Carry On

If there's one idea I constantly push on this blog, it's that in order to succeed, you need to be able to fail. Even more than that, you need to be able to fail with grace and acceptance and then learn from it. You only truly fail when you give up and allow that failure to prevent you from going on. Or even worse-- allow that failure to define you. It's good advice that I love to shout from the rooftops.

Only this time, I'm the one who needs to hear it.

I've been on a bit of a slump lately when it comes to writing. I touched on it in a post last month but I figured since it's St. Patrick's Day and all (you have to know me to understand this reference) this would be a good day to elaborate.

Don't worry; I'm not going to spend the rest of this post on a "woe is me" diatribe. No one wants to read that and, quite frankly, I'm not the type of person to write that.

What I'm going to do instead is acknowledge some of the reasons why I'm feeling in a slump (reasons that are under my own control, by the way) and figure out my game plan for fixing them.

I think the biggest reason I've been losing patience with my writing is that, well, I've been impatient with my writing. When it comes to writing fiction, no one is an overnight success. No one. Even writers who haven't received hundreds of rejections before getting there still had to spend years writing, learning, and perfecting what they do. It's been said a thousand times, but writing is a marathon, not a sprint. Now it's time for me to remember that.

I've also been looking at rejections the wrong way. I've got a lot of stories pending or shortlisted that have been out for a long time. These also happen to be the stories that I've put the most work into and they comprise of about half of my pending short stories.

The other half are the ones that I rushed to get out there. While they may not be not bad stories per se, they also may not be as ready as they should be. Because of that, I'm seeing rejections on a more frequent rate. And as much as I say, "Don't let the rejections get to you," I've been letting the rejections get to me. The solution is pretty simple though: slow down and really look at the story. I need to stop looking at revisions as nothing more than proofreading, and really fix what's wrong. In some stories, I'm even aware of the flaws and have just put off fixing them. As a writer, that's unacceptable behavior.

So it's time to get back on track. One definition of resolve is to make a promise to yourself and keep it. Today is as good a day as any to renew that promise.

And for me, that promise is to stay positive, keep writing, keep learning, and keep sharing.