I’m a big fan of fictional story serials such as
Limetown and The Message. I started a new writing project similar to those, and
it’s gaining momentum in my imagination. I’m still a bit lost
in the thickets as to the direction it’s headed in, but I’m thinking about posting
it as a weekly series on this blog, like I did with “Bite Wing” a few years
ago, before it got picked up by a publisher. I like the idea of posting
material weekly to keep me motivated, and I think the structure of this project would lend itself well to a series format. And, after
slogging through the demoralizing, rejection-laden experience of sending out
query letters for my novel, I’m enamored with the idea of having control over
the publication process, even if it’s just on a humble little blog with a
modest number of subscribers. I haven’t made a decision yet on whether I’m
going take the plunge, but I’m leaning towards it. The point
of writing is to have your work read, and I don’t think I’m willing to wait
around for someone else’s approval indefinitely before getting my work out
anymore.
The problem with me, and probably with a lot of
writers, is that we’re good at writing, but not so good at the things that go
along with selling our work, like packaging and marketing and reaching our “target
audience”. As someone with a stressful full-time job, I feel
like the act of creative writing sucks every spare ounce of energy out of me, and
by the time I’ve actually written and edited something into a viable product, I’m
too worn out mentally to work up the psychic energy required to sell it. And the
idea of selling is deeply embarrassing to me. It’s not that I’m not proud of my
work, or that I don’t believe in it—it’s just that is seems horrifically
attention-grabby to me to go around telling people to buy my work. It’s like
saying “I’m amazing! Purchase me! You’ll
love me!” This lack of ability to separate myself from what I produce is the
same emotional bugaboo that causes me to take rejection personally. Earlier
this week, I got a speedy rejection from an agent who basically said “meh”
about my work, which felt like they were saying “meh” about me personally,
because my heart is in my novel. I know it was just business, but it felt like
someone looking my very soul up and down and saying, “Eh, not for me.”
Enough of my mopey, writerly drama. Last week, I
alluded to a treadmill fall. It was fairly traumatic—it turns out I was
actually in shock on my way to the ER, and I have very little memory of the event. I just know that I was huffing away on the treadmill in the
employee workout room when suddenly things got away from me and I fell and was
bouncing around on the belt, which just kept going and going, and I couldn’t
freaking get off of the stupid thing
or make the belt stop, and something was wrong with my shoulder, and I couldn’t
find my cell phone, and then another employee who was in the exercise room at
the same time shut the belt off and called a code even though I told him not
to. That was before I noticed a deep, bloody gash on my arm. There was instantaneous
flurry of staff surrounding me, and the next thing I know I was plopped into a
chair, draped with multiple blankets (throughout my ER stay, there were many
blankets a-draped), and whisked off to the ER. Long story short, I’m fine—I had
a torn shoulder and a bad abrasion on my arm, but I’m healing up well. The cut
is taking a little while to mend because it was on the underside of my arm
where the skin is more soft and tear-prone, but the X-rays showed that nothing
was broken, and I will be A-okay. I’m trying to salvage the whole embarrassing experience
by telling myself it’s valuable to see my hospital from a patient’s
perspective.
Speaking of maddening things that happen at
work: My own printer held me for ransom this week. It was an outrageous act of
hostage-taking. The stupid printer always tells me to buy a new (ultra-expensive)
cartridge months before I actually need one, so I had been ignoring it’s dire
warnings to replace the Cyan cartridge—and then, it just suddenly stopped
printing. The black printer cartridge was full, and I was only printing in
black ink, but no. The printer decided to go on strike until I replaced the
Cyan cartridge. It just locked up and downright refused to do its job. I was
furious. I tried every restart and fake-out imaginable, even pulling the
current Cyan cartridge out and putting back in, thinking maybe that would “fool”
it into submission—nothing doing. That printer was not going to budge until I
capitulated to its demands. This was personal, folks. I had work to do and
things to print, and my printer, who I trusted,
decided to jack me for an overpriced cartridge way before I actually needed
one. Bottom line: The printer won. I ordered its damn cartridge and shoved it
into its greedy little printer tummy, and now we’re square. Or at least, in
business together again. But the sacred bond between employee and printer has
been broken, and our relationship will never be the same.
Video warning: Violent and very sweary rap
lyrics.
--Kristen McHenry
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