"Those left standing will make millions writing books on the way it should have been"
With these rare moments of sun that I steal and mentally scotch tape into my mind, I try and trick myself into believing that it's not shitty January that I'm still living in, but rather it's springtime and if I were to step outside right now, I'd be wearing flip flops, my toes would have a fresh pedicure and I'd be wearing one of the cute airy dresses that I have patiently hanging up in my wardrobe. I open my curtains, open my window and air my stuffy room out. I'm partially tempted to even give my room a big clean, but then I sit down and think, "nah, too much effort." Instead I put on some of my self-tanning lotion and tell myself that it's in preparation for the warmer months that I hope decide to come early.
I've finally gotten over that unfortunate breakdown that I had about a week ago and am now doing much better. I think I was just really overwhelmed with all of the work that I have to do and the stress, my god, THE STRESS was really overpowering. I needed to cry, and if you were sat in my room looking at all of the module readers, notebooks and required books from the library that I have all stacked in my room, you would have cried with me. But I'm okay now. I've written everything out that I need to do, I've put down the days that I plan to work on it, I go to every single lecture so I don't miss anything and I'm taking it one week at a time. It doesn't mean that I'm still not a big stress ball, but I'm not on the verge of crying into someone's ham sandwich that they're having for lunch heaven forbid they ask me something like if I have any plans for the weekend. I can still have a social life. I just need to get my work done first. DUH.
In a lot of ways, though, I think that my work is a lot harder than most people's, mostly because if you're really serious about writing (like I have been since I was eight), then the immense pressure you suddenly feel to do your absolute best is all consuming. I'm constantly sitting, critiquing, going over, re-reading, re-editing, re-drafting, re-whatevering until I'm completely satisfied. And then there are our workshops which are quite possibly one of the scariest things I've ever sat through. No wonder I never went for the first two years of uni! But it's okay now, because I got into a good group that tell me their opinions, but don't leave me in a heap on the floor chewing on my hair. They give me some really good ideas and all I want to do is sit and expand on what I've got and just keep going.
Of course one of my group members asked me if I even have enough substantial information to write an entire novel, but his opinion doesn't really count. He's not my target audience. And I DO have enough information. I HAVE THE PAST TWO AND A HALF YEARS OF UNIVERSITY. That's not even including life BEFOREHAND. Trust me. It'll be fine.
Aside from that I'm doing okay. I need to move on from my first chapter that I've already written, though, and get a move on the next two which are being marked in my final grade and really matter. Obviously, the overall thing matters in the end, but as of right now, chapters two and three are a bit more important than the first one. I do get to hand in the re-edited version, though, as well as the next two.
It also helped last week when I was sitting in my Business of Writing lecture, and we spoke to four graduates who left my university a little over two years ago. They've been OUT THERE in the REAL WORLD and are MAKING IT in the WRITING BUSINESS. There was a point in the lecture when I thought I might actually throw up and I could feel my chest tighten with severe anxiety, but my nerves were eventually calmed when one of them said, "it's okay to go slow after you graduate. There's not a real big rush."
And she's right. All of us are so excited, impatient and chomping down hard waiting for anything to bite, that we all need to take a percocet and chill the fuck out. Yes, it's our last year of university, but we're not all going to hit the jackpot in one go and become multi-million dollar writers. As gay as it sounds, we need to live life and work on our craft. Writing is hard, when you do it properly and look at every aspect of the written word, break it down, word and sentence structures, characterization, word placement, etcetera, etcetera . You can't just bash something out and voila! your masterpiece is done. Perhaps maybe one in a million will get that chance. But for the rest of us, writing takes time.
It will be okay. I will be okay. My writing, once I work on it a little more, will be okay. And no matter when my "big break" happens, or whatever form it takes (i.e. being published in an anthology, having a book published, working in the editing/publishing world, being published online) I'll be ready to accept it and handle it all as it comes to me. The only thing I have to do is keep going and don't stop until I'm finally satisfied, because as the graduates also told our eager class, nobody will care if you stop writing; nobody will notice if you stop writing; only you will.