so there ya go - learning to be a writer, by pretending to be one.

things don't change that quickly round here, but i've been taking baby steps with a few other writer types to make my first writing projects happen. it's not easy! writing those few articles for that magazine, and editing all the other submissions they took were actually a constructive experience, especially in knowing and understanding the process of getting read. but i don't think i want to do that stuff again, or perhaps would with better quality submissions.

but my own shit is coming along much more quickly now. it's very easy to avoid working on it, but kate, one of the mentors, gave me some really nice reinforcement in her comments, especially about my biggest 'notwanttobeawriteritstoomuchworkeditingandrereadingshitiwrotealreadyitis' issue, that i don't need to edit my work, that the first drafts are quite good as they are, and that i should just write. quite a complimenti!

anyway, since there is mostly nobody here, and i know you all well should you actually pop back in, i will present some of the extracts that i have presented to my writing group for criticism.

my plan, or hope, is that i will compile these vignettes, which are autobiographical, into a loose chronology and render it fictional. i have changed the names to protect the innocent.

i'm very aware of the need to avoid melodrama, and the emphasis of too much of certain realities that many people have no wish to be exposed to. i was talking to this other writer chap, who was reading obama's dreams from my father, who made a face when i asked him about it. he didn't like to read about people's pain basically, namely the black experience in the 20th century. he complained that it was guilt tripping, and wallowing, or some such.

i felt a slight sense of deja vu, of hearing many people from the middle of the road verbalize their offence at stories that weren't all nordic heroism, where pain is nothing and the protagonist reflects not on niggling matters like history and the substance of shameful eras.

then again i'm the kinda guy who's watched schindler's list 3 times.

i suppose i'm ready for criticism, especially if it's even just a lotto ticket's chance at actually making a living at something like writing.