Setsuled's Journal

My hands are slightly cold.

I'm gonna try to vote to-day. I know; do or do not, there is no try. But I'm gonna try anyway.
Twenty five years old and it's my first time voting. Hopefully there're a lot of people like me.
I talked to a few people in class last night about the election and none of them are voting for Bush, nor do they know anyone who is. Vaguely heartening.

They did reject a short story of mine last night, though. It's all anonymous so I got to listen to them talk about it without restraint. One fellow, named Zebb, who submits a lot of poetry that other people in the class usually insist is good, seemed particularly passionate about what a poor writer I am. Another student was a little more charitable, calling it bad, but not very bad.

There were only eleven people voting last night, but it still sucks that only I and one other student voted in favour of my story. The other student was a middle aged woman named Teresa whose first language is Spanish. She didn't speak up to explain why she liked the story but she doesn't usually speak in class.

Zebb sort of liked the concept and a couple of people said it had unfulfilled potential. That didn't really bother me. I'd expected it. I myself felt that concepts introduced in the story were not explored to their fullest potential. Although I don't feel that's a bad thing. I was unhappy with the almost abrupt ending but I thought the story might still be enjoyable.

I have to admit that what really bothered me was how strongly my writing style was hated. In retrospect, I can take comfort in the fact that most of them have spoken approvingly of pieces I've felt were terribly written. But it's never a nice feeling when you've put something out there that's utterly passive, primarily in the hopes of giving something to the reader, only to find it utterly hated.

I wrote the story two years ago so I thought I was seeing it with a reasonably fresh eye. Even so, I guess there are parts of the narrative that I feel are flawed. But my less secure part of my personality wonders if, since I was so taken aback by the extreme reaction, there is a mediocrity in my writing which I'm completely blind to. Which, of course, is an utterly useless way of thinking. After all, I already look at it as hard as I can.

I was talking to Trisa the other day and I was telling her that I don't think I really like writing short stories. I can appreciate what's strong about the medium but I don't think it's something I can do. Maybe I'm just lazy.

Mainly, the thing is, I never feel like I have a short story to write. So I usually just end up bullshitting for a few pages. I can feel like I have a novel or a serial to write. But I no more feel "short story" than I do "DA's closing argument".

Even so, I feel a little defeated. I really need to not look at it that way. I need to go to sleep.