Yesterday Lori poked me in messenger with a rather hilarious question: What should I blog about today? The question itself isn’t funny, it was that she was asking me! Me, the queen of ‘omg it’s friday–what am I going to say?!’

I asked her what she does in her books when she can’t think of what to say. “Either I stop writing, or I introduce things like Roscoe P Coltrane.” (see her post from yesterday for further explanation of Roscoe.)

For me, I stop working on a story once I get bored with it. It languishes for a few months, and then, suddenly, I’m assaulted by it whirring around in my head begging to be finished. When I open the unfinished manuscript, I tend to find myself reading it and thinking “Hey, this doesn’t suck–too much.”

But this morning, I had an unfortunate jolt to my system. I subbed a story yesterday–the first of a series–and if it’s accepted, I might not have the luxury to wait and finish things whenever I get around to it. Like Lori and Crystal, I might find myself facing a deadline! Worse, I might be facing that deadline with an unco-operative story. *shudder* The idea of it makes my palms clammy.

Now, on the one hand, writers don’t deal with stress any differently than non-writers. I eat too much, get tired and lethargic, and yell obscenities at pieces of furniture that jump in front of my toes. On the other hand, I can also toss all kinds of stress and torment at my characters, or kill them outright. (Really, that’s even more fun than the ‘virtual voodoo doll‘…)

I calmed down a little once I realised that I actually work well under pressure, and having deadlines might, just maybe, help me to work consistently at a project until it’s done, instead of piddling around tweaking my blog or playing solitaire.

What about you? Which part of writing is most stressful for you? Are you threatened by sending your work out? Or by the inevitable waiting for a response? Or is it the deadlines that get you sweaty and panicked? And how, dear readers, do you deal with it?

5 Responses to “Stress…”

1. Shelli Stevens Says:
   October 13th, 2006 at 2:47 pm

   Sometimes for me it’s actually starting the book. Which is where I am now. But once I do I usually cruise full speed ahead, and then hit the ’sagging middle’ at some point. Which again is where I kind fizzle out.

   What stresses me out the most is the synopsis. I’d rather have a root canal.

2. Ali Says:
   October 13th, 2006 at 3:41 pm

   The most stressful part is actually starting, for me

3. Lyric Says:
   October 14th, 2006 at 1:03 am

   Starting it is usually the stressful part for me to. And like Shelli, I’ll get to a chapter that drives me nuts, doesn’t matter if its the beg/mid/end, that’ll slow me up. But once I figure that out, I usuallly sprint on to the end.

   I’m not to scared about sending my work out…I drive myself crazy waiting for the yes or no.

4. Anonymous Says:
   October 14th, 2006 at 4:21 pm

   You know, I didn’t think about the stress part of it until I watched Crystal go through it. Deadlines make my palms sweat too.
   *sigh* I just barrel through it.

5. A. J. Cove Says:
   October 16th, 2006 at 11:05 pm

   Since I’m brand spankin’ new, fresh off the truck, I don’t really have deadlines regarding writing.

   But I’m like Shelli on the synopsis. I lose any semblance of writing ability and can barely put together a complete sentence. Drives me up the wall.