07/01/00 -- Journal Q & A

To clear up a few questions...

Got lots of sleep last night.  Maybe too much sleep.  Went to bed by 1am.  Set the alarm for 9:30 so I could get up and start writing.  Turned it off when it went off and slept until 11:30.  Ugh.  Cut way too many hours out of the day with that.  @.@

I've been asked what a few of the things I've been talking about are... or what they mean.  Here's a short list of definitions:

	Green&Blacks - Earthshatteringly wonderful chocolate from the UK.  It's dark chocolate.  70% cocoa solids.  Sinful.
	Slutkatkitty - That's what I call one of my characters.  He's the one I was going to write about in the initial first-person narrative I started and have since abandoned though may go back to (wishful thinking).
	F'angle - Whoo, long story.  Suffice it to say that it's a contraction of Fallen Angel using the most commonly typo'd spelling of Angel (angle).
	Sopapillas - These are, well, deep-fried-puffed-pastry-type desserts.  Mostly they're, well, not flavored and covered in honey and cinnamon.  The ones they have at Chevy's are chocolate and topped with chocolate sauce.  Mmmmm.

So if there's anything else confusing anyone, lemme know. :)

Oh, and for those of you who are wondering about the free-writing... It's pretty much a way to just shut up your internal editor.  Lord knows there are times when I need to take a shot-gun to mine.

You pick a topic (or a handful of words or a line from a song or a line from a story or whatever), set a time limit, and then just write.  You want to try to get something that has to do with the topic, but sometimes you wind up writing about the people in the booth next to you who won't shut up, the way your pen keeps freaking out and the sound over at the coffee counter when they froth/steam milk for someone's whatever coffee drink.  You don't make corrections, you don't scribble things out.  The point is just to write something without your internal editor screaming at you over your shoulder.  It's a pretty cool little exercise.

Oh, and you read them out loud when you're done.  And you're not allowed to say that it sucks.  Or make any statement that would be taken as the equivalent of "this sucks".  So if you're constantly saying, I dunno, but this is.... interesting.  every time, then you're probably just saying, This sucks. in a different way.  So knock it off! :)  The point isn't to turn out a publishable story on the topic in five minutes.  Just to write.  Get ideas out.  Sometimes you get something that's the start of a story.  Or two things that might go together into a story.  It's cool.

We're at the point where we're telling each other that we're doing a lot better than week one.  I want to believe this.  I'm not sure, though.  Last night as I was getting ready for bed (yeah, I know, I was tipsy -- wrong time to be introspective, but hey, I had the time), I started wondering ... am I really getting better?  Or am I going to be one of those people who leaves Clarion with half a dozen stories that I'll be able to polish up beautifully and send out (and maybe even get published) and then won't be able to turn out anything better than I did week one?  I guess what I'm wondering is am I learning anything from the critiquing sessions?  Am I learning how to look at things more critically?  To find out why something isn't good enough instead of just where something falls flat on its face and how to fix it.

It's pretty easy to look at something and say, Y'know, if I fix up this logic flaw, answer these questions, and clean up some of the grammar, this will be an awesome piece.  But... Am I going to be able to look at my story and say, Huh.  The grammar's great.  There are no logic flaws.  There is a plot.  There are characters who come off the page.  It has lots of specificity to bring things to life.  What I really need is a stronger image here and a little less darkness there and a little more light over here and a stronger use of the overlying theme/metaphor in places X, Y, and Z to really make this shine.?  Hell, I still can't tell metaphor and theme from anything else in my own writing.  I don't write specifically for either.  I write a story.  Cool.  I revise it.   Cool.  I have theme?  Metaphor?  Evil nasty scary images?  Wow.  I didn't know that.  That's pretty much where my brain is by the time I finish a story.  I feel like I don't really know anything.  That I'm a fake.  I guess I still feel like maybe I shouldn't be here even though it's halfway over.  *wry smile*  Color me on a Clarion emotional roller coaster. :)

The current plan is to go see Titan A.E. at 5 this evening.  Maybe we'll grab dinner after, too, I'm not sure.  I've been writing all afternoon.  So far, about 1500 words.  Maybe I'll finish today.  I'm more than halfway through the poem.  Maybe halfway through the story, though, since it doesn't mirror the poem exactly.  Trying to decide if there are scenes I'm going to need to add into the story afterwards.  I guess I'll wait and see when I've finished.  See if it needs them.  Or if they'll just clutter things up.

