aamcnamara

I have an essay due and a midterm tomorrow, so of course after I wrote a bad draft of the essay this evening I worked on "As Large as Alone" instead.

The current problem with the story is that half or three-quarters of the people who read this story like it lots, and the rest don't seem get the main/surface plot on a pretty fundamental, possibly emotional level.

So of course instead of actually adding anything that explains--well--anything about the main plot, I am adding in tiny bits of exposition about other characters. The whole thing's from the perspective of the main character, though, so it's really putting in observations that she makes.

And that in turn should, if I am doing this right, make one of the main themes far more prominent. I have been startlingly non-obvious about this particular theme so far, which is probably why no one's picked up on it. On the other hand, this is what I see the story as being about, so it'd be nice if people could actually tell.

These changes will perhaps not do all that much to change perceptions, but working on it makes me feel better about myself for at least the period of time to when this draft hits people's inboxes and they tell me they're all still confused.

I said to someone around last-draft time that I had a third or a half of the story marked up to be fixed, and "the rest is bits that I haven't figured out yet what's wrong with them." Well, I am figuring out what is wrong with some of those bits. I certainly haven't changed every word in this story, or even every paragraph (every scene, though, probably), but it has been rewritten pretty thoroughly for all that.

Typo of the day (well, yesterday): "...and, as far as I could tell, didn't have any redeeming graves to make up for it."

Tomorrow or the next day we'll be sending off the housing payment for Odyssey, along with a story. Which story it is that goes in the packet is anyone's guess.

I've got story #1, which I think is good--although not as good as story #2. I have a story I wrote a while ago, and I have a story I wrote last night, and I don't have the time to edit either of them. I think that the story I wrote last night--let's call it story #3 for simplicity's sake, because it doesn't have a title--has potential to be better than story #1.

But I don't have time to edit it up, or even to rewrite it, really, because even if I wanted to stay up for another hour and a half I still have to edit this paper for English class tomorrow and do my math homework and study for the IB physics test that starts Tuesday.

So it'll probably end up being story #1 that I send, and I'm not happy about it. It's not that I think it's a terrible story, because I don't, but it isn't any story #2.

I still don't know if I'm going to wiscon. I know: it's next weekend, and I still don't know? I don't. I would almost be happier at this point to stay home, but I know that I would have a lot of fun if I went.

And it's late, and I need to decide which thing I'm going to try to get done tonight, because I probably only have time for one thing if I want to have any of my brain tomorrow morning.

Unfortunately, it probably won't be studying for my IB physics test, or doing my math homework, and even though I've all but decided to send story #1 in to Odyssey, anyway, it keeps distracting me from editing my paper.

(Which is a problem in and of itself: it's a fine paper, but there are pieces of information that don't fit into the flow of it. But they're important pieces of information, and I think they would make it better--if I can figure out where to put them.)

It's true: it is easier to see the problems with something when it's printed out. I printed Story #1 this week, and looked at it in off moments of classes. If I can remember what all my squiggles and lines and arrows mean, I'll be in good shape, I think. If I can fix what all of them mean, too. There may be some darling-killing going on, though possibly not quite yet...

At any rate, it feels productive. I'm not sure how much work I'm actually doing on it, and how much Titanic-deck-chair rearranging I'm doing. It seems like I'm just rewriting a lot of it, which I guess is the point, but I'm not sure if it's any clearer now than before. (I should hope it is, but then you never know, do you.)

This weekend's task: finish putting all the changes into the computer file of Story #1, send it to people whose opinions I trust on writing more than most people's, finish writing Story #2 and print it out. Print out Story 1, too. Go over that, and see tons of flaws I should've fixed before I sent it out. Moan and wail for a while, then give up and go on with life.

21 days or so. Work enough for about two months, probably. The horrible thing is that I know I should be doing this even without the impetus of "Clarion application", or anything else, other than "writing". We'll deal with that later.

For now, it's just the work.