Remember "Finder Girl," the piece I was working on in my last blog post? Well, it was accepted the very same day I sent it out by Barely South Review, a journal based out of the MFA program at Old Dominion University! I'm not sure when the issue will be out--the editors said it could be anywhere from April to January of 2013, so I am hoping for sooner rather than later.
Meanwhile, I've been trying to catch up on everything else--student emails, Grist things, specialized exam preparation--so that I can not feel as guilty when I write. I also went to see William Pitt Root, a wonderful, wonderful poet and teacher, speak today at the UT campus and enjoyed myself a lot. I am going to be so sad when he and Pam leave Knoxville at the end of the semester--they've been such fantastic mentors and friends this past year.
While I was at William Pitt Root's reading, though, I saw one of my poetry professors and she said that she had shown one of my early poetry drafts to her undergraduate class. It was a poem I hadn't looked at since her class last year and I said as much, but she said, "you should stay with it--it has promise."
So when I got home, I looked at it again and remembered back to when I had workshopped the poem. Certain stanzas didn't seem to work and the title was ambiguous, but I liked the idea of it and thought it could still work, so I opened a new Word document and started chopping it up. I cut a character out and replaced him with someone else. I changed the title. I worked on the middle--the one that seemed to trip some people up and changed around some details, fleshed some other parts out.
It's closer to being finished, I think, now. The ending still seems a bit sudden to me, but the students in the workshop seemed to like it that way.
It's strange now, revising stories and poems when I am not in classes or workshops anymore. I feel shakier when I revise, because I always want those extra set of eyes, reading and reassuring me that the choices I am making are right. It's part of growing as a writer, though, learning to listen to and trust your voice...
Meanwhile, I've been trying to catch up on everything else--student emails, Grist things, specialized exam preparation--so that I can not feel as guilty when I write. I also went to see William Pitt Root, a wonderful, wonderful poet and teacher, speak today at the UT campus and enjoyed myself a lot. I am going to be so sad when he and Pam leave Knoxville at the end of the semester--they've been such fantastic mentors and friends this past year.
I love this photo of Bill (and it looks like his dog, Happy)
While I was at William Pitt Root's reading, though, I saw one of my poetry professors and she said that she had shown one of my early poetry drafts to her undergraduate class. It was a poem I hadn't looked at since her class last year and I said as much, but she said, "you should stay with it--it has promise."
So when I got home, I looked at it again and remembered back to when I had workshopped the poem. Certain stanzas didn't seem to work and the title was ambiguous, but I liked the idea of it and thought it could still work, so I opened a new Word document and started chopping it up. I cut a character out and replaced him with someone else. I changed the title. I worked on the middle--the one that seemed to trip some people up and changed around some details, fleshed some other parts out.
It's closer to being finished, I think, now. The ending still seems a bit sudden to me, but the students in the workshop seemed to like it that way.
It's strange now, revising stories and poems when I am not in classes or workshops anymore. I feel shakier when I revise, because I always want those extra set of eyes, reading and reassuring me that the choices I am making are right. It's part of growing as a writer, though, learning to listen to and trust your voice...
0 comments:
Post a Comment