Why I Didn't Work Monday, And Why Snow Tubing Isn't To Blame For My Lame Work Week

We had snow a week ago yesterday, and it's still here. Now, I'm in the south of New England, not Florida. Snow is not incapacitating here. But it isn't as common as it used to be, what with climate change and all. Last year, I didn't use my snow tube at all. And when snow does come, it usually doesn't last long. For example, hours after we left for our retreat week on a Saturday in January, our town was hit with a big snowfall. By the time we got home the next Saturday, our yard looked like spring.

Not so with this last storm, which came, as I said, a week ago yesterday. I spent a big chunk of time shoveling the day it arrived and rushed out to go snowshoeing the next morning, because you have to strike while the snow is here. This past Monday, it was still here, and I had guests over for snow tubing. 

                                             

Seriously, kids have so little experience with snow that they think you're supposed to play in it with balls.

I've been thinking that my feeling this week of not making progress with work is due to the fact that I took what was essentially a snow day Monday and now think the week is nearly over. All is lost. But in reality, it's because I have spent weeks working on a short story in a genre I know nothing about. That's a beginner's mistake.

 

A New Publication For Me--And Another Writing Analogy.

Today's Coronavirus Walk

I have done snowshoeing/book writing analogies here. I have done a taekwondo/writing analogy. I have done a biking/time management analogy. Now I am going to do a walking/writing analogy.

Sloooow

Given that my husband and I have been biking somewhere around 20 years, you'd think we'd be a whole lot faster than we are. Given how long I've been walking, in one form or another, you'd think I'd be faster than I am.

I accept that we are, and, particularly, I am, slow. You just cannot have as many people pass you as I've had pass me and not accept reality. It doesn't matter whether I am on a bike or on foot, it doesn't matter how old or young the people behind me are, I am going to be passed.

Today's Overlook

But, you know, you're out there on the trail to be out there on the trail. So I have accepted that I am never going to win any awards for my speed. I just want to be out on the trail.

Biking And Walking Are Not The Only Things I Do Slowly

I have also had to accept that I am a slow writer. I'm even slower with getting published. A case in point? My adult short story, When I Have Fears That We May Cease To Be. was published yesterday at The Blue Nib Literary Magazine website.

I wrote this short story a while ago. A long while ago. I won't mention any dates, but I've been submitting--and revising--this story so long that there are copies of it in my filing cabinet that are clearly typed on a typewriter, not a word processor.

We're Not Just Talking Perseverance Here

I could say that this is an inspirational story about perseverance, that I kept the faith and kept submitting and that is why this short story was published. But I think there's something else going on when writing is published after a long period of time has passed. And what is going on is...time.

It's very possible that a piece of fiction needs to wait for publication until a pair of eyes falls upon it that gets it, that understands what the writer is doing. My first novel, for instance, was accepted for publication by an editor who was about fifteen years younger than I was. I was submitting work while she was, literally, still growing up. I had to wait for the right time for us to connect.

It's also possible that a piece of fiction doesn't fit in with the time it was written. It fits in with another time that's still coming up. I have no examples of that. I don't know if that's what happened with When I Have Fears That We May Cease To Be. But it's a big part of the reason that I keep submitting completed and rejected work. The time may not have been right for it when it was written, but it could be right now. Or next month. Or next year.

You Just Want To Be Out On The Trail

Today's Lunch View

Writers can't let the whole it-hasn't-been-published thing become a big issue for them. Writing is like walking or biking. You just have to want to write the way you want to be out on the trail.

Time Management Tuesday: Some Alternatives To Writing Every Day

This past week someone on Twitter brought up the question of whether or not it is really necessary to write every day. His point was that not everyone has the time to do that.

Well, since he mentioned time...

How Writing Every Day Can Help 

Writing every day is extremely helpful if you are working on one particular project, because it helps you to stay in the world of your book. You can keep a little flow thing going.  It's even good in terms of time management, because you don't have to keep bringing yourself back up to speed with characters, setting, and whatever it is you're trying to do.

Writing every day can also help you avoid letting yourself--or those around you--develop a mindset that you only write when every other thing in your life has been done. It also helps you avoid accepting a lot of discretionary, volunteer tasks. You have to limit those because you write every day.

