Your story submission to an editor is the first impression you make to them. Just as you would not go to a job interview barefoot (even if it was for a lifeguard position), there are certain things you need to do with each and every submission. As I write this, it’s been an incredibly curious week in the slush pile, so I thought I would throw some examples/suggestions your way.

Story One:

“The Bees Knees” arrives and looks pretty normal. Cover letter, and the attachment is in the DOC format. So far, so good. But the story itself is 8000 words long when I open it. I look back to the cover letter. “As per your guidelines,” the author writes.

The problem: If the writer had read Shimmer‘s guidelines, they would know we don’t accept stories longer than 5000 words, unless one queries and attaches the first page of the story.

The solution: Read the guidelines. Always and forever. If you cannot afford to snag a sample issue of every magazine you want to submit to, read their guidelines. Everything you need to know is there. Know them. Follow them. An editor will love you for this simple thing.

Story Two:

“The Honey Hive” arrives and at first glance, there’s not much to see. Looks like the author attached an RTF, but, that’s all there is. No cover letter, no bio, no background.

The problem: Receiving a story like this often feels like a slap to the face with a wet fish. While newspapers are thrown onto porches throughout the world, stories are not newspapers and should not be thusly flung.

The solution: Learn how to write a basic cover letter. We aren’t asking for an essay, and certainly not a summary (these aren’t novels), just a hello. This is your first impression–make it a good one. “Dear Editor, please find my story of #-words enclosed for your consideration. I have published here, there, but not yet everywhere. I am a member of SFWA, thank you for your time.” (Gra has written about cover letters, and so have I before!) There’s no need to include your complete bibliography; your three most recent sales will do. And if you don’t have any yet, don’t sweat it.

Story Three:

“Sweet Stings” arrives, and the author has written a great cover letter; no story summary, just telling us the basic facts, and mentioning our guidelines. At first glance, it looks like it fits what we want, but then, the attachment says DOCX.

The problem: The author has sent us a format we can’t read.

The solution: Shimmer accepts stories in DOC and RTF formats. The end. Word 2010 and onward makes this a challenge, as Microsoft saw fit to change their standard, but it’s not impossible. When you send the proper format, it makes for a smoother process for everyone, and you, the writer, don’t have to go back and do it all over again. Read the guidelines. Submit accordingly.

And write on, bees. Write on!

My conversation with writers concludes with thoughts on how one crafts the perfect ending to a story. Participating writers include: Luc Reid,  Krista Hoeppner Leahy, Don Mead,  Justin Howe, and Vylar Kaftan. Next time, I pick on some Shimmer staffers for an entirely new round of interrogation questioning.

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How do you craft the perfect ending for a story? How do you keep an ending from falling flat?

LR: I think a lot of the artistry comes in here, because the ideal ending, to my mind, is surprising but also inevitable. That’s difficult, because if readers can predict what will happen at the end of the story, they’ll tend to check out, but the ending has to be contained in what has come before–or at least be something that brings together the important pieces of what’s come before.

Take Lord of the Rings, for example: of course the Ring has to be destroyed, and of course Sam and Frodo have to be the ones to get it to Mount Doom, because for Sauron to win or for Frodo to fail would be like a kick in the face after everything Tolkien has asked us to invest in the characters. But if they just get there and Frodo tosses the Ring in, then first of all it’s an anticlimax, because what’s exciting about tossing a piece of metal into a crater? Secondly, the corrupting influence of the Ring would have counted for nothing despite being a central theme of the story.

So it usually seems important to have the ending be not just “will this happen or not?” but rather “how can this possibly happen?” For instance, Frodo absolutely wouldn’t turn away from his quest, but if the Ring really has that strong a hold on him, how could he possibly destroy the thing?

Of course, I’m really talking about the climax rather than the ending, but the ending–the denouement–is just an easy wrapping up of the little unanswered questions, like “how do they go back to their old lives?” or “how does he cope with the terrible things he’s experienced?” Once the climax has been reached, everything else is coasting. Making things like buildup and climax work well in a story, on the other hand, are the hardest tasks, some of the things that make writing an art and not just an assembly process.

