Two days ago, I got news that one of my stories has been accepted at The Rusty Toque. Today I submitted a story for Sarah Selecky‘s Little Bird Writing Contest. The pieces are dichotomic. The first, I wrote in a fit of pique while annoyed with feeling unwelcome in my own home. It’s short (funnily 666 words long). If I had to pick a word (other than bone-crushingly depressing, which is actually two words) to describe the first story, it would be spiky. Everything juts out and sticks into flesh and there is nothing internal about it.
The second, well, the second I workshopped alone to death and now I don’t even like it, but I submitted it anyway because I told myself I would. It’s like one of those rubber, bouncy super-balls. It’s almost glossy and the glossiness has rubbed away anything authentic. The piece isn’t bad in the way that some of the things I’ve read in my life are bad, it just seems over-workshopped, which is funny since I workshopped it by my lonesome. I shouldn’t complain about it because I’m sure in some internet/karmic way, complaining about my story will mean I won’t win (which, is likely I won’t anyways because there are lots of submissions and not all can win). But I feel like I made this story accessible, but I haven’t yet learned how to make my writing be my writing and accessible at the same time. It’s funny how I can accept awkwardness in my first piece, but the second piece leaves me uncomfortable and ready to disown it entirely.
So we’ll see. Spiky and awkward versus smooth but inauthentic. I’m putting myself out there. Following through. Accepting not always winning. All those sentences that should be on a motivational poster, I’m doing them. Maybe it’ll work out in the end.
And it is Friday – in three weeks, I will be in a big city which has Ethiopian restaurants. Oh, messer wot, I am coming for you soon.