Skinny Dreaming
Skinny. In my dreams, I am always fit. I find it odd. I have never been as skinny as my peers at any age.
(Mind you, I would be thrilled to be in size 10 like I was in high school. But when I WAS high school age, size 10 was huge compared to my teenage thin, size zero friends.)
I wonder what this says about my self image? Is this a form of body dismorphism with a positive twist? I am severely overweight, probably technically obese. Yet, as soon as I walk away from a mirror or stop trying on clothes, I completely forget how big I am. Maybe that’s why I haven’t put losing weight into the high priority category. This task mellows on the someday list with learning to speak Spanish and touring the Girl Scout World Centers. So, someday then, someday.
What? This blog is about writing? See! No time for worrying about my body image. What am I anyway? A girl? Well, that’s beside the point. On to the meat!
I have finished Chapter 14 with 40K words on the screen. It’s craziness. I still have 40 or so chapters to go! Some of the written words, however, will not end up in the final work. Sometimes I feel like I’m writing back story stuff for me to understand the characters better when the reader will not need to know all that detail. Todd McCaffrey taught, as a speaker at the Jody Lynn Nye Writing Seminar, the writer should know every nook and cranny and knick knack in a setting. She should be able to walk around with her eyes closed without bumping into the furniture. The reader, however, only needs to see the tunnel surrounding the characters’ plight. Hopefully, as I go through and revise, I will be able to trim the book down to something digestible.
Meanwhile, Larry and His Ghost was rejected from the Houston Writers Guild for their fantasy anthology. I am not surprised by this. The story is much more urban fantasy / paranormal than traditional fantasy. Too bad Gabriella and Periwinkle was not even a twinkle in my eye when that deadline loomed. Speaking of my light, uplifting, short story of a girl and a dragon, Writer’s of the Future turned this one down as well. I bought their last anthology Volume 30. The first few stories I have had the time to read are quite gritty and dark. The complete opposite of my airy, sweet story. The right story for the right publication. This is what I need.
I am going to clean Larry up using the suggestions from the writing seminars and get it back out on the market. Gabriella is ready to go. I will look at Ms. Nye’s suggested publications to see if it fits one of them. If anyone has insight on where to send these stories, I’d love any feedback!
For your reading pleasure, I present Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. The author follows the life and propagation of a mutated gene that causes the sexual ambiguity in the physical manifestation of the organs through the grandparents, then parents, then the protagonist. Eugenides drags you into the pre-WWII era first in Greek Turkey then to Detroit. You explore a bit of the war through the civilians left behind. Childhood through the 60’s and 70’s along with the changing times. His descriptions enthralled me filling my head with images unique from my experience. This, after all, is why I read. I wish to experience as much of this world as I can, though limited by money and fear. I have to confess. The in depth detail became a bit too much as the book continued, leaving me to rush through the ending to get to the climax. Middlesex is an engaging read that will keep you glued to the pages.
