Day #9070 - Onward!

Hey, you little blog of mine. Hey, you awesome readers. I've been neglecting you. Again. And I'm sorry, so here is me trying to make up for some lost time.

The last few weeks and months have been crazy for a lot reasons and in a lot of ways, most of which I am not going to share with Internet because A) not relevant and B) boundaries, people! What I can say is that at least the juices have been flowing when it comes to story ideas. Some of this has been great for output over on Stories by SaM, but a war was waging in my head between two bigger concepts that I've had for a while.

Unable to figure out which to pursue, I thought that especially since it's summer I could be ambitious and try both. What resulted was two outlines: one took me almost a week to get out, but I was less sure it was really right with each passing day. The second one I churned out in less than a day. It was six pages long and that wasn't even getting into detail. This goes along with the lists of characters I've had brewing along with a map I drew up.

Yeah, you heard me. A map. This is serious.

Needless to say, I'm going to give this story my full attention with the other one going into the proverbial drawer along with the others I've had over the years.

Now is the hard part: the actual writing it. I love and hate this part, which is pretty normal for writers. Having an outline and lists and maps is great, but I'm only a writer if I'm actually writing. So wish me luck as I venture into this one. It's a genre I've never considered writing before and an idea I never would have thought could have come out of my brain, but that fact excites me more than it scares me, which I hope is good.

Also on the calendar is the ALA Conference in Chicago Thursday thru Monday - if you will be there, let me know! I'd love to meet people =)

Day #8944 - On Doing it Anyway

Isaac Asimov, a notable science fiction author, once said, “You must keep sending work out; you must never let a manuscript do nothing but eat its head off in a drawer. You send that work out again and again, while you’re working on another one. If you have talent, you will receive some measure of success - but only if you persist.” 

It’s a sentiment I really like on the whole, but I’m not going to lie: that last line sort of eats away at me. It is my greatest fear with this dream I have with writing and now video making, that ‘if you have talent’ part.

Because the first part, I have got down. I keep on posting on my various blogs, even when my view count has inexplicably plummeted in recent months. I keep making videos and trying new things which is a lot of fun, but still I don’t have a very large audience or reaction. I keep  working on fiction, lately trying my hand at short stories and again, having a lot of fun trying, but who do I share them with when I have no agent or ‘readership’? Could it be Mr. Asimov was right and that maybe I just don’t have the talent?

It’s a question I can’t answer, and I’m not sure if anybody can. The rejection letters seem to imply I do not have talent, but I’m not ready to admit defeat just yet. So I’ll keep blogging and filming and writing. Even if for no one else, even if it’s just for me, I think that counts as some measure of succes in that I’m taking on my fear of failure by simply, simply trying. By doing it anyway, I succeed.

Though if you want to comment and subscribe and all those other fantastic things, I’d be really appreciative of that, too. =)

Day #8590 - Taking a Leap of Faith

Hey there, original blog of mine! Did you miss me? I know I've been incredibly neglectful as of late (and that's putting it lightly), so allow me to fill in some of the gaps as far as my writing adventures are concerned.

....
....
.... yeah....

It's been going that well. Or really, there's been that little time. I know, it's a poor excuse, but there it is. Between work, two grad school courses (one of which ends next week - hallelujah! My degree will be all done come May), and starting up my book review/ramblings blog last fall, I kept finding new reasons not to work on my own writing when I did manage to have a little time here and there.

In a word it comes down to one thing: fear.

Grappling with this manuscript of mine and all of my many hopes and dreams for it are the closest thing I know so far for what it must have been like when my parents sent me off to college. This story is my child, my baby, and I want nothing but good things for it. I've painstakingly worked it, given it to a few others I trust along the way to help me shape and mold it, and now it's time for me to find it a place where it can continue to thrive and become the best possible version of itself before going out officially into the world. I need to find an agent who loves it as much as I do and wants to see it succeed.

But then come the doubts. What if it's not ready? What if I'm not ready? What if I'm blinded by my love for it but it is actually a festering pile of crap that no one has had the courage to admit to my face because they know I've worked so long and tried so hard? These thoughts plague my mind as I work on query draft after query draft, trying to find the right words, but the thought that I should be focusing on is the one that always manages to get smaller and meeker: what if it's great?

To query and take that next step requires a tremendous leap of faith, not just in your story but in yourself. I'm not a glass half empty person, but I have accepted that there's a very real chance that I'll get nothing but rejections. It happens. In the meantime, I have started work on a new story in the last week that has been growing and growing in my mind and in the margins of my notebooks for quite a while now. And I also have my NaNoWriMo draft from last year that I could revisit if I so choose. There are plenty more stories to be told and to try my hand at; I just have to believe in myself and that things will work out in the way they are meant to.

So happy leap day, blog readers of mine. I hope your February 29th has been a memorable one and I can't wait to see what life is like the next time this mystical, wonderful date comes around again.