Week 3

(We're going to pretend week 2 imploded. Yes, yes we are.)

I'm happy this week, because it's Thursday and I still have time to do the mad dash thing I do on weekends to make the deadline.

I'm happier, actually, because I have two stories finished  and - wait for it - polished. (One of them, anyways). As in, it went through 'bout three drafts (not counting the smaller ones in the middle) and came out something I didn't mind too much.


I'm crushingly depressed right now because of that story.

CW class today, y'see. And I guess I actually wasn't ready to show that story yet. Amidst the other amazing stories by other amazing student writers who just manage to do other amazing stuff that I can't do, I just staggered out of the classroom wondering how the hell I'd had the nerve to read it out loud and I was never going to write again I was just a failure and maybe that law school was beginning to look good after all and....

And I opened my notebook (because my laptop was in my room) and began writing immediately. Because gosh darn it, even as I figured giving up would be the smart thing to do, listening to feedback and other works just inspired me so much. The characters from two long-ago WIPs that I thought had abandoned me were yakking away in my head every step of the way to my next class.

So I got through the day, and the writer's down.

I'll get through the next one, and the next one...until it gives up (unlikely), or I give up (more likely, but I'm very stubborn).

So...... let's get that Ray Bradbury quest going once more, shall we?

Week 1

Mid-point (All right, the last-mad-dash-to-the-finish-line) check.

I blame traveling, then trying to settle in at a new place, for the lack of sad attempts at writing. Also being a little scared because I've just realized I may have to submit manuscript for the creative writing course starting in....two days.

Should start on that.

On the other hand, I now have a fairly sure idea on the story I want to edit and submit, and where I want to submit it, so I'll get started right on that.

Seriously, having this deadline every week - even if it is self-imposed - was a good idea. Otherwise I really wouldn't get much done out of class, and while writing classes are fun and very helpful, many of them eye-opening, they can also be limiting in exploring genres. I am hoping that this semester, I will be able to spur myself out of the closet (heh) in class about my a bit geared towards fantastical tendencies; last fiction writing class I took, I focused entirely on realistic fiction, something I really hadn't done for a long time since beginning to write in earnest (I tell people I've been writing since I was seven, but producing more than 10,000 words came a bit later than that).

I think I'd self-imposed that boundary, that distinction between SF and literature that gets discussed and debated too often. I subconsciously figured that if I started spewing fantasy on my writing, both my professor and the other students would find absolutely no literary merit in my stories. And writing realistic fiction was fun, too - I got characters out of it that I fully plan on turning into a longer manuscript.

But it's time to reconcile those two warring spirits in me.


"The kids sensed, if they could not say, that fantasy, and its robot child science fiction, is not escape at all. But a circling round of reality to enchant it and make it behave. ...The children guessed, if they did not whisper it, that all science fiction is an attempt to solve problems by pretending to look the other way. ...

Do we want the stars? We can have them. Can we borrow cups of fire from the sun? We can and must and light the world."
-Ray Bradbury, Dusk in the Robot Museums: The Rebirth of Imagination

Week 0.5

Intro: Thoughts 


So since I started in the middle of the week - and of course I could just have one Write1Sub1 week start on Wednesday and end on Tuesday, but that wouldn't be very clean, now, would it? - I decided to be very generous to myself and forgo either the "Write1" or "Sub1" part of the package for this week, to be accomplished by Sunday.

At the moment, I'm clearly leaning towards the "Write1" part.

From the beginning, I knew the "Sub" part would be the hardest; show my writing to someone? Worse, submit it, as though I could ever be done with editing it? Preposterous!

So of course I may have to challenge myself and dig out an old story, to be submitted by Sunday. Because hey, if you can't challenge yourself in the beginning, when you're filled with most enthusiasm - you never will be able to.

Actually, my biggest problem right now is that I'm writing in a totally wrong language. Bilingualism is not the best thing when a story insists on talking in two completely different language...



Conclusion:


So I rather utterly failed at submitting. Indecision will be the death of my nonexistent writerly life.

I now have a list of more than 10 magazines I'm dying to submit to, however, compared to the total of 0 I had before, so I will attempt to give a "Not bad, could have done (a lot) better" to week 0.5.

Now... on to Week 1!!

No, I said 'ello!

It's something I absolutely need right now, to kick myself into gear - not just for the year, but for what I'm hoping to have as my future.

It's something I'm absolutely not ready for yet.

I'm 12 days late, and this is the middle of the week, for heaven's sake.

This is going to be so much fun.