To be honest, I thought I'd get in this time. I mean, my writing has definitely got better - my flow's improved, my description is more precise.
But what hasn't changed is that I am obsessed with words still. The characters, the images in my "pieces" - they're just things to hang my words from. Some of the things I write I have been told are beautiful - but they're still overwrought because they're really about my language.
So even when my language is passionate, there's something dead about my writing. Poetry is about words: prose is about the story. I think that's what I have learned. I'll start using prosaic language to develop proper stories before I mix in the gift - which I feel is inarguable - that I have with language. And in another two years, maybe I'll apply again.
From the Community Profilefallen_scholarApril 7 2009, 22:51:22 UTC
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Now you've gone and made me feel guilty about it, even after I would have read you the riot act for the first post. I actually remember your first app. Your responses to comments bespoke more something than your writing showed. Besides, I always feel like I'm begging people to reapply, and they don't.
A friend of mine, who is a visual artist, has a day job as a teacher. She would do substitute work from time to time. The one thing she wouldn't teach, and hated to have to sub for, was art. Invariably, in every art class in every High School across the country there is That Kid. That Kid is talented beyond measure, but he looks upon the little stuff and goes "bah! I don't need that." So, when assigned something simple, he refuses, and does something more fitting his talents.
What That Kid doesn't understand is that, while his talents are ample, his skills are suffering, partially because of his talents. (Of course, one of the reasons my friends hates it more than most is because she was That Kid growing up, and knows how hard it is to get rid of that). That Kid is destined to be better than most, but could be one of the best.
I never really appreciated her story and situation until spending time in fictionslamming. The stuff that people fall down on is too simple. That's almost why they disregard it. To write a story, there need be a story. It's remarkably simple. And the overwhelming number of applicants fall down on it. Hell, I'd fault my own app on the same point.
This is not overwrought. That's why it's beautiful. It's wrought just how much it needs to be. These lines are lyrical in the literal sense of the word as song-like. Some aren't. (Short version - third paragraph bad; fourth paragraph good). The actual business in the first paragraph is good, as is the language of the second half once you get past someone else's ciches, but it shows rather than tells, so it doesn't satisfy as a story.
As such, I would flip your [implied] analogy. It's prose that's dead, all bones and structure with only the vivacity that you bring in. But, extending the analogy in weird ways, it provides proper stands for all the butterflies to sit around on.
And I don't know if this blathering was useful, but, seriously, a line like "I could take out my pistol and shoot them dead, like the time my father went down drunk into the basement and started shooting the rats," is the basis of something really good.
I applied before under the name of Eunuch Dreams two years ago, and got rejected three votes to two. (http://community.livejournal.com/fictionslamming/162667.html#cutid1)
To be honest, I thought I'd get in this time. I mean, my writing has definitely got better - my flow's improved, my description is more precise.
But what hasn't changed is that I am obsessed with words still. The characters, the images in my "pieces" - they're just things to hang my words from. Some of the things I write I have been told are beautiful - but they're still overwrought because they're really about my language.
So even when my language is passionate, there's something dead about my writing. Poetry is about words: prose is about the story. I think that's what I have learned. I'll start using prosaic language to develop proper stories before I mix in the gift - which I feel is inarguable - that I have with language. And in another two years, maybe I'll apply again.
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A friend of mine, who is a visual artist, has a day job as a teacher. She would do substitute work from time to time. The one thing she wouldn't teach, and hated to have to sub for, was art. Invariably, in every art class in every High School across the country there is That Kid. That Kid is talented beyond measure, but he looks upon the little stuff and goes "bah! I don't need that." So, when assigned something simple, he refuses, and does something more fitting his talents.
What That Kid doesn't understand is that, while his talents are ample, his skills are suffering, partially because of his talents. (Of course, one of the reasons my friends hates it more than most is because she was That Kid growing up, and knows how hard it is to get rid of that). That Kid is destined to be better than most, but could be one of the best.
I never really appreciated her story and situation until spending time in fictionslamming. The stuff that people fall down on is too simple. That's almost why they disregard it. To write a story, there need be a story. It's remarkably simple. And the overwhelming number of applicants fall down on it. Hell, I'd fault my own app on the same point.
This is not overwrought. That's why it's beautiful. It's wrought just how much it needs to be. These lines are lyrical in the literal sense of the word as song-like. Some aren't. (Short version - third paragraph bad; fourth paragraph good). The actual business in the first paragraph is good, as is the language of the second half once you get past someone else's ciches, but it shows rather than tells, so it doesn't satisfy as a story.
As such, I would flip your [implied] analogy. It's prose that's dead, all bones and structure with only the vivacity that you bring in. But, extending the analogy in weird ways, it provides proper stands for all the butterflies to sit around on.
And I don't know if this blathering was useful, but, seriously, a line like "I could take out my pistol and shoot them dead, like the time my father went down drunk into the basement and started shooting the rats," is the basis of something really good.
Reply
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