Freelancing: Fiction and Reality

I was experiencing a dream in fiction, then I discovered the ultimate reality of my dream. Let me explain. These past two weeks I dedicated myself to the editing and partial rewriting of my novel The Masterless Apprentice. I arrived home from college late at night. I hugged my parents, talked a little bit, and then went to bed. The next morning, a Saturday, my alarm went off at 6:30AM. I got up, showered, dressed, and grabbed a breakfast of bagels and Shredded Wheat. Precisely at 7:00AM, after checking my e-mail, I got to work on my novel.

I started at page thirty because I had done some editing while at college. Two hundred and ninety pages left to go before the 31st of this month. That was my goal and I have beaten my goal by two days! For a while, those first few days, I was living my dream. I was living, working all day, as a writer and making progress at it. I wrote several short stories, a book review, a devotional, and made good progress on the editing during those few days. I worked 7AM to 5PM. My watchwords were dedication and quick meals.

I was in paradise for those days. Then came the holidays and my demise. I transferred from my fictional dream of what freelancing is like to my probable reality. I liken it to being a young, single freelance writer and being a married freelance writer. My probable reality is the married freelancer with kids and parties to help with.  Instead of 7 through 5 solid writing, my days became something more like 7 to 10 writing, do some housekeeping, 11  to 12 write, 1:00PM to 3:00PM write after having lunch with family, 3:00 to 5:00 PM watch children. I did a lot of catch-up work late at night.

My fiction world faded last Wednesday. Ever since then I've been living in what I imagine my probable reality. I am sure I would have failed my goal if I had given up on my watchword, dedication. During the second week of probable reality I stopped writing short stories, only did one book review, and dedicated my every writing hour and spare time to editing my novel. Yesterday, the 29th, I finished the editing process. I then went back through my comments and rewrote parts that needed rewriting. The novel still needs some work, but I feel that it has improved greatly since the beginning of these two weeks.

Honestly, there were times where my motivation sunk to a terrible low. These were painful times when dedication became as a rope covered in ice, by which I hung with one sore hand. I clung on though, I clung on for my life. Sometimes that is all the writer can do when it comes to editing and rewriting. Laying the words out unto the paper (or computer document) is relatively easy in comparison to the final editing and rewriting process in which we polish our work. At least, this is my opinion about such differences in difficulty levels.  If you have a different view, please, let me now.

Sincerely,
Joshua A. Spotts

Subconscious Experience #2

Christmas is gone. It has passed by once again. I am not too sad, it will come again next year. Christmas seems to be an eternal celebration. At least, it is a very reliable one. The reliability of Christmas reminds me of how I rely on my savior, Jesus Christ. I rely on the fact that Christmas will come again in the same way I rely on the fact that Christ has saved me from my sins. I wish I could spend this entire blog post speculating on Christmas, but I promised to continue my considerations from the last post. I, Joshua A. Spotts, do not break my promises. At least, I sincerely try not to. ;) But I am a fallen human.

Here goes. In my last post I discussed a writer's sense of color and their symbolic meaning. The attributes put forth in this post will be less specific and easily applicable to the dedicated reader. But all writers are readers, aren't we?

Born writers enjoy reading and discussing books with their friends. I know that I saw deeper into the books than any of my friends and have a knack for analyzing a book's positives and negatives. I can also see deeper into the characters and predict what is going to happen much more easily than my friends, with the exception of one, who is a writer himself. This attribute applies to movies as well. My friend Nathan Sturgis, an expert at predicting things and a fellow writer, has cemented this observation in my mind.

Born writers have an active imagination even when grown out of childhood. This is one of the traits that places me particularly at the knife's edge of some people's patience. I tend to drift off in my thoughts if the current things happening around me aren't strong enough to keep my mind anchored down. Sometimes I even give myself away to a character that has been on my mind.


There a vast treasure chests full of peculiarities and traits of born writers. I cannot even began to examine all of them, so I have placed before you the three most common attributes within this post and the last. Many of the peculiarities of born writers are personal and scattered. Yet there are many more that unite us all. Indeed, I attended a writer's conference once and found it so very easy to talk to the people there. We all had one connection, we were writers. Sure, we wrote in different genres, different styles, but we were all brave warriors. We writers must be brave to occupy this career of ours!

Subconscious Existence #1

Let's not deny it, writing is a gift. There are certain people who are born writers. Then there are those who choose to become writers and, given enough training, practice and perseverance, they can do so. I am not advocating whether or not people who aren't born writers should become writers or not. I am not saying that born writers are better than people who work really hard to become writers. I am simply saying that the ability to write is a gift and certain people have what I like to call "A Writer's Mind." {reference to title, eh? ;)} 

Here I want to concentrate on the subconscious existent of the born writer, untrained as he may be. I will use a story to illustrate one of the attributes of a born writer.

When I was younger I knew I wanted to be a writer, but I did not realize all the vast areas to be a writer in. I was set on being a novelist, but I was not very good. I could describe a scene, but I could not make the readers feel what I wanted them to feel. In truth, looking back, I despise what I was. Yet being that made me what I am today. And I am a much, much better writer today. Well, I'm rabbit trailing again. It is time to slap myself upside the head and get on to the story.

I entered the house and frowned. It seemed bright and cozy enough, but something told me otherwise. The blood red couches and the black carpet and walls made me feel something. I could not place it. A black and grey picture of a child in the rain hung on the wall above the black entertainment cabinet. Above the red couches hung a picture of a stone street. On it stood a man and woman. Rain rushed down from above, splashing off an umbrella as the woman pulled the man towards her. The entire picture was black and white except for her lips, they were bright red.

Moving on into the kitchen I was confronted by bright red appliances and black marble counter tops. I was amazed at the wife's obsession with those colors. But I was even more amazed at the indescribable feeling in my gut while I sat in that red and black house. I knew I used those colors to bring a sense of foreboding into a scene, but foreboding was all I knew they provided. Ultimately my feeling about that house of those colors was right. The relationship broke and died. It caused great pain.

A few years later I was told that red symbolized pain and black symbolized death. I had discovered this beforehand, but the memories of that house flooded back into my mind afresh. Now I'm not saying anyone with a black and red interior for their house is going to get a divorce, but I am saying there was something in her character that made her obsession with those colors pop out at me. As a writer I analyze everything, most of the time subconsciously. It was my subconscious that was warning me of the relationship in that house and its ultimate end. The ability to understand color symbolism and use it effectively, to show and to know, is one of the subconscious traits of a born writer. By subconscious I mean without the writer having to concentrate and bring the thoughts to the foreground of the mind.

I shall continue considering these traits of the born writer next week. For now, may you all have a very merry Christmas!

Sincerely,
Joshua A. Spotts