But Let's Get Real

A great many new writers, and even published writers who don't make a living writing:

•  Have day jobs that put food on the table, a roof over their heads, keep them alive.
• Are the main caregivers for children.
• Have day jobs and care for children.
• Are caring for family members in the extended family, often while holding down a day job. And dealing with children of one age or another
• Have chronic health problems of their own and also working day jobs and/or caring for others

Writing every day just isn't a possibility for many people. Suggesting they should be doing that not only does them no good, but can seem exclusionary. "Writers need to write every day. You can't write every day. Therefore...draw your own conclusion."

Can Writers Do Something Every Day?

You probably read. Read something every day that pertains to your writing.

• Read in your genre. Pay attention to what is being done by other writers. Pay attention to what you like and, more importantly, what you dislike.
• Read articles on craft. Pick up a copy of Writers' Digest, The Horn Book, or other publications that relate to the type of writing you do. Read what you can, when you can.
• If you write short form work, read publications that publish it. Learn who is publishing what.
• If you're working on a project that requires research, or even just thinking about starting one, do some reading for that.  

Maintain an "idea journal" in which you only have to jot down an idea or a situation, if that's all you have time to do. If you can find some kind of journal software, even better. You can search those and find similar ideas you've entered so you can pull them together when you want to do something with them.

Try to maintain a writing area, even it it's not an office or even a desk. When you have opportunities to write, write in the same place-- a particular chair in the living room where you work with a laptop or a notebook will do. Set aside a shelf for your writing books and magazines, any books you've been using for research.

Check out your schedule for the upcoming week (or weekend), looking for time when you can write. It's not necessary to have an eight-hour shift for writing. Small units or segments of time will due very nicely. 

What About Writing Every Day To Create A Writing Habit?

How many people have really done that?

My more rabid followers know that I'm a fan of psychologist Kelly McGonigal, who wrote The Willpower Instinct. She isn't a big supporter of promoting habits for changing behavior. Habit works best, she says, for small tasks that don't require a lot of people in the first place. Which is why so many of us have no problem brushing our teeth. Writing demands a lot more of us than keeping our teeth clean, though.

In my own experience, whenever I've felt I had a traditional write-every-day habit going, something jumped the border between my personal and professional lives and writing went out the window for a while. Habit just hasn't been that helpful for me when life problems strike.

Pursuing That There Goal--An Alternative To Writing Every Day

Kelly McGonigal talks about what she calls "automatic goal pursuit." For writers this would mean that instead of focusing on a behavior--I must write every day, because real writers write every day--you focus on an ultimate goal, say a particular writing project you want to complete. You chip away at that, however you can, instead of worrying about whether or not you're writing every day.

Producing something is the goal, not the process we use to produce it. Though there are plenty of articles, books, and workshops out there claiming to provide the secret to the perfect writing process, the real secret is that the perfect writing process doesn't exist.

I Have Some Experience With This, People

For instance, this week I have a seven-year-old house guest* arriving today and staying into Friday. I lost part of yesterday to guest prep. But I hate to lose a whole week, so I'm trying to plan some small tasks that will support some of this year's work goals.

• I got this blog post ready to post yesterday and scheduled a couple of tweet pitches on Tweetdeck for a Twitter pitch even on Thursday when I expect to be away from home most of the day. Submitting work is a goal.
• I've loaded my iPad with some essay and short story reading that will expose me to some new markets or some craft writing. Writing short form work is a goal.
• I'm slowly plugging away on a YA mystery this year, and I'm using a blueprinting system I learned at a workshop taught four years ago by Wendy Maas. I've printed out the blueprinting I've done so far so I can add to it at odd moments during the week.

Hmm. I'm definitely not trying to write every day. What I do appear to be doing, though, is pushing myself toward those goals.

Oh, my gosh, I love goals so.

*My house guest was struck down by a stomach bug last night, so we'll never know how well I would have done with the plan I'd made for his stay. However, I now have some found writing time. Instead of reinventing the wheel (something I always find time consuming), I'm going to stick with working toward goals, as I'd planned, maybe leaning a little more heavily on the blueprinting then I would have if he'd been here.

