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05.04
my friend sent me a course on short stories from her creative writing programme and i finally started looking at it. the first assignment was to write a short story using the words "coughing", "flattery" and "overgrown". i started writing something from the pov of a woman whose husband was dying. it was so depressing i had to stop. i also had no idea where i was going with it other than just writing depressing stuff about loss (i think i was kind of processing the loss of my cat last year).
view draft here
10.04
i started writing kind of a weird feminist story and it accidentally turned into something quite erotic. i wonder where this will go.
12.04
i think i finished my first draft so i'm gonna sit on it for a week or so and then see if i still think it's any good
14.03
started a new short story based on another prompt from the creative writing programme: take a fragment from Simon Armitage's narrative poem "Upon Opening the Chest Freezer" and write a story based on it. having fun with it but i'm kind of sleep-deprived and my brain keeps crashing.
Kurt Vonnegut's basics of creative writing:
17.04
i couldn't sleep so i got up at 2am and started writing an essay on desire. kind of scared to go back and read it now. i can never tell if my late night thoughts are unhinged in a good way or a bad way.
21.04
i'm pretty pleased with how my short story (the weird feminist one) is going. i gave it a title and sent it to a friend but i'm scared to send it to friends who actually write fiction themselves lol. the friend who read it liked it tho. might try and submit it somewhere once i am ready to commit to a pen name...
been thinking about pen names since my real surname kind of gives old white guy which is not the vibe i'm going for. current top options are Diabolo Menthe and Elio Myrtille.
oh also i posted that essay on desire.
28.04
i've committed to a pen name (for now): elio mara, the surname meaning "of the sea" in scottish gaelic. so the full name could be translated as "sun of the sea" which is me :)
i also submitted one story to the Weird Lit Mag and another to Flash Fiction Magazine. good luck to my stories, out there in the big scary world...
a poem about tears
my patience ends
long before my tears do
I've built a waterfall between us
only the bravest may cross
in my dreams, you arrive
bruised and dripping
my knight in crying armour
and you tell me the climb was worth it
and I never weep again
05.05
i've been feeling crazy and needed to word-vomit about it again. read about my sick and sad love life here haha
09.05
been suddenly getting an influx of notifications and subscriptions on substack and it is both inspiring me to write more and also making me more self-conscious.
some notes on writing and revision from this essay by Donald M. Murray that may be useful:
Most writers scan their drafts first, reading as quickly as possible to catch the larger problems of subject and form, and then move in closer and closer as they read and write, reread and rewrite.
The first thing writers look for in their drafts is information. They know that a good piece of writing is built from specific, accurate, and interesting information. The writer must have an abundance of information from which to construct a readable piece of writing.
Next writers look for meaning in the information. The specifics must build to a pattern of significance. Each piece of specific information must carry the reader toward meaning.
Writers reading their own drafts are aware of audience. They put themselves in the reader’s situation and make sure that they deliver information which a reader wants to know or needs to know in a manner which is easily digested. Writers try to be sure that they anticipate and answer the questions a critical reader will ask when reading the piece of writing.
Writers make sure that the form is appropriate to the subject and the audience. Form, or genre, is the vehicle which carries meaning to the reader, but form cannot be selected until the writer has adequate information to discover its significance and an audience which needs or wants that meaning.
Once writers are sure the form is appropriate, they must then look at the structure, the order of what they have written. Good writing is built on a solid framework of logic, argument, narrative, or motivation which runs through the entire piece of writing and holds it together. This is the time when many writers find it most effective to outline as a way of visualizing the hidden spine by which the piece of writing is supported.
The element on which writers spend a majority of their time is development. Each section of a piece of writing must be adequately developed. It must give readers enough information so that they are satisfied. How much information is enough? That’s as difficult as asking how much garlic belongs in a salad. It must be done to taste, but most beginning writers underdevelop, underestimating the reader’s hunger for more information.
As writers solve development problems, they often have to consider questions of dimension. There must be a pleasing and effective proportion among all the parts of the piece of writing. There is a continual process of subtracting and adding to keep the piece of writing in balance.
Finally, writers have to listen to their own voices. Voice is the force which drives a piece of writing forward. It is an expression of the writer’s authority and concern. It is what is between the words on the page, what glues the piece of writing together. A good piece of writing is always marked by a consistent, individual voice.
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