I had some storytime early this morning—and by that I mean time to play around with the short story I’m writing before I had to go to work. Sure, I was sitting between two nosy newspaper readers who kept glancing at my screen, sure, it was cold and my ears about froze off on the walk there, and sure there’s a lot of work to be done on the story, but still. Sometimes a tiny taste is enough.
Thing is, I’m not sure if working on only stories is enough. I know at the beginning of 2007 I said I had no real resolutions for what I’d set out to accomplish this year, but that’s pretty much impossible for me. I’m a girl of gradiose dreams, always have been, and in order to crawl closer to the dream I make little markers for myself to hit. It seems more attainable that way, even if it’s more attainable by the smallest smidge of a smidge. Always secretly hopeful, you know? So… for the first half of the year my plan has been to focus on the short-story collection. Write a story a month, that kind of thing. But there’s an itch—I feel it now—an itch to write something longer—a novel. Either a new one or the one I have from before. What is holding me back? Oh, that’s right: Fear. Fear of rejection (again). Fear of complete and utter failure. I really wish I could get past this.
But back to stories. Let’s just talk about stories because they’re smaller, and quicker, and when I’m working on a story I can see to the end. Also, you don’t need a literary agent to publish them. I like that a lot.
So speaking of stories, it’s been exciting—and fun—and just plain weird—to have people read my story I mentioned in the post below. Before going to bed last night I posted about it on Myspace and now some people I never expected to have any interest in a story published in a literary journal have read it and messaged me. It’s cool. Mostly. Also it’s like being exposed. I guess this is what those published authors feel when they’re up on the stage staring at an audience of people who’ve read their book—a million trillion times more, yes—but it is a bit like someone seeing your underwear and then feeling free to tell you what they think about the color, now isn’t it?
distraction no.99 