The Eleventh Dispatch

Welcome to another issue of C.J. Dotson's Dreadful Dispatch!

The Writing

For me just about the only really frustrating part of the publishing process (now that I’m out of the query trenches) is occasionally having dream-come-true cool stuff going on but being unable to talk about it yet. It’s been a great month for my inbox and neat things I have gotten to see and news I have learned and interesting tasks I have worked on and plans I’ve started to make. And at the moment that’s all I’m really able to say about it, except that this process has been so very fun so far.

For the writing I can talk about, though, some updates!

I’m nearly 60,000 words into my bakery horror novel and still having a lot of fun with it. One of my favorite parts about the writing process is figuring out ways to make the project I’m working on better, and I think I had a good idea for that with this book. An idea I’ll implement during revisions, but one I’ve made a note of, and having a clear idea for revisions already makes me even more excited to keep working on this book.

This month I’ve been trying a new way to use my writing time. I’m still attempting to do my drafting on the bakery book in the early mornings before the kids are awake, but if I’ve hit my word goal for the day during those morning hours, then any writing time I squeeze in after work goes toward beginning the easy revisions on the campground horror book. (Easy in terms of how complex the revision itself is, not in terms of time spent on it or how frustrating it might be. By which I mean I am starting with the simple but Sisyphean task of trying to trim down my monstrous word count.) Of course between having less uninterrupted time for these afternoon revisions, and those “interesting tasks” I mentioned in the first paragraph taking priority, this is moving much more slowly than drafting the bakery book. That’s fine, though—it’s progress I wouldn’t have been making otherwise, and it makes me happy.

Shifting Goalposts

So many things about the process of having a book published make me happy, but sometimes it does get a little too easy to downplay that in my own head. The first time I heard about shifting goalposts in the context of publishing I didn’t really believe I’d fall prey to it. Writers further along the path of publication than I was would talk about the frustration of constantly feeling like they couldn’t stop and savor the victories because there was always a new goal to keep pursuing, and I would totally sympathize with their discontent…but I would also think, “If I ever find success, I won’t feel that way.”

And now that I’ve started to find success I realize I should have known I was wrong. If there's anything I'm good at (other than writing, I hope) it's overthinking things.

So of course every time I've ever hit a milestone, even as I'm pinching myself in delighted disbelief at having come this far, I also immediately start worrying about the next step. Or the next five steps. Or, since most of the next steps in publishing involve waiting, I start worrying about steps it's not even time for yet. (My phone's swype texting even constantly changes “writing” to “worrying” and vice versa.)

That doesn't mean I'm not grateful and proud and overwhelmed and excited and happy and everything else. It just means that sometimes those feelings get buried under fretting or fixation in The Next Thing. I have to stop sometimes and remind myself of how much I've already accomplished. When I sit with all those emotions, sometimes it still hardly feels real. I wonder if it will feel like this forever, if I'm lucky enough to have a long, sustained writing career? (Ope, and see, I just did it there—worrying about the long term in the very middle of trying to focus on feeling the wins of the present moment.)

Anyway, it’s something that I thought I wouldn’t experience and I was wrong about that, so now am focusing on getting better at maintaining progress on building my career while still appreciating where I am now.

Everyday Horror Inspiration

Normally when I post about horror writing inspiration I go with “everyday” type moments, the things that strike me as I’m going about normal life, the things that seem innocuous but make me go, “Oh…oh…” And then before I know it I’m making a new file in my “Novels” folder with a sparse little document outlining a new idea to pursue later.

But the most recent fun horror inspiration day I’ve had was not an everyday event. Like most of my family and many of my friends, my house was in the totality zone for the eclipse last week.

So the kids and I used the opportunity to make up a fake horror story that I tweeted in real time. I’ve always enjoyed this type of twitter thread fiction when I run across it, and my 8-year-old son has seen this one made into a youtube video and loves it, so we decided to give it a shot.

You can see the spooky little twitter story my kids and I put together here

(If you enjoy it, let me know so I can pass that on to the kiddos, they had a lot of fun with this and we might try to do another one sometime that will be planned out more in advance.)

Pet Pics

New pictures of Archer, Jupiter, and Noodles!

(we’re leaving the tree up all year & changing the decorations seasonally, it’s been fun!)

Noodles is getting so snuggly lately but only when I’m about two minutes from needing to get up.

And That’s That

Thanks so much for reading another issue of C.J. Dotson’s Dreadful Dispatch! I hope you enjoyed it. If you dig it and you’re not already subscribed, you can click the button below!