followed her career, which has included stints as editor at Narratively and Writer’s Digest. I’ve also read the viral essays she published in The New York Times and Washington Post. Estelle also teaches for NYU’s School of Professional Studies, does one-on-one coaching, and so much more. To learn about everything she's up to and her many awards, please see the show notes.   

During this episode, you’ll benefit from Estelle’s three decades in publishing as we talk about generating ideas, writing timely pieces, and dealing with rejection. Before we get to our interview, I have a few questions for you. How do you generate ideas for your projects? Have you tried to write something timely? What happened? How do you deal emotionally with rejection and how do you decide what to make of the messages editors send you? I hope you’ll ponder these questions as you listen along. Now, let’s get to my conversation with Estelle Erasmus.  

Lisa [0:00]
Why, hello, Estelle. I am absolutely overjoyed to see you again and to have you on the podcast.

Estelle [0:06]
Thanks so much, Lisa. I love your podcasts. I love listening to it. You have the best voice; you could do voiceovers.

Lisa [0:15]
Thank you very much. I appreciate that. Well, I cannot say enough good things about your podcast. When I was listening recently, I thought each episode is like a masterclass; there's so much there. So, if you're listening to this podcast, you need to add Estelle's to your list. And there's one more thing that you need to do: buy your copy of Writing That Gets Noticed, which I love. You are so smart. You have the book in your background. I've talked to several writers about the marketing piece, and you've got it all down.

Estelle [0:54]
Thank you. Yes, and that was one of the things I tell my writing students: if you have a book out, just get a placard made. You can go to Vistaprint. It's $25, $30. And there you go, it's set.

Lisa [1:08]
Well, I want to dive deeply into your book because I absolutely love it. Before I do that, what would you like us to know about your book and about you?

Estelle [1:19]
Well, I've been in publishing for three decades, on both sides of the publishing wall. I was a magazine editor-in-chief for five national consumer magazines, called women's magazines back in the day. Then I launched magazines for publishers like the American Breast Cancer Guide, Estee, and Women in Touch. I started out at Woman's World Magazine, which had, I believe, at the time, something like 4 million newsstand circulation sales. So, I honed my teeth at big and then smaller publications, where I was editor-in-chief. I was senior editor at American Woman, then I was editor-in-chief of Woman's Own. Then I went to Hachette, where I did Body by Jake. After that, I launched magazines and wrote for over 150 publications, most of them print. I was there when print turned to digital, and then when blogging came into the field. Each time, I pivoted. In between, I dealt with my own personal struggles. I was single, the "dating diva" when I first started in publishing. I would teach at the Learning Annex and the Seminar Center. I wrote about it in a Tiny Love Story for the New York Times, where I've written a bunch of pieces. I ended up getting married in midlife, having my daughter in my 40s. She's 15 now and it’s a very pivotal age for her. I kept changing with the times, growing and learning. A lot of people who started when I did are no longer in the field, and I'm still in the publishing field. I help people by teaching for NYU and Writer's Digest, where I'm now a contributing editor. I continue writing, and my book Writing That Gets Noticed distills my three decades of experience on both sides: as a well-published journalist and essayist, someone who helps my students get published, and as an assigning editor and editor-in-chief who looked at information and pitches to determine if they were right for the publication. I put all my tips, tricks, strategies, and Estelle’s Edge throughout the book to help people be successful because I want to inspire, just like the way I try to inspire people today.

Lisa [4:06]
That is a wonderful description of you and your book. Let me just say you have some major street cred when it comes to publication, and all that shows up in your book. There were so many things that I loved about the book, so I want to share just a few of my takeaways. Number one, it's very comprehensive. I felt like if I didn't know anything about publishing, I could take this book, and it would help me publish a piece. If I already knew things about publishing, which by the way, I do, I learned new things, which is always exciting for me. I love it when I can learn something new. I also like it when people package things well. Even the things I did know, you packaged them well. I love your Estelle’s Edge. The voice you add to this piece makes me feel like you're sitting next to me, holding my hand, taking me through everything. It's extremely accessible. We can't talk about everything, but I want to give a shout-out to some of those things: the checklists you have in this. One checklist I have never ever seen is the checklist of what to do when your work goes viral. That alone is worth it, beyond all the other things in terms of the writing prompts and the different ways you can generate new ideas. All of it felt comprehensive and motivated me. I was so excited as I was reading it, like, "oh my gosh, I need to get started on this or that or the other," and I'm going to come back to this piece. So, I love all of that about your book.

Estelle [5:38]
Thank you so much. That's exactly what I wanted to do. I focus, as all my students know who have worked with me at NYU or Writer's Digest or in smaller groups and Zoom sessions. My fall session is already sold out; I might do a winter one. But I focus on generating work and generating ideas and getting published. Some people teach just how to get the ideas or how to bring out the different writing voices. But for me, the final piece is getting published. That's bringing in the editor contacts, the information, and the things I can share based on my experience, connections, and what I've done.

