07/03/00 -- The day of many F-words.  Ouch.

Self-indulgent Angst Bullshit ahead ... next five miles...

I'm not sure specifically what changed today, but something did.  Instead of people being relaxed and mellow and nice after a weekend, things got, umm, intense.  "Switched to Overload" got critiqued this morning.  Suffice it to say, I cried at the end of it.  The funny thing is... I didn't really have a lot of emotion invested in the story so I don't know why I was so upset.  But I was.  And I've been angsting about it all day.  Still don't really have an answer.

So it was also Chip's first day among us.  Officially.  I think a good chunk of us were pretty nervous.  So first thing he does is tell us how he's gotten his reputation for being mean.  Maybe that's part of what set me on edge for my critique...  Oh, my story went first, too.  I was the "sacrificial lamb" as someone said later.

But enough of me angsting over that...

Lunch was pizza in the cafeteria.  It was scary.  I should've stuck with, umm, er, rice krispie treats and a soda or something like that.  I didn't.

After lunch, I came back up to my room and cleaned.  Well, straightened up.  Because it's a weird holiday week, we didn't get our beds made by housekeeping.  We got the beds stripped and clean linen dumped in a neat pile atop them.  So when I came back to my room after eating, I decided to make my bed.  And it went from there.  I think I just needed to do something, well, grounding.  Something that gave me a visible result.  So my bed is made.  My room is neat.  And I discovered that I can't keep the fan on the side of the window sill near my monitor because if I do, my monitor freaks out and does this awful waterfall thing.

Then I read stories for critique for tomorrow.  And worried a little bit (okay, a lot) about the story I turned in today.  I'm worried that I didn't manage to get enough of the outside world into the story.  Most specifically because that was a comment made about the story that got critted today.  And because sometimes I can do details to ground the outside world really well and the rest of the time I just fuck it up royally.  I'm afraid that, again, this was one of those times.  There aren't enough details about the bar.  About the bus.  About anything but the cracked pavement and the initial narrative about the kinds of things people try really hard not to see in the place where this story takes place.

And then there's the tech... Fuck.  I should stick with fantasy.  Should stay away from science fiction and cyberpunk and anything that doesn't have elves and assassins and swords and cloaks and stew.  Fuck.  I should return all of my cyberpunk kits and my science fiction kits and my science fantasy kits and exchange them all for the generic high fantasy kit.  And maybe some high fantasy detailing.  Fuck.

Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck.

So Chip gave us the "80% of you probably won't be writing 5 years from now" speech this morning, too.  And on my way back up to my room after lunch I think I rebelled against it.  I don't want to be part of that 80% (or 85% or 95% or whatever it is) that doesn't write again.  I didn't do this to stop.  I know it's a lot of work.  I know it's hard.  I didn't come to Clarion to "play writer" for six weeks to get it out of my system so I can go on with my life.

Fuck.

So anyway.  I cleaned my room.  I read.  I was going to have oatmeal for dinner except Gavin and Kelly (Gavin's sweetie) came by to see if I'd had dinner yet and if I wanted to join them.  So I got talked into it.  We rounded up a handful of other people and wound up walking down to Grand River to eat at El Azteco.  I had a sopapilla for dessert.  It was good.  I didn't have margaritas.  But I have oatmeal cookie fixings in my frige.  If they haven't frozen the way my water has and my otter pops haven't.  Oh, well.. If it has, I'll just have to lick it like a popsicle.

I think my brain is mush.  And at this exact moment in time, I really want to go home.  Give me five minutes and I'll be fine.  Because I was saying to folks as we walked upstairs that I didn't want to think about Clarion being over soon.

If "Sweeter than Honey, Stronger than Wine" turns out to be complete and total crap, I probably won't have to worry about anything.  I'll get lynched by everyone for making them read 9200 words of crap.  Then I won't have to worry about whether or not I want Clarion to be over.  Or much of anything else.

Someone called week four "suicide week" but went on to say that most people survive it.  I dunno...

I'm tired.  I think I'm burning out.  We have a ream of paper worth of "slush" stories (and that doesn't include our submission stories) that we may or may not get to.  I'm leaning toward the latter.  There just isn't enough time.  And I don't see any of us slowing down too much for these last three weeks.  Or maybe we will.  I don't know.  If I want to keep up the two stories/week thing that I somehow started I'll have to write and turn in two before Friday.

It probably won't happen.  I may write the squirrel story.  Something stupid and frivolous and easy.  In theory.  I'll probably get dinged for that, but right at this very moment I don't care.  I've pushed myself to try something different and challenging since story 3. I've given myself permission to fail.  If this morning is an indication, I've failed spectacularly at least once.  We haven't got around to "PaP, RaR" yet.  We may not.  I'd rather get "StH, StW" critted than that, at this point.  Feh.  If I only manage to write one more story over the course of Clarion, I guess I'll have succeeded.  I've already turned in six.  Average of a story/week.  More than I thought I'd get done when I got accepted and discovered that I couldn't write a damn thing.  Or that I could write, but couldn't finish because I thought everything was complete and utter crap.   I've pushed myself to try things I'm not comfortable with.  I've had my ass handed to me.  I guess that even if I was to go home right now, Clarion would've been some strange sort of success.

But I'm not going to go home (didn't I say to give me five minutes?).  Because if I did, it'd be like admitting I couldn't handle it.  Like admitting I didn't want it as badly as I said I wanted it.

And I do want it.

Badly.

So on my board right now, I've got written:

Aynjel is thinking about ...

And I've had that there for a while.  I generally put something about the story I'm working on after the ... .  For example, until this morning, it said:

Aynjel is thinking about ... a futuristic quasi-horror retelling of Goblin Market.

Right now, it says:

Aynjel is thinking about ... abso-fucking-lutely nothing.

Someone has scribbled underneath:

Such a beautiful name for such strong language!

I'm not sure whose handwriting it is.  If it's a Clarionette's or if maybe it's Chip's (he threatened to run up and down the halls barefoot to find people for conferences this week--maybe he stopped by while I was out at dinner... I dunno).  I'm also not sure how to take it.  Was the writer offended by my swearing?  Or was it a compliment?  Maybe I'm looking to deep for meaning.

I don't know.

Maybe I should just critique and sleep.  Certainly wouldn't hurt.

 

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
"Sweeter Than Honey, Stronger Than Wine"  (My Tananrive Due challenge story.  Write a story in the style of an author whose work you admire.  Aieee!  It was sort of supposed to be in the style of Tanith Lee.  I'm not sure I hit that.  But it's definitely got a Christina Rossetti influence.)	9200	7/2