DEADLINES SET BY OTHERS

 

One of the pitfalls of staying in school for many years is the dependence on deadlines set by others.

 

What, you might be saying, is wrong with that? It’s a preparation for work life in general and makes John and Jill good boys and girls. Right?

 

But here’s my take. It also creates a dependence on others to get things done.

I know writers who sign up for writing challenges and join groups that insist on certain timed output. I know musicians who need competitions to get them going on learning new repertoire and practice . I know painters who need a set exhibit date to complete a set number of new works, etc.

 

Without this external pacing, many people just fall apart and lose the map. The trail becomes blurry and a sense of being lost takes over only to deepen unless they latch on to yet another organizer who gives them deadlines once again.

 

I have come to see it differently. It took reaching my late twenties before I got that monkey off my back. I learned what pace works for me and why only this way of working sets me free.

 

Sure, I meet deadlines all the time. But I don’t need them to create.

 

You won’t find me anywhere near NaNoWriMo or the 12 by12 challenge and their ilk. Maybe because I didn’t stay in school as long as many I know, I don’t need this sort of assigned homework. Life tells me when I’m needed, and I tell my days what I need from them in return.

SATISFIED OR DISAPPOINTED?

 I picked this question from Karen Jones’ post on the list of questions she’d like to ask writers:

 If you have written your book, do you feel satisfied with it or discouraged and disappointed?

 

I know creative people who are almost always let down by their output. Blisters! I also have heard, repeatedly, that it’s the mark of the great ones to be unhappy with their performance, for what they aim for is many notches above the result.

 

I’m not one of those tortured souls. This makes me conclude I’m decidedly not one of the greats. I am deeply satisfied at the end of each first draft, when the words THE END would be added, had I been trained in the days when writers typed “The End” at, ahmm, the end.

 

I’m satisfied that I did it. That I brought it home. That I told a complete story. It’s a kind of a high I can’t imagine getting from a drug or libation.

 

Depending on the story and also the length of the journey first drafting took, this high lasts from a few days to a few weeks.

 

It’s upon tackling it again, in subsequent drafts, that the cracks begin and get wider as I go. It’s beta readers’ feedback, pointing out inconsistencies, holes and the most absurd typos, that doubts and disappointment take hold.

 

The fixing journey is a long one, and I don’t enjoy it. But there, too, I have mini-highs when I patch the potholes.

 

So, my answer is that writing a book is a mix of joy, satisfaction, and also discouragement and disappointment. But above all, I have enormous respect for myself and all who embark on the creative train and stick with it to its destination.

 

~THE END*~

*Not really

THE (mostly) UNSUNG HEROS of PUBLISHING

 

A writing colleague who had beta-read for me (and I for her) and who, like me, had been on occasion paid to freelance edit, let me know one of the books she had edited had won an important award.

When she mentioned the title, I gasped. It’s one I had read because it came recommended and it is an exquisite literary novel for middle grades. Aside from the mentioned award, this novel had garnered accolades from all the sources that matter in publishing.

 

The glory, rightly, goes to the author. The financial gain goes to the publisher. But what goes to the editor who guided it to the mature version the world got to read?

 

No glory, or even a smidgen of recognition, will attach to this all-important arm of the publishing journey. Some writers will mention their editor’s name in the acknowledgement page. But the public at large only knows editors when the latter write their memoires, and this they get to publish only if they had edited well known writers, plural.

 

Try not to chuckle as I confess this reminded me of intelligence officers as part of national security. Few know what battles they fought so we won’t have to. Editors are like the CIA field agents whom the public will never know.

 

Unsung heroes are a special breed. They work for the job at hand and not for a pat on the back.

 

To the editors:

THE little MATTER OF GIVING UP

 

I have writing friends who say they are giving up.

 

They’re giving up writing new stories, querying agents, submitting to small publishers, and even giving up on interacting with other writers on chat groups.

 

They are dismayed at the state of publishing. Some have had great publishing credits in the past. Others have had a modicum of success, and a few have had no publishing credits. All have no interest or means ($$$) to self-publish & promote.

 

It’s okay to give up. It’s okay to do so and later change your mind. It’s okay no matter what.

 

But if writing new stories is enriching, all the giving up talk makes no sense to me.

 

Why would you deprive yourself of the deep pleasure and stimulation that writing has given you? If it’s to spare the disappointment of rejection, then isn’t all of life full of setbacks and disappointments? These are in fact some of the most enriching aspects of life, even as emotional pain isn’t “fun.”

There will be eternity in the grave to rest life’s challenging turns. Until then, writers— tell your stories.

APPROACHING PUBLISHED WRITERS FOR ADVICE/BLURB

 

There’s a right way and a wrong way to ask writers to help your writing journey. I learned the hard way, making most of the usual mistakes.

 

A good post on this is here.

 

But despite the above linked post, my experience is that the right way is to not ask anything of a writer who is barely an acquaintance. Even more so if the writer is a complete stranger. Published writers, especially successfully published writers, don’t have the time to wade through the writing of others as they get many (repeat: MANY) such requests.

 

The bottom line is that unless you are close personal friends, or the writer offers without solicitation (rare, but happens. It happened to me 😊) they can’t blurb (which would mean also reading your work) and any general advice they give can be found on the Internet.

 

If you are real friends in real life (Facebook doesn’t count. Not ever) or taking a course with a writer, which includes feedback to your writing, other writers farther along on the path are our inspiration for aspirations, not personal assistants.

 

Enjoy meeting authors without asking them to bear your burdens.

COMMON TRAPS FOR ASPIRING* WRITERS

 

*First, do away with the word “aspiring.”

If you are writing you are already a writer, not an aspiring writer. The aspirants are the folks who say they will write someday when the stars align just right, as in when the moon is in the seventh skies and Jupiter aligns with Mars.

(Dates me, doesn’t it. The words for The Age of Aquarius from the musical Hair.)

 

When beginning a writer’s journey, the biggest trap is losing oneself to the notion that this is about the market, not self-discovery.

 

Conversely, the second biggest trap is to lose direction believing it’s about oneself only, and not the market.

 

Holding both truths at once, seemingly contradictory, is how to not fall into writerly traps.

 

Writing begins and forever remains a journey of self-discovery. But it must recognize fueling stations that take account of the market. It is about communicating these discoveries, and the market is the vehicle.

 

I instinctively understood the first but took a few years to acknowledge the second. Now I know I write for myself first, and to communicate to others a close second.