KHL: Endings are even trickier than titles.  Jeanne Cavelos at Odyssey taught me the importance of the ending being both surprising and inevitable, in order to be most satisfying to the reader, but that’s easy to say and hard to do. I find that if the ending surprises me, that’s a good sign, and usually means other folks won’t think it fell flat. But it has to be true, too. And that often means being brave enough to depart from what I think the ‘perfect’ ending is. Imperfection often makes an ending tug harder at the heartstrings. Partial resolution is one of my favorite tricks. And, this is controversial, but I’m always a fan of stories that leave the reader in the mystery, in the wonder. Which means risking not explaining everything, thus (hopefully) leaving the reader the space to make it perfect.

DM: I’m a little better at endings. I write horror and action, so my endings can be pretty violent with a high body-count. I often add a short section after the big climax—a chance for the characters to think about what had happened and to put it all in perspective. There’s a fancy literary term for doing that. Gene Wolfe once told me the term, but I forget what it was. (I should write stuff down). But the key to a “perspective” ending is brevity.

Of course I get it wrong sometimes. I once got a reply from an editor that I’d mixed up whose story was being told, and that the ending fell flat. But he liked other elements of the story enough to consider a re-write. Luckily, I didn’t have to change the POV to fix it. I just re-wrote the ending to resolve certain conflicts, which in turn, fixed my flat ending. My critique group (which I heavily rely upon) said it was a much better story, and the editor acquired the re-write.

JH: An ending should give off a tone, as if the story were a bell struck by a hammer. The reader should go away still hearing that sound. I avoid perfection. That way lies madness. I strive for some place beyond my best, beyond my last story, going after that moment when the story surprises me. That surprise should be the ending.

VK: If you’ve been writing the story well all along, you should be narrowing it down to the only ending possible given what’s come before. If you get to the end and you aren’t sure if the story will end happily or not, you’ve messed something up in the middle. Almost always, when the ending is broken, it’s because the middle isn’t supporting it. Think of a house of cards. To add the top story to your creation, you need a stable and supporting middle. If it’s not there, the house falls. Furthermore, you can’t put a middle in your house of cards and expect the top to float off to one side; it must sit squarely on the foundation that came before. That’s what your ending is like: balanced on the prior scenes. An ending should close the conflict you’ve set up and add new depth to everything that came before it. If you continually suffer from weak endings in your stories, learn to write middles first.

My conversation with writers continues. Today, we look at point of view. Which is most effective? Of course that completely depends on the story you’re telling… Participating writers include: Luc Reid,  Krista Hoeppner Leahy, Don Mead,  Justin Howe, and Vylar Kaftan.

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How do you decide whose story is being told? Do you have a favorite POV to work in?

LR: I usually seem to go for whatever character is in the biggest trouble: the kid who won’t leave the dangerous magical family alone, the girl who teaches herself about shipbuilding when she’s supposed to be cultivating charms to attract a husband, the old ladies who are interested in suicide protests, or young man who gets exiled from his village for stealing apples. For point of view, if the character seems like someone who wants to tell their own story in their own voice, I’ll go with first person, but otherwise I tend to use third.

KHL: I often let my characters make those decisions, which means that on occasion I finish a story and realize that the most compelling story is still off-stage, so to speak, as a loudmouth character insisted on telling me his or her story, when really the minor bit wallflower character is the one who has the murder and mayhem to share. But that’s okay, because then I simply cajole the wallflower into spilling the beans. POV changes. I used to work exclusively in what I think of as eyeball socket third person. But eyeball socket first person has been fruitful too, as of late.

DM: I write a lot of historical stories filled with interesting characters from real life. For example, the story I’m currently working on is about a group of African-American jazz musicians who decided to enlist in World War I to help overcome stereotypes. Do I write about the dynamic leader who’s murdered before he could forge a legendary musical career? Or the poor share-cropper who became a Harvard track star and law school graduate? Or perhaps the cultured, brilliant violinist who played for the crown heads of Europe but had to hide his music reading ability from white American patrons? I think the final question is: who’s got the most to gain (or loose)? Whose triumph or death will most impact the other characters and the readers?

