Skip to main content

Keeping It Real

Since those of you reading this don't know me, you'll have to take my word for it.  I'm not an arrogant person. In fact, I tend to be very hard on myself and undervalue what I accomplish.  Still, I do think a lot.

I often wonder about writers who think a lot and how they make believable characters who don't.  This may be why I have trouble finding publishers—although my characters aren’t Mary Sues, they tend to be smart and tend to think things through.

In my head I know that many people react on impulse and don't think of consequences.  Would crime be an issue, for example, if people thought through the likely outcome?  I have trouble turning it off though.  When my characters do something illogical it tends to be extreme.

Bipolar isn't likely an accurate description, but I do tend to be depressed a lot and very happy at other times.  I find that I write better when I'm depressed, probably because it's a form of therapy.  When I'm down, however, I can't think of why anybody would do something illogical.

It's when I'm in a good head-space that I can think of the subtle things that would be interesting in the context of a story.  I have trouble writing, however, when things are not bothering me.



Don't get me wrong, I write every day.  In some form or other I put time into my craft.  I have to soldier through, no matter how I feel.  But I'm not sure how other people do it.

This seems to me the dilemma of the writer.  I don't talk to other people on a regular basis.  I don't get to ask them how they would think through a situation.  Worse yet, the people I do talk to don't know that I write.


Writing alone is difficult.  I'm stuck in my own head.  Still, I can't write in a crowd.  Perhaps this is the writer's ultimate dilemma.  We have to live in at least two different worlds.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Dusty

  My, this thing is dusty.   My fans—hi, Mom!—perhaps believe me to have perished in the pandemic.   No, it was nonfiction’s fault. Since the pandemic began I’ve had two nonfiction books published and have written a third.   With a nine-to-five job something’s got to give.   Unfortunately it’s been fiction. Well, the groundhog didn’t see his shadow yesterday, so it must be safe to come out.   I shuffled away the rejection notes and began submitting again.   I’ve got a backlog of weird stories and maybe some new publishers have emerged? The thing is, don’t you just hate it when you’re in the mood to submit and some lit journal has its window for submissions firmly shut?   My last story, “ The Hput, ” was published about three years ago.   Oh, I’ve submitted since then, but with no traction.   Well, it is winter. I’ve got a lot of stories lined up.   I’ve been sending them out again, dreaming of making a dime at what I love doing best...

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.   ...

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...