Friday, November 20, 2009

Encounters With A Brick Wall

Query letters aren't getting any attention. The current work in progress was put aside in favor of editing an old manuscript, and when I went back to it, I knew the opening had to be re-done but I didn't know where to start. Revised query letters aren't getting any attention.

I've reached the tallest brick wall yet, the one that I'm having a difficult time climbing over. It's the wall that's covered with graffiti, all of which declares my utter inability to write anything that anyone would want to read.

Crisis of confidence perhaps? Or the faintest glimmers of reality poking through? So what's at the top of this brick wall if I try to clamber up? More failure? Yet another wall?

The partial manuscript that was sent to a publisher may never move along any further than the bottom of the slush pile, forgotten until some cleaning session sees it tossed into the bin. The agent who's reading the full manuscript may be composing a rejection query letter even now.

Ah, the ups and downs of the writing game. The temptation to quit is quite strong. Be done with the pain of rejection, the weariness of early mornings spent with words. What point is sleep deprivation if it leads to nothing but....nothing?

But if I give it up, I'll be expected to find the leak under the kitchen sink and actually fix it. Rooms in need of paint will have to be painted. I'd have the time for the mundane chores, if I would abandon a hobby that's provided years of frustration.

Maybe if I can hypnotize myself and try writing from a trance......

2 comments:

TK Richardson said...

I think every writer has felt this way. I know I have. For me it helps to think of this quote--

'The writer who writes for himself has no audience,
but the writer who writes for an audience loses himself.' (or has no self?)

[very loosely quoted and not sure who the author is]

It might help to go back to the reason you started writing.

For me, it was for myself-- not to be published.I know there are other avenues for publication if I choose. And even then I may have no audience, but really I'm okay with that.

To me the art is the writing, not the publishing. Just my thoughts...

What about you?

O hAnnrachainn said...

I'm addicted to the writing, to the mental release that comes from loosing myself in a story.

Getting published would be grand indeed, but I can't seem to stop writing so it can't be the most critical part of my writing life or I'd have quit long ago.