You can’t let them get you down

You can’t let them get you down

I realized that I have once again neglected my blogging. It isn’t that I haven’t had some thoughts that I could have blogged about, it is that I wasn’t sure I should give place to them.

Sometimes I think I tend to tell too much.

I do however have some thoughts today about what loving to write can do to a person if they let it. I entered a popular 24 hour writing contest a month or so ago and had fun doing it. I thought what I wrote fit the rules and outline. I know it did because I am not a person who colors outside of the lines. I am not a risk taker or a troublemaker. Never have been.

There was a six week wait for the winners to be announced and today the e-mail came. Did I win one of the top three places? No. Did I get honorable mentions? No. Did I get a door prize? No. Well, surely I deserved a grab bag – no, not nada.

Wow. Hmm. Geez. Nothing? Not even an Atta-Girl for entering and playing within the rules? Nope.

It kind of made my dander go up, I am sorry to say. I don’t think I am a bad looser, but please. . .  give me a break. It was a $5 entry fee 24 fun activity in creative writing. It wasn’t for a Pulitzer Prize winning Novel or the next Oscar winning Novel turned into a million dollar movie for goodness sake!

If we wannabe writers think that it is just the publishing world that gives us a hard time, I felt absolutely hurt over this silly contest. What in this world do they want from us?

I guess this unexpected stab to the heart came on the heels of watching a couple of what I call B movies. The whole time I watched them I kept thinking how in the world did they ever make it into the world. One of the storylines was a rip-off from a popular movie which had real well-known actors playing the part. This filmmaker must have used someone’s grandmother, nieces and nephews I think.

The other one was so irritating to watch that I am not sure it even came from a book. The first ten scenes were filled with this listless, humped shoulder man waking up each day, shaving, shuffling to work, watching the clock, sloughing to lunch, back to his desk, watching the clock, shuffling home. . . . AHHHHH!!!! I am not kidding they did this for what seemed a quarter of the beginning of the movie. He never said a word.

Finally . . . FINALLY… he says something about his life being boring. Yeah? You think? My, my, my . . . what is this world coming to.

Either some people have way too much time or money on their hands or think their opinions are mo-better than the rest of us.

Needless to say, I, (we) can’t let them get us down. Maybe my love of writing is just that. A love. And that is all it is meant to be. I kiddingly say that it is God’s seat work for me here and now. It keeps me busy and out of trouble. Of course, I am not sure what trouble a 63 year old woman can get into.

I have said this before and will probably have it written in my obituary. I love writing fiction because I can go, do, be anything I want. There are absolutely no limitations. I can make people, places and events good, bad, real or imaginary and no one can tell me they are wrong.

But when you step into a structured place of writing designed by someone who has already decided what you are to write about, you are subject to their opinions.

I guess if you want to call it sour grapes, then so be it. But when I read the three winning entries I kept looking for the initial paragraph that we were supposed to use, I never found it in any of the three writings. I thought how is that? Where is their standard of fairness? What these three people did was take an aspect of the prompt paragraph and twist it into some facsimile of a story based on the prompt. It would be the same if you entered a pie baking contest and a chocolate cake won because it did have a crust. ?????? How fair is that?

Again, I guess it is just me. I must be out of touch with how this world is progressing or not progressing toward rewarding following the rules and playing fairly.

So, I’ll keep coloring in my own fashion for my own pleasure.  On the flip side of my discourse today, my memoir teacher called me and she was absolutely full of compliments about the novel I asked her to read and edit so that I could finally get it into an E-Book format. I have put it off because I felt it wasn’t edited properly.

When she gave it back to me and I found only a few places where she had penciled in corrections I thought she must not have really read it all. This is what she said to me, “ Sue, I did read it. I got so swept into the story and characters that I guess I just got lost in the book itself. I wouldn’t worry about a misplaced comma or two. The book itself is wonderful!”

Hmm, that is humbling. Two completely opposite outcomes having to do with what I write. Which road will I take today? The positive one. The one that makes me want to open up the files I am working on and keep filling them with pages of promising stories that will be read one day.

I guess I saw another well learned lesson in all this. I am getting must better at handling disappointment and other people’s opinions of my worth as a writer.

       " It  . .  was a dark and stormy night .... once apon a time...."