Live as if you’re already published

In a trance last night, my mind told me to live as if I’ve already been published.

That’s an interesting concept. My rational self wonders what it really means, though.

There are ways in which I can’t live as if I’ve already been published. For example, I can’t show off my writing to my friends. I can’t plan a book publishing party or a book tour. I can’t try to sell the nonexistent book at writers’ or readers’ conferences.

So what does living as if I’ve already been published mean? I can take the pressure off myself; I don’t have to prove anything. I don’t have to believe myself inferior to those authors who have published books. Technically, I am an author, having published a few professional articles in my field, one opinion piece in the local newspaper, several personal essays for progressive religion publications, one short story and one flash fiction. So I can call myself an author even if I haven’t published a book.

I don’t have to prove anything. I’m already published. I’ll keep trying to publish a book, but I don’t have to anymore. I’ve accomplished my original goal.

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.

Extended Metaphor

When I write the first draft of a story, I feel like I’m in the middle of a budding romance. I fall in love with the characters and I want to see what happens to them. The revelation of the story surprises and delights me.

And then there’s editing. I re-read and find all my characters’ flaws showing in the unfiltered morning light. I find holes in their stories, having heard them so many times.

But like any good relationship, my job is to look into the flaws and the errors and the mess and find the truth, the uniqueness of their story. But to do this well, I have to remember that theirs is the same story I fell in love with.

Wish me good happy things

Well, I got a rejection in a short story contest, but it’s not bothering me too much. I didn’t even get honorable mention. I think they were looking for literary fiction, which is high concept fiction that doesn’t touch genres. I write genre fiction, specifically science fiction/fantasy. I may need to be a little more specific as to who I send to.

I’m pushing myself to go drink coffee and write at the Game Cafe. I don’t think I’ve been there in two weeks, and that might be part of the reason why I’ve been having trouble motivating. When I’m feeling down, the closer I am to my bed, the harder it is to motivate.

My choices on projects are either: 1) keep revising on Gaia’s Hands or 2) keep writing on Hands (No, not at all confusing), the origin story for Grzegorz Koslowski (apologies to Polish readers; I can’t get that little mark through the l to work). I might feel motivated enough to go through Gaia’s Hands today.

Wish me luck and motivations and good happy things. I still have a couple submissions out there and one query to an agent.

Slump

Oh, I really need to get out of this slump!

It’s like I’ve forgotten I’m a writer, and all I want to do is nap all day. That sounds like depression to me, but I don’t feel depressed. Just tired, and relaxed, and totally meh.

This, I remind myself, is not who I want to be. I want to be a writer. I want to get a novel published, and maybe some short stories. I have two short stories and a novel (still Prodigies at DAW) out there, and a third short-short that should be announced any day now (I doubt I’ve won that one, but maybe I’m a runner-up?)

I’m wondering if winning the short essay contest at A3 has satisfied my desire to get published. I’m wondering where my drive to go further has gone. I’m wondering if I need a change of scenery, but the cafe is closed today.

I’ll push myself to write today, but maybe a bit later.

Some Days It’s Hard

It’s Sunday morning here in Maryville, on a dark morning following a torrential thunderstorm, with more rain on the way. I’m listening to classical music and drinking entirely too much coffee, followed by a good dose of King’s Oolong Tea 913, which I received from a friend of mine who’s currently back in China. No need to go out; just a long amount of time to do something.

Or nothing. Right now, I want to do nothing.

I took a break from writing yesterday, mostly because I didn’t feel well, but in part because my projects are as follows:

Gaia’s Hands, which is frustrating me because I can’t get a handle for improving it (this vastly rewritten and rewritten story)
A short story about one of the characters in Prodigies, which starts with a whole family dying in a bombing and gets more depressing from there.

Not much to grab onto, is there?

My worry if I take another break is that I will quit writing, because, frankly, it’s easier not to write. Part of the reason I write this blog is to force myself to be productive, to take the hard path, the path I really want to see myself walk down.

So we’ll see what I want to write today.

Thanks for listening!

Still I write

This is one of those days I have to force myself to write.

It’s Friday, I don’t have anything I have to leave the house for today, it’s going to be 94 degrees (F; 34.5 degrees C) out, I’m wrestling with Gaia’s Hands, have no ideas for a new short story …

And I’m feeling a little down. I’m wondering if there’s such a thing as micromood swings, or if it’s just the heat getting to me. I’m not depressed or anything; just not feeling like I’m on the verge of something wonderful happening.

But still I write. And that’s the important thing, to write even when it feels like the last thing I want to do. Just a small amount will do — just a blog post, just an hour. Just a submission. Just a moment of creation.

Neither my feelings of defeat nor my feelings of impending success actually presage the future; they are simply extrapolations of feelings that may be influenced by my strange chemistry. My actions, however, are what’s important. Without stepping forward, I have no chance of success.

optimism and waiting

Apocalypse is ready for querying, but I’m going to sit on it for a while, until I know what’s happening with Prodigies. If Prodigies gets accepted by either DAW or the remaining agent on my list, it changes the whole dynamic.

I’m thinking positive. My good Germanic role models on my mother’s side of the family would discourage my positive thinking. The Koenig family motto is “Don’t look forward to anything; you might be disappointed.” The problem with this, though, is that all that time I’m not looking forward to a positive outcome doesn’t make the rejection any easier, and in fact, prolongs the misery.

Optimism always makes me worry that I might be hypomanic; as someone with Bipolar 2, this is not an idle worry. But I’m not being kept awake by disparate thoughts linking with each other like boxcars in a railyard, so maybe this is true optimism.

So I wait.

Strange activity on the blog

Occasionally, my blog will get bursts of energy, with several countries visiting all at once — a bouquet of visitors from Japan and Ukraine and Moldova and Sweden and Moldova. All on the same type of browser. All reading the same note — which is not the current post. Usually a day or two after I’ve last posted on a slow post week.

The most obvious solution is that my post count has been increased by a bot, probably one that can spoof countries. But why? Why bother spoofing different countries? Why bother actually connecting to a post? (I’ve noticed times when my hit count has increased with no specific blog posts hit). It doesn’t seem to be an effort to disseminate porn links (which happens now and again). If it’s a DDOS attack — well, it’s too modest for a DDOS attack.

The only thing I can think of is that something or someone is trying to inflate my reader numbers. Thanks, I think.

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Today I’m at the Graduate Hotel in Iowa City, IA, home of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop (the ranks of which are too rarefied for me). Here’s a picture, apropos of Gaia’s Hands:

Writing in Beaver Dam WI

Another day at Higher Grounds in Beaver Dam having just finished another three hours of writing. I’m at 14 hours out of 30 for Camp NaNo July, and I’m at least getting more words for Gaia’s Hands. I think it’s going to go through another dev edit because it deserves it and it’s now a much different book.

Richard has just gone through a line edit of Apocalypse, which means a couple fixes and it’s ready to go into Query Mode. It’s a very different book than the one that failed in querying. I think I’ve grown a lot from when that was the second (and third) book I’ve written.

One thing I’ve discovered: Nobody’s impressed that I’m a writer. I’m secretly amused by this, because there’s this part of me who dreams of impressing people. In reality, it’s “Oh, you’re a writer? You’re not published yet? Have you tried children’s books?” I have nothing bad to say about children’s books, but unless they involve ancient lore, preternatural bad guys, and the reincarnation of King — Oh, sorry, that’s Susan Cooper’s Dark is Rising sequence. Loved that stuff.

I stay optimistic, maybe because I’ve won one short story contest and been a runner-up in another. (I’ve been rejected by three times this many zines and contests, though).