I'm a little worried about the multiple POV.  Three POV characters. There's a lot of jumping around.  But I'm hoping it won't be a problem.  The story's almost 6000 words right now.  Probably going to wind up close to 10,000 by the time I finish the initial round on the first draft.  I'm worried about that, too.  I know I'd be frustrated at the prospect of a 10,000 word story to be critiqued.  Lord knows most of us have got to the point where we read them in the order of length ... shortest to longest.  Even if that's not the order they're going to get critiqued the following morning.

If I'm not done with the story by 5, I'm probably going to be in major need of a break, anyway.  And I'll have all evening to work on the story more.  Karen and I were going to go wander around Grand River today.  I don't think that's going to happen.  Maybe tomorrow.  Though I don't know how many of the shops will be open.

 

Well, Titan AE seems to have been a little bit of a disappointment to everyone.  I sat there thinking about it the way I've thought about stories that we're critiquing.  Chris' suggestion is that we all need to become much worse writers rather than better ones.  And then we'd get published.

Even though I wasn't expecting anything but great animation, I did wind up mildly disappointed by the movie.  Not so much as everyone else ... I mean, I don't think I hated it, but the animation couldn't make up for the infinite loop plot thing and a few other problems.

We grabbed dinner at the Country Buffet on the way back.  Strange.  We gave up cafeteria food for cafeteria food.  At least this was all of the cafeteria food we could eat.  I'm not sure how much of a consolation that was, however.

Came back, worked on my story.  Wrote like crazy thinking the whole time, I will finish this tonight if it kills me.  Or at least finish the first draft of it (which I did!!!!).  Tomorrow will probably be critiquing day.  Get the four (well, three, we're doing one of mine) that we're critting on Monday and then start going through our "slush pile" and get caught up on that.  It'll help for me at some point ... eventually.  Maybe by week five no one will be writing anymore.  *snrk*  Somehow, though, I doubt that'll be the case.

Talked to my sweetie tonight, too.  Miss him lots.  :(   Makes me a little jealous of the folks who are seeing their sweeties this weekend (either at home or here).  Won't see him until I get home.  And he won't be online for me to talk to him much for another two weeks.  *grump* *whine*  At least it sounds like Anthrocon is going well.

Catching up on a few other things:

Erika -- Love you and miss you, babe.  Yeah, this journal is reminding me a lot of high school, too.  Though this is easier to read -- no scrawling, sprawling, scrunched, bus-bounced, squint-inducing handwriting. :)  And I knew about the 'part plain crazy'. :)  Known for a long time.  I think you caught it from me. ;) ;) ;)  Good luck with the fishies!!  (And the manual truck! *grin*  Hill start!  Hill start!  *innocent smile*)

Hmm -- I'm eating.  I'm exercising (not quite as often as I'd like to, but there just aren't enough hours in the day!).  I'm sleeping (more now than before because I just couldn't keep going on 3-5 hours of sleep a night).  And I'm writing!  Woo!  :)  Thanks for the cool postcard.  I'm sure that by the end of week four I'll feel like the guy by the snake. :)  *giggle*

And speaking of week four.  I just can't believe how fast this has gone.  We're halfway done already.  It's crazy.  Really crazy.  I feel like it's going to be over before I've really learned anything.  Aieee!

 

Okay, so other folks are talking about their productivity here.  I decided I may as well, too. This list (and my productivity) is subject to change without notice. :)
Title	Word Count	Finished	Critiqued?
"Where the Blood Roses Grow" Week one, first story.  Wahoo.  And I was worried that something wouldn't come.	5000	6/13	6/15
"Uprooting the Tree" Will probably change the title at some point.	3400	6/16	6/19
"Mockingbird Girl" I think I'm happiest with this story, so far.	2800	6/19	6/26
"Poor as Paupers, Rich as Royalty" My challenge story from Sean's week.  I hated writing it.  It gave me a toothache.	2000	6/22
That fucking first person narrative (not yet complete) - May never be completed.  Don't I feel like an idiot...	(400)
"Switched to Overload"  (That other fucking first person narrative) Actually, I like this one better than the one above it ...  Even if it did wind up being two first person narratives in one story.  o.O	4900	6/27
The Tananrive Due challenge story.  Write a story in the style of an author whose work you admire.  Aieee!  (Okay, so the first draft is done.  With any luck I'll be able to chop it back down a bit tomorrow.  And come up with a title for it.)	(9052)