Hello, squiders! As you can see, I have survived the children. (I called one poor child the wrong name like three times, and this will haunt me forever.)
I think it went decently! I do like talking about outlining, and the kids were interested in what I had to say, and they asked lots of questions. Afterward, the teacher thanked me as well and said she also learned a lot, so, uh, mission accomplished, I guess. I ended up talking to them/answering questions for like an hour and a half.
(And then, in the weekly email, she wrote about me coming to visit as a highlight of the week, which is also a little embarrassing, but why, right? It was a positive experience for everyone (except maybe the poor kid I called the wrong name) and I should take pride in my writing skills and knowledge but I still get weird about being an author and having other people acknowledge said fact.)
(What is especially awful about calling this kid the wrong name is that my youngest literally went to his birthday party like the week before.)
I have run into a bit of an issue with my revision. I was so excited for it, and I wrote all those side scenes, and the critique meeting went so well…
…but I haven’t actually started the revision.
There’s no reason to not start–everything is in place–but for some reason I’m stuck here.
Could be that I burnt myself out temporarily with the side scenes, and my brain is like, “oh, project done,” instead of realizing that was just, I don’t know. Background info. I write side scenes all the time when writing or revising because it helps me to know how other characters are feeling in certain moments, which helps me make them feel more real even when they’re not viewpoint characters, and to know how things that are happening off-screen are going down. But I don’t tend to write a bunch at a time, and I did make a list and work through it, so it’s possible my brain got a little crosswired.
Whatever the reason, we seem to be off on a horror short story side quest. I started a horror story in, oh, August, I want to say? But I never finished it because I wasn’t really getting anywhere, and I realized I was procrastinating my submission materials and needed to focus on that.
And I found this submission call yesterday for a found fiction zine that actually solidified an idea I’ve been vaguely playing with for the past year and a half (of course the submission window closes in TWO DAYS but I can probably make that if I, you know, focus).
But, of course, I should work on my revision.
But maybe I’ll take this week off, write these two short stories, and refocus next week, once my brain is hopefully back on track. I can at least start a new draft document now, and maybe that will help the ol’ muse realize that it’s not done with this project and we’d better get on it.
The critique marathon traditionally starts the first week of June, which is also when my next in-person critique meeting is, so I have a little bit of time. Plus my writing retreat is the last weekend of this month, so that should help me get into the meat of things as well.
(And I wrote the rest of this last night but never actually finished it. Good job, me. But I have at least made a revision document now.)
Part of the issues with May is that school is ending, and so we have year-end everything, and separate things for both kids and everything is awful. Everyone’s schedules are wonky and so they are grumpy. And I find myself procrastinating with mindless things more than usual.
Ah well.
How are you doing? Getting to do the things you want to do? Brain cooperating?
