Today is blog post day. I want to call a snow day. Mental freeze. Icy conditions.
I need to hang a sign on the blog here that says “Writing: Will be back in two weeks.”
I’m past any word count I ever thought possible and still plugging away at Collateral Damage. I’m swearing off short stories this month. Not that I want to; I found I really enjoy the sense of completion you can get in a few weeks by wrapping up a short. It’s like a little dose of affirmation and motivation all rolled into one. Even when the rejection slips hit the inbox, there’s something to be done. Submit, resubmit, submit again. It gives this whole fictional work thing a process. It makes it official.
But for now, finishing this manuscript is the top priority. I want to start revising. How insane is that? Naive perhaps? I told an editor this week that I was looking forward to her edits – and I totally was. I want to know what could be better, what could be tightened. I want people to call me on my bullshit if need be. I didn’t walk away with a bachelor’s in philosophy without the ability to fill a page with semi-relevant, educated, on-topic sounding stuff that was really just filler.
See.
I just did it.
Now f%&*$ off. I’m writing. 🙂
Wait. Just had something to add that is sorta relevant. I got an email from a writer touting his latest work. I don’t know this guy, had no clue I was on any sort of mailing list of his, but to be charitable, I didn’t banish it to the Spam folder. I read it. It was a train wreck of a promotional piece and I figured his agent maybe put it together. There was no way a writer would SPAM ME with an email loaded with grammatical and spelling errors. Well, maybe not loaded, but more than one, as a writer, and you might as well be the dentist with no teeth. Anyway, today I get another email apologizing for the train wreck of a promo email which they didn’t check.
Seriously? Fellow writers, don’t be that guy.
Categories: Articles
RUSS LINTON 
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