014-Being Present
“...Often the hardest person to fight for is... yourself. But you must. Your heart is needed. You must be present and engaged in order to love well and fight on behalf of others. Without you, much will be lost.” ~ John Eldredge
I’m long overdue for a fresh installment of the raw, unedited stream of consciousness known as my blog.
I’ve been busy. Sadly, I believe I’m only going to become busier. Yet I feel as if I’m entering a new writing season, and I’m thrilled.
Let’s come at this from two angles, or truth be told—problems, to be more precise. I haven’t put my ass in the chair. At all. Sure, there’s been writing meetings, communications, and a few ideas circling my brain. I even took four seconds to look at my work in progress once. That’s been about the extent. Sort of.
I have queried approximately twenty agents for THE GHOST OF TIME FORGOTTEN, and am just beginning to understand how to make that process slightly more efficient. Alas, scrolling through processes for submissions, milling about manuscript wish lists, and forwarding letters, synopses, and pages is an entirely different act than drafting a new story.
When it comes to writing, I haven’t been present.
Maybe the summer months don’t equate to writing for me—indoors away from the warmer weather, or even more specifically, outdoors in relentless humidity. The case was generally the same in 2021, but I was entirely more focused on editing my novel. I can blame work, I can blame vacations, I can blame the PS5 (likely culprit), but ultimately, I need to blame me. After all, how many blogs, memes, and otherwise state the same thing:
The first step to writing is putting your butt in the chair.
Now the twist—querying has me in a bind. I’m telling myself it’s difficult to be creative when TGOTF is in a state of limbo. Should I change it? Will it be taken as is? If so, my focus will be on that process moving forward. Right?
I’m in a mindset where I equally feel I have nothing to show for as well as not having the ability to press onward.
But here’s the deal, and this is taking a degree of mindfulness to recognize.
I can make myself present with my writing by sticking my ass in the chair. I need to be present.
It’s a completed novel, and it’s very real.
Why? Because as I’ve written in my first blog, there’s a very real book eight-year-old me wrote that’s present in the room I’m writing this from. I can physically touch a copy of THE GHOST OF TIME FORGOTTEN present on the shelf next to me. The scrolls my wife wrote to help ignite my writing goals (which can be seen in Blog 003) are present in a small glass jar on this desk.
Shorter days and cooler nights are coming, and as I adjust, my brain tends to fire harder during those evening hours. I’ll be at the Collingswood Book Festival on October 1st. I’ve had the pleasure of gaining some assistance on the first few pages of TGOTF to assist my querying. Nano is drawing near, and while I don’t participate, virtual and in-person writing events spring up regularly during November. And hell—I just wrote a new blog.
Put yourself in that mental space where you continue to acknowledge both the tangible and intangible goals you’ve reached and continue to reach for. Then, as I intend to do more often, put your ass in that chair and write.