The Weekend Writer: Like One Plot Isn't Difficult Enough

I am often frustrated reading books that include material that I feel doesn't serve the basic storyline. The main character in the mystery Truly Devious, for instance, suffers from anxiety. I never figured out why. Multitudes of children's books include sick siblings, estranged parents, and misunderstandings with friends when the books appear to be about something else entirely, like surviving in a post-apocalyptic world. And then how many adult mysteries have I read that included a romance when the book seems to be about restoring order to the world after a crime has been committed?

An article in the September issue of Writer's Digest by Jane K. Cleland called Subplots Aren't Secondary has led me to think that what I have been reading as random material may really be subplots. What's more, maybe I should be thinking about including some in my writing.

The Function Of Subplots, And They Have One

Subplots, Cleland says, should provide support to the main story by moving the plot along, developing character, controlling pacing, and contributing to the ending. In short, they should be doing a lot.

It sounds as if books should include two subplots:

• One relating to an interpersonal relationship. Presumably those parental and friend issues I was just mentioning.
• One relating to a nonfiction element.

Since they are supposed to support the main story, plotting a subplot should help generate material for that basic story and not just produce a lot of filler. They sound as if they could actually be...helpful.

As For Me And My Plots

In a couple of my unsold books I think I've created subplots without being aware that's what I was doing, particularly in terms of nonfiction elements. It's something I'll be paying a lot more attention to in the future.

Good article, if you can find it.

The Weekend Writer: Make Sure Everything In Your Book Supports Your Story

I keep mentioning that I worked reading into some of my goals and objectives for this year. I cannot recommend it highly enough. Even during stressful, demanding times, there's always room for reading, right?

Well, one of my objectives for Goal 2 Work on YA Thriller is Read YA Thrillers. Sounds great, doesn't it? Recently I started what I thought was a YA thriller as well as a YA thriller-ish piece of science fiction. I didn't finish either one of them. I was always having to stop to read material that didn't seem to have anything to do with the story I believed I was reading. I just couldn't maintain interest.

What, Exactly, Do You Mean, Gail?

For a story to work, everything in it must support it in some way. At the very least, if something appears in a story, it needs to support character, theme, or plot. If it doesn't, it stops the forward momentum of the story. Readers have to pause to take in this new material that doesn't relate to anything they've read before and, they may find, won't relate to much they're going to read.

For instance, eight or ten years ago, the YA blogosphere got hopped up because an agent, whose name I really don't know, went on record as saying that YA needed romance. Indeed, there is a lot of romance, or at least romantic entanglements, in YA across the board. But if the romance doesn't support the story, the writer has to stop the story to talk about young love.

Okay, the first book I quit reading involved a murder and potential victims getting weird murder-connected communications a year later. I thought that sounded thrilling. I thought that was the basic story, these young women getting messages and perhaps being targeted. I may have been wrong, though. The story may have been about something else, something deep and not thrilling. Especially since there was a lot of love interest going on in the first more than third of the book. There was a torn-between-two-lovers situation and another couple. I read quite a bit, wasn't clear on what these romances had to do with the story I thought I was going to read, and if the story was something else, I never figured out what it was. I may have got almost to the mid-way point on this one.

The second book I quit reading involved four young people fighting a terrorist group plotting attacks in the future. Thrilling! And sci-fi, which is good for me to read because I have an adult sci-fi project to shop around at some point. But the action kept stopping so characters could talk about how one of them was bi-sexual, one was gay, and one was transgender. We also had to pause for the hints that some of these characters were attracted to one another. It wasn't clear to me how this supported the terrorist story or how it was going to. So I gave up on that one, too.

All the romantic and quasi-romantic diversions in these books kept slowing the story down because they didn't seem to be about the story. Especially with the science fiction book, I felt as if I was sometimes reading filler.

An Example Of Romance Serving Story

Before some of you write me off as not appreciating romance, consider a book in which I think it works very well, because it is definitely part of the plot of in a story.

