Little Things

I'll get to the title of this post in a moment, but first some general, boring updates. This week was rejection week - joy! Monday I received the last query rejection (my initial thought being, at least I didn't get it on a Friday). Tuesday I received a rejection for "Suicide Woes." After that rejection, it struck me, I had nothing else out in circulation. At the moment I opened the letter on Tuesday, I knew I wouldn't receive another rejection because there was nothing out there to reject. Am I weird in saying, I kind of felt like a deer caught in headlights? Guess I'm admitting my masochistic side.

So, today I sent out "Suicide Woes" and "Prince Upon a Black Horse" to new markets. That means I feel a little better, since I know I can get my Friday rejections again. :p I haven't done any queires at the moment because I e-mailed a friend with a few questions about a publisher I'm considering sending the novel to. And I signed up for NaNo - yay! I will be working on Shepherd of Dreams. Can't worry about that though until November 1. Too many other things to get done before then.

No, my word count hasn't gone up this week. Monday I spent most of the day working on a crit and cleaning my study (the papers might not be organized yet, but having a clean place to work in feels good). Tuesday I felt like poo, so no work got done, Wednesday I still felt like poo and did scans, and today, well, I already mentioned I was working on submissions - it takes a lot of time to pick one from the list at ralan.com, then to make sure I didn't make a big oops in the cover letter.

As for the title of this post. I think so many of the little things have been holding me back lately. I have so much to do that my mind starts to panic, but the thing is, especially with the writing, it's mostly a bunch of little things, and that's why the list seems so long and overwhelming. I've been intending to make a list of all my writing projects (or languishing stories that should be in a slush pile somewhere), but I've been putting it off. I think it needs to get done, along with some of the other smaller stuff I have been putting off, which eventually make them into big things. So, for the rest of this week, I'm not going to be concerned with word count. Instead, I'm going to make myself that list, so I have something to focus on and check off once I finish it.

My goals for the rest of the week: create a writing list, including what stage in the process I'm in with my stories and novels, update my website, including something on the sad, sad tips and promts page, finish a crit, and plan next week's goals. I know it doesn't seem like much, but those little things are beginning to get overwhelming to the point that I'm choking on my worry.

I also have to keep reminding myself that writing is more than just getting words on the page. Word counts are great, but those don't show the time spent trying to network with other writers, preparing submissions, critiquing, allowing ideas to formulate in my head, reading magazines for market research, reading books, among the other number of writerly things. I think I've been giving myself a guilt trip too much over the low weekly word counts. I need to clean out some of the little garbage that piled up while I was working on my thesis before I can get my fingers moving again with my current rough drafts.

And I'm rambling - surprise, surprise. Okay, I'll stop boring people with all this junk. Time to work on those goals...and maybe eat something today - lol. Happy writing all!