The Annual Ninth Avenue Street Fair is a terrific, sloppy mess of food, wares, games of chance, oddities, music and the bizarre characters who live in Hell’s Kitchen.
I go every year.
I used to go simply because the fair (which always occurs the weekend after Mother’s Day) was just down at the corner in my old neighborhood. With tastings of every sort of food available for a dollar or two a pop, I could easily go down to the corner, walk around for a few blocks and have an amazing dinner for under ten dollars.
This year, I’m living further uptown. But today I hop on the A Train in search of my favorite booth at the Fair.
Millie’s Pierogi.
And yes, pierogi is the plural. I know this. Always write it this way. But I usually say “pierogis” with an “s” in conversation because otherwise people think I’m a grammar snob.
These pierogi are THE BEST I’ve ever had. Not only did I eat a plate of the potato and kielbasa pierogi---but I even bought two dozen of their frozen pierogi (potato kielbasa AND cabbage) to take home and store in my freezer.
Millie's Pierogi comes around once a year and I'm there. Always. Little Polish girl that I will always be. But the local restaurants get involved, as well.
New Yorkers seem particularly adept at these simple forms of promotion and money-making. You can be walking down the street and you’ll think to yourself, “Boy, I wish I had a slice a pizza right about now.”
And just as you’re thinking it, BOOM!---a pizza joint will be right across the street.
“Damn, I just ran out of cigarettes.”
And BAM!---there’s a bodega right on the corner.
A comic I knew used to do a joke about the African guys who sell umbrellas on the street. He used to explain to the out-of-town audience that, in NYC, before the first raindrop hits the grown, there’ll be an African guy on the corner going, "Umbrella umbrella umbrella umbrella…."
They see a potential need and they fill it.
So where’s the street corner for writers?
Not the literal one. I’m quite aware of the fact that no one in
I’m talking about the figurative street corner. Where are those people looking for new material---and how do you set up your metaphorical stand on an allegorical good corner?
Me, I just write. And keep writing and writing. Hoping to get better and better. And hoping that someday someone will notice.
The closest thing we have is the query letter. That letter you carefully compose offering agents an enticing sample of your work, hoping they’ll come back wanting more.
Gosh, they're painful. And seemingly useless. Even the writing books point out this sad fact.
Really, a query letter is like setting up a booth at the fair offering the recipe to your cookies without being allowed to give out any samples. And, not only that, but Mrs. Fields set up a booth right next to yours. Damn that popular and successful Mrs. Fields and her delicious cookies!
Speaking of popular and successful…
I’d heard this book was one of the best on writing.
On Writing by Stephen King.
I’ve read a few of his books. His writing’s not bad. Not too shabby at all. Particularly for a writer of popular fiction. Occasionally, I even spot his delicious sense of humor on the page. But. to be honest---I just get too scared. As a kid, my aunt and uncle once took me to a retro drive-in night and I remember screaming and hiding my eyes all thru The Night of the Living Dead. And that was in black and white! And, if I'm being perfectly honest here---the scariest movie I've EVER seen is a little something from the early 1930s called Freaks. I had to turn off the VCR and hide the box under a throw rug till I got it back to the video store. Yeah, it was the pinheads who freaked me out---and I'm not ashamed to admit it.
Despite my fears, I respect the hell out of ANY writer who’s managed to eek out a living in this business---particularly one who's been so wildly successful. On Writing has been touted over and over by friends and reviewers on Amazon.com as being one of the best on the craft of writing---even if you’re not a fan of his particular style. After all, the guy makes a decent living. He must know something.
So, last week, on a Barnes & Noble trip, I picked up a copy.
I’m not that far into it. About 40 pages or so. What’s striking me so far is the fact that, as a kid, he queried.
He sent query letters and submissions to just about any magazine that would fit his work. Over and over again. He pounded a nail into his wall and started poking the rejection letters onto it as they came in.
He got a lot of rejections.
A lot.
I've saved my rejection letters, too. I could wallpaper my kitchen with the stack I've got laying around.
Later in life, after Stephen King was successful, those same publications actually printed stories (albeit re-written stories) they'd rejected years earlier. Even King admits, it has a lot to do with the name.
Of course, it’s much easier to get rejected when you’re a kid. You instinctively know that you’re learning. That it’s part of the process. And submitting, at fourteen, is FUN! It makes you feel grown-up. Professional. A real go-getter. Just the sheer act that you’re creating all on your own and submitting all by yourself makes your parents sit up and say, “Wow, my kid is really something. He’s going to be something someday.”
At that age, you’re bold. Risk-taking. In fact, you don’t even perceive things as risks. That’s why the armed services go into high schools to recruit. They know that twenty-five year-old guys know better than to risk death, amputation and serious injury for wars and countries they know nothing about.
When I was sixteen, one of my best friends, Joanna, and I decided we were going to audition for the Muny Opera. The Muny is not Opera in the traditional sense. The
We showed up in our t-shirts and sweat pants with our character shoes in our bags. No resumes. We didn’t even know what a resume was. But we’d prepared a song.
We were sixteen. We had nothing to lose.
I think I sang “Honey Bun” from South Pacific. Then we had to line up and do a combination of steps.
Oh, we were awful.
Well, we were pretty darned good at our high school. There, we were something.
But here at the Muny, we were so obviously just a couple of dumb kids.
To this day, I thank the directors who took the time to give us a shot---just like anyone else. They didn’t interrupt our numbers with, “Thank you. That will be all.” And they let us try and try and try to get the combination down. And no one snickered when we finally had to fall back on that old tap trick we’d just learned a few weeks earlier----if you don’t know the steps, just keep moving your feet and smile.
By the end of the audition, we were giddy. Of course, we knew we’d never get called back. Neither one of us was waiting by our phones. But we flew out of there on a cloud.
“We did it! We did it!” we screamed and hugged each other.
We auditioned for THE MUNY OPERA!!!
That was sure something! Boy, was everyone we knew going to be jealous.
As I come home tonight to craft some query letters, I realize that this is what has been missing. That crazy, sixteen year-old spirit that doesn’t care about making an ass out of herself. That doesn’t even care if I get a call back. That shoots for the biggest place in town and damn the torpedoes.
I decide to do it. Just to say I did.
Tonight, I’m just looking for an opportunity to keep moving my feet and smile.
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