I happen to have just finished the adult novel My Sister the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite. In this book the narrator and her sister are both attracted to the same man who is only attracted to one of them. A twist on the torn-between-two-lovers scenario that is so popular in YA. In this case, this romantic entanglement absolutely supports the plot, which is all about how the narrator will deal with her murderous sister. It creates tension. It definitely makes readers want to move on. It made this reader, anyway.

It's not just romance that can stop a story. Humor writers have to be careful to note use random jokes. If material doesn't support character, theme, or plot, it doesn't matter how funny it is, it will distract readers and discourage them from continuing reading.


This explains why a couple of days ago I edited out a lengthy HGTV joke in Chapter 17 of a new project. It didn't do anything and would have left readers wondering what it was doing there and if they needed to remember it going forth.

Beat This

I've been reading about beats and writing for a few years now. Well, I haven't been reading much about it, because I can't make heads nor tails of it.

But a guest post at Cynsations by Deborah Halverson (who, it turns out, is a Facebook friend) on narrative beats makes some sense. "Narrative beats are those little breathers in dialogue, sometimes filled simply with speaking tags like he said, she said. They’re rhythmic beats in conversations."

Okay. I'm with her so far.

Halverson says those breathers in dialogue should reveal something about character. Again, I get that. Because every word in a story should support your story, and this is a way to do that. However, Halverson...wait...I should say Deborah, because we're Facebook friends...says that many writers waste the opportunity to reveal character by using this breather with filler, such as having a character smile, frown, laugh or synonyms for same. To be clear, she uses the following example:

                                            Beth looked at him. “No. I want to go, too.”

The word "looked" doesn't reveal anything about character. It's just filler.

I get this, too, because I do it! I'm always having characters turn to someone, smile, etc., in order to avoid using dialogue tags like "she said." I thought I was onto something. But I've got to rethink this now.

I'm still lost on some of this other beat stuff. But I'm definitely going to work on replacing filler with revelation.

Time Management Tuesday: An Art Metaphor For Me

My retreat week (yes, it has been a month, and yes, I am still talking about it) reading turned up a great article in the September, 2017 Writers Digest.

Here at Original Content I write mostly about managing time in terms of discipline and working. But occasionally I've covered ways to write faster or write more efficiently. In Train Your Eye for Better Writing, author Tess Callahan describes three techniques inspired by training and skill sets used by visual artists that seem to me to have the potential to help writers speed up.

Speed Up In An Artist's Way

  

Emulation. Just as artists study things like composition or brush strokes by copying master works, writers can practice writing in different writers’ styles. How can it help speed you up? When you're having trouble getting started, use your idea in a well-known author's style just to get something down on the page.

Frequent Small Sketches. Figure drawing classes sometimes involve working with poses that last seconds. Writers can work the same way throughout the day, jotting down bits and pieces of things seen or heard. Maybe thoughts. How can it help speed you up? "Sketching" can help you take advantage of small amounts of time that you would otherwise assume were useless because they weren't big enough for you to complete, say, an entire chapter or an essay.

Underpainting. Landscape and portrait painters often begin with a monotone underpainting that they use to “play with composition rapidly...before committing to a particular layout." Callahan suggests comparable “quick, loose first drafts.” She describes having begun a 500 page manuscript with a 20 page underpainting. This is my personal favorite. I did an underpainting of this blog post while I was still on vacation. I've been using this concept since I got home on two different projects. I "underpainted" a chapter I later completed, and I'm using the same method on a second one. Even a family member who was home one day last week was impressed by how much I was working.

Maybe We're Talking A Metaphor Here

Some might argue that sketches are nothing new and underpainting is just freewriting. But I like the idea of underpainting in a way I've never liked freewriting. (Oh, my gosh. Freeeewriiiiiiting.) It's far more freeing than freewriting, which I had an unpleasant experience with in college. I never studied painting, so I've got no complaints about it.

Maybe art here is a writing...and time...metaphor, and it's a metaphor that works for me. Maybe we all need a metaphor. 

For each technique she describes, Callahan also offers what sounds like a good book on writing that illustrates or supports what she’s writing about. This article is good enough to make hunting for this back issue worthwhile.

 

Advice For Child Writers...And Their Parents And Teachers, Too.

