Week 20 - Do You Feel Lucky?

 

Update – Pretty much more of the same. I worked on a paid assignment, wrote daily flash while letting the books languish, and far too often ended up wasting time playing computer games. But there’s been a change. The writer’s block may be over. Yesterday I went back to the detective novel and it’s flowing again. Once I get through the current scene, it should be smooth sailing—or, in my case, typing. I may actually have a finished, polished novel ready when/if I hear back from the open call. And I’m doing it all while tackling yardwork and putting out a blog on a weekly basis. Yay, multitasking!

$$$$

That’s the good news. But there’s a lot more to it if your goal is to sell the book you’ve written. There’s rewriting, polishing, editing, and getting the word out/promotion so people are clamoring to buy the thing when you’re finally ready to publish. And one other thing that’s just as vital as any of those and maybe more important than even the writing itself, and that’s luck. You can write a brilliant book, but if you can’t get it in front of an editor who agrees with you, it’ll end up back in the drawer. Or you can write a crappy book but it hits a chord with the reading audience and word of mouth does your PR for you. Or you can write a so-so book that has so-so sales but at least you made it onto bookstore shelves, but only because it landed on the right desk in front of the right person at the right time. Countless stories told by countless successful, unsuccessful and semi-successful writers down through the decades have led me to the conclusion that talent, hard work and persistence in submitting don’t mean diddly without a nudge from that fickle bitch, Dame Fortune. Like it or not, more often than not it’s all pretty much just a crapshoot.

Which really scares the crap out of me, because my luck has never been the best.

Here’s the most recent example: Saturday. The Preakness. I hadn’t been planning to watch, but I was between putting off writing and putting off yardwork so I decided to tune in. The horses were just heading into the gate. I picked one at random, the aptly-named-for-writers Imagination. Didn’t know a thing about him. He had good odds, and the announcers said he’d never placed lower than second in any of his previous runs.

The race begins. My horse and another horse shoot out of the gate and surge to the front of the pack. There they stayed, right up until they hit the top of the stretch. The one who’d been in the lead the whole race stayed there and ended up winning. My horse did a fade and ended up finishing seventh in a field of eight. Wouldn’t be the first time Imagination wound up letting me down.

Nor was this whole scenario anything new. Back in ancient times, when I was a kid, the fam used to tune in for the Kentucky Derby and sometimes the Preakness and the Belmont. We’d pony up (yes, that’s a pun) a quarter apiece; the money would go to whoever’s pick did best. Picks were made at random so no one could claim the favorite. I never won. Ever. Each time my chosen horse would make a great showing and then run out of gas at the stretch, coming in behind everyone else’s. Such is luck.

One time, by chance, I did pick the favorite. Finally, the money would be mine! Guess again. At the finish line my pick was nowhere in sight. During the run the favorite pulled up and never finished the race. We got a post-race shot of him being led back to the stables. I think that was the last time I ever bet on a horse race. Experience taught me when it comes to money I do have luck, and it’s bad.

Imagine how I feel about getting my work before a name publisher, let alone scoring decent sales.

And yet…hope springs eternal. I keep writing, and I keep sending things off to market. Because you never know. Things could turn around. Because as bad as it can be, it’s not going to get any better if I stop sending stuff out.

That’s the secret to success. You write and write and work your ass off to improve. Make that sucker the best sparking manuscript it can be. Luck’s good and all, but it never hurts to give your work a fighting chance. Sooner or later it’s going to land on the right desk at the right time, and you’ll be on your way.

Stellar luck to everyone, and may the odds be ever in your favor. See y’all next week.

Week 3 - Stallouts and False Starts

 

Here I am again. I wish I had something to tell you. Anything that wouldn’t sound like an excuse. But the fact is, I did next to no writing this past week on either of my projects, because 2023 and all its bad luck wasn’t quite finished with me. Yes, the car is fixed now. Yes, I got to celebrate my birthday the way I wanted to. And then, as I reported last time, I got sick. Here’s where our update begins.

