I managed to finish the castration story last night. [Odd, that I refer to it as a castration story when that doesn't happen... except in the non-traditional sense.] I'm not satisfied with it but it's first draft and thus I'm willing to let it go. I'll turn it in today and move on to the Henry IX of England story. Yes, there was never a Henry IX of England. It's alternate history. No market for it but it's a stretching exercise and gives me a good excuse to do some reading. Much as it may appear otherwise, I can't keep cranking out stories continuously without putting something back into my mind.
The critiques today were... interesting. Great diversity of opinion and I'm starting to see one of the great evils of working with the same people over and over again appear: You write to the audience and you critique the person rather than the work. Hmmm... I think perhaps I should say I rather than you because some people may be totally immune to this phenomena. I know it's hitting me and thus I can and should only report what I know affects me. [We have been asked to refrain from discussing that which occurs behind closed doors.] I feel myself wanting to write to certain people that didn't like my earlier stories to prove I can so write well. This is a childish and knee-jerk response and I've chastized myself thoroughly for it. Still, it's there and all I can do is recognize it exists and then write around it.
I feel myself searching for positive things to say even when what I really want to say boils down to, I really hated this story because A, B, and C, and if I don't say it and the next person doesn't say it, then the author will never know that audience X, Y, and Z will not work for their story and thus decide no changes are necessary to accommodate them. I've got to learn to bite the bullet and be blunt.
Samuel Delaney arrives for next week's session and my Disposable Children is up for critique on Monday. It would be really, really great to get a few positive critiques but this is a pretty grim story [imagine a world in which the welfare department is operated much more like the city pound and you'll have an idea what it's about]. It's very much a social commentary story and it has some plot flaws.
Angel, Jennifer, Mark and I went out for lunch, stopped at Meijer on the way back, and then I drove Jennifer to the airport, returned to the dorm, and collapsed into a deep sleep for about two hours. I spent the next few hours reading, web-surfing, and trying to figure out what to do for my next writing project. I'm trying to set a challenge for myself and I haven't yet decided what to attempt. One of the difficulties of having so many stories written [and I am most certainly NOT going to complain about this unexpected and desired burst of activity] is that I am not strongly motivated to write another story. I've got enough in the queue that I could coast the rest of the way through Clarion.
WHAP! That was me, slapping myself across the face. You only get ONE Clarion experience and I intend to keep pushing myself to work hard and try different things and write beginning, middles, and endings over and over again until I raise my level of skill as much as possible within a six-week period.
And this brings me to the issue of WRITER'S BLOCK I've long been one of those who didn't believe in writer's block. I now believe and I have discovered the source of several potential causes of writer's block.
1. Performance anxiety. Nothing destroys my ability to create like thinking to myself that I really, really want to write something all the Claronites will praise highly.
2. Exhaustion. Sleep deprivation may sound like a joke but it really does interfere with creativity. I've been taking afternoon naps to counter this problem. I went absolutely dirt dry last weekend because my body's needs caught up with me.
3. An empty gas tank. Just like my car needs gasoline to go places, I need to get out occasionally or at least sit down with a good book and soak up some bits and pieces of life.
4. A noisy internal editor. Mine shouts at me constantly. This is no good. No, don't write about A, write about Z instead. Hey! I see fifteen different ways you can take this story. Let's try them one way at a time. Psssst! See that blind alley over there? Let's take a short trip down it.
5. Low self-esteem. This is the biggest monkey on my back right now.
6. Writing to the wrong audience. There are times when I strive to impress the wrong people rather than write for myself or write for publication. IMHO, the last two are the only ones worth caring about. I'll try to remind myself of this Monday when I go under the knife again.
I'm 1,000 words into a Mercury short story and have about 500 about a demon horse. Many starts. Nothing that really excites me. I guess I'll sleep for a change.
I have printed out two stories previously written but not turned in and wrote NOT FOR CRITIQUING across the top. I'll turn those in Monday for the archive. I wrote them here. It somehow doesn't feel right to withhold them even if they are substandard. They're complete stories.
I hope inspiration arrives with morning. I don't want to waste another weekend.