Vim
I wrote a story yesterday. A whole story. It was short, about ten pages. Possibly not any good either, though I won't know for a while. I planned to set it aside at least until today but my Beloved Mentor suggested (insisted would be the more accurate verb) that I put it away until September 10th. Which would be a week, I guess. Two weeks seems even better but I confess I am dying to read it again and see whether it's any good. In absentia it's become brilliant. By the time September 10th comes around it should be untouchable!
I haven't written a story like that, all in a rush, in a long time. I did that way in the summer of 1988 when I stayed at college and lived on lettuce and tried to write. I did write. I completed three first drafts, which was probably the most productive thing I ever did, though minute-by-minute I didn't get much done. But the truth is, as probably everyone knows, the stuff you write really fast is usually as good as, or, sadly, even better than the stuff you labor over. I try to take a lesson from this, but what is the lesson? To work fast all the time? To crank things out? To continue with the daily slog and just HOPE that these days of inspiration will be gifted to you now and then? I cannot help feeling this is a kind of breakthrough, the kind I've dreamed of for so long.
Or, less grandiosely, at least a proper turning point. Oh, please let it be a turning point.
I *have* been working steadily, if not faithfully. So some credit goes, certainly, to the time I've put in most boringly, day after day. And some credit goes to the reading I've done. This story would not have been written had I not picked up Douglas Watson's book, "The Era of Not Quite," which is wonderful. I learned of him through "One Story," the lit mag, which I love.
My using the word "credit" over and over makes it sound like I'm accepting an Oscar when all I've done is written a draft of a story. Possibly a very shitty story.
But for today let us imagine that the story is just fine as is. Let us go about our daily tasks with delight. Let us put fresh light bulbs every place that has gone dark, let us shake the crumbs out of the corners. Let us stand and stretch. My God it feels good!
I haven't written a story like that, all in a rush, in a long time. I did that way in the summer of 1988 when I stayed at college and lived on lettuce and tried to write. I did write. I completed three first drafts, which was probably the most productive thing I ever did, though minute-by-minute I didn't get much done. But the truth is, as probably everyone knows, the stuff you write really fast is usually as good as, or, sadly, even better than the stuff you labor over. I try to take a lesson from this, but what is the lesson? To work fast all the time? To crank things out? To continue with the daily slog and just HOPE that these days of inspiration will be gifted to you now and then? I cannot help feeling this is a kind of breakthrough, the kind I've dreamed of for so long.
Or, less grandiosely, at least a proper turning point. Oh, please let it be a turning point.
I *have* been working steadily, if not faithfully. So some credit goes, certainly, to the time I've put in most boringly, day after day. And some credit goes to the reading I've done. This story would not have been written had I not picked up Douglas Watson's book, "The Era of Not Quite," which is wonderful. I learned of him through "One Story," the lit mag, which I love.
My using the word "credit" over and over makes it sound like I'm accepting an Oscar when all I've done is written a draft of a story. Possibly a very shitty story.
But for today let us imagine that the story is just fine as is. Let us go about our daily tasks with delight. Let us put fresh light bulbs every place that has gone dark, let us shake the crumbs out of the corners. Let us stand and stretch. My God it feels good!