The End of a Season
Sorry, this is a day late. Sorry I missed the post last week as well.
Yes, I said was experimenting with “taking some time off” writing, but I still intended to keep these posts going on their regular schedule. It’s funny, even as I sat down to write this today, I was tempted to exploit the ambiguity around that point. Play it off as my intention all along. “I’m back. Refreshed after a holiday. Ready to get back into things. What? You expected a post last week? No, I told you, I was taking time off.”
But that’s bullshit. I’ve got notebooks full of topics for these posts. I just didn’t take the time to type one up last week.
It’s not lost on me that there’s probably no actual person waiting by their desktop every week for my emails to fly in, but if I don’t act as though they’re there, then they never will be, right?
So, I guess that’s the first result of my little experiment. Time off isn’t great for my productivity. I’m fairly schedule driven and lean on my habits more than I’d like to. I already knew that, but this is a good reminder.
It’s interesting how the mind works though isn’t it? If you don’t keep a tight rein on your real motives, you can always find convincing justifications for slacking off. Almost anything can be reframed to fall in line with your weaker instincts.
I encountered this phenomenon when I was on holiday actually. We were at a place called Goat Beach—because goats live at the beach, who would have thought? Anyway, there was a bit of chest beating going on around jumping off the cliffs. Guys climbing up to the highest point where everyone can see them and jumping into the water in front of a beach full of people.
I stayed in the water telling myself, “This is stupid, I don’t need to take part in this, I’ve got no interest in proving myself to a bunch of strangers.” But after a while, a second voice started creeping in. “Are you just saying that because you’re scared to do it? Forget the crowd, do you think you can do it?”
To avoid exposing myself as either a coward or a meathead, I won’t say which voice I gave in to in the end. But it’s funny to think about because I’m not sure which is the weaker one in this case.
The topic for today’s post sits inside this territory of ‘honesty around my own motives, so in a roundabout way, I suppose I’ve actually benefitted from sitting on it for a while—there’s one vote in favour of taking holidays occasionally!
I’m about to make a fairly major change to the structure of The Sudden Walk, having extra time to mull it over has been helpful. Asking myself, is this really the logical path forward or have I just run out of steam?
See when I first started this page, the fiction portion was meant to be rolled out in seasons (go back to my archives if you don’t believe me) Here’s a link: I’ve settled on a format.
My logic was, I’ll write twelve stories per season and this will serve as a good way to develop my style, structure, editing ability. At that point I had the shape of roughly eight stories in my head and the pressure of the bi-weekly cadence I’d set myself pushed me to finish off the other four.
The problem is, when I reached the twelve-story mark, I moved the goal posts.
The competitive side of me said. “Keep going. Just write a new one every week. You’ve proven you can do it.”
What’s that proverb about tables?
The carpenter who cranks out thirty imperfect tables will come out with a better table in the end than the one who works tirelessly on getting one table perfect?
— that’s a terribly paraphrased version, but you get the idea.
This logic would be fine if I wasn’t working on a novel outside of this.
While functionally achievable, it’s at the expense of quality.
Sure, there’s something to be said for deadlines. I’ve proven to myself that if pushed, I can put something out on a regular schedule. But there’s also something to be said for sitting on an idea—letting your subconscious work on it. Coming back to it later. Doing a proper job of editing. Finding premises that actually hook me. Putting it out when it’s actually done (strangely that doesn’t always adhere to a seven day timeline)
So, this is the change I’m making to The Sudden Walk. I will continue putting out non fiction posts on a bi-weekly basis. I will continue to write short stories. The only difference is, I will hold onto them until I’ve got twelve solid stories to roll out as season two. (This also allows me to submit to literary journals who require stories to be unpublished)
When I’ve got twelve more, I will revert to my once-a-week schedule (and once season two is done, I’ll go back to bi-weekly) I just want to be putting out the best quality stuff I can.
For the paying subscribers, I’ve got an update on my progress with the novel—including the feedback I’ve got from agents etc. This will be up next week on Wednesday.
