Progress

Last night I finished the pre-writing for my latest story. I really like the idea, but I'm a little rusty on the writing front. My fault, completely, but I just need to sit down and WRITE to shake the bugs out. Ew! Cockroach!

The pre-writing exercise I got from MB is very good but very time consuming. Good stories take time, though, so giving stories lots of thought ahead of time should make the writing of them easier, right? Maybe. We'll see.

I have less than three months to get my two stories together for Clarion. Yeek. Means I need to write more and more often. Can I sleep any less?

Fell off the blog bandwagon

So much going on it's hard to keep up with the little things like bragging about failures and planning wasting more money and effort on future contests. But it keeps me grounded in reality and the pleasant hope that one day I'll look back at this and say, "Hey. I WORKED for this success!"

The only works I've gotten published in the last few months are Twitter fiction. Everything else has been polite but firm rejections. Twitter Fic is fun, but not much in the way of recognition.

Currently working on two stories to try to get me into one of the two Clarion workshops. It will be a huge commitment of time and money IF I would happen to get in, but if I get accepted I will go. I'll find a way to raise the money. It's too good an opportunity. If I don't get accepted, then so what. I have to apply, though, because no one is going to come knocking on my door and asking if I'm the next George R.R. Martin. (If they do, I'd be suspicious!)

Share the love

Tomorrow I start my creative writer's club at school. I have 40 signed up. I doubt 20 will show. Fewer still will show up after they find out what's involved. I'm not doing tryouts, but I am expecting them to submit to at least one contest a month. I guess I could tell them I'm doing the same, that way they know I'm practicing what I preach. Additionally, they'll have to critique each other's work. Not just "I like it" but really delving into what is good and not so good about the writing. It's good practice, although tough. Maybe I can thicken their skins a bit.

New joint venture

A friend of mine and I are planning on meeting every two weeks to critique each other's work. She and I think a lot alike, which is good and bad. Good in the sense we understand each other, bad in the sense if we understand it, others might not. It'll be fun, definitely. Helpful, probably. Looking forward to it.

There's something stuck under my "f" key that makes it not work every few strokes. Wonder what kind of typing demon it is. Hmmm....

Stress

Feeling very unwriterish these days. Work is going well, but is stressful. It's hard to come home and work up enough energy to write something worthwhile. I've been keeping up with my journal, though, so as my September 1st deadline approaches, I aim to use those ideas with a vengeance.

A few days ago I wrote goals in my runner's blog for my race the next day. That seemed to help me during the run. So here are my writing goals for this week:

1. Get caught up on my contest entries in my gmail account. Won't take but 15-20 minutes. DONE!

2. Send out at least 5 more entries for August. Need to get going on that! This will include my piece for the writers' guild anthology.

3. Write at least 2 more pieces. They can be small ones.

4. Edit at least 1 previous piece.

My dirty dishes call. I ignore their cries of agony and continue to type. Let them suffer their rotten, smelly deaths. Reality has no claim on my sanity at the moment. (Wow. I think I need some sleep!)

No revision in life

Last night my husband and I were informed about an old friend of ours who has ruined his life. Apparently, he and his wife split, there was a custody battle over their son, and one night our friend shot and killed his wife. We were obviously shocked at this news at first, but upon further thinking, it wasn't so surprising.

Some people have a deep passion about certain things: spouse, sport, child, hobby, etc. You take that away and all reasoning facilities disappear. Our friend was one of the smartest people we know. If he had been thinking logically, no one would have found the body and no one would have ever suspected he'd had anything to do with her disappearance. But what happened must have been  fit of passion over the child. He loved that boy more than anything. More than his wife, obviously. And in his passion he lashed out and got caught. He will probably spend the rest of his life in prison, possibly on death row.

It's this kind of passion I've never had. In some ways, I feel bereft that others can feel so much more deeply than I can about their lives. Even though this is a tragedy, I don't feel anything except disappointment and sadness for our friend, the son, and the family of the wife. I feel worse about the fact I DON'T feel anger.

Then again, I don't think I would ever get that angry about losing something/someone that I would kill a human being. That's a definite advantage.

Time lapse

With school starting, my writing/contesting has been put on the back burner. I need to get my bearings with these new kids before I can feel creative enough, have enough energy, and not feel guilty taking the time to write. My goal is September, which is two weeks. In the mean time, I'm going to make an effort to do more journal entries so I have seeds to write from.