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 submittedpoems(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!
Honestly, I know exactly what you mean when you say you want to do more and can’t seem to get everything done as fast as you want. I have a tumblr and if I go on there for too long, I see people making these incredible graphics and posting about their finished books and I think “I’d like to do that,” so I get the materials and I try to follow up with what they’re doing, but it never seems to work the same way for me. With editing, I’ve looked up numerous ways to go about it. I’ve printed more pages about editing my book than I care to admit and only two or three of the ones I picked out to try actually came to fruition…
And I think you just gave me an idea for a blog post. 🙂
Despite all that, I really enjoyed reading this. I like that you went into how the writing life is affecting you personally. It seems like something that should be talked about more, and I’m glad you wrote about it here.
It’s sometimes hard to find what works for you. Everyone is different and it takes awhile to sort things out for yourself! I’ve figured myself out when it comes to first drafts, but I haven’t yet even begun the real-deal editing yet, so that will be another adventure! Just gotta feel your way along by trial and error, that’s for sure! I’m glad you liked the post. I actually hesitated to write it because I don’t want to feel like I’m ranting or venting or complaining too much, but you are right… it’s really something that should be talked about more! It’s part of the reality of the Writing Life, and just like you have to adjust your life after having a kid, it takes more adjustment to fit in that Writing Schedule with everything else! Perhaps more people should be forewarned…. ! 😉
Awe. this kind of makes me sad to read. Sad like I want to come spend a weekend and help you catch up on house/yard projects to you can relax about those for the time being. You’re right, it is so hard to balance everything when life gets busy.
And not just busy, but all–good–things busy, so it’s really hard to X something off that busy list. My motto lately is “I can only do what I can do.” So, maybe you can’t write as many words per day as you want or maybe you can’t finish drafts as quickly as other writers. BUT you can only do what you can do with your life, your time and your writing. Maybe it’s not so much a lesson in better time management, but in being satisfied with what you can get done in the time you have.
Well that makes me go “AWWW” cuz that’s just too sweet of you! ^_^ And trust me, I’d TOTALLY let you do that, lol!!! Actually, that brings up a good point, in that I have decided to outsource help where and when I can. I have a lovely lady who can come help clean (for a fee of course, but time is money and money is time and it’s worth it when I can spend that time doing something else more important!) and next spring I will probably also hire other people to come help landscape the yard. Thank goodness the hubby keeps it mowed and trimmed (and he even went flower shopping this year because I never made it out to do that – and did a great job too – AND kept the things watered and alive all summer!!) because otherwise we’d live in a jungle!
Yes, it’s really about being satisfied with what we DO get done, and doing the monthly wrap-up does help me realize all that I did actually get done, which is usually a lot more than it feels like, so that definitely helps! There’s just many times I’d like to have my cake and eat it too, lol. But the positive side is also that they ARE all pretty much good things, so I suppose that’s something, right? To have so many fun things you want to do you can’t do them all and it actually makes you mad?? Haha!
Haha! 😀 That’s a post that defo strikes a chord with me – and with most other indies I’d imagine. Your list of “wants” sounds very familiar. And let’s not even get onto the “have-to”s… (erecting a shed for my mother for example – don’t ask). I’ve just this week decided that the only way to finish editing the first novel is to dedicate an hour a day for at least four days a week. So far I’ve snatched an hour here or there. My Other Half and I now have an agreement that on days where I cook dinner (another “have-to”) I’ll take an hour after dinner to write. On days when it’s her turn to cook, I’ll write for an hour while she does that. And on the remaining days I’ll devote time to the glamorous secret life of the indie writer – cleaning the bathroom, worming the cats, painting the fence… I’m hoping it’s going to work otherwise I’m stuck with editing about one paragraph per week!
So how is your editing going?? That is very good you have an agreement with Your Other Half, that is very important to come to a mutual understanding! Otherwise they can get sad and lonely when you ignore them because your face is always in your computer screen (just ask my hubby…)!! It’s definitely a major challenge to balance life, the universe, and your writing!!! I wish you the best success at that, and keep us updated on your blog! By the way… didn’t you have an agent requesting a partial of your MS or something like that awhile ago? How did that go? You never said…..???
Editing is progressing at a snail’s pace at the moment. A mere 90 pages left to work through, but at the current rate that’s going to take me three months!! Seems there’s been too much of an imbalance lately, with too many other priorities getting in the way. And you’re quite right, I did have a partial with an agent, well remembered 🙂 He obviously wasn’t blown away… I waited the requisite seventeen years (or so it felt) before following up… then following up again… then assuming he’d been eaten by rabid badgers. So that was my first taste of the life of a proper writer – not mere rejection but being utterly ignored. I see it as the first notch on my belt, the first scar upon my soul, the first of the thousand lashes which won’t cow me but will spur me on to greatness!! (Sorry, got a bit carried away there :D) Have you got any more tasters of your writing to tantalise us with yet??
Agh! That imbalance does tend to happen. For me, the balance is tipped in favor of writing at the moment, but it’s really rather frightening what happens to the rest of life even then. You’d think that would be the favorable type of imbalance, but it’s really not. Sometimes makes you wonder why in the world you keep this up… but you can’t stop. These are the times when those quotes by famous writers talking about demons and bleeding out onto your keyboard (and/or typewriter) seem exceedingly accurate! I suppose the silver lining in all of this is that if those people went through this, and we are too, well, we must be doing something right! 😉 Anyway, I wish you the best of luck with your editing and hope you can carve out some more writing time in the near future!!! Also, that is a bummer about that agent. Nothing more maddening than no response at all!!! At that point even a rejection is welcome news! Sheesh. I have heard of that happening sometimes though. But I guess you wouldn’t want to work with someone like that anyway, right?! 😛 And hey, at least you got a nibble!!! That is something!!! That is definitely a notch and a scar and a spur worth hanging onto and ah, jumping off of (;))!!!! Keep on keeping on, and you’ll get there, I’m sure of it!!
Ooohhh… about my own writing, hrm, I DID forget to put something up for Writing Prompt Wednesday, didn’t I? WHOOPS. I was too busy querying on poetry submissions and editing short stories. Argh. Well, I’ll try to find something to put up today… maybe another piece of the WIP… hrm….. Thanks for reading and commenting, as always! 😀
I just found this post again and it’s super relevant still!
Hahah well good! And thanks!
While writing the most recent one, I though “Hrrrmm, this feels familiar” lol. So I went back and looked and found this one and realized it definitely wasn’t the first time I’d been impatient with the very slow progress that is building a fulfilling career. Hah. But yes, it’s still super relevant for me, as well. 😛