The Tyranny of the 24-day Writing Streak

In WordPress, I click on the purple bell at the right corner of my home page to find the announcement:

You’re on a 24-day streak on Words Like Me!

I never intended to blog for 24 days straight. Normally, I don’t have enough ideas for 24 days in a row of content. But after the first four days of steady content, I found I didn’t want to break my writing streak, and so I kept writing. Now I’m looking at my 25th day, and I feel chained to my laptop for the next update.

I am naturally a competitive person, and the person I vie with is myself. Write a novel? (There was a time when I had never written one, and that was only 12 years ago at age 48.) Walk 60 miles in three days? (I’ve done that too, at age 40.) So that writing streak counter in WordPress makes me want to write another day.

The horrible part is that if I decide to not write one day, my streak goes down to zero. That didn’t bother me when I only wrote every other day. A 1-day writing streak broken doesn’t feel like a tragedy. A 100-day streak? Or even a 20-day streak? Much more impactful.

Oh, no! What if I run out of words?

My husband assures me I will never run out of words, as I have never managed to during long car trips. (He’s correct.) But what more do I have to say about writing?

I haven’t let you read any of my writings lately. That’s certainly one thing I could blog about. I haven’t written down a character interrogation lately, either. Or talked about any one of a dozen other things. I want to stay interesting, though, which is a pressure that almost equals the pressure to write another day. Almost.

I’ll write daily as long as I can stay interesting, and I’ll try to write about writing as much as possible, because I think it’s more interesting than hearing about my very uneventful life.

Hanging Around with My Imaginary Friends

man sits as if hugging the person sitting next to him, but no one is visible – one line art vector. concept imaginary friend

In the Hidden in Plain Sight series, I have been writing enough books and short stories that the characters have become my imaginary friends. My husband and I play with questions like “What would Luke say about this?” or “Would Josh do this?” I occasionally ask my characters questions (what I call ‘interrogating’) to see what they tell me about themselves. I have backstories (often written in the short stories) that make the characters more complex.

I have two novels published (Gaia’s Hands and Apocalypse), one about to be published (Reclaiming the Balance), and three to be published in the future (Avatar of the Maker, Carrying Light, and Whose Hearts are Mountains.) There’s also a set of short stories out there and another in the works. There’s one more secret to be revealed, and I’m working out how to make it into a full novel. And then I don’t know if I have any more stories about that world.

I don’t know what I will write about if I feel like I’ve written too much in the Hidden in Plain Sight world. I could invent another world and write a while in it. I do have one novel with a different world (or a different angle on this current world like Hidden in Plain Sight is) and I suppose there may be more stories there. But I don’t want to leave my imaginary friends!

Re-editing Some Books

My task for the last couple of days has been to re-edit two books I hope to publish by the beginning of the new year. I just got done re-editing Reclaiming the Balance, which is the book I am wrestling with publishing on January 1st. I’m wrestling with it because it’s one of my Hidden in Plain Sight books, and those aren’t selling like I’d like. I have distributed many free copies of the first book, Gaia’s Hands, as part of BookFunnel promotions, and I don’t know that they’ve yielded too many sales. It’s the burden of being an indie author, not knowing how to market my books. Reclaiming is also an unusual book, where the primary romance is between an artist and a truly androgynous half-human.

Today I’m re-re-editing Kringle Through the Snow, which will go out on October 1 (just in time for WalMart to put out their Christmas decorations.) I have little to change in this; three chapters so far, and I have changed two words. I can’t tell if it’s boredom or anxiety making me go through these stories again.

I might just be killing time. All I have between now and my trip out to New York on the 30th is making some prosthetic impalements for moulage. (Think ripped and charred wood glued to discs for adhesion onto skin). I’m all set up for classes this fall, and I have time to feel like I really have a summer vacation. Or I might be coming to terms with the realization that all I can do is be the best writer I can and hope I get the hang of promotion.

Submitting to CRAFT’s First Chapter contest

I haven’t used Submittable for quite a long time — three years, according to my list of submissions. Submittable, as I’ve explained it before, links creatives with contests and calls for publication. It’s another of those amazing computer assists that I don’t know how writers did without.

I can’t remember why I quit writing short pieces for publication. I think I tired of rejections, even though I got ten publications from it over a couple years. But, given that I’m all noveled out right now, I think it might be time to risk submitting again.

Toward this end, I got an email from CRAFT, whose first chapter contest I entered a couple of years ago. That’s how I got on their mailing list. I didn’t win, which is how my life didn’t change a couple of years ago. I decided I could get back into publishing short pieces with this contest.

I’m publishing the first 5000 words of Whose Hearts are Mountains, a future novel in the Hidden in Plain Sight series. That story has an interesting background, having been the result of a bout with pyelonephritis (kidney infection) in 1984. It took me almost 30 years to write down, after I had worked on at least a couple other novels. It might be my best novel, yet there are other novels to get through before I publish it. Unless a miracle happens.

I have to allow for the possibility of miracles happening.

A Little Bit of Writing: Short Stories

I wrote a little on my short story today, not as much as I would have liked. Combining my 30-year-old fragmented knowledge of Chicago with Google Maps and my near-future dystopic imagination is challenging. The result will hopefully be a background story developing a one sentence aside of the book I just wrote. Many of my short stories begin as character sketches, and this one is no exception.