Lisa [6:34]
You do it very well. What I love about this is that you are helping me launch season three of my podcast, and I'm calling this the season of summer shorts. A good portion of this will be questions that people are asking me, but I have taught in the summer in the past. I was teaching this year-long memoir class, and what I found is that, you know, in winter and spring, people are really motivated to dive deeply into a project. Then summer is a free-for-all. I just want to acknowledge that some of my listeners are actually down under, in Australia and places in the southern hemisphere. So, for you guys, you may be ready to dive in, or maybe you've been diving deeply into projects for a while, and it's time to work on short pieces. I didn't send you this question because I always send everyone questions. But, if you're thinking about summer, what makes this a good time to work on short pieces?

Estelle [7:36]
First of all, anytime is a good time to work on short pieces. I'm a big believer that something must inspire you. When people tell me their ideas, and we do an idea generation exercise for my students, and in the book, I talk about multiple ways to do that, including mapping your life for ideas. This is a mapping template that breaks down your interests, and then you can connect it to what's going on in the news or the zeitgeist. For example, if you’ve climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, and then someone is doing that in the news, you can put together an essay idea and tie it around that.

You can also do it around holidays. One of my students was a professional ice skater, and she wrote something aimed to be around the time of the Olympics, making that tie-in. Anything that resonates—if you’re writing a couple of ideas down, whatever gets you excited—I’m really a big believer, as I know you are, Lisa, in getting in touch with your body. What does it feel like when something feels exciting?

I knew I wanted to write about "How to Bulletproof Your Child" for the New York Times. The impetus was an example where my daughter had been bullied when she was six years old. I always kept that in the back of my head, plus my own experience of being bullied and role-playing that a guidance counselor told me to do. I found an expert who did that, and I brought that plus other experts and my daughter's example in how I framed the pitch and ultimately wrote the story, which went viral in the New York Times in 2019.

I knew I wanted to write about it; it got me excited. I believe we don’t do anything unless we’re excited by it because then you’re going to put your full 110% into it. If you want to start writing stories, I recommend setting up Google Alerts. I learned about Google Alerts from interviewing people who reported pieces that I was writing. They would tell me they had Google Alerts on the topic of their book to get the latest studies, research, anecdotes, and stories, which helps the brain generate ideas.

I started doing that for myself. At any time, I have about 20 Google Alerts going on. I also use ChatGPT occasionally for idea generation. I don’t recommend anyone put their unpublished work into ChatGPT or any AI chat service because you’re training the next generation of AI writers. But for idea generation, it’s wonderful.

Set up a Google Alert. Let’s say you want to write about happiness. You would set alerts for new studies about happiness, stories about happiness, 2024 and happiness. You can set it up for daily or weekly notifications. This gets your brain thinking, and sometimes you’ll see something that sparks an idea.

In my book, I have a section on data and resources to ensure you’re using credible sources. I list over 150 websites in areas like psychology and medical. Using non-credible sources can be problematic, so you want to ensure you’re using the right information. The idea generation part is great. Don’t put too much pressure on yourself—just go ahead and put your ideas down.

I’m a big proponent of journaling. I don’t do it as much as I want to, but many people get journaling wrong. They write journals like, "I went bowling with Dad today. We had fun." That’s just the external. You want to write a journal saying, "Went to the park today. Had a great time. Seeing the birds reminded me of the last time I saw Grandma before she went into hospice." You’re adding in emotion, more than just a diary entry. You’re building the heft of the emotional weight, and that’s what you want.

When you journal, write snippets of dialogue, how you felt, and your musings on a situation. Essays full of musings alone aren’t effective; you also need scenes. Use journaling to get your story ideas out. Use sensual language—sight, touch, smell, taste. This brings a story to life for the reader and activates parts of the reader’s brain that make them want to read more.

Lisa [15:04]
I just want to reiterate a few points. When I look at my journals from when I was 16, I think, why couldn’t you have been a little more descriptive? If you can be descriptive, that is helpful. I can imagine someone doing that mapping exercise on the beach or on a winter day, developing the field of awareness around what they could write about. Then you use the Google Alerts to build that field further, to see what’s out there, and wait for that moment of inspiration.

I know exactly what you’re talking about. Sometimes I try to write from my head, thinking I should write because I haven’t published in a while, and it doesn’t go very far. But recently, I was awakened at three in the morning by a thought, "You must say this." I woke up the next day with the same feeling. It felt vulnerable, but I knew I could write about it, and I did. I sold it, and it’s going to come out soon. Every single piece I have published has started with passion. Passion is the number one thing you need because it shows through in your writing.

