I need to remind myself

I didn’t write yesterday, because I was busy with getting set up for the beginning of the school year. The hard part’s done — all online class presence is sorted out and in order with due dates accurate, the syllabus pristine, and all that.

I’m also in the middle of a miserable summer cold that’s been hanging on, so I’m a bit dopey.

I confess that I haven’t written in a while. A week at least, what with the classes and the queries and the cold and the like … I haven’t written more than a half hour to finish a story. I will try to write today, because writing. Even if I only write a couple paragraphs, I need to write.

I need to remind myself that I’m a writer.

Seeking direction again

(Note: I am experimenting with larger print for a reader of mine.)

Idea for my next book from the idea file:

Luke Dunstan, 6000-year-old Archetype, serves as a liaison between the immortal Archetypes and the humans whose cultural DNA the Archetypes hold. An edict from the Archetypes’ Maker bids the Archetypes prepare to return these memories in the trust of the humans. Facing their loss of identity, the Archetypes draw battle lines; countless human lives are at stake. It is up to Luke and one young woman, Leah Inhofer, to stop the battle of Archetype against Archetype.

*******

I really need to get back into writing. Or at least editing.

I’ve been editing a bit, but even then I often skip out on it because it’s tedious to go through a document to kill all the extra “have had has was were”. I haven’t written on a novel since finishing Whose Hearts are Mountains in December. I have some old ideas in my file (see above) but no new “a-ha” falling in love with the idea motivation.

Writing the blog every day, as I mentioned yesterday, is my lifeline to writing. As long as I write in my blog I’m still a writer. Right?

I’m afraid that if I keep getting rejections, my current lack of commitment puts me in an easy place to just walk away. This might be a good thing for me in the greater scheme of things, but it’s not good when I think about being a writer.

So I’m musing about what to do. Again.

Struggling to write (Warning: rambling a bit)

Ok, folks, I’m struggling to write lately.

In the last week, I’ve only met my 1-hour writing goal once, for outlining my NaNo book. I wonder if I’m going to have the ideas and the fortitude to write it.

I don’t think I’m depressed, just a bit listless and pretty tired. And clumsy. I’m really clumsy. I banged my nose on my car while putting my computer inside. Word for today: proprioception. As in I have none. But that doesn’t have to do with my struggle to write unless I inadvertently gave myself a concussion (no evidence that I did).

I think I’m also having an identity crisis — I am trialing two developmental editors with two different books (as I mentioned earlier, Prodigies and Voyageurs), and I’m scared that they’re going to say that my queries are great, but my books are not going to sell. At least I will know if that’s the case. I tend to think if things come to that, I will go back to poetry and short stories that I don’t feel people have to read.

I don’t feel like a writer right now. That’s the problem.
I don’t know how to feel like a writer. A writing retreat would be good, but there’s no place locally to retreat (except a cabin at Mozingo, but they’re all occupied). I have to figure out how I can boost my feeling like a writer in lieu of an acceptance.

Any help you can give me would be appreciated.

In the End, I’m Still a Writer.

I wake up at 5 AM US Central Standard Time every day — yes, I know that’s really, really early — so I have time for getting ready, and eating breakfast, and prepping for the day at work — and writing.

Yes, that’s how much writing has become a part of my life. It’s like a dysfunctional boyfriend. Writing flirts, it teases, it demands my attention on its schedule, and when I need it to be there for me, it flees, taking my ideas with me. Still, I can’t break up with writing, because it fascinates me. I sit at the coffeehouse and hope that writing will show up for me.

On the flipside, my imagination may be the chaos that writing seeks to tame. I, and my passions, may well be that muse that challenges me at coffee (“Tell me who you think I am”), who I have personified as an incarnation of Pan, all intensity and chaos, joy and panic, abandon of all things sensible. (I’ll admit this is disappointing in a way, because Pan is sexy as hell.)

I am the storm; I am the storm’s eye.

For this reason, I have to write.

Thank you for listening.

You Are a Writer

Dear Readers — this is for all of you. All of you are writers whether or not you think you are.

Becoming a writer requires only one thing: That you write.

You suspect it’s not as simple as that. You’re right, of course.

You may stare at the page, clutching your lucky pen, but no ideas come to mind. There are many ways to break that impasse: take the pressure off and just write, freeform, on whatever comes to mind. Interrogate a dream (my favorite method). Do word sprints — a method where you use a prewritten suggestion and write on that topic, exercising your mind in a non-threatening way. Because writing is threatening — you risk internal reflection, growth, exploration of disconcerting topics. And maybe, possibly, recognition. Give yourself a pep talk — you are a writer! You can withstand the threats of reflection and exploration.

Then, you follow the flow of writing, and you feel the flow of ideas — until you don’t. You stare at the page in front of you, where words abruptly stopped in the middle of the page. You have several options at this point: create an outline and fill in the plot points so you know where to go. Write what you know. Research the details you’re not sure of. Take a break. Think of a future, more exciting scene and write that. Give yourself a pep talk — you are a writer! All writers face that moment when ideas run dry.

When you’re done with your manuscript, you face the most important and most difficult part — editing. You need to edit because, while your words flowed, your grammar, punctuation, and continuity did not. You may find that your characters ended up on a yacht with no indication why. Or one of your characters practices “elf-defense” and there are no elves in the story. Maybe your protagonist changed race. Little things like that. This part of editing you may be able to do yourself. Give yourself a pep talk — you are a writer! Tedious as this is, you can do it.

The other type of editing you will find more challenging, and that is reading for plot, flow of ideas, and readability. You may be so used to your story by then that you can’t recognize problems with description, plot holes, characterization, and other aspects that will make or lose the reader’s interest. You may feel threatened by someone else reading your manuscript — “oh, G-d, what if they don’t like it?!” Give yourself a pep talk — you are a writer! You can bear the criticism and use it to make yourself better.

Writing is not just a creative process — it’s a journey of growth. Few writers get their first work published — I thought I would, but I have since edited it so many times, it’s no longer my first work! I sent that revised, revised, and revised document out on queries later this week, and I’m holding my breath that an agent takes the hook. I’m giving myself a pep talk — I am a writer! I can withstand rejection again!