today, I'm in a good place writing wise. I think that this can be attributed to two things.
thing one - my gorgeous, lovely and amazing boyfriend has bought me a very new, very shiny, very marvellous netbook for my birthday and has let me have it a whole three weeks early. it totally fits in my handbag. its IMMENSE
thing two - at my writing group yesterday, we did an exercise where we were given a formula to write a story in under an hour. I was sceptical but used the formula for a story thats been in my head for a while which I haven't been able to get out. and it worked! it worked so well, that I have just entered it into a competition that I didn't really think I had time to enter (I also entered Five Minutes, which is on this blog, as nowhere in any of the bumf does it say that stories should not have been published before, hooray!!) so that brings the grand total of stories sent of in January to (drum roll please ) four. thats about all I managed in the whole of last year. so, go me
earlier this week, I was not in such a good place, writing wise. everything I was doing was awful, why was I even bothering, there was no point and I was going to throw everything in the bin etc etc. so I put everything away and luckily had a session with my writing coach who, bless her, managed to convince me that it wasn't awful, and I came to the following conclusions
conclusion one - my internal editor is a picky bitch, who is made more evil when I'm tired, or if I've had a bad day at work, she uses my low moods to get her foot in the door and really stick the boot into my self confidence. so, although I admit she can be very useful (I would say essential but she'd probably just get a big head) I need to ignore her sometimes, or else I would just sit in a corner and cry
conclusion two - my narrative voices have a tendancy to come out with random phrases and observations that they have no business saying. this makes my internal editor go a bit mental and makes the narrative look a bit...off. so I need to learn to look out for them
right, thats me done. nice as this is, it is not my debut dagger entry so therefore non-essential
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2 comments:
Hello! I read your story in Mslexia and thought it was really good so I've come to check out your blog. I came for a quick peek and ended up spending half the morning surfing through it and I think it's great. I love all your stories. I write too (hence the Mslexia) and it's nice to read about other people's writing angst instead of obsessing about my own for a change!
I'd love to know more about your writing course and where you got the idea for your story in Mslexia, you're a very convincing elderly man!
Keep it up,
Em.
thanks for your comments! I'm glad you enjoyed sharing my angst, its quite cathartic writing about it (although when my dad read the blog he said it was boring and indicated it might be quite self-centred...hmmmm...)
my Mslexia story came when from my friend Azita, over a glass of wine or two, right at the beginning of my "must get back into writing and stop being lazy" thing which was way back in May. she asked me to write a story for her, and said that she wanted it to be about India, an old person and astrology (the astrology link is tenuous). having spent two and a half years on the phones at the pension service means I have a fairly good understanding of old people! I was writing other stories for Mslexia (the topic that month was "Skin") when all of a sudden I realised that Full Circle fit, so I sent it off. and the rest, as they say, is history!
thanks again lady! BR xx
ps I checked out your blog and its really funny, I always wanted to be a librarian
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