As we think about passion, we need to understand the difference between vulnerability and pity. This is important, especially for trauma survivors. Sometimes the brain equates vulnerability with trauma, but that’s not necessarily passion. High emotion might belong in therapy, not necessarily in writing. You have a piece in your book about vulnerability versus pity. Can you talk about what you mean by that?

Estelle [17:31]
Sure. It’s important to connect with the reader. You don’t do that by showing your perfections—"I’m great, everything goes well for me." That’s brittle and doesn’t allow room for connection. You show your vulnerability through scenes, clues to your character, and how you handle things, showing your voice on the page.

I want to give an example of a situation that comes up often, and that is when someone is ranting.

So, somebody's saying, "I want to write an essay," and they are just pulling this out of thin air, ranting about their landlord. And it's all about things that the landlord has done wrong? Well, first of all, in a personal essay, there has to be an "I" and there has to be the person. I say to so many of my students, "You know, where are you? Where are you in the essay? We need to see your feelings, your thoughts, your reactions."

And so, if somebody's ranting, and it could be even as personal as their mother, how horrible the mother is, but you don't see them. You don't see the reaction. And I'm saying to them, "You're going on and on about these things your mother said to you, and I want to relate to you. But if you're not showing a reaction, and you're not showing some insight, and you're not showing some sort of narrative arc from where you start—remember, it's personal view. You start in a place in the beginning, there's an arc where your mother is still a part of it, but it's her effect on you. And then you end where you are transformed in some way."

In my book, I have several sections on personal essays, including analyzing a Modern Love essay by Bill Dameron and other essays from Salon and Bloomberg, and really saying what works and what resonates. What really makes sense is to end—I call it ending with a gift for the reader, which shows a transformation that has taken place. And circling back, which is a technique I talk about how to do in my book. Effectively, it's pulling something from the beginning. Because as readers, we want to feel a sense of closure at the end of the essay. So, you pull something from the beginning into the ending, and that will help you end it rather than ending flat.

And that's what happened, you know, or like we learned in grade school, really summarizing. And so that's why my mother annoyed me, and why I've decided to break ties. No, that doesn't work. There must be craft in essay writing. And the vulnerability comes in showing your reaction to a situation, your voice on the page.

When I say voice on the page, I believe that people have a basic voice. It's sort of like singing. I studied opera for years. Rihanna has—you hear one note, and you know it's her. You know it's Barbra Streisand. Kelly Clarkson, it's the same thing with a voice. My voice is somewhat dramatic but inspirational. It can be funny depending on the situation. But there are different tones to voices.

I don't believe that everyone has many different voices. I believe that your voice on the page is what you want to come through. I talk about how to find that voice by giving examples of several students of mine and people that I've worked with when I guest edited for Narratively, and how I brought out and helped them bring out their voices on the page, whether it was funny or inspirational.

So pitiful is like saying, "oh, you know, pity me. I'm poor, I'm bullied," but without any kind of insight into who you are. So, for example, showing vulnerability is: "I've been bullied. This is what happened to me. This is how I reacted." Because I grew up hearing—I'm making this up—my dad yell—this is not my story—my dad yelled at my sister in the other room, you know, 'You're this, you're stupid,'" right? And hearing the boy call me an idiot brought me back to that feeling.

Yeah, okay, now you're not just somebody the reader feels sorry for because there's a universality to this. The reader thinks, "okay, I've been bullied in my life, maybe not as extreme as this situation, but I can relate." And the person is sharing something about themselves and sharing the scene. And remember what I said about using that description and that detail? You know, I always say God is in the details. It brings a story to light. You don't want to just say, "He picked me up in his car." You want to say, "He picked me up in his Porsche, with the steering wheel shined to where you could see your reflection in it because he buffed it every day with the cloth he kept under the seat," you know, something like that. Obviously, I would edit that sentence, but the idea is that it shows much more about the person and the clue to the character by showing the description and the detail.

Other ways of showing that somebody is just saying, "Feel bad for me," is not showing any growth in the character in how they're relating to the situation that's happening. So, you want to keep having that. I always say, after every sentence in an essay, ask yourself, "So what?" The "so what" is what will move the story forward for the reader. And if it's not moving the story forward, scrap it, take it out, put it somewhere else, hold it. And that includes dialogue, that includes anything.

A lot of times, when people are writing, they're writing almost—and I can tell this is the mark of an amateur writer who just needs to build and learn craft because I do believe you can learn craft and learn a way of putting your voice out there on the page.

The other thing I want to mention about being vulnerable and being pitiful, and the difference between the two, is the idea of oversharing. Yeah, you don't want to overshare every single detail because that will bog down the reader in too much of your emotion. In a way, you need to be ruthless with your own emotion when you are conveying it in the written word.

