Between Words
When my friends ask about my writing I usually reply, “I’m always working on something.” At this moment I am not, well except for this blog. Part of being a writer is like pouring raw product into a pipeline. I worked in a boot factory once. I wasn’t very good at it. I did learn about the factory process. While some people cut pieces out of rubber, other people transport the pieces to an assembly line where still others put the various pieces together. Others check to see the assembly is correct, others seal the pieces to make boots, somebody else packs the product and people outside the factory transport them. No doubt others took orders, hired and fired people, kept the books and did other needed activities.
On “the floor” wherever you worked you depended on people earlier in the process to give you what you need for your part of the assembly. Even once I found my best niche (custodian) I was well aware that my mistakes could slow the process and cost the company as well as everyone working there.
Now I am my own assembly line. I just sent off two submissions and I am currently between words. I cannot submit before I identify a possible market. That depends on how the novel/story/essay or whatever turns out. That depends on editing after getting feedback. Before anything is ready for feedback it needs to be sent to my first reader and then extensively revised. But it has to be made ready for my first reader by the constant reviser. He does not get into the picture until the first draft writer finishes providing the raw data known as the first draft. And he has to keep working no matter how much crap he writes and how he shapes it until it fills the mold of a first draft. None of that is possible until the idea has been found by the explorer who wades through the tar pits of my unconscious and wrests the bits and pieces from the muck that might be anything from a saber tooth tiger to a ground sloth. Some pieces come up easily and other fight against removal.
Uh oh, time to clock in. I’m holding myself up. Time to work.
On “the floor” wherever you worked you depended on people earlier in the process to give you what you need for your part of the assembly. Even once I found my best niche (custodian) I was well aware that my mistakes could slow the process and cost the company as well as everyone working there.
Now I am my own assembly line. I just sent off two submissions and I am currently between words. I cannot submit before I identify a possible market. That depends on how the novel/story/essay or whatever turns out. That depends on editing after getting feedback. Before anything is ready for feedback it needs to be sent to my first reader and then extensively revised. But it has to be made ready for my first reader by the constant reviser. He does not get into the picture until the first draft writer finishes providing the raw data known as the first draft. And he has to keep working no matter how much crap he writes and how he shapes it until it fills the mold of a first draft. None of that is possible until the idea has been found by the explorer who wades through the tar pits of my unconscious and wrests the bits and pieces from the muck that might be anything from a saber tooth tiger to a ground sloth. Some pieces come up easily and other fight against removal.
Uh oh, time to clock in. I’m holding myself up. Time to work.
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