and this post's going to be a short one, too.
Ten of those 14 days I've been fighting off a nasty cold or the flu, and I haven't been writing, reading, or even thinking any more than necessary to get through the days. Of course, during that time foolish me started a new Grub Street class (10 Weeks, 10 Stories with Chip Creek) with two assignments due already, and I promised delivery to various folk of a flash fiction piece and a lit-mag review.
I was barely able to crank out a new piece to my writer's group that I revised and ended up reading at a fantastical literary salon last night, although now I want to revise that piece again and send it out for possible publication.
So why am I even bothering to blog?
Beats me. Warm-up exercise, avoidance behavior, guilt, I'm sure they all play a part. Oh, and a desire to plug Cathy Elick's Run for Grub fund-raising efforts. Help support a worthy cause.
The good news here, maybe the only news, is that I'm feeling well enough to think again, and therefore well enough to write regularly. Hope you're all feeling at least that good.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Everything That Doesn't Look Like an Elephant
Editing my flash fiction, stories under 500 words, reminds me of the old joke: How do you carve a statue of an elephant? Start with a block of marble, and remove everything that doesn't look like an elephant.
Except that you don't only carve away -- with words, unlike marble, you can also choose to replace the offending piece. This makes the writer's job easier than the sculptor's in some way (infinite supply of material), and worse in others (infinite supply of material). After chipping off a misshapen 'trunk', for example, you'll typically want to find a new word to take its place. (portmanteau, suitcase, or coffer might do).
I wrote the first draft of a new flash yesterday, revised it then and there for overall shape (yep, sorta looks like an elephant), and today I've been doing serial, iterative, revisions, first sentence by sentence and now word by word. Lots of them. Halfway through the day, I wondered what the piece would look like if I'd turned on "Track Changes" in Word, but I'm probably better off not knowing.
End of the day, it definitely looks like an elephant to me. Tomorrow I'll be reading it out loud, to see if it sounds like one.
Except that you don't only carve away -- with words, unlike marble, you can also choose to replace the offending piece. This makes the writer's job easier than the sculptor's in some way (infinite supply of material), and worse in others (infinite supply of material). After chipping off a misshapen 'trunk', for example, you'll typically want to find a new word to take its place. (portmanteau, suitcase, or coffer might do).
I wrote the first draft of a new flash yesterday, revised it then and there for overall shape (yep, sorta looks like an elephant), and today I've been doing serial, iterative, revisions, first sentence by sentence and now word by word. Lots of them. Halfway through the day, I wondered what the piece would look like if I'd turned on "Track Changes" in Word, but I'm probably better off not knowing.
End of the day, it definitely looks like an elephant to me. Tomorrow I'll be reading it out loud, to see if it sounds like one.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