So, again, does it need to be in the story? Does every aspect need to be in the story? And I am a huge advocate of having someone that is very close to you, whether it's a good friend or family member, vet these very personal stories. I've done that when I used to write a lot of parenting pieces about my daughter. Most recently, I wrote one for Shondaland about my hearing loss and how that affected my relationship with my now-teen daughter.

I had my husband read it beforehand. He had a few sentences where he was like, "I think you need this, you know, like, it's enough, you already have enough stuff." My daughter read it, and she had a question about one sentence, and other stuff that I thought she might have a problem with she allowed. I felt okay. I felt like I showed my vulnerability for sure because I showed how it affected me when she reacted in a teenage way to me struggling with hearing. It showed her accommodation to what I figured out after yelling and losing my temper and being, you know, frustrated and feeling very upset.

I kind of just marshaled my resources in a way that I would like my daughter to learn this type of resilience. I think that showed vulnerability, but it wasn't like, "Oh, you poor thing, I feel sorry for you, you have this disability, and you're just sitting with it and not doing anything." So, I think showing momentum and movement with whatever the issue, whether it's one of my students—Selena Andani—talked about growing up poor and gave the scenarios of how that worked with their family, and then how they got out of it. She'd also written a piece about, I think, having a ghost in the house. Ivy Eisenberg wrote this wonderful piece for Narratively about how she created a Yiddish fortune cookie company when she was working in IT and thought it was the greatest thing ever. It just left her co-workers cold because they didn't understand the meaning of this. She wrote it in a way that you're kind of laughing a little at her, but mostly with her.

Estelle [28:12] 

And so, it's setting it up in a way that you're not the victim. Yes, you have moments of being the victim, but there is a way out. You're showing a way out. Otherwise, it's just like a rant. You know, you don't want to throw your—I always say, "rage on the page."

Lisa [28:34]
Absolutely. I mean, you can throw your rage on the page, just don't send it to an editor—ever. Right? That's the important thing: don't send it to an editor. And you know your essays, I'm going to take the essay on bullying and the one on hearing loss and put them in the show notes so people can read them and get a sense of what your writing voice is like. But yeah, you have so many great points that you were making around your piece needing to have a point. It needs to be about you, we need to see this arc of transformation that happens inside you. You start in one place, and then you end somewhere else. And along the way, we're learning about you through the specificity of your writing, but you're not oversharing. One of the things that I've actually learned is that if you want the reader to feel, hold back on your own emotions on the page. Like we don't need to have as much. And some things I would also say about vulnerability and how do you have that litmus test, because then I'm going to ask you about specific moments. Like when you were editing for Narratively, did any moments come to mind of like, this is what it looks like on the page? For me, I always think about what Meghan Daum said, about confessing versus confiding. So, some of it is about, is there a rant on the page? Are your other characters bad and you're all good? Or, you know, is there too much emotion? Sometimes it's about intention and about where you feel it. So, if you are confessing, you are probably adding all your own emotions, there's probably a rant. But your intention is for the reader to see you, to get you, and you're asking them to do something to make you feel better. When you are confiding, you know what the story is, you know what the point is that you're trying to make. And yes, you're letting the reader into your world, but you don't need anything from them, you are being of service to them. So, I think those are two things that are different. And then also, here's where I feel it in my body. If I'm feeling that confessing thing, like, "Oh, I just need someone to understand me," which is stuff that probably belongs in my therapist's office, I'll feel it right here. You know, I'll just have this feeling of like, "oh, it's right here." And I have all this emotion around it. When it's ready for a public audience, I feel it more near my solar plexus. There is a sense that a foundation is below me that is helping me write the story because I know what it is.

Estelle [31:08]
Yes, there's a certain amount of trust that you have to have in yourself, in your own SOS system within your body and yourself. And so, one of the things I always recommend is print out your work and read it out loud. Because not only will you find the clunky sentences, but it's a great way to do that kind of check-in that you mentioned and see what is coming up for you. And I don't do a lot of bodywork. I'm not a yoga person. But I'm a big believer in using the breath to feel and get in touch with the body. And I'm a big believer in finding that meditative time to go within, even if it's five minutes, just when I get up in the morning. And I know I have a huge list of things to do, like this time of year where my daughter is finishing school and getting ready for camp, and then we're going away. So, it's a whole busy, busy time. I kind of just check in with myself in the morning, I do a quick little check-in like, how am I feeling? What do I want to accomplish? And I'm also a big believer in creating lists, funny enough, and not just lists of what I have to do. I do accomplishment lists. If I write something like I will say, "Sent thank you note to this one, taped podcast with Lisa, wrote ideas for memoir scenes." And I don't know, it just sort of like I can release it. And I can know that I'm doing something good for myself. And I think feeling good about yourself is a great entryway to being able to write in a vulnerable way. Because you're not doing it from a deficit, you're doing it from a plus.

