When I graduated from SHU, almost a year ago, I was really hyped up on doing all the right things, taking all the right steps and getting my writing career off the ground. So I made a little list, and it looked a little like this:

Write short stories and submit them (read: get published)
Make a website
Make a reading/writing blog
Read a lot, classics, genre criticism, fantasy simultaneously
Rewrite novel
Fix synopsis
Get an agent

These items are generally arranged in the order that I would ideally complete them, but I didn’t expect it to necessarily to go as planned.

And this are the writing related things I’ve done since I graduated June 2009:
Created a website
Created a reading/writing blog… but it’s really boring
Written 3.5 stories
submitted 2 of those stories, both rejected
read 4 fantasy novels
read 1 folk tale collection
0 literary
Made a list of agents to submit my novel to
Critiqued a lot of other people’s work

Not too bad right? I’ve at least attempted to do most of the things on my list…Well, Yoda said “do or do not, there is no try.” So, I’m going to get a little more focused “doing” now.

What I need to do this summer:

Read more…learn to speed read?
Revise both rejected stories and re-submit
Finish partial story and submit
Rewrite novel and submit to agents

So hopefully with this spelled out right here, I can keep myself on track and get a foothold in my writing.

Currently Reading:
Fantasy: Little, Big – John Crowley
Scholarly: Wizardry & Wild Romance, A Study of Epic Fantasy – Michael Moorcock
Writing:(I’m slacking here

Submissions out:
Flash: 0
Short: 0
Agent: 0

I seem to have a weakness for creating short story length plots for characters I spend any time on creating. It is now the 11th of March, and I have no plot for my wizard character. I’ve tried ditching the character and finding new ones and spending less time on development and more on plot. But my brain is not budging. Wizards are not inspiring me right now. For that matter neither are Witches or Sorcerers. I’m trying to hard and stifling my creativity.

Adding to the pile, as I work on my outlining skills I realize that I am not very disciplined in crafting stories on demand. I can do it, but nothing I come up with speaks to me, or has an ending. The stories are boring and I don’t get excited enough to write the thing.

Maybe I just need to write the story by outline and see what happens. Doing so will help me feel out what I am doing with outlines verses characters.

At this rate, I don’t think I’ll make my deadline on March 31st. Hmm… maybe no Internet for a week if that happens?

Currently Reading:
Fantasy: Little, Big – John Crowley
Scholarly: The Mabinogi – Patrick K. Ford
Writing:(I’m slacking here)

Submissions out:
Flash: 0
Short: 0
Agent: 0

I’ve been busy and regrettably not as much with reading and writing as I’d like… GUILT…

I have been feeling a little burnt out with everything. There’s been drama at work, drama with my apartment, travel and taxes. I’ve been so busy with work since the holidays I’d even taken time out from my local writing group, Rocketship Unicorn, and skipped this year’s Boskone. Much Sadness.

But now, work has calmed down and I’ve ironed out many of the wrinkles that have cropped up recently. So I’ve said enough. Enough wishing, enough wasting time. I’m back to doing and getting things done. Finally getting back to my writing group last Wednesday really helped. We’ve changed the format a little and I think it was a great change. We’re actively working instead of waiting for work to come by. Everyone was really energized about it and it just felt great to talk about writing to writers again.

I recently got a peek at Jeff Vandermeer’s blog and one of the lines on it has impressed me greatly. “I’m not online tomorrow.” Meaning he’ll just be working on writing, not reading e-mail, surfing or reading blogs, or posting blogs, or sending e-mail. “Oh, my,” I thought. “Just imagine how much time I’d save, how many more words I could write if I limited myself like that.” When I think of actually doing it, I think that I can’t possibly not check my email every day, not read my blog list, not chat with all my distant friends and check up on facebook’s feeds. This, to me, looks like I’ll need to change my lifestyle a little to fit my priorities, to accomplish my dreams.

I’ll end this with some writing updates. I don’t have any page counts, but I can say that I’ve written one story, a cyberpunk about the Ark of the Covenant that I got ‘shopped in my group. I look forward to revising it and submitting that soon. Other than that I’ve been brainstorming on two other stories that I just can’t pin down.

My next deadline is March 31st for an anthology called “Way of the Wizard” edited by John Joseph Adams. I have a really great character, now all I need is a plot. Looks like I shouldn’t “be online” tomorrow huh…

Currently Reading:
Fantasy: Little, Big – John Crowley
Scholarly: The Mabinogi – Patrick K. Ford
Writing:(I’m slacking here)

Submissions out:
Flash: 0
Short: 0
Agent: 0