Accomplishment

I have just met one of my goals for the year. I submitted my work to a story contest, thereby meeting the number of contests I promised myself I would enter. I'm freaking out just a little because that's what I do after doing something brave and/or new.

Eek!!

Now, I have to meet a different goal...better get that greeting card company off the ground, eh?


_

Flabbergasted #2

I don't GET people!!!! Their cruelty and/or complete idiocy...it boggles .

Excitement!!!

Thanks to the lovely and talented Robin McKinley (and, before her, Jodi Meadows of same), I offer you the newest Joss Whedon project! "Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-long Blog"!!!

It will be appearing for one week only (although whoever buys the eventual DVD with extras for me for Christmas gets extra-mega bonus points) online. This work of genius and merriment stars Neil Patrick Harris as Dr. Horrible and the ever popular Nathan Fillion as Captain Hammer. There's singing, cute-meeting, world taking over, and a special appearance by the henchman of the legendary Dark Horse, leader of the villiany world!!

I offer you a link to the justification behind said project. Click on "Home" at the top of this page to get to the videos. Only about 14 minutes long, and worth every second, even if you're watching them illicitly at work.

http://drhorrible.com/plan.html

Go! GOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!

Nesting and Longing

"Nesting" is perhaps a much stronger term than what I'm actually doing which is cleaning my apartment so that I can call maintenance to fix my air conditioning. It may not be that bad but it FEELS that bad, plus, I need a good excuse to motivate me. Anyhoodle, last night I tidied the dining area (which, you'll notice from the pictures, is also the library area...one of them, at any rate) and I finally implemented what I've been planning for eons. I created the centerpiece and set the table in permanent fashion (though I'd actually love to have placemats for the settings, but I haven't found any free ones that work). It's a different arrangement in the middle than I planned, but I can't find the green bowl that's supposed to go there so I was improvising. And I'm actually rather pleased with how it turned out.





In other, not-at-all-related news, I found a plane ticket to see Amy over Labor Day weekend--for $283!!!! However, I don't have $283. Who among us does, really? Which is too bad, because it's the perfect time for me to take a few days and visit. You see, she's getting married next spring. We've been talking about this day since we met in 11th grade. Now it's come upon us, and I'm far away. I can't help with any of the planning that we'd always imagined. I didn't even get to go wedding dress shopping with her. And I've never met her fiance. I'd really like to meet Andy before their wedding day, you know? He's going to be kind of important in my life. I'd also love to see her house and meet her dog and hang out with her mom and see the wedding dress and go bridesmaid dress shopping and... Nonetheless, neither of us has the fundage for such a trip, not even at this price.

She suggested I set up a PayPal donation account to raise the funds (and quickly, before this crazy special disappears), but I'm just not sure how I feel asking my very nearly as poor friends/readers to contribute to this trip for me. It's something that's VERY important to me, but it feels...well, I don't know how to describe it. I guess I'm asking how you all would feel about that? Or maybe I'm just asking for possible solutions and/or prayers. Yep. Email, facebook message, or post on here. Whatevs.

Confusion

There's a story I've written that I wish to send into a contest with an end-of-the-month deadline. I took it to writers group and I sent it to my cousin and sister, both of whom I trust to give me good feedback.

I feel like I should trust the opinion of the latter two over that of my group. After all, Steph and Jen have been writing like mad things for years upon years and are extremely widely read. Not only that, they're used to reading things in the genres that have most influenced me.

The general consensus with both groups seems to be that it's good. Possibly even very good. "Beautiful" was a word thrown about in both spheres, which is a lovely thing to hear. However...

I got far more criticism and suggestion from the writing group. That maybe the end could be stronger---more deliverance that I offered. That I needed dialogue throughout (which I think I'm actually going to ignore. I feel like so often writing teachers hit "Dialogue, dialogue!" as a necessary strength of all writing, but some of my favorite authors write incredible things fairly consistently with a minimum of chatter. I think it's a good rule of thumb, but if one's particular voice isn't dialogue heavy, does it HAVE to be?). And a few other things.

I thought they were valid at the time, and I took some notes on how to fix it. But now I'm not sure I should. There are a couple of things I definitely want to add. Sometimes, though, I feel like the folks in my group want EVERYTHING shown to them in a story, and, well, stories don't necessarily do that. They show you the important, relevant bits. One woman said that she found herself making things up about the family and the main character's life outside the story because I didn't put it in there and she thought I should add those things so she didn't have to imagine them. But isn't that actually a good thing? That you connect to the characters so much, you respond to them as you would a real person, imagining their life outside the moment you know them in?

I suppose the only thing to do is to tackle yet another rewrite, then look at them side by side and see which I prefer. Because while I'd very much like to win, in the end, I don't want to win by being someone else.