Agonies of a Young Author

I've written before that I suffer easily from acute attacks of professional jealousy; but I also suffer easily from acute attacks of professional depression. I easily fall into that hopeless spiral of "I haven't written anything, I'll never get published"-- which, of course, ensures that I'll never be published, because I'm too busy stuffing bonbons down my self-pitying gullet or huddled in a miserable ball in my bed.

Today was just a minor episode, but I recognized the symptoms and wished myself out of that place.

Of course, that didn't magically Prozac me into a published author. *snort*

No, what I find is, when I fall into these moments is go out... and write.

I submitted a couple of poems to an undergraduate literary competition tonight. I feel good, because it means that I'm battling the self-pitying doldrums. I don't want to be the kind of writer that is always moaning about missed chances or how the Muse isn't working for me. Believe me, I have those moments. I have them a lot. I don't want them, but I get them. (Like other things we won't mention.) But I can't think- or write- about that all the time. You'll get bored. I'll get bored. We'll collectively want to stab my eyes out with a spoon. So... no more.

But more of the submissions. More of the writing. More of the successes, and more of the focus on the successes. And more of the interesting topics for this blog. More. Not less.

No more of the doldrums.

Just see what I can do before Monday.

Right Now:
What I'm listening to: "The Walk" by Imogean Heap
What I want most: To stop moping and do something with my life

Wells, I submitted a piece into a flash fiction contest today. Or rather, about 2.5 seconds ago. I think that it was my first piece that I have submitted to a contest that was not 1) a vanity press that I got suckered into (see website for more details) or 2) a campus contest. I'm proud but also slightly astounded that it's taken me this long to get to that point in my career.

Anyways, not focusing on the negatives. Focusing on the fact that I had written a tight little flash fiction piece about a month ago that I could submit today, on the last day of the contest, in the midst of finals. That teaches me that preparedness is a GOOD. THING. TO. HAVE.

I think the results come out in February or sometime similar in spring and far away. Cross your fingers that I win so I can re-coup the reading fee. (Gag me. I have to PAY to write? Isn't that counter-intuitive. But that's another blog post.)

Also, Columbia released it's summer 2010 list of creative writing classes. Oh nom nom nom.

Right now:
What I'm listening to: Nada at cette moment. (Yes, that was a combination French and Spanish phrase. Get over it.)
What I want most: More details on the Master Classes at Columbia. Whee!!!

Oh, writing contests.

They abound, they really do, and sometimes in ways that I wouldn't expect. Fashion blogs. Photography descriptions. Organizers.

My latest foray into writing contests is for a $40 gift card to Knock Knock, the irreverent world of professional "organization." I get all the necessities for college there, and I really hope I win.

So for your enjoyment (because I have other things that I need to waste my time on), my entry:




In the world of college, everything is put off by at least one day, if not by one week. Two, if possible, but reading always falls by the way side. Then, one day, finals start looming, and the poor college student is forced to rush frantically to the syllabus. Papers fly, pencils break, and general chaos ensue. With the Timing Task clips, I can organize the random stacks into cohesive units.

And then be able to procrastinate, perhaps, just one more day.


Right now:
What I'm listening to: Imogen Heap, "The Moment I Said It"
What I want most: A turn of the hourglass or two...

So several weeks ago I entered a contest here on campus that asked for reworkings of classics in literature to include zombies, in the style of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Well, I didn't win, but I was included in the online magazine, so that's something I guess. I'm not quite excited about it all, since I'm not sure the basis of being included in the emag, whether it was everyone who entered, or just specific entries, but I'll post it up anyways. *

* I really shouldn't be so disparaging. I really did like my entry, and I think I attained my goal of seamlessly inserting the zombie references in the same voice as Dickens originally had.

Please enjoy!


Book One: Recalled to Life
Chapter One: A New Period

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, it was a modern era, it was a primeval era, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way, or would, if we were not already living in a sort of Hell- in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its nosiest and most ravenous authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the supernatural degree of comparison only.

There were a king with a half-rotten jaw and a queen with a plain grey face, on the throne of England; there were a king with a half-rotten jaw and a queen with a fair grey face, on the throne of France. In both countries it was clearer than Cv1 positive serum to the lords of the State that things in general were settled for eternity.

