Writer, indie publisher, et cetera
Posts tagged Writing
Goals
Feb 10th
I have to submit a creative writing packet of 20-30 pages each month for Bennington. I’ve been using the good ol’ 300 word a day minimum routine I set for myself in Haverford when I was working on my first novel (‘At the Slaughter’). The plan has been working well. I’m getting a lot of work done on the novel I’m writing now. I’m calling the thing ‘Fine Creature.’ (I can pick a good short story title by my novel titles are always lame.)
There’s a decent amount of dirty Jersey politics in this book. I needed some distance from the intense reporter days to really reflect on the politics so as not to let it subsume the other elements of the book or correlate too closely to actual events. I think I’ve acquired that distance. At least, I hope I have. I’ve got a little under 25k words to the book so far. I’m aiming for 60k though it looks like this will wind up being longer. I’m hoping to have a first draft done by the end of the year.
Workshop
Nov 12th
I start Bennington’s MFA program in January. I have to get 25 pages into them by Dec. 1 for workshopping. It’s going well. I’m going to send a novel excerpt, which is probably dumb, but all the promoting for The Suburban Swindle has left me drained and wanting to back off short stories for awhile. I kind of disappear into a novel when I’m in that writing headspace. I like that. I know I’m getting into the right tempo when I start forgetting whether or not an event happened in real life or in the book I’m working on. Those kind of non-memory memories are wonderfully redeeming. If I can trick myself, maybe I can trick y’all.
I haven’t done a workshop session since college and never on any substantial work. Anybody want to scare me with workshopping horror stories or links to horror stories? Just trying to expel the demons.
Oh, and Word Riot Press got name-checked in GalleyCat for picking up Nick Antosca’s Midnight Picnic. I keep wanting to call it Midnight Panic for some reason. I don’t know why. At least one person found Word Riot by googling “Nick Antosca” and “Midnight Panic” so I’m not alone.
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