meghan rose allen

New mentor’s advice contradicts old mentor’s advice. I do like new mentor’s advice better so I’m not really complaining per se but I’m wondering about that thing in Burroway probably that if someone is giving advice, you don’t have to follow the advice, but you have to admit that there is something in your story that isn’t working.

And there is a lot in my story that isn’t working but I knew that even before I started this course. That is actually why I started this course: to help make some of the problems go away by having impartial eyes upon it.

I also just wish that Come From Away would go away.

And I keep typing LaTeX markup rather than HTML in this post so clearly I need to be doing something else right now.

This and that has been happening. Tesfa had a five day weekend because her school has a lot of long weekends. She spent her days off back at Montessori and I had some more time to work, which I spent typing because typing is what I do. But, then, after typing, I don’t feel much like coming here to type, so things have happened that I haven’t much commented on and now I’ll do it in one, large, glurggy, list.

1. Typed more of my faerie story. Changed the mechanics again, but this is why I am typing it up. I can’t remember all the mechanics I’ve used so far in my notebook and typing is supposed to be helping me weave together all the threads. Instead, I see plot holes that need fixing. Maybe I’ll fix them by magic again.
2. My writing mentor for my course is incapacitated. So I got a new writing mentor. There is no onomatopoeia that really fits here – but picture me making the sound of grinding my teeth. Things happen. Only one month in. Not that much work lost. Still, me grinding my teeth.
3. I learned about the word saudade, which is a good word for my time-travelling story about loops that I haven’t written or really thought about yet.
4. Everyone’s first novel is a failure. So I keep telling myself about Come From Away. It’s okay. It’ll make my faerie story all the better
5. I got a rejection (We were intrigued by your writing, but didn’t feel that this particular submission was a good fit for the next issue). Did my sulk. Then sent in another story to another journal (The Antigonish Review – they will publish something of mine someday!) Then (more onomatopoeia sound of happiness or joy or something) got an email about being a finalist in short story contest. I don’t know if I’m allowed to link to the contest or the journal before the results are announced, so I won’t, but check back in a few days because they’re supposed to give me the results soon and then you can find out if I won or if I am a finalist and either way, they are publishing a story of mine, so stay tuned.

I’ve been feeling really jealous of a lot of other writers lately. Great and talented people are getting published in America, not even people I know but people I respect, and I sit here feeling all sulky when I could be doing what would get me published and known, that is, writing so that one day all my writing practice will segue into writing great fiction. I write dribs and drabs and then get annoyed and watch Netflix.

Someone I know wrote a book and I would love to hate it, except it is a good book (a little too much slut-shaming in some parts). So I write positive reviews for it on librarything and goodreads and sulk some more. I eat stale gingersnaps and cross my arms and stare out the window.

I go back and forth on giving up. I say I’ll take a break and then think of a story idea and write a short story about Jersey cows. I think Maybe I should stick with short fiction then spend six hours on two pages of Come From Away, which is now fifty thousand words, because I simply can’t let that one go. I tell myself YA is the way to go as my YA faerie story veers further and further from YA and into adult territory. I decide that listening to myself is not what I should be doing.

I read books by amazing writers. You know how they got to be amazing writers? I ask myself. Not by watching Netflix all day. Not by planning a birthday party for a five year old for more time than it should take to plan a birthday party for a five year old. Not by sulking how the receptionist at the car dealership wasn’t as friendly to you this time as last time. Not by still being hurt that a family member forgot their birthday when it is October and the forgotten birthday was in July and it’s a bit too late now to bring up forgetting their birthday. Amazing writers actually write stuff down. Then they rewrite and reframe and move all the parts around and get a story. That is what writers do.

So I should write. But oh my goodness, I found an advent calendar tutorial and I’ll likely distract myself with that instead.

Me to Geoff: I am going to write a story about Jersey cows. Those are the brown ones.

Geoff: Sure. Whatever.

Two hours later.

Geoff: What are you doing?

Me: Writing my story about Jersey cows. See, here’s the word `Jersey’ and here’s the word `Jersey’ and here’s the word `Jersey’. I am showing you because you totally don’t believe me that I’m writing a story about Jersey cows.

Geoff: Well, seriously? Did you expect I would believe you? Who writes a grown-up story about cows?