Up and Coming

A couple of weeks ago, I opened my mailbox to find a familiar envelope—my name and address printed neatly in the center, a Forever stamp in the upper right corner, and no return address in the left. The dreaded SASE. I try to submit by email or web upload whenever possible, but some contests and journals still only accept mailed submissions and, inevitably, they send their rejections via slips of paper stuffed into self-addressed, stamped envelopes. An SASE in the mail is almost never good news.

Except this one. It contained a check. THEMA bought my story. “The Matlin Women Can’t Resist,” a slightly creepy, surreal story, will appear in the March 2010 issue, themed Put it in your pocket, Lillian.

I’m excited because the publication of this story will represent two aspirations achieved. I think of aspirations as different from goals. Goals are concrete, quantifiable objectives I set for myself. Achieving or not achieving them is generally entirely within my control. Aspirations are hopes. They’re things I’d like to see happen and things I can work towards, but they’re not things I have immediate control over. This year, I aspired to publish in a print journal and to place a story longer than flash fiction length. “The Matlin Women Can’t Resist” just happens to be a full-length short story. And THEMA is a quarterly print journal.

It’s going to be a long nine months before I finally have a copy in my hands, but I can wait. Who knows what the rest of the year will bring?

It's Not Easy

So… May.

I worked on the novel almost every day in May and yet, looking back, it almost seems as if the month didn’t happen at all. I only finished about half the editing I was aiming for, mostly because the two chapters I worked on turned out not to be editing at all, but rewriting. Or, more accurately, just plain writing—mostly new material in service of a new, clearer vision of what the book was meant to be.

At least, I think that’s what it was. It might also have been tinkering and waffling and generally dragging my feet over text that will likely never be as good as I want it to be. It’s hard to tell sometimes.

I have draft manuscripts of eight different novels. That’s somewhere along the line of half a million words. I’ve think I’ve proven to myself that I have the discipline to write in quantity. Still, the idea of finishing a novel, of having a polished manuscript ready to send out to agents, seems like a Herculean task. In part, because there’s a very real possibility that, after all that work, it might not go anywhere. There’s every chance that my completed, polished manuscript could go from agent to agent, editor to editor, and inspire love in no one at all. It’s one thing when that happens with a short story, but a novel? As often as I tell myself to just keep writing, just keep sending things out, always keep irons in the fire, there’s a point where being rejected eighty or ninety or ninety-five percent of the time becomes soul-searing. What’s to keep it from being one hundred percent? Every publication comes with the dread that it might be the last.

If I were the kind of blogger who wrote to offer advice and inspiration, I’d spout the old standards. I’d say the only way to ensure failure is to stop trying. I’d say that you have to write for love, not money or glory or fame or any of the other things very few writers ever achieve. I’d say that sometimes you just have to sit down in front of the keyboard each day and put in the sweat equity. I’d say that the road is different for everyone and you just need to follow your own path. I’d say those things, and sometimes I’d believe them. Sometimes, I do believe them. After all, you believe what you have to in order to keep going.

Outside, the sun is shining and there’s a gentle breeze rustling through the (out-of-place) aspens. It’s June. I’m at a cafe table with my laptop and a coffee cup (empty, except for a constellation of black grounds) on the table beside me. I have five more months until my self-imposed novel deadline. I got two rejections last week (four, if you consider that one place hit the “no” button three times). The manuscript file is open, waiting, right behind this window.

Once again, I’m going to choose to believe.

May Goal

Reasonably Low Goal: Rewrite/revise 4 chapters of Things Between.
Unreasonably High Goal: Finish the second draft..

This is May’s only goal.

Things Between, as some of you know, is the novel I wrote during last year’s National Novel Writing Month. After five months, I’m about five chapters into the second draft. It’s about thirty chapters long so, at the current rate, it would take me two and a half years to have a workable second draft. I don’t want to wait that long.

Ideally, I’d like for the novel to rewrite itself with no input from me. It’d be nice to just open my computer one day and find a fully-formed novel, as good as the ideal one locked in my head. Alas, I experimented with that method of revision last month and it didn’t seem to work, so I’m going to have to resort to other methods. Like actually revising.

I can almost always come up with tasks that are more compelling than working on the novel. Writing short stories is quick and immediately gratifying. Researching agents and literary journals is interesting and informative. Reading is both essential and pleasurable. Submitting, even with the specter of imminent rejection, holds the allure of potential publication. Working on the novel is slow and messy and frustrating because, even as the novel moves closer to my vision of what it should be, it becomes more and more apparent that it will never, ever be perfect.

The only way I can think of to combat this disappointing reality to to give myself no other choice but to work on the novel. This month, I’m not challenging myself to write any new stories, no quota of writing exercises or submissions. Reading will be a reward. This month, Things Between is my only writing priority. If that doesn’t work, I’m not sure what will.

April Report

Reasonably Low Goal: Submit 3 exercises to my flash fiction group.
Unreasonably High Goal: Submit 9 flash fiction exercises.
Success! Submitted 3 exercises.

Reasonably Low Goal: Submit 6 existing or new stories.
Unreasonably High Goal: Submit 10 stories.
Success! Submitted 4 stories and 2 picture book queries for a total of 6.

Reasonably Low Goal: Complete 1 new story for a contest.
Unreasonably High Goal: Complete 6 new stories aimed at specific markets.
Qualified success. Completed 1 new story, but not for the contest I originally targeted.

Reasonably Low Goal: Revise 3 chapters of Things Between.
Unreasonably High Goal: Revise 100 pages.
0 revised. Enough said.

I wouldn’t call it a stellar month, but it wasn’t a terrible one either. On the topic of numbers, I also read eleven books, had two shorts accepted, and one published. I’m taking the day off today, but I’ll be back Monday with May’s goal. Yes, that’s singular.

Mid-Month Progress Report

Thanks to a combination of houseguests, hives, volunteering, oral surgery, and some bad medication side effects, the majority of this week was lost to the vast tangle of Life. I’m not too late for a mid-month report, though, and I think if I buckle down for the next two weeks, I still have a decent shot at having the productive April I’d hoped for. Here’s where I stand:

0/3 Things Between chapters revised.
3/3 flash exercises submitted.
1/6 stories submitted.
1/1 new stories completed (but not the contest story).

That one completed story was a wee thing that was immediately accepted and published by Nanoism. I’m really enjoying the nuggets of fiction various twitterzines bring to my day. They feel like Seattle sunbreaks—fleeting, shining moments, just long enough to change my perspective on the day.