Tempered Fragility

My drafts folder holds 96 saved entries. Some of them are long, rambling posts that cover interesting topics such as how annoying trams are, and why Connex should give up and go back to France or wherever else they’re screwing up public transport.

Some of them are ideas that probably made sense at the time, but now, well… now they don’t:

• Cornflour and cauliflower. Flowers. Why?
• Shark attack fatal. Knew I couldn’t trust them.
• Post about wires and bird. Nesting fail.

Yeah, I don’t know either. I don’t even remember writing them. I’m going to assume they were brilliant ideas at the time, though. Mere scribbles of grander ideas, and so on.

(I’ve lost 6cm off my waist! Down to 64kg!)

I haven’t been writing here lately.

I add ‘write a blog post about <something>’ to my to-do list everyday, but so far it remains unchecked. Not because I have nothing to say, or don’t know how to say it, but because I worry. A lot.

People read this now, people who interact with me face-to-face. I don’t know exactly who, but I’m guessing from the searches that are showing up (lisa fraser, lisa fraser writing, tempered.fragility) that people from my classes last year became curious when my blog was mentioned. Which is cool. Kind of.

Yet, at the same time, it really isn’t.

Every time I open my blog and prepare to write, I worry about how people will take it. I wonder about what they’ll think; of my writing, of my opinon, of this little space I’ve crafted for myself. And each time a family member or friend begins reading, I censor myself a little more.

Which is stupid, completely. There is nothing written on this blog that I wouldn’t say out loud, in front of people, to people. I can’t think of a single post that I’m ashamed of. There are probably posts in the archives that - if found by a potential employer - could cause some damage, but nothing horrendous.

I wouldn’t take anything back, that’s for sure. I’ve never published a post without thinking. I just, you know, worry. What if no one else finds this funny? What if they think I’m judgmental, or crazy, or a nasty person? What if they make fun of me? What if they think I’m an idiot?

So, basically, I’m suffering from blogging social phobia.

Until it passes, I’ll be fixing this place up a little. Blogroll, archives, theme, who knows?

Busy, busy, busy. So much to do, so little time.

I could say that I’ve been doing heaps, but the truth is? I haven’t. I’ve been stalling, treading water, standing still. It can’t continue. I have too much to do, and I can’t keep juggling everything the way that I have been. So, basically… I have to stop procrastinating, and actually get off my butt and do stuff.

Heh, I know. It’s an odd concept.

I’m studying for a test next Friday, writing a 2,500 word short story that’s due on Monday, and I plan on critiquing a few pieces of work on WB this evening. Reading blogs has fallen by the wayside, but I hope to catch up on the weekend. It can be done, so long as I actually do stuff instead of sitting around aimlessly.

I have a job, for the moment. I start bright and early on Monday morning.

Life isn’t dull or gloomy right now. It has been illuminated – however briefly – and I’m happy, content even. I have my driving test on the 15th, and I’m nervous but I’m not panicking. My room is semi-clean, and things are slowly being organised and shuffled into places I will actually keep them. Seriously, organised.

And, I plan to start writing again, starting tonight. I’ve missed it.

I had a really awesome time at class today, despite the weather that kept my entire face numb every time I stepped outside. I met up with James at the station – he’s in two or three of my classes – and we spoke about the short story classes. I was surprised by his view of it; I think he’s the only person in the class who would be happy for the classes to go on unchanged.

Most people seem to want more substance and less random talking. Ania is very quick to ramble, and although I find her charming – and often hilarious – the classes would be much improved if we focused on the mechanics of short story writing occasionally. I’m still hopeful about that happening this semester, and Ania certainly seems to be warming up to the idea.

In Editing, later on, Ian gave a presentation about j t leroy. I hadn’t heard much about the whole fiasco, but I do plan on doing some research later on. There has been much discussion about ‘editing scandals’ in class, and I’m always interested in hearing how people have reacted. Generally, most people feel that misrepresenting a book is terrible, and that authors who do it should be punished.

Expect a long, ranty post on this in the future. Gosh, I love the word* ‘ranty’.

After Ian’s speech, Melanie handed us about a ton of paper. I’m fairly certain that RMIT’s editing classes destroy entire forests each lesson. I have more notes from that class than from all my other classes combined. This semester, we’re looking at actual editing, rather than the grammar behind it. We learn the editing marks, different house styles, and we start marking up actual text.

It sounds dreadfully dull to most people, but I am SO excited.

I mentioned yesterday, briefly, that Thursday’s class didn’t happen. I’m still not sure why, since (once again) RMIT isn’t allowing me to send e-mails to staff members. Last semester, I couldn’t contact Arthur due to a faulty e-mail address, and none of Melanie’s mail was going through. Now, it seems that David’s e-mail isn’t functioning correctly. Anyway.

A cancelled class isn’t that big a deal, I know. However, David has never been late for a class, let alone just not shown up. That is exactly what happened on Thursday. We – about six or seven class members – waited for an hour, and he never showed. Claire, the course coordinator, had no idea where he was. She advised us to go home, but we waited for another twenty minutes before giving up.

Needless to say, we were worried. That’s why we sat outside in the fading light and bitter wind for over an hour, waiting. I’m even more worried now, since I haven’t received an e-mail from David or RMIT, telling us why Thursday’s class never happened. All I’ve learned from his personal site is that he left for Sydney on Wednesday, some time. Why would he leave for Sydney the day before class?

