Wednesday, December 9, 2009

recent writing

lately it's been rejection after rejection. i got a longer story accepted by night train. but the coldness of form rejections has stymied my writing, trapped me in my head a little.

i'm working slowly on a novella. it feels like stringing together flashes, and the experience is sometimes nauseating; this one might be doomed. i am constantly worried that i won't be able to make it long enough for book form, which seems extremely vain.

is worrying about length vain? do you ever feel pressured to lengthen? perhaps it's just another form of inspiration, which is itself a vain anguish.

what do you think about multiple narrators in a work? is it outdated? should 'outdated' even apply to aesthetics? no, it shouldn't, but it inevitably does. i suppose i am not brave; i guess my voice is just weakening. but multiple voices: how do you manage them? what if the voices sound the same? do they have to be radically different? what is the nature of "voice" in an artwork?

etc.

1 comment:

  1. I often feel pressure to lengthen, and even when the right inspiration comes along I'm disappointed by how little it's increased, and then I get depressed that I'm vain enough to care. Congratulations, me: my first penis joke!

    "Long enough" by whose standards? How is inspiration a form of anguish? Why am I not asking you this on gchat? Vanity?

    ReplyDelete