Resurfacing after a crisis-induced “vacation” from all things real life is absolutely and utterly overwhelming. ZOMFG. Emails, phone messages, projects where I can’t even find the threads I dropped to go on said crisis-induced vacation…I don’t even know where I am today. Do I just wipe the slate clean and just pretend all that’s piled up in the last week doesn’t exist? I really want to. Just looking at this teetering pile, literal and figurative, is giving me palpitations. It’s like a big version of the anxiety attack I get when I neglect my RSS reader for a few days and there are like 5 gazillion new posts and I have to hit the panic button and mark them all read because I am half-paralyzed with dread.

This is illustrative of why I have to be a compulsive list-maker. The minute one thing gets out of hand, I feel like everything gets out of hand and it’s all-of-a-sudden-way-too-fucking-much.

That makes me sound like a delicate flower, yes? I’m not. Pinky swear. I just can only juggle, like, two balls at one time. I’m better when I juggle one. Just toss it up and catch it, toss and catch. I’m totally envious of people like Cory Doctorow, who is plugged in and performing 50 tasks simultaneously. I try and wind up in a big, sticky, horrifying mess. Like this one.

What I have managed is to get some writing done. Not a ton or anything, and probably not super-inspired genius level stuff, but enough to keep my self-esteem at a healthy level. Look, see?

It’s about the sitting ass-in-chair. It’s been easy because said crisis has had my ass in a chair often and for sprints of time. I’ve been working like this: hard for an hour, then stop. Hard for 30 minutes, then stop. Over coffee for 15 minutes, then stop. While waiting on a line for 20 minutes, then stop. I’d like to see what I am capable of once things settle a bit and I build up endurance to work for a couple of hours at a time (hello, NaNoWriMo).

I have also managed to get four rejections within 5 days. All personable, friendly, even encouraging in places. I don’t mind rejections at all. Never have, although I know many good writers who still get a bit tender at them. What’s new for me is my new blast-‘em system. As soon as a rejection comes in, that story goes out again, within 48 hours. Never done this before…having at least 4 stories out at a time and working on churning (grinding? Slowly squeezing?) out new work.

I’m trying to decide how many rejections are reasonable before trunking a story. I have no idea. Should it depend on the story? On how much I like it? Or some other criteria? I’ve got a handhold on the writing process again, which involves not romanticizing the whole thing like it’s a magical cabal I need to remember the correct incantation to gain access to. Now, the whole submitting thing. It was way easier when I wrote one solicited thing a year. Now, I’m groping around and trying to figure out how high the walls are with my eyes closed. *bump, bump* Toss, catch.