Gritty-Eyed Lunatic

Your correspondent is a tired creature this cold and frosty morning.

This woman is not me, but I look somewhat similar at the moment.
Image: makeup.lovetoknow.com

This is despite the fact that fatigue drove both me and my husband to bed at a fairly early hour last night, and both of us (unusually) slept right through, dead to the world, until the alarm rang at 6:15 a.m. I suspect it may have something to do with the fact that we’re having the coldest Easter weather since 1960-something; just living, without actually even exerting yourself, is costing more energy than normal.

Maybe.

Or perhaps it has to do with the fact that I made two submissions yesterday, three if you count the ‘Wednesday Write-In’. One, to be entirely fair, was extremely short – a piece of ultra-flash fiction – but as anyone who’s tried to write a story like that will probably attest, it can be harder work than writing a full-length story. I loved doing the work, and when I was stuck into the middle of it I wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere else, but – sometimes – when it comes to the day after, and you feel like you’ve been hauling rocks, and your eyes feel like you’ve tipped sand into them, and your brain is weeping, you wonder why you allowed yourself to get into such a state.

I’ve been here before. I know that allowing yourself to get over-tired impacts negatively on the following day’s work. I know. But I still do it. When the siren-call hits my ears, and the words start singing to me, there’s just nothing I can do. One of my stories yesterday is about a man who has an unbearable compulsion, and who can’t control his reactions to a particular stimulus; I wonder, now, if I wrote it because that’s how I feel when it comes to writing. Sadly, the story doesn’t end too well for the character. I hope I don’t meet a similar fate, but whatever may be facing me, I have a feeling I’ll walk willingly into it.

There are at least two more submissions I want to make before the end of March, and I’m hopeful I’ll be able to come up with something suitable for the particular magazines I have in mind. That’s the beauty (as well as the terrifying thrill) of submitting your work to magazines, or indeed anywhere – not only are you taking a chance on whether the editors will like your work or not, but you’re also trying to hit the mark when it comes to the artistic vision of the magazine in question. Occasionally, it can be a bit out of your comfort zone, and you find yourself thinking in different terms to normal. This isn’t a bad thing from a creative point of view, but from a stress point of view it can sometimes be tough. However, I wouldn’t have it any other way. Stretching your mind creatively is a wonderful thing; getting yourself to write in genres and styles to which you’re not always accustomed is a wonderful thing. Even if the submissions don’t meet with approval, I’ll have ventured into newness, created a story out of it, and lived to tell the tale. And how could that possibly be bad?

I have a busy day ahead, not only with writing, but with other life-stuff, so I shan’t detain you much longer. I hope I manage to stay upright when I venture outside and don’t end up skidding all over the place – but it would be nice (if a little weird) to get caught out in a snowstorm again, as happened to me the other day. Here’s hoping everything I need to do today gets done, and that I break ground on these new submissions – and that I build in a little bit of ‘down-time’ for my poor old brain.

Hope your Thursday’s going well, and that you’re happily fulfilling your brain’s creative needs. Just remember to tell it to shut up once in a while.

Image: indie-visible.com

Resolutions

Today, I’m going to force myself to do some stuff. I’m not talking skydiving or getting a tattoo (not that those things aren’t wonderful, and all that), but I’m talking submissions. Yes, my friends. My burning compulsion to submit my work for publication, and to competitions, has sort of flickered and faded in the last week or so, and I need to stoke it up, double-time, lest it extinguish altogether.

Better to keep it lit than try to relight it…
Image: per-oculum.com

I’m terrible for second-guessing myself, and for letting my doubts get the better of me. This tendency balances its opposite – my ability to be rash and impulsive, which is not always a good thing either – but there are times (like now) when my fearful, careful nature outweighs the go-getter side. There are two stories in my arsenal which I’d earmarked for a particular literary magazine, but I’ve still not sent them. I keep tweaking and changing and telling myself ‘no, let’s not bother. Maybe you just can’t write a suitable story for this place. Never mind.’ This is despite the fact that I know the stories are as good as I’m going to get them, and they’re reasonably good stories, and they’d suit the ethos of the magazine. All this logic, though, seems to be irrelevant to the worrywart between my ears.

I guess, then, that just breaking through the fear barrier once is not good enough. It somehow manages to rebuild itself while you’re off doing wonderful things with your time, and almost before you know it, it’s back up and ten times scarier than before. You have to keep breaking through it, and keep breaking through it, and keep… breaking… through it.

Wonderful.

