So, you just finished a story. Maybe it was good. Maybe you felt like you could’ve done a lot more to make it right. No matter how you feel about the quality of the work, you’ve set it aside or sent it off for potential publication. There is that window–48 hrs for me–when you bask in the joy of completion before it is on to the next thing. However, what is the next thing? Can you spin up? Does 48 become 72? 144? A month?
The largest pitfall in writing is success. Be it success in terms of financial compensation or success in terms of completion, the victory bug can hit you hard. For me, at least, writing a story is not an easy thing. I used to think it was. When I was little the stories shot out of me so fast that I couldn’t write fast enough to keep up. Nowadays the pace is significantly slower and every finished product is a victory. I took a page from my sports history and allow myself two days to enjoy it before I get back to work. Except I don’t really get back to work that fast.
In military parlance spinning up means activating for a immediate military action. Soldiers on call are expected to drop everything and ready themselves for a mission. Firefighters operate the same way. Writers like me take longer and what it takes to spin up feels different. Presently I have stories ready to be written, but in order to jump in I need to read my notes or chapters or background information. I don’t spin up so much as load up pre-story. The problem is that it is too easy to get stuck in the background preparation, because that is the easy stuff. When I do that instead of actually writing then I wind up taking a lot longer to get off the ground (hence spin up) or get back into writing actual pages.
Starting this December I will be teaching a number of classes and workshops on the craft of writing and I feel like I need to have this part of it down to a science by then in order to pass that knowledge on to the next generation of talent.
Some Thoughts:
- Being in love is just awesome.