Joyful June - 500 words / day writing or editing, all genres welcome!

[onesecondglance]

Failed to progress in a competition I'd entered. Trying not to feel bitter about it. I knew I couldn't win, not with the type of books they favour, but I'd hoped to reach the longlist. Nope.

I did write a little earlier in the week. A new opening for the older book, which I guess must be necessary given the sheer wall of silence and "no thank you" it's been met with. I am a better writer now than I was when I originally wrote that opening; that whole book was a process of levelling up for me. But still, I am given to think it's not truly a question of quality, that there must be something else to it. The market doesn't seem to like what I do. And that's not something I can fix.

I suppose that should be liberating - write the stuff that you're interested in, it won't make a difference to whether it sells - but it's also pretty damned depressing. No matter how much effort I put into this, it ain't going anywhere.

It would be nice to reach a similar place to my homebrewing. I do that because I enjoy the process and I enjoy the end product. It's nice when other people say they like my stuff; I'm critical and keep myself pushing to do better, but that's for my own satisfaction, not any dream of commercial success. It's a good place to be.

The only way I'm going to reach that place is by keeping on writing. So that's what I'll do. I'll fix up the older book, and push it out into the world again, knowing that it may well fail just the same, but at least I tried. Then I'll get back to writing the new book, and try to enjoy the process.

Hope the month has been kind to everyone. The sun keeps rising.

 

[lizmonster]

My friend. You know my feelings in all this, and I know I have no standing to talk. But I honestly believe the vast majority of anything in publishing is luck. Your work is lovely. You haven't yet had the luck. I know how hard it is to persist in the face of lack of luck, and I hope you choose to do what feeds you, whatever that is.

 

[muse]

YAY for finishing your short, Liz!

I've finally finished the edits on my MS and sent them back to the editor. Yikes!

While I'm waiting on their response I'm hoping to get back to a short story I'm writing that seems to have taken on a life of its own.

 

[muse]

Failed to progress in a competition I'd entered. Trying not to feel bitter about it. I knew I couldn't win, not with the type of books they favour, but I'd hoped to reach the longlist. Nope.

I did write a little earlier in the week. A new opening for the older book, which I guess must be necessary given the sheer wall of silence and "no thank you" it's been met with. I am a better writer now than I was when I originally wrote that opening; that whole book was a process of levelling up for me. But still, I am given to think it's not truly a question of quality, that there must be something else to it. The market doesn't seem to like what I do. And that's not something I can fix.

I suppose that should be liberating - write the stuff that you're interested in, it won't make a difference to whether it sells - but it's also pretty damned depressing. No matter how much effort I put into this, it ain't going anywhere.

It would be nice to reach a similar place to my homebrewing. I do that because I enjoy the process and I enjoy the end product. It's nice when other people say they like my stuff; I'm critical and keep myself pushing to do better, but that's for my own satisfaction, not any dream of commercial success. It's a good place to be.

The only way I'm going to reach that place is by keeping on writing. So that's what I'll do. I'll fix up the older book, and push it out into the world again, knowing that it may well fail just the same, but at least I tried. Then I'll get back to writing the new book, and try to enjoy the process.

Hope the month has been kind to everyone. The sun keeps rising.

Sending hugs, OSG. Rejections suck.

 

[onesecondglance]

Thanks muse. Another competition is currently going a bit better so that makes up for it.