Onward
Spent a good chunk of time yesterday both writing and editing. I’m reworking a story I wrote in the winter about Niagara Falls and broken dreams, and I’m hoping to send that out by the end of the week.
I also wrote about 600 words on a new story, (very) tentatively titled “A Progressive Dinner Party with the Angel of Death” I’ll post an excerpt later in the week, when I’m sure the idea is going to stick.
Otherwise, logged a few hours on the job and drank copious amounts of limeade, lemonade’s sassy younger sister.
The Write-a-thon!
I’m participating in this year’s Clarion West Write-a-Thon in which past graduates of the Clarion West workshop set challenging writing goals for the weeks in which this year’s workshop is taking place. So, from June 22 until August 1, I’ve committed to write 500 words a day, come hell or high water. I’m looking for sponsors – people that are willing to back me in my madcap efforts. All the money will go to Clarion West, which helps new writers of speculative fiction find their way in the world(s).
To learn more about what I’m bringing to the show, check out my write-a-thon web page.
Now, I’m not just expecting you to hand over your cash all willy-nilly. I’ll hustle for it: I’ll be posting progress reports of my efforts here regularly so you can get insight into my work in progress.
Stay Tuned…
FreeWrite: Undiscovered Talent
My goal here was to simply write 500 or so words about an incident between a teacher and a student in which the teacher learns something. Have at it:
“It’s a long way, Mr. Davis.” Meep squinted, peering across the gorge. The west wind fluttered against his eyelids, peeling them back.
“It’s a puddle.” I elbowed him in the ribs. “I could do it with my eyes closed.”
“Just give me some time to think.”
“That’s your problem, Meepers. Flying isn’t about thinking.” I sat back on my heels and pushed off the ground, springing up through the thin canopy of just-blooming oaks. Meep was wearing a red-striped turtleneck; from the distance of a hundred aerial feet he looked like a croquet peg. I tilted my wrists out to stop momentum, basking in the momentarily weightlessness before decent. I’d tried to teach dozens, but this feeling was still mine alone.
A branch slapped against my cheek right before I touched down.
“See?” I rubbed the welt on the side of my face. “No thinking. Flying is impossible, right?”
“I thought so.”
“Aha. There you go.” I grabbed him by the shoulders and spun him back to face the gorge. It was maybe fifty feet across. Sixty down to the river.
Even over the intrusion of the wild, I could hear him swallow.
He was a lanky kid. Awkward in his big sneakers. Probably grew up on superhero comics and seventies sci-fi. I could see it in his eyes, tucked behind those thick prescription lenses. He had scoured the news headlines looking for anyone special to make him better. It was up to somebody like me to carry people like Meep higher in life.
“That wind ain’t getting any lighter, kid.” I ushered toward the gorge. “Let’s do this.” I’m not going to lie; this was always the best part. Seeing their arms tight across their chest, shoulders hunched forward, asking themselves if they could be extraordinary. For me, it came easy; I just wanted it bad enough.
I wasn’t so sure about Meeper.
He was white as the peaked rapids below, but he bent his knees, getting ready. With one swing of his arms he was up and over the edge, sailing forward. I knew from the first second that he was in trouble; he had no lift, and disappeared into the gorge. I gave him three Mississippis to recover. Nothing.
The wind screamed in my ears as I swept down towards the water. I could see where he’d gone in, and I hit the surface inches from the ripple.
Before I could even get my bearings I felt something on my shoulders. Hands. I opened my eyes and tried to focus.
Meeps was smiling at me under the water, his grin stretching the gills that flopped in and out on the side of his neck. I opened my mouth and choked. Meep’s hands grabbed the back of my coat and yanked upwards. We crashed through the surface, bounding back up to the edge of the gorge.
On hands and knees I coughed. Meeps crouched down and hit my back. The paleness was gone; he looked taller.
“I just wanted you to know.” He pulled the collar of his turtleneck over the compressing blue-veined gills. “You may not be as special as you think.”
So, ya. About that.
Have been putting off things and stuff. Procrastination is one of my life’s passions, which is kind of torturous, because at the same time, I have no patience.
Anyway, The whole working for myself thing is going well, but I’m still having trouble with the whole writing for myself thing. I promised myself I would do five hundred words a day. This isn’t a lot, unless you have a very loud and obnoxious inner critic that loudly declares your inferiority whenever you sit down at the keyboard.
The result is that I have about five or six short stories that just amount to false starts. And sure, the inner critic may be right; I may suck, and I may smell like kitty vomit (yes, the inner critic is somewhat unprofessional in her word choices), but still, I’d like to finish something.
So, right now the key for me is just to get stuff down on paper, whether it’s crap or not, just as long as it’s not loitering in my head, skateboarding and smoking pot like the delinquent prepubescent down at the mini mall.
I’ll be doing some Free Write exercises (Minimal editing, off-the-top-of-my-head kind of stuff) and posting them here for masochistic reasons and because the nice man who married me keeps insisting I do so, and I’ve mostly run out of excuses as to why I can’t.
So, um, my inner critic apologizes in advance. There’s a good chance that what you read from here on in might reek of dry camel spit.
Doctor Recommended
From The New Smengland Journal of Medicine:
It is essential to have a gap in time that separates and signifies the end of one event and the start of another. A vital part of any transformation, this period of time is referred to “vacation” or, in the colloquial, “slacking”. This time should be spent sleeping in, eating unhealthy food, and drinking alcohol. It has been scientifically proven that “slacking” for one week can greatly improve a patient’s well being.
See? The experts say it’s good for me.