Writing for Myself

I think I’ve passed through the other side of my dejection about not getting published. I’ve received enough rejections (for novels and poems and short stories, by publishers and agents and Pitch Wars). What does that leave?

Writing and improving for myself, primarily. Not letting my self-esteem be at the mercy of publishers and agents. Of course, I would like to be published (I have a couple little things published, and it’s fun). I’d like to have a novel published. I’d like to be published somewhere that people actually read.

I’m willing to keep trying, because the rejections aren’t really that painful anymore. I can take more until my writing hits the right person, whoever that is.

Wish me luck.

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I took off yesterday from writing the blog because I’M ON VACATION FOR A WHOLE WEEK!

Ok, I got that out of my system.

I’m a writer, though. I have things to do over vacation:

Edit one short story for a short story contest.
Edit a couple poems (minor edit)
Edit Whose Hearts are Mountains, which seriously needs a developmental editor because I don’t know if I’m going in the right direction
Rethink this whole writing thing (which I do once a week).

Fangirling over TwoSet Violin

Ok. I’m fangirling over TwoSet Violin.

For the people who don’t know, TwoSet Violin is a darling pair of twenty-somethings classically trained in violin, who demystify violin for a non-technical audience (of which I’m one) and entertain in a thoroughly modern zaniness.

They (Brett Yang and Eddie Chen) post videos on YouTube where they highlight virtuoso violinists, roast obviously fake movie footage, throw jokes around about practicing and overly strict Asian moms, explain musical memes, and serenade unappreciative kangaroos.

Their videos are like potato chips — once you’ve had a handful, you crave more of them. Eddy plays straight man to Brett’s mobile expressions and fidgety energy. Their narration is augmented with popular culture in the form of video game noises, memes, and captions.

In a perfect world, I would get to meet the two of them, just to say hi. But that’s what all the fangirls, even the ones thirty years older, say.

Better get over this burnout quick.

My brain needs a rest.

I think I burned myself out doing 50 hours of editing Gaia’s Hands in ten days. My brain definitely needed a break. Then I’m in the busy part of my semester, and have graded 45 final projects and 25 papers in the last two weeks. And put together my classes for next semester.

I think maybe I’m a little burned out on everything. I tend to want to sleep a lot, even though I’m not depressed. It’s a good thing that I have a week off for Thanksgiving next week, then a week of finals, and then Christmas.

I’m not going to let the burnout last long. I need to think of a project — maybe editing Whose Hearts are Mountains before a dev edit. Maybe editing a story or two for submission, or even writing a new story. Someone suggested I turn the short story Hands into a novel, but I think that would require a research trip to Poland, where I don’t know the language nor what I’m looking for.

I’m trying to find my direction forward, and it’s harder now that I’ve calmed down about getting published. I should go back to my goals and see if I need to revise or add or just get cracking on them.

Hope and the writer

An acquaintance told me the other day that every single last one of you are bots.

It may be true — for some reason my readership is down to ten most days. (Probably the fact that I was doing short NaNo updates, which aren’t all that interesting, I guess).

I’m still writing in my blog, and I will keep writing in it for one reason: Hope. Hope is the conviction that there will be better outcomes. It’s what helps us through those things we have no power over — after I have done all the corrections, the dev edits, the query letter improvements, I hope that I will get published. If I keep publishing blog entries and advertising them on social media, I hope I will have readers.

Hope is what keeps me going in the absence of progress.

Dreams vs goals

I’ve been pretty mellow lately about my writing, getting my enjoyment from editors telling me how to improve. This is my most noble self, but my sanguinity even in the face of rejections doesn’t motivate me to push myself — for example, I haven’t sent queries lately. I haven’t finished editing Whose Hearts are Mountains (although that may need a developmental editor).

I still daydream about getting a novel published, even though I understand how hard it is, and I know I’m not a literary writer but a genre writer, and my stuff seems like it needs an endless amount of improvement …

I need to set some goals again. I’ll make them SMART goals — specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, time-bound.

Write/submit 5 short stories/poems/flash fiction by December 31, 2020
Get Whose Hearts are Mountains into developmental edit by March 1, 2020
Send 50 queries for Gaia’s Hands by February 1, 2020
Send 50 queries for Apocalypse by August 1, 2020

Note that my goals are in terms of what I will do (submit) rather than what might happen (publication). It’s not realistic for me to determine someone else’s actions.

I suspect I will be successful in fulfilling these goals — in general I’m very goal oriented. What I don’t know is if they’ll yield dreams come true.

I don’t know where I’m going

I know I’ve been writing very boring posts lately, and for that I apologize. My justification (not excuse) is NaNo and projects.

What have I been thinking about lately? NaNo and projects. Ok, that’s not a good start to a blog.

I’ve also been thinking about my relationship with writing. On one hand, I’ve hit some very positive rejections that have 1) given me ideas of how to improve, and 2) have said positive things about my writing.

I might actually be taking my writing more seriously than I have before, and with that I wonder more if I can get my writing to the point where it deserves being published. I don’t know if I’ve gotten there with my stories, and I wonder what it would take to get to that point.

I still have some big things out there — I have Prodigies at DAW, Apocalypse at Tor, Voyageurs in a novella contest, a submission to Pitch Wars, and — well, I don’t think I will win any of these. And I don’t know what to think about this.

Meh again

I think I burned myself out on editing for a while.

It’s Sunday, and I have plenty of time to edit Whose Hearts are Mountains for NaNo. Yet I can’t bring myself to do it, even though I have nothing better to do today.

On the other hand, I’ve got 69 hours in between the two novels, and NaNo is a little more than half over.

What I need is a new developmental editor, as mine has gone on leave and I really don’t know what to do with Whose Hearts are Mountains. How does one find a developmental editor?

Meh.

I took a break from the blog yesterday because I’ve been working on my online presence for spring classes (all done; assignments are where they should be with due dates as they should be) and working on Whose Hearts are Mountains (which isn’t a total mess, but a frustrating problem with how to make more tension in the first half.)

I’m at 67k (67 hours) for NaNo, at least 50 of that going to the big edit of Gaia’s Hands. I’ve almost quit posting time because I’m so far over my time.

Today I am going to spend as much time as I can stand on Whose Hearts are Mountains, but I don’t know how much that will be because I’m feeling a bit underwhelmed. Not upset, not depressed, just underwhelmed with my writing. Meh.

Writers’ Balk

I woke up this morning not wanting to write.

Actually, it’s an editing day — Whose Hearts are Mountains won’t edit itself. But I am not, as they say, feeling the love.

It might be that the 50k/10 days binge edit of Gaia’s Hands has taken a lot out of me. It could be because it’s a week and a half till Thanksgiving Break and I’m on break already. It could be because I’m discouraged from the latest rejections. It could be because I’m not sure why I want to get published at the moment.

At any rate, I’m staring at the draft thinking, “How do I fix this?” This meaning one of the big flaws of the first half of the book (having fixed the other two) which is pacing.

I was told there was not enough of import happening in the first half, despite the fact that she gets shot at, rammed into, kidnapped, and exposed to a virus. And has flashbacks from being captured by a paramilitary group. You can see why I’m bewildered.

I HAVE to work on it tonight, because I’m having a NaNo Come Write Me space at the Board Game Cafe. So maybe I wait till then.

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