It was the year of Our Lord three thousand seven hundred and seventy-five. Supernatural revelations appeared in England at that favored period, as at this. Mrs. Southcott had recently attained her five-and-twentieth blessed deathday, of whom a prophetic private in the TrueLife Guards had heralded the supernatural occurrence by announcing that arrangements were made for the literal swallowing up of all of London and Westminster. Even the Cock-lane heralds had been crying out warnings of this new sort of doomsday only a round dozen of years, after abandoning a tradition of preaching the coming of the Christian apocalypse, as the street-corner crazies this very year past (supernaturally deficient in originality) finally abandoned theirs. More dire messages in the mortal order of events had lately come to the English Crown and People, from an isolated bunker of British subjects besieged in America: which, strange to relate, have proved more disturbing to the human race than any other horrific communications yet related.

France, less favoured on the whole as to matters supernatural than her sister of the shield and trident, rolled with exceeding smoothness into Hell, making false vaccinations and actually infecting themselves. Under the guidance of her Conservative politicians, she entertained herself, besides, with such humane achievements as sentencing a mid-transformation Cv1 youth to have his hands cut off, his poisoned heart torn out with pincers, and his body burned alive, because he had not submitted to a group of dirty doctors who had captured him for clinical trials of a new antidote, which knowingly contained poison of some fifty or sixty milligrams. It is likely enough that, rooted in the woods of France and Norway, there were already growing trees, when that double sufferer was put to death, already marked by the Woodman, Fate, to come down and be sawn into stakes, to make a certain stacked configuration, circular in form, cruel in purpose, terrible in history. It is likely enough that in the rough outhouses of some tillers of the heavy lands adjacent to Paris, there were sheltered from the weather that very day, rude carts, bespeckled with rustic mire, sniffed about by pigs, and roosted in by poultry, which the Farmer, Death, had already set apart to be his tumbrils of the Revolution. But that Woodman and that Farmer, though they work unceasingly, work dead silently, and no one heard them as they about with shuffled tread: the rather, forasmuch as to entertain any suspicion that they were alive, was to be re-animated and traitorous.

In England, there was scarcely any amount of order and protection to justify much national boasting. Daring infections done by transformed men, and highway feedings, took place in the capital itself every night; families were publically cautioned not to go out of town without applying for armed security; the unnatural being in the dark was a disguised City tradesman in the light, and, being recognized and challenged by his fellow-tradesman whom he had infected in his alter-ego of "a creature," gallantly shot the tradesman through the head and rode away; the mail was waylaid by seven zombies, and the guard shot three dead (or rather, unconscious for a time, for in his anxiety he forgot that no gun will permanently hinder those creatures unless aimed directly at the head), and then got torn apart by the other four, "in consequence of the failure of his ammunition": after which the mail was robbed in peace, a freedom from violence but not necessarily from infection; that magnificent potentate, the Lord Mayor of London, was made to stand and deliver on Turnham Green, by one zombie, who despoiled the illustrious creature in sight of all his retinue, proving the Lord Mayor to be a vile zombie himself; prisoners in London Cv1 think tanks fought bloody battles with the scientists, and the TrueLife Guards fired in among them, with rounds of tranquilizers and combustibles; the undead snipped off diamond and garlic crosses from the necks of noble lords, foolish enough to think that protection from one race of supernaturals applies to all the rest; the Creature Intelligence Agency went into St. Giles's, to search for a contraband human meat ring and the pro-reanimation mob fired on the CIA, and the CIA fired on the mob; and nobody thought any of these occurrences much out of the common way. In the midst of them, the hangman, ever busy and ever worse than useless, was in contrast requisition; now, stringing up long rows of miscellaneous offenders; now hanging a man on Saturday who had been bitten only on Tuesday; now, burning the trigger hands of vigilantes gone too far by the dozen, and now burning pro-creature pamphlets; to-day, taking the life of an atrocious feeder, and tomorrow of a wretched pilferer who had robbed a farmer's boy of a sixpence "cure."

All these things, and a thousand like them, came to pass in and close upon the dear old year three thousand seven hundred and seventy-five. Environed by them, while the Woodman and the Farmer worked unheeded, those two of the half-rotten jaws, and those other two of the plain and fair faces, trod with spirit enough, and carried their undead rights with a high hand. Thus did the year three thousand seven hundred and seventy-five conduct their Unworldliness, and myriads of unnatural creatures- the creatures of this chronicle among the rest- along the roads that lay before them.

