28th November, 2024 - 2 up

I submitted a flash fiction story to a competition run by Fiction Factory yesterday. That makes my 2nd piece of fiction submitted this year. Given the fact we're almost in December I doubt I'll be adding any more to that total. 2 in a year does seem a bit pitiful. But it's 2 up on last year so there's that.

The story I submitted was a 1000 word story I ended up calling The Apron. A title taken in inspiration I think from Lydia Davies great story, The Sock. My story is about a girl who goes back to her childhood home because she is worried about her fathers ability to cook for himself since her mother who was an amazing cook passed away. There's a lot of personal influence in there from my partners Mum in terms of the food and links to the Netherlands so that was nice to write.

I should hear back in February whether I've had any success. Until then, onto the next thing.

12th October, 2024 - a check in

So now I'm fired up with envy...what have I been doing?

I've been trying to commit to a daily writing habit - and did pretty well with that for a while getting a few streaks in where I was writing solidly for weeks at a time. Out of that came a short story called 'Did you mean: Reiki' which I submitted to The London Magazine in July only to be rejected in September. I sent it out again to Litro magazine afterwards, though I didn't get any kind of acknowledgement from them which makes me slightly concerned. I don't even know how long I'm supposed to wait for a response...

Whilst waiting on a response from 'Reiki' I worked on another short story which is still being edited. I can't quite get it right but I feel it's nearly there. I've moved on to writing a flash piece with the hopes of submitting that somewhere by the end of November, then I'll return to the short story, the break having hopefully done some good.

Hopefully, this pattern of work will mean I end up with a catalogue of stories that can be sent out until someone stupid enough, drunk enough or genuinely interested enough decides to print something. The need, as always at this point, is just to do more. Some days, most days, I just do a minimum of 20 minutes of writing. Other days I push it to an hour or so but it still doesn't feel enough. I can find ways of bettering my enjoyment of the process but that doesn't necessarily feel like it advances work in progress - that part feels like work. And it is work I guess. I need the dedication of treating it like work, without getting bogged down in the mentality of seeing it that way to the point where I don't enjoy it. Tricky.

I did also do my 'craft study' for which I have a little notion board. I've only really "completed" one category: description. I gathered a load of resources on writing great descriptions (web pages and podcasts) read through and summarised them all, and turned my summaries into a kind of cheat sheet of information. I then did a close reading of the opening of Tessa Hadley's story 'Bad Dream' and wrote a little essay talking about how the section successfully uses the kind of descriptive techniques I'd been looking at. It was a very helpful exercise and I would like to repeat it with other topics like dialogue, structure, point of view etc. It's just time and dedication.

But that's what's been happening between my silence and my envy.

10th October, 2024 - Congratulations you f*****g b*****d

Writer's envy is real.

I know this because I routinely feel it in response to another writer's success. They rarely post on social media - but when they do, it's typically because of some writing project they've had success with. The latest of which: they've just scored a 3-book publishing deal.

Now I should make it clear that my first and foremost reaction is one of genuine joy. I care very much about this individual and seeing them succeed is a wonderful thing to experience. I always knew this person would go on to be a successful writer and it's thrilling to see it happen and think about the times we shared when we were just starting out.

But it also brings to mind, quickly after the initial joy dissipates, the sharp reality of how different our paths are. When I imagined the future success of this writer, I thought of it in tandem with my own. That we would both be going into a future of writerly success. Now it feels as if they are running towards a finishing line whilst I'm falling over trying to get my shoes on.

I know that their success has come off the back of continuous hard work over a sustained period. I've also known for a while that I need to step it up a notch when it comes to my commitment to just write and keep writing. This is, I think and hope, where the good side of envy starts to kick in. It becomes a motivating force to double down on my writing.

It's amazing to see people you care about enjoy success, though it may be hard to swallow when the thing they're succeeding in is exactly what you want to be doing. I try my best to keep seeing it as an opportunity to push. I also try to remind myself that even if our journeys are happening at different speeds, there's no rush and no monopoly on achieving success in the things you're most passionate about.

Just got to keep on truckin'.