So today started out pretty good. I got a package that was a video game shirt my husband had ordered for me. I pulled out the women’s large, and put it on, and of course it was entirely too small, because ‘women’s’ shirts are always that baby doll shape that actually comes in one, if not two, sizes smaller than that shirt would be for the ‘default’ (ie, a man). I had been looking forward to this shirt and now I can’t wear it, and it put me into a bad mental place because this is again one of those micro-aggressions society throws out against women. ‘You need to be small and petite.’ ‘Your breasts are too big.’ ‘Clothing never fits you, because you’re not ‘right’.’ It is the reason I spent so many years feeling like I wasn’t ‘woman enough’ even though the main reason this shirt wouldn’t fit is because my chest is too large. I have mostly moved past that, but today it popped up in an unfortunate way.
Then I had the first group call for a Small Group Coaching program I signed up for through DIY MFA. It’s eight weeks of group critique and writing classes and I’m hoping to use the accountability of the group to finish the rough draft for my next fantasy project, Blessings of the Neriel, which is half done but has stalled a bit. While everyone was introducing themselves, I realized that ever since the first book I finished, The Law of the Prince Charming, only got generic rejections from agents, and even though I had mentality prepared for that, and expected it, and tried to challenge myself to get like 100 rejections, it hit me really hard, to the point where I’ve been subconsciously not wanting to write because …’what’s the point’? Even though I know the point is that I love to write and I want to tell these stories. It’s funny how you can know something logically so well and yet your heart can still effect you in the ways that it does. And there’s nothing to do about it except eventually realize it, and start working toward your goal again, which is what I’m doing now.
We did a worksheet that has to make your overall goal, and then break it down into smaller, more obtainable steps. My first goal was sending out queries for Blessings of the Neriel to agents, but that’s not something I could, or would want to try and, do in the next eight weeks. So I broke down the first step toward that goal into it’s own three steps for the goal of getting the rough draft of Blessings of the Neriel done. Since it’s about halfway done, it should only be another 50k words or so, which doing in eight weeks instead of the four for NaNoWriMo, should be easier to handle. And along with that I get two meetings a week, one for learning new skills, and one that is group/critique meeting. Those will help to keep me up on things.
And this blog is just because writing things out like this very often helps me get it not only organized in my head, but helps me to remember the stuff I know logically instead of always acting on my feelings alone. Plus, I like being able to look back and realize how far I’ve come from the beginning, and I think that will be cool to do with this class.
Goal for the first week: 7k words and get what I can from the group critique and the group teaching.
