Sunday, January 13, 2008

A renewed commitment

I admit it, I fell off the blogging wagon. First I was getting ready to be away from a week from work and home, then I went to the Bahamas for Christmas, then I came home and caught up only to leave again to go to my last (sad!) MFA residency. But now I'm back, my writing batteries super recharged, and I'm ready to post!

I'll start with my ubiquitous list of writerly things to do:

This semester I'm putting together my thesis. Yikes! That means I'll be revising 5 short stories and 2 short short stories, getting them to a finished state (whatever that means!).

The first one I'm working on is called Sit, Stay. It's the first story I wrote for the program, more than 18 months ago. It's about a woman who runs a dog pound who befriends a woman who has come to drop off a puppy that was thrown from a moving van in front of her house. Both of the women are fragile, though, because of recent personal losses, and even forming a friendship is difficult for them, it makes them feel very vulnerable. Some questions I need to answer before I can revise:

Whose story is this?

If it's Tracey's (the woman who works at the pound, and whose point of view the story is now told from), what changes in her? What does this episode mean to her?

Should the story be in first person? Or should it be in third so I can follow both women?

What's at stake for the characters?

I just reread the story, and even though I wrote it so long ago, I'm finding it hard to think about tearing it apart, though I think my first step should be rewriting it from the third person POV and seeing what that does. Wish me luck! Best Blogger Tips

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Welcome back, Bug! Let's discuss tropical vacations and writing soon!

Unknown said...

So glad to see you back!
Happy New Year!

TI said...

Good luck! It was so amazing to see you and I'm glad we recommitted to the blogs.

Anonymous said...

hi! i saw your comment over @ poet mom and stopped by. welcome back!

you mentioned studying @ lesley -- i had the pleasure of studying with elizabeth mckim for a weekend in september through my expressive arts training. do you work with her in your studies?

GoGo said...

Good luck.

Writer Bug said...

Thanks so much for all the comments! You're all making this getting back on track thing so much easier.

Becca said...

Missed you, Bug!

Good luck with your revisions.

When you have a moment, check out my new blog about all things bookish. You'll find it here:

http://ravenousreader.wordpress.com

DJPare said...

Welcome back to the blogoshpere, CJ!

Sounds like you'll have plenty of things to submitt to the group over the next few months as well!

Idiot Cook said...

Yay! You're so good and inspiring! How'd the third person experiment go?

Writer Bug said...

Thank you all for your well wishes. Don, I most definitely will have stuff to submit!

RB, the third person experiment is going well, though it's still scary to change things so much. But I'm trying to forget the fact that there is a big fat deadline looming only a few months away, and allow this experiment to feel more free... We'll see how well I can fool myself. :) How's your stuff coming?

January said...

Woo hoo! Welcome back and Happy New Year!