Project List September 2013 (and a short digression on juggling and bulldogs)

I find that in this stage of the “Serious Writing Life”, if you want to call it that, (and by this I mean the life in which I am actually taking serious forward steps in the direction leading away from “aspiring” and toward “published” and possibly even “career”), I seem to be a bit bi-polar.  I have noticed recently I tend to soar up on extreme happy-highs and get super pumped and inspired, and then in the very same day (often the same damn hour, really), I suddenly plummet into a frustrated sort of depressed, cranky mess.  I’ve heard this is a completely normal function of writers in all stages of the Writing Life, but I’ve also tried to figure out why exactly this is, and my best guess for me personally, at this moment along my own journey, is that it comes down to IMPATIENCE, sprinkled with a little ENVY.  (Later in my Writing Life it will likely be caused by things like Editing Anxiety, Agent Rejection, etc and/or Glowing Praise and Agent Acquisition, etc.)

I have very limited time.  I am a decent manager of my time.  I could certainly do better, absolutely, but I could also do much, much worse.  One of my goals for the future as a whole is to get better overall at controlling the spare bits of writing time I do have.

But writing is and always will be a long, drawn-out process.  Even should you be one of those lucky few who actually completes a sloppy first draft in 30 days (or less, is that possible?  Probably…), you still need to edit that thing.  You still need to send it out to betas, go through their feedback, edit and re-edit.  Then you need to query and query and query.  Then you’ll need to edit some more.  Etc etc.  I have always known how involved this “hobby” is, and recently discovered how freakin’ plain old HARD it can be, especially when you actually get “serious” about it.

It’s a lot of WORK.  Even if it’s usually fun work, man, it IS a lot of work.

I LOVE all that work… but… I have very limited time.  I WANT to do so much that just won’t fit into my daily schedule, at least not without sacrificing aspects of my life I’m not willing to sacrifice (ie, spending time with my child and husband and other family and occasionally even friends).  So what happens is I make slow progress and that’s usually fine… but then there’s days when I get frustrated because I WANT to take the time to hash out a better outline for my current WIP, and I WANT to dig down deep and plot every character’s backstory, and I WANT to buy a subscription to Adobe CS6 and draw world maps and I WANT to take every writing workshop over at Writer’s Digest and I WANT to write 5k words every single day and I WANT to be able to make gorgeous found poems by cutting out words from countless magazines and gluing them on pretty paper and I WANT to read all the writing craft books still sitting on my shelf that are currently only one-third or half-read and I WANT to oh yeah, finally finish reading the other three novels I’ve started but still not yet finished and on and on and on and on!  (And that’s only stuff I want to do that’s related to writing.  I haven’t even touched the list of things I want to do with the house, and the yard, and the garden, and my horse, and yoga, and travels, and art, and and and and…)

But most of all I want a finished first draft.  Of a damn novel.  So I push all that other stuff aside during my limited writing time, and just write the novel.  And then what happens is that it’s not as good as it would be if I’d divided up that time to do any of that other stuff, too.  (Also the house gets messy, the yard remains bare, we run out of clean clothes, my horse goes ignored, yoga is nonexistent, travelling is rare, and art is… wait, I can paint??) And that just adds to the irritation.  But I just think, after the first draft is finished, I’ll go back and do some workshops and reading and outlining and characterization, and then work all of that in during the first round of rewrites.  (And while that finally finished first draft is simmering on the back brain burner, I’ll address the absolute mess the rest of my life has become, too!)  Which will probably work.  But it also kind of feels like procrastination, even though I’m not sure it is?

Impatience.  I want all of this stuff.  Done.  Yesterday.  I can’t work as fast as I’d like.  Or as often as I’d like.  I still want to be a present mother and wife, ya know?  Not to mention a decent employee while I still have to have a day job!  Plus, I do kinda need to sleep at least a few hours a night!  Unfortunately.

Envy.  I look at all these other people, doing all this awesome stuff with their outlining and writing and books that I want to do, too.  Look at all these other people, finishing their first drafts, their second and third and fourth drafts, holy crap.  Which leads to:

Motivation.  Yes, impatience and envy can be motivators, and they are.  I haven’t quit yet, have I?  😉  And I won’t, either.  One thing I can tell you: when I have a goal I really, really want, I latch on like a damn bulldog and you aren’t going to be prying these jaws open, not even with a crowbar.

So it’s going to happen.  It WILL happen, all of it.  I KNOW it will happen.  I’m just constantly wrestling with the fact it’s going to be a veerrryyyy slow and necessarily steady race instead of a quick jaunt, or instead of even just an averagely-paced marathon….

So, September steps to take in this slow, slow race:

• Edit two one documents for a fellow writing friend, and possibly more if other writing friends finish their short stories this month (and fyi, if anyone is wondering why these are always in my lists, it’s because I trade beta duties… I edit for them, they edit for me.  It’s a lovely arrangement.) (One down! 9.11.13)(Two more for two different friends done! 9.30.13)
• Re-edit and (9.11.13)(and 9.16 and 9.17.13) submit “The Transference” to Writer’s Digest Popular Fiction Competition, deadline Oct. 15th. (Not done with this just yet. Decided instead to just send it off to the SFWA markets, since I feel like it has a better chance there! 10.6.13)
• Choose and edit and/or write a poem(s) to send to Writer’s Digest Poetry Awards, deadline Oct. 1st (Sent steamy poem “Architect” off to Hunger Mountain instead of WD for their upcoming Love, Passion, Ardore issue! 9.30.13)
• Query Bone Bouquet and Torrid Literature regarding submitted poems (Bone Bouquet queried 9.18.13, leaving Torrid Literature alone for now as their status in Submittable says “In-Progress”! Woot!)
• Query Witness Magazine regarding submitted short story (Holding off just a little longer on this one, reread their email and they said they’d have a response “during fall”… I’ll give them one more month….O_o 9.18.13)(Submittable status now says IN-PROGRESS, woot woot! 9.30.13)
• Outline 2nd Act of novel “The Good Thing” (Unfortunately this did not happen either. Boo. Try again next month, in prep for NANOWRIMO! Meep. 10.6.13)
• Write at least 350 words/day of novel “The Good Thing” (This was silly. Not happening with trying to get all the submissions organized and edited and finished… 9.18.13)
• Establish a regular schedule for checking social media and updating blog, etc, to maximize time efficiency. (Done!  Now I just have to stick with it! 9.15.13)

It’s all about Patience, Perseverance, and Persistence, people!  Throw me a floatation device, won’t you, and tell me your favorite ways to organize your writing time along with the rest of your life!  How do you stay sane juggling a bazillion bowling pins?  Inquiring minds want to know!