Taking the giant step, and pressing that ‘send’ button on my submission, seems harder this time than before. Maybe it’s beginning to seem real, now. I found out yesterday that I’ve had a story accepted for publication in a second literary magazine, which is fantastic of course. But I guess my brain took the news and went: ‘Huh. So, this means all this writing malarkey isn’t just a dream or, you know, something you’re doing to pass the time. It’s actually something that you need to do, and want to do for the rest of your life, and it’s going to expose you to scrutiny and judgement, and open you up to all sorts of dangers, and make you vulnerable, and… No. I can’t have it. Sorry, but it has to stop here.’ I can imagine my brain pursing its lips, folding its arms and fixing the rest of me with a beady glare. ‘Not on my watch, young lady.’ (I’m sure Freud would have a field day with this image.)

So, you see why I need to make some resolutions. I need to:

1. Keep sending work (when it’s ready, of course) to literary magazines and competitions;
2. Be more selective about listening to my brain;
3. Protect the flame of ambition from the guttering winds of self-doubt (prithee);
4. Nurture my love of writing and refuse to allow fear to choke it;
5. Realise that if I’m rejected by a publisher or overlooked in a competition, that it doesn’t really matter.

So easy to write. So hard to actually do.

It’s funny how dreams get really scary when they start to work out. I know I’m not exactly on the Booker Prize shortlist just yet, but even getting over the speedbumps of small successes is a little disconcerting. My post ‘Dangerous Dreams’ a couple of months ago talked about this feeling, too – the sense of terror that can come over you when you meet with the smallest of successes, or the tiniest hints of validation, or the barest crumb of confirmation that yes, you’re on the right path. Maybe you know things are working out just as they should if you feel this terror – it’s like the way a cut or abrasion begins to itch as it heals. It’s an irritation, and it seems wrong, but it’s a sign that everything is going right.

Clearly, it would be much more difficult to build up confidence again from scratch than just to salvage the bit I have left. This means, of course, getting those two stories primped up, wearing their Sunday best, their faces scrubbed and shiny, and then sending them on their way. If they come back stamped ‘Not For Us’, then that’ll be fine. There will be another home for them. I have to keep breaking down that wall of fear when it’s still small enough to be knocked over with ease. If it gets tall, and strong, and thick, and covered in ivy, then it’ll take me another twenty years of hacking to get through it.

So, my resolutions today are: to send at least two stories away, either for publication or to a competition; to write at least one more; to find time to do a little reading, and to encourage my brain to take a holiday. Not so difficult, wouldn’t you say?

And naturally, I’ll be keeping an eye on that Wall of Fear, making sure to give it a good kick every so often.

Happy Friday, everyone.

 

Going With the Flow

It’s another cold day out there, but luckily not as bad as yesterday. It’s even beginning to brighten up just enough to look enticing, but it’s definitely a winter woollens sort of day, all the same.

Not that I can actually wear woollen gloves next to my skin, but you get the idea…
Image: scotweb.co.uk

Today, a lot of things are on my mind. I’ve been trying to pin down a topic for my blog post for the last hour or so, not sure of the direction I should take today. My mind’s been racing from one image to the next like my head was an old-fashioned movie projector, but eventually I realised that maybe that was what I should write my post about. Being kind to yourself on days when your brain just refuses to sit still, or co-operate, or function the way you want it to.

Yesterday, I also found my brain acting like this, and I gave myself such a hard time about it that I drove myself into a bad mood. I kept berating myself for not being able to function at 100%, so much so that I ended up standing in my own way and impeding what I was able to accomplish. I’m learning that when you’re the only person you have to get you (and keep you) motivated throughout the day, it’s really important to be on good terms with your brain. I’m not sure why my basic reaction when I don’t have all my cylinders firing first thing in the morning is to be angry with myself, but it’s the truth. So, it’s something I need to work on and help myself out with.

We all have days when things don’t go our way. Some days everything is so easy and effortless that life is a pure joy, but on other days everything we turn our hand to is a struggle. I know this is true – and not just for me – but it’s so easy to forget it. I tend to get so frustrated with my own slow reactions and fuzzy thinking on those hard days that I end up convincing myself nothing is worth the effort, which means a slow slump into unproductivity. This in turn means more chastising myself, which means the work I do produce is wrung out of me with ten times as much effort as it should have taken. It’s a completely ridiculous situation when I sit down and work through it in words. It’s a bit like shackling myself to a boulder and then expecting myself to run a marathon, and kicking myself when I can’t do it.

Fitted sheets are my nemesis. But I’ve learned to live with the fact that I will never be able to fold one. If only I could extend this to everything else in my life!
Image: imgur.com

It would be so much better to work with your brain and not against it at times like this, wouldn’t it? To be gentle with your thought processes and try to listen to what your brain is telling you. It will lead to better productivity, as well as better mental health, because struggling to accomplish something you just can’t manage at a particular point will (at least in my case) lead to total mental strangulation. Which isn’t, as you might’ve guessed, a lot of fun.

