Output - Bountiful? Barren?
As we round the final laps of the semester, I'm curious about others' production. Have you been fruitful, your work plentiful? Or have you labored over few pieces?
Novelists and memoirists: what have you to show?
Short story'ists: number of finished, started, abandoned pieces?
Poets: numbers?
I'm a s-l-0-w writer. Polished one short story, reckoned with a few paragraphs in a novel, began and will finish a novella.
What say you?
Novelists and memoirists: what have you to show?
Short story'ists: number of finished, started, abandoned pieces?
Poets: numbers?
I'm a s-l-0-w writer. Polished one short story, reckoned with a few paragraphs in a novel, began and will finish a novella.
What say you?
posted by malcolm at 11:07 AM
8 Comments:
I'm a slow writer too (especially this month). I've worked on maybe five or six stories this semester and added a couple of chapters to a novel. I think it's been small in the way of fruitful, like a blueberry vs. a watermelon. I anticipate summer won't be any better since I won't have the free daycare my kids go to Monday - Friday.
Output -- that's a curious word.
I've been bountiful in a melodious, stream-of-consciousness sort of way. Barren production? Ouch!
Sometimes the roughest draft ends up with just enough breath to survive in another life -- later.
Seriously, about five poems came out of me I didn't dream were there, and in semblances of form. I am just now beginning to understand the importance of self-imposed distance to my writing.
You guys are very helpful in that.
I think, given tbe state I was in when I came into the program, honestly, I'm getting kinda excited about the Melody who leaves it.
I expect my advisors will certainly earn their salaries in the next two years!
Big, astute observation, but it helps to remind ourselves we are certainly not alone in the manner we run into blocks, get lost going around a detour, or just plain wonder how we squeeze our respective "writers' lives" into the ones that pinch us.
Or, for some of us, it's the other way around.
"a blueberry vs. a watermelon" -- God, I love that!
Writers with kids -- clapclapclap! And a bow.
My advisor and I agreed to include new and revised work in our study plan.
The revisions have been challenging and fun, and have given me a few things to submit for publication. My new work, on the other hand, has been really tough. I'm working on characterization and dialogue--two things I've never-ever done before this semester. As far as the new work goes, it's taking much too much energy and time for very little work (and is really boring), but I hope by semester's end, I'll have a tool that I'm more comfortable using.
The output of revised/finished work is greater than I expected, and the output of new work is lower than I expected.
Dear friends, I can hardly wait to see you all as well and talk writing.Lene and I sat on the phone for over an hour the other night and just talked about our writing experiences. It was so cathartic and helpful as well. I am 3/4 of the way through my fifth packet as my ADVA is 2 weeks earlier than most of you. I am so excited about something. I used to have to wait for ADVA's written comments on my pages to start revising. I set aside a long story critiqued at the January residency and had yet to read the comments. I decided to try revising without reading the critiques and I couldn't believe it! I could actually see what needed fixing or delving on my own. Now that's a big step.
I had SO much revising to do every packet that I only got 3 new pieces done but I revised and revised 5 or 6 old pieces as well as revised the new stuff. I now have 3 or 4 pieces for publication. That's a lot to me. This packet I'm sending in all revisions but their big long ones, 54 pages! I got them done so I may as well send them. I feel very good about my work and have learned tons.
As always, I miss you guys badly.
Love,
Jewel
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I've been both bountiful and barren and about right. Seems I write bounty of pages any old time. Then, at some point you must revise and edit.
There is a part of me that looks like Edvard Munch's "The Scream" and says, "What about all my babies?" Mr. Kurtz he said, "The horror, the horror." Like Jewel, I'm pulling all kinds of old stuff out and viewing them with a new critical eye, yi, yi—Bonzai!
In the end, a large quantity becomes a small amount. It comes out about right, the pieces are the strongest I've ever written. I like how Lisa puts the fruitfulness of it, size isn't the indicator of quality.
But watermelons don't go into pancakes so good, unless you use power tools.
Let's see, about 80 pages of new material for the first four packets including one whopping revision/expansion of the workshop piece from December which leapt from about 15 pages to 38. I hope to revise two other long pieces that I submitted in Month 1 and 2, for the last packet. I don't feel anything is ready for publication at this point but I am hopeful that something close to that will be accomplished by the end of the semester. Previously, the longest nonfiction piece I'd ever done was pushing 12 pages. It has been an experience to "keep going" until the story is told.
Cursed with a/
terse muse/
whose ambitions exceed/
my capability/
unable to refuse competing demands/
I dribble/
weak prose/
onto the page.
Cheers, everybody. Looking forward to the res.
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