And the wine of our disconent/turns to the vinegar of what we meant

February 19

So I wrote some words today. I didn't finish the story-- that'll take another three or four thousand words, I guess. I could have finished it, but I've been feeling annoyingly stressed-out, so I eased up instead. I didn't do any work at all after about 7 o'clock, just read Slant, and had dinner with Scott and Lynne, and then watched If These Walls Could Talk 2 with them (which was very good).

Part of my stress is frustration with the story, I guess. I have it outlined, and it's full of neat stuff, but there are these elephant-sized expository lumps, and it's structured badly... I expect it to run around 10K in first draft, but I imagine I'll cut it to no more than 6,000. It'll be a tight and taut and fascinating story once I get it done, I think... but right now the gap between actuality and potential seems terribly large. I look back over my prose, and it's just a mess. If I cranked through to the end and sent it to my beloved contingent of first readers as-is, they'd all send me crits that began "Oh, Tim. First of all, I want to say I really like you as a person..."

I didn't think this Dare was burning me out (I mean, I've been racking up zero word-count days, you'd think I wouldn't be over-stressed), but maybe it is. There's a larger psychological strain for me when it comes to writing multiple short stories, as compared to working on a novel. With a book, I know the characters, and the plot, and the world, and I can just hum along creating wordage, more or less. With stories, I have to re-invent all those elements over again, and here on the fourth iteration that's getting a little difficult. These aren't fluff pieces, either-- all of these Dare stories, so far, have been important to me.

"Romanticore" is one of the hardest things I've ever tried to write, too. I want it to be good, and true, and honest. I'm afraid it's going to suck. More afraid than I should be, honestly-- this story's making me into something of an emotional wreck. It's dredging up all this stuff, romantic feelings and past jealousies and the breakdown of relationships and rememberances of betrayals past. I want to write letters to old girlfriends and apologize for being an asshole. I want to lay on my bed and cry over what might-have-been. For phlegmatic me, this is a startling and troubling intrusion of strange emotion. It had damned well better make the story better, at least. I don't know if it will. I really don't.

I needed tonight to decompress. Maybe I'll need tomorrow, too. I should work on my synopsis. I should read a book. I should unplug myself from everything for a while and just think, maybe write some poetry with no thought of polish or publication.

Gah. I'll be okay. Really. I had fun tonight. I just feel like everything in me is close to the surface right now, I'm hypersensitive.

Expect further progress reports on the morrow, lovelies.

Total Word Count: 36,367

Today's Word Count: 4,877

The Daring Darlings:

Jim C. Hines

Hilary Moon Murphy

Nicole Montgomery

Melanie Miller Fletcher

Karina Summer Smith

Anne Hutchins