|
Do you Goodreads? It's the day before I level up! Follow my Goodreads author site.
I'm shooting for 20 followers this month. https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/18132635.Maria_J_Estrada I follow back. Thank you!
0 Comments
 This morning, I was thinking about yesterday's dialogue lecture I gave to my creative writing students. There was a lot of great advice in that lecture that I need to take or reaffirm. Like, remember that less is more. Dialogue should move the story along. And of course, analyze the dialogue from favorite stories and novels (like Misery). Sometimes going back to the basics is a great idea, especially when you are in a writing funk, which apparently I am in right now. Again.
Regardless, this weekend, I have the grandiose goal of finishing my short story collection. It's become grandiose because I have been making a big mountain out of my writing, instead of putting hard work into it and enjoying the process. One of the issues with the last story is that the main character's overall desire is not clear. She wants to go to college, but she is struggling financially, since her father abandoned her. Maybe that could be her goal, getting to college. She is also dealing with the bullshit of being a teenager and social pressures to lose her virginity. Anyway, I'm going to write through the muck because it's not a word vomit sort of day. I am also going to evaluate my writing schedule; I haven't been getting up to write at 3a.m. like I have in the past, and when I was getting up, I was too tired to write because of my regular job. Evening writing is out of the question, so I may have to start getting up at 5a.m. and just work for an hour because evenings are almost impossible, since I make dinner for the kids and grade papers or read. We will see. (And just like that I produced about five more pages. Thank God!) Write through the muck or migraines or children making noise like you have 20 instead of 2. #barrioblues  You know it's time to stop working on your short story, when your cat plops on your chest, making it hard to breathe, and your little girl is having you answer toy phone calls from persistent callers, making it hard to write.
(You were going to write about a near-drowning incident that mirrors another moment in the protagonist's life.) Keep rolling with the punches. The story will be there tomorrow. #barrioblues  It seems like every time I'm about to finish my short story collection, Not Your Abuelita's Folktales, I get really sick. The two aren't related, of course, I'm just having a stretch of bad luck. First the computer was on the fritz, then I got that awful chest cold over the holiday break that wouldn't quit, and now, that I have more free time, I'm sick again. In the back of my mind, I think the universe is telling me to sit with my writing more or just sit. Still, I managed to get in some good work, and that is a victory!
I also cracked open my novel draft of The Harvest because I set it aside for so long, I started to forget what I wrote. Then, the duendes in my head started telling me the ending sucked, which was not the case. Yesterday, I reread the last three chapters, and I was pleasantly surprised at how well they were put together. That, of course, doesn't mean I don't need to revise my work. In fact, I have more medical research to do, but overall, the plot is good. Well, I woke up at 1a.m. and took a crack at the last short story in the collection and went over old sections. I don't feel well at all, and I am thinking about skipping Sunday school, but I had to miss last week because Simona was sick, and it was too cold to take the kids out. I'm kind of being a wuss because I'm afraid to get bronchitis again, but I know it's an old wive's tale. Even though you and I both know being out in the cold doesn't make you sick, I have taken my Tia Quia's advice who admonished me last Christmas for getting sick, and Tia is continuously lecturing me over the phone, so I am not longer showering in the mornings. My hair will freeze off anyway, it's so cold here. (Right now it's 43 degrees, which feels like summer.) Well, it's back to bed for me. Aaron asked that I make banana pancakes for breakfast this morning. I hope he wakes me up. Maybe I'll finish the last story of my collection with a bang (between grading and reading)! Keep writing through your obstacles and ailments. #barrioblues |
Jesú Estrada
|
RSS Feed
