It’s depressing. You can’t do anything. You can’t move forward and you can’t even go back. Oh, you keep writing but you wonder what the point of it all is. You’ve got stacks of stories but why write more? No one’s ever going to read anything you’ve written anyway, right?

Even your blog posts start sounding the same.

I’m not quite sure what to do really. The quicksand is steadily sucking all my enthusiasm for writing away and soon I’ll have nothing left. The real world is calling and a job that actually pays money for hard work is seeming all the more attractive.

I thought this year I would start to get somewhere. I’ve had few modest successes and I think my writing is better than it’s ever been. But now the successes haven’t lead anywhere but into more quicksand, things are starting to feel like retread of last year. And the year before that. And the year before that.

So what’s the point with continuing to standing here, stuck in the middle of a journey that isn’t going anywhere?  Anyone got any sage advice for a quicksandee?

Anyway, laying low at the moment, trying to get some inspiration back again while I battle with non-writing stuff that’s getting me down. Not to mention wrestling with the continual question:

Why, oh why, do I want to be a writer again???

This year has been a hell of a year. Lots of very, very hard stuff to deal with. Lots of hard work put in. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve learned a lot and the few successes I’ve had have been wonderful. But the sad fact is that there aren’t enough successes to balance out all the crap.

It all comes down to that ten percent. If getting published is 30% talent, 30% hard work, 30% persistence, then that last 10% is luck. And you might have all the above but if you don’t strike that last 10% you may as well not bother. Now, I don’t think I’m a bad writer. I have some lovely contest successes as testament to the fact that people like what I write. And also lovely comments on the chapters I’ve written for New Voices. I know people would like to read what I write. This year I’ve also put in a lot of hard work to make my stories better. Learning craft has been difficult for me, applying it even harder. But I think I’ve made progress. And I’ve been pretty persistent. I’ve written over 10 books in the past couple of years – some twice!

But no one will get to read them if you don’t get the 10%. Luck. The right editor, the right story, the right time. Some people hit it straight away. Some people don’t. Guess which group I fit into? I don’t set out to write bad stories. Every time I write a story I’m wanting to blow someone’s socks off. But sadly, for me, the socks have stayed firmly on. I just haven’t hit that 10% yet. And the sad truth of the matter is this:  I may NEVER hit it. Because that’s the beauty of luck.  

At the moment, I feel like I’m going into a casino and playing the slots. I have had a few wins to keep me going – small returns to give the illusion you’re succeeding – but no jackpot. Sometimes I don’t get any in a row. Sometimes three. Once, I had four. Yet I keep missing out. And I’m getting to the bottom of the change in my cup. I could go get some more of course, but my bank account is on zero. I’m a gambling addict, betting what little confidence I have in my writing on a change in luck that may never happen.

Okay, so it might change. You never know. You might give up right before it happens for you! Well, I can safely say that is not the case now. It will not be happening for me in the near future. So I could actually give up now, safe in the knowledge that for the next year at least, I wouldn’t have missed out on anything.

And you know what? I just don’t know if I can do another year. My change cup is empty and so is my bank account. I’ve written books I was so confident in I was all but writing out my sale story, only to end in rejection. I’ve written books that I thought would never get anywhere that have won contests. So now I can’t tell what’s good anymore and what isn’t. My instinct has gone. The vacuum of being unpublished has sucked it all away.

I’ve always been an emotional girl. Up and down, that’s me. Writing just makes the downs more intense because I actually care too much about this thing. And as for the ups…well, there haven’t been many. I wish I could detach myself. I wish I had a hard skin and could shrug off the downs. Maybe if I’d built up to it I would have. But I started off really well so that when the downs came, my skin wasn’t thick enough to cope. Still isn’t.

Anyway, this is a long-winded way of saying that at the end of the year, I’m going to have to sit down and reconsider whether I want to continue doing this. True, I haven’t been doing this as long as many and if you’ve been doing this for years, I salute you.You are incredible people and I wish I had your staying power. But I’m not sure I do. I’m not sure I can keep gambling on the ten percent.

I was so hoping that my journey would end happily. That I would have a sale story to tell. But life doesn’t happen that way. No matter how much we want something, no matter how much we think we deserve it, it doesn’t mean we’ll get it. Sometimes – unfortunately – there is no HEA.

This is unheard of for a NZ’er. Especially during the World Cup. What world cup you ask? Well, the Rugby World Cup. It’s kind of a big deal here because we’ve been hosting it (no, not me personally though I could use the $100 million or so revenue that’s apparently been generated). Plus the fact that we are a really tiny country and rugby is just about the only team sport we can compete on the world stage and stand a good chance of actually winning. Which we did on Sunday night.

