It shouldn’t take any reading between the lines for you to know that I’m not particularly enamored with the end-process of writing lately. Yesterday I got a rejection saying my story was too plot focused. I can’t win. I write things that don’t have enough plot. Now I write things that have too much plot. I feel like giving up.
So I am. For January at least. I’ll keep working with my online writing group (my FtD-peeps, you know who you are!) and I’ll write a plot outline for my wolf children story. But other than that, I’m just going to read books and make some soap (I ordered ginger ale fragrance oil and will make some ginger ale smelling soap.) I might play Nethack and watch a lot of Netflix. But I think I’m done with writing for at least January.
I knew writing would be hard, but I never thought it would be this hard. I thought I would just go along the way I was in 2013, small magazines, online ones, new ones, but that wasn’t the case for 2014. I don’t have much hope for 2015 either. My writing is better than average (over the entire six billion population of the world) but lower than publication level right now. So I’m going to step back.
See you fiction-writing in February!
(I’ll still write book reviews and random writing thoughts here. Don’t fret. I won’t vanish forever.)
Comments
I’m certainly glad you (and your writing!) are not vanishing forever, but taking a step back for this month sounds like it makes sense. I’m sorry that trying to get published is the pits, and that writing as a way of life is even harder than you imagined. Enjoy your reading and your soap-making and your wolf-children-story outlining! (man, I really need to watch that movie…)
Author
You can watch Wolf Children online. That’s how we did it. My story isn’t really Wolf Children as much as Wolf Children inspired, or basically, theft.
Thanks! I found it, I watched it, I cried like a baby. It’s a beautiful story.