"My mother thinks I should be published."

I have had an awkward moment or two when I've been in schools and had teachers ask me how students can get their work published. I have to say, "I don't think students should be publishing." I did say awkward, right? A few years ago, I was in a school where kids told me their parents said they should be getting their writing published. That left me speechless, because we were in an auditorium where I felt it would be inappropriate to say, "Yeah. Your parents are wrong." It would probably be inappropriate for me to tell a fifth grader that anywhere.

Now I can refer people to a wonderful article by Jane Friedman called Writing Advice for Children and Teens. She covers many great points that I have often thought about, myself, and includes the words "Instead of publishing..."

Perhaps I'll create a student writing section at my website. A link to Friedman's Writing Advice for Children and Teens could be the only thing there.

The Weekend Writer: Theme And Climax

Last month I did a Weekend Writer post on theme, directing you to material on the difference between subject and theme and theme being about meaning. 

Today I’m directing you to K.M. Weiland’s post What Is the Role of Theme in a Story’s Climax? at Helping Writers Become Authors. This is something I’ve never thought about. Not for a moment. I’m probably the only writer in the English-speaking world who didn’t get much from Robert McKee’s Story, which Weiland refers to. However, she raises some interesting and potentially helpful points.

• Theme makes a story more important than just what happens in it. 
• “If your theme is a question, then the climax is the answer.” Sometimes theme is a question. Is there such a thing as a just war? for instance. Is there any hope that we can do our jobs and connect with other human beings? (I’m thinking Tana French's Dublin Murder Squad  books with that one.) How should we live our lives? (Saving thePlanet & Stuff) If your theme is a question and you want to make the climax answer that, it seems as if that would be extremely helpful.
• It would be helpful because, Weiland says, “Creating a thematically sound climax involves much more than the climax itself. In order to create a climax that resonantly answers your story’s thematic question, you first have to build an entire story that asks the right question.”  Meaning, I think, that if you know your theme, and you have a climax in mind that will support that theme, you can build the rest of the story upon that. 

This is dependent, though, on knowing your theme. Many times I’ve read about writers who said they don’t know their themes until the book is done. I certainly didn’t give any thought to theme with my early books.

Theme can’t help you during the writing process, if you don’t know it at that point.

 

The Weekend Writer: Why You Should Consider Writing Short Stories

How often do you hear people talk about wanting to write books? How often do you hear people talk about wanting to write short stories?  Suzannah Windsor Freeman explains why writers should be thinking about working in that shorter form in How to Get Your Short Stories Published in Lit Mags at Writer Unboxed.  The big point to consider: published short stories help to establish you as a writer.

A Few Added Thoughts About Writing Short Stories

• Don't think of short stories as short novels. They are a specific form of writing. Do yourself a favor and do some research.

• Don't expect short stories to be easier to write than novels. They are faster to write because they're shorter, but not easier.

• Don't 't expect short stories to be easy to sell.

 

Renewed Interest In Short Stories?

Now that I've covered the Debbie Downer stuff, here's something a little more promising: Short stories are supposed to be experiencing a resurgence. In the eighties and nineties we were seeing fewer of them being published in mainstream, nonliterary magazines, which meant fewer markets. That's probably still the case. However, there are enormous numbers of on-line publications now, some of them quite well-regarded, that are easily accessible to readers. Some of them even pay writers for their work. (Not all on-line publications do.) Additionally, I've read that readership for short stories is growing, possibly because readers feel pressed for time. Short stories are what they have time for.

Creativity Or Creativity

I began this quilt top (for real, marking, cutting, sewing, not just thinking about it, which began last year) at the end of January. I finished it today, four days before my self-imposed deadline. There's still more to do to finish the whole quilt, but I got as far as I planned to get when I planned to get there.

Why am I mentioning this here? It relates to a post I'm doing on Tuesday, and a post (or something) I hope to do at some point comparing quilting to writing. Because, seriously, an empty work counter is a lot like an empty word processing file. And reaching a point like the one I hit today feels a lot like finishing a draft.

A Little Summer Training

I know many people think of summer as a time to do nothing. It always makes me want to do a little something special. For work. Something special for work. Here are a couple of opportunities.

