Second Meeting (9/29/15)

     My second meeting today with my mentor was very informative and helpful. We went through two of my stories and discussed different aspects that needed clarification or help in general. We also discussed striking a balance between creating an ambiguous ending, one that makes the reader work harder than necessary to derive a meaning out of a story, and explicitly stating that point at the end of a story. In a way, it comes back to the age-old writing advice of ‘show, don’t tell’.  In two weeks, we will meet again to go over the revisions of my original story as well as revisions of one of the stories we worked on today.

     Something that I really appreciated was a trend she noticed in my writing. Sometimes I add too many details into a sentence and until today, I didn’t realize how awkward that makes a sentence for a reader to digest. Also, slowing a story down with excessive details creates frustration in a reader who wants to know how a story turns out. By only keeping the truly necessary details that help move the story forward, I will, hopefully, provide readers with a better-paced story. It’s these kinds of edits/revisions that make me very excited about this project. We focus a lot on the story as a whole and the effect it will have on a reader, which makes me look at my writing and what it needs to do to function well from a new perspective.  

Summer and First Meeting

After a summer spent in the library and Starbucks, I have four complete short stories. One of them underwent heavy revision at Juniper Young Writer's Institute where I submitted the piece for my 'pod' (a group of about 8 teenage writers) to edit. Their feedback, along with my writing teacher, an MFA student named Jane, was very helpful and inspired me to write a prequel to the story as well as make revisions within the original story itself. The other three stories have only been read by myself and need a lot of work, but I am sure myself and my wonderful mentor will be up to the task.

This summer gave me a much-needed opportunity to basically force myself to write a certain number of stories, which was really helpful because now I have a large volume of writing to work with. The sheer number of hours spent writing helped me to solidify what people refer to as a ‘writing process’, something I never really understood before. For example, I write much better if I’m not at home. The library in particular worked well for me, because of the quiet and seclusion. However, Starbucks’ offer of caffeine was also quite useful. I also really can’t write unless I’m sitting at a table. I’ve tried writing with my laptop in my lap, but for whatever reason, I find myself getting distracted very easily. Finally, I have to listen to music. It doesn’t matter what type of music, but it has to be there.

My mentor and I met last week and decided to meet again in two weeks. In the meantime, I will send her my first story with a list of aspects about the story I am concerned about. This will give her something specific to concentrate on while reading my piece as well as provide me with helpful feedback. My personal hope is that we’ll be able to focus more on the story as a whole and its effect on the reader.