Just temporarily, mind you. But this will be the first time in forever that I have chosen to stop, rather than come to an unwilling halt.
I will not look for prompts, or work on my second novel, or shop my first novel. I will not try mashing genres, short stories, poetry, or even so much as a shopping list.
The fact is, I am tired.
I had another rejection, and I just cannot bounce back. I think that sometimes, we need to withdraw. Pull in our horns, furl the sails, drift, rest. It is such hard work, ploughing on, ever onwards, isn’t it? I will let the wind die, the current vanish, the oars fall from my hands, and stop rowing. I will accept defeat.
There are cycles in nature, and in our lives too.
Sometimes it’s all growing, green, life bursting forth. Sometimes it’s harvest, reward for work well done. Right now it’s the hard between times; so much effort has been expended, yet the ground does not yield. Earth turns to dust, the rivers run dry, the rains fail.
I know there are ways round this. I’ve done it before. And, sometime, I will try again. Refilling my well with painting, photography, walks, staring at the sky, reading something new, it all works. Today, though… it is the time to lick and bind my wounds, feel a little sorry for myself, eat chocolate without guilt. Until I find the strength to take a deep breath and dive back in.
“I never look back, darling. It distracts from the now.”
Edna Mode, The Incredibles (Pixar)
This might be a surprising admission, but The Incredibles is one of my all-time favourite films. One of Pixar’s great feats of storytelling, it layers adolescent angst, adult bullying, loss of innocence, midlife despair, betrayal and redemption, with lovely retro-inspired graphics and some great jokes. And the quote above, from the diminutive costume designer who has some of the best lines in the film. Not to mention, it foreshadows Tony Stark’s assertion that “we create our own demons” in Iron Man 3.
We are on a journey as creators, one which tries to honour the past but look forward, always moving onward, upward. We see film-makers do this all the time lately, with their re-imaginings and reboots. Can we do the same as writers? Well, I just did this very thing.
I refashioned an old story, and it came out great.
For my writers’ group anthology, I dusted off an old story that had lain half-finished in my drafts for at least nine months. (The prompt that started it was even older.) I also looked at something I wrote during my first attempt at NaNoWriMo. I sent the second off for editing, and got to work finishing the first.
My NaNo story came back with numerous comments, and really needed a complete overhaul. My other story, Out of Time, showed a curious thing, one which my editor mentioned. The old half had many changes, but the second half had very few. It was as if they had been written by different people, my editor said. I thought about this, and concluded he was right.
I changed, so my writing changed. I had improved with time and practice.
We so often fall into despair, that things are not going our way and we are, in fact, frauds, failures, talentless hacks whose output has even less merit than that of a monkey bashing away at the keyboard. This story showed me that I am getting better. The NaNo story showed me that sometimes even major surgery can’t save the patient, and I withdrew it. Chalked up to experience, it forms part of my progress, even if it is ugly and misshapen. I still learned from writing and dissecting it.
Armed with better skills, I was able to see how Out of Time needed a nip here and a tuck there, so that the old now fits seamlessly with the new. The whole is something I am proud to put my name to.
So, why not review something you wrote a while ago? Critical examination and comparison with your current work will show you how far you have come; how you know now where the weak spots are, where it could be sharpened, made better. Or maybe it is the failed experiment that is like training miles logged before a marathon. It strengthened you, but wasn’t for public consumption.
We should celebrate our journey, as much as we march onwards to better things. We need the internal validation of recognising our own progress, and to map our progress we must see the distance we have travelled. Sometimes it’s good to look back, just for a moment, until we remember Neil Gaiman’s words.
Perfection is like chasing the horizon. Keep moving.
Yes, I missed my scheduled post, and this is late. Sorry, reader(s). But I do have a great excuse.
Last week, I talked about a big project deadline that fell on me and my team. I finished the presentation and we got through the day, and as it happens I had booked to go see Beyoncé this last weekend. Could not have come at a better time.
I was a casual fan, and I know lots of her music because who doesn’t? And I had decided that I would go see her while she was in Europe, because I heard she gives a great show, and who knows what might happen tomorrow. (Also I don’t want more stuff; I want experiences.)
Beyoncé was everything I had heard, and more. I loved every second.
She lives a gilded life that only intersects with mine in terms of being on the same planet, at the same time. She flew in from London, where she saw Serena Williams win her 7th Wimbledon singles title, a few hours before the glitziest show I’ve ever seen. There was fire. There was water. There were lights and dancers and fireworks and an amazing talent on view. But here’s the thing; she works harder than she has to.
She’s already a global phenomenon.
She could have rested on her laurels, milked the fans’ adoration, played her (many) wonderful old hits and forced a smile. But she didn’t do that. Instead, she raised her game. More dancing, more costume changes, more new material, more value. More.
Beyoncé sent 75,000 people home happy, smiling, warmed by a smile that looked genuine, dazzled by a gorgeous spectacle that was underpinned by hard, hard work.
So I guess she lives by a work ethic. An ethic that says create a wonder, send it out into the world, then create another. An ethic that says reach higher, push further. An ethic that slaves over the tiniest detail, one that 99.9% of the consumers might miss, but delights that 0.1% who take notice. An ethic that says “my audience turned out for me, and I am sure as hell turning up for them”. An ethic that is open and unerringly honest when it needs to be, because we are all human and seeing that everyone weeps makes us feel less alone. An ethic that honours the old while seeking the new, and binds them lovingly together.
It struck me that this is a great creative philosophy, whether in art or business or life. It cannot be solely about metrics and traffic and followers and numbers. Quality really does matter, if the work is to retain any meaning, any heart at all. And I surmise that for those who have attained great success at the expense of their truth, the darkness beckons; a deep pit padded with money, where no light can enter or escape.
If it were all about money, wouldn’t every rich/successful person be deliriously happy?
Not just entertainment, this show was inspiring. There is no getting away from hard work, and even when the work is done and it’s good, we have to keep moving.
I challenged myself to start a proper blog in 2016 and then to make one post each Friday. This, my 25th post of 2016, should have been posted yesterday. Instead I’m writing it on Saturday. I’ll still meet my weekly goal, because by now missing it feels wrong. I know I have only a few readers, but I want to keep up momentum, build muscle for the future, create a body of work.
At this point, I’m still doing it for myself. I have not excused my efforts with the distractions of work, writing for my writers’ group anthology, editing and rewriting, entering competitions occasionally, writing short stories and submitting to journals. My second novel is so cold, forgotten on the back burner, that I will have to perform Frankenstein levels of reanimation, once I get around to it again.
Then, an unexpected two-week deadline for an ongoing project hit. Due on 4th July, a day of meetings starting with a presentation I have scarcely started yet.
I feel scattered. I remind myself to breathe, take it one step at a time. Deadlines stretch away into the future, a gauntlet that must be run before I can rest.
This is life. I’d like a win to encourage me, but though it doesn’t come I keep working anyway. Because without the work, no win is possible.
Breathe.
I’m still sending my wishes out into the world, hoping that one or two seeds will take root. Sometimes the biggest victory is simply to try again, to get up one more time.
I will allow myself to cheer quietly, when the presentation is done. Sometimes we forget to mark the mini victories in our quest for the big one. I’m off to put that saved bottle of pink champagne in the fridge, where it will remind me daily that a celebration is overdue and I earned it.
