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Sunday, August 28, 2005

Under pressure

My last writing class was Thursday night and it also happened to be the night my story was reviewed. The review was the best I'd ever had. People were so complimentary and of those who have read my work several times said that it was my best work. My instructor Rob (whose opinion in regard to writing I hold somewhere close to oh...like...hmmm... God, maybe) said that it was the best work he's seen from me, and then he brought down the hammer. He said that I should show it to Charles D'Ambrosio because he would really like it.

Gulp.

So I email Michael Ray, the editor of Zoetrope: All Story, who I've been emailing with for a few weeks with various Belize things, and he says of course I can submit that story for review rather than the one I applied with. He needs it before Monday.

Gulp again.

Because while everyone in class loved it, Rob loved it, they all suggested some changes that will require some pretty significant restructuring/revision.

And now I'm wondering how much I want to rush through revisions, literally today (because yes, I wasted Friday and most of Saturday) to get this to him and I'm frankly afraid I'm going to ruin it. This has led to a mild form of writers block, which I really don't believe in anyway. There are about four things that I want to change, and I'm truly afraid to approach them because I can see it spirling into a crazy massive overhaul and then the story won't be fresh and new and creative and Charles D'Ambrosio will look at it and say, "Ew" as he holds it out with two fingers by one corner like it smells like cheese.

And this entry, folks, is just more procrastination. So I shall be off to try, TRY, to make sense of this beautiful thing I 've written, that i don't really nderstand, and try to create more beauty without taking out the old beauty when I don't know where the beauty is to begin with. Grrr.

5 comments:

Gary LaPointe said...

As I'm reading this post, I'm thinking "she's procrastinating again by making this post" but then you freely admit at the end, so I guess I can't really pick on you for that...

Good luck getting it done! :)

Gary
http://garysaid.com/

Kelly said...

Hey, I'm all about admitting my procrastination tools. I've been working on it for about 30 minutes now...but then I had to check online to see if I had email, and here we go again with the vicious cycle!!

Myfanwy Collins said...

Here's what I think: just do the revision and if you don't like it, don't send it. Easier said than done, right? ;)

Kelly said...

That would totally be what I would normally do...but the temptation of giving D'Ambrosio a story he might actually like, well, that's just too damn tempting.

BUT, I just finished the first revision so I'm going to let it sit for a bit while I eat lunch then I'll type it, let it sit, read it, revise again, let it sit, and send it off before midnight so it's "before monday"!! Good plan, huh? ;)

buck said...

soooooo??? how did it go? did the revision work?? i'm betting yes!