Lisa [33:16]
I love that. You are not doing it from a deficit, because you are caring for yourself, and you are allowing yourself to feel good. Such great advice. So, we have talked about passion, and the importance of it, how to generate ideas. And there are two places that I think writers have sticking points that I want to talk with you about briefly. And one of those is the timely essay. You know, I think especially people who are working on book-length projects, they feel this pressure to not just publish, but to publish things that are timely. And let's face it, if you have a timely angle, you know, something is happening in the news and your work can intersect with it in some way, it's got a higher chance of being published if you've, you know, done all your due diligence, but also of becoming viral, right? Because it's part of the zeitgeist. And yet some people will have great passion, but they struggle to find their point. Like they can't move as fast as the news cycle moves, which oh my gosh, it's like you blink an eye, and the story's over, right? It's not relevant anymore. So, what advice do you have if you're a slow processor?

Estelle [34:32]
I would say if you have any kind of connection to anybody in the media or celebrity world, and I hate to focus just on celebrities because it's not about that. But let's say, you know, I'm just making this up, but you know, Lady Gaga used to go into your dad's restaurant all the time and occasionally play for people. Alright, that is something that you could probably figure out an angle about. Now, maybe you don't have that yet, but maybe she's going to start a restaurant with her partner. There you go. And if you're setting up your Google Alerts for her, I'm going to give you an example of this. So, I always loved Penny Marshall, Laverne from Laverne and Shirley. And she died in 2018. And I quickly wrote an essay, but it wasn't quick enough, right? The news cycle moves so fast. But I wrote an essay about how impactful she was on my life. I was kind of shy and insecure. I was also chesty like she was, but she had hutzpah. And I learned from that, and I kind of transformed my life as I got older. So, I wrote this essay, but it was too late. Right? I sent it to a few places. And they were like, "no, that's great. But it's too late. We already have something on her." So, I held it. And I didn't send the whole essay, I sent the pitch. And I set up a Google Alert on Penny Marshall and everything about her, whether it's Penny Marshall and movies, Penny Marshall and Big, Penny Marshall and A League of Their Own, Penny Marshall and books, Penny Marshall and eulogy, just anything. And in 2021, which is three years later, I received one of my Google Alerts. And I just was so used to looking at them going, "No, no, no, it's not going to work." And it said A League of Their Own is coming to Amazon Prime as a series. And I said, "Bingo. That's my angle." And so, I pitched an editor at AARP's The Ethel, which has a huge circulation. And I said, "well, 'A League of Their Own' is coming to Amazon Prime this coming summer." It wasn't even out really in the news yet. But I'd gotten this Google Alert. And I said, "And I have a story about her impact on me. And she was the first to do a one hundred million dollar movie and all that." And she said, "Yeah, if you can write it in such a way that it shows her, you know, her effect on you." And I already had it. And I said, "Absolutely." And I submitted it. And it ran. So that was four years after she died.

Lisa [37:47]
Yeah, I love that strategy of writing it when it comes to you. And even if it doesn't get picked up now, you never know when it's going to be timely. And so those Google Alerts can be so helpful. And here's something I would say about movies, because I know last year, the Barbie movie came out. And then everyone wanted to write about Barbie, and it was too late. Right? So, the movie had already come out. And I think that one may have had maybe a two-week timeframe. With movies, I've heard it's like, you’ve got the day it comes out and three days later, then you’re done. So, if you know that a movie is going to come out, and you've gotten your Google Alert, like you're a fan of, I don't know, let's say Marvel movies, just as an example. And you know, the next Marvel movie is going to come out, start writing down what you think about Marvel movies, the first time you saw a Marvel movie, the best experience you had with Marvel movies, get all these ideas down so that you can pitch something in advance. Maybe have it, or let's say you go see it on the day of and you have this great connection point, you immediately get out of the theater, and you pitch because now you have an essay that you can write very quickly.

Estelle [38:59]
Yes. And the other thing I would say is micro-memoir is such a booming area. And a lot of my students have gotten into “Tiny Love Stories" in The New York Times. And that's an entrée to agents and to people who are interested in their work. And you could take a larger piece that you had been working on, or maybe even part of your memoir in progress. And you can craft that into 200 words or less for "Tiny Love Stories,” it’s 100 words. And I do want to make an offer. If people want to follow my Substack at estelleserasmus.substack.com, where I give craft and writing advice, and email me at freelancewritingdirect@gmail.com, I will send you a huge list that I have compiled of places that take micro-memoir. And a lot of these places also submit to Pushcart Prizes and other literary awards. So, it's a great way to get yourself in the door and to get your work out there. And it's very motivating as well. One of my students just got in The New York Times from a piece that she worked on in a workshop with me at the Erma Bombeck Writers' Conference recently.

