Submission alarm

I’m distracted and can’t concentrate. It’s my health, my job, spring. Or, it’s the nonstop clang of my submission alarm.

Waiting is difficult. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. It is unbearable when the response is even slower than the 6 or 12 months predicted. At times it feels like molasses running uphill moves faster than the editors and publishers of books and magazines. See, even my petty antagonism shows.

Everything stops at 6 months plus 1 day…my mind wanders, I check the mail several times in an hour, I pace, I write and rewrite the same sentence, my blog posts are incoherent and pointless…everything stops.

This is when I need to regroup, reset the alarm, breathe deep. I’ll give them another 30 days or maybe 14; we’ll see.

If you can’t write, or something just feels wrong…check on your submission alarm. Maybe it is reminding you to send a follow up query or alerting you that it needs to be reset. Either way, you won’t get anything done until you remember the things that you are waiting for.

Novel writing software

I spent the day, yesterday, putting my novel in process into Power Structure. Novel writing programs are like new pens and clean sheafs of paper — they’re full of promise. One thing I know about writers — we love our equipment.

Really, all I’ve done is put chapter heads in the application. I needed help seeing where I had gaps, making my story arc more of ekg tape. Power Structure is helpful that way — I can move chapters around, add and delete, with great ease.

It’s a useful tool, as long as it doesn’t distract from the work at hand, the writing.

Character change is personal

We know it is essential to make our characters change. Suffer and change. That’s the basis for story, good story.

Yet, it is surprising how intensely we resist change in ourselves. The suffering involved in publishing our work is perfect catalyst for our own evolution. Each rejection is a plot point, a moment when we, ourselves, get to face the demon despair, and slay him.

Rejections keep us in close contact with the reality of our characters’ lives. We’re always giving them challenges that bring them exceedingly close to collapse. Rejection is their way of returning the “favor.”

In case you couldn’t tell — I received another rejection.

Breakthrough

I didn’t realize it but the reason I was stuck is because I didn’t know which direction to go. It was more a case of being caught at a crossroads then mired in muck.

Yesterday, with trumpets blaring and birds a twitter the fog lifted from the landscape and my novel narrator said, “This way. Let’s go this way.”

“But, that way full of trepidation, and sadness and bad things happening.”

“Exactly.” Jack took a few steps down the path, turned back to face me. “C’mon Samantha, get a grip. This is my story.”

Inching my foot forward, trembling, I followed. Jack raced off ahead…

Halleluja — I’m unstuck.

Getting my foot loose

Yesterday, I wrote. Today, I write.

That’s what these authors keep telling me — the only antidote to writers’ block is writing. Words on a page…

More on the novel

There was a nice novel writing post on NPR, today:

NPR

In the wake of tragedies in Baghdad, Western Sudan, Virginia, Gaza, and on and on…I cannot think of anything more or less to do than write.

Words to the wise

Kirby Larson says:

Re: writing a novel:

Don’t.

Just write every day.

Then you will have a novel.

How to write a novel

Bruce Holland Rogers, bless his commitment to helping other writers improve their craft and learn the business, just told me that one strategy for novel writing is to write a short story then flesh it out.

That sounds so easy. : )

We must write

I spoke to a friend the other day, a writer who isn’t writing. Is there any pain more searing than this?

I’ve struggled over the past two years to fit myself into the manacle of writing. Some would argue, “Don’t put that nasty thing on.” and others would counter, “You have no choice.”

As John Calderazzo put it: “I think it’s easy to quail at the audacity of the enterprise. At the same time, you gotta do what you gotta do, eh?”

We are writers and there is nothing more to do or say than that.

When writers forget

Hey, I didn’t post yesterday. Sorry about that. As I mentioned in a previous post — I’m really stuck. My novel is in deep muck and I’m trying to find my way out. Mostly, I’m covered in goo.

Are you writing? Waiting? Doing both at once? How do you move through the times when no words can be found?