I’m not dead yet.

But the way this blog has been going, it sure looks that way, doesn’t it?  Yeah, work/commute is taking huge chunks out of my time but I need to deal with that instead of sleeping in.  It’s all about taking the steps we ‘know’ we need to take. And that can be hard.

For example, submitting our work out.  Once you’ve done the ‘hard’ word –writing the rough draft, revising it, submitting it for critique- all that’s left should be easy.  Just incorporate (or don’t) the feedback you got, fix the last few typos and…send it off.  Except I, and I’m sure others, keep falling down on that last step.  Why does that happen?

It might be that we don’t ‘need’ it enough.  I really, really want to be a professionally published author but that’s just a gold star. What I really want to do is write stories that entertain me and share them with other people. Yeah, I’d like the validation of being a SFWA member or of getting a book deal.  But I’m wondering if I ‘need’ it enough. I keep putting quotes around need because I don’t literally need to. I have a job, so this is a hobby or at best a second job.

This gives me the freedom to write what I want, instead of whatever Asimov’s or Analog will buy.  But it also means I don’t have my back against the wall. It’s too easy to slack off. Which is what I’ve been doing, to an extent. 


It feels like that is the last lesson I need to learn. That discipline. That need.  I need to write, that is true. And I do write, I even have folks who I can inflict my writing upon (which is why negative critiques are so valuable from the Wordslingers. It keeps me from being completely self-indulgent).  But I need to ‘need’ to submit my work as well.

It’s a mental trick, I’m still trying to find the right way to pull it off.  I am going to keep trying to perfect it.  And I’m going to try to help other writers, who might be as stuck as I am, to take that final step, too.  The first way is a competition I’m setting up with the Wordslingers.  I have a few autographed books that I think most of the group would enjoy. I’m offering them up as prizes for anyone in our group that submits a story before our next meeting on October 6th.  As for me, I’m going to compete too. If I ‘win’ and get something out the door by then, I’m buying myself a Pizza Hut pizza.  Don’t laugh, with this new diet I’m on, that is about as rare a delicacy as you can imagine.

Well, got a story past the first round of screeners. That’s great, now I just need to wait a few more months to see if it makes the final cut.  If this works out, it’ll be my first pro sale. Which would be very, very cool.  Ah well, no point getting all worked up about it. Yet. :)

My short story output has remained high and I am doing better about getting stuff sent off for submissions. Primarily because I am so BAD at actually submitting my work, I actually spur myself on there to make sure I actually submit stuff every week or so. If that makes any sense.  But I am a bit worried about my novel output. I don’t lack for ideas or for characters, worlds or even plots. But I’m not ‘closing’. I’m not doing the final draft, the final edits, the final, fatal submissions.  I’m in danger of lapsing back into writing as a hobby, instead of as a passion or a career.

Well, they say the first step is acknowledging that you have a problem.  The next is getting the frelling stuff done.

I mention this because I got bit by another novel bug and this one may bring a fever.  An old, old screenplay idea I had came back and said, “Hey, you know what? I’d make a pretty darn good 50~60k word thriller novel’.  And I said, “What? 50 to 60 thousand words? Why I can write that in a month, easily!”  And then I realized what I was hearing myself say and that I was talking to myself and read myself the riot act. Because I have on half-finished novel from the Rainforest Writer’s Retreat, an editing pass of Smooth Running due before I can publish it on Amazon, another novel, The Mageborn Mechanic, that needs editing and submission AND the sequel to Angel Odyssey to write.  Not to mention, fixing Angel Odyssey!


So what the heck am I doing?

Honestly, I have no idea. But when a writer’s subconscious says to do something, it’s best just to do it.  Indulge it, if you can.  It’s not like I have any real deadlines (i.e. paying)  And if you ignore these sparks of creativity, sometimes they don’t come back.  Seriously, if you get a great idea for a story and don’t write that story and you keep doing that, eventually…you stop getting great ideas for stories.

Anyway, long rambling blather to get to the fact that I’m going to take a couple days off this weekend and write all day long.   It’ll be long, sweaty, exhausting work.  I can’t wait to see what happens.