It's a Jumble

I ’m a glass half-empty kind of gal. It’s easy for me look back at 2013 and lament the things I didn’t do, the goals I didn’t achieve, the lack of productivity in my days. But I won’t. At least, not here and not at this time. So here’s a positive spin on things. . . . -- I had two short stories published this year , which is double my fiction publication record of any previous year.   One of them, Snow’s Daughter in NewMyths.com , was my first paid piece of fiction ever! And the other, Immortal Life , appeared in an awesome science-in-culture webzine I love, LabLit. -- I wrote three new stories after leaving my position this spring. Only three new stories! my critical self mourns, and kicks me for emphasis. What happened to my dreams of productivity? But damnit, they’re good stories. I think that one is the best I’ve ever written. At over 8,000 words, it’s the longest, most ambitious, and most emotionally complex thing I’ve ever tackled. And I think it works. My brill...

Writing is not getting any easier. I hoped, of course, that it would. But as another writer once said (I can’t remember who, or the exact quote), every time I sit down to write a story, it’s like learning how to write a story all over again. The lessons from the past don’t carry over--not completely--and it’s a different learning curve each time. I’ve spent the last few months struggling with an awful, jaw-grinding mess of a story. It’s way longer than I ever meant it to be. The narration swoops in and out of present and past tense. I can’t judge its success. There are part of it that I love. But I don’t know if all hangs together in a coherent whole. There’s a character that hasn’t quite come into focus for me. There is a passage that is still niggling away at my mind, that doesn’t seem quite right. Be careful what you wish for, they say. I wanted to see what it would be like to spend a solid month or two on nothing but fiction writing. I turned down potential freelanc...