Curious, no? I might e-mail Claire and enquire about the issue.

* I am well aware that ranty is not, in fact, a word. It should be.

So, I mentioned yesterday that I took a staff position at Writer’s Beat. And I didn’t really go into detail about the job description, because at the time it wasn’t really at the forefront of my mind. What has changed? Nothing, actually. Except that I’m staring at seven or eight new poems on the forums, and oh god, THE EFFORT.

Staff members have to critique people’s work. I mean, we don’t have to critique all of it, obviously. That would be impossible, on a daily basis. However, we are expected to regularly critique new work. And so today, it hits me: this is a job. This staffing gig isn’t just something I do, it’s a job, and it’s a lot of work.

Don’t think I wasn’t taking it seriously, because I was. I spent HOURS judging and then scoring the competition entries, worrying about every point I gave or took away. Likewise, I was worried about reacting to people, worried about posting even, stressing about how I was representing the forums now, just WORRYING.

Now I’m done with the worrying, and I’m looking at all of the new posts just begging for my attention, and it is bad. Critiquing is hard, particularly for fiction; it takes time, and concentration. I love helping people, but when I’m trying to write my own stuff, the last thing I want to do is read other people’s work.

That’s why I’ve only written 88 words so far. *nods* Uh huh.

I have some exciting news. As of Friday, the 27th of June, I am officially debt-free. I finally paid off my $3,000 bank loan, and Julian is mine to keep forever. Also, my uncle and aunty’s house is safe. Heh. I can’t even describe just how relieved I am that I paid it off. The entire time, I felt like I had a cloud hanging over me.

A dollar shaped cloud. Ugh.

My other big news is that I was asked to be staff on Writer’s Beat, and I accepted. I’ve been settling into the role, cautiously. Part of my wariness is fear of making a mistake, but I also found some stuff on the staff forums that made me feel.. not betrayed, but mis-informed. I can’t go into it here, but it was unsettling.

I know CLASSIFIED information!

So, other than that, I’ve been relaxing at home. I have some stuff to do; writing for school, and writing for the manual. Mostly though, I want to enjoy my time off. Work ended on Thursday, so I’m officially unemployed; I need to look for another job soon. I’m hoping for two days a week of mindless retail work.

I also really need to buy Grey’s Anatomy, Season Two. Ah, priorities.

I wonder how many poor, unsuspecting souls will be lured in by my cannily crafted title! We shall see. However, it is not entirely incorrect. I want to discuss with you all how to write a successful short story for my class. You see, being a talented writer isn’t all it takes. To succeed in my class, you must do something highly original and a little cryptic, with a touch of humour thrown in for good measure!

Failing that, throw in a reference that the female members of the class will relate to, and you’re good to go.

I know, I know. You’re tired of hearing about how horrible the critiquing - or lack thereof - is in my short story class. Guess what? I’m not done talking about it, particularly after tonight’s lesson. We looked at two stories by people in the class, who I will refer to as V and D. One story was set in the future (titled AG) and was highly tech-oriented; the other was set in the present (title TV) and dealt with an abusive relationship.

Guess which one got the best response? Ordinarily, if you guessed ‘the well-written one’, you would be correct. Unfortunately, in this case? Dead wrong. The abusive relationship story got the reviews and the glory, despite the fact that - in my opinion - it wasn’t as skilfully crafted as the other. So, what did I think of them, you ask? They were both flawed, this is true; yet one was enjoyable despite the errors.

AG was well-written, although there were far too many instances of words being repeated close together. Occasionally, I noticed that the sentences became more like lists, and there were quite a few spelling errors. Aside from that, the ideas were original, the information was presented logically without overwhelming the reader, and it had a lovely finish. It also brought up many issues about the future and sparked discussion.

TV on the other hand, repeated whole phrases throughout the story. The beginning paragraphs jumped between different generations, and I found it difficult to suspend my disbelief and follow the plot based on what information was given. Similes abounded, and not in a cute way like baby deer. The ending wasn’t spectacular, and I certainly wasn’t interested in the main character or what she was going through.

Of course, this is only my opinion. Perhaps I’m not even qualified to comment; after all, I didn’t volunteer that my story be read out to the class. I just would have liked it if D had received the credit I felt he was due. V’s story wasn’t spectacular in my opinion, and I feel as though it outshone AG because of the content, and not because of the writing. It touched a chord, so to speak.

See, we only have four or five men in our short story class. So, roughly a quarter of the class is male. TV was about a woman who can’t resist a man - apparently because of his blue, blue eyes - and leaves her family for him, only to discover that she’s addicted to his love. That’s what we were told, anyway. The main character’s behaviour didn’t really reflect that, and there’s another gripe; most of the story wasn’t ’shown’.

Because AG was quite technologically heavy and most of the class is struggling with basic computer skills, I think people had trouble relating to it. So, when TV was read out and the women realised that it was about a woman’s struggles in an abusive relationship, they allowed their emotions - effectively their heartstrings - to be played with like a puppet. The actual writing was of no consequence to them once that was revealed.

I sound bitter, don’t I? Soon I’ll be shaking my walking stick and muttering. “Back in my day, we had to write on bits of bark, with a leaky pen and ink that stained our fingers! Uphill both ways!”