Writing Voodoo

This past Halloween, I was asked to speak at a writers' conference in Oregon. It was a crunchy, kumbaya, bond-with-your-cabinmates-over-favorite-scenes-from-Angus, Thongs-type of thing. I thought to myself: I went to summer camp for fifteen years, I can get into this.

I wasn't expecting the voodoo.

They called it The Shredding Ceremony. Any writer who'd received a less-than-fun rejection letter could read it aloud to the group. Then the whole room would erupt into a cheer: "Shred it! Shred it! Shred it!" as the writer sacrificed the letter to the voodoo god of paper shredders.

Sure, it was all in good fun, and sure, I was more than a little bit scared of that paper shredder by the end of the night, but I started to see that there was something heartening about the whole experience. Voodoo aside, this was a community of writers bonding, energizing each other to keep writing.

Every writer experiences the agony of a rejection letter, writer's block, even self-doubt. Sometimes it helps to remember that other writers are going through the same thing you are. Sometimes the best thing to do with these road blocks is to sacrifice them to the Shredder, to keep looking forward, and most of all, to keep writing.

What are your quirky writing traditions or superstitions?

Lauren Velevis
Assistant Editor, HarperCollins Publishers