On-line

Nerdy Chicks Rule is running a Kidlit Summer School through its blog. They describe it as a "blog-centric event ... focused on craft." Just yesterday on one of my Facebook writer groups the issue came up of writers responsible for childcare trying to work in the summer when school age children are home. The Kidlit Summer School uses the marketing line "Are you looking for a way to keep writing through the dog days of summer?" Okay "dog days of summer" relates to the hot weather in July and August, but that coincides with kidcare, right?

While I know nothing about this particular project, I've enjoyed other short-term on-line programs I've taken part in. (A four-week willpower program, for instance.) This might be worth a shot. I think I'm going to register.

In Connecticut

Artist and picture book author Julie Phillips will be doing a one-hour presentation at Woodbury Public Library on Tuesday, July 14 at 7:00 pm. This is a program on writing and illustrating picture books, and registration is required. Did I mention that it's only an hour?

The Weekend Writer: More On Dialogue And Tagging

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote here about dialogue tags, the little bits in a piece of writing that indicate someone has spoken. Author Martyn V. Halm discusses some additional ways to deal with said and tagging in WRITING: Dialogue and the 'Said' Rule.

Also, in The Seven Deadly Sins of Dialogue, pay particular attention to Item 2, Impossible Verbing.

I caught both these articles at a Writer Unboxed Facebook discussion, by the way.

The Weekend Writer: Dialogue Tags

I haven't done a Weekend Writer in quite some time. This week, though, I stumbled upon this post on dialog tags at Page Curl Publishing and Promotion. No idea, noooo idea how I find these things. But dialogue tags can be a problem for new writers, and this Page Curl post makes some good points. Thus, a weekend writer post.

Rule 3 is of particular interest to me. "Dialogue tags aren't a place to break out your thesaurus." Indeed. Fancy synonyms for "said" are distracting. On the other hand, if you've spent much time reading out loud, you know that the repetition of "said," all by itself, becomes distracting, too. This is one of the many cases in life where one must find a happy medium.

Also, it usually isn't necessary to describe how something is said. "...said happily..." "...said sadly..." "...exclaimed in despair..."  Try to show the way these things are said rather than tell your readers about it.

No New Stories, Just New Writers' Reactions

Last Wednesday I had to do some baking--New Year's Eve and all--and while I was working away at that, I listened to a terrific podcast of Colin McEnroe's radio show. In Connecticut, McEnroe is like...like...well, maybe our James Thurber, a James Thurber who writes for the local big city paper and Salon and is on his second local radio program. He's all over the place. I, myself, have been to two writer festivals at which he appeared, and he and my son sat at the same table at a Christmas party this past year. I'm not kidding you. The guy is everywhere. Probably everyone in the state has had a McEnroe sighting.

Anyway, the podcast he did on December 3, Why We'll Always Need New Books, was terrific. His guests were Brian Slattery, Lev Grossman, and Ruth Crocker.

What Was Said

Many juicy things were said during that program. I'm going to focus on three:

• Are our lives stories?
• Are writers' books an attempt to explain their lives?
• There are a limited number of stories. So most writers aren't dealing with new material. It's how they react to the material that can make work different.

 

Hurry Up And Make A Childlit Connection, Gail

A lot of children's lit is...um...well, repetitive. New and different isn't a huge issue in children's literature because there are always new readers coming up who will find this year's book about the quirky small town girl surrounded by eccentric adult characters and maybe a dog new and different because they weren't reading the quirky small town girl surrounded by eccentric adult characters and a dog book from last year and the year before and the year before that. And publishing, particularly children's publishing, is like TV and movies. If something does well, the way the Georgia Nicolson books did a decade ago, there will be dozens of copies.

There really are a limited number of stories in children's literature.

I think The Meaning of Maggie by Megan Jean Sovern is a perfect example of what McEnroe was talking about on his program when he said that while most writers don't deal with new material, how they react to their material can make it different. The autobiographical Meaning of Maggie starts out with a stereotypical childlit situation. A clever, spunky girl is beginning to keep a journal and is dealing with a parent's tragic illness. But Sovern's reaction to that material is what makes it different, and her reaction is all about her life's story. She is, indeed, explaining her life to us.

