Monday 1st January 2024
See, I knew this would happen.
One of the interesting things about this time of year (broadly speaking, of course - everyone has their own lives, their own timetables, and their own commitments) is that if you have a career that is creative* you might find that the space between Christmas and New Year has freed up your head to become a little more creative. It might be that what with ten and twenty jobs and deadlines - all of which seem to get a little more dense and perhaps slightly more fraught towards the end of the year - it can be more difficult to catch up with your own projects and the things you’d like to work on. It may be somewhat disheartening to open up a folder on your computer and discover that it’s been a good few months (alright, four if we’re keeping count) since the last time you worked on it. Things run the risk of dropping by the wayside.
So, creatively, this time of year is a bit of a double edged sword (double edged pen? I’ve heard it just edges ahead in the mighty stakes): ideally you finally have a bit more energy and brainspace to think about the art, and doubtless you may feel enthused to crack your knuckles, brew up a coffee or nine, and get to work. But I’m aware all that positive vibes may well be tempered with the realisation that you’ve been here before. It can be all very well breaking open the gym membership on January 1st, but so many of us may fall by the wayside by Twelfth Night - or even 12pm.
Case in point - I spotted a call out for a short story anthology a couple of days back. Now, the last thing I need is a SHINY NEW THING to be distracted by, but the hook was cute enough, I felt like I had a reasonably singular angle on it, and 3,000 words isn’t impossible to write up in a matter of days.
Although that was the problem: I only had a matter of days to write, finish, and submit the story. That didn’t leave much time for redrafts, or really for finding much room for nuance or subplot - not as much as I’d like, anyway. There was a very good chance that if I started this story, I wouldn’t get it finished in time for the deadline.
So.
I decided to start it anyway. I’ve never been convinced about just how dangerously distracting a SHINY NEW THING can be (that’s a post for another time), and anyway, if I got this done, there would be a new story in the world. Which I suppose is the main point of this blog post in the first place.
If you’re writing (and pitching) short stories off your own steam - in other words, if nobody is actually asking and waiting for them, it’s easy to get a bit despondent: who the hell cares? It’s so easy to let a day, a week, a month go by when there’s a new series of The Traitors starting up (note to self, there’s a new series of The Traitors starting up). It’s one of the reasons why NaNoWriMo can be a good idea, to help dilute that toxic self-sabotaging procrastination. What’s also a good idea is keeping an eye on call outs for short stories, from companies and organisations who I happen to believe - despite the sheer volume of online chatter - are not, for the most part, out to make a quick buck (exactly how many quick bucks do you think the average struggling writer has, anyway?) but genuinely want to find, reward, and publish good writing.
But yes, it can be difficult to manage your time when you find you have rather less of it. Any number of Douglas Adams quotes about deadlines aren’t going to help you here. But I want to suggest that even if a deadline (crucially, if it needs pointing out, a deadline from a company or group that doesn’t even know you exist, not an editor who is waiting on your thousand word feature on lipsticks) does indeed woosh by, that’s not any reason to stop writing your story. The story that you write (and finish) is now part of your portfolio, a calling card. Either you’ll publish it as part of your next collected works anthology, or there will be at some point another magazine doing another call out, and this time you’ll be ready. You won’t even miss the deadline.
So anyway, the point is I have the beginnings of a brand new story that I will definitely finish soon.
*I happen to think that nearly any career - that you're able to be in control of yourself - can be creative, but maybe that's a post for a different time.
By the way, from Wednesday, we're going to be starting up the Ironclad Creative online Writing Sprints again. These are on Zoom, they're for a hour every weekday morning (starting at 9am GMT) and put simply, they're a space where writers (or indeed procrastinators) can spend sixty minutes in one another's virtual company working - or not working - on whatever Works In Progress they have going on. It's been a real pleasure to spend a hour a day with other writers in a no pressure environment (there's no sharing of work, and there's not even an expectation to have your camera on if you're not feeling up to it) and slowly hack away at whatever I'm writing at any given time. It's entirely free of charge to join any Writing Sprint, and so I do hope you'll join us. You'll find the link here.
