Submissions Update

Thursday, May 8, 2008

When I said I actually wanted to get rejection letters, I didn't mean that I wanted them all to come at once. Really.

One more arrived this morning. I suppose it was one of my not-a-snowball's-chance-in-hell markets, but rejection is still rejection.

Prior to the mail arriving, I was already in a writing funk. I'm realizing how out of practice I am and I'm struggling getting started on a new project. I have something I really want to do, and I have no idea how to start it. I allow myself to write whatever when I freewrite, but when I settle in to officially work on the story, nothing comes out well. And thus, the funk.

Also, I sliced my finger open yesterday and it kinda hurts. (Note to self: sign up for the Central Market knife skills class already!)

I know that writing well requires practice and I am fully aware that not writing for close to four years puts me back at square one. I am also fully aware that really, the only way to even start improving is to just keep working at it. But I'm impatient and I want my writing level to be back where it was four years ago. And so I get into the funk and then I worry that my writing skills may never come back and then . . . double funk.

Any good funk-relief strategies out there? My first impulse is write through this but I wonder if that's the best strategy. What would you do? Write? Read? Take my notebook out to the springs and lounge in the sun?