Writing:  The Everyday Blues

 

By Mary Rosenblum

 

            You’ve all read it, heard it, or at least suspected it.  If you are a serious writer, you must sit down and write every day.  Good advice, right?  Butt to chair, nose to grindstone, you are a professional, not writing at the whim of your muse.  But Tuesday, you just don’t do it.  And Wednesday, it’s even harder.  You didn’t write yesterday!  You are failing as a writer…  So you just don’t get to it Wednesday either, and by Monday, you are so deep in depression where your writing is concerned that you can’t even type your name.  The blank screen leers at you and the cursor blinks with the rhythm of your fourth grade teacher tapping impatiently on her desktop with a ruler.

 

            Maybe it’s time to enroll in that online course for aspiring plumbers after all.

 

            Let’s back up here.  Is it really cast in stone that professional writers write every day, and if you don’t, you might as well start learning about pipes and drains?

 

            No. 

 

             And yes. 

 

Punching the Time Clock

 

            Whether we work for a stock broker, in a medical office, or raise soybeans, we only our paycheck if we fulfill the job requirements.  If you don’t water those bean plants, they die, and you can’t sell them.  If you don’t show up at the doctor’s office and he has to take care of calls and scheduling as well as see her patients, she will fire you.  Same the your boss at the brokerage.  No work, no paycheck. So yes, if you are a professional, that means that writing is your job and if you don’t do it, you may not get fired, but you sure won’t get paid. 

 

            You really must ‘punch the time clock’ to some degree, if you want writing to begin to pay your bills.  Sometimes the muse moves us professionals, and other times we write the story for the anthology we were invited into, not because we love vampire stories, but because we can write a good vampire story and the anthology pays money.  Does that mean that you must sit down at the computer every day at 8 AM and sit there until 4 in the afternoon?  Of course not.  Do it, if it works for you, but if that kind of by-the-clock schedule freezes you, then don’t do it.

 

            There is a certain amount of structure to a regular writing time that helps a lot of people.  You get into the habit of sitting down at 2 PM for three hours of writing and therefore, your mind immediately falls into ‘writing mode’ at the appointed time.  But if it does  not work for you, or if you can manage to write every day with a random work schedule, then do it that way. Write six hours day, fifteen minutes tomorrow.  The bottom line is output.  ARE you writing?  ARE you finishing work?  If the answer is yes, then you are behaving professionally, no matter what your personal writing rhythm may be. 

 

Swat Those Shoulder Vultures!

 

            Realistically, it is difficult to keep to this professional work-regularly ethic when you are first trying to break into print.  You are not getting paid anything if you haven’t made that first sale yet, and it can become harder and harder to keep up any level of enthusiasm as you sit down to write yet another story or query that will surely get rejected…

 

            Aha!  That is a shoulder vulture whisper, that ‘surely get rejected’ stuff.  Quick, swat the nasty thing!  Shoo it off your shoulder! 

 

            What are shoulder vultures?  They are the heavy, dark, ugly things that sit on your shoulder and whisper things like ‘this won’t sell either’, ‘just another rejection’, and ‘this isn’t any good’.  Let’s face it, breaking into print is a test of the resiliency of your ego.  In no other job do we put our selves on the line to face rejection after rejection.  Everybody gets discouraged at this stage.  What you need to keep in mind is that writers who are now ‘big names’ were just as discouraged.  Nobody is handed a little card that reads, ‘keep submitting, because you are guaranteed to become famous’.  Every person who is a successful writer now, went through the ‘send it out and get rejected’ stage.  There is no other way to become a writer. 

 

Set Yourself Up For Success

 

            Give yourself a hand during this trying process.  Yes, you need to be establishing professional work habits.  On the other hand, you need to keep yourself positive and that is hard to do while the mailbox is full of rejection slips.  Don’t add an unattainable writing goal to the burden.  If you decide that you will sit down and write four hours every day, it will only be a matter of time before other things get in the way and you miss that first day.  Uh oh, maybe you don’t have what it takes….  That makes it easier to miss two days, and so forth.  Not only is your work getting rejected, but you can’t even act like a professional!  Now you have two ‘failures’ hanging over your head and the shoulder vultures are cackling in glee and reminding you of them every minute. 

 

            Create an attainable goal for yourself.  Real life happens.  Give the muse a little free rein here.  Start out with a very low bar.  Tell yourself that you will write one sentence every day, no matter what.  Then stick to that.  Even if you have been at your beloved Aunt Maggie’s funeral and are too emotionally depleted to create anything, you can sit down with a pad and write:  I really loved Aunt Maggie and she has left an enormous hole in my life.   If nothing else, you have attained your writing goal, and that matters.  And who knows?  Perhaps, in the future, you’ll write a vivid short story about a character’s loss and recovery, or you’ll write a dynamite article on dealing with grief.  That single sentence at the end of an awful day may have more significance than you realize.  But do it.  Attain that small goal, and you will have banished at least one shoulder vulture from your back.   

 

            On the good days, turn off the phone, lock the door, and let the words flow until you are ready to stop.  Promise the kids a movie if they’re quiet, get your partner to bring home pizza, do whatever it takes to let those words happen.  And on the days when they just won’t happen….get that single sentence down on paper.

 

            Yes, that’s professional. That is how many of us work.  You really don’t need to sign up for that online plumbing course after all.