JH: I’m at my best when I’m not making decisions but the story itself has decided how it must be told. I certainly have favorite POVs, just as I have favorite character types and capturing their voice is what’s going to make the story exciting. A lot of the drafting process is trying to discover that voice.

VK: The POV is usually* the character with the most at stake. Who will hurt the most?  Who will suffer most if things go badly? My favorite POV to work in is the best one for that story.

*Like all writing guidelines, there are exceptions, and the corner cases can be truly amazing stories. However, unless you have a good reason to choose something different, try keeping POV with the character who has the most at stake, and you will see your stories grow stronger.

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Next time: how to end it all…when it comes to stories!

My conversation with writers continues. Today, we look at slumping middles and how you might avoid such–or…how you might have to write them anyhow! Participating writers include: Luc Reid,  Krista Hoeppner Leahy, Don Mead,  Justin Howe, and Vylar Kaftan.

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How do you keep a story from slumping in the middle?

LR: I usually feel propelled in writing a story from beginning to end, and that often seems to correspond to the story continuing to have interest for readers through the middle. There’s something I need to see happen or want to depict or want to figure out completely, so I write to get there. If I falter writing it in the middle, that’s a red flag for me that I may be losing interest in my own story. Maybe I took a wrong turn–made a character do something that either they wouldn’t do or that makes that character less worth reading about, resolved a problem instead of making it bigger, or set the protagonist on a course that doesn’t really make any interesting progress toward the main goal. Middles of stories are sometimes described as being a series of failed attempts to solve the central problem, but they need to build, too. Unlike life, most short stories need meaningful progression.

In terms of direct tools to recharge a story that seems to be losing steam, I usually try one of two things: either starting elsewhere in the story, for instance backtracking, or skipping ahead and writing the end; or else letting something go horribly wrong. Making things worse for the characters often seems to make things better for the writer and readers, as long as it continues to bring the characters in conflict with the key story problems.

KHL: Oh, I let the story slump and sag and slouch as much as it longs to in the first draft. Then I cut mercilessly as I revise. And hard as it may be to hear, I ask my wise readers to be brutally honest if they felt the urge to skim anywhere.

DM: Don’t know; I’m bedeviled by stories that slump in the middle. Maybe enforcing an artificial word count. After a story’s finished, decide to edit out a thousand words no matter what. If a publication has a maximum word-count, you might be forced to do this anyway. You’d be surprised how brutal you can be when it comes to making a sale (and you can preserve your story too).

JH: You write a slumpy middle then delete it when revising because the delete key is the sexiest key on your keyboard. Or delete your beginning and tighten the slumpy middle into a tight beginning. Deleting what you’ve written can be a joyous, liberating experience. “Wait. I don’t need you after all Slumpy Middle. I can just sum you up in a sentence or three. DELETE.” Ursula K. LeGuin mentions Chekhov’s Razor (it might have been in her collection THE WILD GIRLS) and once you accept that as truth, that you can delete the first three pages of most drafts and lose nothing, the rest is easy.

VK: Spiked clothespins to hold it on the line. Less metaphorically–add intense, dangerous, and hurtful experiences to your protagonist which make his/her goals harder to get. Kidnap her child, break his leg, send an evil spirit to possess him. Any sort of outside force which interferes with the protagonist’s ability to get what s/he wants. (But my protag doesn’t want anything, you say?  Well then, you have a different problem that you need to solve first…)

Next time: point of view!

My conversation with writers continues. Today, we look at titles and how one approaches them. Participating writers include: Luc Reid,  Krista Hoeppner Leahy, Don Mead,  Justin Howe, and Vylar Kaftan.

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How do you go about choosing a title for the story? Do titles present themselves before the work begins, or when it’s complete?

