Keep on going!
Alas, my little story was not accepted. I did receive a personal note from the editor, though, and it was, overall, a positive reaction – the story was just not right for that market. I turned around and found another market that looked promising, taking a hint from something the editor said in her kind rejection note, and sent it off. Still waiting to hear back on that one.
In the meantime, I’ve finished the most recent edit of The Power and sent it off to a few friends for review. I warned them that it needs a lot of work, that it may not make tons of sense, and that while there are strong evangelical Christian overtones to the story, I took a lot of theological liberties. I asked them to let me know what they like and what they don’t like, where they get confused and need more information (plot holes, ahoy!), and which characters need to be fleshed out more. After working on this thing for over ten years, I can’t tell anymore.
We’ll Write You an Opera You Can’t Refuse is coming along slowly. It started out well, but then I hit a wall. I know what’s supposed to happen in the scene but I can’t find the words. That is so frustrating! So right now, scenes that normally would get written in one sitting need at least two. This means that the story is probably not going to be finished before the end of the month, and it is putting me behind on my stated writing goals for the year. Already, I’m behind, and I’ve barely started! (Not helping matters is the fact that the next story on the list is also at a difficult-to-write place.) I will press on, though, and hopefully I’ll be able to catch up later this year.
I keep track of all of my writing projects in a table in a database my wonderful fiance made for me using MySQL. Hooray for free programs! 
I note the title, genre, hoped-for word count, and then the date I start writing, the date I finish the first draft, and the word count of the first draft. I also track the dates and word counts for two edits and the final draft. I have my original list in a spreadsheet in OpenOffice… and while I was updating it last week, I discovered that I had missed adding a couple of pieces to my database.
This means that I have a short story to edit into final draft this week. I’ve also moved up the next piece on my list for first edit from February to January – might as well keep working on these things. If all goes well with the final edit story, I’ll have another piece to submit next month.
So I keep working. Pushing through writer’s block isn’t easy, but it’s not really all that bad. Basically, I just keep trying. I sit down day after day, read over what I already wrote, remember what I planned to happen next, and try to find the words I need. If I write just one word, I’ve succeeded.
