Penthesilea
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Re: Welcome to the Writing Life!
Reply #580 - Jan 1st, 2015 at 2:17am
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So here it is: New Year’s Eve 2014. This year has been a watershed of sorts. Calling it a “Year of Revelation” is too strong but yeah, some things came to light and not all of them were pleasant. The year started off with us adjusting to the “new normal” necessitated by Skywise’s health. His condition stabilized and even improved a little (his blood pressure came down closer to normal and his eye problem healed completely) and the adjustment to the changes in diet and lifestyle that started in 2013 continued with only minor bumps in the road.
I had intended that by this time my fourth book would be well on the way to being finished in first draft at least but that was not to be. I “thought” that the break I’d taken since I’d finished “Destinies” had been sufficient to “recharge” my “writing batteries” but I was mistaken. Although I knew what needed to happen in the fourth book and how it would end, I couldn’t get started. Oh I wrote parts of it -- significant scenes that had been in my head for a long time -- but other than that, the book refused to come. I found that staring at a blank word document was uninspiring and since I was drawing a complete and depressing blank as far as the fourth book was concerned, I turned my mind to writing other things. I had a number of PDFs that I’d downloaded on various subjects that needed to be edited and put into a useable form so I could actually find the reference I was looking for in under half a day. So I started working on that and sharpening my editing skills in the process. I also started compiling the information that I hope will become the basis of a live action roleplaying game in the coming year. It was while compiling the game that I realized that my fictional world of Samgara had a lot of huge gaps in it that needed to be filled in both for the game and for the books so I opened up yet another word document and started collecting my notes for “The Writers’s Guide to Samgara” which with some deletions (can’t give away ALL the secrets all at once!) will eventually be The Reader’s Guide to Samgara and a Player’s Guide to Samgara for the roleplaying game. All these projects and some non-writing activities got me away from Book 4 and those depressingly blank pages.
There were some people who did not approve of the way I handled my blocked condition and that resulted in some “unpleasantness” about which the less said, the better. However, once it was over and I’d done a metaphorical clearing out of other people’s “negative stuff” from my life, I found that my creativity began to perk up again and as the summer wore on, I realized that I wasn’t blocked so much as burned out. After more than six years of writing nonstop, I was mentally exhausted and, scary as it was to realize, writing had changed from something that I enjoyed and needed/had to do because the story was in my brain screaming to get out to an unhealthy compulsion that left me feeling anxious and “lost” if I wasn’t writing a novel. I had become, in a sense, addicted to writing. I felt stressed and guilty if I didn’t write and I agonized over “new material added” and word counts. It wasn’t good for me physically, mentally, emotionally or spiritually and it was a sobering realization. At that point I realized that during those years, I had let writing take over my life to the point that nearly everything else had been pushed aside. Scarier still was the deterioration in my health. I’d gained what I considered an unacceptable amount of weight, my blood pressure was creeping up (because of my weight) and my knees and legs had become so painful after sitting for hours every day in front of the computer writing that I couldn’t stand or walk without pain and on particularly bad days, I couldn’t walk without a cane. Things had to change and once I realized that, I started changing them.
I stopped worrying about daily goals for word counts or pages written and forced myself not to fret if I didn’t write on a given day. More to the point, I stopped giving a damn about whether or not other people approved of my work habits and if I was a “real writer” in their opinion. I stopped giving a damn about the opinions of anonymous people period. As far as my work is concerned, the only opinions that count are those of professionals to whom I submit my work for publication or editorial work. Any other opinions expressed, especially by anonymous posters on internet forums who may or may not have even seen my work, will be ignored.
Slowly but surely I’m getting back into the writing groove. Writing short stories requires a different kind of discipline than novels do and the pressure to “perform” is less. I’m also working on achieving a balance between my writing and the rest of my life. Sure, I want to write for publication, to share my stories with others and perhaps give them a few hours of enjoyment but the days of spending every waking moment writing to the detriment of the rest of my life including my health are over. I want to be able to ENJOY my success when it comes and I really don’t think I can do that if I neglect my health to the point that I’m popping blood pressure medications and/or checking my glucose and giving myself insulin shots while confined to a wheelchair because walking is too painful. I’ve resolved to take time to eat when I’m working -- something I frequent forget to do which is no way to manage one’s weight -- and to spend some time doing things that don’t involve sitting in front of a computer including that dreaded activity: EXERCISE. I may hate it and have to force myself to do it but I’ve reached the point in my life where I can’t ignore my body. It needs regular “maintenance” and the only one who is going to see that it gets it is me.
I’ve designed a “home writing workshop course” for myself using materials from a number of well regarded authors who are also editors and/or workshop teachers in order to approach and execute my work in the most logical and professional way possible. I finished the first draft of my most recent short story “Demon in the Dark” earlier this afternoon and I’ll be going over it and the other shorts I’ve finished once I’ve gotten deeper into my studies with the goal of starting making submissions later in 2015. I’m not going to say when that will be, only that it will be when I think that they are as good as I can make them at this time. I’ll be going over my first three novels as well at some point with “revised editions” the likely result but I don’t know when those will be released. I STILL intend for them to be published in hardcopy and hopefully by a well known traditional publisher.
The year now past in some ways has not turned out the way I’d hoped. On the plus side, Skywise’s blood pressure stabilized and no new problems popped up. I realized how writing and some people were affecting my life and made and are making changes. I found out who and what I wanted to hang onto and what I needed to let go of and at the end of the day, it’s all good. Later tonight with the Skywise, Moonie and Spirit, I’ll raise a glass of something sparkly and non-alcoholic and toast the Old Year out and New Year in.
Happy 2015 to all and may it be a Happy One!
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