 

LR: Titles for me come before, during, or after writing the story. I have strong opinions about what titles should do: I have a whole rant about them . While they do serve as postscripts and labels for stories, my feeling is that their biggest job is to convey why someone might like the story so that they can attract the readers who would be most interested. This means my story titles often come out on the long side, though.

When a title doesn’t jump out at me automatically, I tend to go through the story looking for something that broadcasts what’s interesting about the story to me, like “My Girlfriend the Mentalist,” “On the Talking Horse Circuit,” or “Bottomless” (which is admittedly a title that’s vulnerable to off-color jokes). It’s not difficult to guess that these are stories about a mind-reading girlfriend, a performing talking horse, and a bottomless pit, respectively. With any luck, those titles will tend to interest the kinds of readers who like stories with those kinds of premises.

KHL: Finding titles is tricky. I’m a sucker for a good title, but choosing my own can be a bit of a challenge. Almost always, the title is the finishing touch, only apparent after the story is complete. The marvelous poet Matthea Harvey has come up with a series of categories for titles (in reference to poems). My favorite category illuminates just how powerful a good title can be. She calls those titles “helium balloons,” where the titles lift the work into whole new stratospheres of meaning and resonance.

DM: I’ve given up trying to think of titles before hand or during the writing process. It’s only when the piece is finished that the title emerges.

JH: Either before or during. I don’t think I’ve ever written a story and afterwards sat around wondering what to call it. Normally the hard part will be trying to decide between a few contenders. I do have a list of titles in need of stories, and whenever I start a new story, I get a bit excited wondering if, yes, now, finally I will get to use that awesome title I’ve been saving.

On a side note my friend, Jay Ridler, came up with this challenge where we made a list of titles and gave them to each other and some friends. We named the challenge after horror producer Val Lewton who was given a similar list by his studio executives. (It’s because of this that I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE is such a great movie.) Jay wrote about the experience over on his blog.

VK: Titles are like little advertisements for the story. A good title makes the reader say, “What could that be?  Wow, I want to read it.”  Strong titles have motion, just like a story. They may have a verb to give them some action, or pair two words that don’t belong together and cause friction between them. Single-word titles rarely work unless they are a very interesting word. (Of course, like any writing guideline, there are a zillion exceptions. But my point remains.)  The other point about titles is that it’s impossible to get a perfect title for every story. About 50% of the time, I can find a great title with some thought. 25% of the time, I find a decent one. And the other 25% of the time, I just give it the best one I can think of and then stop worrying about it.

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How do you title your stories? Leave us a comment to let us know. When we next meet, we’ll talk about the dreaded middle slump of a story!

I like interviewing other writers, to find out how they do what I do: write! This idea came after too much coffee, I’m sure, but I thought what if I ask five authors the same five questions and see what kind of patterns emerge or don’t. Surely we can break the secret code to writing. For starters, I picked five random writers from my writing group.

My victims for these first rounds are: Luc Reid, Krista Hoeppner Leahy, Don Mead,  Justin Howe, and Vylar Kaftan. My thanks to them for taking part!

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How do you begin a story? Does it start with the idea, a character, an image, a line of dialogue, or are all stories different?

LR: A story idea that grabs me usually has a character getting mixed up in something strange or difficult, and I write the story to find out more about that. For instance, my most recent story came from the idea of a stick figure who was in love with a cartoon–someone who was completely out of his league because the object of his affections was drawn so much better than he was. The world of the story emerged because it had to exist in order for that character to have that problem. For another example: my novel Family Skulls is about a teenager whose family can’t get help from anyone with anything, which doesn’t seem like such a bad curse until you break your leg at work, miss the bus back from a field trip an hour away from your house, or pass out on the street in winter. So: characters in strange and difficult situations. If the situation piques my interest and pushes my emotional buttons, I’m there.

KHL: Every story is different. Has a different inspiration, or spark. The challenge is how to kindle each spark into the best possible story. I like to sneak the theme in as early as possible, as that tends to lead to the most cohesive stories. I also find it helpful to think of the first paragraph as similar to a job interview. Lead with your strengths, and have the confidence that this particular story is the story that will change the reader’s life.

