Crazy past few weeks

So I know my posts haven't been exactly riveting lately, but there have been many things, not all good unfortunately, happening in my life.

Since graduation my cat has died :-(, and my car has been out of commission for three whole weeks. I've also started a new job, which I'm loving so far. But overall it has been difficult to get much reading or writing done, though I have tried.

The writing group is going well, we've been meeting every other Friday, but I am experiencing some dilemmas that I hadn't anticipated.

Some of my group have extremely personal tastes when it comes to descriptive writing--now, don't get me wrong, I love descriptive writing, but it is very difficult to maintain a good balance. One or two members of my group seem to feel that the more descriptive their writing is the better, but some of their scenes are, well, burdened by description. This coming up Friday I mean to talk to one of them and explain how quality is better than quantity when it comes to analogies and metaphors, but at the same time, I feel like they might not take this advice to heart simply from how they have reacted throughout our meetings. For them more is always better, but I can't help but feel the opposite.

How do you manage your overly descriptive passages? Do you pick and choose the best after it has been written, or do you prefer to have an abundance of description?

And would there be a better way for me to express my concern to my group members?

Thanks for reading!

Things to be excited about...

So...I will not apologize for being a neglectful blogger, just because it will make me feel worse about it than I already do. Instead I will share good news and pictures of things that I'm excited about.

I start my new job on Monday, which is a wonderful but also terrifying thing.

Also, I got a fancy new printer as a graduation present...for, of course, all my writerly things. (It does Duplex printing :-P)

And also, the Tuesday after this upcoming Tuesday I will be going to see Neil Gaiman and Lev Grossman in NYC. Something I have not allowed myself to get excited about until recently because I was not certain I would make it. But now I have a ticket. Yipee!

I really have also been looking for an excuse to learn how to post pictures on here, and now I know how. 

On a more writerly note: the story I am working on right now is going well. My sci-fi short story got rejected almost instantly by Lightspeed Magazine, but that's alright, and I am still dutifully awaiting a response from the first magazine I submitted to, Weird Tales. I shall continue to do my best to not lose my mind waiting, though I should hear back from them any day now.

I hope you are well, and have as many little things to be excited about as I do. And I'll try to post more often, maybe even with some more "serious" / academic things to say, though probably not considering my brain has been on vacation since graduation. :-)

Getting Back Into It

I've been a bad little writer...and no, not in naughty way, but in the completely neglecting to write way. For the past few weeks my life's been thrown completely off-track, mainly because I'm done with school but haven't yet begun to work. Because of these two big reasons, and countless tiny ones, I have no structure in my day and my brain has decided to abandon me in La La Land for a few days.

The fact that I might actually finish and post this blog post is an indication that it may have returned. I also woke up this morning ready to write.

A main reason for why I haven't been writing lately is because the amount of research that I need to do in order to continue my WIP is extensive and therefore very intimidating. I've now submitted two short stories to magazines so I don't even want to look at those for fear that I'll find some glaring mistake and I'll hate myself (there really better be none)! But now I have a plan. I will work on a new story while I wait for the impending rejections of the other two and work on the research for the big story.

Though I've been a very bad writer the last two or so weeks I'm not upset with myself--as long as it doesn't turn into a summer long thing. I gave myself a break and now I'm back!

Because the world did not end today....

So I didn't really buy into the whole world will end thing today thing, I feel like hoaxes like that are started and spread by people who really just like drama, not the singing and costumes one but the one caused by boredom and lack of self esteem.

Anyway! I lost my submission virginity today. Just a few minutes ago I sent in a short story to Weird Tales magazine...and no it was not because the world did not end, but it is a nice correlation, don't you think?

So yeah, if you pray, pray for me? If not, then just send loving thoughts into the air to the Weird Tales Staff so they feel warm and fuzzy feelings when they read my story...well actually...those are not the emotions they should be feeling, but you get my drift!

Aah! So excited!

"It's part of my process"

Panicking. Complaining loudly to anyone within ear shot. It has happened exactly three times today, so far anyway. This morning I wanted to work on some of the comments my writing group made on my only almost complete story and did not know how to begin, but, after grunting in frustration and stomping around the room and sending a few complain-y texts to one of my friends in the group I managed to make the additions I’d been meaning to.

Later on, while studying I went off on a rant with the friend who was studying with me and again complained and sighed and was oh so dramatic about it for a few minutes, and then sat down and got it done.

