Knowing You Can’t Fail

I’m not doing a blog post every day now, but I still want to keep up with the time I spend writing and what I’m up working on.   

6/1 – Today I editing a Short story for “Tales from the Crust” a pizza-themed horror collection. Worked 2 hours and 32 minutes   

6/11 – Wow, I didn’t mean to take that much of a break!  A few days sure, but not 10! I started a training class at work last week which has cut into my time. I’ve also been working on some important personal projects.  This past weekend was Fringe Festival, one of my favorite events, which kept me from doing any writing but did inspire me. I love personal monologue style plays. I should do something like that someday.  

I have a submission deadline in a few days and I’m not sure what I want to send  This publisher requires that all pieces have QUILTBAG+ content. I have a lot of unpublished stories which fit that requirement. However, I always want to write something new for every call.  I know this is because it’s the writing I really enjoy. If I were to write something new I could put off all the hard, boring and self-esteem hurting stuff. If I use a piece I already have then I go straight into looking through my stories, reading old stuff, editing, finding someone else to read/edit, and maybe the hardest part, actually submitting. All that stuff sound totally “ick!”.  

I know that writing a new story is a bad idea when I only have 4 days until the deadline. Also, it just makes more sense to submit things that are already done.  I have too many unpublished stories, that represent maybe hundreds of hours of work. Work that no one else has read. I write because I enjoy writing of course, but also because I want other people to enjoy reading it.  

After checking in “finished stories” I think I have two contenders.  One is dieselpunk and the other is horror. This place doesn’t want reprints and the horror one was sort of published before, so I think the dieselpunk one will be the most likely choice.  I’ll read it tomorrow and see how I feel. I’m not sure how overt they want the QUILTBAG aspects to be. How important they want that aspect to be to the story. In most of my stories with queer characters, their queerness isn’t the driving force of the story.  They are people who just happen to be queer, much as being straight or cis isn’t core plot points in any of my other stories. I assume all my characters are bi and somewhere on a gender spectrum because I’m bi and somewhere on a gender spectrum. In fact, I just assume that about everyone unless you specifically tell me otherwise.  

I started reading “The Artist’s Way” today,  but I’m not sure I will be able to do this. The way the writer speaks reminds me a lot of the schizophrenic people in my family. Constantly referencing God or “Creator” is something I associate with harmful, abusive people.  Talking about how successful and amazing you are and then tacking on “but the real thanks goes to God” just turns my stomach. I find that having absolute faith in either a deity or yourself is very off-putting to me. I am willing to admit that not being totally certain of my greatness has held me back,  sure. I don’t think I’m anything special. There was a time when I did, but then I worked really hard to distance myself from the deluded members of my family. Now with a firmer grasp on reality, I can see my weaknesses.

If I thought I was some amazing gift to humanity, given by God him/herself to enlighten the world would I be a successful writer?  Is ego the key to creating good art? Do you have to believe you can’t fail in order to succeed?  

Total writing time 1 hour 16 minutes.