Writing Free

Writing Seasons

     Sometimes one just needs to stay at home, piddle-paddle around the house doing this chore and that, catch up on neglected office time, and think. Emphasis on think. That’s what I’ve been doing both last week and this one: think. The big 8-0 is coming up, and it’s time to prioritize where my writing is going.

     A few months ago, I published Book 1 of the Diamond Springs series: The Legacy of Diamond Springs. Hopefully before Christmas, Books 2 and 3 will be available: The Flames of Diamond Springs and The Dust of Diamond Springs. Then I need to turn my attention to how I want to wind up/publish my attempt at non-fiction: Forgotten Faces of San Angelo.

     After that, it’s time to dust off perhaps two hundred short stories and attempt to find them a home in various magazines/ezines. I’m not sure, after close to twenty novels, that I have another book in me. Besides that, my writing journals contain at least another 75-100 short stories to be expanded from snippets to full-length shorts. And, I want to get back to blogging regularly.

     Bottom line: writing, for me, is going to move to second place on the bucket list. I’ve been published traditionally and independently, had some nice success, won a couple of awards, and achieved what I set out to do. Now it’s time to retire from full-time writing and just write when I want to.

     Life has its seasons, all of them with purpose, but the seasons change and move on. So shall I.

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Prioritizing Your Writing Projects

Several years ago, I stumbled on a death certificate for Walking John, a familiar face as he wandered the streets of my home town until his body washed up after drowning. The questions began immediately: Who was he? Where did he come from and when? Why was he here? What was he doing here?

Though he made the front page of the newspaper after his death, most of the information about his life was speculation. The questions turned into red flags, and I determined to answer them all.

Before I could satisfy my curiosity about John, I found myself intrigued by the story of The Candy Lady, a German immigrant who sold her homemade pecan pralines from a basket she carried on her arm as she walked downtown San Angelo. What I learned about her was factual, though there were a few unanswered questions, I even turned up a possible connection to my grandmother and one of her cherished possessions—not mine.

Finally, Fisherman Jake who collected the now-coveted Concho Pearls and sold them along with his catch, caught my attention. Murdered on the banks of the river where he and his mules and dogs made their home in a canvas shelter in 1909, he became something of a fleeting local legend.

A year and a half ago, moving home put me in a situation where I could research in person, I conceived the idea of Forgotten Faces of San Angelo—but soon realized a print book would require more than three storis. Eventually, fourteen notebooks full of facts of other people unknown to most of the present citizens of the town, I started to write the individual stories.

The researching and the writing are enjoyable. Acquiring permissions for photographs and quotes is more difficult. Unreturned phone calls and emails, hints of prices beyond my means for pictures, cautions about mistakes in sourcing could lead to lawsuits, and my personal knowledge from experience about how long it takes to get a traditionally-published book into the hands of readers, and how other smaller projects were taking a back seat or being discarded, all began to wear away my enthusiasm for Forgotten Faces.

Finally, I sat down and put the pros and cons on paper and determined that taking the project in another direction might actually result in a broader audience as well as less stress for me. I’m still considering everything, but I believe I’ve successfully prioritized all the writing left to do while I can do it.

Serious writers (and others!) must set reasonable expectations for themselves and bring those expectations to reality by asking,

·        What is more important?

·        What do I really want to do?

·        What do I need to do first?

·        Is there another better way to do what I want to do?

And then, of course, as someone used to tell me, “You just have it to do”—so you do it!

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When Writing Ceases to be Fun,

Writing Ceases

So, when does writing cease to be fun? Does it always have to be fun? Does productivity equal fun? Yes and no.

The first draft is always fun because the author is getting out her thoughts faster than her fingers will type or form letters on the page. A story is being born. What will it be?

Then comes the last word of the last scene, followed by the understanding that first drafts always, always, stink. Time for the second draft.

I’ve done half a dozen drafts or more for one book, and while the story gets better, my attitude doesn’t. Why couldn’t I do this the first time? Why has this terrific tale taken months instead of days to write?

The final draft is followed, hopefully, by the slashing red pen of a good beta reader. If one is publishing traditionally, submission follows a final, final, final draft. Then the editor gets hold of it, and the author wonders why she even bothered to write it!

If one is going the indie pub route, there’s formatting, submitting, ordering a proof copy, and going line by line by line with a red pen and ruler to find any sneaky little typos not caught before.

Corrections are made. The manuscript is resubmitted. Finally, a nervous author hits publish and hopes (nail-bites) for the best.

Was it fun? Did you enjoy the process? Parts of the process? Seeing your book online? Holding your print book in your hands?

I repeat, was it fun?

No, it wasn’t fun the way we usually define the term. It was a lot of dirty-darned hard work. (Thanks to author friend Donna Patton for her brilliant coinage of the term dirty-darned!)

Writing isn’t fun and games. It may well be a hobby rather than a lifestyle or wage-earning proposition, but it still encompasses the same time-consuming labor that any job calls for.

So, when writing ceases to be fun, does writing really cease? Telling your story, becoming intimately acquainted with your characters, weeping at the keyboard over their trials and tribulations, calling out “Yes!” in your office occupied only by cats, gritting your teeth through editing, submitting, proofing, and finally publishing—for someone who loves to write—wants to write—needs to write—it’s all fun.

It’s fun in the sense of how the adventure of traveling to a new place is fun…meeting new people is fun…struggling to overcome challenges is satisfyingly fun…it’s fun in the way you define that little three-letter word.

If, on the other hand, you wish you’d never started your story…you really don’t want to finish it, but you feel guilty because it sits there incomplete…writing has ceased to be fun…and writing has indeed ceased.

Stay tuned on Friday for my own sad tale of a project which may never see the light of day in book form…but which will accomplish what I set out to do: tell the story. My journey through the valley of pros and cons has just begun…but even the journey is an adventure…and therefore, it’s fun.