Dancing and Turn-Downs
A bumbling brain so full of distractions. The main thing on my mind at the moment is setting up my little online classes. I have to speak with a lady named Ree because she knows things!
Excuse me while I email her quickly...
Boom done. So yeah, gotta chat with a lady. Gotta start drafting videos. I was thinking I could do the most basic of things like record an origami video or just me reading one of my poems or playing the guitar, but I really want a quiet setting in which to make videos. Home is alright but not quite ideal: there's this rambunctious doggy named Dexter who likes to bark at inanimate things sometimes. Where else would I work? I've been brainstorming. Perhaps. Perhaps. I know that libraries sometimes let people borrow little classrooms for teaching/tutoring. I wonder if they'd let me borrow a room for recording lessons and such. I'll have to check it out sometime.
I have a friend who's mother has recording equipment and a studio, but I can't afford to pay anybody anything yet. I suppose I'll just have to ask people if they have any setups I could borrow.
In other news, Michael the Traveler is becoming a fascinating story. Strangely enough, writing is like dancing. It feels right but awkward for the first two or three hours. Then, finally, after staying in it long enough, it suddenly becomes natural, it becomes real. Sadly, the barrier returns after every session and it has to be sanded down every time: writing and dancing.
I went dancing this past Saturday, and it is where I belong. I don't know how our country foiled dancing so thoroughly, but there really should be more clean opportunities to dance. And Christians! Those obnoxious creatures: rejecting dancing as some kind of evil. Did they even read the Book?! No. Nobody reads the Book because that would require humility and very likely change. What is so delicious about exclusively emoting one's way through life? American Dream I suppose.
Dancing: I had missed it very much.
Michael is getting trippy though—and that's exactly where I want him. Somehow, his crazy circumstances are tying together and making a sensible whole. I submitted his story—as you may have known—and was turned down.
The lady wrote:
I wanted to believe that Michael wasn't developed enough as a character, but I fear she did not read my story. I reread my chapters, and, yes, Michael's character is stifled whenever he is at the abbey, and his character is vivid and wild everywhere else. That's the whole essence of the story: Michael is suppressed at the abbey, and the rest of the story orbits around him stretching his heart into unknown worlds as the traveler. Sigh. I wonder if that's how all the authors have felt when received "advice" from their first potential publishers, if they felt like the publisher simply hadn't read their story.
I even told myself it wouldn't be accepted. I even told myself I had to get turned down at least eleven times. I still felt the impact. Well, onward to ten more turn-downs.
Excuse me while I email her quickly...
Boom done. So yeah, gotta chat with a lady. Gotta start drafting videos. I was thinking I could do the most basic of things like record an origami video or just me reading one of my poems or playing the guitar, but I really want a quiet setting in which to make videos. Home is alright but not quite ideal: there's this rambunctious doggy named Dexter who likes to bark at inanimate things sometimes. Where else would I work? I've been brainstorming. Perhaps. Perhaps. I know that libraries sometimes let people borrow little classrooms for teaching/tutoring. I wonder if they'd let me borrow a room for recording lessons and such. I'll have to check it out sometime.
I have a friend who's mother has recording equipment and a studio, but I can't afford to pay anybody anything yet. I suppose I'll just have to ask people if they have any setups I could borrow.
In other news, Michael the Traveler is becoming a fascinating story. Strangely enough, writing is like dancing. It feels right but awkward for the first two or three hours. Then, finally, after staying in it long enough, it suddenly becomes natural, it becomes real. Sadly, the barrier returns after every session and it has to be sanded down every time: writing and dancing.
I went dancing this past Saturday, and it is where I belong. I don't know how our country foiled dancing so thoroughly, but there really should be more clean opportunities to dance. And Christians! Those obnoxious creatures: rejecting dancing as some kind of evil. Did they even read the Book?! No. Nobody reads the Book because that would require humility and very likely change. What is so delicious about exclusively emoting one's way through life? American Dream I suppose.
Dancing: I had missed it very much.
Michael is getting trippy though—and that's exactly where I want him. Somehow, his crazy circumstances are tying together and making a sensible whole. I submitted his story—as you may have known—and was turned down.
The lady wrote:
Thanks for being patient with us. We are very sorry, but we won't be asking you to publish on our platform at this time. We enjoyed the premise of your story and see a lot of potential within it. However, we don't think it'll resonate with our audience since they respond better to character driven stories. There isn't enough about Michael as a character to really intrigue the reader immediately, not giving a chance for Michael's personality to really shine through. The transitions can be a little confusing. Scenes seem to just jump from sea to farm to sea without a real transition, for example in chapters 2 and 3.I so want to believe her, but she says, "Scenes seem to just jump from sea to farm to sea." I shared the first three chapters with her. The first chapter is in the grey world. The second chapter is at the abbey. The third chapter is at sea. She got 1 out of 3 right; that's rather disconcerting. If you've read the chapters, it wasn't even subtle: chapter 1 was called "The Grey"; in chapter two, I write "abbot … abbot … abbot … abbot … abbey … abbey … abbot."
I wanted to believe that Michael wasn't developed enough as a character, but I fear she did not read my story. I reread my chapters, and, yes, Michael's character is stifled whenever he is at the abbey, and his character is vivid and wild everywhere else. That's the whole essence of the story: Michael is suppressed at the abbey, and the rest of the story orbits around him stretching his heart into unknown worlds as the traveler. Sigh. I wonder if that's how all the authors have felt when received "advice" from their first potential publishers, if they felt like the publisher simply hadn't read their story.
I even told myself it wouldn't be accepted. I even told myself I had to get turned down at least eleven times. I still felt the impact. Well, onward to ten more turn-downs.
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