I thought it was a 24-hour virus because the nausea and the fever only lasted 24 hours. The dry cough and the lack of appetite decided to stick around. I also developed a scratchy throat and sporadically runny nose. I’d be fine for hours, then suddenly start coughing and sneezing. Then I’d lie down and take a nap. Assuming I could, because when I tried to lie down the phlegm would drip into my throat and I’d start coughing. I could hear it making liquidy sounds whenever I took a breath. That’s bronchitis, which I’ve dealt with before, only it wasn’t as intense. It was kind of bronchitis lite. The fever, the night coughing, the sleeplessness and fatigue only lasted a day or two each. The problem with bronchitis, though, is that there’s no shot or medicine you can take to relieve it. You need to stay in bed and ride it out and let it run its course.

Caveat: yes, I did try Nyquil, during my last bout of full-blown bronchitis back in 2020. It did knock me cold and suppress the coughing so I could sleep through the night. The trouble happened after it wore off. I’d get wide-awake, standing-up catchup coughing fits so bad I could barely breathe. For two of them I had ringing in my ears and thought I was going to pass out. One was in public. The one where I almost passed out happened right in front of my house, with nobody around. I count myself extremely lucky that it didn’t get any worse. I will never take Nyquil for bronchitis again. Your mileage may vary.

Back to the story. It’s now Monday night, and we’re having an overnight snowstorm.

Not too bad. Three fluffy inches. But I don’t have anyone to dig my car out for me, and I needed to get to the store because I was running out of food and Kleenex. (Thank Chuck, God of Supernatural, the Tylenol held out.) So sick l’il me went out—twice, had to shovel in stages because I got tired—and cleared off the car. That was Tuesday. I’d sleep as well as I could and drive to the grocery store in the morning.

Woke up Wednesday morning, put on my glasses, and discovered I had double vision.

Luckily this is something else I’ve dealt with before. It first happened to me after a really bad week of computer game addiction, when I wasn’t eating right, if at all, and not getting sufficient sleep. Simple enough to manage: take a nap, eat decent meals, and it goes away on its own. Which it did, eventually. By the end of the day I was seeing single again…but only in the house. I got into the car and realized outside was a whole different animal. Y’see, with my form of double vision, everything close is in focus. The farther away things are, the more likely they are to double. Imagine the two-lane road running past your house is now a four-lane, and half the cars coming at you in the opposite lane(s) aren’t real, and you can’t be sure which is which. Or if the lane you’re driving on is an actual lane and not somebody’s lawn. Or somebody. And you still need to get to the store if you want to eat breakfast tomorrow. (I can always blow my nose on toilet paper. I always have plenty of that.)

If I’d been dizzy, or nauseous, or fatigued, I would have just gone back in the house and toughed it out until morning. But I’ve done this before too. The store I was aiming for is only two miles away, on a straight, clear main road. I drove most of it with one hand covering my right eye (the blurrier of the two). Each eye was fine on its own; it’s trying to look through both at once that was causing me problems. I got to the store with no problems. Coming home, the double vision had even cleared up but now I was driving into the sunset. Sometimes there’s just no winning no matter what you do.

Thursday. Woke up with double vision again but it was gone by the end of the day, for good this time. The coughing is more liquid now; whatever I’ve got is starting to break up. The shoveling I did Tuesday has resulted in sore back muscles, so walking around is a bitch. And guess what, we’ve got another all-day snowstorm scheduled for Friday…

Which I survived, obviously. I didn’t need to get supplies this time, so I basically took Friday off to let my back recover. Some neighbor with a snowblower did all our sidewalks, so all I had to do was dig out the car and my mini-driveway. I did that in stages on Saturday. Sunday I didn’t do bupkis. Napped, ate, read. No writing beyond flash.

That’s where we stand. Three weeks into January and I’ve barely written squat. Can I write a book in a month? The question remains unanswered. Or else the answer is, “Not this month.” Or maybe it’s, “Next month.”

Though I have established one positive habit while possibly extinguishing a bad one. I’ve now written and posted a blog four weeks in a row. I haven’t done that in years. I wish the content was better for you guys. I’ll work on that next. Also, I’m not sure of the exact date, but I think it’s now been at least a full month since I stopped playing computer games. I know that ended sometime before New Year’s. I even had some momentum going for a couple of days there before life tripped me up again. I survived. Hopefully I learned something. Hopefully whatever I learned may be useful to some of you attempting your own New Year’s journeys. I do not recommend driving while sick, or with double vision. Stick that one under the generalization, “Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.”

Now to post this puppy and get back to work. See you next week.