Skip to main content

Resurrection




Persistence.  A great concept, but a harsh lover.  Writing is a delicate creature, easily crushed by changes in its preferred ecosystem.  I’ve been reminded of this ever since the dreadful event that I entitle the annual time displacement.

Daylight savings time had a practical origin in an agricultural lifetime.  Of course, our society has changed radically since then—so much so that there would be no harm in staying on daylight savings time all year long.  To creatures of habit that one extra hour’s sleep in the fall doesn’t compare with the hideous, persistent weeks of uncontrollable yawns in the spring.

I’m an early morning writer.  Since I’m not one of the privileged few who gets paid for my efforts, writing has always been an avocation.  Avocations are not viewed favorably by employers, so they are pursuits of personal time.  I think most clearly in the hours before dawn that I jealously guard from others.  I do not want to share my 4 a.m. with anyone but my imagination.

Then the annual time displacement.

Waking up feels like burning.  My eyes are glued shut and even the stoutest coffee I can manage won’t cut through the fog to allow the writer to find pen and paper.  After an hour all that is left to be shown is a few incoherent lines and a raging desire to go back to bed.  This is one of the cruelest fates in store for writers.  And that’s saying something.

Weeks have passed since the displacement.  I still fight for every nanogram of consciousness.  I live to write, but now I’m forced to grapple with jaws locked open and eyelids smashed together.  The violence is intense.  I want to write, but I have to work.

It is time for writers to unite against our natural enemies.  Without routine, writing time suffers.  Yet that very breaking of routine provides new experiences, and new experiences inspire writing.  If only I could stop this damned yawning long enough to get the ideas on paper.

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Patterns

  There’s a pattern I’m noticing.   For fiction publishers.   Even if you aim low you’ll find it a struggle.   Part of the reason is the pattern. Lots of websites list publishers.   The smaller, hungrier presses either eventually close or get to a place where they require an agent to get in.   That’s the kiss of death. Although my stories have won prizes, and been nominated for prizes, I can’t get an agent interested.   I’ve queried well over a hundred, so the agent route is one of diminishing returns.   This too is a pattern. Back to the smaller presses.   I check many lists.   What I write, you see, is highly idiosyncratic.   It’s literary but it’s weird.   Publishers don’t know what to do with it.   If a smaller press published stuff like this, I’d find it. The pattern includes writers who never get discovered.   Ironically, a number of editors of fiction literary magazines (mostly online) tell me they enjoy my wor...
Post a Comment
Read more

Creative Righting

  Rejection of my writing is a rejection of my imaginative world.   That’s why I was cheered by the acceptance of one of my stories this week.   That makes number 31. I’ve been working on a lot of fiction lately, even as nonfiction book number 6 is going to press.   The ideas are still there, and bizarre as ever, but publishing venues just aren’t welcoming. The other day I had lunch with a professor whose wife is also a professor.   She just had her first novel published, and so he pointed me to her indie publisher.   I went to their website to learn that they’re closed to submissions.   I have to admit that my latest accepted story, “Creative Writing Club,” was probably given the green light because I know the editor.   That seems like a pretty dicey way to get any notice, doesn’t it?   You have to know the right people even in the low circulation world. My fiction is difficult to classify.   It’s got speculative elements to it.   ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Maybe Okay

  A couple pieces of encouraging news, perhaps, dear struggling writers.   I had a couple short stories accepted for publication in recent weeks.   As a fellow writer recently said, “You've got to keep trying.  Somebody will like what you wrote.” That’s a bit of sunshine.   And it’s likely true.   But the stories:   “The Crossing,” about two men in a boat trying to cross the Atlantic, was accepted by JayHenge Publishing.   JayHenge is a small, but paying publisher.   I was flattered when they wanted it for their Masque & Maelström: The Reluctant Exhumation of Edgar Allan Poe anthology.   Being associated with Poe in any way feels good. The second story, “St. Spiders’ Day,” had been brewing in my mind for years—yes, this is a long game!   A friend pointed me to The Creepy podcast.   Since the story hadn’t been written, I followed their guidelines of what they wanted.   It worked. I recently heard a successful wri...
Post a Comment
Read more