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Posts tagged ‘Inspiration’

Oct 5

How Do You Measure Growth? – Beginning of Oct 2024

Last month marked a milestone for me. Ten years ago, I got my first fiction story published. Prior to that, I had a couple of non-fiction pieces published, but nothing else. I was happy to realize that I was still on this journey, writing and publishing. I’ve had bumps along the way, but I’m still picking up the pen (or booting up the computer) to get the story down. I mentioned this to my mother, and I had an epiphany.

I had real, measurable growth in the past ten years.

My first two stories were published in two anthologies. I knew the editor and she had encouraged me to submit. I had a pretty good feeling that I would be accepted (about 90%). It was a good beginning and I was happy to finally have some stories out in the world to show people. My family could have something in their hands that would prove that I was a “real” writer. (I should note that no one ever made me feel bad about being unpublished. It was just nice to show them after all the years of talking about it.) It was good for my ego too. I had two books in my hands that listed me as a contributor. Humble as they may be, it was a start.

My next two stories came out in 2018 and 2019. These were two stories that I had workshopped in grad school. They had gone through multiple revisions and had at least a dozen people comment on the work. Both had been rejected from 20 or so places, but I persisted because I believed in them. They, at last, found a home and I was proud of both of them. The growth aspect came from the editors. They were complete strangers. These folks received submissions all the time. My stories had been good enough to convince them to publish me.

And, finally, we get to the two stories that got accepted this year. Both of these stories were written after I graduated. No workshopping (but I do have a critic group and they read over and commented on both stories) and no prior relationship with the editors.

Folks, I’m off the training wheels and riding this bike on my own! I may be slow on this journey, but I’m getting there.

The growth in my writing career is there. I can see it, but it is only obvious when I look back over the years. In a snapshot of a year or two, you won’t see much. But ten years later? Yeah, there is movement. It’s a reminder to me that a writing career is a marathon, not a sprint.

I’m still on this journey and I’ve made progress.

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.

Jun 23

End of June 2024 Round Up

Happy summer!

I hope everyone is having a great summer so far. I’m basking in the comfort of air conditioning and hard at work on my next writing project. While I’m happy to enjoy the sunshine, I don’t really like to sweat. Indoors I stay.

Let’s recap my writing news for the first half of the year and what I hope will be some achievements for the last half of the year.

In March, I decided to really try and get some stories out for submission. I made the commitment to submit five times a week. Although there was a week I didn’t make it, I made up for it and submitted extra the following week. As a result, in the month of April I got two acceptances. I was floored. I’d never had that happen before, but it motivated me to keep going.

One story (Siren Call) is already out. The other will be published this fall. After four years, it feels good to see some of my work out in the world again.

Also, I finally stopped procrastinating and self-published two of my previous short stories for Amazon Kindle (See the Published Works Page for the link). They came out so long ago that the rights have reverted back to me and I’m putting them back out into the world. I will do the same for my other stories too (both published and unpublished). I view my short stories as marketing for an eventual longer work. The short stories are cheaper and shorter in length, so if someone is unsure whether they want to buy a novel, they can buy a story and see if they like me.

And I am writing a novel. I still have a long way to go, but I’m making progress. Like I said, those two acceptances have been great for my motivation. I’m hoping to be done with a first draft by September 1st.

Also, I have four other short stories that either need to be finished or rewritten. I’d like to get them submitted too.

So, in the last half of the year, I have a novel draft to finish and four short stories to work on. I’d like to self-publish two more stories (one in 3rd quarter and one in 4th quarter), get two more acceptances, and have a complete draft of my novel. That’s a lot, but I like aiming at big goals.

Finally, I quit X (Twitter) last fall, but I have joined Instagram. Feel free to follow me here.

Hope everyone’s summer is fun and productive!

Jun 2

3 Strategies I Use to Keep Writing with a Day Job

So here are three strategies, I use to get my writing done while holding down a day job.

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May 12

The Time I Quit Writing #1 – Mid May 2024

Spring is here and I can't help but think of renewal when it's this time of year. I've also been a little nostalgic and found myself thinking about my early adulthood.

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Jul 11

Don’t Make Decisions Out of Fear

We’re halfway through the year.

And what a year it has been for me! I started off getting major surgery and recovering from it. Now, I’m figuring out what the next step in my careers is going to look like. I say “careers” because I have two.

I have my records management career that I’ve stuck with for almost twenty years. Ever since I graduated from undergrad school, I’ve been involved one way or another in this field. I enjoy it and it feeds a particular part of my personality that enjoys planning and organizing.

My other career is the fiction writing. I’ve been lucky enough to be published a few times, but I really want to do more. I’ve been using my time in between jobs to really focus on writing and submitting more. I’m currently on chapter four of the novel and I have nine submissions out.

Through this whole year, I’ve been trying to focus on how I made big decisions in my life. So many times I’ve been pushed into a corner and had to make a decision because, if I didn’t, I thought things would get worse. One big moment for me was back in 2014. I had planned to take some of my savings and pay for my last class outright, instead of borrowing the money. As soon as I pulled the money out of my savings, I got furloughed. Worried I might lose my job, I stuffed the money back into savings and went even further into debt. If I had just taken a few weeks and let the fear go, I would’ve saved myself hundreds of dollars in interest.

Sometimes it is hard to know. For me, I’ve tried to set myself up so that I don’t have to make decisions out of fear in the first place. When I lost my job, I had enough savings that I could take a breath and figure out what was next. With my health, I plan on never going back into surgery like that again, so I will be much more vigilant and take better care of myself. Sometimes emergencies can’t be helped, but health issues of my own making should be stopped. I knew about a year before surgery that something wasn’t right, but I ignored it and told myself it was not that serious.

With my fiction writing, I think I’ve done better. I try not to self reject. If I see a open call and I think my work is a good fit, I send it to them. I try not to let the fear of putting myself out there hold me back. It’s easy at times to talk yourself out of submitting. You tell yourself, “It’s not that good.” or “I need to rewrite it again for the hundredth time.” or “I’m not important and this place only publishes famous writers.” That is fear telling you this.

The best advice I ever heard was from a video. The speaker said that no one can see the future (at least as far as he knew). When you talk yourself out of things, or make decisions out of fear, you are predicting the future. You already know that the outcome is going to be bad, so why try? Truth is, YOU DON’T KNOW THE FUTURE. You can’t predict what is going to happen. All you can do it make the best choices for yourself to your benefit. Fear is a lie telling you the future. So ignore it and try anyway. You never know what is going to happen.

As I put down more and more words for this novel, the fear comes on strong. This is a long work and part of me hates to work on it, only for it to fail. So I have to keep telling myself that I don’t know whether it will fail or not. No matter what has happened in the past, I don’t know the future. I have to trust in my ability as a storyteller that this manuscript will be successful.

I have to trust myself.

 

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