Harry Potter, Lois Lane, and April

Last night my brother asked me about my novel, and he remembered my character names, and the name of the town, and silly things like that even though he hasn't read it in probably two years and it's changed immensely since then. Awwwww that gives me the warm fuzzies like nothin else. Then we talked about Harry Potter. We both agreed the movies need more Nevil Longbottom, and Luna Lovegood. I'm really going to miss him when he ships out.

Still no news from crows toes. I need a new magazine to pester with stories. I also need to write up a query now that I've got the first thirty pages clean and shiny. Well, aside from spell check. Which is always the easiest thing. Occasionally the most painful, too. But that's because I can't spell my way out of a paper bag. But neither can Lois Lane, so I'm not worried.



Dang I just realized Dane actually named the octopus in my story. Of course he remembers Mahogany! He was always better at naming things than I was. Maybe I should ask him to title all my short stories.

In completely unrelated news

I believe I am losing my mind. I believe the people I work with are to blame. And I believe that if work does not stop looking like Tween Drama Freakoutland I will lose my better senses and destroy everything that even looks at me funny. I will destroy it with KNIVES.

This coupled with inclimate weather has kept me from writing anything aside from a bizarro world comic idea I had from a bizarro dream.

"Hey Mrs. Young... If you could be any bird in the world, what would you be, and where would you fly?"
"I would fly... to eat."
"Cool. And what kind of bird would you be?"
"... all of them"


Brilliant.

Rules in Fiction

I've been editing for a friend as well as for myself recently, and I just realized, as I rewrote a sentence for probably my eighteenth time that I'm probably being too hard on myself. As I was editing for my friend last night, I didn't stop and question every sentence of hers over and over to see if she should perhaps use the word "or" twice in a sentence or rewrite it to use "of" because "of" sounds nicer (this is sentence specific). In fact, there were huge swaths where I didn't feel the need to change much of anything aside from a punctuation mark or join two paragraphs into one, because I was more interested in the story. But of course, I know my own story, so Every Tiny Sentence is life or flippin death.

The main conclusion I drew from editing another person's work was that I was willing to fall for anything so long as it fell within the rules of the book. It seems like such a simple concept, but when you're reading about a girl so smart she's got extra genius just lying around waiting to be used and she channels it into telekenesis, and it's got Roald Dahl as the author, you don't even realize that he's using this rule. You just think "Well, hey, it's Roald Dahl, he can do whatever he bloody wants!" And then as a beginning writer you have a character who's an imaginary talking octopus, and a surly parental one at that, you just think "What the fuck why would anyone ever fall for it?" completely forgetting the rule of Rules in Fiction apply to you just the same as they do to Roald Dahl. So it's nice to edit for a girl who's got a character who can rewrite the peramiters of her world by simply speaking it, and this character has to watch her mouth at all times less she undo reality, and find that as a reader it's So completely plausible within the rules of the book.

So here I am, editing up a storm, and I just finished up the scene in which my main character traumatizes her only friend's parents by dropping a dead bird on their feet, and you know what? I'm perfectly fine with that. And I know that later on, when I have to delve into the horrors of human taxidermy (and why it's So not okay, kids, and it doesn't even work so don't try it) I'm going to be okay there, too. I've set up my rules, and all of their little loopholes, and I look forward to exploiting them to their fullest extent.

Four months

I sent my 6 page story The Shadows in Westport (have I mentioned I can't write titles? Because I can't) off to Crow Toes Quarterly today. I really hope they like it. I really even more hope they get back to me sooner than the 4 month long reading time posted on their website. I addressed the envelope in Edward Gorey letters in the vain attempt to get some extra wierd points. These people, I'm assuming, are all about wierd. They employ a "staff villian."

The absolute most I could hope, though, is some reader in Little, Brown picking up a copy, enjoying it, and then calling me to ask "Hey, have you got a novel I could peruse?" and i'd say "Yes I Do!" and then of course everything falls in place from there.

That will never happen.

Overreaction

Reading further along, I realize I am being overly critical. Much can be salvaged, and quite a bit more is pretty dang good. Of course, the part I've always disliked is still awful, but now looking at it I find I've been aproaching it the wrong way. Yes, otherwise intelligent parents abandoning their child to a completely new town an entire world away is difficult to pull off, but my previous answer was only a bandaid. I think I can restructure everything so the reader won't even find a scar.

And yes, it will still be work. But this is the fun kind. I thought I'd thrash this baby and end up with a mummy. I'm going to end up with a frankenstein, bitches.

Started work...

On a thing I'm not supposed to be working on. Well, according to me. And I've got about as much authority on my own workings as a ice cube has on the sun. Anyway, I've started a scary story for children about a tattoo that's taken root under some kid's skin and slowly spreading. Hopefully it's the sort of scary Crow Toes Quarterly is looking for. But then, I'm never sure on what scary is. I don't like scary movies.

It's not something I expect to ever be paid for, but I figure if I can get it into print I won't feel like such a douche saying "yeah, I write." It just makes me think of that spaced episode where Daisy is in the Cukoo's Nest job and finds out "they're all writers, Daisy. Even Billy." and Billy stutters out "I had a p-p-p-poem in n-n-n-n-n-ninty eight."