The Confabulator Cafe

Tag: deadline

  • The Dead Lines Crossed Off

    http://cdn.be-your-change.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/confidence.jpg
    Yeah, confidence is buried in there somewhere. Just has to be unearthed from the pile of insecurities. 2013 is about capitalizing on that.

    Oh what a year 2012 was. In November 2011 I wrote the best thing I’d ever written and I intended to get it edited and submit it for consideration to publishers.

    I did that.

    I’m not talking about resolutions, I’m talking about what resolving to do that did to me.

    There’s this theory that I have talked about in the past in other places about how everything is built on the simple concept of The Line: a connector between points A and B or S and T or whatever you want them to be. Once humans started connecting things we were fated to do things like write with pictures then letters or numbers. To build things with branches and stones, to connect one corner to another with a line of materials and then to keep building on those lines.

    A Wandering Line is a connection that’s not made or that veers off away from point E to points unknown or undefined. A Dead Line is one that terminates before it reaches the intended connecting point.

    Prior to 2012 there were a number of Dead Lines in my writing career. I have to acknowledge that some of those missed connections (aw, jeez, who’d’a thought I’d make THAT reference?) were simply from the fear of making that connection. Those Lines might, indeed, have died but at least they would have been natural deaths instead of just sort of falling off a cliff, dragged by a huge hairy wolf made of fear.

    I’m talking about rejection.

    No one wants to hear that their work isn’t ready or good or anything that isn’t positive.

    But I’m not afraid of that rejection any more. Not at all. I’ve gotten several “thank you but no” emails after submitting short stories and I got one very nice “I like it but it’s not ready” note.

    But I made those connections. Those points were joined and now they have to be built upon.

    I got there by having the time to spend on the novel, making the effort to revise the thing and make it better.

    So how have I changed as a writer this year? Quite simply I’ve identified some glaringly obvious (now they’re obvious) problems with my work and made myself better. Hopefully I’m good, but I’m definitely better than I was when I wrote that novel that I’m so proud of.

    That “I like it but it’s not ready” note wasn’t at all troublesome. In fact it increased my resolve to continue the Line that would take me from enthusiastic amateur writer to published author.

    2013 is the year of having the confidence to build on those Lines, make the connections, and get to the next point. It’s time and I know it. So improved writing skills and the confidence to keep after it are the major changes for the year.

    I’m looking forward to making the connections that will allow me to garner readers. Then building on them to define a universe that pulls you in.

    And crossing off those Dead Lines and not worrying about them any more.

  • For every work there is a deadline

    On a typical day in the writing life, I might stumble into my home office, where several motivational NaNoWriMo posters and offbeat art cheerlead my efforts from the walls. There, I set up my laptop on the cluttered desk.  I notice it’s cluttered, mutter something about fixing that at some point in the future, and attempt to carry on.  I turn on some appropriate music (something that vaguely promises a revolution now, or a pleasant female vocalist).  Then I realize that I’m thirsty and go put the tea kettle on for hot water.  I open up a new document, type an opening sentence and delete it a dozen times, then hear the tea kettle screeching at me.

    After I brew a perfect cup of tea, I change up the music.  Adjust my desk chair.  Contemplate de-cluttering.  Survey other projects that are not getting done.  Set an alarm. Realize that the fragrant tea is not engraving a brilliant novel on the computer screen–I have to do some chiseling.

    But who do I fool?  I try to set up routines, carve out space each day for writing; but it simply does not work.  Wave a deadline in front of my face, though, and the words wend their way to the page. There are some drawbacks to this reality:  the less sleep I’ve had, and the closer the deadline, the longer my sentences become, labyrinthine monuments to unfolding thoughts that gleamed with the spark of fools’ gold in the early morning light.

    For good or for ill, though, deadlines are the magic that make me write.  This is why I like NaNoWriMo so much; it is no respecter of routines, effective or otherwise.  It breaks into my life, forces me to write at gunpoint, burgles some of my time back for a novel.  I also appreciated semester’s end at school for similar reason.

    The other part of routine that I do find effective is changing locales.  My home office is great, but deciding to go out to a coffee shop to write makes it seem more like a scheduled activity.  Alas, even with specific cafes I find myself slipping into routine activities and standard beverages that help me avoid writing.   So I must be promiscuous in my routine, changing place and caffeine catalyst constantly lest the anti-muse of distraction catch me.  The anti-muse and I are old lovers; only in hiding, shape-shifting, teleporting can I hope to evade her!

    Fortunately, there are a lot of coffee shops in Lawrence, and she seems to forget them quickly.  Hopefully she won’t notice that I’m cheating with a deadline now!