It’s a little hard to believe that this post was six months ago. People often look at something like that and say “I just don’t know where the time went.” I feel that way a lot.
In this case, though, I know where the time went. In fleeting moments between my day jobs (I have two, others have even more) and the things that in the end, matter even more, I wrote two new stories and did a lot of revising to a novel manuscript.
Raquel Beatriz helped me with editing. She’ll be seeing more soon.
I revisited one of these stories this week. In a way, even though I know where the time went and how I spent it, I don’t exactly know how I produced these particular words. I know that read a lot before going to bed every night, I know I listened to creativity-boosting loops (I mean, it’s worth a shot), I know I did mental and physical exercise, and I know I took a scalpel to some Sherwood Anderson.
I know I listened to “The River” and “Brilliant Disguise” on repeat for weeks.
I know that earlier today, I deleted Twitter.
Like most necessary things, writing is hard. Communicating mental images or flashes of memory or triggering smells with tools that are, themselves, none of those things, takes work. Doing so in ways that makes sense not just to you but also to readers takes even more work.
I submitted some things to a great journal a few months ago. Even though the work I shared wasn’t ultimately accepted, I’m quite pleased with the feedback. Having given myself some time and space, I’ve come back to the piece they particularly liked with new eyes and ears. (Revision is always, literally, re-seeing. But it’s also re-listening and re-hearing.)
I greatly appreciate what the editor here is saying, and the time he took to say it, and the time he and the rest of the team take thinking deeply on these things:
We are writing with mixed news. While we are not accepting…
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Chris Cocca 