Catching up: dragons, awards, magic, and incompetence

Annie Wicking gave me a writer's cave dragon for a Christmas present, which she beautifully painted herself. She only gave the writing cave dragon to a handful of writers on blogger, and my inclusion in that handful I take as a great honour. Also, having spent so much of my informative years in places like Middle Earth, Avalon, and on Pern, I've always dreamed of owning a dragon of my very own. It's very likely that the fantastical creature is the very reason I became a writer, so her gifting of her writer's cave dragon couldn't be more appropriate. Thank- you Annie. :)

A sentence I wrote about anger won the daily writing prompt on C. Beth's One Minute Writer blog. It's the very first award I've ever received for something I've written, so I will proudly display that on my blog as well. Thank-you C. :) ... Small steps, but still meaningful ones for me.

... Last night I finished reading Carol Shields' 'The Stone Diaries', which won the Governor General's Award, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. It wasn't an easy read; I had to concentrate or else I'd have to read parts over. But when I lost myself to it, I was rewarded with such simple everyday profundities that it left me feeling both exhilarated and unsettled at the same time.

The story is about the ordinary life of a woman from her birth to her death, told from many different perspectives, including the narrators. It's a masterpiece, poetry written in prose, and there's nothing plain and simple about it except the subject matter. As a writer I can only imagine how involving it must have been to write such a novel, and I am in awe of Shields' accomplishment.

So now that the Christmas panic is over and I've time to get back to my own writing, I'm finding it difficult to do just that. Because of the time I've been away from it, and after reading 'The Stone Diaries' with it's lyrical magic and meaning, I am filled with feelings of doubt and incompetence once more. I've been gifted with joy of the written word, to see, and moderately comprehend the complexities and magic of it, but my ability to write pales so much in comparison to my understanding of what other writers have written. How can I continue to take my little stories seriously when the pinnacle of perfection is so far out of my reach?

Yesterday was the first day of winter

My apologies to all my blogger friends. I've been very busy cleaning, making Christmas presents, cleaning, shoveling snow, cleaning, shoveling even more snow, and you guessed it, even more cleaning, that I've not been able to afford the time to keep up on your blogs, ... or even my own blog, for that matter. As soon as I have a free moment, I promise, I'll drop by and see what you all are up too. Until then, I wish each and everyone of you all the magic the season can bring, and may your hearts be filled with love, peace, and joy.

Make Believe

Nine days till Christmas

Winter is here, and there's a residual instinct in me to hybrinate, to curl up next to a fire with a hot cup of tea and a good book, but the Christmas panic begins, and to make things worse, we got snowed in yesterday when we had been planning on starting our Christmas shopping. There's cleaning to do, lots of it, shopping, shoveling snow, thawing out the Christmas tree and then decorating it, ... and the house as well, but all I want to do is read and write. Reading I can do at night, but writing, well, if I start something now I won't be able to pull myself away to do anything else, so I'm ignoring my muse for the moment, hoping she understands. Trouble is, I can't seem to get motivated to do those other things, and the crunch is on. Figures, all that time complaining about having nothing to write about, and now when I should be doing something else, it's all I want to do.

Short stories or novels?

I just read in an online article ( http://www.thisbusinessofdanceandmusic.com/Article-Shortfictionmarket.htm ) two contrary opinions. One was that writing short stories was a good way for a writer to refine their craft, that if they ultimately wanted to write novels, they should write at least one hundred shorts before they began a novel. The other opinion was that even after writing many short stories a writer will find that they still have much to learn when it comes to writing a novel, and the opinion was that "...novelists should start with novels and leave short stories to those who particularly love short stories."

I would be very interested in hearing what others have to say about this. You see, I'm at a point where I'm trying to decide if I want to write just for myself, or work towards making a career out of what I do. It's common knowledge that there isn't a market for short stories, and it was my thinking that writing short stories would be good practice, and would give me the tools I needed to either finish that novel I started way back when, or attempt another one.

Either I stick to the plan, - maybe even count down those one hundred stories, or scrap the idea of writing shorts except for my own enjoyment, and start thinking about putting my efforts into writing a novel. ... And then again, there's always children's fiction, ... that's nice and short. ... Oh maybe I'm not ready for this. Maybe I should just stick with writing whatever the muse brings to my attention and write it in whatever format best suits the story...

LOL, I would still like to hear people's opinion on this, just incase I ever reach that point where I'm ready to make a decision either way.