Now, as I said, I never watch rugby but it was difficult to get away from the final game since we were in it and we were supposed to walk all over poor, old France. In actual fact, France nearly walked all over us. I could not watch the game. Jackie, who actively dislikes rugby, could not watch it because I was too damn nervous. In fact, it was ridiculous how invested I was in this game. I played computer games while trying to ignore the howls from the living room, my little heart leaping every time there was a cheer.

What’s this got to do with writing? Hang on, I’m getting there. Anyway, we finally won. By one point. And I was watching the commentary afterwards and hearing what they were saying and thinking, wow, this game is a little like writing for publication. The same nervousness (as you wait on a submission), the same grim determination to hang on when everything looks like another big rejection, the same sense of helplessness when the other team score….
And then the commentary started talking about this one, particular All Black. Two weeks earlier, Stephen Donald had been watching the cup on TV, having a beer and doing a spot of whitebaiting (fish, if you don’t know what whitebait are). He wasn’t in the Cup squad and had been told pretty firmly he wouldn’t be either. And yet two weeks before the big final, due to injuries concerning other players, he got a couple of calls on his mobile – which he didn’t answer because he was too busy with his whitebait. Eventually when he did, the news was that he had been called up onto the squad. Then on the night, after more injuries, and he was called onto the field. Then he kicked the goal that earned us the Cup. From zero to hero in two weeks.

The commentary afterwards talked a lot about Stephen Donald. About how, when you think it’s all over, when the country has forgotten you, opportunities can come along and you can suddenly find yourself right in the middle of it again. That these opportunities come when you least expect them to. Apparently sport is full of these moments, but, from what I hear from other writers, writing is like this too. That right when you least expect it, when you’ve got your hundredth rejection, something comes round the corner that you never thought would happen.

I hope that’s the case. Because right now, I’m feeling a little like Stephen Donald. I’m sitting on my couch with my beer (no whitebait though cos I hate fish. Okay and replace the beer with a martini, cos I don’t like that either!). I’m watching the Cup on telly and cheering everyone else on, wishing I was there too and wondering if I’ve missed my chance. I hope not cos unlike Stephen Donald, I have been training really, really hard. And one thing’s for certain – if the call ever comes, I won’t be too busy fishing to answer it.

Yep, you guessed it, moany post alert! I haven’t had one for a while so I figure I’m due one.

Keeping going with this writing stuff hasn’t got any easier I’m afraid. I’ve stoppped thinking of climbing Everest. I’m now thinking in terms of Ngauruhoe. This is a mountain in NZ – for all you LOTR fans out there, it’s Mt Doom. Which is a very appropriate title.

Why the change? Well, with Everest if you have the right equipment and skill level, and the weather is on your side, you can get to the top. I admit that in my forays up Everest my skill wasn’t great, nor my equipment the best. But then you don’t know these things until you fall off. The other thing I needed was the weather but somehow or other, the right combination of skill, equipment and weather has never lined up favourably for me. However, the thing about Everest is that I mostly enjoyed climbing it.

But I’m not these days which is why it feels like I’m climbing Ngauruhoe instead. This is a mountain comprised totally of shale. Climbing it is like climbing a massive sand dune. One step up, two steps back. There’s no joy in climbing it (at least, when I actually did climb it years ago, I hated every moment of it), because all you do is trudge and keep trudging. What you need to get to the top is dogged determination and the belief you can do it.

And that’s what I’m struggling to find. Dogged determination and self belief. One step forward is always accompanied by two steps back. It’s dispiriting.Which makes it hard to keep going. What’s the point when no matter how hard you climb, you don’t get any higher?

So, what do you all do when you’re feeling this way? Got any tips for me? God knows I could use ’em!

I seem to like characters that act too much like real people, with all their sad, stupid flaws, rather than aspirational characters that are flawed but ultimately act in more sympathetic ways than real people ever do. This is not bad, by the way, simply one of the requirements of the genre. Because, really, when you read romance, you do not want to read about everyday people being dumb. You want to read about fundatmentally good people who come to see the error of their ways and do the right thing in the end. Not that my characters don’t do that, it’s just they’re not as instantly understandable as the category requires.

So, here I am, working on my synopsis for my next sub, wondering if I’ve made my characters too complicated again, whether they’re instantly understandable, whether they’re acting in extreme ways, is there too much sexual tension, is there not enough, is this even worth submitting because it’s obviously a huge load of crap… Should I give up this stupid writing thing and take up macrame instead.

Sigh. I should add that in fact, there was one thing I’m okay at and that seems to be emotional scenes. Though since they don’t tend to come along until a bit later in the story and as I’ve had two partials rejected, I haven’t even had a chance to show those off of late either.

So there you have it. Welcome home, Jackie.

And no, there was no mention of my NV entry. Everyone else seemed to like it so I’m not sure what the problem with it was. No doubt something I haven’t even scratched the surface of yet, that will lead to undiscovered new territories of rejection potential…