I didn't win. The stories that did win deserved to win. Once again I run into the small fish in a big pond thing. The people who won have way more writing experience than I do. Their stories were well crafted. I assumed that this contest would not attract experienced writers. I was wrong.
To not make a New Year's resolution.
Jumped back on the horse. The story that didn't win the Guardian contest was reworked a bit and sent to a literary journal. I've had three stories rejected by these people already, but I think this one fits their journal better than any of the previous submissions. Although I also thought that of the previous submissions. This reminds me of learning to program computers. I learned most of what I would use in the first few months. Then for the next ten years I learned the tiny little bits and pieces that really made the programs work, and work well. I think I have the basics of writing. Now I just have to learn the bits and pieces. Shouldn't take more than a decade or so.
OK, so I had this story that I wrote several months ago. It was really just a scene. Only 250 words long. That is nothing unusual. I have maybe a hundred "scenes" that I have written and filed away, but this one is different. It seemed like there was more to it. It kept begging me for a rewrite. There was a story under there, I knew that, but I did not know how to get the story out of it. Till last night. I had given up and was going to submit the little scene to a flash story website. I was going over it for grammer and spelling when it popped into my head, "What if I have her..." That added a sentence. Then I had to add another sentence to a hole that the previous sentence exposed. The story is now 750 words long and I'm about half finished. It has gone from one scene to two acts.
So what you ask? Well, not only is it longer, it is better. It is the best thing I have ever written. It has a lyricism of which I did not think myself capable. It has back-story. It has character development. It has good and evil. The main character has a voice of her own. This has been a problem for me. Most of my characters are variations of myself. This woman and I have nothing in common. This is a breakthrough for me.
An audience of three. I hadn't done comedy in over a month and it showed. Got some good laughs, but I went off on some dead-ends that pretty much left the audience behind. Ah well.
Just got back from visiting my sister and her partner and my parents. Eventually it was a fun weekend. It got fun when I relaxed and stopped judging everyone and everything. The inner censors were running wild on Thursday and Friday but I got them under control for Saturday and today. Last night I got to go to a gay country bar. Very much different from SF's version of the same. The Tucson version had not a single rhinestone to be seen.
I'm reading A SEPERATE REALITY by Carlos Castenada. It's teaching me alot about myself. Not that I'm going to start smoking magic mushrooms or anything like that. It talks about not indulging in fear and having confidence in your own strength. Again this comes back to my inner censors. I keep trying to hide from them and banish them to some back storage area in my brain. But what I need to do is let them out. Sit them at my keyboard and let them run free. And then learn to ignore them. I now know they are not something to be avoided. The more I try to escape them, the stronger they become. I need to stop indulging them, giving them power. I must detach myself from caring about them. At least that's what I imagine don Juan would say.
Didn't go. Just couldn't get my head around it.
I have this story that is really good, or it will be when it's finished. I can feel the great story. I can see the great story in my head. Though the words on the page are not yet great. The weird thing about the rewrites I'm doing is that I'm not adding any length to the story. Usually my rewrites add information to the story that I knew in my head but did not get down on paper successfully. This story however seems to have acheived its length, and each rewrite does nothing to interfere with that length. Words are rearranged and substituted, but nothing is added or subtracted. I don't know if this is a good or bad. Perhaps I should not judge it.