The same thing happened in terms of this post. I do my very best to post at least every Sunday, but this morning I told myself that I had too much to do and if I was going to devote time to my story I would have to sacrifice time for my blog. 

Is it an innate rebellion, where if I tell myself I don’t have time to do something I make time for it? Or is that once the added pressures are gone I feel more capable of accomplishing what needs to be accomplished?

I find this works even better with my writing: "Okay you just have to write this scene, or just 2,000 words today." It’s situations like this where I go beyond beyond what I expect from myself.

Do any of you experience this? Do you make deals with yourself, allow yourself to slack off only to surpass your daily quota?

Follow Up

Originally I had planned on not posting this week, just from the sheer amount of work I have to do, and because three lit analysis papers won't write themselves--damn them!

As I was poking around the interwebz, as one is wont to do while procrastinating, I came across this quote by Stephen King:

Stephen King in The Atlantic:

The thing that happens is, say you're working on something and it's going along pretty well, and two or three ideas occur, and they're all yelling "You should write this! You should write this!" It's almost like being married and all of a sudden your life is full of beautiful women. You have to stay faithful to what you're working on.

Two weeks ago I posted one of my angsty little rants about writing, called Overwhelmed, that was about what King describes here. I'm rewriting/revising my WIP and all these wonderful ideas just burst into my head and scream "I'm here" and usually don't leave. A few nights ago I actually got out of bed to write one page worth of notes on an idea because it would not let me fall asleep.

Now I can't say that I've been keeping faithful to my manuscript, but I'm trying and I keep in mind that I should.

Just thought I'd share this, and it especially makes me feel better knowing this is quite common, and the fact that Stephen King deals with the same issues makes me feel slightly cooler...don't ask me how that works.
Thanks for reading!

Good artists borrow, great artists steal.

I went through a bit of a progress last semester in coming terms with this wonderful idea, (which, I'm pretty sure, is originally Picasso's). I was in a Medieval Lit class titled Heroes and Warriors, which ended up being pretty disappointing as I’d had very high expectations for that class and I soon learned that they were higher than the professor’s. 

Well, one of the books assigned for that class was the Nibelungenlied and as I got farther into the book I begun to see details which I’d always thought of as being completely original to, first the Lord of the Rings, and then later the deathly hallows from Harry Potter, which I now know are also in Chaucer’s Pardoner’s Tale. 

Anyway, (I realize this is not very organized, I blame approaching finals), I was upset that these authors who I had looked up to for so long had stolen! from other writers. I could even go as far as to call this few week period a spiritual crisis concerning writing. I questioned my own desire to write, and felt that if it meant stealing and not being able to come up with something completely original, (I keep hearing this is not possible), then I did not want to write. Well, long story short, I finished reading the book and by the end the details that had been borrowed were minimal and I realized I had overreacted, though at the time I'd felt completely justified. 

To recap, I used to feel that writers stole from previous works. I begun to understand the sources of the works I love and felt cheated in response. The more I write myself the more I realize that it doesn't work that way. That the borrowing—the stealing—is not purposeful. Could even argue it’s not always conscious. As those of you who follow my posts know, my WIP is a fantasy novel in which dreaming is a big theme. I completely blame my Dream as Form lit class last semester. But anyway, turns out I myself am a thief. 

I am re-reading Chaucer’s Book of the Duchess and there are tiny details that I borrowed. I had purposefully borrowed an image from it, but it worked more as the inspiration. When I asked my independent study (and Chaucer) professor about it she hadn't realized what I had intended to be from the Book of the Duchess was actually from there. Two weeks later, I rushed back into her office to tell her I’d read the Book of the Duchess and she wore a knowing smile, she’d been waiting for me to come back and finish the “stealing” rant I’d had with her earlier this semester. 

Turns out that I had stolen a setting, completely and subconsciously. I didn't mean to, but I guess I just thought "well of course that’s where this specific mythical figure lives," and had assumed that it was an inherent part of my story (I was close to the end, so it was really all I thought about during those three weeks) and not that I had read it somewhere else. It's not extremely obvious, and they really are minor details that I borrowed, so no harm no foul, but this personal experience made me see the truth of this idea, and how truly wonderful it can be when it comes out right. 

I realize this was an extra ranty post, and I apologize, I promise to have more brains before my next post :-). 

Did anyone else have to come to terms with the magpie nature of writing or had you accepted this before you begun?