Fear
Fear has been the topic of the last couple of letters exchanged between Theresa and myself. What is fear? Why do we let fear hold us back?
I read “10 Ways to Harness Fear and Fuel Your Writing” by Sage Cohen in Writer’s Digest September 2011 issue. The sentence “Fear exists to keep us safe” stood out immediately to me. The natural “fight or flight” response uses fear to encourage flight and protect us from pain. A close friend of mine said fear is useful for survival situations, but beyond that it can be harmful and keep us back.
So why do I have so many novel ideas but seem unable to finish them? I have a vague idea of the plot and know how to listen to the characters if the plot happens to change. I have multiple scenes and ideas for each, even written over a hundred thousand words for the one, but I can’t seem to get myself to sit down to finish a nicer draft. Fear of what, exactly?
I’ve always done well in school, so naturally I picked up attempts to be perfect with the highest A’s in the class. But another comment in the article is about fingerprints and how they are unique. Instead of striving for perfection, strive to be unique and an accurate representation of yourself.
It’s certainly something I’ll have to try.
Apologies/Updates
Sorry for my absence this past week. My access to internet has been sparse due to a (hopefully) broken ethernet. With a remedy on the way, it’s nice to get out of the heat and curl up with a book. I am still in the process of reading “Nine Stories” and “The Perks of Being a Wallflower,” but I did finish “Dead Reckoning” by Charlaine Harris Friday afternoon. My favorite moment included a flying milk jug.
Also in the past week I’ve received two rejections for poems I sent out. There’s still hope for them because I’m going to send them elsewhere. I picked up the latest copy of Writer’s Digest magazine. More to follow in the next couple of days.
Grow as a Writer
Today I found seven old short stories and reread them. It was interesting to see my growth from fall 2009 to fall 2010. I cringed at one I wrote in fall 2009. Never will I mention that story again except as an example of how not to write a short story.
And I noticed a pattern. I use magnolia trees often, and there’s an element of magic realism in two of them while the others are basic literary fiction (like what a new writer would write.) My use of incorporating details is evident while there were obvious points in the narration. Those were easy to cut once I recognized them.
Point being, you need to grow as a writer. What’s the point of starting a new project or trying to fulfill long-term goals if you’re not improving? I’ve definitely noticed that my writing has gotten better every semester, but I will continue to grow if I strive to do better with each piece I write or revise.
Short Story
The short story I mentioned July 4 in the post “Adventures and a short story” is finished! At least a first draft. The word count is 3800, the longest short story I’ve written to date. I’ll come back to it in a couple of days and revise it.
Poetry versus Fiction
Whew. That was a long week.
Yesterday I researched several literary magazines for submitting my work. If you aren’t already familiar with www.duotrope.com, you should definitely check them out as a source to help you discover markets for your work. They have been immensely helpful with my journey to navigate the Internet and find magazines. Plus it’s fun to see what other people are publishing and discover new work to read.
Besides submitting, I didn’t get much done but I can say that I did continue to write every day, which has been one of my goals this year. Every year I choose a word to dominate my goals for the year. Like 2008 was passion, 2009 was improving, 2010 was writing, and 2011 is writing and publication. No harm in having two words this year.
Under each word is a smaller list of how to achieve these goals. For 2010, I chose to write at least 200 poems, explore different poetic forms, and write four short stories, to name a few. Last year I wrote 254 poems from January to December. And I met several of my goals, including the ones I named above.
Since writing is still my word of the year, I kept the goals that fit last year for this year and adjusted as necessary. So far I have written 619 poems. I mostly write short ones, so that explains the numbers. But also, I think about 85 to 90 of those poems are worth revising for potential publication. The rest are experiments for future poems (or stories—more on this later) or a way to release and understand my emotions or explore images.
It’s funny that I don’t consider myself either a poet or a fiction writer. I write both, so I am both. They influence each other. If a short story of mine is struggling to develop or I run into a snag, I’ll turn to poetry to see the story in a new light. As if it were magic, the story picks up. I work through the snags with this method to find if something in a story feels off or a revision is suggested but I’m not sure how to address it.
Point being, find a system that works for you. If I struggle with a story, I’ll turn to a poem. If I struggle with a poem, I’ll turn to fiction. This is my method for my current writing life, and if in the future it becomes necessary to change this part of my process, so be it.
I still fight with myself that I have to be a poet or a fiction writer, so I made a long-term goal. If I don’t have a novel published in the next eight years, I won’t attempt to write another word of fiction, even if it will help my poetry. I’ll devote the rest of my life to poetry.
I have a lot of novel ideas floating around my head and it would be a shame to not share them with the rest of the world. So I’m trying to finish my third novel. The first two novels are in a drawer and will not be attempted for a while. Until I fail my novel publishing goal, I’ll write poetry and fiction.
Adventures and a short story
Happy 4th of July! I hope you all have a great holiday.
Yesterday I took some adventures with my family to Fort Meigs and the Toledo Museum of Art. I’ve been to Fort Niagara and Fort George in the past. Some of the demonstrators said that women had to be married to live in the fort and if their husband died, they had to remarry within a certain amount of time. Interesting, huh? So I began thinking of a story about a woman living in a military fort during the War of 1812. I’m going to do some research and see how this story develops.
At the Toledo Museum of Art I did my usual ekphrasis poetry. Ekphrasis is basically art in response to art. When I went to California this past March, I wrote lots of poems based on pieces at the San Diego Museum of Art, the de Young Museum, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. I’ve been to Toledo’s museum before, but I wrote poems inspired by different pieces than I’ve done previously.
This morning I worked on a short story I started earlier this summer. One of my favorite parts of the writing process is to see how a story grows and changes into the final product. At points in this story I didn’t know where it was going, like driving in the dark without headlights (which I don’t recommend in real life!) I’m pretty happy with how this story is coming along. It’s not finished, but I have two thousand words so far.
Suzanna and Writing 