guided by a new era

I really can't stand having time limits and deadlines for my writing; it's a huge problem of mine to write a creative piece that I can be proud of and turn it in on time. This is one of the main reasons I decided that I didn't want my financial well-being to rest entirely on writing.

I don't feel like I'm a good prose writer at all. My writing style is really generic, and I have a hard time getting my ideas across well unless I think about each sentence for a while. I have a tendency to over-analyze. This makes it very hard to do a writer-must--sit down and write for a good long time, then go back and edit. My problem is that when I see a sentence that I know is bad or cheesy, I feel obligated to fix it before it brings the whole story crashing to the ground. I have to get it right the first time, or else I can't do it at all. I've never mentioned this, but my long political posts take me an average of two hours to write from getting the idea down in text to pressing the "Post" button on the LJ update page. I'm not sure if this is normal or not, but I know the peeps at Pandagon can crank out longer posts than mine several times a day while balancing a job and other activist obligations.

In short, I am a perfectionist, and it is screwing me over.

So I do acknowledge my problem...I just don't know how to fix it. The kicker? I have a short story due to tomorrow. I have a little over two pages done (minimum is three), a basic timeline of events in my head and an insufferable distaste for what I've written so far, even after the careful analyzing and fixing.

Help?

I just came up with the best idea for a crack!movie ever.

My friends and I parodying Sailor Moon. Because many of us love it.

AWMAN. Thatwouldbesofunny.

(Or maybe we could parody Power Rangers again, eh nervoustic?)

Today I played stupid soccer with my brother, and it was fun. Except for the part where I realized I was really out of shape, because I got tired after running around for only a few minutes.

Apparently, we will most likely fly to New Hampshire for my political class next year. Urgggh. And my dad gave me a lecture today about how I have to "get over" my sheer phobia of flying. He seems to think it's like the phase he went through, and is completely ignoring the fact that he never had panic attacks and that his reasoning for hating flying wasn't illogical like mine (therefore, his could easily be fixed with experience; mine can't).

I'm writing a short story (novella? Maaan, it's getting long) that takes place in a mostly totalitarian state, and I will probably post it here for criticisms and "omg u suck stop writing". :P

Okay, it's done. I've emailed my story to the district library's contest email. *crosses fingers* That was more nerve-wracking than it should have been. I wish I knew other people who were entering.

I seriously doubt I'll win, but hey. It's worth a try. Maybe I can submit something to Free Verse next semester.

300 and Sin City look like interesting movies. Even though they're rated R. For violence and gore. Have any of you seen either of those movies?

So I was bored today and browsing through the "Letters FROM your characters" thread in the Writer's Forum. I never realized how much teenagers use bad angst in their writing. For some reason I thought it was confined to emo poetry about black crows and bleeding everywhere and being sad because Mom and Dad wouldn't buy them a new car after they totalled their Ferrari.

But it's not. The thread was full of people who apparently just slathered angst on their characters. It's probably the same old song and dance for over half of the posts, from what I've seen. "ZOMG mai parents r ded n im sad, mai friends r meen n im sad, mai puppy died 2day n im saaaad T_T". Do they even know that you can make a good story without so much character angst? Angst isn't an inherently bad thing, but when you over-do it and write it horribly, it makes the whole story suck. I wish Creative Writing classes would cover What Not to Do kinds of things. That would probably help a lot.

Okay guys, most of you have probably already seen this (from either the LHT or deviant art). It's the short story I'm writing for that contest, and I'm asking for critiques one more time before I polish it off and send it to the contest officials. I've done a bunch of editing since first posting it in DA, and my main concern is: Am I following the "show, not tell" rule? Here is the link. :)

So this past week or so has been pretty uneventful. Señora spent twenty minutes of class today talking about her concussion from a few years ago. All in English. It was very amusing. XD Then I drew a bunch of circles for practice on my worksheet.

Yeah. Boring.