I would like to write more short stories that don’t tie into characters in my novels. If I do that, I might submit more writing to Submittable contests and publishers. If you don’t know what Submittable is, it is a website that publicizes writing contests and journals and magazines that are looking to publish poetry and short stories. It’s a great way for a writer to get some exposure in those venues. There’s often a small payment for readers or subscription fees, but it’s rewarding to be published even in small venues. The last story I got published was “The Inner Child”, which was published by Flying Ketchup Press last fall.

I feel like I would have trouble publishing my tie-in stories because they are so character driven, but I guess I could always try to see. I have had little luck publishing them in the past, but had one story receive an honorable mention, so there’s that. Although I write as a flow activity, I still have a desire to be read.

Wish me luck!

Addicted to the Flow

I sit in my writing chair (the loveseat near the front window) feeling uninspired. This doesn’t sit well with me, because I am addicted to the flow.

I’ve talked about flow before, but it’s worth mentioning again. Flow is a state in which a person is completely involved in what they’re doing. Time slips by and the person experiences mastery of the task, an optimal level of challenge and competency. Flow contributes to well-being through accomplishment and a state of near-meditation.

I get my flow from writing, and that’s what brings me back to writing again and again. If I never published again, I think I would still write because of the feeling of flow. It took me years to accept that experiencing flow was enough of a reason to continue writing.

I’m looking for my state of flow today, and I don’t know if the current project is captivating enough for me to find it. I’ll be looking for a new project soon, maybe the right short story.

Putting Myself Out There

An indie writer needs to market themselves. It’s perhaps my worst failing that I don’t do a great job marketing myself. I have trouble exclaiming to people, “You need to read my writing!” Call it Midwestern Female Syndrome¹, but it’s real.

This blog is part of marketing myself. To be honest, the main purpose of this blog is to talk about writing and my thoughts about it. When you read my blog, I hope you’re thinking “That’s what it’s like to be a writer.” Hopefully, it also makes you want to read what I’m writing.

Just like my newsletter right now — blank.

I post now and again on Facebook/Twitter/Instagram using Loomly, a social media manager. I post mostly silly things (did you know it was National Kitten Day on Tuesday of this week?) but that’s to get my name out there. I also advertise my books there.

I also write a newsletter every three weeks. If you’re familiar with my blog, you’ll be familiar with what my newsletter is like. I talk about life as a writer, my books, and plans in a chatty way. I try for more atmospheric, with pieces of my surrounding life included. Once I wrote about the gift I received of an Emotional Support Pickle, for example. If you would like to be on my newsletter mailing list, please drop me an email here.

These are all suggested ways to promote one’s books, but I can’t help but think I’m not doing these right. I’m not good at self-promotion, as I have said above, and would like to get better. My Midwestern Female Syndrome keeps me from bragging too much. Would anyone like to read a book?

Midwestern Female Syndrome is the internal desire to be perfect combined with the desire to be outwardly unremarkable; to be outstanding but not to stand out.

Every trip is a mini-writing retreat.

I’m at the Hotel Kansas City grabbing some breakfast and writing time before my next intern. I have a rose-lavender latte with me and am waiting for breakfast. The whole place has a private club vibe — as it should, because it used to be a private club. In its heyday, I would never have been allowed in, because private clubs were men’s only. The whole place smells of the fireplace in the restaurant.

We end up staying in these places randomly, because we use Hotwire to book the room for an overnight. Prices are reasonable, doubly so if you’re traveling on a weekday. If you’re booking in downtown KC, you’re more likely to get boutique hotels at our price point than typical mid-price chains. And Marriott and Hyatt are doing much to collect boutique hotels in their portfolio, so interesting gems like this are easier to find.

We splurged for dinner last night (the university does not pay for meals!) at the hotel restaurant, which had a James Beard-nominated executive chef. Imaginative food, small portions, intimate atmosphere. We weren’t that hungry after pork tenderloin and curly fries for lunch.

I have one more intern, but before that, I have an opportunity to write at this lovely table you see pictured. Mini-retreat plus internship visits; just what I needed.

Out of Office

I’m on a trip downstate to visit a couple of interns at their sites, so I don’t think I will have time to write the next couple of days. I will bring my go-kit (iPad, keyboard, mouse, power supply) in case I get some time to write on the trip. I’d have to find something to write, as Google Maps and the interstate system (long story) have foiled my story idea.

Have fun!

The Rabbit Hole of Research

I’m writing a short story based on the Hidden in Plain Sight books, about some characters I spend less time with. It takes place in Chicago, and I’m racking my brain to remember Chicago, which I remember as a disconnected series of commercial and residential areas.

I try to jog my memories (as inadequate as they are) by looking at maps — a Google map and a Chicago neighborhood map. I just reemerged from a two-hour reverie of putting names and places to various places I remember from over thirty years ago. The No Exit was in Rogers Park, which is almost Evanston. My boyfriend’s mother lived in North Austin, and his grandparents lived in Hermosa. I spent a spring break at a storefront loft in “unredeemed Bucktown”, as a friend of mine from (I believe) Lakeview. I remember a great Korean restaurant in Lincoln Square and had one of the most frightening experiences of my life in Lincoln Park.

Two hours later, I have gotten no closer to writing the story. I don’t even know where I’m going with the story. But I have sorted out a series of mental Polaroids that represent my memories. As these memories are thirty years old, I had buried those Polaroids in a closet I seldom go into.