All Work and No Play Makes Jenni a Dull Girl

Spring is in the air and I'm trapped in a dark cave all day with no windows, surrounded by the grey carpeted walls of my cubicle. The fact that I can't go out and soak up some much needed rays of Vitamin D fills me with resentment. Fortunately I have awesome co-workers to keep me from falling into a pit of grey carpeted despair.

I've been reading everything I can about getting published and the publishing industry, as The Guide instructed, but everything I read is rather depressing. It's all about how difficult it is to get an editor to even look at your story, and how you're probably really a shitty writer and need to write and complete several practice novels before you try to submit a legit novel for publication and even then you'll probably be rejected by everyone. Now, I'm someone who needs a lot of positive reinforcement in my life. I already do a good enough job at second-guessing and beating myself up, and I am not currently accepting applications for that position. What I need is one of these "experts" to say "Hey, you know what? You might actually be good enough, and you might actually have a really great book in your hands." I just need someone to believe in me.

And I don't mean that to sound pitiful or pathetic. I'm just speaking plainly.

I need someone in my corner shouting at me to keep going and willing to squirt water down my throat and apply the enswell to my swelling face. "Cut me, Mick!"

I was lucky enough to have a cutman with me today, who was able to pull me out of my melancholy state of mind. And it wasn't the first time she's done this either. You know who you are, and I thank you. :)

So - where are we on this Path to Publication?

I revised my first chapter and just reposted it to critiquecircle.com. It will go up for review on May 11. I'm also re-reading my second chapter and trying to revise that as much as I can before I submit that for review as well. It's kind of like cleaning your house before the maid comes because you don't want her to think you're a slob - completely nonsensical but it makes me feel a little better about myself. The biggest thing I'm working on is psyching myself up to begin searching for a literary agent. The process of searching for such a person is called "query-ing" or so I've read. It might be my southern accent but query-ing is hard for me to say...so I'm probably going to do the typical Southern thing and just completely make up another word for it; I'm leaning towards Q-ing.

When I begin the process of query-ing things are going to get interesting again, I am sure of it. I just hope I don't face plant. ;)

Thanks for reading!

A Path of a Different Sort

It has been a rough week my friends. I'm blocked on my revisions of chapter one, I'm concerned about the massive wild fires keeping me from making it home this weekend to see my family and Mumford and Sons, and I'm still recovering from the sample fat-burner I took yesterday that made me feel like a cracked out ninja (it was awesome).

The writer's block is frustrating as ever, but I know it's all because I've put too much pressure on myself to write something awesome, and the moment I relax and tell myself to have fun with it, inspiration will come pouring out. I'm hoping my solo, 10 hour car ride through the desert will mellow out my brain.

For today's creative writing post, I am going to share with you a poem I wrote for the joke of a creative writing class I took my senior year in high school. The assignment was to create a poem inspired by Dante's Inferno and The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Elliot. I took on the challenge, and I'm quite pleased with the  result. I was a very angry child in high school, so you'll forgive the jaded darkness, I hope. *Disclaimer* I in no way consider myself a poet.

I give you, The Path

The Path

Come with me and I shall reveal
All the truths and thoughts and realities one should feel
Half asleep in a nightmare between worlds
I shall guide you through the maze
Past the corners where a soul stays
When it reaches the point of no return
The empty, forlorn houses no longer a concern
Monuments of modern men
So take my hand and we shall begin
Our walk down the road not taken
Few have seen it
Fewer believe it.

      Knowledge has taken second place
      For the sake of a smile upon a face.

Shadows flow thick like oil
Oozing down the walls like oil,
Stretching over everything in sight
Daring synthetic light to recoil.
Its black hand clenches all aspects of life
Contaminating hope
Tightens around the innocent neck like a rope.

There will be time, then
To relive past mistakes
To drench yourself in shadows of oil
And watch your great demise uncoil.
Yes, there is always time
To prepare your lies and sharpen your knives
To attach the mask of ignorance
For what's more important than fitting in
To your predetermined place?

    Knowledge has taken second place
    For the sake of a smile upon a face.

