November 2009
1 post
Writing Goals.
Part of my New and Improved Writerly Resolution is to keep track of goals. SO. Goals for the next month. (November 27th-December 27th)
-Revise Blackout and submit to at least 3 publications
-Revise The Orchard and submit to at least 3 publications
-Revise Trespass and submit to at least 3 publications
-Finish draft 1 of Untitled Aquarium story
-Minimum of two chapters of Illustrating...
March 2009
2 posts
Sanity on a thread.
Progress: Master’s exams as a sadistic exercise and I am the special snowflake in the creative program who gets to take them. I love my program. I really do. If I don’t pass these exams I’m going to cut all my hair off in mourning (and really, it’s getting Rapunzel-length at this point. I an do bona-fide Heidi braids). ANYWAY. 32,317 words. 85 pages. I hate most of them...
Journals and Progress.
Weird week. Weird past two weeks, during which production slowed down but thankfully did not stop.
Word Count: 26,739.
Chapter: A few pages into five.
Actual Pages: 69! 69 whole pages! Granted, maybe only two of them are are good, but still that’s long (for me). I think I may actually hit my end-of-semester 100 page goal at this rate.
Class Journal for the Week:
I’ve kept up a...
February 2009
8 posts
Progress.
Word Count: 18,903 words.
Chapters: Three is almost finished
Workshop: Went fine and was (mostly) extremely helpful.
More on the process soon, but need to go get ready for tonight’s workshop. The wordcount is somewhat pleasing, since I think this is now the longest piece I’ve ever written. Which is a little over fifty pages. So I’m pleased about that. I’ve been toying...
“Signs of Noise
These are types of comments that I downplay or even discard:
...”
– From www.afterthemfa.com. Really, really helpful segment called “After the Workshop,” which suggests how to take comments and apply them to your work, and gives some good suggestions on how to prioritize comments.
Preparation (I ramble).
Sitting and pecking at the keyboard in preparation for workshop. I’ve already had one reaction, which was complimentary about the language and criticized the pacing and the characters, which he wasn’t invested in.
Hmm.
The pacing is something I’ve been anxious about, because this has been so far a very interior project with not a lot of scene, and what scene there is is pretty...
Excerpt (Chapter One).
Excerpt taken down because the audience of this seems to not be the intended one. I’ll continue with the journaling and thoughts, but I’ll likely create a locked LJ community for excerpting when I’m further along.
Progress Report.
Word Count: 9,808
Workshop Date: Approaching, story due in Sunday at the latest
Today: Day of noveling! Seminar was cancelled, grading is done for the week (with the exception of people who think it’s funny to turn in take home tests late— alas).
Facebook: To be avoided.
Gym: Necessary evil.
Hopes: Finish second chapter (suspect will run to around twenty pages long, which will put...
Journal #2.
The choice to change to a different idea was definitely the right one, even if I did make it in the middle of a complaint about how the last project wasn’t working. I’ve written about 6500 words this past week, which is a pretty good output for me. I was able to use a few pages of what I had as a frame for the first chapter, and feel like I have that done (as a rough, rough draft)....
Journal #1.
So I’ve put aside this idea that I’ve been toying with and that was just determined not to be right. Instead I’m doing what I probably should have done in the first place, which was returned to a project that started as a one page response, and has slowly worked its way up into a several page piece, and now I’m hoping will become a novel. The thing that draws me to the new...
Introduction.
I have a nameless, nineteen page long novel. So far. It started as something I actually posted here, the calligraphy piece, which began as response to …something? in my experimental fiction class.
Current word count: 7,580 words
Mood: Faintly optimistic. Approaching fear due to approaching workshop date. Likely to shift into full-blown panic by Sunday evening.
Hopes: I would really like...
November 2008
3 posts
Music.
Tension is necessary. Suspension sustains the bow on the string that holds and fills and collapses in a single note. He cuts the strings with a pair of narrow pliers. The broken edges catch calluses on his fingertips as he winds and tightens the tuners. He rests the cello against his shoulder. His arms loosely cradle the waist and he imagines her, an instrument like everything else. But not for...
Zinc Bar.
Meg sits in the Zinc Bar between her old lover and her new one. Part of her delights in that she can sit here with a glass of Merlot between her hands. Her palm rests on the stem of the glass. John tells her his story and how he is not sure what to do, Meg, and Chris eats oysters without looking back. She can smell the brine on Chris’s lips, and thinks later that she will kiss him and taste...
Lately.
Things seem less important, now. She sleeps early. She curls in around herself, her arm hugging one pillow to her abdomen, the other arm settled on her thigh. Lately she sleeps as if he’s not in the bed at all.
She gets up in time to sit at breakfast and nod, slowly. She stirs her yogurt with raisins and brown sugar. Her spoon turns counter-clockwise. Sometimes after he leaves she opens the...
October 2008
3 posts
Opal.
Opal’s shift on Friday finishes half an hour before three, long enough for her to walk to the department store. There she changes out of coral-pink scrubs and folds them neatly like origami squares, halving, halving, and then a fold on the diagonal until she has a wad of fabric that she stows away in her carpet bag purse with the leather handle that still smells of newness and has a little...
Reservations.
At one point he paid for an escort to come to his hotel room. This required two calls, first to the number on the website and then a second call to the real agency. He decided to take a shower and then to put his money inside an envelope provided by the hotel, perhaps for that purpose. Later on, when the escort excused herself, he looked inside her bag and saw that she was reading, or carrying,...
Family Planning.
On Tuesdays she was required to walk through the agency with the cleaners. She would check the soap dispensers and the cleanliness of the toilet dividers. The cleaners had to be reminded to wipe the doors. The walls of the agency were lined with photographs of babies and children. All frames were positioned three inches from each other. The babies were sometimes white, in which case they wore...