I've been trying to be really good this week about writing, but it just ain't happening. I missed the ROD deadline last night because I was catching up on the blog and because I've got four deadlines on Saturday.

That's right. Four deadlines.

Even being decently prepared in advance doesn't stop me from wanting to break something (preferably not my computor, but sometimes it comes close.)

I had the ROD entry written. It was all done at least two days in advance. But when the midnight deadline rolled around, I was off doing homework.

It irritates all rationalization right out of me. I've been ranting about it all day to my roomie the Long Suffering One.

Anyways, enjoy my poor neglected entry. Apparently I like giving away free snippets of work.

Right Now:
What I'm listening to: n/a
What I want most: ugh...

******

When I regained consciousness, my first thought was Oh shit, I hope I got permission this time.

Rever would NOT be happy with me when I got back to headquarters. This was my third messy kill of the month, and the clean-up crews were starting to raise their fees. Again. Add on top of that the whole possibly unauthorized thing...

He's gonna kill me.

I surveyed the damaged room, and winced at the bullet-ridden door. I changed my mind. Rever might yell about replacement costs, but Krachen would kill me for ineptitude. The holes were nowhere near any sort of pattern.

And the green sludge. Oh, dear Lady, the green sludge. It was everywhere- which meant that I went for the head last night, instead of the heart like I should have done. Grippers exploded with a head shot into sticky green Gripper goo; a heart shot made them simply vaporize. Unfortunately, a heart shot also meant finding a 5 inch target somewhere within massive Gripper rolls, and all while avoiding the toxic, tar-like secretions...

Not that many people actually cared about abandoned coat factories, or what might happen within, but even they would report 35+ bullet holes and green slime to the police. Or other... protective agencies.

Yeah, Krachen was gonna kill me. He's kinda paranoid about being noticed by civilians, but he's nuclear about getting noticed by the rival schoolyard bully. I guess he was right about me not being suited for field agent. Shit, I hope he doesn't demote me. I hate paperwork.

I have found the most gorgeous idea. I'm not sure that it's practical for everyday living, but this reproduction of the Jane Austenian-era traveling desk is my current obsession. I love the polished dark wood. And the brass name plate? Ahhhh, icing on the Regency cake. Unfortunately, I can't upload a picture, but the link will take you to the website where there are plenty of pictures.

I admit, my recent win at Deadline Dame's ROD (still so excited) has given me a curious sort of lethargic energy- contented and plump for the satisfaction, lean and shrewish with the desire to win more contests, especially ones structured in the manner of ROD. So I have been scouting around the internet (wonderful beast that it is) and I have found myself extremely discontent with the websites that I've found. An early object in life was "Appearance is the #1 feature to make a sale," and I find it still holds true in everything. So when I look at a potential resource, I want to see a professional, organized website. Unfortunately, most of the sites I stumble across do not have that sort of navigability, and I often dismiss them without further ado. The sites themselves may be very worthy, and full of valuable information, but the appearance gives a different impression, and that impression is the key operative in a internet-driven world. So tonight I again resolve to make my blogs and my website the ultimate resource for new writers, the sort that I wish that I could have found long ago.

Incidentally, I have found a few monthly contests that look promising, but my favorite might always be ROD. The deadline for ROD #7 is today at midnight, and I determined as a matter of principle to enter again, even if the likelihood of winning twice in a row is zil. However, I had fun writing, and more importantly, I wrote.

Enjoy:
I was fiercely determined not to judge Caleb for his beat up matchbox of a car, because, after all, this was my first ever make-out session. On the other hand, this was my first make-out session EVER, and I deserved to be able to tell my grandkids that it was somewhere cooler than in this trashed Pinto, even if it was with legend hottie Caleb Jones. Who was currently sitting next to me, barely 6 inches away (cramped cars are good for something!), and looking extremely... hot. As per usual. I tried to not to fidget in anticipation, but my skirt had hiked up when I climbed in, and now looked on the shady side of trashy, winter tights or no. Which was not the impression I wanted to give, even if I was shamelessly only sitting here in order to get kissed. A multiple number of times. Hopefully.

Please, God, if you exist, can't you see fit to give me a little bit of action?


Right Now:
What I'm listening to: Taylor Swift's "Hey Stephen"
What I want most: More ROD-like contests. Do you know any? Leave me a comment!