I shall fly past all the warning signs
And be mocked my own inexperience
Ashamed of the only genuine smile
To be touched by youthful excitement for a while.
(Remember the phrase: "We are so much the same.")
See the routines laid out to please another
Wasted hours to catch attention and hold it there.
(Remember the phrase: "How's my make up how's my hair?")
What do they say
Behind my back?
They don't know me
Or perhaps they know me better than myself.

For I have seen their faces blurred into one-
A multitude of treacheries molded into one treacherous move.
I had known better and stayed tight to my well known groove
But from the blur of faces one should appear
To be different, to stand out, to be inescapably clear.
      I was caught in his snare.

I had known them for what they were
Had myself been a victim of their scrutinizing gaze
Yielded angrily to their masses
Unwillfully to their opinions I had and would refer.
They gain their way by falsely kissing asses.
I knew the consequences but still fell victim to their ways
    I was caught in his snare.

And the moments took me obliviously-
Nothing else mattered so long as he was with me,
The color green associating itself with his face,
Became a permanent tennant in my head.
Did not try to stop it but encouraged it instead
Loved it, consumed it and left it for dead.

      And deep down inside I knew this

 Held myself higher than all the rest

      Understood what others did not...
       Anything worthwhile shatters like glass
      What the hell ever happened to class?

And then before me the face blurred.
The beautiful, welcoming smile
Turned into
A demonic snarl in the dark, shadowy oil
Shook my world apart
Ripped out my beating heart
Broke before me from his angelic mold
While I sat trembling, starting up
My strength had vanished and all I saw was the truth-
I gave it all up
For the ignorance of youth

And now I walk past all the people I thought I knew
Their eyes blankly staring, not seeing you
When you call out to them they vacantly look at you
There is no recognition
You recieve no attention
You're not even there
Just a ghost, merely air.

Let us travel further,
Oh yes, you will see
All the needle thin girls with fake smiles, false souls
How they bend and twist like puppets on a string
To the delight of the ruined boys
Take sips of poison to skew what you see
Become someone else
Who you never wanted to be.

Past the innocents whose lives tainted by desire
Blow forever in the winds
Past the leeches the murderers and the liar
That led you here
Be amidst the traitors
Watch the knife in your back sink further
And there you see eternity staring
Directly back at thee.

And when you return, what shall you say?
Will you remember what you've witnessed?
Will you change your ways with the best of intentions?

Or will you simply lay down

And let it happen

Your hopes and dreams severely dampened

Fall into your fears and drown.

Time to Kill

Now that I've gotten 8 critiques on my work, it's time to put those puppies to use and revise my first chapter. Revising - to me - is the hardest part of the creative writing process. Here you've got this piece of artwork you've created that is pretty good, and now using the varying and contradicting suggestions you've gotten, you have to make it even better. But there's no guarantee that by changing things up you will make your work better; you still run the risk of making it worse.

Much like a cat hoarder who's finally been found out by animal control, I have to carefully examine my work and choose the pieces I want to keep and the ones I can bear to let go of. Like William Faulkner once said, "In writing, you must kill all your darlings."

I tend to get overly attached to things, so this processes is particularly painful for me. I cried like the 7 year old child I was when my parents traded in our family car - the only car I had ever really known - for a new(er) one. Apparently I was the only one who found any significance in the fact that we had brought my little brother home from the hospital in that car, but whatever. It's time to kill some darlings.

It seems like the major criticism of this first chapter is that there's not enough character development. So that is something I am trying to improve upon. The challenge is building characters without throwing off pacing.  If you read Chapter One, then you know there was a lot of action; I don't want to break up that action with character descriptions and thereby lose the reader. On the other hand, if the reader is sitting there thinking "What the heck do these people look like?" then they're probably a little lost already.

Here's another point I would like to make on revising, just in case you ever submit something you have written  to be critiqued. It's important to keep an open mind and consider each critique carefully. A lot of the time, you'll get great suggestions and you'll slap yourself for not thinking of that yourself. BUT, even though all critiques aim to be helpful, not all of them will be right. There comes a time when you have to rely on your inner editor and say "thanks, but no thanks."

So that's what I've been doing with my weekend. Once I believe I've done enough revising I will resubmit my chapter for critiques, and I'll probably post it here for you to peruse at your leisure.

As always, thanks for reading!