You Can't Untoast the Toast
You Can't Untoast the Toast
And what I've learned from watching PBS Kids all day w/my son
Dear Reader,
This is going to be a bit different because itās the 1st of the month and a Wednesday. If youāve noticed, Iāve been consistently (at least since February) putting out an email on Wednesdays. So as to not send two on the same day I decided to roll my planned āOn Writing Fictionā email into my First Edition instead. Please enjoy my ranting and ravings and I hope you come out the other side not having this song stuck in your head! Ha ha ha!
Iāve been a full on mom for 8 months now and in that time Iāve watched nothing but animated children shows. Let me just say my wife and I have watched Encanto so many times that we never want to see it or hear the music ever again. We couldnāt get him to sleep without having it on. Anyway, what we are watching these days is PBS Kids. They play kids shows 24/7. All educational television except Odd Squad (I question what is actually learned from that showā¦). And one of the ācommercialsā in-between half-hour shows is The Ruff Ruffman Show. There is a song that they sing and to say itās stuck in my head is an understatement. I share it with you in the hopes it will stick in yours (youāre welcome) and so I can explain what Iāve learned watching all these educational kids shows that Iām applying to my writing-life:
The song has many lessons to learn, but the one that always sticks with me is āyou canāt untoast the toast.ā Which I think basically means, you need to be sure of what you want/need because once you go all in on something you canāt turn around and undo it. Once I write this post and share it with all of you, sure I can delete it after if I regret having written it. But the email will always exist in your inbox (if you donāt delete it) so I canāt ever really take it back.
And nowhere is this more true than on Twitter where itās common to go back 10 years on someoneās account to dredge up something they retweeted or tweeted themselves to use against them.
In short, work smart, not hard. Itās great to work in public and share your journey but realize what can happen if you donāt finish. I know this the hard way because there are so many times I set out to do X and I shout it from the rooftops. Put it in a post. Send it in an email. Tweet it into the void. And then I never end up finishing. If Iām honest with myself, the last thing I got to completion was the short story I wrote for the LeVar Burton Reads contest in 2021 and before that it was 2018 when I wrote 2 novels and one novella for a fantasy series idea I had. That series, by the way, was meant to be 6 novels and 5 novellas. An entry to an entire universe where I have 60+ novels plotted for it.
Since that time I have set out to do many things. Again I shouted them from the rooftops. Tweeted them into the void. Iām sure I shared them with you. And here I am today having completed nothing.
I share this because Iām always trying to find a way to defeat my own insecurities on why I canāt seem to overcome the hurdle to finish. Finishing used to come so easily to me not a decade ago. I was churning out short stories every week with no problem. I realize having a son and being a mom, working full time, makes doing what I used to do harder. But Iām sure thereās a way. Where thereās a will, right?
Which leads me back to the toast that I canāt untoast. Is the solution that I just stop toasting. That is, should I stop setting myself up for failure. Stop making proclamations that āthis year Iām going to do Xā and just do whatever, in the hopes that by the end something(s) will have gotten done? It sounds okay in theory but isnāt the point of sharing goals so that we are held accountable and when we donāt reach or finish them then we feel badly. I think itās that last part that sucks and why we (or me) have such a hard time finishing what we start. Why bother and just prepare for the shame.
Itās easier to stand in the shame of being predictable than it is to stand in the lime light of, āI did it, now what?ā
Once itās done. Once there is nothing more to be done than publish it for anyone else to read that can be really terrifying. Even if only one book is sold. The point is that anyone really can find it and buy it and read it and hate it. We are preprogrammed to avoid the possibility of putting ourselves out there for criticism. No one wants it when it comes with the possibility of negative feedback. If I knew ahead of time that no matter who read it they would love it and say so I donāt think I would have any hang-ups about finishing. Or would I?
Would you?
How many times have you tried to untoast the toast?
You may not know this but up until 2019 I actually had multiple books published on Amazon. I canāt show you it now because I have since removed them permanently. My attempt to untoast the toast. Unfortunately, Goodreads doesnāt allow this! Rebrand myself and come out better than I did before. Except, before I actually finished and published. Since that time I have finished nothing and published less. So, did I do myself a favor by trying to make myself disappear?
Thank you for letting me share my sporadic thoughts.
On Writing Fiction - What You May Have Missed
Iāve been busy these past couple weeks and if things go according to my plans, I will be delivering something every Wednesday, and not always just on writing.
YouTube Video Worth the Watch
Cause everyone is talking about AI and ChatGPT these days. I have no opinion on it one way or another (yet) but that doesn't mean Iām not aware of its existence. This is one of the many voices I listen to for what it could mean for the future.
PS I never thought Iād bring this back, but here it is. I finally have a title I like for what I hope will be the first of many short story collections: A Box of Curio. Iām designing concept cover ideas as well. This is a great thing because it signals new short stories coming in 2023! That is all!