What pieces of your self do you keep hidden? What parts make you the most uncomfortable? What do they taste like? How do they smell?
The risk of reading new writers, especially indie authors, is that sometimes I want to love the book but I can't. Even though the writers are talented and the stories are crazy imaginative, there are things missing or distracting because writing is fucking hard. Round characters. Dialogue. Showing not telling. But not showing too much. How many times did I use the word small? All the male characters are the same. The main character is too perfect. Now she's a douchebag no one can connect with. Adverbs. Adjectives. I just Johnny Depp'ed the shit out of that character. Another flashback?
I read several authors this month and they were entertaining. I could feel the beauty and passion they poured into their stories' creation. But. There are so many of us writing. And lots of the collective 'us' are great writers. People like me are hanging onto this ride by our fingertips-- hopefully surviving the savage dips. The difficulty of crafting a well-told story overwhelms me. I am overwhelmed and I know the only way to deal is to keep crap writing until I have a piece of shit I can smudge smooth along the cracked edges. When I invest in a new writer and their work is not shit, but doesn't yet shine either, my own weighted mediocrity births writerly compassion and I cop out. So no spotlight this month. Suggestions are welcome for the next!
I've never done a blog hop.... this is crazy. I copy a link and things appear. What will happen next?
All silliness aside, I did submit a story to a small press this past month. Harvard Bookstore ran an interesting flash fiction call. Writers had between February 1st-15th, to write and submit a piece under 500 words, and it went to press on March 1st. I wrote the crazies out of my sub consciousness for an hour, and then spent just two days trimming it up with all the fixings for a passable story. There wasn't a whole lot of time to freak out over it, and I wasn't attached. After a day of intermittently looking at the "submit" button, I finally did. I submitted to that button. And then I began the ritual of obsessive anxiety. Did they prefer a certain format? Should I have included both my name and title in the header? Can they tell I'm old? Am I boring? Holy fuck, I'm so boring. A week later, I regained my sanity and congratulated myself for submitting my writing to actual people. Goal met. Even better? I crawled up out of this hole that we ["creative types"] create for ourselves. It's the tan place (not even as interesting as beige) that my squishy brain slips into when the crack of societal judgment squeaks open. It's a sad constricting little existence, and it's the sole reason I don't show my writing to many people. It's nobody's fault really-- The tan place. There are a few folks who exploit it though-- growing its shadow to loom larger than its true meager existence. They are most like to be the people we put in charge of the judging. We entrust them to judge us to help us grow, or to judge us to extract our best for readers. Those voices unrestrained are the reason, the necessity, for writers' mythological reptilian skin. Reptiles are cool. But I would rather write with satin feathers of blackness. Shortly after I pulled myself back into the beautiful bubble of my own weird existence, my bubble-twin-soul/best friend tweeted Banu Kapil's perfect open letter that speaks directly to that tan, tan place of judgment. Read it if you get a chance. I've been reading her subsequent post over and over and my adieu will be happily punctuated by its sharing. Wyoming Border: Notes |