DM: I often start with dialogue—sometimes unattributed dialogue, which drives some people nuts though it’s worked for me quite well. I like to swing for the fences on the very first sentence. It’s not for everybody, but if I can get an editor to turn to the next page, I’ve broken through a barrier. I don’t want them to turn the page in mild interest or a sense of obligation, mind you. They have to want to know what happens next.

JH: All of the above which is another way of saying every story is different, which is also another way of saying by staring at my computer screen and mumbling to myself until something happens. Often the beginning, that arresting image, dialogue, nugget, or whatever you want to call it, will emerge only after a certain amount of drafting has occurred. It’s like that Steven Wright joke where he says he drinks at least three cups of coffee before his first cup of coffee every morning.

VK: All stories are different. Very generally speaking, the first line of a story should be a sentence that means one thing on first read, and something deeper or entirely new on second read (after the reader has finished the story). For example, an innocent-sounding line will take on a darker tone, or a play on words becomes clear.

How do you start a story? Leave us a comment. Next time, we’ll talk about story titles.

When you first begin writing, it’s hard to know what’s new and what’s worn out. People tell you to read broadly and this is one reason why. If you know what’s current in your preferred genre and beyond, you have a better chance of not stepping in the same puddle. If you fully intend to step into that puddle, at least you know how it has been done before and can attempt a new path through it.

Similar ideas to tend to collide and coalesce in the slush pile; some weeks, the slush seems to be of one distinct flavor, wherein everyone has decided to write about one topic, be it birth, death, or deals with the devil. It’s the genre hive mind hard at work–what power might we harness from that mind?

Some days, one has to groan when another story about Death rises to the top of the reading stack. I would pay good money to never read another story where one’s spouse turns out to be Death. Deals with the devil or the devil in disguise? That sweet old lady the protag helped across the street–the devil? You don’t say! I would like to never again see a story wherein it was all a dream; where the two characters in the story are the last two on Earth; where the heroine is a mermaid trying to live in the human world.

And yet, some stories do succeed in giving old ideas a new twist. Shimmer has published more than a few, but here are some recent examples:

Gutted, by L.L. Hannett (Shimmer 13)

“Erl  doesn’t believe in selkies.

The only skins women in his village discard are covered in scales, separated from juicy white flesh at the points of their gutting knives. Twice a day, fisherwives make short work of the fleet’s catch. Dawn and dusk see them straddling mermaids’ torsos, cleaning plump tails with efficient, intuitive slices. Thigh-length fillets slap into piles on the jetty while bloodless heads, grey shoulders and breasts splash back into the ocean. Waters churn as surviving merfolk wrestle to feed on the scraps.”

With the opening line, the story has already caught my interest because of two things. Thing one: selkies. Selkie stories, much like mermaid stories, are a dime a dozen in the slush pile. They are very common. This story had to work to gain my trust–which it did with thing two: “doesn’t believe.” This already gives a standard idea a subtle twist. I’m already curious about Erl and where his disbelief will take him and me, the reader. It takes us to a dark land, where mermaids are killed for their flesh, and where the interior landscape of one fisherman is stranger than any coastline you may find.

A Window, As Clear as a Mirror, by Ferrett Steinmetz (Shimmer 13)

“Malcolm Gebrowski returned from his job at the stamp factory to discover his wife had left him for a magic portal. He stared numbly at the linoleum floor of his apartment, all scuffed up with hoofprints, the smell of lilacs gradually being overpowered by the mildewy stink of the paper plant next door. All that was left of eight years of marriage was a scribbled note on the back of the telephone bill.”

Magic portals and elves and unicorns. For me what makes a story is its characters. This story quickly endears a reader to Malcolm–standing on the scuffed linoleum kitchen floor to read his wife’s devastating letter–she’s leaving him for a magic portal, but has left him lasagna in the oven. What could be a story full of classic fantasy trappings (unicorns! princes! fairies!) turns into a tender tale about an eight-year marriage and what happens when one partner bolts for the hills.

