Cue the ‘Rocky’ Theme

Seven years ago, back when my blog was just getting underway, I posted a segment entitled Are You At Your Writing Weight?  With my current state of affairs, it seems rather appropriate right now.  I don’t know about you, but how productive I am – with almost everything I do – is closely tied to how ‘fit” I’m feeling. The same thing is true for how much enjoyment I derive from almost everything else. Coming off months and months of travel involving constantly eating out, endless nights in hotels with limited activity, and stress levels that would make a combat vet raise his (or hers) eyebrows, my weight ballooned thirty pounds over my goal and my overall fitness was poor, to put it mildly. There at the end, I began to experience back problems and the number of “restful” sleep hours I enjoyed nightly shrank considerably.

Now that all that is behind me and I’m trying to recapture my creative drive, I’m finding that I have to take care of the engine first. That’s why I thought about this old post. Competitive athletes rarely maintain their bodies in the same physical state that they do when they are competing, and in that previous post I postulated that the same thing could be said about writers and their cognitive acuity. Intellectually, I feel that I’m in peak form. Working on the company project kept me on my toes and I spent my time in airports and on airplanes reading A LOT of books. But something was missing. I needed to feel good about my body and health again before I could immerse myself in back into the writing waters, and to do that would take time and its own type of devotion.

So, I’m watching what I eat and exercising again. I’ve already managed to shave off fifteen of the thirty pounds, the pain in my back is less and less noticiable, and I’ve returned to the land of happy dreams and wiping the sleep from my eyes. It shouldn’t be a surprise that I can feel that creative drive returning as I shed the weight and push my endurance. I’m not where I want to be yet, but I can feel the momentum pushing (pulling?) me in the right direction. If things continue on course, I should be where I need to be in another 4-6 weeks.

Now, if you’ll excuse me…I need to go drink some raw eggs!  😄

Half-Assed

Over the thirty-four years of our marriage, the wife and I have learned a hard truth. For DIY projects around the house, unless it involves stereo or entertainment equipment, I need to politely abstain. Why? Because I suck at them. #DIYFAIL It took a while before I learned my lesson, but when every household project I worked on turned out looking…well…half-assed, the continual disappointment afterwards was enough to seal my fate. You would never see a visitor admiring something I put together with my own hands, or inquiring as to “who did your work”? I could blame the outcome on second-rate tools and/or materials (because we don’t want to spend the money on the right tools or first rate materials, thus the DIY), but the reality was my lack of skills and general disinterest. I’m not like my neighbors, my co-workers, or it seems most of the home-owning world -- I simply don’t feel compelled to study the craft (whatever it involves…wood working, masonry, landscaping, etc.) enough to produce the result I’m after. So, I had two options, 1) spend a few more pennies to see our vision come to life the way I want it to, or 2) learn to live with half-assed. My answer - I’m okay with bowing to the expertise of others and accepting the added cost.

However, when it comes to the ultimate DIY project - my writing – nothing can be further from the truth. Back in my early days, blissful inexperience led me to produce material that had no business being seen in public, much less commerce. But that was due to ignorance, not laziness or lack of effort. Since then I have studied and worked hard to produce a superior product. I’ve taken this “hobby” seriously, devoting myself to strengthening both my voice and the technical aspects of writing, soaking up everything I could learn about the business-side of publishing, all for the dream of seeing one (or more) of my books on the shelf one day (via traditional publishing).

But there comes a time for hard truths…and this is one of them.

I’ve accepted the fact that circumstances in my life that have continually hindered me along the way, will not change. I suspect this is true for many aspiring writers, especially those who are trying to balance being a bread-winner with the pursuit of an art form whose financial reward usually leads to scrounging for bread crumbs. Between my 50-60 hour per week “day-job” and my family, there are precious few hours left to devote to my hidden passion. And when you steal hours from Peter to pay Paul, unfortunately it’s family time that takes the hit. No matter how supportive your family might be that time drain takes a toll and there is a price to pay.

I’ve always held the belief that if I could write full-time, I would not only become published in no time – but be successful at it. But writing full-time is an unrealistic fantasy…and therefore I’ve realized…so is my goal. Sure, there are plenty of writers who hold down full-time jobs and still get published. I guess they must simply be more talented than I am. My hard truth is this - I possess a writing voice that requires nurturing to reach the quality deserving of the attention of mainstream publishing, and there isn’t enough time in the day to do that.

Where does that leave me? With some questions and some answers.

Question number one – are any of my manuscripts publishable? My answer – yes! I (and others) believe that to be true and there is an audience for my stories.

Question number two – what is my next step? In my last post, I discussed self-publishing or seeking small presses, and those are still viable options I will explore.

Question number three – am I giving up on landing an agent? Yes. I won’t continue to chase the bouncing agent ball, instead I’ll probably seek out the services of a serious editor while simultaneously planning how to go about releasing my book into the wild.

What I won’t do is allow my frustration and impatience to release something I deem “half-assed” into the world.

Stick around and get comfortable because I’m not going anywhere. Things are about to get interesting.

☺