Disappointment, Denial, and a Deadline

A Little Adrenaline Boost for my Low-Dopamine Brain

I’ve been reading a lot of

Katherine May

lately, and haven’t gotten this passage from Enchantment out of my head since I read it. This is precisely what my last week has felt like, except substitute Facebook, Substack, and email for Twitter, Instagram, and the news.

Throw in all of the urgent chores (you know, like dusting, repotting plants, organizing Tupperware lids) beckoning that they must be done now NOW NOW and I bet you can develop a fairly accurate equation to suss out my daily word count.

Yesterday and today I read the latest thoughtful posts from

Amanda B. Hinton

, Part 1: A Writing Season Comes to an End and Part 2: Keeping Company When Community is Too Much, which pointed me to her September 2023 essay Writing Seasons for the Wayfinding Writer. I patted myself on the back for being deeply immersed in a season of musing. “See, Self, that’s all this is. It’s not procrastinating or avoidance. You’re musing!”

Self knew better. I’m deeply immersed in something, alright, but it smells suspiciously like bullshit. I don’t dispute the concept of honoring different seasons of creativity; I just also know when I’m lying to myself. What really happened is that I did my taxes, and the IRS has effectively cut short my “Year of Writing” by taking a bigger bite than I had calculated and expected. Consequently, it’s time to start thinking of my life’s next chapter in addition to my novel’s.

My classic response to news I don’t like is a bunch of willful dithering about. As an expert in this pastime, I can attest that it is much more effective if you don’t spend too long of a stretch on any one task. It’s far easier to fool yourself that way. “No, I am not avoiding anything, I just needed to do this one thing, and then I am going to buckle down.” After paying the tax man his due, I churned through several anxious hours stalking LinkedIn job postings. I didn’t actually apply anywhere yet, because the Universe has served up a big fat platter of Mercury Retrograde, presented alongside a heaping helping of Imposter Syndrome and a side order of the always-tasty Denial. Um, what’s that smell? You guessed it: just a dash of bullshit.

Every once in a while though, the Universe also delivers good news. I was notified this week that my entry in the 2024 NYC Midnight Short Story Challenge got first place in my group, which means I am moving on to Round 2. This is just the shot in the arm I needed. The field of writers has been whittled from 6145 to 2250, and tonight at midnight we will get our next assignments.

I won’t know the mandatory genre of the story, situation, or character until tonight, and once I do, I will only have 48 hours to craft a 2000 word story within those parameters. This is precisely the kind of deadline that has the power to break through my creative paralysis. Back in January, when I got the assignment for a suspense story, my heart sank. It’s not my historical strength; I was afraid I’d be cut after the first round. Despite my skepticism on my chances, I buckled down and brainstormed a few ideas, settled on the strongest contender. When I typed the last sentence, I just knew: I had written a winner. If it didn’t place, I still loved what I wrote. When I got the results email on Tuesday, I scanned the screen from the right to the left. Not seeing my name in 5th, 4th, 3rd place, I consoled myself. “Remember, you were really happy with your story — even if you don’t move forward, you got outside of your comfort zone, and you’re going to get valuable feedback from the judges.” I kept scanning. 2nd, 1st place, and there I was.

In less than eight hours, I will know how the next two days will be consumed, and I won’t be doing anything but focusing on getting the as-yet-unknown story as right as I can. Somehow, knowing this also energizes me to work on my other projects that have languished over the last several days.

The job listings — and repotting plants — can wait until next week.