Red and Grandma Inside the Wolf, by Carmen Lau (Shimmer 12)

“What fabulous fur you have,” I said.

He really did. It was sleek, the color of snow and ash. And what quantity of it! Imagine my delight upon opening Grandma’s bedroom door and finding him, lying on his side with his head propped up with one sturdy leg, as if posing for a portrait. Veritable hillocks of fat and fur, this wolf had, roll upon roll, all spilling one over the other. One small shift and his entire body trembled. His fur glistened like metal in the lamplight. Looking at him made me hungry.”

Little Red Riding Hood was a staple in the slush pile for a good while, though she seems to have faded some in recent weeks. As with any fairy tale retelling, the author may have to work a little harder to provide a new twist, especially for readers well-schooled in this genre. This story starts with the title itself–how could that not capture a person’s attention? The title immediately anchors the reader, the first paragraphs sucking the reader inside with Red’s attraction to the wolf. She shouldn’t find him lovely, should she? Why is she hungry for him? Curious, curious, and the pace keeps on, until the last haunting line.

As you commit words to paper, be aware of what has come before. Read broadly, especially of the publications you submit to. If someone tells you stories about Death are cliché, you can thumb your nose at them. Blaze a new path. You don’t have to obliterate the old with your new twist–if you can twine your story alongside the original, giving new depth to a classic, so much the better.

My writing group is always coming up with new ways to egg each other on: contests and challenges, awards and speakers to inspire us.

One of our strategies is to pass around a sheet every week where we write down what stories we’ve submitted to markets. Knowing how many stories we have in the mail, seeing the group statistics of submissions vs. sales, bemoaning rejections, it keeps us accountable and makes us want to write more, and submit more.

That is, except for Anne.

Anne joined our group for just a little while. During her short stay, every week she’d scrawl on our submission sheet in all caps:

Which wasn’t the question, really, but okay. Needless to say that got old after a few months. Eventually she quit, never having submitted a story.

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve had writer’s block. It sucks. Sometimes it seems like every time I get into a solid writing groove, something comes out of left field and knocks my feet out from under me.

Here come the Life Rolls

Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith have an analogy for our writing careers they call The Game. They literally set up a board and have writers move along their career, try to get by, writing stuff, getting it out to markets, maybe even someday *gasp* making a living from writing. The Game chugs along and you roll dice to emulate good and bad stuff that happens. Life Rolls.

Unexpected, unplanned bad stuff that happens. Stuff like getting a divorce or your grandma  dying. It derails you, demands your attention,  possibly leaves you too wrecked to even think about writing.

Wonderful, delightful things can kill your writing dead too: getting your dream job, selling a story, winning an award. When I got into Clarion, it was a dream come true. The six weeks I spent there was one of the most powerful times of my life.

Then it ended and I didn’t write for a year.

Life Rolls are pretty much anything that drag focus away from your writing and career.

Learning to surf

Life’s going to throw stuff at you. I guarantee it.

Life is kind of like the ocean, it’s huge and can seriously knock you for a loop. You can try to stand tough against it, but it’s going to hit you hard. When dealing with life, we need to be flexible. We can make all the solid plans we like, but something is going to go wrong sometime, count on it. If we’re going to keep writing through our Life Rolls, we have to learn how to surf.

Strategizing

Life surfing takes a little planning. Sure, there’s no way you’ll be ready for when someone plows into your car or your lover pops the question, but you can make your writing strategy realistic and modular. You can break your plans into small pieces that can be moved around inconveniences and put on hold when things get crappy (or awesome). Set reasonable goals and break them down into little steps. (More about that in a minute.)

But you know what? You don’t swing with cancer. Okay, I know one guy who just pushed through it and kept writing, but most of us need to give ourselves time to mourn and reflect and just plain feel sorry for ourselves. Another writing friend who had cancer kept trying to make herself finish her damn novel until she was even more sick and miserable. It wasn’t until she let herself stop that she really started to heal.

