I finished the sample Resource Guide Saturday. And I think it looks pretty damn good for only being 1/4th of the final product. There's 21 sections of the Resource Guide--not counting the Table of Contents. As of Saturday, I've finished 5 sections (the text not the questions, vocabulary puzzles, and potential activities), and started on 4 more. That does leave 12 sections I haven't done anything for, barely even researched. It's coming along nicely though. As of Saturday (Sunday I took a break), I'm owed $1937.50. I'm only charging $25 an hour, which is the low end of technical writer's pay and I fully expect to be getting paid on this long after the founders of RLHC have retired and moved onto something else. Especially when I have to edit content for different Faires of different time periods.
On the negative side, it's teeth grinding to realize I have to wait for this money I have earned because RLHC can't pay me right now. What makes it so teeth grinding is I'm overdrawn and hanging on till payday. When I do get this money I have to be smart with it. Reminder: go read both Suze Orman book and actually follow the advice! I can feel my resistance starting already.
Page After Page clued me into resistance. It's a great word to sum up all the negativity facing a new change. You don't want to change even when you know you should. It's a matter of recognizing it for what it is, fear.
I have a huge resistance to exercise. But nearly killing myself at the lake yesterday was scarier than the resistance. Wheezing cause you're out of breath and swimming do not mix. I think I've finally figured out a way to get back to the walking routine I had in college, timewise, and maybe combined with some swimming in a pool where I can get out if having the breathing problem again. The only drawback I see is Mustard will probably hate me because he won't get to go outside.
I will have to start that on Tuesday though. I just made a list of what I need to pack. Of course I had this brainwave during the morning commute. And I have a doctor's appointment. I'm afraid after I get done there, and go home to change, it will be dark by the time I get to the park, when it closes.
Rejection and resistance wreck havoc on my writing life too. I'm a writer, I have no problem with that. I've been a writer since I was eleven-years-old. But that has always been tied with the correllation of getting the byline somewhere. The recognition. The ability to thrust some paper in my condenscending relatives' faces and say "I'm the Coates that counted for something!" What, you didn't think revenge played a part?
Heather Sellers points out in a chapter of Page After Page that publication doesn't matter. You should pull your self-worth as a writer from your daily writing life, and look at publishing as a bonus perk. A "yeah I have readers" moment. A hobby because putting your butt in the chair and writing everyday is really what matters. She's right, and I'm not going into my struggles with the daily writing now.
This is about my submission process, or rather how I send out a peice, it's rejected, and I crumble and don't want to send out anymore. Even the rejected one to the next on its list. Yes, I know this is horrible and bad and hurting me from growing as a writer. How will I learn what is wrong with my writing if I never let it out of my sight? I know all this, and find ways to fill my time so I don't do magazine research, or even paste a label on the bloody envelope and take it to the post office.
Along with her advice of treating publication as a thrill, Sellers gives her strategy: two big submissions sendouts a year. Everything that's good goes out for an average of seventeen drafts. When a peice trickles back, she finds there's two reactions to it. The peice has cured and she sees what's wrong with it. Or she doesn't and back out it goes. She says her rule is: "No rejected work spends the night in my house. (This rule works wellin dating as well as creative writing.)" (page 201) She's concentrating on the smart things in writing life: writing everyday and submitting.
So I'm going to try it her way. A summer submission fest and a winter. July 15th everything that's remotely sellable goes out. January 15th will be the winter date.
Now to concentrate on writing time and fiscal responsibility.
Read Free!
The BookWorm
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