The Missus and the Troll

Well, I finally finished that short story I've been working for about a week and a half. What I had intended to be about a 700 word little anecdotal, turned into a 3791 word, full fledged fable. For some reason, because I had an outline for it in my head, I had thought it could be accomplished quickly and in a few words. ... Boy was I wrong.(Grin) And where did I get the information that writing within the confines of a certain genre was easy? I guess, maybe if you write in that style again and again till it becomes second nature, but the first time is definitely a challenge. It sure gave me a work out. I don't think I did too badly, considering, and I hope you enjoy reading all 3791 words! :)

The story's name is: 'The Missus and the Troll', and you can find the link to it on the right, under the heading: My Stories. ... And please, if you do take the time to read it, could you take an extra moment to answer a little survey I have about it? I'm trying to decide if it would make an appropriate Christmas gift for my nieces.

Every Homemaker should own an iPod

...I admit, it does slow you down a might when you dance around with the saucepan you're drying before you put it in the cupboard, but it's a heck of a lot more fun! :)

Listen to your muse

My muse is still having her way with me, and I can't help but submit to her attentions. For years I've been whining that I didn't have a story to write, that I didn't have enough experiences under my belt to draw from, but I kept insisting to myself that I was a writer. I'd maybe have an idea for a story, say, two or three times a year. But now I have a list of ideas, and the more time I spend writing, the longer that list gets. I keep wondering just what it is that has changed to cause my muse to want to hang out with me so much more. Maybe it's because I've finally realized that you don't have to have lived an adventurous life to write a compelling story, that the hazards and trials of everyday life can be just as much of a challenge as climbing Mt. Everest. Or maybe it's because I finally heard what my muse has been trying to communicate to me all these years: Enough with the bellyaching already. If you're a writer then just write, for crying out loud!

Pizza or panic?

So I went to the local writer's group monthly meeting again last night. This time there wasn't a guest speaker so it was open mike night. No mike though, just a homemade podium that people stood behind to read their writing. I wasn't going to go to the meeting; I had spent most of the day working on a short story, and when it came time to make supper, I hadn't taken the pizza dough out of the fridge on time for it to warm up and start to rise. It was just a question of whether I should stay home and put the time into making the pizza all from scratch and miss the meeting, or open a couple of cans of soup and make it to the community centre on time.

I hummed and hawed about it for quite awhile though, back and forth, weighing my options, until it was even too late to put anything on for supper, except for the canned soup. So I took a shower, and got changed into what I hoped was my most 'writerly' looking clothing, - corduroy trousers, a wrinkled t-shirt , topped with a tasteful herringbone knit vest - and I printed off a couple of short stories just in case.

I guess I must have really wanted to read something, because when the speaker looked at me and asked if I had something to read, I didn't say no. I didn't allow myself to fade unnoticed into the background like I expected I would do. I told him, yes I had a story, but I had never read anything for a group before, so I wasn't sure.
With an encouraging smile, he told me that he took that to mean yes.

And I so I did it. I got up there and I read my story from beginning to end, and only with a few moments of complete panic that I somehow managed to swallow well enough to continue reading. I didn't do too badly, considering it was my first time. But it took a couple of hours for my pulse to settle down to normal, and when it did, I wondered just why it had been so important for me to do such a thing.

I finally came to the conclusion that in a way, I considered it a right of passage of some sort, that it was something I had to do to take myself seriously as a writer, putting myself out there in front of other writers and saying, look this is what I do. I write, and this is what I've written.

... I don't know if after hearing what I wrote has made anyone in the audience think of me as a writer, but I do, and right now that's what counts.

A Murder of crows

Today while delivering my newspapers and just when I was thinking about whether I had been wrong to have stopped believing in God, I saw the largest murder of crows I have ever seen. There looked to be hundreds of them. They were on the sidewalk, on the powerlines, in the trees. They were on the lawns of the properties for two blocks on either side of the street, and up the street to my right. They were everywhere. As I pushed my newspaper cart along the sidewalk, some flew away from me, some flew towards me and over my head, and still others, went about doing what they had been doing before I came along, or stood where they were, watching me, watching them. I wish I had my camera with me, for I don't think anyone will believe me when I tell them just how many crows there had been, or how very strange the experience felt. ... And the thing is, I didn't even get shat on once, so maybe there is a God afterall.

Scratch that last one

I was wrong, the hardest thing that someone can do is to keep it in mind that they have the power to change that.

Reality can be brutal

I think that one of the most difficult things someone can do is to come to the realization that they are not who they thought they were.

My muse is working over time!

Today is a very good day. I've got three stories bouncing around in my head wanting to be written, but I'm not use to this; I've never had more than one idea to write about at one time. It's hard to concentrate. Just as soon as I hit a rough spot in the one that I'm writing now, one of the others gives me a nudge and asks for my attention. I'm not minding it though, and I gotta be extra nice to each one, because I don't want any of them to feel neglected and leave! ... I think I need a baby sitter though! :)