So, yeah, I just finished writing a short story. Wrapped up the ending yesterday, and started another one today. I’ll give the former some time to ferment and stay busy brewing up the latter with the intent of having the first edited, published and out to fans this month and the second lined up and ready for similar treatment in November.
I’ve been writing at one of the local coffee shops again and that seems to make all the difference. Even with interruptions, I can knock out an easy thousand words a morning and they’ve started providing free refills so it couldn’t be better.
Given that I’m restarting my creative process all over again, I’ve been trying to remain conscious of how much of me it’s consuming. Don’t get me wrong, I love to read and write as much as just about anything else, but I’ve felt a certain amount of fatigue in the past that hasn’t panned out for me in the long run.
“Okay,” you wonder. “What makes writing more of a task than a pleasure?” And I respond with a list.
- Socializing around writing. NaNoWriMo is shortly upon us, and in the past, that has meant I’ve been attended write-ins and the like. Add to that the end of the year conventions and writers groups and Clarior West weekend symposiums and suddenly I’m staring into the headlights of a social-anxiety train. If I try and to that again, it’s a done deal, my x-mas break you’ll have to fish my carcass out of the Sound. My plan this time around is to do everything on my time, commit to nothing and stay sane.
- Tying myself to arbitrary deadlines. No one gets to dictate how many words a day I can or even should produce. Not even me. I’ve stopped counting, in fact, and it’s been liberating. Here’s a simple truth that most how-to-write books won’t tell you. Writing more words doesn’t make your writing any better. This is a common trap I’ve fallen into in the past, especially during things like NaNoWriMo. You sit down with a word goal — I’ve got to write 1,472 words a day to complete the NaNo on time, blah blah blah — and pretty soon you’re cramming junk words into a chapter because without them you’ll never have a hope of finishing. Worse, you’ll start splitting out all your contractions because two words are better than one, right? So, at least for me, counting ain’t the way. I write a story because I have a story to write. If it’s only a 200-word story well, then so be it.
- No more using writing to excuse other work. If I’m honest, I’ve done this in the past. Mountain of stinky laundry need washing but I’d rather do anything else? Well “writing” can be a convenient get out of doing laundry card. Scared of crawling along your roof-line to clean gutters because you might fall? Tell everyone you’ve got some words to get down. At least for a while, I’m going to make sure that when it’s time to write that’s what I’m doing and when it’s time to do other things there will be my focus.
- Rejection! Complicated by all of the above, this is what killed my desire to write last year. A fuck-ton of rejection. And yeah, the advice “grow thicker skin, keep submitting” is good, but only to a point.
I’m going to be a lot more selective about who and when I submit anything from here on out. Plus, I’m going to raise my expectations. Don’t want my piece? That’s fine, just tell me why. Over the years I’ve submitted over and over again and there have been a couple of good rejectors. C.C. Finley comes to mind. He never responds with boilerplate. He never tells me that I’ve written junk (and should kill myself because I’ll never make it as a writer you rotten slob how could you think you could ever amount to anything …). And he always gives me some indication of why he’s not interested. Even if it’s “Hey, I’m not sure where this would fit in this month’s line-up” or “I just didn’t find your story interesting, but keep trying.”
If and when I submit, I’m going to do so judiciously. When I’m rejected, I’m going to note down if I learned anything from the rejection. If the answer is no then I won’t resubmit.
Okay, so there are my four guiding principles that I hope will allow me to continue to write. Expect a new story on Patreon in the next couple of weeks.
