Accountability, my friends, is something we could all use a bit more of. I tend to beat myself up over wasted time. I blame the capitalist construct that has trained me to see my worth in terms of production, but I must also admit that the idea that production = worth is founded in certain laws of living. A productive cougar eats well and has time to laze about on a sunny rock, and we are not exempt from this rule.
A productive writer and creative should also eat well and have time to laze on the sunny rock, too. I’m trying to find that balance for myself. Thus, this weekly update, which might become a thing. If you need some accountability in your creative life, let’s connect. Either link me to your weekly accountability thread somewhere or simply do it in the comments here.
We gotta help each other in this wonderful, terrible, wacky world!
Project updates:
My 100-word Drabble was the winner of the Hiraeth Publishing Drabble contest! I’ll share a link to it once it is published in the upcoming month.
Haven’t heard of Hiraeth? Check them out! If you like speculative fiction and would like a free monthly ebook, consider signing up for their newsletter, too.
I’m in the thick of a couple of projects right now. One is a novel project, working title Ragman. It’s in the baby stages — brainstorming and research — so don’t expect much on this right now. I hope to dedicate the summer to writing an awful first draft. I’m not being negative; first drafts tend to be awful even when they are sort of good. You can’t get to a good draft until you get the awful stuff out of your head, anyway. I need something to work with, after all!
For the next few months and probably longer, my main focus is on short pieces. Primarily flash fiction under 1,000 words and a couple of longer short stories. I sent four finished stories out into the ether on Saturday, so hopefully they find a home with a literary journal. My goal is to send out at least two subs a week or eight a month. It’s easy for me to procrastinate because sending in submissions is the most tedious part of writing, in my opinion.
The Fairy Tale Review opens for submissions on April 1st and remains open until June 15th for anyone interested. I have two stories I plan to submit, each about 10 pages long. They accept a single prose submission of up to 30 manuscript pages, but the submission can be a single long piece, a single excerpt, or multiple shorter stories. With a long submission window, I think I will hold off on submitting the two tales in case I write another that fits the journal before June. I have so many fairy tale and fable ideas bouncing in my head. Plus, I have submitted these stories to a few other journals, so this gives me time to hear back on them. (Don’t worry, they all accept simultaneous subs.)
Finally, there is Medium, where I write nonfiction under the name “Jenny Wren.” I’m on a mission to publish one new essay there a week. If you haven’t visited me on Medium, my focus is on inspiration and survival for creatives and other wandering folks during these days of late-stage capitalism. It sounds heavier than it is! Here are a couple of links to read my latest two essays for free:
Stop Mistaking Progress for Innovation
Drabble Your Way to Inspiration
Reading notes:
So much reading this week! It was rainy and gloomy, par for the course in the lovely PNW at this time of year. That means it was excellent reading weather. I finished two books this week.
Wandering Star by Tommy Orange
This is Orange’s second book, and I loved it just as much as his first one. Wandering Star picks up where his first book, There There, ends. Although much of the book broke my heart… no, scratch that. Much of the book tore out my heart and ground it into the dirt, then shoved it back into me, still beating and bruised, yet I loved every minute of it. Yes, even when I was shaking with anger or when tears were coursing down my face at the injustice of the world and the injustice of us. I highly recommend both books. Like, go put them on hold at the library right now. I’ll wait.
Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg
An oldie but a goodie on the writing craft. It’s been on my bookshelf forever, but I have never read the whole thing. I think I originally got it as a gift. One gloomy morning, I wasn’t in the mood for fiction, and I was caught up on the current New Yorker, so I grabbed it off my shelf. I tore through it in five days. It blew my mind, reassembled it, and inspired me in ways I am still trying to parse. Proof that some books are considered classics on the craft for very good reasons!
Interestingly enough, I was perusing the free books in the library basement the day after I finished Goldberg’s book, and there were copies of two of her other writing books up for grabs. You can bet I snagged them for my collection!
Moments in living:
We are plodding towards spring in fits and starts. It’s an odd sort of PNW spring. We had late spring sunshine and temperatures at the beginning of February, so everything started budding out. Then March came in wet and cold with a return of winter. We usually get one or two light snowfalls in February, but all we ended up with were a few flurries in March. We are still wet and cool, but finally some sunshine days have snuck in, and the temperatures are trending upward.
Weird how even on a blog we default to talking about the weather instead of ourselves…
The quarter is over. I have one more week before I head back to campus for the spring term. I’m reducing my campus schedule to just twice a week – Tuesdays and Thursdays – to free up some time for writing and other pursuits.
One of those pursuits is the violin! That’s right, I began violin lessons. Next week I will learn to rosin and use the bow on the strings. Remember, kids, we’re never too old to learn something new. At least, I hope not.
Until next time,
Jenny Wren Harrington
Jenny Wren 