Another cross posting with the group blog- Seven Sassy Sisters.
I’ve decided not to stress about subbing this year, after spending most of September getting anxious that it’s three quarters through the year already and I haven’t actually subbed a single thing yet.
This year I want to make my submissions the best I can before I hit send or put that big airmail envelope in the post. I’m making this my year of learning, instead.
Last year was a rush of crazy, all-over-the-place writing and premature subbing to four different lines, which scored me loads of rejections and a load of potentially interesting half finished stories.
Premature subbing is very like premature ejaculation. Just like PE, it doesn’t leave anyone feeling very satisfied, and there are several possible causes.
There’s the aspect of performance anxiety, making sure the main event is over before it even begins. Sub first draft and I never have to worry about my very best work being rejected. I know what I subbed wasn’t my best. I can keep on being a coodabeen. I’ll also never need to worry about my writing catching an editor’s eye.
There’s the aspect of being so focused on the end result that the process is rushed through in the race for the finish line. I want to be published, if I don’t sub I can’t be published, therefore lots of quick-fire subs will increase my chances. Uh… no. Not if I’m subbing dreck.
There’s plain old self-doubt, not believing and trusting I can sustain a full story, so I get it over with quickly. Lots of first chapter contest entries mean never having to deal with developing conflict, getting through the saggy middle, going right into the emotional pain of the Black Moment, and crafting a satisfying ending. The pressure is off, straight away. So much easier to keep it quick and superficial, jumping from first chapter to first chapter to first chapter.
So this year, I’m taking it slower. Forgetting the goals. Focusing on learning and on digging deeper into the story. As Anna said in the last post, the learning never stops.
I’ve been doing loads of workshops. Developing one new story and three older stories. Figuring out character arc and what makes for good romantic conflict. Trying to get a grip on story structure.
Of course, carried too far, it can be a fun new improved version of procrastination, with far more glow of moral rightness than playing computer games or ebay shopping in my computer time.
Waiting to start the story until I have the character arc and conflict figured out just right, when I know sometimes that stuff only becomes obvious when the story is underway? Filling out endless forms and charts and graphs about the story, kidding myself I really am writing when the word count stays stationary? Holding off on subbing that partial or that contest story until it’s perfect, absolutely positively as good as I can get it which means doing that additional workshop and that one more pass through and…. never submitting a thing?
Like everything else in life, there’s a balance here. Somewhere between 90 seconds and 90 minutes, somewhere between impulsive premature subbing; and holding back working and reworking a story that never gets subbed at all.
I know I have a load more craft to learn, I know that subbing first draft is NOT the way to do it, but I also need to know when enough is enough. When this story or that chapter are not yet perfect, but as good as I can get them for now and worthy of subbing.
The fine art of knowing when enough is enough. Of trusting that we are enough.
So, how do you know when you have it right, when it’s enough, when the story is “there”? How do you balance the need to learn and the need to do and the need to simply be?
Image from art.co.uk
