A Story a Week in 2013

Not every story will be a butterfly, so write more stories!

I have my ongoing writing goals and a queue of story ideas waiting to be written so I was debating wheather to come up actual resolutions this year. But the fact is, I kinda like making resolutions, even if only 10% stick, I figure I'm still in the black. Then I read Chuck Wendig's post pooh poohing the anti-New Year's resolutioners:

"This is of course the time of the year when frowny-faced naysayers tell you your resolutions are stupid and why are you waiting till today to make them and keep them, as if your today must conform to their today, as if your decision to evolve or change or Do Something is somehow offensive to them. It’s the same cynical thing you hear at Valentine’s Day — “I don’t need a day to buy flowers for my wife,” they say, which is true, but of course they probably don’t buy flowers for their wives on any other day anyway."

And that sealed it!

Not only am I going to make resolutions. I'll tell you about them so that you, fair reader, can hold me accountable. First, be sure to read the rest of Wendig's short, inspiring rant here.

Then on New Year's day, I stumbled upon Jay Lake's great essay where he gives his own four rules of writing:

1) Write a story every week.

2) Finish everything you start.

3) Don't self-critique while you're writing

4) Work on one thing at a time.

I think I'm ready to step up my game to produce a story a week, so I've decided to participate in Write 1 Sub 1 This year.

I am modifying this challenge since while I think writing a story a week is achievable, I agree with Lake that not all those stories will be keepers. So, I am resolving to write (i.e. finish) one story a week and to submit two stories per month allowing for a 50% success/failure rate. It will just about double my submission numbers which were closer to one per month last year. I like how Lake looks at his stories as inventory with the point being that you want lots of inventory.

I'm going to keep up with my daily freewriting with a timed piece of true free writing and a timed piece that is a story exercise from one my my many prompt books, games, apps, etc. This represents about 20 - 40 minutes of warm up activity - what any good athlete or musician puts in.

I will still be blogging every Thursday and might even post a flash story or three. 

Saying Yes

Say yes to the broccoli bolting, wild and free.

I imagine that yes is the only living thing.

~e. e. cummings

Last week I talked about no, but obviously, we cannot live by "no" alone. To create worlds worth visiting, you have to be equipped to travel to strange, unknown lands and to carry back a story. To create a character worth knowing, you must crawl inside someone else's skin and look out from his/her/its eyes. How do you gain these near magical powers of creative intuition? By saying yes, here in the world. Our world. The one filled with traffic delays and laundry, stubbed toes and kid's tantrums. While you're busy sopping up sticky melted popsicles and pulling weeds, remember to say "yes."

Say yes to what life throws at you, the great days and the awful days.

Say yes to the dear friends and the difficult people.

Say yes to the thoughts and feelings that frighten or bewilder you.

Say yes to your daydreams. 

Carve out a little real estate in your head where ideas can grow into stories. 

Say yes to what if... or else... and then...

Say yes to what is difficult to witness, hard to understand, and impossible to express.

Say yes to this moment. This one. Right now. 

Say yes to company, and then say yes to solitude

Say yes to play, actual play, Frisbee, tag, wrestling on the living room floor, 

and then sit down and say yes to the work.

Say yes to the "shitty first draft."

Say yes to the work of revision.

Say yes to finishing and to sending the story out.

Say yes to the rejection, the acceptance, the misinterpretation...

And finally, say yes to the next story because it can't wait to be told.

Saying No

image by Wayne White

"It comes from saying no to 1,000 things to make sure we don't get on the wrong track or try to do too much." 

 --Steve Jobs BusinessWeek Online, Oct. 12, 2004

This one's going to be short as I've got a draft and a couple revisions going this week. Yet, sadly I'm not even saying NO to my weekly blog, but neither am I saying YES. I guess in my half assery I should more accurately title this one "Saying Maybe."

I have always been interested in just about everything. I love embarking on that long, gently sloping learning curve of a new craft/foreign language/art form/scientific discovery -- I could go on. I truly enjoy being a jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none. This unbiased curiosity is well suited to the writing life where half the fun is imagining characters, their loves, their jobs, and the worlds they live in.

But it's dangerous when combined with the ubiquitous encouragement that many of us have heard, also known as "The American Dream." It goes like this: "You can be anything you want to be." Great, right? What a world we live in. And we do, and you can, but you have to understand about "anything" because that kind of freedom can be a real albatross around your neck. I think it would be better to say, "You can be any ONE thing you want to be."

Okay maybe two. I think I can say that I can be both a mom and a writer. And it's my daughters who can take the credit for helping me figure this one out. When you first have a baby they take pretty close to ALL your time away. And while children are amazing, and the time freely given, it's hard. Saying yes to my girls means showing up as a parent. Being there for them. And with every step towards independence they take, I get another ten minutes back to do ANYTHING with. This time I'm on to you "anything," and the one thing I choose to do is to write. So, no to the half knitted second sock, no to learning Russian, no to yoga (though yes to commuting on my bike).

In the end, of course, it's more complicated than just saying no. It's a constant balancing act, a dance with yes, maybe and later, but that's a post for another day.

Resolute

Onward, to the future.

 I like the idea of resolutions, although I suspect it's just a subcategory of my love of lists. I've decided to take a little different tack this year. Here's a version of what I wrote in my Journal on January 1st.

• I resolve to accomplish more this year than last year, BUT not astronomically more.
• I resolve to stop dictating unreachable goals and impossible schedules to myself. You know the ones that only serve to discourage and scuttle any chance of accomplishing anything. (I think it is reasonable to write and submit one story a month this year which fits nicely with Write 1 Sub 1's monthly challenge.)
• I resolve to LEARN my own habits by observing and recording my work patterns in a writing calendar. I'll do this in order to discover my own best method for bringing work from idea to draft, through revision and critique, and into to publishable form.
• I resolve to stop saying, I will "FIND" time to write, and only say, I will "MAKE" time to write as I have NEVER found any time laying around.
• I resolve to conquer that short but challenging walk to my work space: To say YES  to the work. 
• I resolve to forgive myself for the days where writing doesn't happen, and to move on without guilt.
• I resolve to to recognize my loving obligations to my family, and to use the time I DO make for writing well.
• I resolve to always do my best work, and to make my writing better through practice.
• I resolve to be more open and free, to cherish and grow new ideas by saying YES to the world even if saying yes makes me feel vunerable or awkward or means that I might risk embarrassment.
• I will put my work out there by submitting at least 12 stories this year.
• I resolve procrastinate LESS (not that I will no longer procrastinate, baby steps).
• I resolve to reach out to my fellow travelers, specifically via this blog, and by regularly attending my local writers' group.
• I resolve to look up and meet this curious world's gaze.
• It's going to be a good year.

To blog or not to blog, that is the question:

Whether 'tis a nobler use of my time to update
The web or Facebook with my daily musings,
Or take aim against a sea of distractions,
And by opposing them: to sit, to delay
No more; and write a story to "The End."
An hour's denial of the thousand tasks
That each day is heir to? 'Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To click to view,
To post perchance to comment; Ay, there's the rub,
For in the blogoshpere, what time may slip,
While we scroll through pages of witty opinion,
Must give us pause. Is it my online presence
That makes a Calamity of my deadlines?
No! I will bear the Whips and Scorns of lost time
To grunt and sweat under a weary pen, toward
My undiscovered Country, from whose bourn
I as traveler bear back stories and posts.