One writer writing
Mood:  lazy


Today is Friday the Thirteenth! A lucky day for some ... I am starting and vowing to continue this blog to chart a course through a recurring dream of mine. To write, write full time, sell my writing. I have lacked discipline in the past and I am striving to overcome this shortcoming. I have dreamed of becoming a writer since I was seven. My first love was "Beowolf" and I immediately wrote a story titled "The Old Woman Who Lives by the Lake". I knew nothing about plagarism then.

My first short story sold to McFadden's Women's Group for the sum of $171.00. I remember the thrill I felt when I went into the convenience store and saw the magazine on the rack. My friend Lana was with me and I yelled and danced with a precious copy in my hand. The clerk was baffled, then congratulatory.

My second short story won second place in The Oklahoma Writer's Federation Contest for 1999. It was a black comedy about a woman trying to commit suicide and getting herself committed instead. My writing coach, mentor, and beloved friend, Sandra Soli, called it fall down funny. The contest judge wrote "DO send this to a literary magazine". I never did.

Low self esteem, laziness, fear - all the above! Now, I am almost fifty two years old and I am determined to give this dream a chance in the daylight. My goals are fuzzy right now. I have entered the Writer's Digest contest, the Lorian Hemmingway Short Story Contest, and sent a poem to Byline. My novel is almost 40,000 words and I haven't finished it yet. I did send five pages to Scott Nicholson to see if he thinks it is worth editing, worth continuing ...

Yes, I know, persistance in the face of rejection is necessary if I am going to write. So, IF he answers, and IF he says not to proceed ... what then? Rewrite or scrap and begin again? I will make the committment here and now to finish the novel, no matter what.

So, goals.

1) Write at least 200 words a day. Read that somewhere ...

2) Two paragraphs minimum on the novel.

3) Set up a file for all my poetry and transfer all the written copy to that file and SAVE IT!!!

4) Make a list of all the short stories I can think of to write and do one a week.

5) Submit one poem a week to an online site or literary magazine weekly.

That's enough for now. My life has been a bigger mess than ever since I got cnacer. I don't seem to be able to bounce back, snap out of it, whatever the hell. I am tired though of living this ghost life. The cancer is gone for now and still I am stuck in this rocky crag. The way I see it, I can continue in this self-imposed isolation chamber or I can crawl out and begin.

"They" tell me I have talent. Even if I halfway believe that, it won't do any good whatsoever if I don't work at it. Yoda's right - "Do or do not - there is no try".