Lisa [40:19]
Yeah, that is a great resource. And the link to your Substack will also be in the show notes. So definitely get access to that because the more you can get, the better you're going to be able to handle all the publishing pieces. And so, we have talked about what to do with timely stuff. Now I want to talk about the last part, and maybe not the victory of you got accepted. But what do you do with these rejections? Because you're a veteran, you've been in this field for so long. And it's not just about your experience, it's about the fact that you have overcome the rejections, right? You know how to deal with them. And that is a huge part of it. If you want to be a successful writer, learn how to deal with rejection. But sometimes it's also about not just the inner work of learning how to deal with rejection. It's about learning how to decipher what in the world these rejections mean. So, what advice do you have for people if they are getting a lot of rejections? How are they supposed to deal with that?

Estelle [41:25] 

First of all, if you're a writer, rejection is part of life. It's like being an actress, which I once wanted it to be. And you have to expect it, you have to have a bit of a thick skin. Back when I was doing more pitching or more cold pitching, I would sometimes revamp a piece or the beginning of the piece 30 times to fit a different place that it would be in. For example, I had written a piece about me and my husband, and how I broke my fifth metatarsal, and we went to meet his family for the first time, and I was strung out on Percocet. And at first, I just had a straightforward relationship story, and it wasn't going anywhere. And then an editor was handling beauty at Yahoo, looking for stories that had a beauty angle. And so, I gave it a beauty focus. I said, I was a beauty editor, but I looked pretty unkempt, you know, but by the time, I had had my fifth metatarsal, and I was taking Percocet, and I was on the plane and 24-hour plane ride to go to New Zealand which was where my husband's family lived at the time. And then they move to Australia, where you have a lot of clients. And so, I made sure to put that beauty stuff in there. And that got accepted. But you have to be flexible, you have to think, okay, you try different things, if you have the time, if you have the impetus, if you really want to get a story out there. And in terms of rejection, you're going to get rejected, right? And sometimes they won't even respond, right, they will ghost you. And so, if an editor ghosts, you, you try a couple of times to get to the editor, right? Because it could be, you know, people, sometimes they have huge inboxes. I mean, I know I do, my inbox is crazy. And maybe that was one cycle, they missed yours. 

So, I would bury the time we sent it. I talked about some tactics in the book about that. But one of the things you can do is take the subject line, and just take out the foreword, and just make it seem like you're sending it again for the first time. And then it's like, you know, they're not going to feel oh god, I didn't respond, I'll feel bad. It's just you're trying it again. And sometimes I have success and my students have success with that. Other times you can do things like if they are responding, and they're using a lot of superlatives, you know, this is great, I really enjoyed reading, most editors—they’re constrained by legal. They can't use a lot of superlatives. That can't be “you’re fantastic” because who knows how that person will react. So, if they are using real high praise, that is an in. And so, I would follow up pretty quickly with another really good idea, a pitch. And if you're sending an essay, some of them, they don't want your whole essay to be sent in the body of an email or even in the email. So, here’s a trick I talked about in the book called Write to the Reader, which is part of my 352 pages of tips, tricks, strategies, and Estelle’s Edge. Writing to the reader is basically just writing the first part of the pitch as if it were the essay that the editor, who doesn't know you possibly from a hole in the wall, is going to read and go, oh, I like their voice or I like how they're setting it up and getting right into the inciting incident, you don't have to give the whole essay. But that will often work to pique their interest and make them want to know more. That's with the superlative stuff. 

