Monday, March 12, 2012

I had a tumultuous week last week. I know I'm supposed to be focusing on what I learned, but I'm going to tell you what I did first, because I think it's important.

On Monday I had a very rude awakening. My teacher announced who was going to be handing out next week (meaning today) and my name was one of them. I was totally surprised; I had written down the wrong date, and apparently I had been wrong. I could have submitted a revision, but I had a feeling I couldn't do it. Interior Space needed to be put to bed and I knew it even then. But I still couldn't disobey one of the central tenants of what I've learned: don't work on more than one thing at the same time.

So I finished the story. Simple as that. In all fairness, I wasn't that far away from finishing to begin with. I recorded a journal entry when I finished, so you've got a time and a date on that. And then straightaway I began the next story, because I basically had four days to finish it.

In the middle of this craziness, I met with Lynne, my mentor, just to talk about what I've been doing and how involved she has to be in it. Total side note - she received a letter that she has to fill out about the Focus project, which we weren't told about, which feels like a pretty big oversight considering there was a sheet of questions attached to it. Aside from that, it went very smoothly. She had a lot of great things to say, which I have in my notes, about Interior Space, about the sort of strange nature of a workshop (in her words, if you submit a story on a Friday, the next Tuesday night you are bound to have a revelation), about the process of writing a story in four days to submit to workshop, etc. It was a very worthwhile meeting. Perhaps her most valuable criticism was about the opening of Interior Space; the way it began was simply not appropriate, in fact out of character, while the rest of the piece was extremely strong.I changed the beginning, just reversing a little dialogue, and haven't looked at it since.

After meeting with Lynne on Thursday, I came home and sat for many hours. I turned out a brand new story, with no notes or anything (not that long, maybe 2,000 words, which is less than half of the maximum length but I think it's quality over quantity in this case) and I was surprised how much I did in so short a time. The story was something that had been fermenting in my mind for several weeks, but almost every word of it was totally new, and when I was finished I printed it out and got ready for pen edits. From this, I learned a lot about the process of the first draft--something Interior Space didn't allow me to experience because the actual first draft of that came so long ago (side note: I went through several of my binders and found more drafts of that story that will be useful in my presentation). I learned that I cannot get attached to anything in the first draft, because almost none of it will end up in later drafts. The familiar rush of the first draft was just as good as it always is; writing for the sake of writing, without editing. I know a lot of people have trouble with their inner editor, but I don't; if something begs to be fixed, I'll fix it, but I have pretty good faith in my ability to edit later on.

On Thursday evening I had a little bit of a breakdown, I will admit. I had been doing a lot, even too much, and sometimes when I spend too much time in my own head not doing anything else it makes me feel a little bit out there, not quite connected with the world at large. Thursday evening was bad, so I took Friday off. I didn't have much to do anyway; I waited to do pen edits for a few days, so by Saturday I was feeling better. I've also been staying away from reading as much as I can, just because nothing's struck me as urgent to read at this moment.

In the first pen edit, I did a lot of work as to individual lines, which is to be expected, and totally changed the beginning. When I first had the idea, I was still immersed in medieval art & architecture (thank you, Mrs. Devito!) but not so much anymore. Instead of a tympanum, I added a television. It makes total sense in context and I was reminded, as I always am, that I cannot get too attached to anything, because I cannot keep it. The backbone of the story remained the same, and so I left it as it was.

I have to get up. I will resume this entry later.