The Opaque Soul

Rarely do I receive inspiration for these weekly blog posts. Usually, I fumble through the filing cabinet of my mind until something presents itself, until some notion or theme demands to be written. Sometimes, I hear something or see something, or am struck without warning by a pre ponderous idea from which I am unable to disentangle myself, and I write about that, but mostly it is more laborious and much less romantic than that. Writing is sometimes an act of discipline rather than desire.

Today, I feel vague and fuzzy. 

I've been watching Star Trek Enterprise and now well into season three, am amazed at how good it has become. I find the current ongoing storyline gripping and fascinating. Enterprise's mission to stop an alien race called the Xindi from building a weapon to destroy the earth is compelling. The Xindi themselves are intriguing, comprising five distinct dominant species, who do not get on well, and who in fact waged a hundred year war which resulted in the complete destruction of their home world and the annihilation of a sixth Xindi species.

If you're not into science fiction, and I find that thought both baffling and repulsive, then I have just lost your interest. Assuming of course that I had it in the first place.

My soccer team outdid Germany's performance in the FIFA World Cup against Brazil, by winning 9-0 against our opponents. It was a huge boost for team morale after a heartbreaking draw the previous week. The team I follow in the National Rugby League, the Bulldogs, had an outstanding win against highly rated opponents last night in an awesome defensive display. These results have puffed my sails, but if you're not into sport, then no doubt you are injuring your jaw with excessive yawning.

I have now sent off 61 submissions packages for my new novel, A Muddy Red River. I have had 5 rejections so far, and one acceptance which I subsequently rejected. I need to start writing my next novel, and I am going to have to start from scratch because I have decided to shelve the one I had already started. I don't feel able to continue with it due to personal reasons.

Still here? Bless your heart. Not a coherent post but perhaps sufficiently engaging to elicit a sagacious, humourous or even nonsensical comment from you, treasured reader. And thus to the prompt: what has puffed your sails this week?

Anxious anticipation

With the manuscript for my fourth novel now complete to my satisfaction and ready to send, I have begun the dreaded querying process. There are a number of reasons why I don't look forward to, and I don't enjoy, this period of anxious anticipation, but the least of them is rejection. 

I've been writing for 16 years and I'm still wandering around in the forest of anonymity. I'm used to rejection. I've become very philosophical about it because I believe that I am a good writer. When an editor rejects my work, they are voicing their opinion, and that is all. If they offer some constructive criticism, which is rare, I take it on board, and then I send my work to someone else. If they say nothing, or offer some generic 'thanks, but no thanks', I send my work to someone else. I keep looking for the editor who 'gets' me. The one who reads my writing and says: 'I like this. This is good. This works for me.' I'm looking for that person right now.

No, it's not the rejection that bothers me as such. It's the process. Find a suitable publisher, read their submission guidelines, put together a submissions package to meet their requirements, send it, then wait. There are a few publishers who unfairly do not accept simultaneous submissions, but the majority understand that, given some quite long response times, it is reasonable for writers to reach out to as many publishers as possible, as quickly as possible. The query process is a rolling sales pitch.

It's time consuming, and somewhat annoying due to the diverse submissions criteria of various publishers. I understand why some of them are so exacting. With so many submissions coming in, they have to use whatever means available to sort the wheat from the chaff, and to make it as easy as possible for themselves.

Time consumed by querying, means less time for writing. I'm pretty confident of finding a publisher, but feel no less anxiety as I send each query off on a wing and a prayer. I wonder when. I wonder who. I wonder if this time, I will break free from the prison of obscurity. Wish me luck.

Creative Juice

It was while drinking a glass of orange juice one morning that I had a burst of creativity. In just a few minutes, as the sweet citrus danced on my taste buds en route to my stomach via my throat, I came up with three ideas. This post is one of them.

The idea for my most recently published short story, Goyyou, came to me in a dream. Another time, I was standing at a urinal in a public toilet in Greta when the idea for a story about a small group of insects meeting in a awkward social situation struck me. It became the story, A Place of Refuge which was published by Countdown: School Magazine.

Virtually no one reads Square Pegs so I feel there is no harm in blowing my own trumpet. However, that's not what I'm trying to do. Here's my point: I have lots of ideas. I'm always coming up with interesting characters and plots and weird situations. I've written over 60 short stories and I have plenty more to come. I'm a creative person. God made me creative.I love to write and I feel exhilarated by the process of writing. When I write a story, I feel "right". It is one of my escapes. One of my pressure release valves. Writing helps me maintain my sanity. I have to write.

To paraphrase a quote I read a long time ago, "why wouldn't God, having made me this way, not provide opportunities for me to use my talent to bless others and glorify Him?"

It seems as logical to me as orange juice and toast for breakfast. I have a way with words. I'm not Shakespeare but I can write and I love it, so why shouldn't I pursue it? The answer is, that I am, but it can be awfully frustrating. Writers want readers but I have so few that if my readers were books they wouldn't even occupy one shelf in a small library. For thirteen years I have been working on my craft; writing stories, using valuable writing time to research markets and fiddle with the formatting to satisfy various submission criteria. Submitting stories, waiting sometimes for months, sometimes literally forever, and then having those stories rejected, frequently. Finding time to write more stories and repeating the whole process. It can be terribly disheartening but what can I do? It is no overstatement to say that I was born to write. I love writing. I am a writer so I'll just keep writing.

And so ends my self indulgent post for this week. To my army of readers...