{"id":48951,"date":"2023-09-02T16:20:13","date_gmt":"2023-09-02T23:20:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/?p=48951"},"modified":"2023-09-02T16:26:37","modified_gmt":"2023-09-02T23:26:37","slug":"post-publishing-funk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/?p=48951","title":{"rendered":"Post Publishing Funk"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about being in a bit of a funk, and attributed it to the kind of work I&#8217;m doing with my Day Job.  It&#8217;s all true, but there is more to it.  I&#8217;ve been putting off talking about it, but since I&#8217;m just a couple of days from Writing Excuses Retreat 2023, I might as well get into it now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Part of being a writer is selecting and striving towards bigger and bigger goals.  Mine went something like:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>I want to write <em>a real<\/em> story<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>I want to write a story I can enjoy<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>I want to write a story my friends can enjoy<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>I want to finish my first novel<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>I want to finish <em>another<\/em> novel<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>I want to finish another novel, this time in a different style<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>I want to publish one of my stories<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>I want to publish one of my novels<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At first, I described these as dreams, but the difference between a dream and a goal is how much effort you put into achieving it.  I still have untouched dreams, such as:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>I want to write fulltime and survive<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>I want to win a prestigious award for my writing<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>I want to make the New York Time&#8217;s best seller list<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There&#8217;s nothing wrong with wanting these things.  I have no expectations on these dreams.  I believe I&#8217;m talented, and I can work towards some of these dreams, but most of these are outside my control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This ties back into that funk I was talking about before.  As long as I&#8217;m alive, I&#8217;ll be writing.  But I need a new goal.  I need something to aim for, that is more than just write and pray.  I don&#8217;t know what that is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Publishing <em>The Repossessed Ghost<\/em> achieved one of my dreams, and it still brings me joy to look at this physical copy of a book that has my name on it.  Nothing is going to take that away from me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">More people than I expected have read it and they seemed to genuinely like it.  I&#8217;m surprised at how many people have talked about starting it, and then finishing it within a day or two.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I kept my expectations relatively low, and <em>The Repossessed Ghost<\/em> has done better than my expectations.  It&#8217;s not going to win any awards.  It&#8217;s not going to climb up any lists.  It delighted a few friends and friends of friends, and it sets the stage for more books and stories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I&#8217;m working on a short story in which Mel is selected to be on a jury.  It&#8217;s fun, and it&#8217;s possible I&#8217;ll finish it this next week.  I&#8217;m planning a direct sequel to <em>The Repossessed Ghost<\/em>.  I still have more outlining to do for it.  Perhaps that will be my NaNoWroMo project this year.  I&#8217;m not sure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After that, I don&#8217;t know.  I&#8217;m greedy.  I want more.  I want The Writer&#8217;s Life, whatever that means.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This week, I hope to find some kind of answer to the question, &#8220;Okay, what do I do now?&#8221; It&#8217;s probably something along the lines of &#8220;keep writing&#8221; and &#8220;find an agent.&#8221; I&#8217;m going to get a chance to talk to Dongwon Song, and I expect he&#8217;s going to tell me to define what kind of writing career I want to have.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That&#8217;s all I have for this topic at the moment.  I may post a follow-up later this week, based on the conversations I have while on the ship.  Also, I&#8217;m planning on writing something about agency and fridging, as coined by Gail Simone.  I have some thoughts, but I have to do some more reading first.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about being in a bit of a funk, and attributed it to the kind of work I&#8217;m doing with my Day Job. It&#8217;s all true, but there is more to it. I&#8217;ve been putting off talking about it, but since I&#8217;m just a couple of days from Writing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48951"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48951\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48957,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48951\/revisions\/48957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}