Looking At Myself Differently

Hello World!

What a month! It started with my second Marketing Yourself and Your Work class, included over a week off the grid at remote Holden Village in the North Cascade Mountins, and ended with preparation of a short story for a writing contest.

I put the fiction entry into the mail today. Taking the story of two secondary characters from my book, The Game, I stripped out the parts that were only necessary to the longer story, and shortened up the remaining 3,500 words into a 1,500 word story that (I thought) read quite well (entitled "Defining Love" or DL). Part of my process included thinking I had DL finished and having Tom read it and do a copy edit for me. He told me it was good, but not very good. As a rather common human story, it needed more color and descriptive language to make it unique. That set me off on an additional day of further rewriting that moved it up in both his and my ranking system. By the time I sent it in, we agreed that I had added a "very" to my good story.

I'm certain that two excellent stories will win the prizes, but I don't mind. As I take parts of DL and weave it  back into The Game, I know some important scenes will sparkle from the work I completed. The competition results won't be anounced until October at the "Write on the Sound" (WOTS) conference. I look forward to reading the winning stories and discovering what it would take to move a short story up in the ranks another notch.

I also will be attending a half-day workshop at WOTS where 10 of us with a local writer/professor will critique one anothers' writing. My next project is choosing and spiffing up (a technical term!) another section of The Game for submission to that class. I get to send in just 10 double spaced pages of text, so I'll have to skim through and find an appropriate segment.

The other presentations at WOTS look very helpful as well. Even though this conference is a local Edmonds, Washington affair, it appears that some talented people will offer invaluable assistance. I have to admit, I'm excited.