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[personal profile] mmerriam
I know, I know. I was once one of those LJers who posted at least every other day. Now I'm not, for whatever reason, though perhaps I will be again in the not so distant future. I have been posting short, quick hits over at my Facebook.

Writing continues. I'm moving along--slowly but surely--on Rija's Tale. I've hit a stretch where I am enjoying this novel again (which is to say I'm coming out of the middle and gathering stream as I start my race toward "The End"), and I think that things will go better now that I have my desk again.

Ah, yes, that. My monitor crapped out a month ago, and I'm just now replacing it. I've been working off the laptop, but frankly, I prefer to work from my actual desk. It's all about having a space to write. I know it might seem silly, but part of getting into the flow of writing is having a space that is mine and mine alone to work at. The desktop is mostly [livejournal.com profile] careswen's machine, where she does homework and plays WoW. The laptop is shared and portable and too easy to move from room-to-room (which actually translates into from distraction-to-distraction) and it's not, you know, my work computer. I know it's all in my head, but there it is. We bought a nice 20" flat screen for my working computer this weekend, a floor model that was on sale.

It's the end of the first quarter for the Writers of the Future contest, and once again I find myself a semi-finalist. There was a point in my career this would have pleased me, but now it's just another rejection. I'm not even sure I care about the critique the story gets, because both times I've gotten those critiques, I rewrote the story involved and broke it, forcing me to spend precious time repairing it again later. On the flip side, I knew the story I sent was a long shot. I've read plenty of the stories that have won and been published in the anthologies over the years. I sent them an urban fantasy noir story with a blind lesbian mage-detective protagonist. Not the type of story you see in their winners circle too often, but it was only thing I had available at the time.

The first quarter of WotF always forces me to stop and take stock of where I am as a writer, because this was where I started. My first real submission (for this attempt at writing) back in 2003 was for the first quarter of WotF. That story was a quarter-finalist, what I think they call honorable mention now. I've never done worse that that level in the contest, and I've been a semi-finalist more than once. So on the anniversary of my first rejection from WotF, I always take time to reflect on where I am as a writer. This can be dangerous. I'm just saying.

I looked back this year found myself, after six years of hard work, nowhere near where I would like to be. Don't get me wrong, I've made some pretty nifty sales to some really nice magazines, but I can't help wondering what I'm doing wrong. Is there some skill I've yet to master? Is it that I don't write what the major markets are buying (well, obviously that's true)? Is it that I've simply hit the end of my level of talent?

[livejournal.com profile] careswen and I talked about this over the weekend. I pointed out that several of the folks I came up through OWW with--my "cohort" if you will--are making the SFWA pro-sales, signing the book deals, and getting nominated for--and sometimes winning--major awards. I know it's stupid, and I don't begrudge my writer friends their success, in fact I'm cheering them on, but...

[livejournal.com profile] careswen had to remind me that I can't do anything about that stuff: That the only thing I control is the writing (something I harp on all the time at conventions). She also asked my how many of my OWW "cohorts" had fallen by the wayside, given up, stopped writing.

Too many of them, I realized, which is sad. I know people stop writing for a variety of reasons (health, family, money, loss of interest, and burnout, for example), but that means I won't be reading anymore stories written by these friends and writers, many of whom have far more talent than I (this goes beyond my OWW folks to other fine writers I know).

Her point is right, of course (Moral of the Story: Listen to the Wife). I'm still working, still writing. I talked with another friend about this over the weekend, and he told to go back and read my earlier works and compare them to what I'm doing now. I know he's right: I've come a long way in six years, becoming brutally competent at what I do by dint of hard work.

And they're both right in that you can't compare yourself to other writers, because that way is madness (something else I harp on all the time when I'm on panels at conventions). I know we are, seemingly, wired to compare ourselves to our peers, to see where we are on "The Ladder," but that's an unhealthy attitude to take, and frankly in a business as subjective as writing (or any art / entertainment career), it's down right silly.

Don't be silly.

Here Endeth the Lesson

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