The Glide, the Wave

[cathschaffstump]

Vacation is so close, but the slippery little devil manages to slither through my fingers until 4 o'clock. So I work. I have started three projects and completed two other projects. So work and I, we're jakes for now. I mean there are other things I could be doing, but you know, I'm kinda tired. Time for a wee break.

***

I guess we'll call this the pre-Taos post. I received another rejection this morning, this time after making it up to second tier evaluation. The publisher was kind enough to send the comments from the committee that reviewed the work, and they varied. It serves as an underscore to the unevenness of my appeal at this point-- a well-divided verdict.

What is the point of where I'm going with this? We-ell, there were a few pieces that I read in getting ready for the critiques I'll be doing next week. The workshop submissions were certainly varied, and you now, subjective tastes in part color what you think, as do expectations you've had about craft. There were some of the entries that you sped through. I read with pen in hand, poised to make a comment, or fingers placed on keyboard, ready to snap something out in a series of clicks. When you find yourself farther along than you thought you'd be in the story, without noticing you got there, I used to call that falling in.

Now that I'm thinking more in terms of being an author, I call it the glide. Maybe a better analogy is the wave. If you're going to catch the wave, the surf has to be perfect, and you have to hit it a certain way. If you don't, you get a trip that isn't what you'd hoped for. If you do, you glide. At the end of the glide, you assess where you were and where you are. But you didn't do it during the glide, because you were too busy enjoying the glide.

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Mirrored from Writer Tamago.