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Understanding that I can't do all things writing, and accepting it. |
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The front door is open and the sounds of laughter and lyrics sung by my neighbors pleasantly invade my plans for the evening. I have a loose to do list in progress. All the things I’ve imposed on myself to do tonight, the “gotta do’s”, are forced to take their places in line. I want to write, and as I think about this, I realize that I have some strong notions about writing. Barriers, if you will. What I mean is, this sample here, you may call it a blog entry, an essay, thoughts, prose, something, well, I could write this all day. I want to write story though, I want to write it, submit if for review, and I want to write a lot of them. But I can’t. First, short story writing is not my forte, but I’m practicing like crazy … at least with one story. I wrote the draft, the story that I had to get out of my head – and now I’m working it as if it were clay. I’m in the throes of the first rewrite, and in comparison to the draft, it is hard. The rewrite challenges me to show (which I’m also practicing), say exactly what I mean, use the right words, and make it clear. I’m trying not to labor over it too much, but I am. The third rewrite is just an extension of the second where I’ll go back in and cut out some of the words, smooth it all out and go on to the next. The fourth rewrite works individual sentences that I remove from the paragraph by either placing them on index cards, or triple spacing sentences in a document. I’ll focus on each sentence making sure that it leads to the next, is saying what I want it to say, is grammatically correct, and reads smoothly. Then I’ll bunch the sentences and paragraphs back together. Of course, the next step is to review and amend. I prefer to let it sit for a day or two, and review later. Then, maybe I’ll submit. It takes a long time, but I’ll produce story I’m happy with, or decent rewriting copy. Being an active member of WDC is a pleasant experience for me. There’s so much to do, and so much that I want to do. I literally have to restrain from entering contest, or becoming active with new groups because I can’t keep up. In a writer’s real life, writing activities may include writing the short story, blog post, reviewing, contests, groups, emails, lists, journal entries, forum entries, answering questions, new ideas, and let’s not forget the novel. Who has the time? I marvel at the writer who has multiple writing projects, and can juggle other writing activities. I prefer working on my novel at the exclusion of all else, and only taking a break to write emails and personal journal entries. My interest in writing short stories and even a Blog are simply things I’ve wanted to do, so I’ve imposed them upon myself. But deciding what do, when to do, and how much time to spend on each continues to plague me. The current manuscript is my life, and it’s what I’ve been writing on for the past two years long before joining WDC. Of course, I won’t give it up, but I realize that this business of writing short stories is only possible if I let go of the idea of writing lots. So, I’m deciding to submit quality over quantity. I think that’s going to work for me. In a way, I’ll actually be writing more, which is what I want. This has to be what others are doing; they’ve just been doing it a long time. I can continue to write my thoughts in prose; it’s the easiest form of writing. It will satisfy personal submission goals and it contains many of the elements that I use in story. It’s great practice. The front door is closed. The sounds of a coffee shop, white noise, powered the creative juice. I think I will do something totally random, now, like, clean the kitchen. P.S. What if I'm not a storyteller? This is what I'm going to write about next. |
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