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Sep 15

The Time I Quit Writing #2 – Mid-September 2024

In some ways, I have avoided writing this post. I don’t really like to think about this time in my life, but I think enough time has gone by where I am comfortable writing about it. When I started this blog back in 2009, I was coming out of this period. I may not have known where it would lead, but I felt I was ready to get back to writing.

In 2002, I started writing a book. I was 25 and ready to focus on this idea that had been knocking about in my head for a while. I had written a book back in the 90’s in high school and college that went nowhere. I was ready to try again and get something BIG published.

So I sat down day after day and wrote. My main character was an earth goddess, who was awakened after 150 years to the modern world. I was really proud of all the hard work I put into it. I workshopped it and revised draft after draft. By Summer 2004, I thought I had a great book. So, I set out to publish it. I sent out queries to lit agents first. Then small presses. Then, finally contests.

Nothing.

In 2007, I left my job of six and a half years. I was burnt out and needed a change, but I didn’t know what to do. I was debt free (completely) and had saved about a years’ worth of money. I figured I had my novel to sell and this would kick off my writing career. Leap and the net will appear, right?

Wrong!

I took the leap and crash landed. I burned though my money, ended up moving back in with my parents, and still remained unpublished. The final straw came when in 2008, I applied for Clarion Writing Workshop and failed to get in. I had enough. I quit writing and tried to move on with my life.

I got another office job and settled into a boring routine:

Wake up/get ready for work

Go to work

Come home

Eat dinner/watch TV

Bed

Very exciting, I know. But I look back now and am glad I stopped. I got a taste of what the world would be like if I quit writing. It wasn’t horrible, but I always felt like something was missing. In February 2009, I started this blog. I thought maybe writing like I used to for my monthly column would be good. However, I barely posted. I didn’t have much to say. I think I was still trying to work out who I was apart from writing. I did have other interests, friends, and family. But for so long, I thought I was a writer, and to not be able to see any progress, crushed me.

In summer of 2009, I decided to take better care of myself. I changed my diet and exercised. It was like a fog lifted and I realized that, as a writer, I was still growing. All the years of querying, I didn’t write anything new. I rested all my hopes and dreams on this one book. I had gone stagnant. Years later, I tried to read that novel, and wow, let’s just say, I’m glad I got rejected. It was a bad book.

By fall 2009, I was ready to get back to writing, but with a different attitude. I stopped worrying about publishing and instead focused on writing. I didn’t start to send work out again until 2013 (well into my MA program). And even now, I don’t repeat that same mistake. I write something and move to the next project. There’s always a next project.

I have never considered quitting again. I have taken breaks, like I did in 2022, but never quitting. I understand now that when you are in the creative life, you can’t rest on your one project. You are always growing as an artist and the act of creating makes you better. I’m a better writer than I was a year ago and I will be better next year. I quit back in 2008, because I didn’t see that. I pinned all my hopes and dreams on a project that I had outgrown, and it was good that it was rejected. I didn’t see that at the time, but I do now.

I came back to writing a different artist/writer. In some ways, it is easy to quit. No one is standing over me demanding my work. I’m not getting paid on a regular basis to write. If I don’t get my words in today, who is going to suffer? So, taking up this mantle again is a choice. I am a writer, because I choose to be one. I choose to follow this path in life. It’s frustrating, exhausting, and depressing at times. But it is also exhilarating, fun, and fulfilling at times too.

I love being a writer and I took me quitting this job and coming back to realize it.

Happy Writing! I’ll see you all at the beginning of October with a new post.

Sep 2

Building My Garden – Beginning of September 2024

Happy Fall!

I spent the summer doing all things writing. I finally uploaded two stories that had been published years ago and one story I uploaded in my chapbook in 2015. I thought about it a long time and decided to unpublish the collection. I will be uploading most of these stories later on this year. I think it is better to offer each on its own and let the reader decide whether or not they want to read them. Each short story will be $3.49. In January, I’ll evaluate if I should change anything or continue.

I also was able to finish another new story that leans a little long. I’m warming up for the new novel and I wanted to finish this story I started last year. I knew it was going to be long beacause usually my short stories are about 1500 – 3000 words. I think this story is double (?) the words. We’ll see…

So, three stories self-published, one completed short story, and plans for at least one more self-pubbed story and one traditional story to come out this year. For the rest of the year, I’m going to push for a finished first draft of the novel.

This month marks the ten-year anniversary of my first fiction story being published. I remember being so proud of myself for finally getting something out into the world and feeling like I was a real writer. Cut to ten years later, I have published five stories traditionally and (now) three stories self-pubbed. It is not a huge amount of work, but it’s not nothing. In some ways, I’m a bit disappointed I haven’t done more. Comparison is the thief of joy and seeing other writers rack up the publication credits is tough to see. Of course I am happy for them, but seeing the slow progress of myself is, at times, depressing.

However, I have found a new mantra to help motivate me and bring me out of depression.

A few weeks ago, I was watching one of those on-line guru videos on YouTube and I read a comment that stuck with me. It read, “If you want a butterfly, don’t chase butterflies. Build a beautiful garden.” I decided that this would be my plan going forward. I wasn’t going to worry about individual publications, or what anyone else was doing in their writing. Instead, I was going to build a metaphorical garden for my writing career. Story after story. One story was not going to get me what I wanted, but a collection of stories would. I will build my garden flower by flower, plant by plant. In the end, I I hope to have a beautiful garden filled with stories that I love.

Going forward, I’m just going to link my Amazon Author page in the Published Works section of this site. Any traditionally published stories will still be listed too.

Happy writing! (And gardening!)