Skip to main content

Connectivity

 So, I try to post every weekend.  I’m in the middle of a new novel—well, wait.  I’m at the beginning of a new novel, and I have three promised non-fiction papers to finish.  Then after that, back to fiction.


I didn’t post last weekend, however, because the internet went out.  Actually, it was my modem that went out.  Hard to believe that in this day and age it takes 48 hours to get a tech to fix something so damned essential, but that’s the world we live in.


I tried to get some writing done since you don’t technically need the internet to do it.  It didn’t work.  A weekend without the internet and with no way to post on my beloved blog.  What’s a struggling writer to do?


Come up with ideas, that’s what.  My best ideas come up when I’m doing something unrelated to the actual writing I live for.  Taking a walk.  Taking a shower.  Driving.  At least on the taking a walk option I can write things down.  Or I could if I took my notebook.





As a working writer, I walk fast.  It’s still too dark around here to get my walk in before starting work.  So I take a quick break around lunch and walk.  I walk fast and I don’t stop.  It’s often some of the most inspirational time during the week.  I come home repeating story ideas that I don’t want to forget, rushing for a paper and pen.


I don’t take my notebook because I’m pressed for time.  I often muse that it is just this very time pressure that makes creativity flow.  When I commuted into New York daily, I had very little time and when I stopped commuting the ideas seemed to have dried up.  What is it with creativity and pressure?


I think my limiting my walk time is a way of building pressure again, like an InstantPot on legs.  It may not work for you, but when you have no internet, perhaps taking a walk is the most creative thing you can do.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Working Through It

  The thing about being a working writer is you don’t have time.   Between working nine-to-five and trying to eat and sleep, and write, of course, the week is shot.   Weekends are spent doing the errands that you can’t do during the week. I should probably have known better than to join a local writers’ group.   Their meetings, although only once a month, are all-day affairs on a Saturday.   I generally don’t have all day Saturday to spare.   I work all week and I need groceries and the occasional Target run.   And I haven’t yet learned to go a week without eating. This is actually the third writers’ group I’ve joined.   One was not too far from home, but not terribly helpful.   They met on Saturdays, but in the morning only.   Nobody seemed interested in what I was writing, so I stopped going. The second one was about an hour away.   They also met on Saturdays.   Their big thing was having lunch together after the meeting. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

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

Creativity

  Maybe you’ve noticed this too.   When you step away from fiction writing for a while, your creativity becomes flaccid.   I’ve had to step away from this blog for a while because I was writing my sixth nonfiction book.   God, I’ve missed fiction! Now that I’ve entered that phase of waiting for publishers to respond, I’ve turned my limited writing time back to fiction.   I submitted a couple of stories this week and am waiting to hear about those as well.   When you’re a writer, waiting is a way of life. Opening my software where I store my fiction stories, I was amazed by how many I found.   Some of them are bad—so bad that they’ll never (rightfully) be published.   Some are surprisingly good and have been sitting around while I finished up my nonfic. The vast majority, however, are unfinished.   Some years back I realized that when I’m writing in the heat of inspiration but don’t have time to finish a story that I need to write down where I...
Post a Comment
Read more