Mood: lucky
Topic: Writing
I heard back from Scott yesterday about the story--he said I could send him "hot stuff like that" any time and that he liked the pacing. It's not his favorite thing I've written, however.
I heard from John today and he says he enjoyed the story, but doesn't appreciate the sexist attitude it takes. He thinks the man would know the stakes right from the start but would likely still take the risk because he would feel there would only be minimal consequences to his actions even if he got caught.
And, I think the response I got from Rich was also a thumbs up, so I'm a very happy girl. It's amazing how much good vibe I can milk out of finishing one very small story!
Finishing one, though, has given me so much joy that I am antsy to write more. I got that one endorphin hit and now I'll go back and press the bar no matter how many electric shocks I have to endure just to get my next hit. In January, right after I started working for Sudie, I wrote a one page beginning of another relationship story. I typed that up tonight and wrote another half page just to keep the energy rolling forward. It's too early to tell with this one, but I have a faint notion of where it's going. It might be difficult, though, because I think this story is going to force me to be a girl, or at least write like one, and I'm not always the best at that. Especially because the story will require viewpoints from multiple girls. It could come across as a really bad imitation of Sex and the City which I watched a little of in the first season--enough to know I'm not cool enough to write that kind of dialogue. But, again, it's an exercise and it's outside of my present comfort zone, so it's all good.
One of these days, I will write something other than a story about a relationship, but for now, I can't seem to help it. This is only the third (or fourth depending on whether or not I do any more work developing that outside-the-hotel-room-door scene) story in a row I've written dealing with relationships, so it's not an alarming trend, but there is this nagging "should" that says I should be writing something grander. That I need to get serious about nature writing or environmental reporting or something more life and death than whether or not one marriage survives. Still, I'm writing about whether one marriage survives, and I'll just have to keep writing about that until I've looked at it from enough angles that it's, at least temporarily, resolved for me and I find energy elsewhere.
It's all part of the puzzle I'm trying to figure out about what it means to be an independent, self-actualized woman, and what are the acceptable rules of conduct, and whether I want to follow the acceptable rules. My feelings for the last ten years are that I probably don't want to follow the acceptable rules, so then there is this constant feeling my way along the edge to decide just what is right for me and how far out from the "norm" I can go and still be okay. And then there's the constant reevaluation of what I can use as an appropriate measure of success for myself when I seem to be all the wrong sizes for society's usual yardsticks. All very self-centered, I know. But it's what interests me, and therefore what drives the writing. No way to know yet whether anyone else will care, but for now, I'm using the writing muscles and they feel good.
Thoughts captured by Kristine
at 10:16 PM EDT
Updated: Wednesday, June 1, 2005 10:25 PM EDT