WHERE STORIES TAKE FLIGHT: The Power of the Pen: A Writer's Tribute

"The pen is mightier than the sword."

Who first said it?

An author, of course! Edward Bulwer-Lytton, an English novelist, playwright, poet, and politician coined the term in 1839.

I've never wielded a sword, but I have experienced firsthand the dramatic might of the pen. It is why books are banned and weapons are not.

A persuasive pen can invoke the lowering of the sword, a well-written speech can inspire a revolution, and a blog can give a voice to the powerless.

In my life the pen has been powerful--it helped pay for my education, saved my home from foreclosure, and attracted a stellar literary agent.

I first felt the power of the pen when I applied for the Alumni Leadership Scholarship at UC Berkeley. In order to win, I had to write an essay about leadership. The only problem was--I wasn't a leader. I had plenty of volunteer credits on my application, but I rarely took a leadership role in any club, organization, or sport.

So I did what any future novelist would do--I panicked--and then I got creative. I wrote an essay based on my theory that the best leaders know when not to lead. Recognizing better aptitude in someone else and taking the back seat is often more important than appointing yourself, I argued, and I fully expected to lose.

But guess what? I won.

The pen is mightier than reality.

The pen saved my home. The recession took out my husband's business, decimated our real estate equity, halved our stock investments, and left us with nothing. We declared bankruptcy in 2009 and I began a blog titled, The Jennifer (Recession) Diaries, where I came out to the world about our experiences.

I documented the many humiliations of sudden, unexpected poverty and the nine month long battle with our bank. I turned in an 86 page loan modification application, called the bank every Friday, and logged pages and pages of notes--all to no avail. Two days before our home was to be auctioned for cash on the courthouse steps--I got angry.

I sat at my computer, tears streaming down my face, and I wrote a blog post on my recession diaries blog. I poured out my frustration and I named my bank. That was on a Sunday evening.

The next day at 4pm I received a phone call. It was from my bank's corporate office. The woman said, "Hi Jennifer, this is (So and So) from your bank, I read your blog." I had to pull over! She stopped the foreclosure, reopened our case, and modified our loan!! Then she asked me to stop writing about them.

The pen is mightier than my bank.

And this year, battling unemployment this time, I utilized the pen to either get a job or get published! I updated my resume and wrote a novel (my fourth)--figuring one or the other would come through for me eventually.

I applied for work and queried agents, but I was getting nowhere fast with either process. Here is a real-life response I got from an employer:

"We have received your resume and appreciate your inquiry in a career opportunity with our organization.

During the next two weeks, we will review your qualifications and our open positions and determine whether a match exists. If it does, we will schedule a further discussion with you. If you do not hear from us during the two-week period, we were unable to find a suitable position for you. As we receive hundreds of resumes every month, we apologize that we cannot personally respond to every resume submitted to us to discuss why we will not be moving forward.

Again, thank you for expressing an interest in employment with (name of bank). We wish you all the best in your job search."

And here is a real-life response I received from a literary agent:

"Thank you so much for your query.

Please note that, per our submissions policy, we are no longer able to respond to every submission. We receive such a high volume of submissions that a personal response to all is unfortunately no longer possible. We regret that we can't send a personal response to every author, but we continue to read and consider every query carefully, and we are grateful for the opportunity to consider your work.

If we are interested in seeing more of your work, we will contact you at the email address you provided. If you have not heard from us within 6 weeks, please assume that the material submitted is not right for our agency at this time.

Thank you again for thinking of us and considering our agency. We look forward to reading your work!"

On May 25, 2012, I wrote a blog post about these responses entitled, "Never Say Never: A Mom Writes for Her Life." It's a bit dramatic, but this was my main idea:

If it's just as difficult to find a job as it is to get published in this economy--why not scrap the job and pursue publishing!

But I needed a new book. The YA was not going to open any doors and I knew it. The following week a plot fell in my head, fully-formed like Aphrodite, while I was driving home. I raced to my computer and wrote chapter one to STARFIRE (originally titled The Winged Herds of Anok). I wrote five days a week (in my pajamas of course) until the book, an MG fantasy, was finished.

I then wrote a query letter that caught the attention of an agent and in October, I signed with the amazing Jacqueline Flynn of Delbourgo Associates.

My book is now out on submission (terrifyingly exciting!) and all I can do is wait. I wrote in an earlier post: "I sit on the cusp of my dreams." While I know most authors make very little money--getting published does make for more opportunities. It opens the door to writing and selling more books, to booking more speaking engagements, and to having the best job on earth!

And selling this book would be the perfect final post in The Jennifer (Recession) Diaries--my real-life story about keeping my chin up on the way down! It's an ending that is more fantastic than anything I could have imagined when we lost everything in 2009. Having no money and being unemployed kept me home every day blogging, writing novels, marketing, researching publishing, speaking, and querying.

And maybe, just maybe, it's the best thing that ever happened to me!

"Sometimes when you lose, you win." --What Dreams May Come

The pen is mightier than the recession.