Author: Don

Tough Love

As you can see from the progress bar (until I nuke it, that is), I’m 99% done with the first draft of “The one with the mask,” which is now officially titled “Masked” (until I change it). No, I’m really not just one word shy of finishing. Rather, I’ve written all the scenes that I know are part of the story and it’s just a matter of putting them together.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t do it in time for the last group session, as I promised. They didn’t seem to mind. They seemed more upset at the idea that I wasn’t going to bring the story back. I mean, it’d been six weeks already. Luckily, they were almost unanimously willing to individually look at a finished version once I got it together, which should be in a few days (I hope).

Here’s what they had to say…

The Good

  • The portion I shared got the adrenaline running, it seemed.
  • I snuck in a revised, condensed version of some of the stuff I shared last time. No one seemed to have a problem with it. In fact, one person noted that I effectively implemented the fixes that were suggested in the last session. Hey, reduce, reuse, and recycle, right?

The Bad

  • I knew there’d be problems with the flashbacks sooner or later. I tried to stick with the rule about how to frame them grammatically in a story, but I floundered in places.
  • I had a couple of longish sentences.
  • There were a couple of minor plot points and details that could stand to be cut out.

The Ugly
How ugly could it have been when apparently it’s now the rule (as a joke!!) that I’m to read last so no one has to follow me? Okay, that was shameless of me to repeat that, but that’s what they said. No, for me the ugly part is that I just couldn’t get it all done. But, I’ve acquired a tool lately that will go a long way to removing some of the barriers to getting shit done that aren’t directly related to my will power.

Bad Attitude

Wow, I’m just not feeling it on any level right now. And, I’ve already written the first draft of a story today, a flash piece for the online flash crit group I’m in, in about an hour. I remember when that would’ve been a coup. Today, (a) I’m half-berating myself because that’s just not the project I’m supposed to be working on right now and (b) now I’ve got one more thing to edit.

I know that’s the absolute wrong way to look at things right now, but there it is.

Where’s My Inner Taskmaster?

Yes, I added about another thousand words to “The one with the mask.” But, the story’s still not done, I don’t think (which obviously means the MS isn’t finished). Alas, some of the pressure is off as the group is cancelled this week. But, this is opportunity–now, there’s absolutely no fucking excuse for not having a finished quality product ASAP.

Guess I’m Really Not Alone

I’m in a café in a library at the Big Red School on the Hill, playing hookey from work. Hell, I got stories to finish.

There’s a joke in I-town, mostly among writers who know each other, that everyone here is a writer. “Everyone”–townies, professors, undergrads, grad students–is working on some novel or screenplay or somethingorother.

I’m observing a conversation between two people, an English professor and a library media specialist, and an old physics professor who kind of horned in on their conversation.

Two of the three confessed to being writers.

So That’s How It’s Done

Elizabeth Bear writes in Storytellers Unplugged: Passion and the single blogger

And that’s what makes [certain blogs] readable–compulsive, even. Because they’re committed. They’re there laying it on the line. This is what I do, and this is how I do it.

And that? Is interesting. And it’s interesting in ways that apply to fiction writing, too. Because characterization counts. I mean, let’s be honest here: Shakespeare couldn’t plot his way out of a wet paper bag. And he knew it, too, which is why he lifted stories from everywhere and anywhere, with the peculiar light-fingered pickpocket’s touch of his. But the man could write characters–people–better than just about anybody.

A good weblog is about character.

New Subs

I’m going to have a go at tracking my fiction submissions on here. I’ve appropriately decided to label this, and all future posts of this sort, masochism.

I’ve sent two flash pieces here. I was at a talk in the spring sponsored by the Saltonstall Foundation, and the editor of this journal was one of the presenters. I’d been thinking about submitting to them ever since, even after seeing this potential vision of my future in the last two panels of this page from Raketenwerfer’s America’s Top Novelist, part 2.