If somebody is just saying, you know, we have something similar to it, that's on you, right, because if they say we have something similar that just ran, that's definitely on you. You should have done your research. All you have to do is go to the site or go to the magazine, and do a search for your subject. And you know, if you want to write for print publication, you should be getting that publication so that you know it. And online, it's very easy to search for your topic. And then, of course, have a hook. You know, everyone wants to write about love. Everyone wants to write about grief, everyone wants to write about addiction, everyone wants to write about loss, everyone wants to write about trauma, but what's the hook, what's the focus that is going to differentiate you and make you stand out? And that could be a narrow focus, but also something that shows that it's a bigger issue for more people. And so, for example, if you're writing what I call a hybrid essay, sometimes called a reported essay, you're going to get a poll or statistic or fact in there. And again, you can put that into the pitch. And I have a whole section in the book on how to pitch and I break down a lot of pitches that I did not only for when I wrote The All About the Pitch column for Writer's Digest, I break down and analyze. And if you're a therapist, I'm big on analyzing, writing to see what works and what doesn't, and why. And the other thing is, if somebody has said, I love the, you know, the great idea, but it's just not right for us at this time. What I would do is you keep sending it out. Yeah. And when you get a publication, I would send it to that editor and say, thank you so much for responding, wanted to share that this was published. And here's my next idea. And the more credible and the higher level the publication and you're showing, give it a very casual, not like Nana booboo, you're just saying, hey, I wanted to share this with you. And they're now thinking the editor, oh, I missed that one. And then they're thinking, well, let me pay attention to this. And that, in fact, is what I did. I had submitted a piece to QZ, Quartz, several years ago, and the editor didn't respond. And in the meantime, I had published it in The Washington Post. When the publication came out from The Washington Post, I sent it to several editors that had ignored the idea with a very nice email just saying, hey, just wanted to, you know, call, you know, show you this came out. And it's also the homepage section, you know, whatever, laudatory thing I can put in there. And then I said, and by the way, you know, I compliment something that they had in their recent issue, and then I would put in another idea, and that's how I got additional assignments. I got an assignment for Quartz out of that, because he liked my idea. I got another assignment from another publication. And so, you can keep that going. So, rejection is kind of like making lemonade out of lemons, right? And everything I believe it's just how you approach it and how you look at it. One of the things that I do think is you can acknowledge to yourself you're feeling bad, you're feeling dejected. And as I say, in my book, have a pity party for one, you know, do what you need to do for me, I watch bad reality TV. I love Bravo, sorry, Bravo. But I watched that because their problems are always worse than mine, their cat fights their, you know, divorces and all that stuff is just entertaining, but I also feel bad for them. And then I feel better for myself, and just realize it's a long game, you know, you are in that marathon. It's not a sprint, it's a marathon. And so, any time this part of my inspirational part, you know, anytime you say to yourself, this one's you know, doing better than me, this one's in this publication. You just have to realize that you're in competition with yourself, yourself is the competition. Other people can spur you on and motivate you. But your only competition is yourself. And so, you look at yourself and you say, what can I do to get incrementally taking steps to get to the goal that I want? And then you do it.

Lisa [50:22]
Absolutely. And what I would say is for all the people that are on social media, showing all the awards, or all of the great things, you have no idea what it took to get there, and the number of doubts and the number of rejections that they have had to have the pity party for one. So yes, but when you do see that say, oh, I want what they're having, look and see what they're doing, you know, really pay attention and be curious. That's another thing you can do. And you know, what Estelle, we could be here for, I don't know, a week or more talking about this, because there's so much in this book, it's so rich. I just want to tell everyone go get their copy, because it's going to help you get published. I can guarantee it because I've seen all the stuff in here. I know a lot about this myself. And I'm like, yep, yep, yep, yep. Yep. It's so accessible. I always like to end with three lightning-round questions that I ask everyone. The first one is, what is the best piece of writing advice you have ever received? 

Estelle [51:26]
So I've received a lot of writing advice for the podcast, the people that I talked to, and I'm going to say, one of the most recent ones, was a very interesting piece of advice from Amanda Churchill, who wrote her debut novel, The Turtle House, which is Harper Collins. And she said, when she struggles with writing, she writes a separate document all about her struggle. I love it. I love that. And that is something that I absolutely plan to do. Another thing, I'm going to throw in another one, just for good measure, always good to have.

 Ann Hood, who's a guest on my program, told me that she's a volcano writer. And that resonated with me, because I always heard from so many people write every day, right? You know, you have to write 365 pages. And for me, I'm sorry, I'm a mom of a teenager, I’m a wife, I have a lot going on, I teach for NYU, and Writer's Digest and one-on-one, and do plenty of seminars and webinars. And I can't write every day, but Ann said, look at what you've written, and maybe touch it or just look at it in some way or think about it. And then when you're ready, because the brain is always working overtime, so that I am a proud volcano writer.

Lisa [53:09]
I love that, you know, I think I'm kind of a volcano writer myself, because like you, when you're busy, that is just a myth that you can write every day. It does not always happen. And you need to understand what your flow is. And I absolutely love Ann Hood. One of my favorite things she did is this podcast for Tin House, which is How to Write a Kickass Essay, which I will also add to the show notes, because everybody should listen to that. So, these are great tips. And I hope everyone takes that in. What do you do to nurture your resilience, especially since you have so much on your plate?

