To start the new year, I always make one or two resolutions. This is because I once interviewed a psychologist who told me that if you make more than two, you’ll make yourself sick. And to put an extra string on my bow, I try to start a few weeks early.
In 2024, after I had recovered from everything I ate at Thanksgiving, I resolved that in 2025 I would finish writing the first draft of my novel. I estimated I was writing a 65,000 word book, which is on the slim side for a novel, and I further resolved that I would finish it yesterday–the day of my birthday party. I usually make an absurd speech at my birthday party, and brandishing a first draft in one hand and a bottle of champagne in the other seemed like it would impress everybody, even people who know me.
In May, I realized I was writing a much longer book. There was no way I could make my deadline, and, in fact, I didn’t. But the day before the party, while I was writing, I arrived at a gap in the narrative, or in my brain. I turned to the skies and waited for an inspiration. There was no inspiration. But when I again looked at my screen, I glanced at the word count and the number I saw was something I should play in the lottery or something I should announce to a sunny backyard full of friends who were eagerly awaiting their crack at the frosted cupcakes.
I chose the announcement. Here’s the number: 59,590.
The psychologist I interviewed said that it’s OK if, by the end of January or the end of June, you haven’t achieved your goals. So long as you’re still trying, you’ll be far happier than everyone who gave up or forget most of their resolutions in the first month. I’m happy. And not just because I love cupcakes.
I don’t miss the act of an editor saying “No.” What I miss is the hope. For example, starting the new year by submitting five stories to 25 magazines. Off they go, and I wait patiently to see which one will change my life.
Will a “Yes” change my life? I can think of two that did. The first time I sold a story, I decided to keep going. And years later, when I won my only contest, I decided to keep going. If I’m submitting stories, I’m part of a literary conversation, even if I’m the only one who knows it’s a conversation. It gives me hope. As Mr. Micawber said in David Copperfield, “Something will turn up.”
When I got serious about finishing the first draft of my novel, I decided to eschew distractions. I couldn’t eschew my wife and our dogs, but I stopped hunting down magazines and editors and submitting stories. In fact, I stopped writing stories. Been there, done that, went somewhere else.
And then I hit that point in the novel-writing game where you ask yourself, “What am I writing here?” And “What happens next?” And “What the fuck…” I didn’t panic. I knew I’d find my way. But I decided to fall back on something familiar.
I have two stories that have been sitting in limbo since the day I finished them. It could be that I never sold them because I think they’re finished but they really aren’t. I don’t know. But I’m giving them one last chance.
For story #1, I hired a service that reads the story, considers what I want (money and social media activity, primarily), and then recommends 10 places to send it. I attended a webinar run by the two editors running this thing and they impressed me. The 10 zines they chose surprised me. They were all lively, interesting, and appeared to be part of a larger conversation. This service cost me $50.
For story #2, I followed my usual strategy of choosing 10 places based on what they pay.
The way literary magazines work, some will be open for submissions when you visit their site and some won’t open until September. Some editors will respond to you within a week and some within a year. Most will say “No.” Stephen Marche, in a depressing book with the uplifting title of On Writing and Failure, wrote that “rejection is the river in which we swim.” He’s right; the majority of us will receive far more rejections than acceptances. Everyone else says to grow calluses; Marche says we should “relish the rejection.” Don’t go down that road. Note the rejection in your log or diary or scratch it into the wall and submit the next thing. Get back to work.
The lesson I learned from this exercise (this vacation from my book) is that I don’t want to submit stories anymore. It takes too long, even though they don’t call them short stories for no reason. They’re only a few thousand words each. A novel, a single work, suddenly seems simpler.
Well, I’ll let you know if I get any takers. Meanwhile, my break is over, and I am again forging–slowly–ahead. I just reached 56,004 words.
A writer of my acquaintance once told me that she could only write when she was sitting at her desk, with her cup of tea, with the light entering the window and refracting at an exact angle through the crystal she’d hung there. She didn’t say what happened to her writing when the Earth continued to rotate. She also didn’t say what happened when there was no traveling sunbeam entering the crystal. We lived in a gray, rainy place.
I don’t mean to pick on her. Writing is difficult work, and if the adverbs and the world’s indifference don’t kill you, the solitude will. But if your plan is to write only when conditions are right…you are not going to write.
A routine is more important than whatever you hang in your window. But if you have a life, how the heck can you fit another routine inside it? I struggled with this issue for years, until I read “How I wrote a book in 15 minutes a day” by Julia Dahl.
Dahl believes that all of us can find 15 minutes each day to write, and when she wrote this essay she had a job, a baby, and a husband to contend with. Writing in micro-units is not a new idea—Brenda Ueland suggested it back in 1938 in If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit. (Ueland suggested stealing the time from your day job, a suggestion I ran with for decades.)
It’s an idea that has been promoted in other fields as well:
Carving out 30 minutes a day to spend in the garden might be a challenge for you at first, especially if it’s winter and dark for much of the day. But it is amazing how quickly half an hour disappears when you get involved in something you enjoy. (Greg Loades, The 30-Minute Gardener)
I am not a morning person. Ask anyone who ever tried to manage me. Neither is Julia Dahl; she writes in the middle of the day. I am more the type of person to hits his stride after midnight. But I did it. I trained myself to wake up before 6am, an idea I once would’ve considered blasphemy. As soon as I had armed myself with coffee, music, headphones, and my lucky hoodie, I found I had no trouble writing for 15 minutes. 15 minutes was not intimidating at all. In fact, I often wrote for up to two hours, which is exactly what Dahl found when she tried this. Somehow her baby grew up. Somehow my wife contends. This experiment went so well that I often returned to my task later in the day.
That was in October 2024. It was tough sledding for me at first, especially at Thanksgiving, the holiday that throws most of us off the rails. But here I am on June 1, 2025, and the word count on my novel stands at 55,407.
My writing slowed in May as I plowed into the climax of my book, which I envisioned years ago. What I didn’t envision was how difficult it would be to write it so that readers would understand it. I feel like I’m driving a Norwegian icebreaker named Fraya through the Barents Sea.
Many mystery readers enjoy a police procedural, and when the characters and the story are sufficiently compelling, that book will escape genre boundaries. But if, in writing the current scene, I turn this book into a train procedural, no one will read it except for the people who real railroaders fondly refer to as Fucking Rail Nuts. And all the FRNs will do is complain that I got the gear wrong. I am not writing for middle-aged male rivet-counters. Who buys most of the books? The middle-aged women who hold the world together. Their only experience with trains might be the Polar Express or your man Thomas.
My point is that this is how you get things done, or this is how I get things done: One step at a time. Sometimes, very small steps. When the time comes to revise, I’ll set aside a bigger chunk of my day. But for now, and because I have no publisher waiting for me, I’ll take my little slice of dawn. The dogs will wait.
Steven Bryan Bieler, Writer 