The Spaz As Writer

I think I mentioned before that I'm juggling way too much shit. The sick thing is I sort of like it.

I finished story 120 almost three weeks back. I normally tell you guys the titles of the stories, but I'm on the fence about that now. I'm probably being stupid. It only matters if editors are reading this blog, but hell, no one is reading this blog. I could post my social security number here and it would be pretty safe. See, the thing is, if an editor is reading this blog and they see that the story I sent them was named here ten months ago, they can reasonably assume that I've already shopped it around to a couple of other places, therefore it's been rejected by other places and the current editor wasn't actually number one on my list. But openness is supposed to be the wave of the future isn't it? Transparent business and all that? The World Tree House. There. I said it.

You might have thought that I was going to be writing a story a week this year to achieve my 52 in 2010 goal. I probably thought the same thing as well. For about half a second anyway. What I've found though, is that if I crank out a story in one week, it's not terribly good. The main thing it lacks, in my opinion, is resonance, the bit that's going to stay with you after you walk away from it. To get the magic resonance, I need to write a first draft, then leave it alone for a while. Then I need to write a second draft and leave it alone for a while, and so on. My subconscious mind needs to chew on it and so when I sit down to rewrite, it gets considerably better. Where I really get cranking is in the final drafts where it's just tweaking and polishing. So what all of this means is I'm going to be doing all of my first drafts early in the year and all of my final drafts late in the year. I'll look like I was slacking for months and then had this incredible burst of productivity near the end of the year.

Right now, I've got one story completely done (see the second paragraph), I've got two first drafts done, I'm working on about ten other first drafts and I still need ideas for thirty-nine more stories. Insane? Hell, yeah! But this isn't really terribly different from how I normally work. I always have loads of stories in production at the same time and I jump from one to another as the mood strikes me. I've got a really short attention span, so this is what I do.

If you're fucked up, or outside of the norm (and we all are in one way or another) don't try to fix yourself, because you probably can't and you'll just drive yourself crazy on top of everything else. Instead, shift your life around so it works with your particular issue and ignore the rest of the planet. If you're a lefty, don't struggle to play a guitar like a righty. Turn that guitar the other way and play it like a lefty. Put your freak flag up, Jimi! That's my PSA for today.