Estelle [53:44]
One thing I do is I remind myself of the good stuff happening, right? And that's not just to be like, oh, patting myself on the back, but it keeps me in an elevated energy. Right? It keeps me feeling okay, there is momentum going. And I'm very much a momentum-oriented person. But I definitely need downtime. For example, recently, Poets and Writers Magazine, named my book one of the best books for writers, and they added it to their newsletter where they highlighted my book as a book of the week, the nonfiction book of the week. So, I was so honored by that. So, you know, you must remember these things because people put little things on social media and then you forget it. So, I think reminding yourself of that. The other thing I do is you know people say to me, and I laugh because they say, Estelle you're everywhere. In fact, Lisa, I usually shut down over the weekend. All my students know I don't work on the weekends, on student work or any kind of public interaction or interviews or anything like that, and I'm very clear about it, like I have it in my notes when I start with students, and so I get that breath. And what I do start doing even more so is I will do an out-of-office email, I'll say, it's summer now, and I'm away for the weekend. And I use it to put links into the things that I want to promote. So, I'll say, have you seen the latest episode? Have you bought my book? I'll be returning anything that's not urgent later next week. And so that gives me the breathing room. It's like, I don't have to respond. But I can if I want, it's urgent situation. And so that makes a difference. And my family knows. And I will tell you, when I talked about in the book, when I wanted to get back into magazines and writing, after a long hiatus, nobody knew who I was anymore. Nobody. And I had gone into medical education. And I came back to blogging through the bloggers. They were the ones I auditioned for Listen to Your Mother with the wonderful Ann Imig, who helmed that whole kind of like a Moth for mothers. And I was in the inaugural New York performance of Listen to Your Mother in 2011. And so, the bloggers were the ones who were doing social media, they were the first to know how to marshal that and do that. And they were very big with writing about their kids and writing about their feelings. And most of them have gone on to writing for publications writing books. And so, it was a great way to build connections, and build in a sense of regular life. You know what I mean, I wasn't a magazine editor. I was a blogger, or like the other bloggers and I had a family life. But what happened is, a lot of the bloggers got consumed. And they will work on the weekends. And they do all the comments. And I can't even tell you how many of them got divorced, sadly, because they started putting their all into the blog. And so, I'm a big believer, you need that family time, you need to dedicate time to it. And one of my regrets, and I will share regret is when I was working on Writing That Gets Noticed, it was due July, and my daughter was leaving for camp right around that period and graduating, I think it was, you know, middle school. And I really checked out, I was not there for it. And I do regret that. And I did apologize to my family for that. And I said I will never ever be in a position to do that again. And I'm very proud of the book. I'm very happy I did it. But it was a lesson for me. And it was a lesson for my family. And how I realized what I was missing. And I really missed a lot of those last few weeks before she left for camp, but she's forgiven me. 

Lisa [58:38]:
No, I think that's great advice. And what I would say about the out-of-office email is not only does it set expectations for everyone else, I think it sets expectations for you. And whenever I have that on, I always feel greater permission and freedom. Like there is more distance, because you do have to take breaks. And you know, if you are a freelancer and you are working on a podcast and all these other things that we do, I was telling someone the other day, if I wanted to, there is enough work that I could work 24 hours a day, seven days a week. I could. I just absolutely could. And I choose not to. So, all my clients and students know, I do not work on the weekend. That is set up in advance. I will take up to 48 hours to answer your question. There are very few emergencies. I have worked in a clinical setting. I know what an emergency is and when one is not. And, I'm taking off most of the summer. I'm not working with clients over the summer, and I have an entire month that is a sabbatical month, where you know there will be an out-of-office email and I will address things that are urgent. But you know, I think it is important that we set those boundaries because I always think about two things. What Stephen King says in his book On Writing: you don't put the desk in the center of the room. You put it against the wall, because life needs to be in your center. And Frank Bidart, who is a poet that I met early in my writing life, he said, write some poems and then go live life. So, you have to have all of that happening.

Well, I want people to buy your book. So, if people want to connect with you, what are the best ways, and please know that a link to your podcast is also going to be in the show notes but what else is there? 

Estelle [1:00:29]:
Well I'm on social media everywhere @estelleserasmus, the s in the middle and my name and that's X, Instagram. My Facebook professional is Estelle.Sobel.Erasmus. And LinkedIn, I think it's still @estelleserasmus. On TikTok, I share video clips from my podcasts and other things on TikTok, and my email, and I think I said that earlier, freelancewritingdirect@gmail.com. And I love hearing from people. I'm happy. I love people coming to my Substack. And I just love sharing the information and advice. I'm having a, I don't know when this is coming out, but I'm having an editor-on-call event with the deputy editor of The Cut, Jen Ortiz, for NYU next week. So, that’s probably too soon. So, they can look for the next time, right? 

Lisa [1:01:03]

If they're following you, they certainly can. 

Estelle [1:01:10]
Right. I have an ongoing editor-on-call series that I do with NYU where I teach and where I received the Teaching Excellence Award last year. And I do occasional webinars with Writer's Digest, I teach there. And you can find all that information on my website. And by signing up for my newsletter and my Substack. I so appreciate speaking with you, Lisa. I'm such a fan of what you are doing with your podcasts, and how much you are helping people. And I'm a big believer in therapy as well, big.

Lisa [1:02:14]
Well, thank you so much for being on the podcast and for all your service that you offered so generously to our writing community. You really are a bright light in our writing world and in the world in general. You truly are. So, thank you for being on the podcast.

Estelle [1:02:31]