About Winter and the Slowness of Writing

Winter... I wish I was here.

I just gotta get this off my chest, okay. And you'll excuse if for once I write a personal message on my blog. After all, it IS ... MY blog!

See how I changed the picture to the center instead of the left. I can do that! IT IS MY BLOG!

Right, so here goes.


I recently finished another story. A 9000-word yarn about a guy who slowly transforms into another guy who turns out to be a... ah well, if I ever get it published you can read it. I was really psyched about it and even thought of making it 10.000 words and sending it off to an agent or something.

But I have several stories out at various magazines, most of which I found through Duotrope (you know that one, right?). One of them was for the Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine (Aus) to which I have been submitting on a regular basis, but never got in. But then, I got an e-mail from ASIM that my story got through to the second reading round! Woohoo! I was even more psyched!

For three days I floated on this purple cloud and the world was filled with unicorns and leprechauns (the good kind). I didn't even minded my day job. It would be great to put ASIM on my CV.

But after three days I got the news from them that my story did not make it past the second reading round. As always I got a nice personal e-mail with some ideas about how to improve the story. But still I was pretty down.

Luckily, I'm past all the depression that rejection brings. I got rejected so many times and then I got accepted many times as well (I wish I could say one evened out the other, but no...). So I know I'm an okay writer and this new story probably will do great. And the other story I'll revise and send in to some other place and get it published as well.

Maybe it's because it's winter, but this one really hit me hard. Just the thought I'll have to go back to this old story I wrote in 2009 and rewrite at least the first chapter just makes me extremely tired. Then there's two new stories that need revising for a second time. The process of writing is so extremely slow, sometimes!

That's when I think back of my photographer days and recall how you could see the result of the photo straight away on the back of the camera! Wonderfully quick! Instant gratification!

But writing is different. It takes a 1000 words to set a scene, explain a character, describe a situation. It is slow, it is thoughtful, it is intense. It takes endurance and stamina! And little by little you'll see something you created! And if you do it well others will see it too. And if you do it really really really good, they will pay you for it!

So, the point I'm making is to never give up, because it IS a slow process. And the slowness is what makes it great! If it was easy, everyone would do it! See what happened to photography?

Every Tom, Dick and Harry has a nephew with a digital camera that does their marketing ad-campaign for next to nothing. Okay, that was very 2003, BUT YOU SEE MY POINT!

Writing is slow and difficult! DEAL WITH IT!

 Marcel out!

SLOOOOOOOOOOOWWWW.....