10.08.2003
I got my first short story/scene exercise thingy back from my Tuesday night class, and it was all tattered and bloody. Gotta love the power of the red pen. Served me right, though - I hated the exercise and what I was given to work with and so rebelled by doing a poor first draft. I got dinged for all the stupid amateur crap I deserved to get dinged for.
Am now conflicted - if I didn't like it and didn't care how it turned out, should I feel bad for not doing well, or should I feel bad for not doing my best no matter how I felt about the exercise, for not turning in professional work no matter how unengaging I felt the material to be? All it was was an injunction to write 2-4 pages where the ending paragraph had to include an action and a profession that had been supplied by other students. I ended up with a bogus list - all I could strike a spark off of was flying and monkey handler. You see where this one is going, right? At least I showed some restraint and didn't write about monkeys flying out of Kafka's ass. Maybe I should have.
Oh, and also, I'm no longer feeling purple, so I've changed my blogskin. It's too much of a subconscious invite to write purple prose, and since Hustler magazine won't return my phone calls, I shouldn't waste my time getting all sweaty that way.
Am now conflicted - if I didn't like it and didn't care how it turned out, should I feel bad for not doing well, or should I feel bad for not doing my best no matter how I felt about the exercise, for not turning in professional work no matter how unengaging I felt the material to be? All it was was an injunction to write 2-4 pages where the ending paragraph had to include an action and a profession that had been supplied by other students. I ended up with a bogus list - all I could strike a spark off of was flying and monkey handler. You see where this one is going, right? At least I showed some restraint and didn't write about monkeys flying out of Kafka's ass. Maybe I should have.
Oh, and also, I'm no longer feeling purple, so I've changed my blogskin. It's too much of a subconscious invite to write purple prose, and since Hustler magazine won't return my phone calls, I shouldn't waste my time getting all sweaty that way.
10.06.2003
I've been racking my brain and raiding Google to figure out just what the hell literary fiction is - thanks to a fellow WriMo (whose name I promptly forgot) and some writer dude named David Lubar, I now have as good a definition as any.
Oh, and he also offers up this fascinating factoid: "When Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy met for the first time, they immediately got into a bragging match. First, they started comparing facial hair. Then, they got into a vodka-drinking contest. Finally, they began shouting, "Bet I can write a longer book than you," and "Bet you can't," at each other. Millions of innocent readers have suffered the consequences of this rivalry."
I feel so much better now, like I finally understand everything there is to know about litfic, even if there are crumbs in my butter and my eyebrows are furrowing uncontrollably.
Oh, and he also offers up this fascinating factoid: "When Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy met for the first time, they immediately got into a bragging match. First, they started comparing facial hair. Then, they got into a vodka-drinking contest. Finally, they began shouting, "Bet I can write a longer book than you," and "Bet you can't," at each other. Millions of innocent readers have suffered the consequences of this rivalry."
I feel so much better now, like I finally understand everything there is to know about litfic, even if there are crumbs in my butter and my eyebrows are furrowing uncontrollably.