Creativity Afoot

I did the things on my list this week, consistently, making a new list every night for the following day. It feels good to cross things off a list, even if some of them are minor mundane household crappy chores that I must do no matter whether I've written them down or not. Crossing those things off helped me to get to the doing of the good stuff.

I pulled out my Duff and Merrin story. Truly it's not much of a story yet. A few pages, mostly dialogue. I wondered about turning it into a play. The dialogue is fun, the setting fairly simple and the whole story could easily take place in a single act, one set. But what do I know about play writing? What do I even know about short stories? Best to work on that form before I branch out, I thought. But they're different forms. You're right, I shouldn't be afraid to dive in.

Why didn't I go back to Callum, you ask? It takes so much out of me to get into his story, so much effort, plus I seriously need to research, go to church even, (I swear his God obsession is keeping me out of this book) and I'm itching for faster results. I can have a complete first draft of a story in a matter of days or a week depending on how hard I go at it. I want to create a finished product, gain some much-needed creative momentum. And with short fiction that's very possible. Maybe possible even with a short play, even if I don't really know what I'm doing.

I need to submit some old stuff too. Looked at some potential places for Midday Caller. Need to edit it with suggestions from all the feedback I got on it from the old girls network and also the local writers' group, but that won't (shouldn't) take long. I've had four others out since early July, would presume as we hit the five month mark that some response might start to trickle in on those soon, sometime during the next couple of months. Maybe something will stick. If I were more dedicated to the submission process something would certainly stick somewhere sometime. It's not even that I mind the rejection so much. Nobody's ever said anything really terrible in the few rejections I've got. They've actually been quite encouraging. I'm not sure why I haven't been submitting more. It could be that rather than a fear of failure, I have a fear of success.

Mood: pleased
Drinking: cold coffee
Listening To: the train heading through the back of town
Hair: kinda greasy, needs to see some shampoo