Category: writing

At the kind invitation of Vanessa Gebbie (blog link over there on the right) I took part in my first ever flash writing thang on Thursday. She emailed myself and some others at 9.30 with 10 “prompts” and we had 45 minutes to write something incorporating 1 or some or all of them. It was blooming brilliant! I read the prompts, felt a bit weird and clueless, looked at the time and realised I was wasting it and needed to get writing. I picked the first prompt as part of my first line and only had a vague idea of where I was going to go with it, then I just sat and wrote. Me! Me who sits and procrastinates for hours before doing anything! I managed an entire short story. (Very short, just over 500 words.) I didn’t know how I was going to end it before I got there, and truthfully it seemed almost magical, an end came. Time up.
The good thing about sending everyone else the story is that the time is clearly logged on the email, so no cheating!

I was nervous about the whole feedback thing, me to them, them to me. I just plunged ahead and sent my thoughts and then hoped they were received ok. I didn’t hear back from one woman and hope I didn’t do anything wrong.

I felt so glad that I had been able to tap into the writing part of myself, if allowed again to participate, oh wow, count me in. I loved it.
I was all buzzy and smiling for the rest of the day, I even cleaned my blinds, a much hated chore that I have been putting off for ages. The creative/domestic balance harmonised for once.

Someone just asked for a link to a story I had published at Pulp, so I googled my name and pulp net. Their wikipedia entry came up, and my name. I clicked, and under the listing “One’s to watch” is me!

Squee.

Every time I despair of my writing abilities Pulp somehow comes to my rescue and makes me feel good again. How I love ’em!

Sheez, time has sped up lately, I’m rushing to finish one thing so that I can create enough space in the day to do the next. It’s a constant squishing of stuff.

I have written part of a story this week at least, so I can cease beating myself up for not managing any writing so far this year. It all keeps coming out wrong though. Hurrah!

I really need to get organised. I have some stories that I should be sending out, I love it when work is “out” there, feel like a “proper” writer then. However, my printer packed up just before Christmas (in the middle of printing off my Philip Good competition entry! Didn’t even get to enter.) and there’s no money to fix it right now. Guess I’ll look for some online submissions!

Got nowhere in the Cadenza competition. Fuck. I thought my entry was strong. I am baffled sometimes, last time I made the short list with an old story that I thought good but not great, so this time I entered a new piece that I considered much better. Fuck. Maybe I have lost my way. Perhaps I can’t tell if I am writing well or not.

Last week I heard back from Mslexia that my submission had not been picked, however it had made the short list of 60 that then had to be cut to 15 by the guest editor. I am trying to take that as a positive, but it’s hard. I am rubbish at submissions; lazy and very blah about it. Too precious as well, easily hurt by not being thought good enough. I always think of Sylvia Plath and her relentless sending out of her and Ted Hughes’ work, and vow that I will do the same and constantly resend stuff. In fact Mslexia rejected the first story that Pulp Net published of mine, and a piece that was long-listed for the Douglas Coupland comp went on to get 2nd place at Kate Mosse’s site. So I should keep going. OK. Fine.

I am trying to write something for a competition that has a deadline of the end of the month. I am not sure that I am even half way there. Sigh. I remember the good ol’ days when I actually had a stash of decent short stories to submit as and when.

I am waiting to see if I make the long list of the Cadenza competition. I entered last time and then forgot about my submission. I happened upon the results by googling my own name in an attempt to locate something else I had written and discovered I had gone from the long list to the shortlist, and then not made the final 5. It was painless. This time I keep anxiously checking for news, stupidly I don’t know when the results are meant to be announced.

Next year I am going to write my novel. I am. I will. Oh cripes.

It’s one of those shitty, shabby days where everything is off from the get go.
And I have written and deleted, written and deleted, inbetween bouts of net surfing and eating, and have now ended up with nothing. Nothing but self loathing.

On what planet is faffing around for an entire 6 hours and writing only 2 paragraphs of a story which I will delete tomorrow “being a writer.”?
I suck.

Well I have given my Bridport failed entry a tiny rewrite and submitted it elsewhere. I still think it’s good. Not only that! I have finished my invisible woman story. Yay. And I think I’ll be just in time to meet the deadline as long as I get next day post, and manage to make my temperamental printer work. Whilst my stories are “out” there, then there is hope.

My computer has another virus thing so will have to go back to the repair shop. It’s something I feel very uncomfortable about, seems akin to handing a stranger my diary and photo album. The idea also that someone can see all the odd searches I have made creeps me out too. So I hang on to it despite the fact that I now can’t back anything up, or play any disc, and I have no clue as to how much damage is being done every time I turn on.