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Clarion Week 1: TGIFFFFFFF June 30, 2006 Really glad it's Friday. I know I'm not young anymore. I know sleep loss is cumulative. I've been going to bed usually between 1-2AM to get my critiques done, and then waking up 5-6AM to get my writing done before breakfast. I might have been okay, but this last night might have been the deal-breaker. I can't remember the last time I was so tired. On the bright side, my second story's done. I considered turning it in now (for a Monday critique I think), but I think I'm too tired to judge it properly. And I figure it would go to the back of the queue behind those who haven't turned in their first story yet anyway. Might as well take the time to reread it when I have more time. It's about 3,000 words, which is an odd wordcount for me. It's been about three years since I wrote anything longer than 1,500 words and shorter than 7,000. 3-6,000 words has been my target wordcount for stories over the last four months, and iit looks like I'm finally getting there. Either that or this story is missing a lot of important stuff. I'll figure it out this weekend. Either way, I know I won't be able to keep up this schedule. I'm digging the morning writing, so I'm hoping I'll be able to get faster with the critiques. It's just that the the stories are long and numerous (we've got a big classs) and i'm still such a slow reader. I'm not doing as much hanging out as the rest of the group seems to, but I don't think timewise I can afford much more. We'll see. Really hoping I don't read my story (as well as this journal post!) tomorrow and think: "Are these even sentences?" Filed under Clarion, Journal, Prose and Poetry  
Comments: Discuss this entry at LiveJournalOverall, I really enjoyed this post. I think the protagonist was well-rounded, the conflict was clearly laid out at the start, and although there seems to be no clear resolution at the end, I felt there were enough challenges laid out during the course of the post for the protagonist to have gone through some kind of transformative process in dealing with them. Nice world-building details, too. I look forward to reading your next post. Good job! Posted by: Livia Llewellyn at June 30, 2006 7:53 AM 
Ditto what Livia said about the conflict. I think this could be developed into a much longer post, or maybe even a series. I do think you might want to take a closer look at your structure, though. The five paragraph approach is done so often in schools that it's really hard to do anything original. Overall though, I'm really liking your protagonist, and I feel very sympathetic for the struggles he's going through. Posted by: Jim at June 30, 2006 12:01 PM
Morning writing rules! Posted by: Aimee Poynter at June 30, 2006 2:53 PM
*grin* Posted by: Shveta at June 30, 2006 5:40 PM
Hey ... are you guys also at Clarion? Or am I wayyyy too green? MISTER Wilsonnn ... you trained for a marathonnn. You can also do thisss. Posted by: Alan at June 30, 2006 8:43 PM
Well, as long as y'all like the protagonist, I figure the rest will take care of itself. Hey Alan. Livia, Sveta, and Aimee above are with me at Clarion. Jim's the author of the fantasy novel Goblin Quest, and he'll be dropping by to talk to the Clarion Class later this summer. You can find links to all of their websites/blogs here: Alex. Posted by: Alex at July 1, 2006 9:17 AM
by Alex Wilson. This is from an online journal/blog I kept from 1998-2009. Back to alexwilson.com. |