Hello!  This weekend I felt like a true lawyer/wannabe creative writer because I had way too much ish to do.  I had responsibilities for my real job (you know, the one paying the bills), and then the task of completing a short story for the creative writing class I’m taking (and meets tomorrow).  Assuming I finish, this story would actually be my second submission for the class.  The first was about a twenty-five year old girl who thought she had finally figured the world out when suddenly a childhood friend (but not a close one) was killed.  While that sounds depressing (and it was…but that wasn’t the point of it), pretty much all the stories that we read in that class are gloomy to say the least.  People are writing about messed up familial relationships, cheating husbands, and even dead babies (yikes!)  But I guess those are the experiences (whether yours or someone else’s) that stay with you, and thus inspire you to write.  Tragedy also happens to make for an interesting read…or at a minimum its makes readers feel better about their own lives. 🙂

But I digress.  Basically, this weekend I had a choice.  I could either a) revise my first story and resubmit it or b) write a new piece in order to maximize the benefits of the class.  I chose selection (b) and now I’m thinking that was a mistake.  That was way too ambitious of me.  First,  I tried to write from a perspective of a guy (in an attempt to understand how they think).  Then, because I quickly realized it’s so much easier to write from the perspective of a woman, I tried to create a short story with two point of views, which presents its own problems.  While my first story took one day to write, this one is proving to be much more difficult.  Yup, I’m thinking I made the wrong decision.

Oh, and by not editing my last story, I’m also unable to enter a Writer’s Digest contest that has a deadline of… tomorrow.  What a mess!  That said, I did find a link that lists contests by month, so maybe there will be others.  Ciao!