So I guess maybe writers should ask themselves if there is something in their lives that can bring something new to whatever story they're thinking about writing.

The Joy Of Day-To-Day Work

Norah O'Donnell was interviewed for the November issue of More. Missed it, did you? At the very end of the article, she was asked a question about how she sees her future. She said, "...I guess one of the things that I still struggle with to this day is that focusing on the expectation of something is actually never fulfilling. Focusing on the day-to-day work is much more so. And then you end up falling into your goals anyway."

So true, so true.

Fixating on the big sale that's coming up, the conferences we're going to attend, the speeches we're going to give...no. That kind of activity, if you even want to call it activity, rarely leads to a big sale, a conference, or a speech. It's the day-to-day work that does that. Focusing on that leads to those other things or something like them.

If you can enjoy the day-to-day work, focusing upon it becomes not just easier but sort of the point. And then you don't have to deal with the lack of fulfillment from dwelling on what might happen in the future.

This whole live-in-the-work-moment thing may be part of my problem with the holiday season. I actually like focusing on day-to-day work, dragging my laptop all over the house and peering into it. I like planning and researching and struggling to work out what I'm doing wrong. When I've had to be away from work for a few days for family or house issues, wrapping presents and baking on a weekday (baking on weekends is another thing), getting back to the day-to-day feels like the beginning of a vacation.

Scenes May Make Everything Different

I'm working on the eleventh draft of a middle grade mystery because you just can't write something over too many times.

I'm paying attention to scenes this time around, inspired by Rachel Aaron's 2k to 10k: Writing Faster, Writing Better, and Writing More of What You Love. I never gave any thought to scenes in the past. I just wrote. Was writing like that a good thing? A bad thing? Something you can only do for a while?

Let's put that aside for a few minutes, or months, or years.

Anyway, what I've been seeing is that in some chapters I have material that doesn't appear to be part of a scene at all. It's what I'm thinking of as narrative connector. And I'm finding that I'm not that crazy about a lot of it. Look at this stuff, I keep thinking. It's just hanging here.

I'm cutting some of it down and moving some into existing scenes. It's kind of fascinating.

Time Management Tuesday: How Much Time Do We Commit To A Project Before Accepting It's Not Working?

You may recall that I blew the better part of a month on a piece of flash fiction I still haven't finished. I have written flash fiction before, and I know it took me a while to write it. But my recollection is that I worked on it now and then over a long period of time while working on other things. It didn't keep me from other projects the way last month's short story did.

Several years ago I heard a couple of writers leading a workshop on nonfiction say that they determine how much time they'll commit to getting a new project started before they get going. I e-mailed them to ask if they'd like to elaborate on that. They didn't. This past week, I threw a question out on this subject at Facebook. Again, no one wanted to discuss how they decide to let a new project go or at least put it aside on simmer.

I would like a formula, an equation that I can plug numbers into. Something very linear. (I did a little research on linear and nonlinear systems for that 1,000 word project.) 

The amount of time I put into this story, which I can't even name because it doesn't have one yet, made me feel I needed to put more time in so I wouldn't have wasted all the time I'd already used up. Just a little bit more, then I'll get my payoff. Hmm. Does that sound like gambling? In the meantime, I was loosing a big chunk of the time I'd wanted to use on the project I'd made progress on during May. I'll be on vacation a large part of September, so that stinks. I also was drifting away from the new writing process I was working on in May. This was all for a 1,000 word story that I had no market lined up for. If I had been able to publish it, it might have ended up being with a publication that doesn't pay.

Now my work provides a very small portion of our family's support. But there are writers out there who have to generate income. They can't use their time like I used mine last month.

I had a flashfic obsession, and others could tell. My husband used the word in relation to my writing behavior and constant discussion of the story. Now that it's over, I feel confident that in some point in the future, I'll finish that piece and be able to submit it. But I also feel I should have been able to get to that point with a normal work method.

Knowing when to lay off may be a matter of knowing. Without the knowing, I'd like something else to push the Put It Away Button.