here comes mary, all dressed in black
Jan. 1st, 2011 01:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
intertribalI have written/elaborated on an outline for the novel (yes, the same one I've been "working on" for the past 6 years). It is 16 pages (9,700 words = 10% of the novel's projected word count) long. I think my goal is to somehow write the novel by continuously elaborating on the outline? I guess this puts to rest any idea that I might be a pantser instead of a plotter. LOLOLOL. Don't even tell me if this isn't going to work, all you people who have successfully written novels. That's pretty much what I accomplished over university closedown. I didn't do any work on short stories, people. But good news is, the two short stories I spent autumn working on - "Absolute Zero" and "Infested" - both made it into the anthologies they were written for (Creature! Thirty Years of Monster Stories, ed. Paul Tremblay and John Langan, and Bewere The Night, ed. Ekaterina Sedia). Just got the acceptance for the latter story this afternoon before I headed out for New Year's, so I was already in a chipper state before I had the ouzo.
The Twilight Zone marathon has been on SyFy all day. Saw "The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street" earlier. Still a great and necessary story about I-have-seen-the-enemy-and-it-is-us in my book, as trite/predictable as it may seem to modern audiences (clearly not so trite/predictable that we have learned not to repeat Maple Street's mistakes). ETA: This episode reminded me somewhat of Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived In the Castle, particularly when the one guy's like, "Are we going to pick apart the idiosyncrasies of every man, woman, and child..." But I will make a post specifically about We Have Always Lived In the Castle.
This year, like last year, I celebrated New Year's with the local Greek population. But this year I not only broke a plate, but I participated in the women's folk dance! Second time around I started getting the steps right. Considering that last year I chickened out for fear of embarrassing myself, I for one am fairly proud. Onward, toNamek2011! Selamat Tahun Baru!
The Twilight Zone marathon has been on SyFy all day. Saw "The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street" earlier. Still a great and necessary story about I-have-seen-the-enemy-and-it-is-us in my book, as trite/predictable as it may seem to modern audiences (clearly not so trite/predictable that we have learned not to repeat Maple Street's mistakes). ETA: This episode reminded me somewhat of Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived In the Castle, particularly when the one guy's like, "Are we going to pick apart the idiosyncrasies of every man, woman, and child..." But I will make a post specifically about We Have Always Lived In the Castle.
This year, like last year, I celebrated New Year's with the local Greek population. But this year I not only broke a plate, but I participated in the women's folk dance! Second time around I started getting the steps right. Considering that last year I chickened out for fear of embarrassing myself, I for one am fairly proud. Onward, to
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Date: 2011-01-02 05:50 pm (UTC)It should arrive soon. I'm sorry if you don't like it, but I felt I needed to follow through on something I said...
Yeah, it's cool that you got published. I'm just sufficiently contrarian to wonder if support and/or acceptance are signs you're doing something wrong, rather than something right. Or maybe thought is itself a symptom of me feeling like an outsider here. Maybe it's a little of both.
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Date: 2011-01-02 05:50 pm (UTC)(reworded the sentence, left out a word)
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Date: 2011-01-02 06:00 pm (UTC)Oh dear. I'm sure it'll be fine, really.
I understand. I think the support isn't really a sign of anything other than my LJ-friends being supportive because they're my friends - the acceptances, there are cases when I would feel that, but I don't submit to markets/editors I don't consider to be doing good work. I feel like I'm just starting to be able to write the kinds of stories I want to write, from a conceptual and stylistic perspective, and I don't think I'm compromising on anything.
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Date: 2011-01-02 06:03 pm (UTC)haha.
That sounds good. I don't think I can judge, at least not for now.
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Date: 2011-01-02 06:49 pm (UTC)It's times like this when I do feel very much like a philosophy student (because many of them have a similar attitude toward conversation), and I think that's part of why people always tell me I belong in academia. :P
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Date: 2011-01-02 06:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-02 08:03 pm (UTC)Uh-oh, am I going to turn you back to academia?
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Date: 2011-01-02 08:07 pm (UTC)Well, you aren't, but you do realize that academia is the only career suitable to me, right? I'm only rejecting it because I'm too idealistic.
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Date: 2011-01-02 08:13 pm (UTC)I thought you were also rejecting it because you didn't think you'd actually be happy in academia (or maybe that's the same thing as being too idealistic) and wouldn't accomplish what you want in academia.
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Date: 2011-01-02 08:25 pm (UTC)I don't know about happiness. I have a suspicion I'd end up unemployed, but maybe that's just my pessimism. The best schools still turn out employable graduates, right? I just don't want to be a specialist/professional; I think it's contrary to philosophy, and the humanities in general. I don't want to be involved in a business. I don't want academic politics, or selling knowledge to students. And I'm skeptical that I could sustain myself in that environment, that I could write things and do work that would get good grades or keep me employed precisely because I have the attitudes I do about intellectual pursuits, because I don't like putting my thoughts in bite-sized, marketable chunks; because I literally can't explain my 'research process'; because I think philosophy should be much more holistic than not only the thought but the entire academic system is set up to be; because I think time for reflection and cultivation is totally eliminated from such a system but essential to intellectual development.
That said, I may yet end up there for a time, if they'll have me.
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