Friday, June 3, 2011

Stillness is Maddening

Do you hear that? Listen. That is the sound of no assignments due. That is the sound of no essays to write, poetry to read, or vocabulary words to memorize. That is the sound of a thousand stories waiting to fill the silence of my brain.

It is a good sound if only I could make up my mind which story to tell. And if I would adjust faster to not doing something for ten minutes together. Stillness is a difficult lesson to learn.

Here are some of the ways I plan on filling the stillness between now and late August when my mind shall be once again under seige. (Yes, I am afraid this is one of those "goal" posts that serves to lock in my decisions by making them public more than to provide you with interesting or informative information. I do appologize. I shall try not to have too many more in the near future.

1) Query. No really. I mean it this time. 50 quesries will be sent out before Septemebr hits or I'm a rubics qube. Hopefully I will send more but I figure since I may be a bit down and regection weary by the time I'm done with the process I had better make my goal number something I have no doubt I will be able to reach.

2) Finish my current WIP. I started working on it in January and am only about five chapters in. The frusterating thing is that, unlike many of my other manuscripts, I know exactly what is going to happen and how I just haven't been able to sit down and write it. Now I will.

3) Write short stories with particular magazines in mind for them. I haven't really written a lot of short stories in the past because I've never been able to find them a home afterwards. However, I have recently experimented with writing for a particular purpose and rather than impede my creativity, I find the challenge enhances it.

4) Read. A lot. I have so many unread books on my shelf right now it is painful to look at. The habbit of not pleasure reading is hard to break too. Seems like everytime I pick up a book this week I suddenly think that my time would be better spent going for a walk, making cookies, or doing the dishes.

5) And of course I shall be back here, giving you more posts from time to time. Let me know if there is anything in particular you'd like me to ramble about.

2 comments:

  1. Yay summer! Goals are good. Fifty queries sounds reasonable over three months. Some people say they like to keep ten circulating at all times, so when a rejection comes in a new query goes out. It's supposed to keep you from wallowing in the rejection. I think the effect is minimal. ;/

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  2. Yay! Schoooool's OUT FOR SUMMER!!! Glad to hear you'll be writing more of your WiP because I love reading it so far! Also I'm reading your completed MS so I hope to give you completed notes soonish :).

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