The Pressure
Because I am a writer and deal in subtleties and hidden meanings, the title today has multiple meanings. For one, I am pushing myself to finish a story for WotF by this weekend. For another, I am also pushing myself to read all the full manuscripts sitting in my "Unread Fulls" folder so I can feel caught up. But for final, I have the world's worst cold and it feels like the Smurfs are busting out of my head.
This weekend Chrissy, Adia and I attended the madness that is NorWesCon, where I critiqued some stories and even sat in on my first panel. We didn't have Mary here this year, but we did have Ken Scholes, John Pitts, Jay Lake, Lisa Mantchev, Harold Gross, and a host of other wonderful people that I see far too little. I got to talk about where writers get their ideas to a full room with some other wonderful people, which was a lot of fun. We talked about dreams, word association, making up stories about place names on the freeway, or just dropping first lines. I still need a story to go with this first line: "The snow blew over five dead bodies, two large and three small."
I also talked about inserting one idea into another--like taking some of the disabled people I used to work with and putting them into my new novel.
We attended Talebones Live, which was a little underwhelming after the epic beauty of last year, but was still pretty good. We also saw a lot of people walking around on leashes, with little stars over their nipples, or in other ways contributing to the strange, strange atmosphere of NorWesCon.
I missed another panel and my reading to spend Easter with Chrissy's family and cook them dinner. I was so exhausted that I didn't stick around for dessert and collapsed into bed afterward. Now I have awoken with a nasty nasty cold virus that has me feeling like crap.
One of the weird things about being around my friends who are also some of my favorite writers is that in the past it's made me envious and depressed. This time it didn't, and believe me, just about anything can make me depressed coming out of finals week without any band practice. Instead, I got energized and woke up before the con to start a story. It's done now, and it's an absolute mess, but I think I'll have something for Writers of the Future this quarter. Excellent, he said while rubbing his hands together in a most cliched way.
This weekend Chrissy, Adia and I attended the madness that is NorWesCon, where I critiqued some stories and even sat in on my first panel. We didn't have Mary here this year, but we did have Ken Scholes, John Pitts, Jay Lake, Lisa Mantchev, Harold Gross, and a host of other wonderful people that I see far too little. I got to talk about where writers get their ideas to a full room with some other wonderful people, which was a lot of fun. We talked about dreams, word association, making up stories about place names on the freeway, or just dropping first lines. I still need a story to go with this first line: "The snow blew over five dead bodies, two large and three small."
I also talked about inserting one idea into another--like taking some of the disabled people I used to work with and putting them into my new novel.
We attended Talebones Live, which was a little underwhelming after the epic beauty of last year, but was still pretty good. We also saw a lot of people walking around on leashes, with little stars over their nipples, or in other ways contributing to the strange, strange atmosphere of NorWesCon.
I missed another panel and my reading to spend Easter with Chrissy's family and cook them dinner. I was so exhausted that I didn't stick around for dessert and collapsed into bed afterward. Now I have awoken with a nasty nasty cold virus that has me feeling like crap.
One of the weird things about being around my friends who are also some of my favorite writers is that in the past it's made me envious and depressed. This time it didn't, and believe me, just about anything can make me depressed coming out of finals week without any band practice. Instead, I got energized and woke up before the con to start a story. It's done now, and it's an absolute mess, but I think I'll have something for Writers of the Future this quarter. Excellent, he said while rubbing his hands together in a most cliched way.
posted by Spencer at 8:18 PM
2 Comments:
For me, the worst thing about feeling envious of my friends is knowing that I WANT to only be happy for them. I think you're, like, becoming mature or something.
(anyway, you're a better writer than any of them. they are great, but in comparison to you they sucketh)
I'm sorry to hear about your cold, though it does give me a smile to remember a photo you sent me during our missions in which you were wrapped in a blanket and looking very pale. On the back was the caption, "Elder Sick, and his clever way of getting out of work."
Actually, lots of things about you make me smile, my friend.
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