Finding My Way Back

Two pieces of writing advice that are also helpful for when we feel stuck in life

The Tennessee heat is hazy and still. The green leaves hang limp and wilting, and then the stirring of a breeze briefly  flashes the leaves’ silver undersides towards the sky. The earth, where it shows through the stiff grass, is brick red, and the clouds I can see through the bedroom window haven’t moved all afternoon. They hang there, suspended, heavy, waiting.

My writing life is a Tennessee summer day. At least my fiction writing life is…my nonfiction writing life, the way I make a living, has never been busier. Revising two memoirs, writing the first drafts of two more, and a lot of work in the pipeline.

But my fiction writing feels stalled and uncertain.

There are two novels in particular I started writing in the last few years and find myself chewing on over and over again. The first is the murder mystery my agent has shopped, to no avail. The second is a book for which I wrote 30,000 words, realized I was on the wrong track, and started again, writing about 4,000 words in a different point-of-view. And stopped.

But now I’m not sure what direction to go in. What to focus on. Do I independently publish the murder mystery? Do I focus on writing the second novel, ask my agent to shop that, and then do the murder mystery myself after that? Do I focus on my paying nonfiction work and throw in the towel when it comes to fiction?

I don’t know.

* * * * *

I had a conversation with a friend the other day. He’s a business man, a dad, a husband, with lots on his plate. Very busy. So I was surprised when he told me he was working on a novel.

“Really?” I asked. “You’re writing fiction?”