This manuscript of yours that has just come back from another editor is a precious package. Don't consider it rejected. Consider that you've addressed it "to the editor who can appreciate my work" and it has simply come back stamped "not at this address." Just keep looking for the right address. Barbara Kingsolver
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I'm shirking. Nothing else I can call it. Despite the fact that I love writing, it's hard work and I'm tired with a ton of things going on this time of year. So I find myself shirking, looking at tense instead of just writing and letting it happen. If I could just corral my damn brain! Ach, I've even got a small group session tomorrow and for the first time I have very little to bring. Usually I have way more writing than I have time for--now, I have a few poems and a paragraph. A lousy paragraph! I have got to get tough with myself and get down to business. No more sluffing off, no more "researching", or writing poetry, or blogging--oh wait, I mean, no blogging after this post. Until I write something. Like, at least two pages of my novel.
Oh man, I need Glen Lake! I need to input some creative energy rather than have the energy sucked out of me by this and that and all the things that go on this time of year. I need to chat with writers and be a writer and .... all that.
I'm shirking. Nothing else I can call it. Despite the fact that I love writing, it's hard work and I'm tired with a ton of things going on this time of year. So I find myself shirking, looking at tense instead of just writing and letting it happen. If I could just corral my damn brain! Ach, I've even got a small group session tomorrow and for the first time I have very little to bring. Usually I have way more writing than I have time for--now, I have a few poems and a paragraph. A lousy paragraph! I have got to get tough with myself and get down to business. No more sluffing off, no more "researching", or writing poetry, or blogging--oh wait, I mean, no blogging after this post. Until I write something. Like, at least two pages of my novel.
Oh man, I need Glen Lake! I need to input some creative energy rather than have the energy sucked out of me by this and that and all the things that go on this time of year. I need to chat with writers and be a writer and .... all that.
5 comments:
Sarah,
"A few poems and a paragraph"? You need to ease up on yourself, girl. That's a bunch.
I woke up early from a dream of mice crawling down my back. Finding no evidence of the same, yet unable to get back to sleep, I got up and started to write. I've been at it for a little over an hour. Very early hours are productive for me. Some times. I've taken Carol Finke's advice and no longer listen to the news until AFTER I write. Music? Yes.
Now listening: mix/Herbie Hancock, Arrested Development, Richie Havens, Art Farmer, etc.
Mike,
Thanks so much! You don't know how much that first little sentence meant.
Honestly, part of why I don't think of "two poems and a paragraph" as much writing is because I hate to bring my poems to group. I don't want to revise them. I write them just for me--and I work on them until I'm happy, but that's all. I don't want to spend any more time on them.
And I hear you on the news thing. I usually listen to NPR on my way to work, but lately it drags me down so much I have difficulty writing. Music is much better for getting me in the writing mode.
"I woke up early from a dream of mice crawling down my back." Great first line for a book!
For me it's ticks...and I'm not dreaming. They are awful this year. I just have to walk outside and I'm like a tick magnet. Even the dogs, who spend all day outside don't get any. All found ticks meet tweezers and propane burners. Yuk!!!!
I, too, find early morning, like between 3:00 and 5:00 a.m most productive.
I did get a piece published, but it's one of my columns published a couple years ago. But, hey, marketing is also multiple sales. I also have a new piece in that sounds promising.
Jerry Dennis, a professional, award-winning Traverse City writer has a good day when he gets one page. So hang in there, Sarah.
Larry,
Congratulations on getting something published! And selling it more than once gets you bonus points in my opinion.
I want you to know that you destroyed my comfortable myth that down south they have lots of ticks--but not here in Michigan. Gives me the creeps just thinking about it. Something about the burrowing in thing. Ugh!
Sorry to destroy your myth. I, too, once thought as you. If it's any consellation, we have fewer than Missouri, Kansas, or Oklahoma. But I still hate the creepy little things.
Thanks for the encouragement. It's nice to see a byline. A couple of weeks ago I got a really uplifting e-mail from another writer who actually took the time to look up my e-mail address just to tell me he liked my writing. Of course, he's applying for membership in our outdoor writer's association so maybe he was just trying to buy my vote. We don't turn many away. I think breathing and being able to pay the membership dues are about the only guidelines. Plus you are supposed to be published for pay at least six times.
Hope you get lots accomplished at Glenn.
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