Spinwork Blog

Finals’ time is here again, meaning fire season and impending doom. Things are actually looking pretty light this year, even though this semester holds the record as my worst academic performance pretty much ever. Senioritus is a flaming bitch. I’m actually convinced it hasn’t left me since high school, since most of college as-is has been like, “wait, I have to do work?”

That said–things are continuing to progress with Cloudnigh. Its been so long since I’ve been 100% dedicated to a fresh project like this that I’ve almost forgotten how exciting it is. Better still, is the feeling of streamlining and improvement of process that I’ve gained since the last time I undertook something like this. What’s weird is I’m actually taking to outlining this time. Nothing too restrictive–but something to go off of as I push forward. I’m recognizing that I really can’t just wing it like I’ve done in the past, since I’m actually (hopefully) going to have readers this time and I want to tell a solid story. The outline was actually finished last Sunday night (or early Monday morning, however you want to look at it), leading to a very interesting and demented flight back to Burlington (due to the sleep, of which I only got an hour, not the outline).

What was refreshing was realizing I had a pretty solid idea of the story already, after working on it throughout the summer of 2008, and the little bits I did even further back. Now that I’ve got a shell, my structure, character and continuity problems are a lot clearer, meaning I can now focus on where the story *will go* rather than where it *might* go.

In other news, I finished Vonnegut’s Breakfast of Champions last night. Without a doubt one of the funniest books I’ve ever read. There’s just something about his depravity that I can identify with–even initially I had no idea if he was just being flippant with his self-insertions, literary crutches, and commentary on the holes in the plot, or brilliant. That, and there were innumerable penis jokes, which everyone knows I’m far too mature to partake in pretty much made the book. I’m going to head back to reading Atlas Shrugged and its numerous philosophical posings and self-absorbed, romantically-materialistic, individual-exalting sex scenes.

Thanks for reading!

Spinner Uncategorized 2008, 2009, Atlas Shrugged, Breakfast of Champions, Cloudnigh, Outlines, Vonnegut

I’m sort of internally screaming in anguish that I’ve done next to no writing on anything since I’ve been in NY. I don’t know–maybe it’s distraction, or maybe its burn-out. There isn’t much exhaustion, or a lack of inspiration, really. A lot of my efforts have been going toward Lanternfly and building up to write the new scenes for the second draft. After that, I can really begin fiddling with it. But for some reason, I’m stuck in the mud. Ah well. As Erik would say, deep breaths.

For the moment I’ve refocused myself on Unwound, a short story I wrote last September and posted on IF (only visible if you have an account there). I’m really not impressed with the story at the moment. The end is massively cheesy, and suffers heavily from the unfocused emotional power-drive I was on when I wrote the damn thing. It’s the narrator that’s really getting me–and his voice. Its rare for me to reread something of mine and feel like I didn’t write it. Something about his tone, and the way he tells his story is so foreign from anything I’ve ever thought about or wrote.

I’m thinking of rewriting part of the story from a point and sending it in a different direction and focusing on the relationship between the man and the doctor, rather than his family. I just gotta put myself back where I was last September–and find the guy’s voice again. I’m really intent to see how this works out.

Thanks for reading.

Spinner Daily Blogging, Hellion, Short Works 2008, 2009, Editing, revisiting, Unwound