The pressure I put on myself is often immense. It is also restrictive. I wrote the first paragraph of a short story last week and then proceeded to lose my mind about the rest of the piece. The first paragraph is good and now the rest has to match it. I started with no pressure, but that paragraph heaped it on my shoulders. I eventually wrote a couple more paragraphs after many stops and starts. I know what I want to say in the short story. I know the story in abstract, but I often stare out the window and imagine winning a Hugo instead of writing the stinking thing. Fortunately, I can take a bit of a break and perhaps return to it with less pressure as I start my read-through of Project A this week.
Progress
Project A’s first draft is complete. This month has been the highest word count as I was actively drafting. I finished this project and then took a little break for a week to work on some short stories and read a bit as I waited for final critiques from my writing group. I also had a week where I was out of commission after surgery and even with that I was just shy of 25k for the month.
What I’m Learning
There have been ups and downs as there always are. Each project creates its own challenges and this one is far from over. I learned that Frankensteining an old project into something new is not nearly as easy as it should be. There were multiple times within this process when I contemplated trunking this project, but the encouragement of my writing group has helped significantly.
I am learning that I have very poor perspective of my own work. This is one of the many reasons that a writing group can be so beneficial. I can see their pieces clearly and they can see mine. Furthermore, even when I know there are problems with my work I often do not know how to fix them. They help with this just as I help them. I am extremely grateful for my writing group even though getting critiques can be a brutal process. It’s best not to take things personally but writing is often extremely personal.
Leisure
I have taken a fair bit of time for leisure in the last week. I spent nearly all of Saturday out in my sunroom reading and ideating. It was a welcome change of pace after the feverish end to this project. I really want to write more short stories to submit to literary magazines. Novels take such an incredibly long time to write that I would like to have some short stories circulating. However, I’m having to go back to the 50s-80s to find great works of short fiction (this is not to say there isn’t great short fiction today, I just haven’t found it yet). There were so many more literary magazines in the 80s-10s. Unfortunately, many of the ones that originally published works I liked are defunct.
I got my hands on a copy of Harlen Ellison’s greatest hits and have read a couple of them. “‘Repent Harlequin’ said the Ticktockman” is quite good. This kind of media makes me think and ask questions. It alights new ideas rather than just telling me a story. I look forward to reading more of his stories.
I also started to watch Sandman with my brother. I watched the first 4 episodes a while back but it is the kind of show I like to actually sit down and watch intentionally. This means I often need another person to watch it with me so I don’t get distracted by solitaire. We are only four episodes in so the next one will bring me past the point I watched last time. I love Neil Gaiman and he is the reason I know about Ellison. In Neil Gaiman’s forward for Ellison’s greatest hits, he talks about discovering Ellison’s work as a young man and how Ellison’s work informed his own. I feel as though I am reaching back to a primary source for the river of Gaimen’s work that has flowed out of Ellison’s inspiration.
Looking Forward
This month is all about revising Project A. I may do some short story work but that will be outside of my normal writing time. I must dedicate all my writing time to revision this month. I will reread my piece first and take notes for revision. Then I will start the revision. Ideally, I will do a good enough job for it to go to beta readers at the beginning of August but I may give it to one of my writing group members to do a quick once-over before sending it to betas. Once it is with betas I will do some work on the shorts again, most likely, before jumping into another revision, and then after that, I will work on Project B.
July will be a greuling month as I deal with my first revision which is always the hardest but I know the major things I want to fix and everything else should fall in line. Wish me luck and look out for next month’s update where I will most likely complain about revision.
