The well is dry

A few months ago, Dad asked me if I was still writing. I think he was trying to distract me from the whole world-on-fire situation, but it didn’t work: I immediately started crying. (I’ve been more than a little depressed, obviously.) I have not been writing. At all. The only writing I’ve done was at retreat last summer, when I finished a story I started at retreat the summer before. (The sections I read at retreat got positive reviews. I sent it to one very competitive market at the end of April. It got summarily rejected. And that’s that, for the moment, anyway.)

I go on retreat again at the end of the month. I have no idea what, if anything, I’ll work on. I haven’t been able to look at the novel. It’s too big, too hard, too much. Maybe I’ll work on an essay about my health. Maybe I’ll write fluffy fan-fic just to find joy in writing again. Maybe I won’t write anything and will just read and sleep. But I’m going, if for nothing else but to see my friends and spend a week in nature and away from life stress, work stress, and news. Because how can you create when the world’s on fire?

New submissions record!

I sent out another flash fiction story this morning (fingers crossed!) and I realized I have quite a few stories out at different markets. I was logging my latest submission into the Grinder (it’s vital to have a tool for keeping track of these things) and saw that I currently have six flash fiction pieces out for consideration. Plus I sent out one October 1 that was rejected, so that means I’ve sent out seven submissions this month. That’s a total record for me — I’ve never had so many pieces out at once before. Admittedly, they aren’t new stories; all of them are pieces I wrote years ago and either never submitted or sent out once and gave up. Still, it’s exciting to have so many stories under consideration — in many ways, getting published is totally a numbers game, so the more you send out, the better your odds are of selling one (or more). And you can’t get published if you never send anything out.

Here’s to trying, again and again.

Sending out the stories

letter-envelopeFellow writer Amanda C. Davis seems to be my main motivator for submitting stories this year. She’s great about sharing submission opportunities in her Twitter feed, and she mentioned one a couple of weeks ago that appealed to me, mainly because it was flash fiction (something I have a good bit of lying around in my writing archives).  As a result of her tweet, I dug out and polished up a couple of short pieces and sent them out for consideration. I also finished editing another flash story I’d been fiddling with and sent that one out too. I’m still waiting to hear back about the first two; the latter one, sadly, got rejected in record time, which dampened my sense of accomplishment quite a bit. But at least I’m trying… and trying unsuccessfully is better than not trying at all.

Stalled

So, the novel is once again on hiatus. (Sigh.) I did some great work at the retreat last month, despite arriving there exhausted and full of self-doubt, pretty much hating my own writing. But by mid-week I’d managed to get past that feeling, and in three days, I edited the next big section, roughly 10,000 words. I came home excited but exhausted again and immediately fell into a funk. (It didn’t help that the prequel story I wrote on spec for an anthology got rejected a few days after my return. I understand the editor’s decision, but it was still a huge disappointment.)

I started reading random bits of the novel a few weeks ago and thought I’d start working on it again, but I’m still feeling out of sorts and worn thin. Work and life have been stressful and not at all conducive to writing — and my recent edits resulted in new plot complications to solve. It’s ironic that each bit of progress seems to move the finish line farther away.

My goal is still to finish revisions by the end of the year. It’s looking less and less likely as the days grind on, but who knows? If I get back on track next month, it’s still completely feasible.

We’ll see.