I continue to not be writing very much, at least writing that’s intended to be published in any real form. I don’t know if I’m supposed to feel guilty or not because of that. I assume I shouldn’t, because I don’t feel guilty, but it still feels weird. When I’m in the swing of things, I usually write about a thousand words a day. This doesn’t feel that impressive to me. When I was a teacher in Madrid, I mentioned to one of my fellow auxiliares, a grad student from Swansea in Wales, that every day after school got out, I went to a cafe and wrote 2000 words. He was astonished. “How long does that take you?” he sputtered.
I was confused. “Like, maybe an hour and a half?”
“It would take me five hours to write that much! How are you so fast?”
I shrugged. “Autism.”
It sounds flippant, but it’s not. My brain’s ability to hyperfixate means that, when I get into the groove of something (especially something I’m interested in), I can block out the entire world and hone in on just that one thing for effectively indefinitely. There are drawbacks, but honestly, considering how they are in so many other ways, it’s surprising to me that neurotypicals can be productive writers. I mean, how can you be productive on a book if you’re spending all your time dating or having a family or a career or such other unnecessary fripperies?
Still, aside from minor touch-ups on a few short fiction pieces, I haven’t written anything meant for publication in weeks. I was talking with a friend before our biweekly D&D session, however, and she said something that was more profound than I think she realized. “It’s okay to have a fallow period every once in a while,” she told me. I immediately thought, Fallow. What a great metaphor. As I’m sure all history nerds know, in a crop rotation system, a fallow field is hardly unproductive. Rather, it’s a critical part of replenishing the soil with nitrogen so that the field can be even more fertile the next season. Especially if you graze livestock in that fallow field so you can get still have some productivity out of that field that year. I just have to let the goats of daily experience poop in my brain so that my mind-field is re-nitrogenated, thus allowing much more fertile story-crops.
Does this metaphor make sense? I think this metaphor makes sense.
In any case, just because my story-field is currently fallow doesn’t mean that I haven’t been creative. Rather, I’ve rotated into writing lore and backstory for my D&D campaign. This is pleasant because there’s not much pressure to perform. My players are some of my best friends. I know that, no matter what, they will be a receptive audience, even if agents and short story markets might not be. Besides, writers love coming up with lore. I can think of several fantasy series that I’m sure primarily exist so the author can tell you all the neat lore they’ve come up with. It certainly can’t be because of the characters or the plots, because they’re not good or interesting. Ideally, I want the lore in my stories to be a side element. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t enjoy making it, and this gives me an excuse.
Also! I had a conversation with an editor I met at DragonCon this last summer. He’d given me his business card, so I figured that it would be cool to reach out, and he was very kind in letting me ask him questions about the publishing industry and the way it be. Specifically, I wanted to know why, for the last few years, I’ve found it very difficult to get agents to request full manuscripts, when in the past I actually had agents reaching out for more writing rather frequently. He said that it’s not just me. Because of how everything generally is, sales are down across the publishing industry, and as such, agents are far less willing to take chances on unknown writers, especially if the writing defies easy categorization. The most important thing, he said, is to do the same thing that I’m already doing: keep writing, keep revising, keep querying. The number one thing that separates successful from unsuccessful writers is the same as it ever was: sheer, bloody-minded, pig-headed determination.
At the very least, I can at least rest easy that, as always, there’s nothing wrong with me. It’s capitalism’s fault!