Thus far, two stories submitted have been humor and the guy view of sex was prominent. Being a bit of a [cough] feminist and having stayed up way too late listening to Weird Al CDs, I couldn't resist writing a humor rebuttal that I have tentatively titled, Shanghai Sherri and the Navigator
It's a stress reliever and I haven't decided yet if I will or will not submit it for critique. It's the kind of story more likely to be posted on the internet as a romp than submitted at Clarion. Still... it IS a story and that would make number four. I'm trying not to be competitive and focus on stretching myself with experimental projects.
The temptation is strong. I'm fighting hard to suppress it.
It's one in the morning and I'm listening to EYE OF THE KAISER and feeling very, very hyper. Sleep? Who needs sleep?
And on a different note: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, GREG!
Afternoon update: We met with Sean and listened to his view upon the realities of the writing business and when Lister asked how many people expected to turn in a story Monday morning, at least ten of us raised our hands. Thus, we're looking very seriously at extending our hours and other alternatives.
Our challenge now is to write something risky. Take a chance that you'll fail. Write something and don't use your strongest skills. Given that I've already started a technobabble story, I think I'm already headed there and need merely start again only from a different angle. In fact, I've decided to tackle what I consider to be the absolutely most difficult voice for me to attempt as well as trying to write a story filled with technical information without putting readers to sleep from boredom.
And sleep is exactly what I did while everyone else went out to eat with Sean this evening. I was -- quite frankly -- too tired.
After our initial meeting and introduction, I decided to walk to the grocery store to pick up some Diet Coke rather than drive and discovered there is a beauty salon nearby which accepts walks in and is open on Sunday. I glanced at my reflection in the window and immediately walked inside to see about a haircut which would remove the split ends and even out some of the hacking I did upon my hair earlier this week. After the shampoo, the stylist mentioned the Malibu conditioner which is excellent for hair ruined by well water. Given that my hair has some large orange streaks from well water, this sounded like a very good idea and thus I spent well over an hour being immensely pampered with conditioner massanged into my head, and then baked under a dryer and then more massaging and baking and more massaging again. I could smell the stench of the mineral deposits coming out of my hair and when he finished, my hair was once again naturally blonde and no longer looked like I'd badly botched a dye job upon my hair.
By this time, I'd forgotten all about eating and thus picked up some fruit at the store and walked back to write a story about the Paraterrformation of Mercury. Evidently, I didn't succeed in my goal of making it not-boring because I kept dozing off while writing. I napped for about three hours, woke again about eight, searched the web and then asked other Clarionites if they remembered the battle in which the sun stood still. Two people remembered the person involved with Joshua and with this information, I could search the web without tripping over thousands of unhelpful references to the Aztec gods, etc.
Joshua at Gibeon in the valley of Aijalon. I had what I needed to make a declaration so incredibly far-fetched that it might actually be believable since it's coming from a politician.
I feel good about this story. It's titled Paraterraforming Mercury and I've now developed a list of stories written since arriving at Clarion so I can track them. You'll see them at the bottom of this page.
I feel good. I'm experimenting and growing and the fact that some stories fail doesn't trouble me at all because the objective is to learn.
Besides, I firmly believe that the only real failure is the failure to try. An attempt made that does not succeed is merely an unsuccessful attempt which I count as somewhat different than a failure.
I wonder if this journal is making sense now that I'm somewhat hyper from sleep deprivation. I fear I may be up rather late tonight again. I always feel high after finishing a story and it's difficult to get to sleep for a while afterwards.
I have four stories I could submit tomorrow morning. I think that's overdoing it and I'll only submit two for now and then one each day afterwards. Or maybe not. I'll check and see what others are doing. I know I'm not the only one who wrote more than one story this weekend.
Jennifer (with whom I share a bathroom) bought an HP printer and we removed her dot matrix printer, set up the new one... and it didn't work right. After much tweaking, self-test page printing, and calling in the other computer person, we decided she'd gotten a lemon and it needs to go back for a replacement. It appears to be a mechanical problem. Even standing alone, it jams and begins printing in the middle of the page, etc. Best it just take it back and get a replacement.