I won’t lie, I’ve struggled in the past few years to truly, fully embrace my inner creativity. I’m beyond thrilled if I can manage one rough draft a year now, and I once wrote 5 in a summer. Though I think my personal record was writing one in 8 days for NaNoWriMo. Lately though, there has just been too much of life going around to fully sit down and commit so much of my heart and soul to making those numbers again. I’ve struggled to try and find a happy medium where I try and write slowly, but that just isn’t my process and never has been.
In between managing the elusive rough draft, I’ve been doing my darnedest to try some editing. Editing, as most would be writers can attest to, is no picnic. Especially not when you find yourself making an outline for how many times you’re going to have to edit and what needs to be added on each rewrite (four and counting, in case anyone was wondering).
This can all get a little bit much, and sometimes the plan is to just set projects aside and pretend that they’re not actually gathering dust while you convince yourself you will get around to it…when you have time.
My creative juices were running a little low when I stumbled upon a writing competition for short stories. Now I’m no great hand at short stories, limiting myself to less than 1500 words has always, always been a challenge. But in this case, I did two stories, one completely from scratch and in a style that is somewhat new to me (a sort of imagery laden stream of consciousness) and another required the complete rewrite of a story I created years ago out of left field.
I submitted, edited, reviewed the works of others, and came away with a hint of the taste of madness that used to consume me. It was addicting. I went searching for more competitions, but I also realized that a level of common sense needed to be applied as well. My current goal is to submit one short story a month, and to keep working on projects currently sitting just out of reach. And to not let the dream of being a writer die.
Until next time…
Ramblings of a Would-Be Writer 
Editing is tough. Especially when things require major rewrites i.e. rough draft to version 2.0. One short story a month is crazy awesome. Would love to hear about your thoughts once you do it.
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