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.