Sometimes the very best thing we can do is let it go. I have a friend who needed to say, “I’m just not a writer anymore.” He cried, moved on to other things, and eventually felt better … and then he picked up writing again, stronger than ever.

It might help to give yourself vacations, sick days, whatever allows you to recharge and get back to it. You could set a date to check back in with your writing self. Set up a small, reasonable project to start with. In the meantime, do things that make you happy, things that feed your soul and give your life meaning.

Personally, I have A.D.D, and it keeps me sane. When I look on my current artistic plate, I see that I have a novel in the works, two others on the back-burner, and about thirty short stories I need to finish. When I just can’t look at the novel, I pull  out some short fiction. When writing feels too hard I record music, or  bind books or draw. Something. Anything.

That way, when I’m procrastinating, I’m still doing something. I’m doing things that feel good and get my artistic juices flowing.

But sometimes nothing helps.

Asking for support

You’re not in this alone.

Pretending you are isn’t doing yourself any favors. I’m blessed with friends and family and peers and if I don’t reach out to them, I’m just hurting myself. Even if I didn’t have people around me, there are thousands of people out there who understand what it’s like to feel stuck and blocked. Look for local writing groups. Go online, find forums and blogs. Find support.

Writer’s block

Anne was right: it sucks, it really does, but it can be dealt with.

My friend Ray pushes himself to the one page rule. He has to write 250 words every day. One page, every day. My sister does this in her own writing, but she lets herself write anything she wants, even just to rant about how much she hates writing in that moment. Sometimes that clears the way for fiction writing. My friend Damon’s rule is one sentence. Even on the worst day, he can still write one sentence. And on a lot of days he just keeps writing.

Some people write in the company of other writers. Some folks get energized by challenging other writers to see who can write the most.

Try different things. Some things will work for you, others won’t. Some things will work sometimes and not others or work for awhile and then stop. If you keep a toolbox full of tools to help you write, there’s a better chance that something will work.

A series of very small goals

So what do you do when you’re immobilized by fear or sadness or overwhelm?

My friend Bruce’s idea is atomizing: Break every task down into a series of tiny digestible pieces. Goals so small that they can’t possibly overwhelm you.

For example, you are never at one single moment writing a novel.

You’re writing a bunch of scenes. Wait, no, you’re writing one scene at a time.

But you’re not, you’re writing paragraphs that make up scenes. Or  actually sentences that make paragraphs.

Actually, all you’re ever doing at any one moment is writing words that make sentences, and, you know, any of us can do that, right?

Maybe your goals should always be very small. Oh, sure, they should fit together to make something glorious and huge, but maybe the focus should always be something like, “for the next twenty-five minutes I’m going to write a number of words.”

Anne Lamott says in Bird by Bird:

Often when you sit down to write…it’s like trying to scale a glacier. It’s hard to get your footing, and your fingertips get all red and frozen and torn up. … panic mounts and the jungle drums begin beating and I realize that the well has run dry and that my future is behind me and I’m going to have to get a job … I go back to trying to breathe, slowly and calmly, and I … remember that all I have to do is to write down as much as I can see through a one-inch picture frame. This is all I have to bite off for the time being.

I suggested working in twenty-five minute increments intentionally. There’s a whole system called the Pomodoro Method that creates structure to break any goal down into twenty-five minute chunks. It’s off and on done wonders for me.

Try this with your writing. You could also spend small chunks of time planning the larger structure for those words. (Or if you’re not into planning ahead, maybe use small chunks of time to smooth those words into something larger, or a little of each.)

I wish I had thought to say all this to Anne, because obviously writing was making her miserable. Hopefully she’s found her own set of tools to deal with what life throws at her writing.

Maybe a system like this will work for you, maybe another will. The point is, when life tries to kill your writing, go ahead and feel crappy, go ahead and mourn. But if you plan ahead a little, if you let yourself be flexible and cut yourself some slack, you can get through life rolls and writer’s block.

And don’t forget, we’ve all been there (and probably will be again). You’re not in this alone.