Yesterday, I managed to write three pieces of flash fiction, as well as my blog post, and draft an idea for a fourth short piece. Because I’m trying to build up a body of work for submissions, this is important work for me. Perhaps that’s the reason why my brain tends to freeze when I try to do it, and why I react with such frustration when things start to go wobbly inside my head. But the point is, I still managed to hit my target, despite doing my best to hobble my own efforts. I know I can do the work, but it would have been accomplished with a lot less strain if I’d just taken it easy on myself.

Is this a problem for other people too? I hope I haven’t come across as a total crackpot in this post! I have a feeling, though, that this process is one which will sound familiar to a lot of people; something else I’ve learned in recent times is that you’re very rarely alone when it comes to struggling with certain things. My resolution for today is to go with the flow of my brain, and let it set the pace. I’m going to listen to it and let it give me ideas for my short pieces, instead of treating it like a galley slave and whipping it until it produces the goods. I’ll let you know how I get on!

Happy Tuesday – I hope all is flowing perfectly for you today, whatever you’re doing.

Imagination

Well, good morning.  I’m feeling a bit better today – a little bit stronger, a little bit more settled.  I hope the writing will flow a little easier today.  The going has been slow for the past few weeks on my WiP, partly due to the fact that I’ve been distracted by real life a little more than normal, but today I hope I’ll have a focused day.  *crosses fingers*

I’m thinking about imagination this morning, perhaps due to the fact that both my husband and myself had extremely detailed – and remarkably similar – dreams last night; we both dreamed about natural disasters, oddly enough.  In his case it was a volcanic eruption, and in mine it was a landslide, which I could ‘see’ as clearly as if it was happening three feet away from me.  It started me off thinking about the human brain, its capacity to imagine and dream, and how or why we place limits on our minds, sometimes.

I’m engaged in a battle with the climax of my book at the moment.  My characters are right in the middle of one of the big showdowns, and as I was writing yesterday I actually kept thinking ‘I can’t write that.  It sounds ridiculous.  I have to scale that back a little, surely.’  I caught myself doing this just as I had come up with something really interesting – and something I’d certainly never seen or read before – and it was enough to bring my work to a complete stop.  It was like I’d reached an impasse with myself.  My creative brain wanted to forge ahead and write this idea to its fullest, but my logical brain scoffed at it, almost as if it was afraid to break new ground, and decided it wasn’t happening.  I still haven’t resolved this argument, but I think I’ll revisit the issue today and hope my creative brain is a bit stronger than it was yesterday, and better able to stand up for itself.

This morning, after my husband and I realised we’d both had amazing dreams, I started to think again about imagination, and the freedom involved in letting it loose.  I wondered, too, why I’d stopped myself using my imagination yesterday.  In my dream last night, I surfed down a landslide as if it was a wave and I was a champion surfer, and my ‘rational’ brain had no objection.  It was all pure imagination, pure creative brain, and it felt wonderful to let it loose.  When it comes to writing, though, I regularly feel as though I’m urging myself to hold back, to explain everything, to make sure everything ‘makes sense’, to take care, to go slowly… it causes me great stress and anxiety, sometimes.  I’m all in favour of just writing, getting the story out, and then going back to ‘fix’ things later – I just can’t seem to do it myself.  I got myself so wrapped up in knots a few weeks ago trying to sort out some of the technology being used in my fictive world that I nearly drove myself to drink.  It didn’t occur to me for days that this is my world: I created this place, and it can run whatever way I want it to.  When I did finally realise that, it was as if I’d been allowed to take a deep breath after weeks of wearing a too-tight corset.  Once I’d given myself that freedom, the scene started to work as if by magic – I sorted out the technology, it was all fine, and the work proceeded easily.

You’d think I’d learn from that experience, but it seems not.  Here I am doing it to myself again.

So, I am going to learn from my dreams today.  Let your imagination run free, and see where it takes you.  Remember that writing is supposed to be fun.  It’s supposed to be about creativity and self-expression, as well as the challenge of creating a story and a world that ‘works’ and holds itself together.  I need to remember the bits about fun and creativity – the rest, as I’ve seen, will follow on naturally.  It makes sense that allowing your brain the freedom to breathe creatively will help your work – I just keep allowing myself to forget that part!

If you’re writing (or even if you’re not), good luck with whatever your brain is trying to get up to today.  And remember – your brain knows more than you think!