As in, I crushed today. Not like something crushed me.
Today was just one of those days, man, where I did everything I set out to do. All of it. I wrote for all the hours I wanted to, which turned out to be exactly how much time I needed to finish the second draft of my short story for the Star Trek contest. I still have to READ it and do a line edit, but the major work is done. I had a sip of bourbon in my new glasses with a few frozen whisky stones to celebrate. A tiny celebration. Still have work to do to get it all finished.
It’s not my best format, this whole short story thing. At least short stories with such tight word count requirements. Writing this piece, I realize how often I plot stories that are too big for their format. It happened with my pilot, it happened with my one-off novel that’s turned into a trilogy, and it may have happened with this short story. I don’t know, I still have to read it and see. BUT…this is an exercise in editing, you know? An exercise in making it work. The story itself is solid. The character arc is solid. I realize after finishing this second draft, or maybe it was when I was planning out my rewrites I realized it, but I do not regret at all the story that I chose to write for this contest. Any reservations I have, which I’m choosing to be learning moments, would be in how I’m executing what easily could have been a 60,000 word novel in 1/6th that space.
I am under my word count, though. 9,800 words. I was SO SURE I was going to go over that word count. Just ask my blog entry from last night. But I didn’t! Huzzah. But, seriously, from the *outset* this entire write-an-entry-to-the-trek-contest was meant to be an exercise, a learning experience. Do I want to win? Of fucking course I do! But, really, I wanted to just get back into writing. I’d taken too long a break from writing Starstuff. Six months is clearly too long. 9 months if you don’t count the reading and the rewriting I did at the beginning of last year.
I needed something with a deadline, and with characters and a world that I already knew. It was perfect, and I can happily say that it’s been totally successful in getting me back into the writing flow. I also think it has a chance to win. I really do. Be one of the winners. A chance. Which really means I’m confident that I’ll be sending in something that I’m proud of and represents my skill-level as a writer, and that’s really exciting in and of itself. I know that sounds like I’m trying to rationalize myself down from being disappointed if I don’t win and they come running to me begging that I write them the next great Trek novel…and maybe I am a bit 😛 But mostly, really, genuinely, I’m realizing that my heart is in my own novels, and writing this short allowed me to moved forward in figuring out my process. I tried things with this short that I haven’t tried before, and I’ve learned things about how I work by trying those new things and seeing what I liked and what I didn’t. I’m going to take that to my novels, and for that learning experience, I will always be glad I did this contest, which I get chosen for publishing or not.
My biggest remaining fear is that I won’t put in the time that it takes to really learn how I work best as a writer, and then apply that to my creative process and time management to produce as many books and stories and scripts as I can possibly write…that I won’t put in the work that it takes to become the best, happiest version of myself. That’s my greatest anxiety…and I crushed that anxiety today. Crushed it.
It was a good day. Tomorrow is a work day. Let’s see if I can crush that too 😉
Artwork tonight is from Colin Hay.