These last few years seem to be an exercise in jumping out of the health frying pan and into the fire. Some of it is probably sequela of the enormous stress of 2020 and the fact I was apparently committing suicide by altitude for 30 years.
But some of it comes — as in any good plot — from my attempts at solving the problem. The latest health issue comes from meds for asthma where I had the usual “very unusual near lethal side effect.”
The sequela of that is that I haven’t been sleeping. While I like goofy Jane Austen fanfic as much as the next person — okay, probably more than most people, duh — spending the night awake reading it is really bad for my ability to write, or… well, function the next day.
When you have the sort of day when you have to talk yourself into taking a shower because it’s so much effort to stand there for fifteen minutes and actually wash yourself, you know you’re not going to have your most productive day ever.
However… stuff is getting done. Slowly. And the health thing is improving, even if with setbacks.
I no longer have the arid feeling that I had for ten years, and the worlds are alive in my head. Now I just need to be rested enough to keep my head on one task for more than ten seconds.
Look what I’m trying to say is “mama said there’d be years like this.”
Just because you hit a rough patch doesn’t mean you’re done. Sometimes you fall from rough patches into rough patches.
And sometimes all you can do is crawl forward very slowly.
Just keep moving.
Here’s a secret from someone who’s been doing this professionally for a quarter century (Lord, I’m OLD) sometimes the stuff you think it’s your worst you read later, and you figure out it’s wonderful.
You can’t really evaluate how well you’re doing when you’re not functioning well. And often you can do your best work while impaired, because you are just concentrating on “the thing”.
You can’t tell. Heck you can’t even tell if you’re fully functional. Because you’re writing from inside your own head and — quoting M. C. A. Hogarth — all writers are cracked.
It can drive you nuts. Don’t let it drive you nuts. Just do it and trust.
Hey, all the big guys, all the writers you love, the people who kept you together growing up? All of them were here where we are. They also didn’t know if they were writing pure gold or crap.
So. You have to trust. Schedule a break down once a month. Sit down, think you’re the most terrible writer in the world and eat a ton of ice-cream for an entire hour or so.
And then get back to writing. You have to trust.
Maybe what you’re doing is terrible. Or maybe people just haven’t discovered it yet.
Maybe they won’t discover it for years after you’re dead. And you’ll never know in this life.
And maybe only one person will find your work, but will love it so much it saves their lives. Who knows?
If you have a need to do this thing — I get really depressed when I don’t do it — then do it.
And trust.
Mad Genius Club 
12 responses to “You’ve Got To Trust”
Sometimes for the rough patches, nothing but music will do.
Huh.
If I had heard that intro without seeing the title, I would have asked “Is this some Final Fantasy? It sounds like something Nobuo Uematsu would have written.”
Oh yeah. I’ve found revision works to …. Sabbaton? What even?
Makes sense to me. You need strategy! Tactics! And a thirst for blood!
(Red ink on the page, whatever.)
Oh yes! I’ve submitted things I wasn’t at all sure about, and editors loved them.
In late spring I hit a dry spell, earlier this week likewise, for Life reasons. I shifted gears and plugged away at a short story for someone. I’m still not sure that it is what the editor wants, but I’m giving it a try, and we’ll see.
Oddly enough, it tends to be the stuff I’m ten seconds from hitting “delete” that get the MOST response. Stuff that’s edited, polished and tight? Hardly a comment. Stuff that’s tossed off in a half aware haze, smashing that post button and dashing off to something else- its the half drunk with lack of sleep written thing that gets reviews.
What’s really weird is where I get some reader raving about some old thing I wrote a dozen years ago that they just discovered, and I go “huh? I wrote that? What the *expletive* kind of *expletive* was I on then?”
I’m halfway thinking about publishing a bit of the shorts that have piled up. Dozens of short stories that haven’t been published yet. Some crap, some that need cleaning up, most that need editing. Eh. Maybe I’ll work a bit on it in between brushing up on the epic that Dr Z is turning into.
*patches up her cracks with pure gold like a Japanese potter*
You do. You do.
You’re a kintsugi writer.
The only way I know how to write is to write and don’t edit until I’ve gotten most of the way through.
Maintain momentum. If I can’t figure out a particular plot section, I put a note to review and make it easy for me to come back and fix it later on. Avoid trying to get the perfect word, just write. Fix everything as much as I can later on.
When the centipede’s dilemma hits, everything starts to back up.
Yep. Hard to keep momentum when life keeps throwing you roadblocks. But then you just got to put your shoulder to the wheel and make more momentum.
I would rather get a cement drill, some C4, and blow holes in the roadblocks.
Just for giggles, you understand.